HP Compaq 2510p

That booming noise you just heard is Compaq/HP firing a shot across the bow of the USS ThinkPad. With its new 2510p, the company is showing it can compete—and beat—Lenovo and others at the ultra-portable business notebook game. This is a notebook brimming with all the latest and greatest portable technology, and is one of the best ultra-portables available.

Specs

CPU and Memory Processor Brand Intel
Processor Class Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed 1.06 GHz
Installed Memory 1 GB
Maximum Memory 2 GB
Memory Technology DDR II SDRAM
Cache Size 2 MB

Storage Hard Drive Capacity 60 GB
Included Drives DVD±RW (+R DL) / DVD-RAM
CD Write Speed 24 X
CD Rewrite Speed 10 X
CD Read Speed 24 X
DVD Read Speed 8 X
DVD Write Speed 4x (DVD±R)

Display and Graphics Display Size 12.1 in
Display Type TFT active matrix
Graphics Processor Intel GMA X3100
Resolution 1280 x 800 pixels

Battery Battery Type Lithium ion

Communications and Networking Modem Speed 56 Kbps
Network Support Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g

Software Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Business

Connectors Interface Provided VGA, Phone line, Headphone, Ethernet 10Base-T/100Base-TX/1000Base-T

Warranty Warranty Information 3 years warranty
Base Warranty 3 years warranty

General Product Info Input Devices Keyboard, Touchpad, Pointing stick
Included Sound Card Sound card
Weight 2.9 lbs



Ports and connectors

The right-side of the 2510p sports an Express Card slot, an SD slot, mini FireWire, headphone/mic, one USB port, VGA out and a port for use with a docking station.
The left-side features a single USB port, a DVD-R/RW multi-reader drive, a modem port and the AC power jack.
The back of the unit features just an Ethernet port, a Kensington lock mount, and the battery. We received the six-cell battery, which sticks out the back a bit, but a three-cell and a nine-cell battery are also available.

The Big Screen

Most ultra-portable notebooks ship with a 12-or13” display, and the 2510p uses a 12.1” display that has a widescreen aspect ratio, with a matte—rather than glossy—finish. The matte finish helps reduce glare that is so common to glossy displays, but it is arguably less “shiny and pretty” in our opinion. The big deal with the 2510p is it’s the first Windows-based notebook to use LEDs to backlight the display rather than a cold cathode backlight. The benefits to this approach, based on what we’ve read, is more even and consistent lighting, lack of backlight poking through on the top or bottom of the display, and less battery usage.

Onboard video

The 2510p ships with the latest Intel mobile chipset, aka the Santa Rosa platform. It features Intel’s X1300 onboard video chipset, which is fine for email and web surfing, but not sufficient at all gaming as long as you stay in the realm of casual titles like Chuzzle and the like.

OS situation

Like any business-class notebook, the 2510p comes with Vista Business edition. The literature that accompanied the notebook indicated that XP as well as Vista Home Basic would be options but we did not see any such OSes available on the HP website. Regardless, Vista Business is the OS of choice for business users and comes on pretty much every business notebook, and we think it’s a decent OS in that it includes backup functionality; something the Home versions of the OS are lacking.

The Touchpad

If you are a nub-user or are fond of a touchpad, the 2510p offers both and is sure to please everyone. The nub is concave-shaped and holds your index finger perfectly.

Biometric security

The 2510p includes a biometric fingerprint scanner

Storage

The 2510p comes with a 100GB hard drive, and here’s the bad news: It’s a 4200rpm model. The good news? Its still seems reasonably fast, despite its rotational velocity. It’s nowhere near as fast as a 7200rpm model, obviously, but it does assist in prolonging battery life and keeping the unit whisper quiet at all times. HP also has something called 3D DriveGuard System installed, but it does not give you real-time information about the drive protection like you get with Lenovo. Also, HP has stated that it will offer a solid state hard drive for the 2510p at a later time, which would be quite intriguing.

Wireless

Even though the 2510p ships with the Intel 965 chipset, the wireless card only supports 80211.A/B/G, and the lack of support for the N standard is disappointing. Any next-gen notebook shipping currently should support the N standard, as it’s amazingly fast and will certainly be the dominant 80211 standard in the future. It also includes support for Bluetooth 2.0, and select models include broadband cards from Verizon and AT&T as well.
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Dell XPS 420

Making a desktop PC stand out among the masses is no small task. Yet Dell's new XPS 420 has a new look and design that caught my attention. The newly announced chassis is featured in what Dell refers to as its "premium" desktop PC.

The glossy piano-black finish and design complement this system's power appeal. Notice the LCD screen at the top of the unit: This is the first desktop display to support Microsoft's SideShow technology. That alone is notable: SideShow carried a lot of buzz leading up to Microsoft's launch of its Vista operating system (Vista enables SideShow), but then the buzz fizzled when the anticipated flood of products tapping the technology failed to materialize. Sell says you can use the Windows SideShow display to access media, some system functions, and Windows SideShow "gadgets" (such as date and time, audio playback, photo slideshow, video playback)--all without using your keyboard and mouse.

