News Bits: Sony Notebooks, Windows Roadmap, Developers Still Making Software for XP

Sony Montevina FW, Z, SR, BZ on the way

According to a post in our forums, Sony is planning to introduce several new notebook series based on the upcoming Intel "Montevina" Centrino 2 platform later this summer.

(view large image)

The SR series will feature a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics card with 128MB of dedicated VRAM. Prices range from $1250 - $1550.
The BZ series is a 15.4-inch business-class notebook, with prices ranging from $986 - $1271.


(view large image)

The FW series features a new 16.4-inch screen size and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics card with 128MB of VRAM. Price range is $1043 - $1710.


(view large image)

The Z series features a 13.1-inch LED-backlit display (most likely 1366x768) with an Nvidia GPU and HDMI out. Prices range from $1777 - $2277.
The TZ, CR, and AR series will come later in the fall and winter.

Special thanks to forum member PhilFlow for posting this information.

Learn how to cool down your notebook

Several of our forum members, including X2P, Johnny T, Gophn, and Flipfire have put together a "Cooling Central" section of our forums, dedicated to educating notebook users how to cool down their hot notebooks. The guide is sorted into beginner, intermediate, and expert sections.

NBR Cooling Central

Microsoft issues letter to Windows customers, talks about roadmap

Microsoft has issued a letter to its Windows customers that details the fate of XP, Vista improvements, and some details about Windows 7.

June 30, 2008 will be the last day for Windows XP sales - it will no longer be licensed to major PC makers and sold at retail. Microsoft will provide extended support for XP until April of 2014. Microsoft is not cutting off the availability of Windows XP entirely, however.

Businesses will be able to purchase Vista Business or Ultimate and have "downgrading" rights to use Windows XP. Downgrade rights are available to all businesses that license Windows. Windows XP Home and Starter Edition will still be available on low-cost "netbooks" and "nettops".

Microsoft says they have made significant progress with Windows Vista since its release, harping on increased security and a better overall user experience. They say Windows Vista is a great step forward.

Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista, is slated for release three years after the general availability of Windows Vista, meaning sometime in January 2010. Windows 7 will be built off of the same core architecture of Windows Vista to ensure a straightforward migration process.

Read the Letter (Microsoft.com)

Only 8 percent of developers making software for Vista

According to a report from Evans Data Corporation, only eight percent of developers are developing software for Vista. Almost half (49%) are developing software for XP, and even Linux development surpasses Vista's at 13%.

Vista continues to fail to make headway in business environments; most are sticking with Windows XP.

Although the numbers say otherwise, Vista's situation is not as bad as that it seems. Most software written for XP will run on Vista; the two operating systems are generally compatible with each other. Hardware support for Vista has greatly improved since its release over a year ago, and now almost all hardware released over the past several years should work with it.

Full Story (ArsTechnica.com)

More than 1 billion PCs in use

According to research firm Gartner, the number of computers in use in the world is more than one billion. The firm predicts that number will double by 2014. More than 180 million computers will be replaced this year alone, 35 million of which are to be dumped in landfills.

Full Story (Reuters.com)
Via (Engadget.com)

HP Pavilion dv5z "Puma" notebooks now available

The new HP Pavilion dv5z notebooks based on the new AMD "Puma" platform are now available for purchase.

The Pavilion dv5z series features a 15.4-inch display, a "liquid metallic" appearance, and dual-core AMD processors.

The dv5z has the following specifications:

• Windows Vista Home Premium/Business/Ultimate (32-bit or 64-bit)
• AMD Athlon X2 and Turion X2 Ultra processors (1.9GHz - 2.2GHz)
• 15.4" WXGA and WSXGA+ in BrightView, BrightView Infinity finishes
• Up to 8GB RAM
• ATI Radeon HD 3200, optional 256MB Radeon HD 3450
• HP Imprint Finish (Mesh)
• 802.11 WLAN, N available
• 120GB - 320GB HDD (SATA, 5400RPM)
• SuperMulti 8X DVD burner, optional Blu-ray
• HDMI 1.3 port
• Available built-in TV tuner
• Low-light webcam, digital microphones
• 6-cell Li-ion battery
• Altec Lansing stereo speakers
• One-year limited warranty

The "BrightView Infinity" display option has a frameless, flush glass look.

