The latest refresh of Sony's iconic Vaio laptop line is dominated by the company's first entry in the growing ultrabook category.
But, looking at the new Vaio T, you might think, "Doesn't Sony already have an ultrathin laptop?" And that's true -- the high-end Vaio Z has been around for a couple of years in its present form, and certainly is as thin and portable as any ultrabook. It was even one of the first laptops to go SSD-only.
But the Vaio Z is technically not an ultrabook (and its previous $2,000-plus price made it basically an executive laptop). Much of the Z's DNA has filtered down to a brand-new line, the Vaio T, which looks and feels very similar, but starts at under $800.
Sony has updated several other laptop lines as well, most notably with Intel's new third-generation Core i-series (Ivy Bridge) CPUs, and a very nice software package of Sony's Vegas, Acid, and Sound Forge software for video and audio editing.… Read more
Add Maingear to the very short list of PC vendors selling an 11-inch gaming laptop, with the new Pulse 11.
The 11-inch gaming laptop has had a bit of an up-and-down history. First the Alienware M11X made a big splash at CES in 2010, then it was quietly discontinued this year, just as Intel's new Ivy Bridge CPUs hit. At the same time as the Alienware model was going away, boutique PC maker Origin introduced the Eon-11, an 11-inch gaming laptop in the same vein. … Read more
With the first ultrabook-friendly CPUs from Intel's third generation of Core i-series parts showing up (and being benchmarked), it may be time for a refresher course on what it means to be an ultrabook.
This trademarked Intel marketing term is generally taken to mean "a Windows laptop kind of like a MacBook Air." But, it's actually much broader than that, and we've seen ultrabooks that have 14-inch displays, non-SSD hard drives, and even discrete graphics.
The precise definition can be a bit slippery, and different standards apply to different screen sizes. With the launch of the new Ivy Bridge ultrabooks (which I'd call the third wave of ultrabooks), here's how Intel breaks down the required and recommended specs, as noted on the Technology@Intel company blog. … Read more
Along with Lenovo's ThinkPad, the Dell Latitude is the laptop brand we see most often issued by corporate IT departments. While more and more office workers are using consumer-level systems (including MacBooks), there's still a need for laptops and desktops designed around the security and corporate infrastructure concerns of big IT departments.
While more mainstream Ivy Bridge CPUs have been expected for some time, Intel has now officially revealed new details of the Core i5 and low-voltage Core i7 chips. We've been testing systems with some of the new processors, most notably the 1.8GHz Intel Core i5-3427U. This is a low-voltage mobile processor specifically … Read more
For many years I've always carried a high-capacity USB key with me. The actual unit has changed size, shape, and capacity, but its purpose has always been the same: to easily transport files too large for convenient e-mailing.
This idea is usually called "sneakernet," as in, you physically walk the files from your current location to wherever they need to go, either across the office, or the other side of town.
My current sneakernet device is an 8GB LaCie IamaKey -- conveniently shaped like a key and easy to attach to a key chain. It was usually … Read more
Dan: I've spent years attempting to divine the line between mainstream and enthusiast gaming, trying to figure out which games could cross over into popular culture, and which ones were going to stay locked into a small, but dedicated, core audience.… Read more
But, would this fairly significant change be worth it? If Apple breaks from the laptop norm (for example, by upgrading the 15-inch MacBook Pro's 1,440x900-pixel display to a purported 2,560x1,600 pixels), I'd have concerns about battery life, system size and weight from a potentially larger battery, and even price, as higher-resolution panels cost $100 more by some estimates. And consumers could be confused if Apple breaks a long-standing tradition of how laptop screen sizes and screen resolutions relate.
The current high-end resolution for laptops is 1,920x1,080 pixels, which we sometimes refer to as full HD or 1080p -- that's the same as Blu-ray HD video. On a 17-inch desktop-replacement laptop, it's great, and it mostly works on a 15-incher as well. The handful of 13-inch laptops with 1,920x1,080-pixel screens I've seen are hard to read. For even higher resolutions, Apple would have to have a workaround for this. The most likely way a Retina MacBook would work would be using HiDPI. My colleagues Josh Lowensohn and Brooke Crothers explain:
If Apple bumps up the resolutions on these displays and keeps them the same size, it has to treat pixels differently using a a special mode called HiDPI. The feature understands that there are more pixels, but that the scale of the display is the same. Apple added the feature to its OS X 10.7 software last year, but it isn't readily available to users. Some third-party software, including the recently-updated Air Display app for iOS have unlocked it so that users can try it out on their third-generation iPad.
Most MacBooks are already outside of the laptop resolution mainstream, with 16:10 screens on everything except the 11-inch MacBook Air, which is the company's only 16:9 laptop. As these are some of the only 16:10 laptops left, some kind of change wouldn't be surprising.… Read more
Add Sony to the list of PC makers embracing Intel's third-generation Core i-series CPUs. According to CNET UK, the Vaio S series is getting updated CPUs, with the E moving into new screen sizes. The Vaio S currently only lists updated quad-core Ivy Bridge processors, as the dual-core versions have not been released by Intel yet.
The previous iteration of the S Series was designed to be slim and portable while still packing in enough power to tackle any task you could throw at it. The same principles are kept in this new refresh, but they've been upgraded … Read more
Now that rival Intel has launched the first wave of its third-generation Core i-series processors (also known as Ivy Bridge), AMD is launching its own processor update. These new parts are the second generation of A-Series accelerated processing units, previously known by the code name Trinity.
Rather than CPU, or central processing unit, AMD these days uses the term APU, or accelerated processing unit, meaning that a CPU and discrete-level GPU are combined.
Named the A4, A6, A8, and A10, these new laptop processors claim to double the performance over the previous generation of AMD APU chips, and to offer … Read more
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