Dell Adamo Admire Drops Below $1,000

Probably Dell's best looking machines, the Adamo Admire, has just received a significant price cut that could be the turning point in how many people buy the machine or pass it up and it from the looks of things I would bet a lot of people will find it hard to resist.

The Admire sports some pretty nice specs but not some good enough for it's original price tag. Inside this thing you will find a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino technology, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 2GB 800MHz DDR3 dual channel memory and 128GB solid state drive. In addition to that there is a super-thin 13.4-inch 16:9 (high definition; 720p) WLED display, full QWERTY keyboard with backlighting, integrated 1.3 megapixel camera with integrated digital microphone, 1 display port, 3 USB 2.0 ports, audio out, Gigabit LOM, Bluetooth 2.1 802.11n (3x3) with an integrated RJ-45 port and a battery flaunting up to 5+ hours of life.

All of that packed under a price tag of $999 is enough to get you drooling all over your desk right about now. But if those specs are a little low key for your superior computer tastes, then you might want to check out the Dell Adamo Desire, which has also received a price cut from Dell.

The Desire sports a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino technology, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 4GB 800MHz dual-channel memory, 256GB solid state drive and mobile broadband. Add that to the 13.4-inch 16:9 (high definition; 720p) WLED display, full QWERTY keyboard with backlighting, integrated 1.3 megapixel camera with integrated digital microphone, 1 display port, 3 USB 2.0 ports, audio out, Gigabit LOM, Bluetooth 2.1 802.11n (3x3) and an integrated RJ-45 with a battery suspected of 5+ hours of life. The Desire is slightly more expensive than the $999 Admire coming in at $1,799 though that is still $500 less than the $2,299 price tag it had in October.

Whichever laptop you decide to get you are going to be satisfied. The specs are good and the device itself looks very nice. Add all that to the significant price cut and you have a recipe that is aimed at success. Both laptops are available now through Dell's website

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Do You Really Need an Apple Tablet?

If you visit any tech websites regularly, you probably know Apple is getting ready to unveil its new iTablet computer. Rumors and speculation about the computer's details have been going on for weeks, especially lately. Most people are anxiously awaiting to get their hands on the device. After all, it is Apple and everything that comes from the company is darn near perfect, right? Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but you know how Apple fans are.

Turns out not everyone is excited about tablet. ABC reporter David Francois has come up with a list of reasons as to why you shouldn't rush right out and get one when the time comes. For starters, the iTablet will have a short battery life. If you have an iPhone or a current slim MacBook, you know exactly what to expect when it comes to the battery. This means keeping the device that is supposed to be ultra-portable plugged in more often than not.

If you can get past the battery life, you may not be able to get past the lack of comfort. You can't hold it in your hand like an iPhone and you can't rest it in your lap like a laptop. You can't adjust the screen - it IS the screen - and it doesn't have a rubberized back. Also, tablets have surprisingly been around for about 20 years but as you might have noticed, they haven't exactly caught on. Sure, the technology is better this year than it was in say, 1995, but you dont hear people talking about how much they want to run out and get a tablet.

So, you don't care about comfort, battery life, or popularity? Fine, but why do you even need the device? You've already got your laptop, netbook, and cell phone. The tablet won't do anything those things don't already do. Maybe it will end up with some tablet-specific apps but in the long-run, unless you're just a gadget-freak, what purpose will it serve to have one? Make that a gadget-freak with a big budget. Rumor has it the tablet is going to have a 3G data connection that's definitely going to cost you.

Personally, I'd say wait until the device comes out before you decide whether or not to buy one. Apple didn't get where they are by making brainless moves and who knows what they have in store, but so far, the tablet isn't winning me over.

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Toshiba's New Universal Laptop Docking Station

At the Consumer Electronic Show, Toshiba unveiled a new universal laptop docking station. The Dynadock V, the newest member of the company's Dynadock docking station family, is affordable and said to be a huge improvement over the Dynadock U, which came before it. Not only is it half its predecessor's size and one third of its width, but it offers 1800P support, as well.

Basically, it turns your laptop into a dynamic computer system. Plug in all of your accessories and connect them to your laptop with one simple USB cord. The Dynadock V comes with Toshiba's Dynadock utility software which has all video and audio drivers for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

It has a built in HD video card that that allows you to connect to a VGA or DVI monitor and supports up to a 1920 x 1080 resolution. You may also connect to a keyboard, mouse, printer, router, and more. The sleep and charge USB port can supply power to your cell phone and MP3 player, even when the power is off. It provides you with four USB 2.0 ports and most devices can be added or removed without rebooting your laptop. There are headphone and microphone jacks for VOIP or voice instant messaging and the device also features 10/100 LAN, DVI-I USB in and DC in.

