Toshiba Notebook Limited Time Offer Starting at $449 Up to April 22 Only

Toshiba launches a limited time promo for their laptops & notebooks starting at only $449



Just go to Toshiba Direct to get your new Toshiba laptop on sale until April 22 only

HP's New $499 Mini Notebook Out Now!

Here's a nice review from PC World's Glen Fleishman

HP announced a $499 laptop today targeted at the education market. The HP 2133 Mini-Note PC seems remarkably underfeatured to me for the price: it has no DVD or even CD drive; no hard drive (a 4 GB flash module is included); an 8.9-inch display; just 512 MB of RAM, and the Linux operating system (SuSE Enterprise Desktop 10). What gives?

It's all about the weight, durability, and market segment. I could go and buy a Dell Inspiron 1525 for $499 and get Windows Vista Home Basic, a CD burner/DVD writer, 2 GB RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and 15.4-inch screen, among other features.

When I drill into the details, too, I find a lot about the HP model that's particular to this market as well. It's got a sudden-motion sensor for drive safety built into the models with hard drives that start at $549; Dell offers that only as a $150 capacity/feature upgrade on the 1525. The small screen is WXGA--least 1,280 by 768 pixels, which means images and video should be crisp, not blocky. A built-in VGA camera on the HP 2133 costs $25 more to add to the Dell unit.

But the biggest tradeoff is weight and size: the Dell starts at 5.9 lbs (2.7 kg); the Mini-Note PC, just 2.8 lbs (1.3 kg). For students and staff alike, that's a lot less to carry, and may be a big part of its appeal, just like Apple's somewhat less-than-fully-equipped MacBook Air that sheds 2 to 3 pounds off similar devices from Apple and other makers.

The Mini-Note PC is quite small, too, measuring 10 by 6.5 by 1 inches (25.5 by 16.5 by 2.7 cm) to the Dell Inspiron 1525's wedge of 14 by 10 inches (36 by 26 cm), with depth tapering from 1.5 to 1 inches (3.7 cm to 2.5 cm).

For a little more, you can get something like a "regular" laptop: $599 gets you Windows Vista Home Basic, 1 GB of RAM, and a 120 GB hard drive, as well as 802.11a/g networking instead of the plain 802.11g found in both the Dell and Mini-Note.

It seems that for an increasing number of users, less may be much more.

First Ever Ruggedized Notebook By Dell

This laptop is built for rough terrain. The first of its kind. If we have gone through life, pampering our laptops from heat, rain or impact - Dell has revolutionized laptop hardware to withstand all these...

Rugged and Ready

The Latitude XFR D630 is Dell’s first fully ruggedized notebook. Designed for outstanding performance in virtually any environment, the XFR meets strict military standards for extreme conditions, MIL-810F.

Die cast magnesium alloy chassis Sealed keyboard and door covers Shock isolated hard drive and display protection Patent pending thermal management system

The Latitude XFR D630 meets environmental challenges by offering a variety of innovative usability options, including:

Industry's first fully rugged 14.1" wide-aspect LCD with DirectVue(tm) technology Optional touch screen supports finger, gloved or passive stylus inputs Next generation performance with Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo processors

Built on the successful Latitude D family, the Latitude XFR D630 laptop maintains commonality with the Latitude D630 series and offers all of the quality, reliability and support offered by an established platform.

Lenovo Set To Challenge HP And Dell In Consumer Notebooks

An article from Information Week reports that Lenovo last Thursday officially entered the U.S. consumer notebook market with three products for people willing to spend more than the basic-notebook price in order to get better entertainment features.

The notebooks fall under the new IdeaPad brand, which will be the consumer side of Lenovo's mobile PC business. The Chinese company is best known in the United States for its ThinkPad line of business notebooks.

The IdeaPad Y510, Y710, and U110 models are powered by Intel's dual-core Centrino mobile platform, use facial-recognition technology in combination with a 1.3-megapixel embedded camera for security, and have five Dolby Home Theater speakers. In addition, the notebooks have Wi-Fi support, DVD/CD recordable combo drives, touch-sensitive control surfaces, textured outer cases, and frameless screens. "They look very smooth, sleek, and clean," Craig Merrigan, VP of global consumer marketing for Lenovo, said of the screens.

This new product is meant to go head-to-head with Hewlett-Packard's Pavilion entertainment notebooks and Dell's XPS line. Both combine sleek design with features for playing and organizing music and video, as well as editing and showing photos.

Lenovo is hoping its notebooks' design, VeriFace Face Recognition software, and Dolby Home Theater system will help differentiate them from rivals. The VeriFace software uses the notebooks' embedded camera to recognize a user's face for login, making it unnecessary to remember passwords. "Your face becomes your password," Merrigan said.

The sound system includes four speakers on the top of the machine -- front, top, and each side -- and a subwoofer underneath. The systems also include Lenovo's Multimedia Control Center software, which the company claims makes it easy to play movies, listen to music, and view photos. The notebooks also have touch-sensitive controls for choosing multimedia files and for setting volume and the built-in equalizer.