The MSI 10-inch Tablet is NVIDIA Tegra Based
MSI had on display an Android based tablet prototype at the Consumer Electronics Show, held in Las Vegas, a few weeks back. The laptop-maker has mentioned that they will be releasing many more tablets into the market. There’s news about one of them now. It is a 10-inch tablet which will be employing NVIDIA’s Tegra platform. This device was recently announced by MSI and is expected to release during the second half of this year.
The MSI tablet will have a colour touchscreen. It will offer WiFi for internet connectivity. This device is said to be capable of music, web-based games, web browsing and ebook reading. The Android OS is expected to be running in this gadget. The ASUS@Vibe platform is supposed to be used for digital content, for delivering music, games, news and ebooks. Other details have not yet been revealed.
The MSI NVIDIA Tegra Tablet is said to sport a thin and light-weight body. It is almost the same size as the Apple iPad (9.7″ screen). They seem to share plenty of common qualities as well (hopefully the MSI tablet does offer 3G connectivity). Their presence in the market can definitely affect each other’s sales. Hence, pricing will play a very important role in deciding which of them will be a better seller. The Apple iPad is expected to release in March, with a 3G enabled version to release in April, this year. Hence, MSI are at an advantage, as they can learn from Apple’s mistakes, if any.
Toshiba Mini NB300 Netbook
Netbooks are devices that are usually designed for high portability. The new Toshiba NB300 Netbook that was introduced at CES, 2010, is a device which can keep you good company while on the move as well as at home. How? Here we go…
This netbook weighs just 1.33kg. Plus, it uses the Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz processor, which helps conserve power. Thus increasing efficiency and battery life. A runtime life of 11 hours is quoted. So you needn’t worry about running out of fuel throughout the day. Moreover, the laptop is designed for durability. There’s also a hard drive Impact Sensor which helps protect the hard drive incase of a fall. All these features make the Toshiba NB300 ideal for carrying around when you hit the roads.
Not just for your day out, the Toshiba NB300 is an equally good companion indoors. It features the Toshiba Media Controller, which lets you share videos, music files, photographs and more with your home entertainment network. You can even stream the files as per your wish using the drag and drop feature of the Media Controller. The gadgets that you can connect to include other laptops, home theatre systems, Xbox 360 and more.
Tech specs wise, the Toshiba NB300 has a 10.1″ 1024 x 600-pixel screen; a maximum of 2GB DDR2 RAM; a 250GB hard drive; Windows 7 Starter edition OS; Intel GMA 3150 graphics; Bluetooth, WiFi and Ethernet LAN connectivity. Along the sides of the netbook you’ll find 2 USB ports on the right, one USB sleep-and-charge port on the left; a VGA port; a 2-in-1 Bridge Media slot; a memory expansion slot; headphone and microphone jacks.
The Toshiba NB300 Mini 10″ Netbook is available in 4 colours. The Frost white, Mocha brown and Royal blue coloured lids, sport a matte finish. The fourth black coloured case comes in a glossy finish.
Pricing in the UK is yet to be revealed.
Gateway EC14D Notebook
The Gateway EC14D Notebook is a special little laptop, as it is one of the few of its kind, to have a DVD drive built in. This notebook sports an 11.6″ screen, which makes it an ultra-portable.
A high definition resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels is offered. The Intel Pentium dual core ULV processor with a frequency of 1.4GHz has been employed for handling processing. Graphics is taken care of by the Intel GMA 4500HD GPU. The RAM housed within is a 4GB one, which can be enhanced to 8GB for better performance. A 320GB hard drive comes built within. The Windows 7 OS drives this notebook.
WiFi and wired Ethernet connectivity are both supported for hooking onto the internet. There are also 3 USB ports, an HDMI port, a web camera and a multi-format media card reader packed in this workstation. A 6-cell battery is supposed to be shipping in this device and is reckoned to offer 8 hours of runtime. The price of this device for the US market is $629, which is quite a reasonable one. A UK release hasn’t been heard of yet.