The docking station is 3 inches x 1.34 inches x 6.13 inches and weighs only 9.9 ounces. It comes with a one-year limited standard warranty. The device should be available in February and will retail for about $120.00

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Toshiba & Best Buy Present the Satellite E205

Customers talked and Best Buy and Toshiba listened. The two electronics giants have partnered to bring the light-weight, wireless Satellite E205 to consumers and Best Buy began exclusively selling the laptop on January 17, 2010. The five-pound, one-inch computer made its debut at Intel CEO Paul Otellini's address at the Consumer Electronics Show and retails for about $1,000.

The laptop was developed based on the comments of Best Buy's shoppers. This is the second time the two companies have collaborated. The first time resulted in the Satellite E105 laptop which was released in summer 2008. It features Intel's new Core i5 processor, extended battery life, and a LED-backlit keyboard. It even connects wirelessly to a big-screen HDTV.

Jeff Barney, the general manager of Toshiba's digital products division says the customized model should help the company's laptop sales, "The backlit keyboard was at the top of everyone's wish list."

During the third quarter last year, Toshiba shipped about 1.4 million notebooks, which made up about 13% of all United States. laptop sales. Windows 7 was a big factor in that quarter's computer sales overall.

Toshiba is not the only company Best Buy has teamed with. The retail giant has also worked with Hewlett Packard, Sony, and Dell to produce computers as part of its "Blue Label" program. The company's website, says this about the Blue Label program, "When we set out to make the perfect laptop, we looked to our customers for inspiration. With your ideas as first priority, we partnered with trusted brands to design laptops with the features you asked for. Introducing the new Toshiba, Dell and Sony Blue Label laptops."

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Acer Aspire One 532h

Acer is one of the top netbook manufacturers on the market and has held onto a steady lead in terms of sales in the past year. The companies angle was simple, basic netbooks at lower prices would sell like hotcakes and they were right. Well the Taiwanese company's newest netbook, the Aspire One 532h, holds true to the very formula that has boosted the company's sales.

The design of the 532h is nearly identical to its predecessor, the Aspire One 751h. The main difference you will notice is the multi-colored, metallic-blue and black lid. The device itself is quite portable weighing about 2.4lbs and measuring only .99" thick which makes it thinner than its competition, the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE and the MSI Wind U135 and the all-plastic chassis feels like the right fit for the price tag.

The 532h utilizes a chiclet style keyboard but it doesn't feel like it was implemented good enough. The keyboard is spacious and has two full shift keys, the key spacing feels to close and the keys feel too flat which seems to make touch typing somewhat difficult. The touchpad is of the kind that "flows" along with the rest of the palm rest. By this I mean that the only way you can tell where the palm rest stops and the touchpad begins is by the feel of the grid of rubber dots that makes up the touchpad. The pad feels nice on your fingers but it can feel too grippy sometimes.

The 10.1" screen has a native resolution of 1024x600 pixels which is typical for its class. However, the screen is surrounded by a very thick black bezel which, in my opinion, looks pretty bad and the horizontal viewing angels aren't all that great. The 532h comes with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive that also comes with Windows 7 Starter Edition for a price tag of $349.99. There is a $299.99 version that comes with 160GB of storage as well. The standard 6-cell battery has a solid 6.5 hour battery life which is pretty good for a netbook.

The specs on this machine aren't going to be the main reason it sells a lot of units. While good, the specs are not that good. What really is going to get people is the price. The price difference is between $30 and $80 depending on which model you get and that is going to be a deciding factor for many people. If you are looking for a great on-the-go netbook that is truly a netbook then the Aspire One 532h is something you should definitely consider.

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The Issues with Touchscreens

Touchscreens definitely seemed to be the theme of the Consumer Electronics Show. Everybody is wrapped up in the touchscreen phenomena. There’s touchscreens, touch phones, touch tablets, and 3D entertainment where you can almost “touch” the objects from the movie. Now I know that tons of people love the touchscreen technology, but there are still issues that manufactures are going to have to work out.

