News Bits: Acer Battery Recall, New Samsung 1.8" Hard Drives, OLPC Founder Interviewed

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Acer America announces voluntary battery recall

Acer America has announced a voluntary recall of approximately 27,000 lithium ion batteries. The batteries contain cells manufactured by Sony and under certain circumstances, they can overheat and create a potential fire hazard. No Acer notebooks have been involved in overheating incidents thus far.

Acer notebooks that contain the affected batteries were sold between May 2004 to November 2006. See the below link for information on the batteries recalled.

Read More (Business Wire)

Compal says adoption of LED lighting for notebooks will be slow

President of Compal Electronics, Ray Chen, said yesterday that volume shipments of LED-based notebooks will not arrive until 2H 2008, and even then only on select models. Compal is in a trial stage for LED-based notebooks only right now, with very limited output.

Compal is confident that shifting between the current tehnology (CCFL) to LED for notebooks will become a trend. Advantages of an LED screen include reduced power consumption and reduced thickness.

Some 12-inch and 14-inch notebooks are already using LED technology. Penetration of LED screens has been limited due to cost issues. DisplaySearch said that the penetration rate for LED notebooks will not surpass 10% until 2010.

Read More (DigiTimes)

Samsung introduces larger 1.8-inch drives

Samsung's latest hard drives are the new SpinPoint N2 Series, which are 1.8-inch drives with capacities ranging from 30GB to 120GB. They rotate at 4,200RPM and have a 2MB or an 8MB cache. The N2 series is targeted for small devices such as UMPCs and portable audio players.

Samsung is not abandoning the 1.8-inch hard drive market like other manufacturers, such as Fujitsu. Fujitsu is focusing on SSDs and has withdrawn from the 1.8-inch hard drive market.

According to market analysis by DataQuest, 1.8-inch SSDs are 5x more expensive per gigabyte than 1.8-inch hard drives. Even by 2010, SSDs will still be about 3x more expensive per gigabyte than 1.8-inch hard drives.

Read More (DailyTech)

LAPTOP Magazine interview with OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte

Founded in 2005 by Nicholas Negroponte, the One Laptop Per Child initiative's goal is to spread education around the world on low-cost laptops. The XO laptop will eventually cost around $100 after three years of production.

LAPTOP Magazine interviews Negroponte and answered several questions about the project.

Read More (Laptopmag.com)

Dell Responds to M1710 Overclocking Review

A review posted to this site on Monday raised issues with the XPS M1710 overclockable laptop, and invited Dell to respond to the issues raised. Dell today came up with a formal response in the forums indicating that the user had exceeded the level of overclocking allowed by the chip. Read the review here and response from Dell here.

AT&amp;T expands LaptopConnect offerings with new ExpressCard and USB mobile broadband offerings

AT&amp;T Inc. today announced its expanded LaptopConnect portfolio with the Option GT Max 3.6 Express ExpressCard, and coming in early May, the Sierra Wireless AirCard 875U mobile broadband device for USB. Both are powered by AT&amp;T's 3G BroadbandConnect service.

The new wireless devices can be used in more than 165 major markets, where users can download a 1 megabyte file in about 15 seconds on average, and outside 3G coverage areas using AT&amp;T's EDGE high speed wireless data network. Both devices can be used in 125 countries.

The Option GT Max 2.6 Express is designed to be used with newer notebooks that have ExpressCard slots; it has a flip-up antenna and is compatible with notebooks that have ExpressCard34 and 54.

The Sierra Wireless AirCard 875U plugs directly into the USB port. It has an integrated battery to ensure optimal performance.

Both devices support Windows 2000, XP, and Vista. AT&amp;T's unlimited DataConnect rate plan is available for $59.99/mo for customers with a two-year agreement and qualifying AT&amp;T wireless voice plan.

Option GT Max 3.6 Express

Sierra Wireless Website

AT&amp;T Laptop Connect

 

I think they really need to start looking into more of the batteries made by Sonyo. <<; You never know.

 

I expect my next notebook/tablet to have a LED screen or at least if its a 17"er a much better LCD then todays norm .

Kudos for Dell on responding to the article .

However I don't see the point in paying a 300$ premium for a CPU that has very limited overclocking ( ~5-8% ? ) . Specialy considering the T7600 is also very expensive and doesn't deliver value for money like the lower CPUs .

 

atlaast the acer recall
a bit late though but still some action is better than no action
before anything **officially ** takes place

i never thought that thre are dell representatives in the forums
its quite heartening to kow that this forum does include **everyone**
wonder if bill gates is in here