Lenovo’s ultra thin Thinkpad X1 laptop

Lenovo has unveiled its thinnest Thinkpad yet in the new Thinkpad X1laptop. With a thickness of just 0.7”, it still can’t beat Macbook Air in thickness but it has sturdy build and weighs just 3.75lbs. Powered by Intel Sandy Bridge processor, the screen is 13.3″ Premium HD (1366×768) LED Backlit Display.

The lightweight laptop has wide choice of connectivity with Bluetooth, Wi-fi, optional 3G broadband, USB 2.0 as well as USB 3.0 ports. Carrying a starting price tag of £1,100, the ultra thin laptop has a wide choice of user configurable options and is also provided with HDMI as well as MiniDisplay ports.

Google chrome OS

The huge success of Apple’s iPad will be facing a serious challenger soon in Google’s new web ready laptop running on Chrome OS. To be priced at $349 cash down, it would also be offered at just $20 rent a month. Aimed at students, the cheap laptop with online access is expected to be followed by similar package for business and other users.

Google Apps with complete set of office tools rivalling MS Office is already available at $50 per year. A similar product for professionals and developers is also in the offing with enhanced features. Watch out for an official announcement soon from Google on this topic.

Raspberry Pi, the ultra low cost computer

A computer for just $25? Yes that is what David Braben, a British game designer has developed primarily for children. It is of the size of a USB stick and has 128 MB RAM, runs on 700 MHz ARM based processor with an HDMI port on one end and a USB port on the other. The operating system is open source software like Ubuntu and there is also a SD/MMC/SDIO memory card slot.

Promoted by a UK based charity organization the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the ultra low cost computer is expected to hit the market later this year. Consuming just a watt of power through an AC adapter, mouse, keyboard, network adapter etc can be connected through USB hub while a TV can be connected through the HDMI port. The computer is expected to become popular among children of poor countries and try to bridge the digital divide.

Speaking of low cost, I just thought I would give a quick heads up to anyone who buys stationery for the office. I was just looking round the net for a few bits and pieces, did a few price checks and came across these guys. They are worth taking a look at if you buy loads for the office and they have some great free gifts and stuff you can get with your stationery orders.

HP ProBook 5330m

HP ProBook 5330m laptop

 

HP has brought out two new EliteBook and one ProBook laptop models aimed at business users and priced between $799 and $1500 each. Weighing 3.9 pounds, the HP ProBook 5330m has 13.3” diagonal HD screen and Intel Sandy Bridge CPU. With a starting price of $799, this business laptop is provided with fingerprint sensor as well as hardware data security (TPM) for safe travel. It has a brushed aluminium finish and optional Intel vPro technology.

HP Envy 14 laptop

HP Envy 14 laptop

 

Powered by latest Intel Sandy Bridge processor, this premium Envy series laptop has 14” screen and a starting price of $999. It also has a large clickpad, longer battery life and USB 3.0 ports. It offers better performance and suitable for playing games.

HP Mini 210 laptop

HP Mini 210 laptop

 

The new HP Mini 210 is an updated version of the earlier Miniseries of netbooks with a wide choice of colours and the new Beats audio technology. With a thickness of about an inch, the 6 cell powered lightweight netbook is priced in the $300 – 330 range. It has the same dual core Intel Atom processor.  

HP Pavilion dv4 laptop

HP Pavilion dv4 laptop

 

Priced at $599, the new HP Pavilion dv4 laptop is available in more colours and is fitted with HP’s new cool sense technology that allows user settings for operation of the cooling fans. Powered by latest Intel core i5 processor, the 6 cell battery lasts up to 7 hours of normal usage.

Tablet vs PC

The runaway success of the tablet PC market in recent times with Apple’s iPad leading the pack seems to have dealt a blow to the sale of laptops and desktops. All the three leading PC manufacturers viz. HP, Dell and Acer have reported dip in PC sales of 23%, 7% and 16% respectively in the latest quarter. Meanwhile Apple’s iPad is expected to sell 47 million pieces this year out of a total 70 million tablets globally according to a Gartner report.

Overall PC sales have dropped by more than 1% instead of predicted 3% growth in the quarter. To counter this drop in sales, HP is mulling its own offering of tablets while Google is bringing out its ultra cheap Chrome laptop.  All in all interesting times are ahead for gadget enthusiast with the proverbial ‘more bang for the buck’ likely to be the ultimate result.

Advent Vega Tablet PC

Advent Vega the low cost tablet PC was sold out within a few hours of going for sale online on PC World and Currys in UK. Here is a low down on what makes Advent Vega tablet so popular.

