Maingear ships $999 MX-L 15 multimedia laptop

Catering to its usual audience, Maingear has launched a new multimedia-friendly laptop. The MX-L 15 starts at $999 and is outfitted with a 15.6-inch 1366x768 display, an Intel Core i5-520M 2.4GHz processor, 2GB of DDR3 1333MHz RAM, an AMD Mobility Radeon 4570 512MB, a 160GB 7200RPM HDD, and a DVD burner.

There are a variety of hardware options available, and the MX-L 15 maxes out with a 1600x900 LCD, a 1.73GHz Core i7-820QM, 8GB of RAM, a 320GB disk or 512GB flash drive, and a Blu-ray reader. All configurations include gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth, a 2MP webcam, HD audio, and a six-cell battery.


The MX-L15 ships with your choice of Windows 7 Home Premium 32/64-bit, Professional, or Ultimate -- and absolutely no bloatware. It's also backed by lifetime labor and phone support as well as one-year of Maingear's "Angelic Service."

Asus intros first networked media player with USB 3.0

Asus has quietly introduced a third member to the O!Play family at CeBIT. Although its specifications are mostly unknown, the O!Play HD2 is billed as the first networked media player to carry SuperSpeed USB 3.0. The company promises a "wealth of cloud infotainment," including access to more than 20,000 digital radio and 100 Internet TV channels.


Visible front-mounted connections include USB, eSATA, and memory card slots, while composite video is likely to be on the rear. As with O!Play systems before it, the HD2 should be able to feed 1080p HD video over a user's home network via Ethernet or over 802.11 Wi-Fi. It also boasts complete HD audio bit stream support for uncompressed 7.1-channel sound output, and is reportedly outfitted with a 3.5-inch hard drive.

Unfortunately, that's all Asus is willing to share for now, and there is no word on a release date or price.

Super Talent announces new USB 3.0 SuperCrypt drive, 16GB Express Drive to cost less than $70

Super Talent unveiled its third and latest USB 3.0 flash drive at CeBIT this week. Dubbed SuperCrypt Drive, the new series promises read speeds of up to 240MB/s and two different AES encryption options: 128-bit ECB on the regular SuperCrypt and 256-bit XTS encryption on the SuperCrypt Pro drive. Additionally, both units offer an STT encryption utility for password control.


As expected, the series is fully backward compatible with USB 2.0, so you'll be able to use the drives on just about any computer -- transfer speeds will be restricted by the older standard, of course. Storage capacities range from 16GB to 256GB for the SuperCrypt and 32GB to 256GB for the SuperCrypt Pro. The company says that the USB 3.0 drives will be available later this month but has yet to announce a price.

In the same vein we just contacted Super Talent for an update on their mainstream USB 3.0 Express Drive, which will offer sustained write speeds of around 50MB/s and is also expected to debut this month. The manufacturer was able to confirm that the 16GB unit should sell for under $70 but says it hasn't worked out the specific pricing for the whole series yet. In any case, assuming they sell for somewhere between $60-70, that works out to a $20-35 premium over your average 16GB thumb drive -- not too bad for the speed bump.

Super Talent also said the new SuperCrypt drives will be priced a lot lower than their top-of-the-line RAIDDrive USB 3.0 -- but that's not saying much considering the latter starts at around $330 for 32GB.

Opera: Microsoft's browser ballot has tripled our downloads

Opera has reportedly witnessed an influx of downloads since the introduction of Microsoft's browser ballot to Europe two days ago. After the rollout, Opera downloads more than tripled in major European countries, such as Belgium, France, Spain, Poland, and the UK, according to Rolf Assev, Opera's chief strategy officer.

Microsoft introduced the ballot to appease EU regulators after rival browser makers (including Opera and Google) complained that Redmond had an unfair advantage by preinstalling Internet Explorer on every Windows PC. The ballot randomly sorts the five most popular browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and IE) and lets users pick which they want to install.


It's unclear whether other companies have also witnessed a rise in downloads, and it's worth noting that some of Opera's sudden traffic may stem from yesterday's major release of version 10.50. Hopefully Mozilla and others will step forward with some statistics in the near future.

USB-IF certifies 50 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 products

The floodgates are officially open, folks. Companies around the globe have introduced a range USB 3.0 products, and more are on the way. The USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) has certified 50 SuperSpeed USB products, including motherboards, notebooks, external storage devices, storage controllers, PCI Express and ExpressCard add-in cards, hard disk drives, and device-enabling silicon.

