pcs

This post has been updated with pricing info.

The small form factor PC that Dell was talking up earlier this year will be released tomorrow.

The company posted a teaser video to its blog today.

Dell says the new Studio Hybrid is 80 percent smaller than a traditional PC and it will come in seven different colors. But here's some stuff that's not in the video: It will retail for $699 with a monitor, and $499 without, according to sources familiar with the product. And, although it's a desktop, it'll have Intel's latest mobile processor … Read more

Gateway.com no longer sells Gateway PCs.

The company announced Friday that channel partners and retail outlets, both online and brick-and-mortar, are the only way to get the Gateway brand now. In a statement, company officials said it was to fit Gateway into parent company Acer's model, which has always been heavily dependent on indirect sales.

Gateway was one of the original success stories when it came to selling PCs directly to consumers, though its business model underwent several significant makeovers before it was eventually acquired by Acer in August.

Heavy reliance on direct PC sales has fallen out … Read more

The world's largest PC maker has decided it doesn't need a separate gaming PC unit anymore. From now on, Voodoo will be just one of Hewlett-Packard's consumer PC brands.

Voodoo founder Rahul Sood said on his personal blog that this was "always" the intention when HP bought Voodoo PC in 2006, and "the plan is now being accelerated, ultimately making it a reality sooner than any of us ever imagined."

Sood repeats that this is a "good thing" for the Voodoo brand, and he's probably right. HP knows how to move PCs, … Read more

The CherryPal is a small, black, rectangular box with not much inside.

Besides a processor, some flash memory, and some connecting parts, it's definitely not the kind of computer you'd see heavyweights like Hewlett-Packard and Dell waving around. But Max Seybold, the creator and CEO of CherryPal says this barebones PC is the future.

Yes, we've been hearing for a while now that cloud computing and the browser are the next iteration of the desktop OS, but Seybold is betting big on it.

The CherryPal--so named because one early tester declared the device "sweeter than an … Read more

It's hard to remember the last time I bought a desktop computer. Sometime back in the stone age, I suppose, when vendors still bundled the machines with CRT screens.

My back-of-the-envelope tally of friends and colleagues turns up the same taste trend. Few say they plan to spend money on desktops any more. Those who do say it's because they need the bigger computer for serious gaming applications. I hang with a crowd of early adaptors, but it's not just the predilections of the double soy nonfat latte crowd. Now the statistics are starting to bear out … Read more

Despite concerns that a weakening U.S. economy would slow spending here and elsewhere, the PC market is chugging along respectably.

The market's success was foreshadowed Tuesday by Intel, whose solid quarter demonstrated that there's continued demand for notebook PCs particularly. Shipments of PCs worldwide grew 16 percent in the second quarter of this year, led by the Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions, according to IDC. Shipments were down in the Asia-Pacific region, usually a strong market for growth, but the results were even worse in the U.S., where units shipped grew 3.6 percent, according … Read more

MTI Micro and Korean manufacturer NeoSolar said on Thursday they will build prototype ultra-mobile PCs powered by fuel cells.

The two companies said they will develop digital devices that use MTI Micro's Mobion fuel cells, which use liquid methanol cartridges as a fuel.

The development could lead to external chargers, snap-on attachments or devices with the Mobion fuel cell embedded in them, the companies said.

Fuel cells are being developed for a wide range of applications, from back-up electricity in buildings and data centers to transportation.

Rather drawing on tanks of hydrogen to make electricity in a fuel cell, … Read more

As desktop PCs fall further out of favor in the U.S., peripheral manufacturers are having no problem picking up the slack elsewhere.

China is poised to pass the United States in just three years to become the second-largest market for flat-panel monitors, according to a report released Tuesday by DisplaySearch. DisplaySearch is a market research company that tracks the display business.

The EMEA region (which refers to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) will continue to provide LCD monitor makers the most lucrative market, with just over 30 percent of all shipments heading there by 2011. Greater China will … Read more

Here in the Asay home we have a growing problem: Each year we add a Mac to the fold, making it increasingly more difficult to tell them apart. My wife, eldest daughter, and I each have MacBook Pros. Soon, no doubt, my nine-year old son will get one. I love the way the Macs look, but it becomes a problem when they all look the same.

That's at home. Imagine what it's like at work, where we have scads of MacBook Pros.

Yes, we could litter the laptops with stickers, but that's a bit like sacrilege (though some disagree).… Read more