notebooks

Dell confirms rumors, will build tablet PC

Dell confirmed Friday that it will sell a tablet PC before the end of year.

Jeff Clarke, senior vice president and general manager of Dell's business product group, made the announcement in a short video posted to the company's Direct2Dell blog.

"I'm here to end much speculation in the industry about our plans in the tablet marketplace," says a casually attired Clarke, while holding the tablet. The device will be a Latitude tablet PC designed specifically for the education, health care and corporate markets, he said.

On the video, Clarke gives a brief demo and … Read more

Gateway's new notebook with a twist

A PC with a twisty screen you can write on almost always=cool, and Thursday Gateway will release its latest take on the concept with the E-155C Thin & Light Convertible Notebook.

This one is aimed at students. The E-155C looks like a notebook, but works like a tablet PC with digital pen and touchscreen capability, with a screen that swivels 180 degrees in both directions. It has a 12-inch wide screen, Core 2 Duo processor, biometric fingerprint reader for security, and an alarm and flashing LED light should someone try to break in. All of this weighs in at … Read more

Samsung ready with hybrid hard drive

It's almost too bad: If my IT department buys hybrid hard drives, I won't have time every morning to get a cup of coffee and disparage the beloved New York Knicks of News.com's Charlie Cooper while my PC boots.

Samsung is shipping three MH80 hybrid hard drives--a combination of a traditional hard drive and flash memory--to PC makers, it announced Wednesday. The drives, in 80GB, 100GB, and 120GB sizes, will help PCs boot in half the time it usually takes, according to Samsung.

Because the drives use either 128MB or 256MB of flash memory, they also … Read more

Connecticut AG investigating Best Buy sales tactics

The attorney general for the state of Connecticut has opened an investigation into sales tactics used by retailing giant Best Buy that allegedly involve bait-and-switch pricing.

The Hartford Courant has reported that some customers looking to confirm special prices for notebook computers shown on Best Buy's public Web site were told those prices were no longer available, and shown a product listing on the Web while at a Best Buy store that seemingly confirmed that statement. But the site those customers were shown in the store was actually an intranet site that didn't always show the pricing that … Read more

Two Dell laptops go for $12,000

Better luck next time, Sparky. Remember those two special-edition World of Warcraft Dell laptops we mentioned that were up for charity auction on eBay? In case you missed it (shame on you for not reading Crave more carefully), they were a pair of custom XPS M1710 gaming notebooks painted by artist Mike Lavallee and signed by Michael Dell himself.

The company announced the winners, Trip Hoover of Texas and Daniel Marinow of Germany, whose combined bids totaled nearly $12,000, according to Laptoping. So don't feel too bad. The proceeds went to the America's Second Harvest.

A perfect gift if she hearts laptops

You've undoubtedly noticed a fair number of desperate Valentine's Day pitches from various companies, but this one is the real deal. Say what you will about its aesthetic properties, but Ego-Lifestyles' "Love Edition" laptop is a product designed especially for the holiday--as opposed to those that just have an inscription or some other after-market afterthought.

Finished in pink and red leather, this Ego sports an unmistakable heart on its handmade case of custom leather, according to Sybarites. It's also finished with a red bow and silver heart charm, just in case you missed the rest … Read more

Zoho preps another Web app: Notebook

There are several Web start-ups that I see over and over again at new-tech conferences but none that launch a new product at each show. That's certainly what it feels like Zoho does. "Look, it's another conference! Let's launch another product."

So here we are at Demo 07, and of course Zoho's got something new: Notebook. If you've used Microsoft's OneNote, you'll grok it pretty quickly. It's a content editing system that lets you create multiple sheets in one document. You use tabs across the top for major sections, and … Read more

Dell gets rugged

As a CNET employee, I am often harassed by friends and family about "what to buy and where to buy it." I often tell them to visit our Web site, not me. Recently, folks have been asking me about my thoughts on rugged notebooks. The first brand that comes to mind is Panasonic and its "ToughBook" line of notebooks. Recently, Dell (yes, Dell) has gotten into the mix by offering its first rugged notebook, the Latitude ATG D620. It's a rugged version of its popular Latitude D620 notebooks, offering new casing, a shock-mounted hard drive, … Read more