HP Pavilion dv5z product page

 

Seems like a trend, the big manufacturers are going with ATI this time.....
I'm very curious to see how the BZ business notebook series can stack up against the Thinkpad or HP business ones.

 

No info on the AR series?

 

I think it is funny how Microsoft keeps trying to get rid of XP. They just need to realize that Vista wasn't as well accepted as they had hoped and let XP survive until Windows 7. But they won't do that...otherwise they would lose money on Vista. It's all about the money.
Tim

 

Because as we all know Microsoft doesn't make any money on XP..

 

The way I see it...they make money either way. Charge XP Home == Vista Basic and XP MCE == Vista Home Premium and XP Pro == Vista Ultimate. There, everyone is happy.

 

I agree,they make money from OEM's on either....its all about ego and not admitting your new baby is a failure.

Vista downgrade rights are just a way to count an XP sale as a Vista sale and make the dismal business adoption of vista look better......IMO,there's no other reason to do it.

 

It strikes me that this "letter" from MS, coupled with the stats on software development by OS, is a bigger admission of failure than MS is really willing to let on to. The more telling evidence will come in after June 30, when XP no longer gets non-security upgrades from MS - that will result in an increased gap in feature availability between XP and _Vista, and as a result, the statistics on how many developers are writing for _Vista, and its new features, versus how many continue to write for XP, will become more meaningful. Unless more developers write to _Vista's feature set, by the time 2011 rolls around and MS finally releases a (late) Win7, businesses (which are, after all, the bread-n-butter of MS, not us "consumers") will be forced to make a significant, potentially disruptive, systemic change in the OS they use to run their operations - either from XP to Win7 (i.e., _Vista, but with an additional 3 years of added on features not available to XP) or from XP to an even better linux variant. If significantly more developers are still writing for linux as opposed to _Vista in 2011, I believe that more businesses faced with having to upgrade their system-wide OS will shift to linux than to Win7, unless MS drops the price so far down that Win7 becomes uneconomic - which will achieve the same result in the long run as MS would not be able to justify the cost of continual development of Win7, and it would fall even further behind linux.

Given MS' track-record so far, I'm going to put my money on linux, and set aside a few pennies to attend Microsoft's wake sometime in 2015 or thereabouts.

 

Until Linux becomes an operating system for humans, I'm willing to bet people will still stick to M$, despite their failures. I mean, come on. How many Vista fanboys do we have in these forums alone, where people are supposed to be knowledgeable about computers? Simply stated, probably majority of M$ users are oblivious to the reality of Vista failure.

I just hope Windows 7 will come and save the day, not just for M$ but for us users as well. I'm not yet willing to give up using Windows -- not when most, if not all, software and games are compatible to Windows. That's really what ties computer users to M$: compatibility.

My 2 cents.

 

Why only 128 mb video memory on the sonys? Why not 256 or 512 it can't cost sony much more! Ok 512 might be a bit overkill, but 256 would absolutly do a diffirence!

And regarding MS and Windows, I think it is because Vista was so delayed that people don't want to change to it, Xp was just too natural for everyone. When Windows 7 is released most people will have bought new computers (perhaps not most but many) and got a Vista isntallation with it. Therefore more will be willing to move to windows 7 because it was only 1-2 years since they changed OS and they are more used to change.

And I think that Windows 7 will be a much better OS than Vista, it will reuire about the same hardware to run and in two years that will be pretty easy to have. MS has said that they will not make the same misstakes with windows 7 as with vista (YES they has addmitted that they made som misstakes, not that vista is a failure but that they has made some misstakes )

 

No 18.4" LED notebook with CPU+GPU+"spurs engine" cell processor in the offing?

 

I heard that toshiba si going to make a cell processor computer. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscent...iba_unveils_laptop_with_cellderived_chip.html

 

lol I guess I am a fanboy because I know how to use a computer and Vista works perfectly fine. Your logic is infallible, why don't more people think like you?

