February 10th Odds and Ends
February 10, 2008
A roundup of interesting articles from the past week.
Wired Magazine: Like Apple, Intel Wants to Put the Internet in Your Pocket - Discussion of Intel’s Silverthorne and Intel’s efforts at pushing beyond that, to where we can have a near-desktop like internet experience in a mobile device we can practically carry in our pockets.
CNET Blogs: “Which is sturdier, a MacBook Air or an HP business laptop?” A quick first-look at the MacBook air at how it stacks up against an HP notebook and how sturdy it feels and how it’s handling heat.
Akihabara News: Evergreen’s Mini Trackball for Your Laptop - a very small trackball made for travelers and those desiring a very small device - weighs in at 77 grams/2.7 ounces.
Engadget: Dell XPS M1330 update BIOS hints at upcoming Blu-Ray/DVD combo drive - a new BIOS update for the M1330 mentions “Blu-Ray / DVD +/- RW Combo Drive”.
AppleInsider: Rumor: possible Apple event brewing for late February - Might or might not be somewhere around the 26th. Could it be time for Penryn-based MacBook Pros, etc.?
LifeHacker: Remove Stains from a MacBook with Toothpaste - apparently toothpaste can clean up white MacBooks
jkOnTheRun: HP wants to sell you a Tablet PC - HP has produced a cool little video detailing the advantages of convertible/Tablet PC laptops.
GottaBeMobile: How Cool Is The HP TC1100 Tablet PC? mentions that the TC1100 makes an appearance in the above video showing off the 2710p convertible.
Engadget: Dell further clarifies how and where it’s dropping AMD The Engadget crew spoke with Dell about whether or not Dell was dropping AMD CPUs from their lineup. There was an image that went up on a Dell site indicating that AMD CPUs were not going to be sold anymore (or rather Dell products with said CPUs). Dell’s response: Not sure how/why the image appeared, AMD-based consumer computers will be in stores only except for certain desktops and the Inspiron 1501 notebook. Business-oriented lines (including the Latitude) that have AMD CPUs will still be sold online, and so on. Read the full article for all the details. Kind of an interesting/murky situation if you ask me.
Finally,
CNET Blogs: Windows Vista SP1 - Benchmarks - Robert Vamosi has put Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) through it’s paces, including Adobe Photoshop CS3, file copying, iTunes encoding, and DVD battery life tests.
As you know, Vista SP1 has been released to manufacturing and some users are already getting their hands on it.
That wraps it up for this week in review.
Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 - RTM
February 4, 2008
Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 has officially been released to manufacturing:
Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) was released to manufacturing today and will start being available to customers in March, starting with Microsoft Volume Licensing customers……Windows Vista SP1 includes quality improvements that help enhance reliability, security and performance.
You can read the full press release here (Microsoft.com).
Some interesting information:
- It will be released through an Windows Update as an option to existing customers in Mid-March if you do not have any driver issues with SP1 - SP1 contains some driver issues/problems and will not automatically install on those machines. This will be for English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese.
- Windows Vista users who have updates set to download and install automatically will receive SP1 in mid-April, although, again, systems that have known driver issues will not receive it automatically. Once those drivers are fixed and received through Windows Update (automatically), then it will be turned on and installed.
- All other languages not being released in March will be released to manufacturing in April.
More from the Windows Vista Team Blog (excerpts):
Read more
Sony SZ7 Series Shipping, Taking Pre-Orders
January 23, 2008
Sony is starting to make available some models of the new VAIO VGN SZ7 series (last month, Notebook Review came across the information on Sony’s website as well as online retailers). At some point it will be fully replacing the SZ6 series.
While it shares many things in common with the SZ6 series (similar 13.3″ LED-backlit displays, Same Hybrid Intel and NVidia graphics system, carbon fiber casing, Vista Business, etc.), it offers several different features, including upgraded memory, larger hard drives, and most importantly, Intel’s new Penryn CPUs. The Penryn line is faster, with better power consumption (and in theory less heat), and in some instances it adds more cache (up to 6MB L2 Cache).
