If Acer’s Aspire 1410T (aka the Timeline 1810T) took your fancy but you’re a multitouch convert, how about a convertible tablet version of the same ultraportable notebook? macles have spotted the Acer Aspire Timeline 1820T, ostensibly the same 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 notebook with an Intel CULV 1.4GHz Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor and 2GB of RAM, but gaining a rotating screen hinge and a multitouch-capable touchscreen.
LBook have been quietly selling ebook devices for a while now, but the company is hoping to make a splash into the multitouch tablet market next year with their T9. The LBook T9 is an Intel Atom-based 8.9-inch slate running Windows 7, and is tipped to arrive in March 2010 with a price tag in the $350 to $375 region. If they can pull that off, it’s an excellent price for a 12.7mm-thick sofa surfer.
Gateway have unveiled two new all-in-one PCs, which each run Windows 7 and offer multitouch-capable touchscreen displays. The Gateway One ZX6800 and ZX4800 have a 23-inch 1920 x 1080 and 20-inch 1,600 x 900 display respectively, and as well as Windows 7’s finger-enhancements the company has also loaded them up with various music, photo, memo and other custom apps.
ASUS have stepped up their nettop game with the arrival of the ASUS EeeBox EB1501. The first of the company’s range to include an integrated optical drive, the EB1501 also includes Intel’s Atom 330 dual-core CPU and NVIDIA’s 1080p-capable Ion graphics chipset, turning the neatly-balanced nettop into a pretty impressive media center PC.
When I first was briefed on the Media Center edition of XP by Microsoft, I thought MCE was a pretty bad idea. A lot of my skepticism had to do with the market they claimed they were going after, namely college students in dorm rooms and yuppies living in cramped apartments with no room for both TVs and PCs. Of course, college students mostly buy laptops, and no matter where you live most folks don’t watch TV on a small computer monitor from across the room. The short-term market were enthusiasts who understood the value of a DVR such as a TiVo.
Over time, Microsoft tried a few approaches with MCE – from extenders to allow you to view content on other TVs in the home over your network, to creating extender technology for Xbox (which is already hooked up to a TV set) – as well as working with a host of OEMs to create “living room” form factor home theater PCs. The result of these efforts was less than a stellar success and few vendors actively build home theater PCs; these days, if a consumer uses media center they’re either an enthusiast or they’ve tripped over it by mistake trying to do something else. That’s a shame, as MCE has evolved over time to become a great technology, one that few people even know exist.
Is there room in your cold, dark heart for a basic multitouch slate running Windows 7? Hanvon sure hopes so, with the Chinese manufacturer showing off just such a prototype at the IDF 2009 expo last week. GottaBeMobile’s Xavier was on hand to have a brief play, and he reckons the 8.9-inch Atom-based slate feels pretty good.
Toshiba have announced two new CULV notebooks in their Satellite ranges, which will go on sale as the Satellite T135 (13.3-inch) and Satellite T115 (11.6-inch) in the US and as the T130 and T110 in the UK. Both machines use Intel Pentium, Celeron single core or – in the case of the T13x – Celeron dual-core CPUs, with the smaller machines having up to 3GB of DDR3 RAM and 250GB hard-drives while the larger models get up to 4GB of RAM and up to 500GB hard-drives.
Live gallery after the cut
If you are desperate for a new computer, but you want Windows 7 and you don’t want to have to upgrade after the purchase you may be thinking you have to wait until October 22. Apparently, small custom PC makers are being allowed to ship full machines with Windows 7 a bit early.
October 22 will be here before we know it and anyone who is tired of Windows XP and loathes Windows Vista knows that day is the launch of Windows 7. There are probably lots of people out there who don’t have the time or the inclination to put the new OS on their own computer and need someone to do it for them.
IDF isn’t just an opportunity for Intel to show off their advancements: it’s also a chance for their partners to flaunt what they’ve been working on. In Phoenix’s case, they’ve delivered something most Windows users would like to see, in the shape of vastly optimized boot-up procedures for Windows 7.
Video demos after the cut
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