News Bits: Inspiron XPS ML170 Available, VAIO TX Available, Dell & Cingular, Intel Dual-Core Marketing

Dell Inspiron XPS ML170 Available at Dell.co.uk

Who says Japan or the USA always gets the good stuff first when it comes to electronics and computers? Not this time, whether Dell UK flubbed or the UK is just ahead of the curve, the next generation Inspiron XPS showed up there first, the XPS M170. Strange thing is, the specs they have posted are precisely the same as the current Inspiron XPS 2. The XPS M170 is supposedly going to have the next generation nVidia Go 7800 GTX card, but that won't be "announced" and available until September 29th, so it's a good job Dell isn't showing it on their site I suppose. Either way, here's a link to this new XPS machine and a screen shot below of the config page. We expect to see this, another XPS and perhaps a new 9000 series Inspiron show up in the next few days and weeks as well.

Link: Dell UK XPS M170 Page

Dell XPS M170 config page screen shot (view larger image)

Sony to Fire 10,000 People, But At Least The New VAIO TX and BX are Available Now

Well, the bad news for Sony employees and the company is that they're struggling a bit to make the amount of money they want. And so, they're "restructuring" which we all know is a nice word for saying they're firing a bunch of people, 10,000 to be exact. Here's a link to some news on that.

But this won't affect them selling notebooks, which they're actually going hyper on us releasing new models for. Sony recently announced the new VAIO TX ultraportable and VAIO BX business notebook and both have now shown up on SonyStyle.com for purchase.

Sony VAIO TX Product and Buying Page ($1,919.99)

Sony VAIO BX Product and Buying Page ($1,499.99)

Dell and HP to Include EVDO in Notebooks Next Year, Dell Will Also Offer Cingular EDGE and HSDPA Connectivity Built-in

There have been a bunch of announcements recently regarding built-in EVDO and EDGE technology to notebooks. Sony first offered this in their T series of ultraportable notebooks this past summer. Now Dell and HP will next year be offering integrated EVDO connectivity to notebooks, so if you're willing to pay $80 a month to Verizon you can have a high speed connection anywhere and everywhere, as long as you're in one of about a 100 major cities in the U.S. that is. Cingular has also been working to get its HSDPA high-speed cellular technology integrated into notebooks. Cingular and Dell will team-up to offer a notebook with an integrated HSDPA/EDGE modem by 2006.

More: http://www.pcworld.com/resource/article/0,aid,122651,pg,1,RSS,RSS,00.asp

Fujitsu LifeBook C1320 Widescreen Budget Notebook Announced and Available

Fujitsu just announced a new member of their Lifebook series, the C1320D, an affordable and portable (6.4 pound) notebook being targeted towards small businesses and those in education. TheC1320 will use a Pentium M processor ranging from 1.73 GHz Pentium Msto 2.0 GHz and will range in price from $1150 to $1700.

Link to product page: LifeBook C1320

ThinkPad Z Series Available and Product Info Online

The Lenovo ThinkPad Z series widescreen notebook is now available for purchase, the 14" version at least, which is the Z60t. Here's a link to the product brochure and information page(once you get to that page, click on the "ThinkPad Notebooks" link under "Personal Systems Reference" to see a list of all ThinkPad products that includes the Z series configs). And here's a link to the product buying page.

ThinkPad Z Front side shot (view larger image)

Next Generation Intel Mobile Dual-Core Processors, Napa, Will Have get $300 Million Worth of Promotion in 2006

Intel will be releasing dual-core processors for notebooks in the first quarter of 2006, according to sources in the Taiwan notebook industry. Notebooks based on this dual-core platform should be available world wide by summer of 2006, and in certain locations earlier than that. Some notebook vendors are planning up to 10 models of notebooks based on the dual-core chip to be available in 2006. Intel plans to help these ambitious manufacturers sell these new dual-core based notebooks by antying up $300 million to market the next generation processors. In 2003 Intel spent this amount to market Centrino notebooks, and we all know how successful that was and continues to be (very). So although there's no clever marketing terms for this next generation of technology from Intel yet, you can expect something similar to a Centrino branding onslaught next year.

More: http://www.digitimes.com/systems/a20050921A7032.html

Taiwan Ships 11.48 Million Notebooks in Second Quarter (April - June), Up 54% Year to Year

Taiwan is the land of notebook manufacturers, look at the bottom of just about any notebook you buy, or on the components of that notebook, and you'll see it's either assembled or produced in Taiwan. And so when Taiwan reports that it shipped 11.48 million notebooks in 3 months, a 54% increase over the same period a year earlier, it's a sure sign the notebook market is healthy. This number increase comes even as a shortage of Intel Pentium processors dogs the industry. Scary to think they would have shipped more if it weren't for supply issues.

More: http://www.digitimes.com/Reports/Report.asp?datepublish=2005/9/22&pages=RI&seq=402

 

I hope Intel doesn't put a marketing term...

Centrino already confuses people, no more!

And I need to subscribe to read more at DigiTimes, boo!!

 

Its about time Fujitsu started putting widescreen notebooks on the market. Now I am just hoping for the S-series to pick that up and an option for dedicated graphics.

< 4 lbs, widescreen, IBM like build, amazing specs, who could want anything else?? It would be a beautiful thing.