Here you can read laptop / notebook news focused on the US market. Read various information about new laptop computers and new technologies making notebooks better.
Sony has announced the new VAIO S-series 13.3″ and 15.5″ notebooks with the latest Intel 3rd Gen processors and thin cases in aluminum, magnesium, or carbon fiber flavors.
Design of the cases has changed, but not much, judging from the published image. The most notable change is a larger button-less touchpad, replacing the old one with physical buttons. The optical drive is now a slot-loading one, in a DVD and Blu-ray variant.
The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon business-class ultrabook, scheduled for release this summer, will sport a 14″ display, the Intel Ivy Bridge processor, and a very light and thin carbon-fiber body weighing 3 pounds and measuring 0.71 inches thick. That’s down from the already light and thin classic 13.3″ X1 ThinkPad’s 3.7 pounds and 0.84″. Besides the larger screen and thinner and lighter chassis, the X1 Carbon delivers improved screen resolution of 1600×900, up from 1366×768, as well as RapidCharge for fast battery recharges. The notebook has a spill-resistant keyboard with backlight and optional 3G connectivity. There’s no word on pricing.
An AMD Trinity-powered ultra-thin laptop - the HP SleekBook.
AMD officially announced today the “Trinity” processors for laptops and desktops. Among them, for the laptop market are important the AMD A6-4455M and A10-4655M for the Ultrabook-like thin machines, as well as the A6-4400M, A8-4500M, and A10-4800M for the standard notebooks.
The new processors, also called the 2nd Generation A-Series Accelerated Processing Units, are based on the last year’s 32-nanometer production process and include the improved “Bulldozer” cores now called “Piledriver” and the Radeon HD 7000 “Northern Islands” graphics. According to AMD, the Trinity provides up to 2x performance-per-watt improvement over the previous Llano chips. The first reviews show a clear lead of the Trinity over Intel’s Ivy Bridge in terms of graphics, but the AMD’s chips lag behind the competition when it comes to the raw CPU performance.
Besides the EliteBook higher-end business laptops, HP has announced the refreshed ProBook lineup designed for the more budget-conscious biz people.
The new models are the ProBook b-series 6470b/6475b and 6570b, with 14″ and 15.6″ displays, respectively, and the s-series 14″ 4440s, 15.6″ 4540s/4545s, and 17.3″ 4740s. The ProBook s will also come in a 13.3-inch variant, according to HP. The models ending with 0 number before the last letter are with the 2012 Intel processors, while those ending with 5 use AMD’s CPUs.
Hewlett-Packard has announced the Intel Ivy Bridge update across the HP EliteBook p-series business laptop line and added a new ultraportable model. The smallest EliteBook member now is the new HP 2170p with a 11.6-inch display. Moving on up, we have the 2570p, 8470p, and 8570p with 12.5″, 14″, and 15.6″ displays.
Hewlett-Packard has announced the HP EliteBook Folio 9470m, an Ultrabook specially designed for business users.
The Folio 9470m has a 14-inch display diagonal and weighs 3.6 pounds, with profile measuring 0.75 inches. Its enterprise-class features include Intel vPro system management support, docking capabilities, as well as built-in Trusted Platform Module chip, smart card reader, and storage encryption for better security.
Alongside the affordable HP Envy 4 and 6, Hewlett-Packard has added the premium-class HP Envy Spectre XT to its Ultrabook lineup.
The 13.3-inch Spectre XT features an all-metal body, unlike the previously released glass-cladded Spectre 14. With a 0.57-inch profile, the XT is fairly thin even for the Ultrabook standards and it weighs about three pounds. Inside the silver aluminum case with chrome edges around the base and lid, the laptop houses the 3rd Generation Intel Core processors, 128GB or 256GB of mSATA SSD storage, and a battery good for “up to eight hours” of run time.
The 15.6″ HP Pavilion g6 and 17.3″ g7 budget laptops will hit the US market on July 25th, with prices starting at $450, the PC maker has announced.
