News Bits: Lenovo and US Govt., Core Duo Prices to Drop, Vista Compatibility, Samsung Q1 hands-on

US State Department pulls Chinese-made LenovoPCs

The US State Dept has removed computers manufactured by China's Lenovo from networks that access information critical to national security. The move comes from a fear that China could be aggressively spying on the US. The computers were pulled last week after a bipartisan panel, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, made angry objections to the State Dept's decision to install ~900 of the Lenovo desktops on its secure networks around the world.

The State Dept ordered 16,000 PCs from Lenovo this year; the company denied that the PCs, which were made at the formerly IBM-owned facilities in North Carolina and Mexico, posed any security risk to the United States. A company spokeswoman said:

"We know that our computers present no security risk to the US government because we do not install back-doors or surveillance tools in our computers. We would welcome neutral changes to the US procurement process that would improve US security, because we know that we could meet any such requirements."

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Special thanks to forum member NB_Noob for submitting thislink.

Intel Core Duo price cuts May 28

Intel will prune its Core Duo prices on May 28<SUP>th</SUP> by up to 33.6% off the original prices. The price cut clears the path for the anticipated introduction of the 2.33GHz T2700 next month.

Digitimes cites prices for the Duos:

Model	Current Price	Reduced Price	Percentage of Reduction
Duo T2700	N/A ($637 @ Launch)	N/A	N/A
Duo T2600	$637	$423	33.6%
Duo T2500	$423	$294	30.5%
Duo T2400	$294	$241	18.0%
Duo T2300	$241	(Replaced by T2300E)	N/A
Duo T2300E	N/A	$209	13.3% (from T2300)
Solo T1400	N/A	$209	N/A
Solo T1300	$209	No Reduction	N/A

The current T2300 will be replaced by the T2300E; what exactly it offers over the current is unknown, but it's still cheaper than the T2300 by 13.3%. The Core Solo T1400 (1.83GHz) will also be introduced this week, strangely carrying the same pricing as the T1300 (1.66GHz).

The 65nm Intel Celeron D processors are also expected to ship on May 28<SUP>th</SUP>

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Can your PC run Windows Vista?

Microsoft has released an application that is designed to assess your computer for Vista compatibility, with and without the Aero Glass GUI (Graphical User Interface).
In order to support all of the stuff, a "Premium Ready PC" is needed -

• 1GHz 32- or 64-bit CPU
• 1GB RAM
• 40GB HDD, 15GB free space
• DVD-ROM, Internet access
• DirectX 9 graphics card with Pixel Shader 2.0 Hardware w/ 32-bit color, WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) driver
• Adequate graphics memory, 64-256MB depending on resolution

Don't worry, you can still run the basic GUI if you have an 800MHz CPU, 512MB of RAM and a DirectX 9 graphics card.

Get the application here.

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Samsung Q1 UMPC First Thoughts Review @ TabletPCReview

Brian has done a first thought review on the Samsung Q1 UMPC (Ultra-mobile PC). First impressions? Overall good, with a few quirks.

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Dell offering AMD chips in servers

The news we've all been waiting for - Dell offering AMD chips. At the moment, Dell is only offering Opteron Chips in four-socket servers. Dell says:

"Dell will also introduce new AMD Opteron processors in our multi-processor servers by the end of the year offering a great new technology to our customers at the high-end of our server line."

AMD made a quick follow-up statement as well:

"We welcome Dell, and Dell customers, to the world of AMD64."

Dell's decision is viewed as a huge blow to Intel from a marketing standpoint, bringing out some of Intel's current weaknesses it has with larger servers.

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Notebook demand slows, price war expected Q3

In Taiwan, the notebook demand has dropped significantly since April according to sources at domestic distributors, and a price war is expected in the third quarter of this year, resulting from inventory issues.

Several of Taiwan's leading distributors have experienced a 30-40% sales drop on year between April and May, according to the sources. Inventory levels in the channel market has gone up a minimum of 50% in May, indicated the sources, noting that turnover days at retailers have extended from the normal level of 21 days to more than 30 days for this quarter."

