Love or hate Apple, we can all agree that the company has been at the forefront of design for computers for a long time. Back before every computer marker around was producing all-in-one machines; Apple had its line of iMac computers. There were rumors going around that the new line of iMac computers would have Blu-ray players. In a case of a rumor spawned by a rumor, we hear today that Blu-ray was pulled from the new iMac line shortly before the machines went into production last month.
HP have also updated their business notebooks and desktop range today, in the shape of the HP ProBook 6445b and ProBook 6545b laptops and the HP Elite 7000 Business Desktop PC. The two notebooks each offer a choice of AMD Turion II, Athlon II or Sempron processors, together with up to 8GB of RAM, up to 500GB HDD/128GB SSD, and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 graphics. The ProBook 6445b has a 14-inch display running at 1,366 x 768 while the ProBook 6545b has a 15.6-inch display running at either 1,366 x 768 or 1,600 x 900.
HP have gone touch-crazy in the run-up to Windows 7’s release, pushing out several new touch-sensitive products including a 42-inch widescreen LCD. The HP TouchSmart tx2 updates the original convertible tx2, and has a 12.1-inch capacitive touchscreen which also accepts stylus input; meanwhile there are two new TouchSmart desktop ranges, in the shape of the consumer-oriented HP TouchSmart 300 and 600 – at 20- and 23-inches respectively – and the business-centric HP TouchSmart 9100, a 23-inch model targeted at the hospitality and retail markets.
NES console mods are cool, HTPCs are pretty cool, and nettops with NVIDIA Ion graphics are darned cool too, so when you put all three elements together you’ve got a recipe for something with a whole lot of cool potential. Modder drumboog has been video documenting his work transforming a NES into an Atom 330 based Blu-ray HTPC with GeForce 9400M graphics, and while it’s not quite complete yet, it’s certainly 99-percent awesome.
Video after the cut
Fujitsu have outed two new notebooks, the AMILO Pi 3560 and 3660, with optional Blu-ray, HDMI connectivity and NVIDIA GeForce GT240M 1GB graphics. The AMILO Pi 3560 has a choice of 15.6 or 16-inch 16:9 LED-backlit displays, while the AMILO Pi 3660 has an 18.4-inch 16:9 display; both have standard WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth.
LG have announced a new home cinema system, and if you’re a fan of globular satellite speakers and have an iPod then this might be worth a look. The LG HB954SP Blu-ray HCS packs a Full HD 1080p video and 5.1 surround sound audio system into a compact, blue-tinged box, with 1,000W of audio tuned by ear-wizard Mr Mark Levinson.
Sony’s final new VAIO announcement this week is the VAIO CW Series, a range of 14-inch 16:9 aspect notebooks available in a series of moderately striking colors. Chubbier than the VAIO X, certainly, the CW Series uses that extra heft to slide in an optional Blu ray burner together with NVIDIA GeForce GT230M 512MB or GT210M 256MB graphics and both VGA and HDMI ports.
“Touch me, touch me” sang 80s legend Samantha Fox, “I want to feel your body,” and while the intentions of Sony’s new VAIO L Series of touchscreen desktops may be different, the sentiment is just the same. Announced alongside the skinny VAIO X, the L Series is being pushed – like other big-screen all-in-one PCs in Sony’s past – as a hybrid HDTV and computer, though with its 24-inch 1920 x 1080 display, optional Blu-ray and optional TV tuners we suppose it does have more of a claim than most. As for the touchscreen, that’s used not only for Windows 7’s multitouch functionality but to control Sony’s own Media Gallery DVR app.
HP’s Winter 2009/2010 consumer device catalog has leaked, tipping a new touchscreen ultraportable together with confirming the company’s new CULV notebook and their Core i7-based desktop replacement. The HP Pavilion dv3 with TouchSmart is a 13.3-inch 1,366 x 768 notebook with a touchscreen interface, up to 500GB hard-drive, 8GB of RAM and NVIDIA GeForce G105M graphics.
ASUS’s Eee Top ET2002T and ET2203T all-in-one nettops may have been confirmed for the US since August, but it’s taken the company a little while longer to discuss plants for them in the UK. Now seems as good a time as any to revisit what you get from either a 20- or 21.6-inch nettop, based on Intel’s Atom dual-core 330 in the case of the smaller machine, or a choice of Intel Core 2 Duo chips in the larger.
SlashGear Japan