"The wave of consumer products passing SuperSpeed USB compliance and certification this quarter is extraordinary," said USB-IF chairman Jeff Ravencraft. We've covered a large number of the launches along the way, but of the 50 "certified" items, only 45 are listed on the outfit's site. That means that at least five certified USB 3.0-equipped electronics have yet to debut.


In case you're a bit late to the show, USB 3.0 brings quicker data rates, higher energy efficiency, and increased power delivery.

Mozilla announces winner of Firefox 4 home tab contest

Mozilla has announced the winner of a competition in which participants were asked to design a new home tab for Firefox 4.0. After two rounds of voting and nearly 3,000 votes, Mozilla has crowned Yatrik Solanki the victor.

Solanki describes his concept as "Identifies, a website launcher, browsing sessions, and a task-oriented ultrasmart search box define my concept. And it's cool!" If you're not sure what to make of that, check out this video after the break.

The design centers on four elements intended to give users a place to start, but not necessarily consume content. Among the features is search box with added functionality inspired by Ubiquity, and an Identities section with automatic logins to your favorite sites. More interestingly, once you've added sites, RSS notifications can be configured and synced across multiple platforms.

A sessions section could automatically open sites commonly browsed together, for instance, all of your favorite news sites could be saved as a single session. In addition to the sessions is a visual history which shows a browsing trail across time. Solanki says it is perfect for times when you can't remember how you wound up on a site, and it shows a thumbnailed timeline of your activity.

While none of those features are revolutionary per se, they would be great additions to the current Firefox home tab. There is no guarantee that Mozilla will use this design in Firefox 4.0 and the interface would likely be modified, but it at least offers a peek at what might be on the way.

Logitech announces two sub-$100 Harmony remotes

Logitech's Harmony line of remote controls has been praised by many over the years, but it'is also known for being rather pricey -- except for the aging Harmony 500 series remotes. Looking to shake off that stigma the company has introduced two new sub-$100 models to its lineup, the Harmony 600 and Harmony 650, which will go on sale later this month for $79.99 and $99.99, respectively.


The Logitech Harmony 600 keeps things fairly simple with a backlit monochrome display, while the Harmony 650 packs a color screen and icons for both your favorite channels and for common commands. Both models support more than 250,000 home entertainment devices from over 5,000 brands. Compared to the Harmony 700 they mainly drop two features: they can control five devices instead of six and are not rechargeable.

Like all Harmony remotes, though, these models are programmable via a Mac or Windows PC and use activity-based commands to control your home audio and video systems.

Western Digital enters consumer SSD market

If you needed more proof that solid-state drives are the future of computer storage, today, Western Digital, one of the largest traditional hard disk drives manufacturers has jumped with both feet into the market. Although the company already listed a SiliconDrive SSD in its portfolio, following the acquisition of SiliconSystems last year, the new SiliconEdge Blue represents their very first consumer-grade offering and also their first in-house design.


The drive uses an undisclosed third-party storage controller and firmware that have been tweaked by Western Digital itself for improved performance. Although they wouldn't reveal who's behind the controller, Anand did some digging around and identified its internals as JMicron's JMF612 (same as Crucial's Reactor series). The controller features a garbage collection routine and supports TRIM and Native Command Queuing, which is to be expected of modern SSDs. Western Digital won't be offering a manual TRIM tool for non-Windows 7 systems, though.

The SiliconEdge Blue uses a 3Gbps Serial ATA interface and can reportedly sustain reads at 250MB/s and writes at 140MB/s -- maximum write speed is 170MB/s. There's 64MB of DDR2 cache memory and Western Digital claims the drive can process 5,000 IOPS with random 4KB reads and writes. Unfortunately performance tests show the SiliconEdge Blue is no match for Indilinx-based or Intel SSDs, yet it is more expensive than both.

The drives will be available in 64, 128, and 256GB capacities with suggested retail prices of $279, $529, and $999, respectively. (Note: as mentioned in the comments, Newegg.com has them for $249.99, $449.99, and $799.99) Intel's significantly faster X25-M G2 160GB on the other hand can be had for $429, while OCZ's Vertex Turbo 120GB are selling for as little as $360 these days.

