Continuing on with more glimpses of foreign gadgetry from the floors of Computex comes the seven-inch CE261 UMPC from FIC. This laptop-styled machine sports a glossy black exterior, noticeably large gap beneath the display’s bezel, and a swank looking keyboard to boot. Aside from the WVGA display and reported five-hours of battery life, this sucka also touts a pair of stereo speakers, miniature trackpad, a pair of USB ports, audio in / out, Ethernet, DVI output, flash card reader, 0.3-megapixel webcam in the bezel, and a number of LED indicators to keep you informed. Per usual, there’s no word yet on when certain sects of the world can snag one of their own, so click on through for the obligatory snapshots to tide you over.

More info
from engadget
Continue Reading

All sorts of Gandolf action is coming out of the woodwork, with Morning Paper following up the grainy shot it released yesterday with a shiny color version, shown after the break. The rumored specs remain unchanged, and while we’re not at all delighted to hear this one will be running Garnet, we’re guessing it could be a halfway decent option for low-end users, since it’s rocking that lovable $200 pricetag. Even more interesting is the white Windows Mobile version of the form factor that emerged on TreoCentral today, rocking the Vodafone branding. It appears to be running Windows Mobile Standard (once known as Smartphone) — which would be a first for Palm, who’s stuck with the touchscreen-input Professional (Pocket PC) edition for its Windows Mobile phones — and positions Palm to better compete with the likes of the Motorola Q and Samsung’s BlackJack. Plus the photo is blurry, so you know it has to be good.

[Via PalmInfocenter]

Read – Windows Mobile version
Read – Color Gandolf shot
More info
from engadget
Continue Reading

While not nearly as capacious as PQI’s 256GB behemoth of an SSD, SanDisk is creeping ever closer by bumping its 1.8- and 2.5-inch SSD to 64GB. Previously capped at 32GB, the SATA 5000 and UATA 5000 series are now doubling in capacity and ready to become your next drop-in hard drive replacement. The devices reportedly sport a sustained read rate of around 67Mbps, a random read rate of 7,000 IOPS, and consume about half as much energy as its traditional HDD counterparts. No word just yet on pricing, but SanDisk is reportedly planning to offer up 64GB engineering samples in Q3, while mass production is scheduled to commence by the year’s end.

More info
from engadget

It’s easy to jump to conclusions when you hear a spec like “2.4 pounds” — things like no disc drive, minuscule screen and a complete lack of horsepower quickly spring to mind — but Toshiba is really taking things next-gen with its new Portege R500. The new bestest buddy to Tosh’s flagship R400 tablet, the R500 packs a first ever 7mm optical drive, 12.1-inch transflective (outdoor readable) LED-backlit screen, and does it all with a mere 0.77-inches of thickness, which Toshiba claims is the thinnest ever to include a disc drive, and that aforementioned 2.4 pound weight. The R500 isn’t spec shy either, with a Core 2 duo U7600 1.2GHz processor, Intel GMA 950 graphics, up to 2GB of RAM, a 120GB HDD and a 1280 x 800 screen res. There’s even a PCMCIA slot, gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth and VGA out, just to make the other ultraportables look bad. To top it all off, Toshiba is boasting of the “world’s longest” battery life for a 12.1-inch widescreen notebook, but doesn’t have any hard numbers other than that. The laptop starts at $2,000 with XP Pro, or $2,150 with Vista Business, but the real fun starts later this year when Toshiba starts shipping 64GB SSD configurations, which once specced to a 3 cell battery and no optical drive will weigh a paltry 1.72 pounds.

[Via Laptoping]
more info
from engadget

Anyone who’s ever futzed with a drive array on the fritz or tried to upgrade their large home storage system knows the plight well — disks will eventually fail and/or run out of space, and when they do, neither scenario is particularly pleasant for a RAID user. (Trust us, we have the horror stories to prove it.) Even though the Data Robotics Drobo isn’t ready to take the place of your NAS, if you’ve been looking for a simple, convenient, reliable method of keeping vast amounts of data in one spot, this may be the way to go. We’ve been fortunate enough to have a Drobo of our own to fool around with for the past few weeks, and we’re pretty excited about how it’s gone. Read on for our thoughts.

Gallery: Drobo review

    

From engadget
Continue Reading

We still don’t have the magic numbers (launch date and price) on that most impressive new Dell XPS m1330, but we did at least secure some more eye candy for you. A couple more shots after the break.

From engadget
Continue Reading

While it’s hardly as big a deal now that Microsoft itself has let its much-anticipated Surface/Project Milan out of the bag, those that prefer to get their information in the form crude sketches and less-than-readable sentences can finally get their fix, as the USPTO has now revealed Microsoft’s patent application for the device. Filed way back in November of 2005, the application describes a “function-oriented user interface,” and lays out many of the features that we saw first-hand last week, including resizing pictures using two fingers, and dragging one element to another in order to initiate an activity. So, not a lot of new information, but if you’re looking for something more to tide you over until you can get your hands on a Surface yourself, you can hit up the link below for a glimpse at its origins (and plenty more sketches).

[Via PC Joint, thanks Staksa]
more info
from engadget