Apple has thrown in Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt into their MacBook Pro lineup and iMac lineup, so what’s left is the MacBook and MacBook Air. According to DigiTimes, Apple is gearing up now and may receive shipment of the refreshed paper laptops in late May ahead of a June or July launch.

The MacBook Air right now is using 10W and 17W Core 2 Duos, so hopefully Apple will be able to squeeze in the new 17W mobile processors from Intel, which makes them head-to-head with Samsung’s new 9-Series laptops. This is so interesting!

Additionally, DigiTimes says Quanta will continue to assemble Apple’s ultra-portable laptops, with Simplo Technology and Dynapack supplying the battery packs. Fancy a superslim MacBook Air powered by Intel Core i7?

SOURCE via DigiTimes

How good is Chrome OS, we’re not sure yet. We’ve yet to see it being implemented in a large scale, so there’s no telling how successful this can be. But Google has come up and say that Chrome OS will not be injected into any tablets or any other platform. That means we’ll be looking at netbooks for now. This is what Sundar Pichai, Senior VP of Chrome, has to say at their Google I/O event about Chrome OS:

“[Chrome OS] is a new experience we’re working on. It’s hardware agnostic in a sense. We are fully, 100 percent focused on laptops. Most of the web usage — greater than 90 percent — is on laptops. That’s what we’re working on today, and we have no other plans on any other form factors.”

In related news, Sundar also addressed questions regarding the company’s decision to rely on both Chrome OS and Android. When asked to “reconcile [Google's] two big strategic visions,” he hit us with the following:

“There are a variety of experiences out there, and the web model is very different. We’re comfortable seeing them coexist. Google Movies and YouTube have web versions — when you use a Chromebook, you see how it’s different, and they’ll naturally coexist. These are very different models — if we didn’t do something like Chromebooks, I’m pretty sure someone else would.”

Well, there you go. Chrome OS will be very much like Android, a package that includes hardware and software.

SOURCE via Engadget

Google mentioned that their ChromeBook will be available with a subscription plan for the corporate and consumer market, and they’ve held a Q&A session over at the Google I/O event, which has ended by the way.

The subscription will be for US-only at the moment, as Google is still researching markets for Europe. We can only look and jelly. Anyway, there are two packages for the corporate users, and that is enterprise (with a $28/month fee) and educational (with a $20/month fee).

You’ll need to order in bulks, minimum of 10 units, from Google, and you’ll be tied with a 3-years plan. There’s no down payment required, and your warranty will be dealt with by Google itself. When you’ve subscribed to this package, you’ll have access to a management console provided by Google, and you’ll have Google’s technical support as well.

Google mentioned that they did a study, and found that most institutions never upgrade their machines before three years, meaning to say that three years is the best time-span to upgrade a machine. Given that data, it just made sense to offer lower monthly rates and on a refresh cycle that fit well with what they found.

An enterprise user will pay $28 for 36 months, but that includes full warranty and replacement provisions, technical support and all of the updates that Google will provide along the way. Notably, this doesn’t include Google Apps — you’ll need to pony up the standard rate for that as an add-on. At a glance, this “bargain” seems like an absurd one, much like subsidized 3G netbooks that faltered quickly after hitting the mainstream just over a year ago. But here’s the difference: enterprise and education customers can count on a dramatic decrease in costs from a maintenance standpoint, which is what Google is betting on.

What if you need 3G? Then you’ll have to pay an additional $3 for the 100MB gratis connection from Verizon (in US). What about potential oversea buyers? European carriers will hash out details in Spain, France, UK, Netherlands, Germany and Italy, but nothing’s being revealed today. We’re told that Google’s still evaluating what makes the most sense in those nations.

Consumers, of course, will pay a flat rate, and will be looking to Acer or Samsung for warranty work and technical support. The Series 5 gets going at $429 for the WiFi model, while the 3G edition (which does indeed include 100MB of data from Verizon each month for the life of the product) will go for $499. Acer’s Chromebook will cost $349 for the WiFi model, while the 3G variant will demand an undisclosed amount more.

What if you wish to terminate the subscription half way? According to Google, users who wish to terminate must “pay out the rest of their contract.” In other words, you’re paying for a 36 month lease.

Here’s an additional info. Yes, you can’t really install any apps like you used to on a Windows or Mac OS X system, but Google also understands that, and is developing a new system with Citrix to create a new build of Citrix Receiver, a piece of software that should leave its existing beta trials and hit the public universe this summer.

Google demoed the software on a CR-48 at their Google I/O event, and while the setup was obviously optimized, it worked shockingly well. A backend Windows server had a copy of Photoshop CS5 onboard, and the CR-48 was able to load it within a matter of seconds through Receiver. Not a light model — we’re talking about the full, bona fide version of Photoshop. Sounds similarly like loading up war3 from the network server using the computers in Swinburne’s lab, something we did in summer sem.

Of course, you’ll still need to manage a backend server in a scenario like this, but given that most businesses and schools already have something similar in place, it shouldn’t be asking too much to pipe things in via Receiver. Of course, there’s the cost of buying the receiver, which should be rather pricey. Also, it’d be ridiculous to edit a 5MB image over 3G, but still possible, if you’re on a WiFi-n network.