All of this “touch” stuff has appeared before the past few years, but it always failed. Before the touch devices of today, the mouse of a computer became a touch item that could be moved around the screen as an icon. This was the first development. Today, the mouse icon has been eliminated to allow our finger to perform actions without the need of an icon.

The iPhone was really the device that made a huge leap in touch technology. The ability to move the screen as a whole with a simple gesture or flip through photos or pages was a whole new aspect of touch technology.

With technology moving in this direction, the mouse will eventually be obsolete. Now I don’t think this will be happening tomorrow or anything, but ultimately it will happen. The reason why it won’t be disappearing right away is because of the traditional computer programs that we currently use all of the time. With spreadsheets, word processors, and many other programs, people just prefer the ease of a mouse.

Now that phones have gone to touchscreens, laptops are sure to follow. One thing that they will have to figure out is a surface that will stay grime-free. Computers already attract dust and now we’re going to add in fingerprints. All of these smudges and grime affect the visibility and sensitivity of the device. They will definitely need to find another type of screen than could prevent these problems.

Pinpoint accuracy is another issue that developers will have to figure out. No one will be able to successfully edit their pictures on their computer with their finger. Sure your finger works fine for clicking, moving around, and lots of other things, but it doesn’t work too well with tiny details. Having a touchpad pen could solve part of this problem, but they need to find a surface that isn’t easily scratched first.

It will be interesting to watch how touchscreens become more common in laptops. Before everything is converted to touch though, there are definitely some issues that they need to work out.

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A Dual Touchscreen Netbook from DNB

So I know I’ve been writing quite a bit about a variety of different things that were at the Consumer Electronics Show, but there were so many amazing things that were showcased there that I can’t help but want to share all the awesome new advances in technology that we are going to see here in 2010.

In the international section at the CES, you could view the DNB “Dual Net-book.” This netbook features two screens. One screen obviously serves as your normal laptop viewing screen, but the second screen doubles as a keyboard and an extra screen. This extra screen can still perform all the necessary function of a keyboard, but it can also convert to a screen to view documents, pictures, etc. Both the top and bottom screens are touchscreens.

Other than this, not a whole lot is know about these dual screened netbooks, but I’m sure we’ll learn about them soon enough. The device is expected to ship around the end of the year, and it is expected to be priced around $800.

It will be exciting to get all the details on this new netbook development and see if it really takes off.

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Gateway EC Series EC14D UltraPortable Laptop

Gateway's EC Series of UltraPortable notebooks has just added to their family with the emergence of the new EC14D configurations. now you may think that this is just your typical small notebook but don't jump the gun on that just yet. The EC14D series is a rare breed as it features an integrated DVD drive, a feature not typically seen on notebooks with an ii.6-inch display. According to a Gateway spokesman "The integrated DVD drive in such a compact device will be a huge benefit for customers who want the flexibility to enjoy and share different movies, music, photos and more stored on a DVD or CD."

The EC14D is designed with the mobile person in mind. The EC14D has some pretty good specs about it. It has an 8X Super Multi double-layer DVD drive that allows users to read all types of DVD and CD media allowing them to enjoy popular movies and games on the fly. It also gives them access to their music files and photos for downloading and sharing on websites like Photobucket, Facebook or Twitter. To add to its mobility the EC14D has a 6-cell battery to allow you to run your notebook up to 8 hours on a single charge.

Connectivity wise the EC14D comes with an 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connection. This gives users fast and easy connection to the internet at any Wi-Fi hotspot. Other specs include an Intel Pentium ULV Processor SU 4100, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 11.6" HD Widescreen Ultrabright LED-backlit TFT LCD screen with a 1366x768 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio, Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD, 4096MB DDR2 Dual-channel 667MHz memory which is upgradeable to 8 GB, 320GB(2) 5400RPM SATA hard drive, Integrated 8X Super-Multi DVD player, integrated webcam, Multi-in-1 digital media card reader, Gigabit Ethernet LAN, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 HDMI port and a multi-gesture touchpad all packed into a case measuring 11.49"(W) by 1.12" to 1.18"(H) by 8.33"(D) and weighing only 3.55lbs.

Along with the EC14D, Gateway is also offering new models in the rest of its EC Series notebook lines. Overall the EC14D looks to be a pretty good little notebook and one that is especially good for mobile notebook needs. If by reading this you have suddenly obtained the dire need to get one of these notebooks then you will be happy to know you don't have to wait long. This device is said to be available by the end of January for a starting price of $629.99.

