Archive for the ‘Other Brands’ Category

Gateway’s EC Series of UltraPortable notebooks has just added to their family with the emergence of the new EC14D configurations. Now you may think that this is just your typical small notebook but don’t jump the gun on that just yet. The EC14D series is a rare breed as it features an integrated DVD drive, a feature not typically seen on notebooks with an ii.6-inch display. According to a Gateway spokesman “The integrated DVD drive in such a compact device will be a huge benefit for customers who want the flexibility to enjoy and share different movies, music, photos and more stored on a DVD or CD.”

The EC14D is designed with the mobile person in mind. The EC14D has some pretty good specs about it. It has an 8X Super Multi double-layer DVD drive that allows users to read all types of DVD and CD media allowing them to enjoy popular movies and games on the fly. It also gives them access to their music files and photos for downloading and sharing on websites like Photobucket, Facebook or Twitter. To add to its mobility the EC14D has a 6-cell battery to allow you to run your notebook up to 8 hours on a single charge.

Connectivity wise the EC14D comes with an 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi connection. This gives users fast and easy connection to the internet at any Wi-Fi hotspot. Other specs include an Intel Pentium ULV Processor SU 4100, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 11.6″ HD Widescreen Ultrabright LED-backlit TFT LCD screen with a 1366×768 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio, Mobile Intel GS45 Express Chipset, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD, 4096MB DDR2 Dual-channel 667MHz memory which is upgradeable to 8 GB, 320GB(2) 5400RPM SATA hard drive, Integrated 8X Super-Multi DVD player, integrated webcam, Multi-in-1 digital media card reader, Gigabit Ethernet LAN, 3 USB 2.0 ports, 1 HDMI port and a multi-gesture touchpad all packed into a case measuring 11.49″(W) by 1.12″ to 1.18″(H) by 8.33″(D) and weighing only 3.55lbs.

Along with the EC14D, Gateway is also offering new models in the rest of its EC Series notebook lines. Overall the EC14D looks to be a pretty good little notebook and one that is especially good for mobile notebook needs. If by reading this you have suddenly obtained the dire need to get one of these notebooks then you will be happy to know you don’t have to wait long. This device is said to be available by the end of January for a starting price of $629.99.

Google’s Gmail has had, for a number of years, keyboard shortcuts to help you navigate around your e-mail.  But, for many Gmail users these shortcuts were often non intuitive and diffucult to learn. Recently, Google e-mail service has introduced the Gboard that will aleviate this problems for it’s thousands of members. The Gboard is now on the market and can be purchased for the reasonable price of $19.99.

The Gboard is the size of a standard numberpad keyboard and features 19 brightly colored keys. These keys all allow you to utilize shortcuts dealing with your Gmail. Gmail-specific features include starring messages, starting a search, and jumping between message threads. When the Gboard is not used with Gmail, the buttons will simply act like normal keyboard buttons and type whatever letter or number that corresponds with the shortcut.

Conveniently, the Gboard is powered through a USB port. This means that you will not need any special software or driver. You will have to enable keyboard shortcuts under Gmail’s settings before fully utilising your Gboard, but that isn’t any difficult task.

The Gboard has been described a bit like Marmite, people are either going to love or hate the Gboard. If people have already mastered all the shortcuts that are utilised with Gmail, then I would recommend they save themselves the $20 and continue as they currently are.  For the many that have found the Gmail shortcuts difficult to master however, it could be very useful tool.

With a total of 69 shortcuts and many more to come if Google releases some of their experimental features that are currently being tested in the labs, the Gboard could be the first step to developing a full-sized version with more than 100 keys. For now though, the Gboard should satisfy Gmail users who have had issues with figuring out the shortcuts, and the low price tag just can’t be beat.

Well in response to the innovative new technology, the designers over at Onkyo have developed their own dual screened laptop and while Kohjinsha did come out with one first, Onkyo, it seems, has significantly raised the bar.

As promised at CEATEC, Onkyo’s laptop offers dual 10.1-inch 1,366×768 pixel LCD displays as opposed to the 10.1-inch 1,024×600 pixel LCD displays seen on Kohjinsha’s laptop. But what is impressive about Onkyo’s screens is that they make them better than Kohjinsha’s without increasing the overall size of the device.

Onkyo’s laptop contains a 1.6 GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 CPU similar to the AMD Athlon MV-40 in Kohjinsha’s laptop. Onkyo’s has an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and 3 USB jacks. Starting off you will get 2GB of memory which is expandable to 4GB. Onkyo’s device also comes with a 320GB 5,400rpm disk, Gigabit Ethernet and the 32-bit Windows 7 Home Premium.

What makes Onkyo’s dual-screen laptop even more desirable than Kohjinsha’s is the price. Onkyo’s laptop comes under a price tag of 84,000 Yen which translates to roughly $966 US. Kohjinsha’s device comes in at 79,000 Yen which transfers to about $909 US. while this price is less than Onkyo’s, you will only get it if you but it directly from Kohjinsha’s retail site. If you don’t, then you will be hit with a price of 100,800 Yen or about $1,148 US. Overall the DX from Onkyo looks to be a much better deal than Kohjinsha’s device. Look for this one to hit the market by late February 2010.

Nokia’s recently announced “Booklet 3G” was a big shocker for most of. My first impression of the netbook was that it looks very neat and it almost has the Macbook look to it. It weighs 2.7 lbs, and it is 2cm thick, and the all aluminum case to top it off. The new netbook is going to be running off of a 1.6Hz Intel Atom Z530. The netbooks screen is going to be 10.1’, with an impressive 12 hour battery life. The Booklet has built in HSDPA 3G, so you can expect the 3G connectivity to be very fast. The Booklet is Bluetooth enabled so no more taking wired microphones on the go. The Booklet also comes with Windows 7 Starter Edition pre-installed, which really surprised me because this is one of the first to offer Windows 7 on a netbook. The HDMI output allows you to plug into your TV in HD, and also lets you watch videos in 1080p. The Booklet comes with Assisted GPS and a swappable SIM card.

This netbook will be running at the high price of $799, I say the high price because, the RAM usage will double because it is running Windows 7, instead of Vista or even XP, so in my opinion you will not be getting the best performance from this computer. Which if all you are using the computer for is school work, office work, or browsing the internet, then this computer should be fine for all the basic needs. But I wouldn’t suggest downloading, playing high performance games or storing mass amounts of files, just because of the amount of RAM being used just to run windows 7. I would suggest this netbook for the “average” computer user, or as a gift for going back to school. This is definitely one of the most impressive netbooks I have seen so far. I am still very skeptical about how the overall performance of the computer will be. But it is definitely worth checking out; Nokia just set the standards for netbooks. The future is going to be interesting, seeing if their competitors like Dell can keep up with Nokia.

Specs:

• Intel Z530 1.6Hz
• 1GB RAM
• 120GB Drive
• A-GPS
• Nokia Ovi Maps
• Windows 7
• Bluetooth Enabled
• HSDPA 3G/ Wi-Fi
• Swappable SIM
• 12 Hour battery
• HDMI output