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.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

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.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Joey Alarilla
INQUIRER.net

JUST how tough is the Toughbook?

Here’s a video I took for iVDO when Alex Villafania and I covered the Kickstart Asia 2007 information technology forum held last week in Bintan, Indonesia. That’s Linus Lim, sales and marketing executive for IT Products, Wireless Communication Division of Panasonic Systems Asia Pacific, giving the demo.

Check out Alex’s Toughbook story for INQUIRER.net Infotech.

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

AMONG the Taiwanese laptop makers, Acer is one of the most prolific, perhaps next only to Asus. In fact, both Taiwanese products compete toe-to-toe in almost every aspect of their products and this is most noticeable when they licensed two of the most well-known luxury car brands: Asus got Lamborghini while Acer got Ferrari.

At any rate, Acer churns out model after model of notebooks, usually the TravelMate and Aspire series, and in each series at least six new models come out every year. The company was gracious enough to lend its TravelMate 3272NWXMi model that comes from the 3270 series. It targets at least two user groups: the multimedia fanatic and the casual gamer.

First of all are the innards of the TravelMate 3272NWXMi; it is among the first models in the series to use the Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 (1.6 Ghz per core) processor running on an Intel Mobile 945GM chipset. It also has a 1 Gigabyte DDR2 memory and an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 video card with up to 256MB TurboCache.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

THE QUEST continues to produce the cheapest computers people can lay their hands on, which pits rival chipmakers Intel and AMD in a rather different ballgame.

Intel is coming up with a number of designs such as the Classmate PC, while AMD is making $100 notebooks for MIT’s One Laptop Per Child campaign.

But for a change, is anyone making a “green” PC? I asked Chris Hines, SVP for research at Forrester, whose photo is shown here, that question during a recent Singapore summit by HP.

[Read the rest of this entry »]