GadgetReview

The tablet PC hasn’t really caught on except among a small percentage of professionals in highly specialized fields. But all that’s changed now. Meet Hewlett Packard’s TouchSmart TX2, the first multi-touch tablet for Windows.

An outgrowth of the successful TouchSmart “kitchen” PC, which was designed for family use, Hewlett Packard has taken a chance and expanded that concept to include the sparkling new TouchSmart TX2, a touch-screen notebook, which like its predecessor, has capabilities that are focused on multi media including flipping and expanding digital photos and other similar tricks.

Although the TouchSmart TX2 is a pioneer as the first multi-touch tablet for Windows, some might argue that Hewlett Packard is being a bit generous with the multi-touch classification. While some of the touch functionality does extend to other applications, it is still fairly limited. While the tablet does support more fingers, at this point the gestures are still limited to two.

In most ways, the TouchSmart TX2 is much like its predecessor, and cannot be called “revolutionary” by any stretch of the word. The tablet features a 12-inch widescreen, a stylus, a dual-layer DVD burner, three USB ports, and a multi-card reader. Inside, the tablet has a 250GB, 5400-rpm hard drive, a 2.2-GHz AMD Turion X2 ZM-82 processor, and 4GB of memory.

Pricing at Hewlett Packard starts at $1,149.

Are you game?

I would wait until the waters are a bit colder, as they are destined to become.

[GearLog]

The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) XO laptop program relaunched for the second time with Amazon.com taking care of the ordering and distribution. As of now you can order the amazing XO laptop through the Give 1, Get 1 program for $399 or choose to give one for $199.

I must say that the XO laptop is an amazing piece of machinery with its built in Wi-Fi, rugged exterior case, color/black screen readable in direct sunlight, ultra-low 4 watt power consumption, and the ability to charge using solar power.

It’s crammed with fun, educational programs designed to change a kid’s perspective of the world. But why give them a laptop when they have no food? Couldn’t have put it better myself:

Why give a laptop to a child who has no running water? If you replace the word “laptop” with “education” the answer becomes clear. You don’t wait to educate until all other challenges are resolved. You educate at the same time because it’s such an important part of all other solutions.

[Computerworld]

Appearance wise, the new MacBook Air 1.86GHz is identical to the first generation of Apple’s lightweight laptops. Inside, however, is quite another tale to tell, as it contains a new and faster processor, upgraded video circuitry, a faster front-side bus, faster RAM, and a new display connector.

The weight and size of the MacBook Air is identical to the original as is the bright 13-inch display and single USB port. The three-pound MacBook Air with its full size keyboard and greatly improved graphics power is far superior to the original. The upgrades have a down side as well, as they narrow MacBook Air’s already limited appeal even further. On the negative side, the MacBook Air 1.86GHz is much slower than other more affordable laptops. It also comes without video adapters.

There were complaints that the original version of the MacBook Air suffered regularly from serious overheating problems. Whatever the problem was, Apple seems to have corrected it substantially with the newer version. Still, the most major upgrade to be found is to the video subsystem. The previous model was slow as it contained Intel’s GMA X3100 graphics circuitry

This MacBook Air can be yours via Apple for a mere $2,499.

Is the new MacBook you?

Was the other one?

[MacWorld]

Dell officially launched their Inspiron Mini 12 laptop today, the big brother of the Mini 9. You can choose between 3 different configs, or mod it to suit your own taste. Starting at $549 expect a 1.33Ghz Intel Atom Processor Z520, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 40GB hard drive, WiFi G, Intel GMA 500, 3-cell battery and of course a 12.1-inch LCD. The Mini 12 is just under 1.1″ thick and weighs slightly less than 3lbs.

If’ you’ve got an extra $50 kicking around you can grab a slightly larger hard drive (60GB) and a battery twice the size.

You can pick up your very own Dell Mini 12 laptop here in black or white.  The system will ship on or before December 5th according to a Dell CSR.

MSI Computer announced a new, bargain gaming notebook for the Holidays today.  The GX630-028US sports an AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core Processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9600 graphics card, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 250GB SATA hard drive, a 15.4 WXGA glare LCD, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g/n, and a 2.0MP webcam. MSI has also included the latest in Notebook gaming: the ability to overclock the processor by as much as 15% with MSI’s Turbo Drive-engine Technology.  For few and infrequent charging opportunities, MSI has also added the MSI ECO Engine, which allows users to switch between 5 different operating modes to conserve battery life.