Earliest ship dates (with minimum options):
SZ740 - Maybe shipping now using existing Intel Merom-2M CPUs
SZ750N/C - Ship Date of 2/20/2008
SZ770N/C - Ship Date of 1/30/2008
SZ780 - Ship Date of 2/3/2008
SZ791N/X - Ship Date of 1/30/2008
Differences and prices between models:
- SZ750N/C - $1899 at Amazon/Sony, Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn T8100 (2.1GHz), 2GB Memory
- SZ770N/C - $2249 at Amazon/Sony, Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn T9300 (2.5GHz), 3GB Memory
- SZ791N/X - $2499 at Amazon/Sony, Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn T9300 (2.5GHz), 4GB Memory (May have “Premium” Carbon Fiber Case)
Configure to Order Models (CTO):
- SZ740 - Starts at $1429 - Options vary - see SZ7 page for details
- SZ780 - Starts at $1541 - Options vary - see SZ7 page for details
Deal of the Week: HP Pavilion tx1000z ($699)
January 22, 2008
Note: This deal is now over
Now that the HP Pavilion tx2000z, HP’s latest “entertainment” 12.1″ widescreen Tablet PC/Convertible Laptop is in production, prices on its predecessor, the HP Pavilion tx1000z, are being reduced quite a bit to clear out existing inventories.
You can now find (if you are in the US), the tx1000z on sale at Office Depot for $699.99 (before taxes, but has free shipping if you qualify) through January 26, 2008 (sale page at Office Depot).
The particular model on sale has these specifications:
Read more
Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Details Leaked?
January 20, 2008
On Friday, Gizmodo reported on what they claim is leaked information about a Lenovo ThinkPad X300, a new line from Lenovo that would be competing with the MacBook Air from Apple. One advantage it would have is that it has an integrated DVD writer (albeit you pay for the advantage with lowered battery life and increased weight). Some could make a good argument that an optical drive is becoming more and more unnecessary these days, and it appears this ThinkPad maybe like other ThinkPads, and allow you to replace the optical drive with an additional battery, increasing battery life substantially. It also comes with a new style of wide TouchPad.
Anyways, on with the specs (we are treating these as a rumor at this point):
CPU/Chipset: Intel Merom Core 2 Duo Low Voltage (LV) 2.0 Ghz, 4MB Cache, 12W, Intel Crestline GMS, 800MHz Frontside Bus
Front-side Bus: 880MHz
Memory: Up to 4GB Memory
Display/Graphics: Intel Crestline graphics, 13.3″ LED-backlit display, 1440×900 resolution
Storage: 64GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
Connectivity: WiMAX, Intel Kendron MIMO, WWAN, External USB Modem, 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet
Dimensions:
Width: 318mm (12.5 inches)
Depth: 231mm (9.1 inches)
Height: 18.6 - 23.4mm (0.73 - 0.92 inches)
Weight: 1.13kg (2.5 pounds) - 1.44kg (3.17 pounds) depending on options
Microsoft Windows Vista - Service Pack 1 Beta
August 29, 2007
Today, Microsoft Windows Vista team has announced, through their blog, formal information about the Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1 beta, how you can get it, and when it’s going to be available for widespread testing. Microsoft’s Jon DeVaan (Senior Vice President of MS’s Windows Core Operating Systems Division) also had some comments about their goals and timelines.
Brief Summary - What it will contain:
- Previously released updates
- Changes that address reliability and performance issues (including copying files and shutting down)
- Additional support for new types and revisions of hardware (Drivers, etc.)
- Additional support for “several emerging standards” (EFI, ExFat file system for flash memory drives)
- Improvements concerning the “IT administration experience” (SL Note: presumably this means helping out system and network administrators in corporate or similar settings).
- Bettery printer management
- BitLocker Drive Encryption for “encrypting multiple volumes on the PC”
- Improved network diagnostics
Specifics:
- Around 50MB in size (Depending on where it’s obtained).
- A broader release of Windows Vista SP1 is scheduled to roll out in the next few weeks (it’s currently in limited testing right now). This is expected to be released to over 10,000 testers.
- Pre-Release of SP1 will be rolled out later on through MSDN and be made available to Microsoft TechNet subscribers.
- SP1 is scheduled to be released to manufacturing sometime during the first quarter of 2008.
Windows Server 2008:
- Also scheduled for the first quarter of 2008.
Links:
- Windows Vista Team Blog
- Press Pass - Microsoft’s Jon DeVaan’s Comments
Thanks to Tim for emailing this in.
