Posted 03/01/10 at 10:12:31 AM by Paul Lilly

We're not sure why these haven't received any fanfare up to this point, but for those of you who like to get all touchy-feely with your notebooks, Dell's new Studio 1558 Touch and Studio 1749 Touch notebooks both beg to be groped.

Perhaps a press release is forthcoming, but for the time being, you'll find these models in Dell's online catalog. From what little we're able to lift, both come with a mobile Core i5 processor clocked at 2.4GHz, 3GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium.

"These Studio 1558 and Studio 1749 laptops put the fun in functional," Dell's catalog reads. "The touchscreens let you scroll, pan, and zoom within a variety of applications, manage and edit photos and videos with TouchCam, and indulge your artistic side with YouPaint, all with a simple slide of your fingertips."

According to the catalog, the 1558 and 1749 start at $999 and $1,049, respectively.

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Posted 02/18/10 at 02:31:35 PM by Bart Salisbury

The current lot of PDAs, and perhaps their smartphone and Tablet PC stand-ins, are neat technology, but could you go to war with one? (Maybe even more relevant: could you afford to drop yours?) If what you need is something that will withstand a lot more abuse, AIS Industrial Innovations has something that might interest you: the Mobile Rugged PDA (RPDA37), with the looks and brawn that pair well with your cosplay Master Chief outfit.

The Mobile Rugged PDA is MIL-STD-810F/461F compliant, has an “ingress protection rating of IP67” and meets the IEC 60529 (IP65) international protection standard. It’s build to withstand extreme conditions, repeated five-foot drops, and thermal shock. And it has cool rubberized bumpers.

While that’s impressive, perhaps the internal specs aren’t. The RPDA37 has a Marvell PXA270 625MHz processor, 256MB RAM, and a base storage of 256MB Flash ROM. It has a 3.7-inch transflective TFT LCD that’s touchscreen capable. Resolution depends on the option chosen: either QVGA, 240 x 320, or VGA, 480 x 640. And for operating systems there’s a choice of Windows CE 5.0 or Windows Mobile 6.1.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are standard, but GPS/GAlILEO and GPRS/3G/3.5G are optional. Ports include two USB 1.1 Type A connectors, one USB 1.1 Type B mini connector, an RS-232 port, and ethernet port, headphone and microphone jacks, and a Micro-SD slot.

If you really got to have one you’re going to need to save. The base model will set you back $1,899.

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Posted 02/15/10 at 07:49:49 PM by Ryan Whitwam

The new Asus T101MT netbook tablet was spotted in an FCC filing back in December, but it’s now been made official. The systems comes with the familiar netbook internals including a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, a 10.1-inch LED-backlit screen (with touchscreen capabilities), and 1-2GB of RAM depending on which version of Windows 7 the customer opts for. Consumers will also have a choice between a 160GB hard drive, or a 320GB hard drive with 500GB of Asus cloud storage free for a year.
 
Of course, the real trick here is the rotating screen that swivels around to put the computer into tablet mode. The system is not obscenely heavy at 2.9 lbs, and will offer a reported 6.5 hours of battery life. As an extra added bonus the SD card slot will be able to read the new SDXC cards up to 32GB in size. No specifics on price or availability were announced, but we’ll keep an eye out. Does this sort of form factor interest you at all?

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Posted 02/11/10 at 09:15:23 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Lenovo has introduced three new value systems rocking AMD CPUs and graphics. The C315 is a stylish little all-in-one set up, and the G445 and G555 are laptops. Lenovo is making no mistake about the message here. “Our new G series notebooks and C series all-in-one desktop are designed for users who want a simple but powerful computing experience without any headaches,” said Lenovo’s Dion Weisler.
 
The C315 will have a fairly large 20 inch widescreen display with touchscreen technology built in. It will have an Athlon dual-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, and ATI Radeon Mobility graphics. At $649, this isn’t a bad deal at all. It’s sort of a budget HP TouchSmart machine.

The laptops look like nice values as well. Both will have 16:9 widescreen displays and Turion II dual-core CPUs. Radeon HD graphics are, of course, also on board. Lenovo did not detail what specs would differentiate the two units, which makes us curious as they both have the same MSRP of $449. Keep an eye on this if you're looking for a deal on a system and power isn't tops on your list.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 09:07:22 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Asus is apparently making plans to release their first Pine Trail powered all-in-one PC. The Eee Top ET1610PT will come equipped with the fairly new Intel Atom D410 single core CPU, and of course, Intel integrated graphics. The PC will have a 15.6 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1600x900. It will also come equipped with 802.11n Wi-Fi, which is a nice feature on a low end machine.

Strangely, this new PC will come with Windows XP preinstalled. You read that right, no Windows 7 on this bad boy. The presence of that touchscreen display makes the decision to go with XP just that much more baffling. The machine is expected to go for 400 Euros when is ships.

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Posted 02/01/10 at 04:15:04 PM by Bart Salisbury

Touchscreens are a kludge. For the most part they consist of a touchscreen laid over a display. It works, but it adds an extra layer of complexity and weight to any device that uses one. Samsung says it will begin mass producing a 3.3-inch AMOLED WVGA panel for mobile devices this March, which effectively merges the touchscreen into a single device.

An AMOLED is an incredibly thin LED screen, with brightness nearing that of LEDs, and which has no need for backlighting. What Samsung has done is place the touch sensor onto the display, making them one in the same. (The touch sensor is 0.001 mm thick.) This single-piece device is not only less complex, it’s lighter and thinner.

According to Samsung, “Through mass production, we want to make this touch embedded AMOLED panel number one in the LCD and AMOLED market. Also, we want to mass produce touch screens and construct a system so that we can expand the display market.

For the consumer this means thinner, lighter phones. Or, if the clan at Engadget get their wish, bigger batteries for the phones we already have.

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Posted 01/19/10 at 03:22:51 PM by Bart Salisbury

As the marketplace is pushing for smaller and smaller, Hewlett-Packard (HP) is bucking the trend with bigger. HP recently demonstrated a new design, which it has dubbed the “wall of touch”, built with up to nine 43-inch to 46-inch, 1.5-inch thick LCDs with 1080p resolution. It behaves like a really big TouchSmart computer.

The “wall of touch” is driven by a Z800 workstation, employs a standard touchscreen interface, as well as a gesture-capture interface. Gestures are picked up by optical cameras and a magnetic strip that detect when a user nears, and the movements of the user's hands.

The “wall of touch” is basically a really big TV. HP says the system can access cable and satellite, as well as download and stream media. It connects to social networking sites. And it plays DVDs and DVRs.

HP plans to make the “wall of touch” a mainstream product. HP says it will be available to consumers in 2011. The price tag, depending on options, will range from a couple thousand dollars up to $100,000 or more.

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Posted 01/06/10 at 08:22:56 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Sony has announced yet another product at CES. This one is a bit of a head-scratcher for us, though. The Dash Internet Viewer is a sort of touchscreen widget station. Think Chumby, but with a larger (and frankly, beautiful) 7 inch screen and sleeker design. As it turns out, that’s exactly what it is; the Dash runs the Chumby OS.

Sony is pushing the app angle hard, because well, isn’t everyone? The Chumby OS already has over 1000 apps available, and Sony will be making some new ones of its own. The Dash will have Wi-Fi so you can use it to pull down data for those data-hungry apps. There is no internal battery, so don’t confuse this with a tablet device as some already have.  Is this something you need? If so, the Dash will be shipping in April for $199.

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