laptops

Intel already has a significant advantage over AMD in CPU efficiency. As expected, today Intel announced that starting in 2008, that gap could become even wider. The specs for its new processors, code-named Penryn, have been finalized, and new desktop, laptop, and server CPUs should go into production in the latter half of 2007, with a street date planned in the first half of 2008. The Penryn chips will use a 45-nanometer manufacturing process, which should let Intel dial up clock speeds while maintaining relatively stable levels of power consumption.

In chipspeak, the fewer the nanometers the better. Intel uses … Read more

Ever wanted to upgrade your laptop's graphics chip? HardOCP has a great feature up today on why this initiative has stalled. Pinging unnamed, inside sources from both Nvidia and ATI, this story provides a comprehensive overview of why we can't walk into Best Buy and pick up a laptop-compatible 3D graphics card. If you're thinking "standards" right now, you're not far off.

To all of you who've been craving an ultraportable MacBook: Steve Jobs hears you.

Gizmodo and a few other sources are pointing to two Apple patent applications, published today, as evidence that a smaller MacBook (or MacBook Pro) will be forthcoming. The applications describe an optical disc drive that's accessible via the bottom of a laptop and a novel "access system" for removing discs from the upside-down drive. Why put the drive on the bottom of the laptop? To clear up room for more ports along the edges of an ever-thinner-and-smaller laptop, of course.

We're … Read more

Toshiba was one of the first PC vendors out of the gate with a working Windows Vista system--the attractive but expensive Portege R400. Now the company is rolling out Microsoft's new operating system to its most popular laptops, the 17-inch Satellite P105 and the 12.1-inch Satellite U205.

More interesting than that is a newly announced model, the Satellite A135. It's a 15.4-inch multimedia laptop with a feature rarely found on even the biggest desktop replacements--dual hard drives. Why would you want two hard drives? A RAID setup for duplicating and protecting your data is always a … Read more

So remember that laptop that Asus announced earlier today with the ATI Radeon X2300 graphics chip? Sounds to us like Asus just blew a nondisclosure agreement on AMD/ATI's next-generation graphics chip.

It's been common knowledge for awhile that ATI's next-generation, DirectX 10-compatible graphics chip, code-named "R600," is in the works. It's supposed to be the direct competitor to Nvidia's already-released GeForce 8000-series graphics chips. The actual shipping name of the R600 products has been under wraps, although U.K. tech site the Inquirer claimed last week that the chips would be the … Read more

Asus may be best known for making laptops that are sold under other brand names (we're looking at you, MacBook), but the Taiwan-based company is also frequently the first out of the gate with new technology. For a good example, check out the SideShow-enabled laptop we saw recently at CES.

Asus today announced the first notebook to feature graphics from ATI's new ATI Mobility Radeon X2300 chip. The Asus A8Jr isn't terribly remarkable otherwise, but since ATI isn't saying much of anything about the X2300 just yet, informational nuggets such as the following (from the Asus … Read more

Somewhere, ghosts of IBM's past are spinning in their graves. ColorWare is bringing 28 hues--including pink, purple, yellow and bright orange--to laptops from Lenovo that were once produced under the nameplate of Big Blue, that most buttoned-down of corporate establishments.

Laptoping says ColorWare applies its "X2 scratch-resistant liquid plastic coating" to Lenovo's "ThinkPad T60" laptops, whose features include an Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 1GB of memory and a DVD burner. But it's the complex coloring process that draws the most attention: "The X2 coating is applied to the laptops and … Read more

Bill Gates isn't the only bigwig who's putting his John Hancock on limited editions. Not to be outdone, Michael Dell is signing a special line of his namesake laptops that feature an exclusive World of Warcraft theme, according to Laptoping. But unlike so many other so-called special editions, this one is truly limited--to only two, both for sale now on eBay.

"The custom-painted Burning Crusade Edition features (artist Mike) Lavalle's airbrushed re-creation of original composition from the new World of Warcraft expansion," according to the eBay listing. The XPS M1710 gaming laptop also has a … Read more

Taiwan-based MSI did a nice job, or so we thought, with its "Crystal Collection" of luxury laptops released around Thanksgiving. Its designers, however, apparently thought that something was missing, but what? Why, more crystals, of course. Never be satisfied with anything if you can overdo it, we always say.

As BornRich notes, the company's latest line "takes the bling inside too" with stones around the touchpad in addition to the studded ring around its logo on the lid. The rest of the story remains the same, with the innards including an AMD Turion chip, up … Read more