The Latest Laptop News
Competition is hotting up in the tablet sector with Apple recently releasing its iPad 2 and Motorola its hefty Xoom for Android. In addition Lenovo have an interesting pair of devices, their new Lenovo Thinkpad X220 Notebook and Convertible tablet models add some exciting competition to the game being recently released laptops UK wide.
The tablet laptop is aimed at graphic artists and designers and harks back to tablets as they existed before Apple reinvented the device. The laptop series all come with a 12.5 inch display and are available with a range of new Intel Core i-series chips giving them some serious processing power in an ultramobile laptop form with the on-board graphics capabilities of the i-cores able to play high definition video easily. The display is LED backlit and has a resolution of 1366 by 768, respectable for a small display, combined with up to 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a useful 320 GB of storage or alternatively a 160GB SSD, solid state disk, if a user prefers the faster responsiveness and boot times. It also has full Wi-Fi and USB 2.0 connectivity with USB 3.0 ports available as an optional extra. vPro technology provided by Intel gives both systems a high level of security suitable for business use. It is also equipped with a webcam capable of 720p high definition video at 30 fps and dual microphones. The tablet version is very similar but in addition to the touchscreen display, which again is 12.5 inches, with stylus it features the options of Infinity Glass or Gorilla Glass to protect the screen from use. The really impressive feature of these machines is their battery life, clocking in at 9 hours with the basic six battery pack, 15 hours with the 9 battery pack and a whopping 24 hours with the extended pack.
In response to Apple’s Mac Book Air and the pressure from tablets for the ultramobile device space Dell has announced their new Ultraslim laptops UK release is likely to be in the next few weeks. This will, like the Lenovo, feature Intel’s new Sandy Bridge cores, further demonstrating how much these are the defining chips of the moment. The laptop is likely to be quite similar to the styling used in their Adamo laptop. It is quite clearly aimed at the Mac Book Air market and will briefly have a significant processing power advantage over the older Apple product which still sports Intel’s Core 2 Duo, now 2 generations behind the Sandy Bridge cores, it is very likely that there will be a new Mac Book Air with the Sandy Bridge core later in the 2011. The ultrathin segment is growing as makers recognise how important the low weight and ease of transport is to consumers with many willing to pay a premium for extremely lightweight laptops UK consumers have shown a great appetite for them. This has been helped by the realisation that optical drives are not needed for most users and by the addition of SSDs in place of hard drives, reducing weight and power use as well as noise. Dell has also revealed that there will be a number of other laptops on the way sporting the Sandy Bridge chip in the Inspiron and XPS lines.
