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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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We already knew that MSI’s Wind U120 was coming this quarter. Now DigiTimes has pegged the launch to November. Available in white or black, DigiTimes’ sources claim that the U120 should launch for roughly $552 with a built-in 3.5G data module, Atom N270 proc, 1GB memory, and a 120GB hard disk loaded with Windows XP. For its part, MSI did say that it will not be introducing a netbook with touchscreen due to the high cost (eh hem, hear that ASUS?). MSI does, however, plan to launch its second generation Wind netbook with “new innovations” at the beginning of March at CeBIT 2009. We’re hoping for thought-control enabled by a quantum processor but expecting something more akin to a race to the bottom.

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From what we can tell, Fujitsu’s spent the industrial design budget for the LifeBook P8020 on one thing and one thing only: trimming those sides. We really do love to see a laptop with a keyboard and screen flush with the edges, seemingly wasting zero space. The resulting product is a tad chubby (1.1- to 1.5-inches) and lacks a certain charm, but there’s all sorts of goodies under the hood, and the 2.9 pound weight is certainly passable. The 12.1-inch ultraportable packs a Centrino 2 processor, 320GB HDD (or a 64GB or 128GB SSD), 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, a fingerprint reader, DVD burner, gesture-friendly trackpad and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. There’s also a 6-cell battery and no 3G to drain it, so you should be able to expect some decent battery life when this hits in November, with a starting price of $1,799.

[Via SlashGear]
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from engadget

Toshiba’s R600 ultraportable got lost in the din of Tuesday’s MacBook announcements, but TrustedReviews got their hands on the 12.1-inch ultraportable, which replaces the crazy-thin-and-light R500 and goes up against some pretty tough competition like the VAIO TT. Not a lot of external differences here — it looks identical to the R500 — but the keyboard, screen, and overall fit and finish have apparently been much improved, and the bump to Centrino 2 and the corresponding 1.2 or 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo processors is certainly appreciated. Click on for a bunch of pictures of the new rig, including some teardown photos.

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from engadget

No telling if we North Americans will ever see this thing without the help of a dutiful importer, but if nothing else, it’s fun to gawk at. Shown off in Korea at KES 2008, LG’s 12.1-inch S-210 was said to be packing a 2.43GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM, eSATA / USB ports, VGA out, Ethernet, an NVIDIA graphics set, audio in / out, HDMI and Windows Vista. Pricing and release information wasn’t even available for folks in Seoul, but we’ll try extra hard not to forget about this completely forgettable machine amidst all the other metoos in the crowd.

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from engadget

If the X200t is just too convertible-y for you, and the standard X200 just doesn’t last long enough for your 18-hour plane rides, the X200s won’t do you any good either. If you only need 10-hours of juice, however, this unit is just about perfect. The ultraportable does give up some raw horsepower in order to deliver such stunning life, but true road warriors will certainly make the sacrifice. Critics over at Laptop Mag were duly impressed with just about everything the pricey X200s was packing, noting that the keyboard was “excellent,” the design was sturdy and the screen was clean and crisp. Additionally, they found that the power decrease wasn’t too noticeable in real-world use, though they did lament the omission of a WWAN module (agreed!) and webcam. Bottom line? These folks found it well “worth the splurge,” though we’d recommend giving the full spill a read if you’re seriously on the fence.

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from engadget

Hot on the heels of its NB100 netbook, Toshiba is launching another little new laptop — a 12.1-incher known as the Dynabook NX. The diminutive model comes equipped with a 1280 x 800 display, a 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, up to 3GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD or 160GB standard hard drive, 802.11b/g/n, and a handful of the expected ports. No solid word on price, though Akihabara News is speculating the HDD version will run you about €1200 (or around $1736), while the SSD model will clock in at a hefty €1930 ($2793). The laptop is due out in late October, so if this sounds like your cup of tea, you might start saving the pennies right now.

[Via Akihabara News]
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from engadget