 

can I ask what constitues a good OS?

this is what I think.
1) good usability
2) compatability
3) fast
4) smooth/acceptable user interface
5) ability to preform all task required of it.

vista get a pass in my books, and yes my vista machine is very fast, just don't give it 1gb of ram.

Ferrari 5005WLMI AMD Tl60 2.0ghz/2.0gb667mhz/160gb5400/X1600 boots in 35 seconds. (Vista Ultimate)

HP Pavillion m8125x 2.4core2Quad/2.0gb667mhz/400gb7200/8800GT also has a fairly fast boot

I have an other laptop with dual boot, xp and Ubuntu... Ubuntu is cool and has huge potential, but ORCA is CRAP compaired to the equivilants on windows.... even the stuff windows has built in is more usable. (to see this - anyone using linux(Ubuntu), load orca, enable magnifier, enable the crosshairs and see what I mean, put your mouse on the applications menu and see how long it takes to respond).

 

*Agreed with the above comments , Vista is a perfectly Stable and decent OS, Its mean for todays hardware.

I cant see my nan trying to navigate through a copy of SUSE.

 

XP Home works fine for me. I have a 2.66GHz P4 and 512MB of RAM. I don't need to network and i've even got some of the Vista look on my still fast enough for Opera computer.

 

I don't really like the TZ/MacBook keyboard that will be used on the next SZ. It is good though that they finally added in an HDMI port.

 

It sounds a bit odd that SR and FW series will have identical graphics . As I said said before this graphic is quite a step back comparing to N8600 GS (in FZ series). ATI 3400 series is quite mediocre performer.

Now I know Sony was never about top gaming solutions in their laptops, but I was expecting somting like N9600/N9700 or at least ATI's 3500 series

BR
Miki

 

Personally, I am very happy with the change. I have no problem typing on my TZ keyboard, it was cramped for a couple of days but now I type as well as any keyboard I come across.

I really hated the keyboard on the SZ series and also disliked it being taller and having a bigger footprint than the previous S series it replaced. I really like the Z series especially for it being more compact like the S series.

My only little nag about it is that it has no media buttons unlike the FW and SR, considering it has an HDMI port and almost certainly, a Blu-Ray drive option.

 

I only spotted the Ati HD3470 in one FW configuration. That does not mean all FW's will have this GPU.

Keep in mind that we don't have hard facts, all we have is indications and hints.

I will not be surprised if a FW configuration comes with a more powerful GPU.

 

Sure thing. I mean for 13.3" SR this is kind of expected solution, but I also think FW will have more powerfull GPU at least on pair with AR series (8600 GT)

BR
Miki

 

Ah... Can't wait for Windows 7...

 

Why do you think that? I look at the windows 7 interface and I lose myself. It is not consistent with the previous version.
I am currently using leopard and I just love it
Mac rocks

 

Windows 7 will have the same hardware requirements as Vista? Interesting.

 

Keeping in mind that by 2010, the Vista hardware reqs will be sooooo low that it'll be considered pretty basic sys reqs.

 

I'm looking forward to windows 7. I still haven't discovered any of the huge failures that Vista has. My machine is running well, I don't have crashes, my crap works. Most everyone I know who bashes Vista have wither never used it, or have a computer not suitable for it. Other than system requirements, I can't find any other major glaring flaws.

 

Vista's realistic system requirements are like a 2005 gaming computer.

PC makers have already cleared 512MB memory and non-dual-core computers, now it's only the 1GB computers that will prevent the whole market from having a computer fast enough to smoothly run Vista.

 

waiting for windows 7

 

I love and need my computers, but 35 million ending up in landfills? The dark side of our cutting edge technology... That's a lot of nasty toxins going straight into Mother Nature.

Ironic as hell, too, that we get these things from China, and when we're done with them, most end up right back there. But now members of the Chinese lower class, desperate for income, squat around pots of boiling acid to recover traces of precious metals. No personal health or environmental protections.

All is not lost, but a lot needs changing in this whole scenario. For starters, the corporate manufacturers need to step up their recycling efforts. Just my .02.