By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

WHO says business notebook PCs can’t look sleek and cool?

Computer maker HP has unveiled a new line of notebook PCs this week, designed primarily for telecommuting business users.

HP unveiled at least three 2000 series notebooks that are ultra-light, weighing less than two kilograms.

“There’s a lot of demand for mobility. But why can’t we make these notebooks stylish and personal,” said Christian Reyes, market development manager under the Personal Systems Group of HP Philippines, during the launch of the notebooks amid a display of new Volvo cars.

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By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

DUTCH electronics giant Philips showcased its latest line of LCD TVs in an effort to appeal to budget-conscious video enthusiasts and Philippines.

Three LCD models that range from 32 inches, 42 inches and 47 inches were unveiled. These use the new Pixel Perfect HD Engine processing module, an upgrade from Philips’ renowned Pixel Plus Engine. As the name implies, the Pixel Perfect HD (for High Definition) Engine increases the clarity, color definition, refresh rate and contrast of images rendered on the screen.

An advanced feature in the Philips LCD TV line is the Horizontal and Vertical Luminance Transient Improvement which increases the lines and pixels per line to match the resolution of the display. This application increases the luminance for each pixel while matching the luminance and gradient of the nearby pixels. By far, the new TV lines have 6.2 million pixels, able to produce up to 4 trillion colors, depending on the image or video source.

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By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

WHICH would you rather buy: an SUV or this 70-inch LCD TV by Sony?

Sony’s famous for making things small but this newly launched Bravia X-series is touted to be the largest full-screen HDTV in the local market to date.

The screen size is as whopping as its price — around P2 million (ka-ching!).

I just asked the Japanese execs and they said they have yet to decide on the exact price. So if you’re “seriously” buying one, leave room for possibly a few hundred thousand pesos. Seriously.

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

TAIWANESE computer maker Acer isn’t exactly known among gamers as a good option for the kind of activity they do, largely because of its low graphics capabilities even in its high-end models. Even the company’s high-end Ferrari series was not as well received by gamers because of its exorbitant pricing. Only the more discriminating business and budget-conscious segments of the market were more familiar with Acer’s laptop models.

In the last few years, however, Acer has been slowly enticing the gamer market with a few models. One of its latest iterations is the Gemstone series, a totally redesigned scheme that makes Acer notebooks look more like toys than notebooks. The design does work well for Acer as it gives a fresh look to an otherwise gray-and-black laptop.

As such, the Gemstone 5920G (the G might mean gamer) is one of the most powerful models from Acer and is targeted at the gamer market. This model features Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0 Ghz processor, a 2Gb memory, a DVD writer capable of HD-DVD, a 160 Gb hard drive and an Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT 256MB graphics card. The last specification is probably the more enticing feature of the 5920G since it is in GDDR2 (for the non-techie, it means it functions two times better than current generation PC graphics cards) and is already capable of high-definition gaming and video. In fact, the 5920G already has HDMI (high-definition multimedia interface), a video output that will allow a user to connect the 5920G to an HDMI-capable LCD monitor. Again, this last feature would be particularly useful when using the 5920G for either DVD/HD-DVD movie playing and playing video games. Luckily, most video games can be pushed for 720p or 1080i viewing.

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