Lenovo's IdeaPad Y460 now on sale, and not a moment too soon

Lenovo may have introduced four billion new laptops at CES this year, but that's not keeping us from tracking the ship date of every last one. With Intel's mobile Core i5 still tough to find in shipping machines -- particularly ones that could substitute as your work rig -- we couldn't be happier to see the IdeaPad Y460 up for order at the outfit's webstore. The base unit gets going at $999 and includes a 2.13GHz Core i3-330M CPU, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), 4GB of DDR3 memory, a 14-inch LED-backlit display (1,366 x 768), a 320GB hard drive, 6-cell battery and a dual-layer DVD writer. The $1,199 model, though, is clearly where it's at, with a 2.4GHz Core i5-520M, ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 5650 (1GB) GPU and a 500GB HDD to make things interesting. Both units should ship within a fortnight, so the only question left to answer is why you're still dilly-dallying around.

Sony Vaio M surfaces... unofficially

It's the Sony Vaio M series netbook, as yet unannounced but sitting here getting detailed all the same. The 10.1-inch netbook, which looks, well, pretty much identical to the Sony Vaio W series, is apparently going to boast a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU, 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a 250GB hard drive, plus 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, and a built-in webcam. There's no pricing information or dates of availability for these bad boys yet, but there's one more shot after the break to gander at -- if you're so inclined.

Panasonic intros rugged business convertible notebook

Panasonic has launched a new rugged convertible notebook, the CF-C1. Aimed at clumsy business users, the CF-C1 has durable yet lightweight design (1.69kg with a twin battery) that can be used in clamshell or tablet form via a "toughened triple hinge." The system gets about 10 hours on a full charge, and lets users exchange one of two batteries while remaining on.

The CF-C1 is powered by Intel's 2.4GHz Core i5-520M vPro processor, and is equipped with 802.11a-n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and 3G connectivity. It also has a capacitive multitouch display that can be used with gloves, making it suitable for healthcare workers, as well as a rubberized "disinfectable" hands-free strap, and a spill-resistant keyboard. The notebook can be dropped from up to 76cm (about 2.5 feet) with no risk of damage.


Naturally, a machine billed as the "lightest business-rugged convertible notebook" won't come cheap. The CF-C1 with multitouch and a digitizer screen will ship from select European distributors in July with prices starting at €1,998 (about $2,720).

AMD shows off Phenom II X6 processor at CeBIT

If current rumors are to be believed, AMD's fist hexa-core processors are headed for desktops sometime around April. The new chips will reportedly come in three flavors: Phenom II X6 1035T, 1055T, and the 1075T. While AMD has yet to confirm any specific details and launch plans, today they've gone ahead and started showing off a Thuban engineering sample at the CeBIT tradeshow in Hannover.

The crew at Golem.de have posted a video off AMD's next-generation Leo platform powered by an unidentified Phenom II X6 processor, running on a Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H motherboard based on the newly released 890GX chipset and coupled with ATI Radeon HD 5000-series graphics. There was no mention of specific clock speeds but it is said that the highest possible frequency of AMD's six-core chip will be 2.80GHz.

Video: AMD Phenom II X6 alias Thuban auf der Cebit 2010 (1:31)

To compensate for the relatively low clock speeds and optimize resources, AMD's six-core processors will reportedly have some form of dynamic speed boost technology called "C-state performance boost." Much like Intel's Turbo Boost, C-state performance should kick in when single-thread performance is needed most, automatically disabling idle cores and overclocking the remaining engines to the maximum possible level.

Thuban processors are expected to be compatible with AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, presumably following a BIOS update. It remains to be seen whether the new dynamic speed boost technology will function on existing motherboards as well.

Zotac intros new Zbox with dual-core Atom, next-gen Ion

Zotac has unveiled a new nettop computer armed with the latest processor and graphics technology from Intel and Nvidia. The Zbox HD-ID11 is very similar to its predecessor in size and shape, measuring only 188 x 188 x 44 millimeters.

Within that petite body, is a dual-core 1.66GHz Intel Atom D510 with NM10 Express chipset and Nvidia's next-gen Ion with 16 CUDA cores and 512MB DDR3 VRAM. It seems the HD-ID11 might be sold as a barebones system (sans RAM and HDD), but there is a single SO-DIMM slot with support for 1GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM, and a 2.5-inch bay with SATA 3Gb/s.