Dell also integrates a dock at the top of the unit to make it easier to charge portable devices and manage the cables for those devices.

The XPS 420 carries a starting price of $1499; the system will be configurable to include multi-core Intel processors and ATI or NVidia graphics cards. Dell offers its Xcelerator option for preparing video for sharing and uploading. In keeping with the multimedia focus of this system, Dell says that Xcelerator can prep recorded video--be it transcoding, transrating, or transcaling images from one format or resolution to another--for portable devices up to 25 percent faster.

Speaking of multimedia...at one time in the distant past, desktop PC vendors would bundle software with a system to make it a "multimedia system" or a "digital imaging system." Dell revists that approach for the XPS 420 by bundling Adobe Elements Studio--a Dell "exclusive" which encompasses Adobe Photoshop Elements 6, Premier Elements 4, and Soundbooth CS3.

Along with the XPS 420, Dell also announced its 20-inch SP2008WFP dispaly with built-in Web cam (price: $280). And, Dell adds to all-in-one printer line with the Dell 948, a $149 multifunction ink jet printer with fax, scan, copy, and print (photos and text) capabilities. The 948 has built-in wireless, PictBridge, memory card slots, and an optional Bluetooth adapter.
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Samsung New Flash Memory Chip

Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday it has developed a more advanced flash memory chip that will allow increased data storage in digital products such as music players.

Samsung, the world's largest maker of computer memory chips, unveiled a 64-gigabit NAND flash memory chip based on finer process technology using circuit elements that are 30 nanometers wide. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter; a human hair is about 80,000 nanometers across.

"The flash memory device represents a major leap forward in the move to higher density flash storage solutions at a time of exploding demand for flash as the main storage medium in computing and digital applications," Samsung said in a statement.

Samsung touted the development of the chip as a world first and said the new chip marks the eighth straight year that memory density has doubled and the seventh straight year that the nanometer scale has improved for NAND flash.

The company said it plans to begin production of the chip in 2009.

Using finer process technology allows more to be fit on a semiconductor chip and reduces power requirements.

Flash memory chips are used extensively in digital music devices, digital cameras and mobile phones. The chips can retain data even when the devices they power are turned off.

Samsung also manufactures dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips used in personal computers.

Last year the company announced 32-gigabit NAND flash memory chip based on 40-nanometer process technology.

Production of that chip will begin next year, said Chae Su-yeon, a Samsung spokeswoman

Currently, the bulk of Samsung's flash memory chips are produced using 50-nanometer process technology, she said.
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SanDisk Corp Will Debut An Online Video Service And A USB Flash Drive

Flash memory maker SanDisk Corp. on Monday will debut an online video service and a USB flash drive that can carry television programs and videos from a computer for playback on TVs.
The Sansa TakeTV video player — an ensemble of an oversized USB drive, remote control and a small dock that connects to a TV — and its accompanying video service, Fanfare, marks the latest attempt by a company looking to bridge content between the PC and the television.

Similar to using a USB drive to store and move data files, users of TakeTV can drag-and-drop video files stored on their computer — Fanfare downloads, home videos or other unrestricted video content from the Web — onto the device. Users can then plug it into the cradle connected to a TV. A simple menu appears on the TV to scroll through the files for playback.

The TakeTV player is $99.99 for a 4 gigabyte model and $149.99 for an 8 GB one that can hold up to 10 hours of video. Fanfare, in a test stage, offers premium TV shows for $1.99 per download — roughly the same price as rival services, but SanDisk says it hopes to ultimately provide a broad mixture of free and ad-supported content as well as pay-per-download videos.

Fanfare's catalog at launch is small, with about 85 titles. It features TV shows from CBS, including "CSI" and "Survivor," Showtime, TV Guide, and Smithsonian Networks. Dozens of titles are being added each week, SanDisk said.

The online video service is a new venture for Milpitas-based SanDisk, which is the leading maker of flash memory cards and holds a distant but steady second-place position behind Apple Inc. in the portable media player market with a 10 percent share in the U.S., according to market researcher IDC.

SanDisk saw an opportunity in the fledgling market it didn't want to pass up, said Kate Purmal, senior vice president and general manager of SanDisk's digital content unit.

The distribution of videos, movies and television shows over the Internet is expected to grow as companies ranging from Apple and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to the TV networks themselves compete for the audience. The various methods of getting the video from over the Internet onto the TV, however, has yet to become easy or cheap enough for the mainstream market.

CBS Corp., one of SanDisk's first major partners, found in its consumer research of the TakeTV product that people liked its simplicity, compact size, and price, said David Poltrack, president of CBS Vision.

SanDisk will need to build a larger video catalog to succeed, said Danielle Levitas, analyst at IDC.
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