Filed under: Laptops

DeviceVM’s Splashtop — the (almost) instant-on Linux system — has made its way onto an ASUS laptop before, but the company has announced today that said application is coming to even more of ASUS’ rigs. If you’ll recall, ASUS decided to bring Splashtop to all of its motherboards earlier this month, and now consumers who snap up a M70T, M50V, M51Vr, F8Va or F8Vr series machine can also look forward to having near-instant access to multimedia playback, chat capabilities, etc. as soon as they hit the power button. On these lappies, the system will be dubbed Express Gate, but you can rest assured it’s absolutely the same thing. We’d hold off a few days on picking up one of the aforesaid units, however, as the pre-loaded models aren’t slated to ship until next month.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Laptops

Just a week after we laid hands on a pair of new multimedia powerhouses from Acer, along comes ASUS to keep things interesting. Announced today, the 15.4-inch M50 packs quite the punch, with options for Intel’s latest smattering of Penryn processors, an optional Blu-ray drive and an available ATI Mobile Radeon HD3650 with 1GB of VRAM. The unit also comes with your choice of WXGA, WXGA+ or WSXGA+ panels, any Vista flavor you like, WiFi, up to 4GB of RAM, HDMI and a built-in hybrid TV tuner. Also included is a dual-function trackpad, which enables users to flip through tracks or playlists and adjust the volume of the Altec Lansing speakers when not mousing about. Regrettably, ASUS has yet to dole out any accompanying pricing information, but we doubt this bundle of joy will be anywhere close to a bargain.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of excitement when Pentax releases new cameras in its Optio range — do you people only love them for their DSLRs? — but nonetheless, we gave them the same hands-on treatment that everyone else gets. Below you’ll find the new S12, E50, and M50 in all their seemingly-unpopular glory, despite the fact that they seemed like fairly stylish, solidly-built products to us. Still with us? Great, we’ve got a lot of multi-colored point-and-shoot action in store for you.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: CES, Storage

Oh, how long laptop drives have awaited to reach that magical 500GB / 1TB mark for single and dual drive machines, respectively. Well, today, thanks to Hitachi, road warriors everywhere can find sweet release from their so-very-cramped Toshiba / Western Digital 320GB drives with a new Hitachi 5K500 or E5K500-equipped machine. Except there’s just one catch. This jump in storage didn’t come from advancements in storage technology — it came from Hitachi cramming another platter onto the stack. More platters equal more thickness, and the 5K500 and E5K500 are 3mm thicker than your industry-standard 9.5mm thick 2.5-inch drive. In other words, Hitachi copped out in the race to 500GB and created a non-standard sized drive that more than likely won’t fit in your laptop or external enclosure.

Furthermore, while they’ll start at $400 (the E5K500 will likely cost a bit more, it’s the enterprise drive with bulk data encryption and is rated for 24/7 access) when they’re available in February, you won’t be buying them; even assuming your device is engineered with enough room to accommodate the drives’ expanded girth, Hitachi doesn’t intend to sell them except to OEMs for systems integration. First on the chopping block: Asus, and its M50 and M70 laptops, which will be getting dual-drive configs for a mobile terabyte. One more glamor shot after the break.

Continue reading Hitachi’s 5K500, E5K500 hit the mythical 500GB mark for laptops — with a catch

Permalink | Email this | Comments