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Apple to Unveil New Tablet

In an effort to dominate yet another aspect of technology, Apple has revealed that it will be producing a new tablet later this year. The new tablet, said to be competitive with netbooks and e-readers, will likely retail for anywhere from $600 - $1,000. While the hand-held device won't be revealed until later this month, people are already anticipating it and making all kinds of speculation, all over the internet. Rumor has it, the tablet will be on the market, sometime in March.

As devices that can both surf the web and play movies and music become more popular, the tablet may be coming at a very good time. According to BusinessWeek.com, the tablet would be a competition for both e-readers such as Amazon's Kindle and netbooks from companies such as Acer and Hewlett Packard.

According to Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray & Co, Apple could see 1.4 million of the devices by the end of 2010, increasing company sales by two percent or more, depending on the finalized price of the product. "Apple's tablet would compete well in the netbook category, even though it would not be a netbook," said Munster, who expects software to be one of the keys to making the Apple tablet stand out against the competition.

Another bit of speculation is that the new tablet will be app-friendly, meaning it will work with the over 100,000 apps available for iPhone. Kathryn Huberty, an analyst with Morgan Stanley, says she expects the tablet to be ten inches with touchscreen and built-in Wi-fi. She also expects the product to take e-books and magazines a step further by making them an interactive experience that will provide users with links to videos such as author interviews, photos, audio, websites and advertising.

Maynard Um of UBS AG suspects the new tablet could be like an oversized iPod touch...or like a scaled-down notebook computer. It has been said that Apple expects to ship 10 million tablets within the first year of release. Former Google executive Lee Kai-fu says he's spoken with someone familiar with the product and that it will look like an oversized iPhone with its 10.1 inch multitouch screen with three-dimensional graphics.

But the truth of the matter is, no one knows for sure. A spokesperson for Apple says the company will not comment on speculation and rumors. Luckily we won't have to wait too much longer to find out just what Apple has in store for the world of handheld devices. Steve Jobs is set to reveal the tablet later this month.

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Redesigning the New MacBook Air

No one knows exactly how Apple will redesign the new MacBook Air, but there are many speculations. The best way to decide what may be different about the new MacBook is to look at the laptops competition and see where it might be able to improve.

Now the design is something that is going to be difficult to improve. The first design was so good that Apple didn’t change it for its second generation. The aluminum enclosure of the Air set a trend that all MacBook Pros and many other PC makers soon followed.

The razor-thin Air does provide very little room for ports and connectors, so this is definitely an aspect that could be improved upon. Apple came up with the solution to have a flip-out set of USB ports, MiniDisplayPort, and audio ports that retract back into the body of the laptop. The Dell Adamo features a design modification that places all the ports at the back of the laptop behind the screen, allowing a much fuller array of connection ports. Hewlett-Packard went a different direction with their Envy 13. They made it slightly thicker (0.8 inches) than the Air which allows for a couple more connectors. This gives Apple several different options to allow for more connectors on the newly developed Air.

It is also rumored that Apple is going to try to make the new MacBook Air even lighter than the previous model while maintaining its famed sturdiness. To accomplish this, Apple could use something like a combination of aluminum and carbon fiber. HP utilized magnesium as the base of the Envy to make it lighter, so this could also be a consideration for the Air.

It also possible that Apple could make a bigger, smaller, or tablet version of the Air. The tablet version could potentially mean a new enclosure and new silicon.

Great graphic chips are something that are difficult to squeeze into an ultrathin design like the Air. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD sets the MacBook Air from many of the other slimmer designed laptops. Apple introduced Nvidia 9400M graphics silicon to the world with the second generation Air. This offered acceptable graphics, certainly much better than the original MacBook Air. Nvidia is getting ready to release their Ion 2 graphics, but no one is sure how clear they may be. If this is a successful venture for Nvidia, I am sure that the new MacBook Air designers will be very interested.

There is also the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics chip which Advanced Micro Devices boasts as being a “thin and light mobile graphics processor…delivering unprecedented performance-per-watt…while watching Blu-ray movies. This is a chip that has found its way into an HP ultrathin laptop, so this could quite possibly be a consideration for the Air as well.

All of these are merely speculations of what Apple might possibly improve in the new MacBook Air that they are currently developing. Although the Air defined what many laptops are today, there is plenty of room for improvement. It will be quite interesting to see what Apple will do with the newest version of their MacBook Air.

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