The Gateway EC14D 11.6″ Netbook was on display at this year’s CES, held in Las Vegas recently. Scott Stein from Cnet has pointed out to a very interesting fact in his article on this notebook. Though a sleek laptop does look very attractive, people still put value before aesthetics. Hence a laptop with an integrated DVD drive is what people would prefer buying even if it is a little bulkier than a slim laptop which lacks it.
Sony’s Dash Tablet
While we await Apple’s mystery tablet, the iSlate, there are many other laptop manufacturers who are coming along with their own tablets which are quite enticing. Hence the yet to arrive Apple iSlate is no longer creating much zeal. Sony was one of the many laptop makers, to sport their tablet called the Dash at CES, 2010. This 7″ touchscreen device is a personal internet viewer, according to Sony.
The Sony Dash supports WiFi connectivity. Applications can be accessed through widgets that are placed on the screen. There are widgets for news, social networking, sport, traffic, weather and games. This device can multi-task as well. Hence you can listen to music as well as use the internet at the same time. It also allows users to create their own profiles.
The Sony Dash personal internet viewer has been designed to be placed on the table as well as on the lap. Hence it can be seated in your kitchen platform, when you’re looking at it for making a recipe. It can sit on your bedroom table as a clock as well.
This device is expected to release in the US in April, 2010, for a price of $200. A UK release is yet to be heard of.
Sony Vaio Z Series Makeover
Sony have given a make-over to the Sony Vaio Z series laptop – the Z890. No. Not on the outside. Only on the inside. The re-modelled Sony Vaio Z890 notebook was displayed at CES 2010, Las Vegas. The exquisite carbon fibre and magnesium exterior has been retained. So is the 13.3″ widescreen which has a resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. That’s higher than most other notebooks of the same size.
The Sony Vaio Z890 now features the 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 540M processor and a 4GB DDR3 RAM. The hard drive is completely ousted by a solid state drive. You get options of 128GB, 256GB and 384GB SSDs. Solid state drives are faster than hard drives and do not have mechanical moving parts too.
The Sony Vaio Z890 too, incorporates the hot-switching GPU feature, like the Alienware M11x netbook, which has also displayed at CES 2010. The Sony Vaio laptop integrates both the NVidia GeForce 310M and an Intel GMA GPU. A physical setting called Hybrid Dynamic Switch will allow switching between these graphics processors, while the laptop is powered on. The NVidia graphics can be used while gaming and the Intel graphics for general computation. This will increase power efficiency of the device as well.
WiFi and Bluetooth are also supported by this notebook. The connectors present on-board are 2 USB ports, a n ExpressCard slot, an HDMI output, a Firewire port, an SD card slot and a Memory Stick slot. An optical drive is also housed in this notebook.
The price of the classy, yet powerful Sony Vaio Z890 Laptop is $1,899 in the US. The UK availability and pricing details are yet to be revealed.
PsiXpda at CES 2010
This time round at CES, there have been plenty of gadgets which have bridged the gap between a netbook and a smartphone, like the Dell Mini 5 and the Lenovo Skylight Smartbook. The PsiXpda ultramobile PC also belongs to this category. Well, a further look at its specifications make it more apt in the laptop and netbook category because it has an Intel Atom processor driving it. Nonetheless, it can met you make calls as well.
This device has a 5″ capacitive touchscreen and a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The screen can be tilted at an angle to the keyboard. This keyboard has decently placed keys, which are not cramped up. Thus, those users with large fingers should not have problems using it. The right side of the screen can be used for scrolling up and down the pages. Two mouse buttons are seated to the left of the display. The RAM is 1GB capacious and there is a 16GB solid state drive. This UMPC is based on Windows XP OS. Like most netbooks, this gadget supports WiFi. Additionally, 3G technology is supported as well. A VGA camera, USB connectivity, microSD memory expansion and a 2.5mm headphone jack are all housed in this gizmo.
This tiny little device can function as a full fledged PC. However, it has been priced on the higher side. The PsiXpda pocket PC can be heavy on your pocket with its price tag of £500 approximately.
