Apple’s new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks were a surprise for their WWDC 2009 keynote, not least because most people were only expecting the iPhone 3G S. Still, we won’t turn our noses up at new unibody machines with boosted specifications, and so when Apple invited us to check out their new MacBook Pros we gladly accepted. Check out our hands-on first impressions after the cut.
It’s not only the new dv6z Artist Edition and dv6t that HP are unveiling today: the company has also taken a knife to the price tags of their ultraportable Pavilion dv3t and Pavilion dv2z. The former, a 13.3-inch machine with Intel processors, went on sale back in April and now gets a $150 cut to $649.99. Meanwhile the dv2z with its 12.1-inch display and AMD Neo processor slides down a similar amount to $599.
Acer are reportedly considering phasing out their 11.6-inch Aspire One netbook, in favor of a new model in their Timeline range with the same screen size. The news, which comes from industry sources in Taiwan, suggests that the new 11.6-inch Acer Timeline will launch in June, with the netbook either discontinued or discounted to differentiate between the two models.
HP have announced their latest mainstream notebook, the HP dv6z Artist Edition, and as you can see it’s not exactly adopted a retiring color scheme. As the name might suggest, HP pack the dv6z with media creation software, including Magix Music Maker 14, Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2, Painter Sketch Pad and VideoStudio X2, all running on one of a choice of AMD Turion processors.
Video demos of the HP dv6z Artist Edition after the cut
Apple has updated its MacBook Pro range, announcing a new 15-inch MBP with a built-in battery that is apparently good for up to 7hrs of runtime. It also drops the ExpressCard slot of the previous model and replaces it with a far more user-friendly SD card slot. Meanwhile the 17-inch MacBook Pro gets a price cut to $2,499, while the 13-inch MacBook now graduates to the Pro line with integrated 7hr battery among other things. Full details after the cut, plus a big price-cut for the MacBook Air.
After rumors back in April that HP were planning to launch a 3D laptop courtesy of NVIDIA’s GeForce 3D technology, now comes word that Acer are planning their own 3D rival. According to Campbell Kan, VP of Acer’s mobile computing business unit, the 15.6-inch Aspire 3D laptop will arrive at the end of October 2009, and require stereoscopic glasses in order for the 3D effect to be viewed.
The PSP Go! is shaping up to be great, but it doesn’t have a full QWERTY keyboard, does it. Acidmods forum member folklord36’s PSP Laptop does, though, courtesy of an Xbox Chat Pad, together with relocated speakers, LED lighting and more.
Acer’s Timeline range of ultraportable notebooks has been priced for the US, and whereas we were expecting a starting price of around $699 Acer are actually delivering a $598 entry-level machine. That gets you the 15.6-inch Timeline with Intel’s 1.3GHz Pentium SU2700 and 3GB of DDR3 RAM; if you want one of the 14-inch or 13.3-inch models budget $699.99 or $899.99 accordingly.
Last year’s NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT substrate problem is still causing headaches for Apple, who have announced they will be extending warranty support for those MacBook Pro owners affected. The issue, in which overheating of the GPU causes display distortion or failure, can only be addressed by replacing the notebook’s logic board.
Warranty details after the cut
Ah, the sweet smell of a broken embargo. Alienware’s All Powerful M17x gaming notebook thought it had a few days of tease left in it, but the 17-inch 1920 x 1200 Core 2 Extreme quad-core behemoth has been set free by PCWorld. Under the carefully creased hood there’s up to 8GB of 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM and a choice of up to 1TB 7,200rpm hard-drive or 512GB SSD. Graphics are courtesy of two 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280M GPUs.
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