core i3

Staples has begun selling the 11.6-inch Samsung Series 3 laptop for $619 after "instant savings," one of the least expensive ultraportables based on Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processor.

The Series 3 presages sub-$800 Ultrabooks likely to appear in 2012 from PC makers. Though--with a maximum thickness of about 1 inch--it's not as thin as Ultrabooks are expected to be, the weight is about right at 2.8 pounds.

The silicon is similar to Ultrabooks too. In this case, an ultra power efficient Intel Core i3-2357M Sandy Bridge processor.

Unlike the Samsung Series 9 (which … Read more

Samsung's 11.6-inch ultraportable has been refreshed with more competitive pricing and Intel Sandy Bridge processors. The refresh presages a similar update from Apple for its MacBook Air, though it remains to be seen if Apple can match Samsung's more aggressive pricing.

Like Apple, Samsung offers 13.3-inch and 11.6-inch ultraslim, ultralight, aluminum-clad laptops. But Samsung is trying to distinguish itself by keeping ahead of Apple on the performance curve.

Samsung's first 11.6-inch Series 9 model (NP900X1A-A01US) used Intel power-efficient "Nehalem" class Core i series processors and graphics silicon. The newest 11.6-inch offering bumps up to Intel's latest Sandy Bridge power-efficient chips.

That puts Samsung two generations ahead of Apple--at the moment, at least. Apple's current MacBook Air models house Intel's older Core 2 Duo chip and Nvidia graphics.

Samsung has also upped the size of the largest solid-state drive offering to 128GB, matching the 11.6-inch MacBook Air.

And it trumps the Air in price, to boot. An 11.6-inch Air with a 128GB solid-state drive, 4GB of memory, and a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor is priced at $1,399. Samsung's Sandy Bridge-based model with a similar configuration (see chart below) is priced at $1,249. … Read more

Panasonic's new Toughbook looks a lot like its old Toughbook. That is to say, it's bulky, is rated for MIL-STD-810G tests including drops up to 30 inches on its sides or 12 inches on the corners, and has a magnesium-alloy case, a shock-mounted hard drive, and spill-resistant keyboard.

The differences, however, are many: the new Toughbook 53 has lost over a pound of weight, dropping to a reasonable 5.6 pounds and downsizing its screen from 15.6 inches to 14 inches. The track pad has gotten larger, and added multitouch. 4G LTE service is now offered--a first … Read more

Under the skin of Samsung's new ultrasvelte laptop beats new Intel silicon that will likely be adopted by Apple in the refresh of the MacBook Air.

One of the criticisms--admittedly of the geek variety--of the 2010 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs is the internals. At the risk of sounding like a broken record (as this has been asserted ad nauseam by many reviewers), both models use silicon that, in tech years, is long in the tooth--namely, the Core 2 Duo.

But Apple is expected to pull a leapfrog with the new MacBook Air. The upcoming Airs will jump from … Read more

Intel's perplexing "innovation" endeavors notwithstanding, it does make, lest we forget, the world's fastest PC processors. Namely, Sandy Bridge. Systems using the freshly-minted chip are now widely available from top-tier vendors--but they're at the very high end of the pricing spectrum.

Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba serve as arguably the best examples of Sandy Bridge systems. Let's start with Toshiba's Qosmio X500-Q930S, which uses the Sandy Bridge i7-2630QM quad-core processor. That chip is rated at 2GHz but can automatically overclock--what Intel calls "Turbo Boost"--to 2.9GHz.

If Intel's most advanced quad-core … Read more

While Intel updated its price list with a number of new mobile processors over the weekend, a few didn't show up on the list.

Intel on Sunday added new mobile Core i5 and i7 processors prominently to its price list, among other new mobile chips, but didn't cite a new mobile Core i3 processor, a Core i5 variant, and two mobile Pentium chips.

Why? "These SKUs are considered transactional, which means they are targeted at retail and SMB (small- and medium-size businesses) and are subject to terms and conditions with (PC makers) that target those markets. We … Read more

A year ago, Samsung wasn't much of a player in the laptop space aside from a few Netbooks. This year, however, the equation changed. We've seen Samsung midrange laptops that have offered great value for their components, with designs that seem to be getting progressively better. With the company's newest batch of laptop announcements, that trend seems to be continuing.

The NF and SF series of Netbooks and laptops adopt a similar design, with curved, glossy lines and raised walls around the keyboard deck. The look feels particularly suited to living-room use, as if these laptops were … Read more

Small laptops aren't necessarily getting any smaller, but they are getting more powerful. Here's a quick look at the power-efficient engines purring inside the latest laptops from Hewlett-Packard.

The newest welterweight laptops from HP, introduced on Wednesday, offer more than flashy new skins. Inside is Intel's newest chip technology that offers more performance without a significant hit to battery life.

First up is the 3-pound Mini 210. This Netbook offers, for the first time, a dual-core Atom processor, a break from a long line of single-core-only Atom Netbook processors. Dual-core processors are better at handling multiple data streams than single-core processors and thus boost performance significantly for certain applications.

Despite having two cores, Intel's 1.5GHz Atom N550 has a thermal envelope of only 8.5 watts, only two more watts than its single-core N455 cousin. And this thermal envelope is even more impressive when you consider the fact that it also includes the 200MHz graphics chip, which is built onto the same piece of silicon as the main processor.

HP claims up to 10.75 hours of battery life with a six-cell battery. That said, even if HP is overstating battery life, anything within the ball park of eight to ten hours is decent for a Windows dual-core laptop.

The HP Mini 210 is available in the United States with a starting price of $329.

Pavilion dm3 squeezes Intel's higher-performance mobile processors into a slim form factor

The just-announced HP Pavilion dm3 laptop boasts an Intel Core i series chip matched with a new design that keeps the laptop cooler.… Read more

Apple is tapping Intel chips for its desktop lineup in a way it never has before.

Unveiled Tuesday, updated the iMacs have, for the first time, adopted Intel's Core i3 processor, with some distinct differences between the i3, i5, and i7 models, while the refreshed the Mac Pros tap Intel's most advanced six-core processor, also a first.

So, what should consumers zero in on inside the box? Here's a quick rundown.

Core i3/Core i5 Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading--most have both, but a of couple processors don't: Apple has gone with Core i3 processors for the first time. The Core i3, as the number suffix indicates, is Intel's low-end core i series desktop processor. In addition to the most salient differences--clock (gigahertz) speed and processor core counts--the biggest variation among the various Core i3 and Core i5 models is that a couple of the iMacs don't have both Turbo Boost and Hyper-Threading. The size of the cache memory is also a distinction.

A primer, first.

Hyper-Threading: This can double the number of tasks--or threads--a processor can execute. So, a two-core processor can handle four threads. This technology is not offered on prior-generation Core 2 chips. Apple describes it as follows: "When you're running multiple applications at once,… Read more