1. The tablet is priced at just £250 which is one of lowest for a reasonably performing tablet PC
2. Thin and lightweight, the tablet PC is easy to handle and carry.
3. The 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen display with a pixel resolution of 1024 x 600 provides crisp and bright images.
4. The tablet PC is one of the first to ship with NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 processor. The latter allows 1080p HD video support through HDMI output.
5. The powerful processor running on Android 2.2 operating system along with wi-fi connection permits fast web browsing like any other tablet
6. The HDMI output facility means one can hook it onto a HD TV and watch Internet etc on a large screen.
7. USB and microSD facility allows a PC to be attached to Advent Vega to load media files, add external storage etc. Bluetooth 2.1 further enhances external connectivity of the tablet PC.
8. Reasonable battery life of about 6.5 hours of continuous video playback.
9. Adobe Flash compatibility means all web content like videos, games including BBC iPlayer can be opened in Flash.
10. The bottom line is that the Advent Vega tablet PC delivers impressive performance at a competitive price and hence gives good value for money.

Android 3.0 Honeycomb OS

Android 3.0 is different from the earlier versions in that it has been designed with tablet PCs with large screen sizes in mind. It has a truly virtual and holographic user interface (UI) with multitasking, multiple toolbars and a whole lot of new apps. This version would also be in the open source domain with developers just needing to download the Honeycomb SDK to add their own apps.

The brand new UI lets users access contextual menu options like navigation, widgets, etc through the ‘action bar’ displayed on top of the screen instead of dedicated hardware buttons. The menu options like content, theme and other properties dynamically vary depending on the application that is open. There is also a ‘system bar’ at the bottom of the screen that gives access to system status, notifications and navigation buttons.

Powerful multitasking allows users to launch various tasks and the ‘recent apps list’ in the system bar shows the tasks that are under progress and easily jump from one application context to another. The redesigned soft keyboard has new keys like the Tab key and allows fast and accurate typing of text. The copy and paste function is much easier than earlier versions. You just have to press and hold and drag the selection area. The dynamic Action bar lets you select an action like cut, copy, paste, select all, share, web search or find.

The browser has smooth scrolling and is in sync with the desktop version of Google Chrome including bookmarks, history and incognito mode. It has multiple tabs replacing browser windows. The Gmail has been optimized for Honeycomb and is quick. The new OS has new connectivity options like connecting keyboards over USB or Bluetooth, instant syncing of media files with USB connected devices like camera or desktop PC, faster wi-fi connectivity to name a few.

The Android market has been revamped and several new apps added like the movie studio. The UI is easy to use and the overall performance is good. The new developer platform has been specially designed to make it easy to develop apps for large screen devices. Developers can create high performance 2D and 3D graphics with rich multimedia and also have compatibility with existing apps. To sum up Android 3.0 competes very well with iOS of Apple and its futuristic design is expected to last well into the near future.

Advent Vega Android tablet PC

Weighing a mere 1.5 lbs and half an inch in thickness, the Advent Vega Android 2.2 based tablet is a lightweight gadget packed with features. It has Wi-fi, Bluetooth support and an USB port for external connectivity. With a 10.1” capacitive touch screen display that gives vivid images, Advent Vega has built in webcam and microphone.

The 512MB internal flash memory is expandable up to 4GB through a microSD card. A flash player is also expected to be added to Advent Vega tablet as an additional feature soon. It can also be directly connected to a HD TV to enjoy 1080p full HD video images stored in it.

The battery lasts up to 16 hours of audio playback and 6.5 hours of HD video playback in a single charge due to the energy efficient NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor. Competitively priced at £249.99, the stylish Advent Vega Android tablet is too good to be ignored by gadget freaks!

Acer Android Tablet PC

Acer, the second largest PC maker in the world behind HP, is set to enter the growing Android tablet PC market soon. At a recent global press conference, Acer unveiled release of 2 tablet PCs with 10.1” and 7” screens and a smart phone with 4.8” screen. They are expected to run on yet to be released Android Honeycomb 3.0 OS and be in the market by April 2011. They were originally slated for release this year.

The tablet PCs will have 3G as well as Wi-fi connectivity. The screen resolution will be a high 1280 x 800 pixels and 1080p HDMI capacity. There would also be 5MP rear and front facing camera and the thickness would be just 0.52 in.

The 4.8” smart phone would have a screen resolution of 1024 x 480 pixels with 21:9 aspect ratio, a 4MP camera with LED flash, 1 GHz Snapdragon processor and a gyroscope / accelerometer combo suitable for gaming. Further details about the products are awaited.

According to a study by analysts at UBS, in one year’s time, users could be rethinking on upgrading their PCs as iPad and other tablet PCs become more powerful with dual core processors. The latter would be able to handle large content like spreadsheets, multiple websites and several photos. Sales growth of notebooks could drop from 18% this year to 12% next year.

The analysts compared the growth of tablet PCs to that of LCD TVs / smartphones where the growth was strong and sustained early on as prices came down. The netbook sales growth has already started slowing down after 4 years and they are expected to be cannibalised soon. Apple’s iPad is expected to retain its dominant position next year too with about half the market share and Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola etc sharing the other half.

UBS also expects a shake out in the tablet PCs market with fierce competition among the 46 companies that would be in the market next year. Also customers’ preference is expected to tilt towards contract free models as against carrier models favoured by companies like Samsung. All in all gadgets enthusiasts can expect wide choice of quality products at reasonable prices next year!