Connectivity options are aplenty, including HDMI, dual-link DVI, VGA, six USB 2.0, eSATA, gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n, a six-in-one card reader, and headphone/mic jacks. The HD-ID11 will run your choice of Windows XP, Vista, 7, or Linux. It's worth noting that the system is bundled with a VESA mount in case you want to stash it behind your display.

Zotac hasn't yet mentioned a price or availability.

Asus officially unveils 9-inch e-reader, the DR-900

We knew Asus was jumping into the e-book reader market, and even saw alleged specs for a couple of devices, but today at CeBIT the company has finally gone and made it official by announcing the DR-900. Featuring a 9-inch, 1024x768 resolution touch screen display made by SiPix, the new device hopes to give Amazon's Kindle DX a run for its money with good connectivity and great battery life.

According to what Asus has shared so in terms of specs, the DR-900 will come with 2GB to 4GB of storage space built-in (expandable through SD cards), Wi-Fi and optional 3G connectivity. The device works in landscape mode, has a virtual keyboard, supports handwriting recognition, and can handle PDF, TXT and ePUB files. It will also have a headphone jack for improved text-to-speech and MP3 listening. The picture above also suggests some sort of integrated bookstore, but the company made no mention of a partnership or anything proprietary.

Asus has gone with a minimal design that's "no thicker than a pencil" and features just a few buttons on the sides. They tout this as a slim e-ink device so the screen is probably only grayscale -- that and the fact that battery life is unusually long as the device can last for 10,000 page turns with wireless off. Unfortunately there's no news regarding pricing or release dates yet, but hopefully the company will share more in the coming weeks.

Google buys web-based image editing service, Picnik

A couple weeks after buying and subsequently discontinuing reMail, Google has acquired Picnik, a web-based image editing site. Financial terms of the deal haven't been disclosed, and it's unclear what Google plans to do with the service.

The search giant did say, however, that it would work hard on "integration and new features." It would also like to continue supporting all existing Picnik partners, which currently includes services like Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo Mail, and Photobucket. After the merger, Picnik accounts and settings will remain unchanged. For instance, users won't need a Google account or have to register to use the service.


Launched in 2005, Picnik has 20 employees and offers both free and premium photo-editing packages. Users can use features like crop, color-correction, auto-fix free of charge, while the paid service includes more tools, gets rid of ads, and starts at $2.08 per month.

Dell's Latitude 13 business laptop now available, looking businessy

Hey, if you're in the market for a beauty of a thin and light, and you mean business, you're in luck today. Dell's Latitude 13 laptop marketed for the business type (with a preinstalled Citrix client, simplified virtualization options and so on) is now available on the Dell site. With three customizing options -- base, economy, and productivity packages -- with a choice of Celeron M or Core 2 Solo CPUs, Linux, Vista, or Windows 7 OSs, up to 2GB of SD-RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. The starting price of one of these bad boys is $559. Hit up the source link to check it out.

Opera 10.5 for Windows announced with speed boost, private browsing, and more

A quick note for Opera fans (and we ain't talkin' The Marriage of Figaro here). Looks like the self-styled "world's fastest" browser (with about 2% of the market share, last time we checked) has a new version! 10.5 for Windows features a swank new look, a new JavaScript engine, private browsing, Opera Unite (which is sure to re-invent the web any moment now) and much more.

Rapoo 2900 wireless keyboard sports touchpad, Bluetooth, and that ineffable Rapoo charm

Enough time has passed since the diNovo Edge wireless keyboard debuted that perhaps it's time for a low(er) priced tribute -- a Knickerbockers to Logitech's Beatles, if you will. To that end, check out the Rapoo 2900: it sports a built-in touchpad, a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery and docking charger, and a Bluetooth / USB dongle. It's a slight little thing (check out the comparison with a full-sized keyboard after the break) and it'll cost you about $86.

Panasonic slips Core i5 into 'world's lightest' 12.1-inch Toughbook C1 convertible tablet

Panasonic has today outed what it's calling the planet's lightest 12.1-inch convertible tablet PC, with the Toughbook C1 offering the line's iconic rigidity while boasting 10 hours of battery life, an optional Gobi 2000 mobile broadband module and Intel's decidedly potent 2.4GHz Core i5-520 processor. All told, the device weighs just 3.2 pounds with a single battery (3.7 pounds with twins), and there's full support for digitizers and multitouch. Other specs include a shock-mounted, flex-connect 250GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, a WXGA (1,280 x 800) LED-backlit panel, a triple hinge design and the ability to survive a 30-inch plummet. It's available to (quite literally) smash iPads starting this June, though that $2,499 starting price may be somewhat off-putting to those without copious amounts of disposable income.

