Posted on 22 October 2008 by admin
Confession: we love, love slim laptops. Air, Envy, X300, slips of copier paper with “laptop” written on them… anything decently under that magical 1-inch thick mark has a special place in our hearts. And then there’s the Eee PC S101. Don’t get us wrong, we really like this little netbook. It’s slim, light, solidly built, not entirely gaudy and comes with quite the pedigree, but we’re having trouble choking down that $699 pricetag for what’s still ostensibly a “second” computer. Here’s the way we see it: this new, wonderful 0.75-inch thick form factor can’t just be a random noodling by ASUS, we’re expecting all sorts of trickle down to other models in the future — except there’s really no place to trickle down on the specs. Perhaps they could drop the Bluetooth, or the “n” spec from the WiFi, but at the end of the day 1GB of RAM and an Atom processor are pretty baseline for netbooks, and we expect something exactly delicious as this netbook from ASUS or elsewhere before the glossy paint is dry on the S101 — or at least a built-in 3G option in a few weeks to make this thing obsolete. Our other big gripe is with the keyboard. The keys are good-sized and rather tactile for a netbook, but they could certainly be better, and the right shift key is inexplicably on the far side of the up arrow key — basically unreachable by our mortal pinkie. It makes zero sense from a typing standpoint, and since we tend to over-rely on the right shift key out of bad Mavis Beacon-induced typing habits, we’re not stoked about ASUS’s choice here. Otherwise there’s a nice collection of ports, a great (multi-touch) touchpad, a wonderful matte screen and that pesky hole in our wallet where all our cash used to be.
From engadget
Posted on 22 October 2008 by admin
Just when you thought you were safe from the
overwhelming spate of laptops we saw
last week, Toshiba strikes again with the Portege A605. This notebook is based on the R500, but where the R500 measures .77-inches thick and weighs in at 2.4 pounds, the A605 is a relative behemoth at 1.18-inches thick and over 3 pounds. And unlike the R500 series, there are no SSD options available. Other than that, you get just what you’d expect: a 12.1-inch LED backlit screen, Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, 250GB SATA hard drive, DVD burner, and the promise of almost seven hours of battery life. Prices start at $1,399, hit the read link for more info.
Posted on 22 October 2008 by admin
We know you want a pro-friendly
medium format digital camera — so do we — but they’re awfully expensive, aren’t they? You might have to think about dropping as much as $30,000 one of these babies if you’re the discerning type, but Mamiya is trying to convince you that you can save a few thousand dollars and still get results. Enter the DL28 digital camera system, which combines the body of the well-established
645 with Leaf’s Aptus-II 6 digital back. It’s got 16-bit capture, a 12-stop dynamic range, an ISO range of 50 – 800, and a fancy 3.5-inch touch screen at price of $15,000, appropriate for cash-strapped professionals and financially comfortable hobbyists — unless Nikon has
something to say about it.
Posted on 22 October 2008 by admin
Remember the fit-PC slim we told you about
last month? The folk at Extreme Tech have just had a sit down with the little bugger and found a very small machine that’s really only noteworthy for its size. Of course, that alone is impressive: at 4.3 x 3.9 x 1.2 inches it’s some 40% smaller than the original fit-PC, yet somehow it makes room for twice the memory (512MB) of its predecessor, WiFi (optional) three USB ports and VGA. But unless you really,
really prize the miniscule form factor, you may just want to give this one a pass. According to the review, the device performs pretty much as you’d expect from a 512MB Windows XP machine (the 500MHz AMD Geode has no real problems running Firefox or OpenOffice, but larger apps are going to give you some grief) and some of you might not appreciate the lack of SATA and digital display support. Still curious? Hit the read link for the full review.
Posted on 22 October 2008 by admin
The MacBook Pro (as it became known) has remained largely unchanged in the five years of its existence — in fact, the look and feel of the laptop has become such a staple of the Apple lineup that it’s almost as representative of the company as the Apple logo itself. But five years (or seven in the long view) is an awful long time to see one design, and the user outcry for significant updates has been nearly constant.
Those cries were answered last Tuesday, when the company announced the long-rumored (and badly leaked) refreshes for both the MacBook Pro and MacBook lines. As with most of the modern designs emanating from Cupertino, these are evolutionary — not revolutionary — steps, but they’re drastic in comparison to the stale, familiar versions of our not-so-distant past. Beyond the spit and polish of the Air- and iMac-inspired casings, the company has re-upped the internals as well; new graphics chips, a completely new motherboard design, and some slashing and burning of familiar ports are part of the new packages. So did Apple deliver the goods on what is arguably the most anticipated laptop release in recent memory, or has it failed to meet the absurdly high expectations placed upon it… and is that even possible? Read on to find out.
from engadget
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