t-series

Windows 8 touch ultrabooks see price cuts at Microsoft Store

Touch ultrabooks are seeing decent price cuts at the Microsoft Store, making these expensive models a bit more affordable.

Touch-screen laptops are generally priced significantly higher than non-touch models, as the screens have been expensive to procure.

The well-received Acer Aspire S7 has seen one of the steepest discounts, falling to $1,299 from $1,649.

The S7 features a 256GB solid-state drive, a 13.3-inch 1,920x1,080 resolution display, and a 1.9GHz Intel Core i7-3517U processor.

Next up, Sony's Vaio T Series 13 has been reduced to $999 from $1,299. That 13.3-inch touch model … Read more

Lenovo dumps classic keyboard on new ThinkPad laptops

Those of you who loved Lenovo's classic-style laptop keyboards can wave bye-bye to them.

With the new 2012 T-series ThinkPads, Lenovo has put the final nail in the coffin of the classic keyboard once made popular by IBM.

Lenovo stuck with the classic keyboard for the current T420, T420S, and T520. But the new ThinkPad T430, T430s, and T530 due to launch early next month have been overhauled with the island-style keyboards that seem to be hitting almost every laptop these days.

The company had already switched to the island-style keyboards for all of its other laptops, so the … Read more

When it comes to speakers, thin is in

British speaker manufacturer KEF is now offering a range of superthin (less than 1.5 inches deep) flat-panel speakers designed to look great mounted next to flat-screen TVs. The T Series speakers all feature a radically new ultralow profile bass/midrange driver and a new tweeter. Designing audiophile-grade skinny speakers isn't easy, but KEF might be able to pull it off.

The T Series models all feature KEF's Selecta-Mount system, which automatically adjusts the speaker's frequency response to compensate for how and where the loudspeaker is mounted. The idea is to produce a consistent tonal balance, for on-wall and in-room speaker placement. The T-Series speakers' thin driver technology was developed using finite element analysis (FEA) computer modeling. … Read more

Sony T300 separates the adults from the children

Following up on its current top T-series camera, the Cyber-shot DSC-T200, Sony has announced the Cyber-shot DSC-T300. Resolution has been pushed up to 10.1-megapixels, but the other main specs have remained the same. The T300 sports a 5X optical, 33-165mm f/3.5-4.4 zoom lens, 3.5-inch touchscreen LCD, and has optical image stabilization and a top sensitivity of ISO 3,200.

New to this camera, and some of Sony's other new compacts, are a handful of features aimed at dealing with common, though tricky, shooting situations. Cutest among these is an update to the Smile Shutter … Read more

Gateway catches up to the notebook design bandwagon

Welcome, Gateway!

So, you're doing the colored/crazy-designed notebook thing now, huh? Yeah, so is, well, everyone else.

It's pretty well-established now that the masses see their computer as an extension of their personalities. First, it was the brightly hued notebook trend that all the top-tier PC makers were latching on to, including Gateway. Now as a laptop vendor, it seems you have to offer some artsy-looking version of a standard notebook to even get noticed anymore. (With the exception of Apple, which garners plenty of attention with its commitment to minimalism.)

Cases in point: Sony, which already … Read more