Dell Mini 5 – A Large Smartphone or a Small Tablet?
Dell is reportedly readying a tablet called the Dell Mini 5, which is supposed to be driven by Google’s Android OS. This device actually looks like a big touchscreen smartphone. And though it does offer all essentials of a smartphone, it might seem a little odd holding this device at your ear, when answering a call. Hence, it is more apt in the netbook category – preferably a slate or tablet. These are a few pictures that Pocket-Lint managed to capture at Las Vegas, where at CES, the device is said to have been announced.
It is a beautiful piece with a 5″ touchscreen. This tablet will allow users to make and receive calls. It is said to have a SIM card slot. 3G networks are supposed to be compatible with the handheld too. Even WiFi connectivity will be offered. Video calling is also expected to be supported. There are 2 cameras, one on the front (for video calls) and the other one (5MP) on the back. For answering phone calls, a headset will as well be shipping with the gadget.
The Dell Mini 5 Tablet is expected to be available in red, black and pink colours. The other details – detailed specifications, pricing and availability are yet to be announced. However, Dell has reportedly mentioned that they are working on similar devices with different sizes and form factors as well.
Samsung’s New R-Series Laptops
Samsung have introduced their new additions to the R-Series family of laptops at CES 2010, being held in Las Vegas at present. There are a total of 5 laptops that have been introduced. They are the R430, R530, R580, R730 and R780.
The Samsung R730 and Samsung R780 are the largest with a 17.3″ display each. The Samsung R530 and the Samsung R580 are 15.6 inchers. The Samsung R430 is the smallest with a 14″ screen. The common features of these laptops are their widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, their ability to play HD content and the native ‘touch of colour’ crystal technology.
Other specification vary from laptop to laptop. The R780 and R580 are supposed to be the high end ones and are empowered with the Intel Core i5-520M processors. They also get Nvidia GeForce graphics treatment, an optional Blu Ray drive, a sumptuous hard drive of 500GB and a 1.3MP web camera.
The prices and exact release dates of these workstations are not yet known. However, they are expected to step into the UK market some time this month.
Toshiba Satellite E205 Laptop Offers Wireless Video Streaming
Toshiba have announced their new laptop, the Toshiba Satellite E205 at CES, 2010. Apart from its good looks, the other interesting and impressive feature it owns is the wireless video output capability. You can use this laptop to connect to a high definition TV, without wires, to stream laptop content, especially HD videos up to 720p. All this made possible by Intel’s Wireless Display Technology.
A Netgear plug-in box is required for this purpose. This box needs to be connected to the HDMI port of the HDTV. The laptop and the TV can then connect via WiFi and all the content from the laptop can be viewed on the television. This technology is said to have a slight time lag when viewing on the TV. However, the advantage is you can do away with messy cables.
The Toshiba Satellite E205 notebook is a 14″ LED screen device with an Intel Core i5-430M processor at its heart. There is a 4GB RAM and a 500GB hard drive. A slot-loading DVD drive is also present in this workstation. The Windows 7 Home Premium OS comes pre-installed in this device.
This laptop is one of the devices made in conjunction with the Best Buy’s Blue Label program, which aims at collecting users feedback fro making novel designs. And thus, it will only be available at the Best Buy Stores from January 17 for a price of $999.
Samsung Transparent Screen Notebook Flaunted at CES
CES is definitely the platform where you’ll come across a variety of gadgets, that will make you gawk in amazement. The world’s greatest electronics innovations under one roof. That’s CES! Now here’s something amazing from Samsung that was revealed at CES. It is a transparent OLED screen notebook!
This one-of-a-kind device has a 14″ OLED screen. This display is said to be 40% transparent when turned off. We had earlier seen this transparent technology with the LG GD900 Crystal mobile phone.
It is not clear whether Samsung intends to make this laptop commercial. It was just meant to be a demonstration prototype and Samsung intends to use this transparent display technology in more gadgets to come, like MP3 players and ad displays.
Watch this YouTube video.