Sandy Bridge

Intel seems to be dabbling in a few different areas right now. The company has the desktop and laptop market locked down pretty tight, and is now attempting to breach the mobile space with Medfield, and may be looking to target miniature computers and HTPCs next. Back in April the company unveiled its “Next Unit of Computing” box, which packed a Sandy Bridge chip, Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB all into a 10cm by 10cm box, and now rough pricing has been revealed.

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In addition to the Inspiron 14z, Dell has unveiled two other Inspiron models, the 15R and 17R. The R is designed to bring a bit of a performance boost over the standard offerings, although the base models of both laptops still feature Sandy Bridge processors (Ivy Bridge upgrades are available). They’re certainly heavy, with the lightest laptop coming in at 6.05 lbs, but the prices are low too, with the 15R starting from $549.99 and the 17R starting at $599.99.

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Dell has today announced a new Ultrabook in its lineup, the Inspiron 14z. Dell is hoping that the budget offerings will entice students, and the design has been tweaked to add some more supple curves. If you’re hoping to find Ivy Bridge lurking beneath the chassis, you’ll be in for a disappointment: the Ultrabook comes equipped with a ULV Sandy Bridge Core i3 processor, although Core i5 and Core i7 Ivy Bridge upgrades are available.

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Samsung’s final trick for Computex is the return of the classic slate tablet. In this case it’s the Series 7 Slate PC, a revamped version of the slate of old, this time running Windows 8. It makes use of Intel’s Sandy Bridge Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, which means you’ll be getting the full Windows 8 experience and not just Windows RT. As you’d imagine, there’s full touch screen support, and you can mix things up with a digitizer pen or Bluetooth keyboard.

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The avalanche of news for Intel's newest Core series of processors has truly begun, and Ultrabooks are up next. Lenovo has announced updates for their consumer IdeaPad line with the 13-inch U310 and 14-inch U410, both scheduled to go on sale today in worldwide markets and later this month in the U.S. and U.K. both notebooks keep the, well, "notebook" style of the previous high-end entries in the IdeaPad line, but bring the prices down considerably lower than other Ultrabooks.

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Intel could take on Raspberry Pi and compact set-top boxes with a new, budget PC, the NUC or "Next Unit of Computing," set to launch in the second half of 2012. Dressed in a 10 x 10 cm demo box, the NUC is a full Core i3/i5 Sandy Bridge computer complete with Thunderbolt, HDMI and USB connectivity, Sweclockers reports, while inside there's a pair of laptop memory slots and a pair of mini PCIe headers.

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Will extreme lightness be enough to score a win for ultrabooks? That's the strategy Mouse Computer is taking with the LuvBook X, using a carbon-fiber chassis to dip under the 1kg mark despite. One of the relatively rare 11.6-inch models, it runs Sandy Bridge rather than newer Ivy Bridge processors but, as PC Watch discovered, doesn't necessarily suffer in terms of performance.

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Intel is poised to launch its desktop and laptop Ivy Bridge processor shortly, but Fujitsu is content not chasing the latest and greatest. The company has refreshed two of its laptops using mobile Sandy Bridge processors, the 15-inch LIFEBOOK AH532 and 14-inch LIFEBOOK LH532. The designs of both laptops have alos been refreshed, with the AH532 seeing a chiclet-style keyboard, and the LH532 gaining a soft touch finish and integrated touchpad into the palmrest.

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While the Chromebook hasn’t taken off in quite the way Google expected it to, OEMs are still working on them. Samsung demoed a Chromebook at this year's IDF in Beijing that would have an “instant on” boot thanks to new Coreboot code, a Linux-based BIOS replacement that talks to the computers hardware. Why does Coreboot sound so familiar? Just last week there was news that Google added code to Coreboot for Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processor support. Is that what was on display at IDF?

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Intel will be releasing its next iteration of CPUs, codenamed Ivy Bridge, in the coming weeks. While the CPUs won’t be available to purchase for another three weeks, Anandtech has had some hands-on time detailing the improvements and new features of the Ivy Bridge chipset on various motherboards. If you’re looking for performance reviews, you’ll have to hold on a little longer, but there are some interesting tidbits to note from the chipset.

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Currently Google’s line of Chromebooks use Intel’s Atom processor. Chrome OS might be lightweight, but the inclusion of an Atom processor led to sluggish performance in places. CNET reports that Google may be looking to use Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors, as well as the upcoming Ivy Bridge chips in future Chromebooks.

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Behold the first absolutely wacky advertisement spot for the Lenovo slim notebook V370, complete with no less than Plants vs Zombies characters, Angry Birds, and an epic battle to the death with Bruce Lee! The point this particular spot appears to be trying to get across is that the V370 is both strong and slim, but you wouldn't know it was a commercial for a laptop if you didn't see the first and last 5 seconds of the video. Thus is the way laptops must be promoted in the fact of Ultrabooks, we suppose, now that strength beats down the traditional size and shape of a standard laptop.

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