Digital Trends
Without tooting its own horn (even a little bit), Apple has launched updates for its MacBook and MacBook Pro notebook lines.
At the high end, the MacBook Pros can now be custom ordered with a 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (up from a top speed of 2.4 GHz), and a 250 GB hard drive is now available for professionally-oriented notebook.
Although it’s sure to be a move which irks both Sony and Toshiba, the great format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray got another fence-sitter today as mammoth chipmaker Intel outlined its forthcoming Montevina mobile computing platform at the Intel Developer Forum today. Designed as the follow-up to the company’s successful Santa Rosa notebook architecture, Montevina will use the 45nm Penryn processor architecture in its CPUS, offer integrated WiMAX high speed wireless broadband capabilities—and refuse to take sides in the high definition format war by offering chip-level support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD.
Like most people in the Western world, or so it seems, you’ve probably received an e-mail from a bank (or eBay or Paypal) about security concerns on your account. It offers a link for you to click on in order to login and warns of dire consequences, like the closing of your account, if you don’t comply.
The desktop rig has always been the traditional platform of choice for computer gamers, but that hasn’t stopped a number of companies from packing similar hardware into notebooks for players on the go. Vigor Gaming, a relatively new name in custom computers, announced a line of five new gamer-oriented laptops on Wednesday.
The flagship for their new line is the Atlantis Pro, a desktop replacement with a massive 20-inch WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050) screen. It’s powered by an AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile processor with dual Nvidia GeForce Go 7950 GTX processors handling graphics, and a pair of 250GB RAID-0 drives for storage. Not surprisingly, it will set you back $2,799.
Even though Toshiba announced its Qosmio G45 back in January—and started shipping it in Japan in February—the company has finally brought its entertainment powerhouse Qosmio G45-AV680 notebook system to the U.S. market, making it the first notebook system offered to U.S. consumers with HD DVD-R capability.
“Already Toshiba’s premiere audio-video solution, the new Qosmio is a remarkable step forward in the digital renaissance, in terms of putting high-definition capabilities and creative multimedia tools into people’s hands,” said Mark Simons, VP and general manager of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc.’s Digital Products Division, in a statement. “Whether you want to immortalize a recent European vacation on HD DVD, simply enjoy the perfection of studio-produced high-definition films with stunning Dolby surround sound, or listen to music, the Qosmio puts a world of opportunity at our fingertips.”
The title of this article sounds like I’m writing for an Irish publication of some type, and I suddenly feel the need to talk about the Wii people and a pot of gold.
That pot of gold has been elusive to both Microsoft and Sony of late. Sony has been in search of sales for the PS3, and Microsoft has just instituted a massive repair policy change and taken over a $1B (hint: that is about what a small aircraft carrier costs) charge to earnings.
Fujitsu-Siemens seems to be of the opinion that Fujitsu’s LifeBook line of notebook computers doesn’t quite meet the needs of the business market, so the combined company is introducing a new line of three business-oriented notebooks dubbed “Esprimo”—the U9200, M9400, and D9500. The new notebooks all sport Intel’s Santa Rosa chipset and Core 2 Duo processors, and sport embedded UMTS mobile data access for on-the-go connectivity back to the home office.
“The new Esprimo Mobile family combines high functionality and performance with a fine design and is very lightweight,” says Dieter Herzog, Fujitsu-Siemens executive VP of Infrastructure Products, in a release. “The Esprimo Mobiles are tailor-made for business people who do not want to lose out on any office comforts while traveling.”
Just a few weeks after refreshing its line of MacBook notebook computers, Apple has beefed up it’s MacBook Pro line of notebook computers aimed at professionals and (of course) media junkies, adding faster Core 2 Duo processors, support for up to 4 GB of RAM, and Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics to speed up animation and gaming. And the 15-inch model gains the industry’s first LED-backlit display, doing away with traditional fluorescent backlighting and the mercury it entails.
Attempting to scrape back ground lost with the debut of Intel’s new “Santa Rosa” mobile platform, AMD announced details on Thursday about its own upcoming mobile platform and processor for notebooks.
The platform, known as Puma, will use the new RS780 mobile chipset to deliver features including DirectX 10 graphics capability, support for a unified video decoder, integrated multi-monitor support, NAND flash support with HyperFlash, and PowerXpress, a solution for switching between integrated and discrete graphics processing to extend battery life.
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