fujitsu

New models from Apple, Samsung, Toshiba, and Fujitsu: The week in laptops

What a week for laptops! We'll start with the big news, which drew many a visitor to Crave: at a press event in Cupertino, Calif., Steve Jobs announced a number of updates to Apple's MacBook line. Get a sense of the changes with our "new vs. old" analysis of the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air, or just have a look at which new MacBook is right for you.

You can also read our review of the new MacBook; stay tuned for the MacBook Pro review. (Also follow those links to see video of the new … Read more

Fujitsu's checkered LifeBook A6220

Fujitsu continued its trend toward colorful laptops this week with the introduction of the tartan-lidded LifeBook A6220. Like the LifeBook A1110 announced earlier this month, the midsize LifeBook A6220 incorporates a swappable exterior panel so you can replace the default indigo lid with a red or gold one to suit your tastes.

All the standard features for a midsize system are here: a 15.4-inch, WXGA screen; integrated Webcam and microphone; fingerprint reader and spill-resistant keyboard; and DVD burner. Around the case, there are the expected four USB ports, expansion and memory card slots, and a mini-FireWire jack, plus such … Read more

New products from Fujitsu, Toshiba, and HP: The week in laptops

You know how some weeks you're churning along--going to meetings, putting out fires, and somehow tending your regular workload as well--and suddenly you look up and it's Friday afternoon? Yeah, that was this week at CNET Laptop HQ. So this digest will be in the form of a list, with witty commentary to return in seven days.

Products announced this week:

HP's first 13-inch laptop, the Pavilion dv3500t; the Fujitsu LifeBook A1110, which features a groovy swappable lid design; the very non-Satellite-y Toshiba Satellite E105; also from Toshiba, a Netbook available only in Japan (for now); LG'… Read more

Report: Fujitsu to sell hard drive unit to Western Digital

Fujitsu is in talks to sell its hard disk drive business to Western Digital, according to a Japan-based report.

Western Digital is the second-largest hard disk drive maker in the world behind Seagate Technology. Fujitsu's HDD unit is ranked sixth.

Fujitsu would sell all of its plants--including those in Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines--for between 70 billion yen and 100 billion yen (approximately $660 million to $944 million), according to Japan's Nikkei news service.

This would be one of the largest business unit sell-offs for a Japanese electronics company, Nikkei said, adding that Fujitsu's hard disk drive … Read more

Fujitsu gets wacky with LifeBook A1110

In the past few years, as companies like Dell and Sony have been making a big deal about releasing laptops in a rainbow of colors, Fujitsu has seemed content to stick with the traditional black, white, or silver. That all changed on Wednesday, when the company released the LifeBook A1110, a 15.4-inch laptop with a distinct, eye-catching patterned lid.

Even better, the lid incorporates a swappable exterior panel, so if you become bored with the default green pattern, $20 buys you pink butterflies, or an ornate blue pattern, and potentially other colors in the future. Fujitsu has engineered the … Read more

The coolest cell phones you may never see

CHIBA, Japan--If the concepts on display at Ceatec are any indication, completely deconstructing the traditional form factor of the mobile phone is one of the next major phases of design and development research.

Japan has one of the most robust mobile phone cultures anywhere, and it shows here on the second day of the show. Sharp, Fujitsu, NTT DoCoMo, and KDDI each had intriguing takes on the next form factor for devices used not just for mobile communication, but watching videos, playing games, and performing mobile navigation.

Take the necklace on the right. It alerts the wearer when there's a call or a message incoming. It's made by Fujitsu and, while it isn't an actual product, is indicative of how cell phones are thought of here: not just communication devices, but accessories made to fit neatly and inconspicuously into the daily routine.

Then there were a host of phones whose screens and keyboards pull apart to be used separately. The Fujitsu version shown below uses magnets to connect the two pieces in the desired configuration. NTT DoCoMo was demonstrating a similar concept.

But as far as futuristic, elegant design goes, KDDI was far and away the winner. The wireless company showed off beautiful designs, which are nowhere close to being reality, but show the aspirations it has for the cell phone. The Ply was part of its yearly Design Project. (Here's a picture of last year's version.)

Designed by Hideo Kambara, the Ply imagines the phone as a device with a series of layers. One layer is a pop-up projector, another is a slide-out keyboard, and another is a printer, a game controller, and so on. The ones on display here and shown further down the page are just papercraft renderings.

… Read more

Smartphone shipments ease off the gas pedal

Smartphone sales slowed a bit in the second quarter amid a weak global economy, but Gartner thinks that's about to change.

The worldwide market for smartphones grew 15.7 percent in the second quarter, as vendors shipped a total of 32.2 million devices. That's pretty solid, but earlier this year the market was growing at a 60 percent clip. Blame a slowing economy around the world and the development of more sophisticated "enhanced phones" running Java or Qualcomm's BREW rather than true smartphone operating systems like Symbian, Windows Mobile, or Apple's OS X, … Read more

New models from Asia and the best student laptops: The week in laptops

Given the Democratic and Republican conventions and the Labor Day holiday stealing everyone's attention, I expected this week to be a quiet one when it came to product announcements. But those distractions really only apply to folks in the States, and overseas manufacturers pushed out plenty of new laptop models to keep us busy.

Samsung threw down a challenge to the MacBook Air by announcing the 13-inch, 2.8-pound Samsung X360. MSI came out with three new laptop models, the 14-inch VR440 and GX400, and the 17-inch GX720. Asus announced the G50V and G71V, gaming systems built on Core … Read more

Photos: Intel forum in review--from Atom to Tolapai

Update with Dunnington and Core i7 photos, text.

The latest and greatest silicon and derivative products is what the Intel Developer Forum is all about. Moorestown, Tolapai, and Canmore are just a few of the chips detailed at IDF this week, while UrbanMax, new netbooks, and the first laptops based on the quad-core mobile processor were among showcased products.

Intel Chairman Barrett brought out Carnegie Mellon University's Johnny Chung Lee, who demonstrated how cheap, off-the-shelf technology--in this case a makeshift whiteboard--can go a long way. "To be interesting today, technology has to be the fastest, the best, the brightest, the lightest, but here you can see if you sacrifice a little bit of capability and performance for dramatic savings in cost, you can have a pretty dramatic impact," Chung said.

One of the more novel devices demonstrated was the 10-inch Intel UrbanMax a computer that can switch between a laptop and tablet. This by itself isn't groundbreaking because tablet PCs from Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba already do this. The novelty is the size and design: it is smaller than an ultraportable--like the Toshiba Portege--yet is designed like an oversize mobile Internet device such as Compal JAX 10. When configured as a tablet, the keyboard is hidden but can morph into a laptop by sliding out the keyboard, which tilts the screen.

An Intel official demonstrating the device said that "UrbanMax is an innovation platform from Intel. This is a product-ready concept." UrbanMax uses "Montevina" Centrino 2 small form-factor (SSF) silicon. SSF chip packaging is used in the MacBook Air and results in lower voltage and smaller size than typical Intel low-power mobile processors.

It is interesting to note that major PC makers have adopted Intel concept designs in the past. Last year, Intel offered a ultra-thin laptop concept design that was eventually adopted by HP for its Voodoo Envy 133 notebook. … Read more