NetbookShow

The Dell Vostro 3450 is a sleek, durable business laptop that, at 14-inches, nicely fills a niche between the 13- and 15-inch notebooks on the market. Its sturdy aluminum casing comes in Aberdeen Silver, Lucerne Red or Brisbane Bronze, and for a short time only, you can save up to $300 on this stylish, powerful machine through a coupon from LogicBUY.

The Vostro 3450 is customizable up to a Core i7 CPU and 6GB of RAM. The Core i3 model is only $499 and sports a fingerprint reader as well as 2GB of RAM. The recommended build includes a Core i5 CPU, 4GB RAM, and a fingerprint reader for $589 with $150 off in instant savings and another $50 off with a coupon code. You can save up to $300 on the Core i7 configuration with coupon and instant savings.

Specs: 14-inch display, 1366 x 768 resolution, Core i3 / i5 / i7 dual-core processor, up to 6GB DDR3 memory, 1GB Radeon HD 6630M discrete graphics, two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, eSATA, 8-in-1 Card Reader, DVD+/-RW optical drive or optional Blu-ray, LED-backlit anti-glare LCD, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, optional backlit keyboard, HD Webcam, Windows 7 Pre-installed OS.

Apple laptop batteries can be hacked to infect the laptop with malware, or possibly even rigged to explode, a well-known security researcher has found.

All modern laptop batteries have logic chips inside them that communicate with the computer they’re powering. That’s how you’re able to see how much charge is remaining. The chips also carry out regulatory tasks, such as shutting down the charging process when a battery’s at risk of overcharging.

But any logic chip has operating software — “firmware” — and that software can usually be remotely updated.

Charlie Miller, who’s famous for winning the annual Pwn2Own contest four times with his Mac OS X and iOS exploits, discovered that Apple puts the same password on all its laptop batteries in order to efficiently send out battery firmware updates.

Unfortunately, a skilled malicious hacker armed with the password could alter the firmware, Miller says. Altered firmware could be used to store malware or tweaked to damage the computer.

“These batteries just aren’t designed with the idea that people will mess with them,” Miller told Forbes tech blogger Andy Greenberg. “What I’m showing is that it’s possible to use them to do something really bad.”

Miller will be presenting his finding at next week’s Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. He has already notified Apple of the vulnerability, and is not revealing the password.

Digging into source code

Miller, who formerly was with the National Security Agency and currently works for Denver security firm Accuvant Labs, was intrigued by a 2009 firmware update that Apple had sent out to fix a problem with MacBook batteries. Read more…

What is this update? More than it seems at first glance. But first silenced the holders of the old MacBook – get the ability to port Mini DisplayPort connector is left. With regard to possible changes in the matrix has not happened. Apple a1175‘s the same 27-inch LCD panel technology from IPS. The brightness (375 cd/m2), contrast (1000:1), the viewing angle (178 ° / 178 °), response time (12 ms) and resolution (2560h1440 points) remained unchanged. This monitor is ideal for professional graphics: Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, Final Cut Studio and so on.

The middle of summer – the quietest time of year. But not for Apple! In the middle of the hot season, the company is located in a quiet set of new products. Thunderbolt but after the introduction of a wave that began in the late winter of this year, along with updated MacBook Pro, was the appearance of the user in all other products of the company’s only a matter of time. And now the turn of the MacBook Air, Mac mini and Apple Thunderbolt display.However, if you connect to the Thunderbolt display port on the Apple powerbook g4 battery, then on the back of the monitor “live” three-slot USB (or 2.0) port FireWire 800, RJ-45 offers (the data transfer rates of up to 1000 Mb / s) and another port Thunderbolt.

