laptops

Unless you're a hardcore gamer type, you've probably never heard of Ageia and their PhysX processor. This add-on card for your desktop PC works with certain supported games to provide additional processing power for in-game physics, leading to bigger explosions, more interactive environments, etc.

Of course, there are only a handful of games that support PhysX (Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, and Unreal Tournament 3 are the only notable ones that come to mind), and game developers aren't exactly lining up to create extra content for a proprietary physics system that very few consumers will ever be … Read more

After last week's post about Xtreme Notebooks squeezing a quad-core processor inside a laptop, another small laptop vendor, ProStar Computer, contacted me to say such a feat is impossible. In his email, the ProStar rep claims that Clevo, the manufacturer of the chassis used in the Xtreme Accelerator 917V, has not approved any quad-core processors for use inside the Clevo D900C. To my eyes, it looks like the Accelerator 917V uses the gray D901C chassis. Either way, the product pages for both Clevo chassis list the supported CPUs as Core 2 Duo E6300/E6400, E6600/E6700, and the Core … Read more

One of the few disadvantages left to owning a laptop is having to stare longingly at your desktop-owning buddies while they fill up their massive 500GB hard drives with all sorts of (completely legally acquired) audio and video content.

While it's still not at the half-terabyte level, Toshiba and Samsung are both working on ever-larger laptop hard drives. Toshiba is taking the standard 2.5-inch drive up to 320GB, as well as working on a 200GB drive that runs at desktop-like speeds of 7,200rpm. Both of these should start showing up around November.

Samsung, on the other hand, … Read more

One of the biggest challenges when you're in the market for a new laptop can be translating hard specs into something that's meaningful to your life. Should you buy a 13.3-inch screen or a 15.4-inch screen? Do you want a 2.4GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, or would it be better to have a 2.0GHz processor with 2GB of RAM?

The answer to these questions, of course, is that it depends. It depends on your budget, to be sure, but also on how you want to use your laptop. With that in mind, we'… Read more

When we reviewed the Logitech Alto earlier this year, we loved its design, which combined a notebook riser, keyboard, and three high-speed USB ports into a single workstation that could fold up when not in use. But we didn't like how the all-in-one design kept the keyboard at a fixed distance from the display--not ideal from an ergonomic standpoint. Clearly, the company took our feedback seriously, because today they've announced the Alto Cordless Notebook Stand. As the name implies, this new version of the product features a detachable keyboard that lets you vary the distance from the keyboard … Read more

If you're going to get into the highly competitive laptop space, you had better suit up in some serious armor. At least that's what Austin-based Augmentix must have been thinking when the company designed its new XTG630 rugged laptop.

Basically built from a re-engineered Dell Latitude D630 laptop (for ease of IT integration), the Augmentix XTG630 has all the parts you'd expect from a serious business notebook, including Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, a 14-inch display, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, TPM 1.2, and optional mobile broadband, all wrapped up in a rugged housing that meets MIL-STD-810F … Read more

Maybe we've seen too many spy movies, but when we first heard about the Wi-Fire, a portable Wi-Fi booster, we imagined some sort of collapsible parabolic antenna, maybe with an accompanying mini-tripod so it can sit next to you on your desk. In fact, the 3x4x3/8-inch directional antenna is rather boxy, and it attaches to your laptop's lid much like a Webcam. According to manufacturer hField Technologies, the Wi-Fire can connect to an 802.11b/g access point as far as 1,000 feet away, giving you the opportunity to roam beyond the range of your laptop'… Read more

Crave presents this week's laptop news, in digest form.

Our Apple rumor of the week: A patent application describing collapsible ports, which would in theory allow for a slimmer laptop, prompted talk of the long-awaited ultraportable MacBook. Elsewhere in the rumor mill, Dell is reportedly poised to launch a 17-inch mobile workstation, the Precision M6300, at the end of the month. The workstation will supposedly include support for up to 8GB of system memory and an optional Blu-Ray optical drive.

In the world of actual products, Fujitsu announced two new tablets: the $999 LifeBook U810, which weighs 1.6 … Read more

You've seen picnic ware and household items made out of biodegradable plastic. Now, here's a notebook with a biodegradable chassis.

This Fujitsu LifeBook sports a chassis made from a plastic made from cornstarch rather than petroleum. It costs more, but it's green. Put the chassis in a landfill and it will go away over the course of months. Real plastic will take decades.

Producing the cornstarch-based plastic, which comes from a supplier, also results in 15 percent less carbon emissions. Those vials (pictured at left) to the side, by the way, show the progress from corn kernels … Read more