Dell Adamo Available Online
March 19, 2009
Update - Official Site: Adamo by Dell
The new Dell Adamo is now available online through Dell. It’s in direct competition with the 13.3-inch Apple MacBook Air, and features a 13.4-inch 16:9 HD Display with “edge-to-edge” glass.
Color choices are either silver aluminum with etching and a pearl finish, or onyx aluminum with brushed finished. It is an aluminum chassis, and it’s been “torsion-tested” according to Dell. With the aluminum build, it’s only 0.65 inches thick.
With the lithium polymer battery, Dell claims up to 5 hours of battery life.
Specifications:
- 1.4GHz or 1.2GHz Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) Core 2 Duo/Centrino Platform
- 128GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
- 2GB - 4GB 800MHz DDR3 RAM
- 802.11n Wireless, plus Ethernet
- Bluetooth 2.1 EDR+
- Mobile Broadband options
- 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium
- 1.3MP Webcam
There are two models/options to start with:
- ADMIRE - $1,999: This is the baseline model, with a 1.2GHz CPU and 2GB of RAM.
- DESIRE - $2,699: This is the high-end model, with a 1.4GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM. It has optional mobile broadband connectivity.
From there, you can select two additional packages (as well as customizing):
- ENTREPRENEUR PACKAGE $2,447 (discounted to $2,348): Adds a 250GB external/USB drive.
- JET-SETTER PACKAGE $2,512 (discounted to $2,398): Adds a Tumi laptop sleeve, and external DVD-RW.
Additional options:
- Various Tumi sleeves
- External USB optical drive (DVD or Blu-Ray)
- External HDD (250GB or 500GB)
Available: http://www.adamobydell.com/commit
Black Friday 2008 - Amazon
November 28, 2008
Black Friday is upon us, and there are some good deals to be had. I’ll update this throughout the day if I see anymore deals.
- Amazon’s Full Black Friday Page
- another version of Amazo’s Black Friday page
Laptop/Notebook related
- Computer and laptop deals
- OCZ Solid State Drive sale
- Laptop accessories
- Mice and keyboard deals
Individual laptops/netbooks/notebooks:
- 8.9″ HP Mini 2133 - $299.99 - KR922UT (VIA CPU)
- 8.9″ Acer Aspire One - $299.99 Intel Atom, SSD, Linux, white
- 8.9″ Acer Aspire One - $349.99 Intel Atom, 120GB HDD, Windows XP, blue
- 8.9″ Asus Eee PC 900 - $417.99 - Black, 20GB SSD, Linux
- 13.3″ Sony VAIO VGN-SR140E/B - $999.99
Movie/DVD/Blu-Ray deals:
- Extensive list of Blu-Ray movies heavily discounted
- More movie/TV deals
- More black friday deals
Individual deals:
- March of the Penguins - $9.99 (Blu-Ray)
- When We Left Earth - $33.95 (Blu-Ray)
- Mad Men - $17.95 (Blu-Ray)
Apple Notebook Event 2008 - Notes
October 14, 2008
Some notes and thoughts about the notebook event that Apple held today. I like the new MacBook design, and keeping the price low enough was very important (redesigned MacBooks start at $1299, older-style at $999). Steve Jobs also left the door open for netbooks in the future.
The new designs:
- They are moving the MacBooks and MacBook Pros to the same design / construction as the 13.3″ MacBook Air
- MacBook Pros are getting a hybrid graphics system, similar to certain Sony models (although the Sony VAIOs using Intel and NVIDIA side-by-side - Apple’s solution is NVIDIA for both). Uses an NVIDIA 9400M and 9600M GT.
- The new MacBooks are getting an LED-lit display, along with the new NVIDIA graphics, a faster bus speed, and faster memory (DDR3).
- For the time being, you can still buy the older style 13.3″ MacBook
- Firewire was dropped from the redesigned MacBooks
Read more
HP Pavilion dv3500t Announced
October 1, 2008
HP has rolled out a new 13.3″ ultraportable, the HP Pavilion dv3500t, which is HP’s first 13.3″ offering in the US. The display itself has a 16:10 ratio. It’s powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo (T5800 up to a T9400) running on Intel’s Centrino 2 platform, and weighs in at around 4.12 pounds with the 6-cell battery (there is a 4-cell available and you can drop the weight down even further weightsaver in the Smart Bay instead of an optical drive).
Should you install a 64-bit version of Windows Vista, you can bump the memory all the way up to 8GB.
The hard drive options are nice as well - you can go upto 400GB with a 5400rpm drive.
Among the features:
- NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS (512MB dedicated memory)
- Optional LED-Backlit panel
- Optional backlit keyboard
- “innovative liquid metallic design”
- Blu-Ray options
- Smart Bay
It has an HDMI 1.3 port, as well as dual headphone jacks and a mini-remote control, which if you combine the optional Blu-Ray Drive (BRD), you would have a nice little multimedia package. They’ve also included software to facillitate the multimedia functions.