Today we are focusing on the new ultra-compact notebooks, and a little on the monitor. Their joint announcement was clearly planned in advance, and the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. But the new version of the operating system we will have a separate article, so that the here mentioned, only the “hardware”.For the third time we talk about the latest introduction of bus products in Apple Thunderbolt. But this time the company went even further – the new surface is not only the “Apple macbook pro battery” computers, but also to monitor. Even its name was changed by Apple Thunderbolt display before it as the Apple Cinema Display was announced. Read more…

Acer’s got a few nice yet-unseen netbooks coming out – the Cedar Trail Acer Aspire One D270 and the Ferrari One FO300 with one of AMD’s newer, upcoming Fusion chips. They’ve also got the Aspire One Happy2 netbooks which have just shown up on Amazon.com overnight. I’ll tell you right off the bat that these are still Pine Trail netbooks so nothing to get excited about. Basically just an update to Atom N570 and the ripple-lid design from the older “Happy” series.

Being in the “Happy” series there are a bunch of fruity colors. There’s a lower end model priced at $270 and a higher end model for $300 with the only difference being a 3-cell battery for the lower-end and a 6-cell battery for the higher end models.

Shared specs between them – a 10.1″ 1024 x 600 display, Intel Atom N570 processor, 1GB DDR3 RAM, 250GB HDD, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, SD card reader, 0.3MP webcam, 3x USB 2.0 and Windows 7 Starter. 8 hour, 4400mAh 6-cell battery or 3-cell 2200mAh battery. This is, of course, one of those netbook deals to make us – customers Happy, as the name says

The laptop features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual core processor, GMA 3150 graphics, 2GB of DDR3 memory, and 16GB of storage. It has 2 USB ports, an HDMI output, a 1.3MP camera and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. There’s also a second listing for a model with 3G.

Acer is expected to begin selling its first Chromebook on June 15th, but you can check out the product page for one of the first laptops designed to run Google Chrome OS today. Amazon has posted a product page for the Acer Cromia AC761, confirming an earlier rumor about the laptop’s name.
The laptop features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display, a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual core processor, GMA 3150 graphics, 2GB of DDR3 memory, and 16GB of storage. It has 2 USB ports, an HDMI output, a 1.3MP camera and 802.11b/g/n WiFi. There’s also a second listing for a model with 3G.
The laptops are expected to sell for $349 and up, but there are no prices listed at the moment.
The Acer Chromebook actually first showed up on Amazon nearly a month ago, but at the time it wasn’t called the Cromia AC761, it was just described as an Acer WiFi Chromebook.

The Toshiba NB520 netbook is now shipping in the UK and Germany, and the folks at British site TechRadar have posted a short review of the mini-laptop.

The netbook’s claim to fame is the build-in harman/kardon speakers, and TechRadar reports they sound surprisingly good — although the speakers are on the palm rest, so you might muffle the sound a bit with your hands when you’re typing.

The reviewer also noted that the Toshiba NB520 gets a good 10 hours of run time. Only a handful of netbooks get better battery life than that.

On other hand, the reviewer was unimpressed with the spacebar on the laptop, which apparently needed to be pressed very firmly in the center.

The netbook features a 1.5 GHz Intel Atom N550 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. It has a 10 inch display and runs Windows 7 Starter Edition. It was first unveiled in December, but this is the first English-language review of the laptop I’ve seen.

There’s no word on if or when this model will make it to the US.

The Alienware M18x 18.4-inch gaming notebook by Dell is now available for purchase.

With prices ranging from $2,000 to around $6,000, the M18x features 2nd Genaration Intel Core quad-core processor choices, up to a factory-overclocked i7 2920XM Extreme edition at 4GHz, and single and dual AMD/ATI and Nvidia video card options. Customers can choose between the single and dual 1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M or dual-only 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6970M.

RAM can be expanded up to 32GB if you choose 1333MHz memory modules, while maximum for faster 1600MHz memory is 16GB. There are also various storage options, such as up to 750GB of traditional hard drive storage or a 256GB solid state drive. Both HDD and SDD storage capacity can be doubled, since the Alienware M18x has two internal storage bays. Additionally, there’s a single-unit 500GB hybrid HDD/SSD option. Optical drive options are a DVD burner, Blu-ray combo drive and Blu-ray writer.

