Acer Intos The 'Gemstone Blue' Notebooks

Acer drummed up their best cloak and dagger today, and when it was all said and done, dropped two new bad ass laptops. The Aspire "Gemstone Blue" notebook comes with a Blu-ray drive, CineReal sound, true high-def screen, and comes in two sizes. The 8920G is the monster notebook weighing over 9 pounds, claims of 3 hours playback , and sporting a 1920x1080 18.4" screen. The smaller 6920G has a 16", 2.5 hours of playback, and the same resolution as it's big brother, and both support full Blu-ray playback.

Both feature Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo processors and up to 4GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, depending on your pocket. Finger printer reader, draft-N wireless, Bluetooth, webcam, and CineDash media controller is all standard.

Both will be available in a month, with a starting price of $900 and topping off just under $2000.

Acer Gemstone Blue [Acer.com via Crunchgear]

Lenovo Lets There Hair Down With Sweet Lappies

When I hear the name Lenovo, the first thing that comes to mind is boring ass business machines and laptops. So it was a surprise to me (and a good one at that) when Lenovo introduced the IdeaPad Y710, Y510, and the U110 laptops. These babies are stacked with the goods and are drool worthy. The halo lighting and the frameless screens are my favorite, but it also has facial recognition built in.

The Y710 has a 17-inch screen and a 2.5GHz Intel C2D processor, and is capable of handling a 500GB SATA HD, HDMI output, 6-in-1 card reader, and has a ATI Mobility Radeon HD2600 all for $1199. There are more details that I don't have the space to list, but check out the specs from Crunchgear. Check out the Y510 and the U110 details there.

HD DVD Laptops To Fall Below $1000 This Year.

In a move that is setup to generate mainstream acceptance, Toshiba's VP Carl Pinto said that come Christmas, there will be sub-$1000 HD DVD Laptops. Although HD DVD player/DVD writers will take a while to catch on, sub-$1000 prices of the HD DVD player built in to the laptop make it very appealing.

So soon you might be purchasing a laptop that just happens to have a HD DVD player built in. Pinto went on to say that he expects HD DVD player/DVD writer hybrids combos to take off similar to the DVD player/CDRW back in the day.

Coming Soon: Sub-$1000 HD DVD Notebook [Yahoo! News via Crunchgear]

Vigor Intro's New Gaming Laptops

Who's ready for some hot gaming laptop action?!

Well the guys at Crunchgear have found some very cool portable rigs by Vigor, and the specs on these are glorious. The top of the line "Atlantis Pro" (shown above) has a 20" inch widescreen WSXGA+ (1680×1050), AMD Turion 64 X2, NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 GTX two of them in SLI, and a 500GB HDD (2×250 in RAID-0).

Check out the 'Ares' and the 'Artorius Pro' after the jump. [Crunchgear]

No word on pricing, but I'm sure that they won't be cheap.

Lenovo’s Latest Laptops Promise Battery Life To The EXtreme: Sorta, Kinda

If you frequently use the excuse “my battery died” to get out of working, don’t buy the new Lenovo ThinkPad X61 or X61s notebooks or the X61 Tablet.

According to the company’s details on the three systems, the ThinkPad X61s will keep you up and running for more than 12 hours and the ThinkPad X61 and X61 Tablet will run approximately up to 11 and 10 hours respectively. Of course, this is with the combination of an eight-cell standard battery and optional extended life battery, but still, that’s a crazy amount of productivity from just two batteries.

Along with the extended battery life comes an improved design for broadband wireless, called Ultra Connect II, so you can get a signal anywhere. Lenovo claims up to a 30 percent improvement above previous models.

Apple including WWAN in their new notebooks?

Another Apple rumor has hit the circuit again. Sources are telling AppleInsider that Jobs & Co. are looking to start including integrated WWAN cards into future notebook models. The card will be optional and will cost around $180.

Apple is trying to squeeze a WWAN adapter into the notebook lid rather than placing it on/near the logic board so that electromagnetic interference is at a minimum.

Click here for the rest.

Vista draining laptop batteries, patience

Vista draining laptop batteries, patience
By Tom Krazit, CNET News.com
Published on ZDNet News: May 4, 2007, 4:00 AM PT

Some of Microsoft's most important customers aren't happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista.

"It's a little scary," said John Wozniak, a distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard's notebook engineering department, referring to the work HP needed to do on making Windows Vista more suitable for notebooks.

Read more about the article after the jump.