It’s already listed on HP’s website under HP Pavilion Notebooks (“Mobility”) and is available for purchase, starting at $999.
Sony VAIO TT Review (TT198UBX)
September 27, 2008
After their hands-on preview, LAPTOP Magazine has published their review of the pricey Sony VAIO TT series (TT198UBX). When I say pricey, it’s over $4,000 USD (the model reviewed) but it does have a large capacity 256GB Solid State Drive setup (SSD) along with a Blu-Ray drive. The SSD setup is unique - it’s actually two 128GB drives in a RAID 0 array - they tested it and in copying and reading files, it was around five times faster than what you normally find in ultraportable laptops.
While it is about as far away from they netbooks as you can get price-wise, LAPTOP Magazine points out that 11.1″ Sony VAIO ultraportable has still managed to make it incredibly small (even with an internal Blu-Ray optical drive): At first glance, the 2.8-pound TT could pass for the mother of all mini-notebooks due to its compact 11.0 x 7.9 x 0.9-inch footprint that isn’t much larger than the ASUS Eee PC 1000.
With all of that, and six hours of battery life, they gave it their editor’s choice award.
Read: - LAPTOP Magazine
Sony VAIO VGN-TT Specs
September 22, 2008
Sony accidentally leaked specifications of the upcoming 11.1″ Sony VAIO VGN-TT series (specs have since been removed) through their VAIO product advisor.
The TT series (the initial four models are “TT190) appears to be the successor to the VAIO VGN-TZ series. All are Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 or SU9400 powered (Ultra Low Voltage - ULV no less), they have an internal optical drive, an LED-Backlit display with integrated Intel graphics, and come with 4GB of RAM.
They manage to keep all of that down to under 2.9 pounds. The high-end model (TT190UBX) comes with a Blu-Ray (BRD) writer along with 256GB of SSD storage, while the other three models feature 160GB SATA drives.
There is a possibility of formal announcements sometime this week - we’ll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, here are the initial models:
- VGN-TT190EIN - Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300, Vista Home Premium, Champagne Gold
- VGN-TT190EIR - Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300, Vista Home Premium, Crimson Red
- VGN-TT190NIB - Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300, Vista Business, Silk Black
- VGN-TT190UBX - Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400, Vista Ultimate, Premium Carbon Fiber Black, Blu-Ray
Sony TT page (Small-Laptops.com)
Via Sony Insider
Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 - More Details
July 22, 2008
More details about the upcoming 13.3-inch Lenovo ThinkPad SL300 have recently been released or confirmed through a data sheet from Lenovo.
The new naming convention for ThinkPads is also mentioned, which we already figured out, i.e. the third character of the name indicates the size of the screen. In this case, the SL300 = a 13.3″ display. Also mentioned is that all ThinkPads are transitioning to widescreen displays.
Additional details:
- Resolution: 1280×800
- Mobile Broadband (AT&T WWAN) options
- Meets “GREENGUARD Air Quality certifications”
- All pre-loaded OSes are 32-bit
- Blu-Ray recorder option for optical drive
- 1x Type I/II PC Card (1x 34mm ExpressCard with adapter)
HDMI Connection:
- Supports HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)
Dimensions:
Width: 12.5 inches / 318 mm
Depth: 9.4 inches / 238 mm
Height: 1.3 - 1.5 inches / 32-36 mm
Weight: 4.6 pounds / 1.2 kg
Included on our SL300 page are CPU options, HDD options, OS options,
Read: Lenovo.com - Data sheet (PDF)
Via: Laptoping
Sony VAIO VGN Z-Series Officially Announced
July 15, 2008
One of the worst-kept secrets around (to the point Sony had even put up a teaser this weekend), the Sony VAIO VGN Z-Series was finally unveiled today.
It’s got a 13.1-inch LED-backlit display. Yes, you read that right, 13.3-inch widescreen (with a scratch-resistant coating no less). They are claiming 100 percent color saturation. I could pretend to understand exactly what that means, but I won’t - I’m going to guess that people who do graphics-oriented work (photographers, video, etc.) will have more accurate colors and leave it at that.
The display is probably the largest resolution in the 13″ and under crowd of laptops - they mention 1600×900.
Coupled with that display is a hybrid graphics system that allows you to change graphics chipsets from a dedicated to an integrated (without having to reboot the laptop!)
They mention there is a “dual channel 128 GB solid state drive (SSD) model” which could mean two 64GB SSDs working in tandem.
Prices start at $1,800 USD. SSD models start at $2,300 USD. They will be available at Sony Style stores and various retailers in the US starting in August.
Read: Official Press Release