The display resolution is of course full HD, while high-end audio experience is provided by a built-in 2.1 speaker system with subwoofer, 5.1- or 7.1-channel output, and Klipsch technology.

The mobile gaming rig is capable to stream 3D games and multimedia to a 3D-compatible external display via the HDMI 1.4 port or wirelessly via optionally-built-in WirelessHD technology. It has a 3MP web camera, Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, Bluetooth, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA/USB 2.0 connector, and a 9-in-1 media card reader.

When it comes to design, the 12-pound M18x has a distinctive anodized aluminum chassis in black or red color. AlienFX LED lighting allows you to choose color and transition effects and assign them to different zones on the case, including the keyboard, touchpad and more. On its left site, the keyboard has 5 programmable keys, enabling up to 15 distinct functions per application.

The laptop runs Windows 7 OS.

The preliminary ship date for the Alienware M18x is 05/26/2011. It can be ordered via Dell’s website.

US-based e-tailer Excaliber PC now lists the 15.6-inch MSI GX680 and 17.3″ MSI GX780 gaming notebook PCs, featuring a 2nd Gen Intel Core processor and Nvidia GeForce dedicated graphics.

Priced at $1,199 and $1,399 respectively after $100 instant savings, the GX680 and GX780 include the Core i7-2630QM 2.0GHz-2.9GHz quad-core CPU, GeForce GT 555M 1GB GDDR5 video card, full HD displays, and a sound system with four speakers and Dynaudio technology. The former has 6GB of DDR3 system memory and a 500GB hard disk, while the latter comes with 8GB RAM and a 750GB HDD.

The GX780 additionally features a Steel-Series gaming-class keyboard.

The latest gaming laptops by MSI also sport a DVD burner, 720p webcam, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, and HDMI 1.4 output.

Both machines run Windows 7 Home Premium OS and come with a 2-year warranty.

The estimated arrival time for the notebooks is May 30.

We heard of a bezel-hating LG Shuriken display sneaking its way onto Acer laptops recently, but the Korean company has wisely opted to debut that cutting-edge  technology in its own portable computers first.

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. Weight, at 1.94kg on the P430 and 2.2kg on P530, is also said to be on par with machines offering significantly smaller screens, but that’s not at the sacrifice of construction materials as brushed aluminum is used to strengthen LG’s new slimsters. A Core i7 CPU and GeForce GT520M GPU will provide the internal firepower, though the rest of the hardware specs are as yet unannounced. The P430 will launch in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and South America at the end of May, to be followed by the P530 in June.

Lenovo has put on sale the ThinkPad T420s 14-inch business notebook, a slimmer and lighter version of the standard T420.

The 3.94-pound Lenovo ThinkPad T420s is 0.83″ – 1.02″ thin in profile, whereas the T420 measures 1.18″ -1.20″ and weighs “< 4.84lbs”. However, both laptops include the same full-voltage Intel 2nd Generation Core i3, i5, and i7 dual-core processors and the Intel integrated HD graphics paired with Nvidia NVS 4200M 1GB via Optimus switchable GPU technology. There are also up to 8GB of RAM, hard drive and solid state drive choices, and a built-in bay for an optical drive or secondary battery, which makes the system a little bit heavier.

The 16:9 display on the T420s has a 1600 x 900 resolution and 230-nit brightness.

According to the product specifications, the notebook is MIL-SPEC tested for durability and has a battery life up to 10 hours with a 6-cell and bay battery.

Other important features of the T420s are a 720p webcam, Dolby Home Theater audio, various networking choices including 3G, a USB 3.0 connector, DisplayPort, enterprise-class security, and Windows 7 Home Premium or Pro OS.

The ThinkPad T420s starts at $1,199 at the Lenovo store online.