SOURCE via Google

Samsung’s ChromeBook is a 12-inch netbook, but Acer’s ChromeBook will be slightly smaller at 11.6-inch, though that doesn’t make any difference does it. Anyway, Google has also revealed the ‘other’ ChromeBook, which is from Acer obviously. There’s no specific name for this, yet. It packs the same specs as Samsung’s Series 5 ChromeBook. There’s the identical Intel Atom N570, which is a dual-core processor at 1.66GHz. There’s also the same 16GB SSD, with instant-on feature, two USB ports, 1.3-Megapixel webcam (unconfirmed), HDMI, and 6.5 hours of battery life (Samsung’s is said to be 8.5 hours by the way). . It’s cheaper than the Samsung Series 5 also announced, starting at $349 with optional world-mode 3G available for more cash and will be available for preorder on the same day — June 15th from Amazon and Best Buy.

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Apparently Google’s CR-48 won’t be the only ChromeBook around anymore. We’ve heard about rumours of Samsung developing netbooks running on Chrome OS, and now Google has made it official on stage at their second day of Google I/O event. Well, Samsung won’t be the only one as Acer is also said to be one of the ChromeBook supplier. Samsung’s ChromeBook will be the 5 Series 12-inch netbook.

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Dell once released the Adamo range to try and fight with Apple’s MacBook Air, but had little success. Then they discontinued the product as it was too pricey and fared poorly. Yes, it’s slim and sexy, but it isn’t all that powerful and with its odd shape not many customers are interested in it. There we witnessed the death of the Adamo series laptop.

But Dell isn’t giving up. Samsung had great success with their new 9-Series laptop that are said to be super slim, with very sexy duralumin chassis, and very powerful with Intel’s new Sandy Bridge processors. So, Dell went back to the drawing board for the successor of the Adamo.

But this time round, the company has decided to not compete directly with Apple’s MacBook Air. Instead, the new Adamo is rumoured to be available at the size of 15.6” and they will focus on making it the thinnest at that size. It has also been reported that they will use Intel Core i5 and i7 chips though; nothing was mentioned regarding whether the company will pick low voltage or full power processors.

The company will aim for being both fast and thin which hints that they won’t entirely abandon their attempts to compete with Apple. The new notebook will be targeted at home users who desire style and beauty and uses “special materials” to be built. How special is special? Duralumin, like Samsung’s 9-Series?

But the most surprise news about this is that Dell is aiming to make this ‘affordable’. How affordable is affordable? Well, the company is preparing a launch in the next few weeks with a price of below USD 1,000 and more sizes will follow suit.

SOURCE via Electronista

It’s been rumoured for quite some time, but finally Dell has given green light to their latest mammoth gaming laptop. Weighting at 16 pounds, this 18-inch laptop sports the latest Core i7 processors at the speed of 2GHz, for the base model at least, but it can be delivered with an Extreme moniker that sports 4GHz of madness, and dual 2GB Radeon 6970m graphics cards. Looks like Alienware is keeping up their ‘overkilling’ trend. Dell is asking for $1,999 for the base model, but if you try to tick almost everything, the highest end will probably rack you up at about $6,000, for an 18-inch laptop. My god. Then again, this is Alienware, so this is quite expected. The laptop is now available for order, but won’t really ship until May 24^th. The DHL guy will need to pump his muscle abit to deliver this to your doorstep.

SOURCE via CNET
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LG is said to have their LG Shuriken display, one with very tiny bezel and awesome display, debuting on Acer’s new MacBook-wannabe laptops. However, it seemed that LG is keen on keeping that fun with itself first, as they’ve launched a new series of laptops using the Shuriken display before Acer did.

The 14-inch P430 and 15.6-inch P530 mark the start of LG’s new Blade series of laptops, which are the result of some obsessive slimming work at the LG labs — display thickness is 4.5mm and 4.7mm, respectively, while the bezel on the 14-inch model is so narrow as to fit its screen within the dimensions of a traditional 13.3-inch laptop, similar to what we hear Acer achieved with their laptops.

Not only did they managed to slim down the notebook by a huge margin, they’ve also ‘somewhat’ gone upscale by using brushed aluminium to strengthen the chassis of the laptops, making them weighting at 1.94kg on the P430 and 2.2kg on P530.

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Easter was in the mood last weekend, and it seemed that Acer is also infected with the Easter culture. The Taiwanese company has updated its Aspire One Happy netbook lineup with a quartet of edible colors: Blueberry Shake, Banana Cream, Papaya Milk and Strawberry Yogurt. Those vibrant shells will have the innards of the still-unreleased Acer One D257, including a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual-core processor, along with the usual 10.1-inch display, 2GB memory, 250GB hard drive, and a six-cell battery. And yes, there will be 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, and Windows 7 Starter. No word yet on availability and pricing, but I’m sure it’ll arrive on our shores shortly.

SOURCE via Notebook Italia

Whenever we heard of Acer’s laptops, all we can think of are budget laptops. Not like that’s a bad thing, but apparently the board isn’t very happy with that. Remember Acer saying that they want to take on the likes of Apple and Sony and HP? Well, it seems that they have taken the initiative, at least, to move a step forward in doing so.

DigiTimes has a source saying that Acer will be using LG’s Shuriken display in their upcoming 14.1-inch laptop. But what’s special about this? Well, the laptop is said to be no bigger than that of a 13.3-inch model, despite having a 14.1-inch display.

That’s because the Shuriken’s panel will require less bezel (8mm instead of 12mm) and less thickness, slimming itself down to just 4mm. LG already has the 12.5-inch Xnote P210, which would seem to be employing similar technology, so it’s not a stretch to believe the company’s war on bezels has stepped up to the 14-inch size class.

Acer is expected to launch this new laptop as early as next month, though the cost of the Shuriken displays is cited as the reason they haven’t been taken up more widely yet, but that’s the price to pay for going upscale I guess.

SOURCE via DigiTimes