The Pavilion g-series for 2012 are made of plastics, and feature beveled edges, bowl-shaped keyboards, textured touchpads, and a chrome strip around the speaker bar. The chassis color choices are black, white, red, blue, and purple. HP hasn’t provided details on the notebook duo, but they are expected to come with various Intel and AMD CPU choices, including higher-end 3rd Generation Intel Core chips, as well as with dedicated GPU options.
Hewlett-Packard has announced the HP Pavilion m6 15.6″ entertainment notebook PC.
The key differentiator between the m6 and other Pavilion notebooks is a sleeker design and use of brushed aluminum on palm rests and lid on the former. The keyboard is chiclet-style and has optional backlight.
The recently leaked HP Envy 4 and Envy 6 Ultrabooks are now official. In addition, the PC maker has announced lower-end configurations of the 4 and 6 series and named them “Sleekbooks” since they don’t meet Intel’s Ultrabook standards.
The 14″ Envy 4t and 15.6″ Envy 6t are configurable models sold via the HP Store. The 4t is available with the low-voltage i3-2367M and i5-2467M Intel Core “Sandy Bridge” CPUs, while the larger 6t comes with the i5 variant only.
Samsung NP700Z7C-S01US with Intel Ivy Bridge CPU
Another laptop with an Intel “Ivy Bridge” processor is now on sale in the US. It’s the Series 7 Samsung NP700Z7C, listed at Amazon.
The 17.3-incher appears to have the same industrial design as the current Series 7 Chronos laptops, but it packs inside the Core i7-3615QM quad-core CPU from Intel’s 3rd Generation Core family, codenamed “Ivy Bridge”. The i7-3615QM is clocked at 2.3GHz by default, but the speed can be increased on-the-fly to maximal 3.3GHz on some of the CPU cores thanks to Intel Turbo Boost technology.
The AMD E1-1200, which is going to replace the AMD E-300 series Accelerated Processing Unit, has been spotted in a new Acer Aspire E1 laptop PC.
We’ve tried to find differences between the E1-1200 and E-300, but there are only a few of them and the updates are minor. Both dual-core processors belong to the 40-nanometer “Zacate” APU family and have 512KB of L2 cache, a power consumption of 18W, and UVD3 for 1080p HD video decoding. The new APU has a slightly higher clock speed of 1.4GHz as opposed to 1.3GHz on the E-300. The E1-1200 has the built-in AMD Radeon HD 7310 integrated graphics, but judging from its specs it’s the old 80-shader HD 6310 with clock speed set to 500MHz instad of 488MHz.
The first Sony ultrabooks, released last week in the form of the 11.6″ VAIO T11 and 13.3″ VAIO T13, will be available with the 3rd Generation Intel Core processors after all.
The official announcment of the VAIO T series included 2nd Gen Core CPUs only, but Tech Focus spotted last weekend a T11 sample with the 3rd Gen “Ivy Bridge”, which will be reportedly also used in the T13.
The MSI GT60 gaming laptop is now available in the US.
As opposed to its 17.3″ GT70 sibling which comes in various configurations, the 15.6″ MSI GT60 is currenlty offered only in the form of the 0NC-004US model with the Intel Ivy Bridge quad-core i7-3610QM processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M 3GB GDDR5 video card empovering the 1080p display, 12GB (4GB x 3) of DDR3 1,600MHz system memory, dual 500GB hard drives in RAID-0 setup, and a DVD burner.
The recently launched Samsung Series 9 premium-class ultra-thin laptops are going to be available with the Intel Ivy Bridge processors, officially called 3rd Generation Intel Core.
The 13.3-inch NP900X3C and 15-inch NP900X4C are replacements for the 2nd Gen Core-based NP900X3B and NP900X4B respectively and the processor upgrade appears to be the only notable change on the new models. The latest-generation Intel Core i5-3317U ultra-low voltage chip is used in both known NP900X3C and NP900X4C configurations and that also means use of the Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics instead of the 3000-series.
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