Logitech 600 and 650 remotes bring Harmony for under $100

Logitech's most recent offerings in the Harmony line, the 900 and the 700, were much more affordable than the $500 touchscreen Harmony 1100 we reviewed last year, but neither crossed beneath the magical $100 threshold. Finally Logitech has a few new models that'll set you back less than a Benjamin, the $79 Harmony 600 and $99 Harmony 650, said to be shipping by the end of the month. Both share the same shape as the 700 but have been gimped somewhat to control a maximum of five devices -- a curious step back from the 700's six. Likewise the 600 offers only monochrome screen while the 650 offers color, but given your dog's lack of chromatic acuity he'll be perfectly content chewing on either.

ThinkPad X201, X201s and X201 Tablet join G455 and G555 in Lenovo shipping party

When Lenovo said the new X series would be ready in early March, it meant early March. It's only the second of the month, but the company's online retail site is already prepared to ship you any one of its Core i7-refreshed ultraportables -- whether it be the standard X201, the svelte X201s, or the multitouch-enabled X201t -- while also adding availability of the G455 and G555 machines for the budget-conscious crowd. The X201t is notable for being the first 12-inch X series unit with a touchpad, though its price is no less eyebrow-raising, with the cheapest configuration costing a cool $2,134. If you don't strictly need a swiveling touchscreen, the far saner $1,349 and $1,099 stickers are attached to the base X201s and X201 models while the new G series asks for a meager $699 investment.

Plextor enters SSD market with 64 and 128GB offerings

After producing optical drives for years, Plextor has leapt into the SSD market alongside countless other computer accessory makers. The outfit has introduced a pair of solid-state drives, models PX-64M1S and PX-128M1S -- both of which seem to be a bit overpriced.

The 2.5-inch drives are built with MLC NAND flash memory and sport Marvell controllers. The PX-64M1S offers 64GB of storage with maximum sequential read/write speeds of 110MB/s and 65MB/s, and up to 4,200 and 1,200 random read/write IOPS. Similarly, the PX-128M1S packs a 128GB capacity with 130MB/s and 70MB/s read/write, and 4,300 and 1,800 random read/write IOPS.


They ship with Acronis True Image software as well as Plextor's "unique Wear Leveling algorithm" and S.M.A.R.T technology. Both are available now with an MSRP of $225 and $400, though, Newegg is charging a touch more at $235 and $415. Other popular, and seemingly faster SSDs start at the same price, such as the $219.99 OEM package of Intel's 80GB second-gen X25-M.

HP updates business laptops with Intel Core i5, i7 chips

HP was among the earliest vendors to launch PCs with touch screens through its TouchSmart line of all-in-one desktops. Today, the company is bringing the technology to its existing business laptop lines with the introduction of the multi-touch enabled EliteBook 2740p. This 12.1-inch tablet-style laptop picks up where the earlier 2730p left off, with either a Core i5 or i7 processor and support for DDR3 memory.


Much like its predecessor the new system will be available in stainless steel finish and magnesium casing. HP’s EliteBook 2740p comes with dual pointing devices (a pointing stick and a touchpad), hard drives or SSDs in 160, 250 and 320GB capacities, optional optical drive, and up to 8GB of RAM. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1, EVDO/HSDPA and GPS. The whole package is 1.25 x 11.42 x 8.35 inches and weighs 3.8lbs in its standard configuration with a 6-cell battery that’s good for five hours of use.

HP also announced the EliteBook 2540p laptop and updated its ProBook line with four new models. The first is considered the lightest EliteBook yet at around 3.3lbs and has specifications similar to the 2740p -- sans the rotating screen. As for the new ProBook s-series, they’ve also been fitted with Intel’s latest Core processors and come in screen sizes ranging from 13.3 to 17.3 inches.

The HP EliteBook 2540p and 2740p start at $1,099 and $1,599, respectively, and are expected to be available in the United States in April. The ProBook s-series starts at $719 and will be available this month.