LAPTOP Magazine has finished their review of the budget ultraportable notebook, the Dell Inspiron 710M. The 710M is a slight upgrade over it’s predecessor, the Dell 700M ( a bump in processor speed, case color, and software). It comes with a 12-inch display and can be had for right around $1000 – $1200 USD (if not cheaper, depending on configuration).
Recently I mentioned that more information has come out about Samsung’s flash-based 32GB solid state hard dives for notebooks. CNET ASia is reporting that the drives are being offered to manufacturers. They mention that the costs are as of yet, unknown, but that based on comparable flash-based memory, they could be quite expensive.
MobileWhack.com has news of the world’s first 200GB 2.5-inch Serial-ATA (SATA) harddrive for notebooks. According to MobileWhack, it was specifically designed to meet demands of high end audio/video computing applications such as gaming, video editing, audio recording and DVR functionality. It’s targeted at high-end notebooks, although as more and more ultraportable notebooks roll out with Intel’s new Centrino platform, with SATA capability in many of the notebooks, it won’t be surprising to see this drive show up all over the place.
Even though it’s geared towards audio/video manipulation, it’s actually 4200rpm (although it will be faster than a typical 4200rpm in the 2.5-inch class because of the engineering behind it).
Of note, it consumes 1.6W during R/W functions, and at idle, only 0.5W. That is not bad at all.
Cisco Cheng has put together another ultraportable review for PC Magazine, and this time it’s Sony’s newest ultraportable, the VAIO VGN-SZ170P/C. Made with a carbon fiber casing, even with a 13.3-inch widescreen display, this notebook weighs in at under four pounds (about 3.72 pounds to be exact).
Just a quick note, I added the Daewoo Lucoms Solo CN250 to our listings – it is a Korean ultraportable, with a 12.1-inch widescreen display. I don’t believe it’s available outside of Korea. There are three different models with slight variations (harddrive size, CPU speed, OS). It’s powered by a Pentium M 1.73GHz or 1.86GHz CPU, has an internal optical drive, and maxes out at 1GB of memory