The MSI GX630-028US gaming notebook will hit Amazon and other retailers any day now for $800.

Similar to the One Laptop Per Child Program of a little while ago, Intel’s Classmate Program is offering a super-cheap Classmate ‘Netbook’ designed to provide educators with an inexpensive platform that will get kids online and hopefully studying hard. But will it?

According to Laptop Magazine, which seems to be the only authority to view this early prototype, the CTL2go is a swivel-screen ‘netvertible, which is intended to be sturdy yet cheap with touch-screen capabilities that will approximate a Tablet PC experience. Since the reviewed model did not have the Windows XP Tablet Edition and thus was not enabled, one must weigh rather heavily the word, ‘approximate.’ That being the case, the 2go tablet is simply a touch screen laptop with a swivel screen whose significance is muddled at best.

This Intel Netbook is above all else, a nice thought, and Laptop Magazine has made a valiant effort in showing it off in its best possible light.

Time will tell for Intel.

Is the Mini 12 Netbook from Dell the largest available with a note-book-sized 12-inch display? The answer is yes, but so what and what’s next?

Netbooks, those small to medium sized, light-weight, low-cost, energy-efficient laptops, generally optimized for web browsing and e-mailing have sort of taken the world by storm, but its only drizzling when it comes to performance from the Dell Inspiron Mini 12 Netbook.

According to Laptop Magazine, this sleek netbook is quite good looking, measuring less than one-inch thick and weighing only 3 pounds with the six-cell battery included. The keyboard is very cool, the touchpad is spacious, and the 1280 x 800 glossy screen is vivid (to say the least). Beyond that, however, there isn’t much to say except that performance is slow due to the fact that this netbook runs Windows Vista Home Basic as well as a pre-installed virus on just one lonely gigabyte of RAM.

Were the people at Dell drinking? It must have been potent stuff if that was the case, because in addition, the one gig is not upgradeable.

So, let’s have another drink maybe, but a Dell Mini 12 Netbook, no thanks.

Asustek is on a tare lately.  Last month they launched the ultra slim Asus S101 laptop and today they’ve announced (via a retailer) the Asus N20A 12-inch laptop.  It’s sporting an Intel Core 2 Duo processors (choose from T9400, P8600, P7350, T5800, or T5850), GMA X4500HD video card, up to 4GB of DDR2 RAM, up to 320GB of hard drive space, and a DVD burner.  It’s 12-inch monitor will put out 1280×800, which includes a 1.3MP webcam.  Connectivity comes in the form of WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G.  Ports arent’ too shabby either: HDMI, eSATA, 3x USB 2.0, 8-in-1 media card reader and ExpressCard slot.

ZipZoomFly is offering a preorder for the N20A for $999

Official product page here

What is it: An ultra lightweight and mini Notebook with touchscreen control. It weighs just 1.32lbs.

Features: Intel Atom Processor Z530, Vista Biz or Home, 5.6″ WXGA LCD touchscreen, webcam, fingerprint reader, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 60-120GB hard drive, GPS with Garmin Mobile, 10/100 Ethernet, Wifi b/g/n, Bluetooth, 4-cell battery

Availability: Here

Price: $999 - $1,300

Maybe it was all the Nintendo DS fanfare that got Fujitsu on board with this design, but in any case it should prove to be an interesting precedent in the laptop world.  Embedded just above the LifeBook N7010’s keyboard is a 4-inch LCD touchscreen that can be loaded with whatever imagery or apps you so choose.  The lappy’s specs shouldn’t be overlooked either, which include 4GB of RAM, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 3470 video card, 2.26GHz P8400 Core 2 Duo processor, 320GB hard drive, Blu-ray player, WiFi, Bluetooth, a 1.3MP webcam and a boat load of ports.

You’re probably expecting some ridonculous price, right?  Wrong, it’s just $1,500.

LaptopMag got a hands on and grabbed some video of the 4-inch touchscreen in action.

[Slashgear]