Hasta La Gadget!

At this point Toshiba’s dualscreen Libretto W105 shouldn’t need much of an introduction — or at least after glancing at the picture above we figure it won’t. It looks like a laptop straight out of the future. And it kind of is. It’s the sort of clamshell gadget we’ve seen rendered and rendered for years, but that’s never made it to market… until now that is. In celebration of Toshiba’s 25 years in the laptop business, the company’s gotten bolder than ever, and it hasn’t just created a gadget with two seven-inch capacitive touchscreens, but it’s actually brought it to market. Sure, it’s only available for a very limited run, and at a lofty $1,100, only die-hard gadget geeks are bound to fork over the cash. That said, it’s still one of the most intriguing devices we’ve seen all year, and that’s saying something. And it’s even more compelling when you consider that packs the parts of a 12- or 13-inch ultraportable, including an Intel Pentium processor, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD and also runs Windows 7. But that’s exactly what’s wrong with the Libretto — it looks like the future, but it’s held back by modern day laptop parts and software. We’ve spent quite some time with the W105 — we typed half of this review on the bottom screen! — so you’ll want to hit the break to find out just what we’re talking about.

Continue reading Toshiba Libretto W105 review

Toshiba Libretto W105 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

We realize keeping up with HP’s model numbers can be as hard as keeping tabs on say, Lindsay Lohan’s run-ins with the law, but the 5103 is notable in one major way — it’s one of the first netbooks to ship with Intel’s dual-core Atom N550 processor. Like the 5102, the 5103 is still primarily aimed at business professionals. In fact, HP hardly messed with the look and feel of the aluminum dressed laptop — the chassis and features are pretty much the exact same, although HP did ditch the black lid for an “Espresso” color and preload some new “Day Starter” instant-on OS. Obviously, the big deal here is the new processor and seeing as how we’ve been waiting on Intel to release a dual-core Atom CPU for netbooks since well, the first netbook we were eager to see how much power that extra core adds and if it impacts battery life. Hit the break to see some of the results.

Continue reading HP Mini 5103 with dual-core Atom N550 performance review

HP Mini 5103 with dual-core Atom N550 performance review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

ViewSonic hasn’t settled on a name for this thing yet, vacillating between the ViewPad 100 and the ViewPad 10i. What it has settled on is a pretty delicious for factor for an Atom N455-based Windows 7 tablet, and the dual boot option to Android is really just gravy. Unfortunately it’s rather outdated gravy: Android 1.6 is the most recent version to support x86 processors, so we won’t be seeing any of the new Android goodness on here unless Google pulls together another Intel-friendly version of the OS in the near future — which seems relatively unlikely with Chrome OS around the corner, but you never know. Other specs include 1GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, and a 10-inch 1024 x 600 LCD (the same resolution as the new Galaxy Tab, incidentally). We weren’t impressed with the quality of the display, or with the pixel density, but at least the capacitive touch seemed to be working fine — we actually managed to do a bit of typing with Windows 7’s touchscreen keyboard, if you can imagine that. The actual hardware is delightfully thin and light, though a bit on the plasticy side, and we particular appreciated the thumb friendly buttons to the right side of the display. The tablet has a quoted price of “sub 500 euros” and a sketched in release date for later this year. Check out a video hands-on, including the super exciting boot-up process, after the break.

Continue reading ViewSonic 10-inch dual boot ViewPad preview

ViewSonic 10-inch dual boot ViewPad preview originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Been having lurid dreams of 1080p-playin’ Windows 7 tablets with a touch-delighting UI layer on top? Probably not, but if that sounds like your kind of thing, you’ll want to know that ExoPC is about to collect its first pre-orders starting on September 3. The slate’s makers are being nice to their forum members by allowing the first 1,200 on board to have first bite at this cherry, which will be shipped out to them on September 30. Ten days before that, on September 20, is when the initial 120 production units will roll off the assembly line, though they’ve already been assigned to potential distribution partners. The really interesting date here will be October 15, as that’s when the Ciara Vibe — the first rebadged partner slate — is expected to hit retail availability in Canada. Let’s just hope this schedule isn’t written with a Sharpie Liquid Pencil, eh?

ExoPC sets a shipping schedule, now let’s see if it keeps it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  ExoPC  | Email this | Comments

We know, we just told you less than 48 hours ago that the dual screen Toshiba Libretto W100 was finally on sale and after $1,100 of your hard earned cash, but it looks like those that didn’t move quick enough are out of luck. Both Toshiba and Amazon list the Windows 7-running Libretto W100 as out of stock at the moment. Now, of course, Tosh has always said the W100 was going to be available on a limited basis so there’s no telling how many of these were actually sold, but it certainly seems impressive for a very niche gadget. We’ve reached out to Toshiba to ask if they plan on refreshing the depleted stock and for a bit of information on how many they had boxed up to begin with — stay tuned, we’ll let you know what we hear.

Update: If you’re still lusting after one of these bad boys there’s still some available through Conics.com and some Japanese retailers.

Toshiba Libretto W100 sells out at Amazon, really was a limited run originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Pocketables  |  Amazon  | Email this | Comments