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Dell XPS M1210 Shows up on Dell Website

On the Dell Norway and Germany websites a couple of configurations and buying options for the Dell XPS m1210 12.1" widescreen notebook have shown up. Below is a screenshot of this site:

As you can see, there are at least two options for the M1210, the high-end one includes a Core Duo T2400, nVidia GeForce 7400 card, 100GB hard drive @ 5400RPM, integrated camera and DVD burner for the equivalent of $1,800 USD.

Thanks to flip21 for this tip in the forums

More on M1210 here

Interesting Links

• Inside the MacBook
• ATI R600 graphics chip to be biggest ever

 

when will AMD be available in normal computers? and will dell also do the price drops for the core duos?

 

There's a pretty good chance of never. At least not in this generation of processors, and most likely the next. AMD simply does not have near enough manufacturing capacity to supply dell with any sort of quantity. AMD already sells every single processor that comes off of it's lines and supplying dell with a good size share of that total would alienate it's other OEM partners that build with their chips. Retail channels would also run dry (or ramp up prices far too much), and AMD won't do this, they aren't that stupid and couldn't even if they wanted to.

 

Good decision! Don't let the second Black Hawk down! We should buy our own products.

 

That link is down, but the words "price war" sure do sound sweet...

I have a dream... That this Christmas shopping season, we'll be able to get halfway decent notebooks for $300... And the words "price war" suggest to me that it may be $300 shipped.

Let's raise our glasses, my friends, to the price warriors we've come to know and love! To a bloody price war!!

 

Are the specs for the XPS M1210 correct?! A nvidia 7400 in a 12.1'' laptop and from DELL? I never thought this would happen, they wouldnt even put a dedicated graphics card in a 14'' laptop before and now all of a sudden they decide to stick one in a 12.1''? Wow.

 

all computers sold in US, are in fact made in china so I don't see big difference - if china wanted to, it could order ODMs to integrate some chips (with malicious soft) on motherboards or alter existing chips or hide some software in HDD's and so on... But thats more like from fantasy world - don't think they will do that.

 

A drop of 33% of the T2600!? Thats incredible, thanks Intel! I cant wait to have a Core Duo notebook, see how low the prices are. Intel is killing AMD with its Turion X2 I think. The Core Duo performs better, has longer battery and now lower prices!

When Merom comes I think AMD cannot compete anymore on the mobile market. Well, that is a little too much said but Intel remains the winner I must say.

Charlie-Peru

 

How long does it take usually for processor price cuts to reflect in notebook prices... instantly? the day after? or until the notebook manufacturers clear their overpriced inventories?

 

The whole Lenovo thing is just totally stupid. Nearly all the "facts" about "security" is groundless. Most of the computers made nowadays are made in China. I dont think anyone can name one computer sold today that is 100% American made. Even then all the computers are carefully screened, the chance of data being lost on a portable media is much much higher. It doesn bode well for US computer makers either. While Lenovo probably wont recover from this (no future gov't contracts), companies that is trying to get beef up their presence in China (Dell etc) will also be set back as the Chinese gov't will definitely retaliate in some way or another due to the "loss of face". It comes down to a stupid fiasco cooked up by xenophobics thinking it is in the best interest of America when in fact it just goes in the opposite direction.

 

I don't think you get the message! American Co. implement American standards, rules, and laws. It doesn't matter where they're really made of. Then, American Gov. can persue a lawsuit if bad things happen. If a foreign company backed by Chinese Gov. and whereas, the American Gov. know that Chinese Gov. do not have any interest with American Gov. except American money, how they can persue the case? I think they're making good decision not to buy IBM products. This will also give example to others that you can't just buy American Co. and grab the American markets. Read why the blackhawk down, then you'll understand! Just think about it logically, don't think too much politics.

 

Hey... don't hate the Americans! Think back of why the Chinese Gov. loses their face if that's what you call it! Everything people do always have a reason. If you buy food from a restaurant and there are rats in the kitchen, will you go back there again? I don't want to mention about the hygiene of average Chinese restaurants, you might call me name for it! But, that's another easy example in your life that you see everyday.