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ultra-portable

Seagate GoFlex portable drive gets USB 3.0

Owners of Seagate's FreeAgent GoFlex Pro who've been wishing the portable hard drive came with USB 3.0 rather than merely USB 2.0 just got their wish.

Seagate announced today a new portable drive in its FreeAgent GoFlex family, the 1.5TB GoFlex Ultra-portable. The drive not only comes with USB 3.0 standard but boasts 1.5TB of storage, making it what appears to be the largest single-volume portable external hard drive currently on the market.

Other than the amount of storage, the new drive has the same superflexible design as the GoFlex Pro, meaning it can be used with any type of connection--be it USB, FireWire, or eSATA--merely by swapping out the adapters.

The GoFlex Ultra-portable comes with a USB 3.0 adapter, while the GoFlex Pro comes with a USB 2.0 adapter. These two adapters, like all GoFlex adapters, can be used interchangeably.

Note, however, that while the GoFlex Pro supports USB 3.0 too, you'll need to buy a separate adapter that costs around $40. Notably, the GoFlex Ultra-portable is the first portable external drive in the GoFlex family to support USB 3.0 out of the box.… Read more

2009 sales of Netbooks rise, but notebooks fall

It's been a hot year for Netbooks, but not so much for the rest of the portable PC market.

Netbook sales are likely to hit $11.4 billion this year, a 72 percent rise from last year, thanks to a 103 percent leap in shipments, according to a new report from DisplaySearch. But notebook revenue overall will be down around 7 percent from last year.

The latest DisplaySearch Quarterly Notebook PC Shipment and Forecast Report, released Tuesday, found that the surge in Netbook (mini-notebook) sales was not enough to offset declines for ultra-portables and larger laptops. Aside from Netbooks, … Read more

Toshiba announces world's first 512GB SSD laptop

While it's now easy to get a desktop with a terabyte or more of storage, it's still pretty hard to find a laptop with even 300GB. That's why I am very impressed with the Portege R600-ST4203 laptop that Toshiba announced Thursday.

The Portege R600-ST4203 is one of world's first laptops with 512GB of storage and it's definitely the first with that much storage in the form of a solid-state drive (SSD). Until now, most SSDs for laptops have remained in the 32GB to 128GB capacity range.

The Portege R600-ST4203 is the newest model in Toshiba'… Read more

Intel lists new processors for ultra-portables

Intel has listed new low-power processors for upcoming ultra-portables from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Lenovo, among others.

The chipmaker also listed its first mobile quad-core processor, the QX9300, which runs at 2.53GHz and comes with 12MB of level-2 cache. The processor is priced at $1,038.

The 45-nanometer low-power processors will go into ultra-portable notebooks like the new ThinkPad X301 announced this week, and HP 2530p also rolled out on Monday. The next version of the MacBook Air is also rumored to be using one of these chips.

The SL9400 and SL9300 processors have a thermal envelope of 17 watts, … Read more

Gigabyte's second-generation UMPC

Though better known for making mainboards than consumer electronics, Gigabyte's first foray into the UMPC market--the U60--was surprisingly competent and incorporated a few innovative features such as split keyboard and GPS/TV tuner expansion slots.

The changes in the new Gigabyte M704 are mostly cosmetic, though the VIA processor has been bumped up to 1.2GHz and its screen has grown from 6.5 to 7 inches, obviating the need to scroll sideways on some Web sites designed for viewing in 1,024-pixel resolution. Despite the larger display and faster processor, the battery life remains similar to the … Read more

Two words for the same thing?

You say either and I say either, You say neither and I say neither Either, either Neither, neither, Let's call the whole thing off.

Ultra-portable Apple notebook to splash down at Macworld Expo

You like potato and I like potahto, You like tomato and I like tomahto Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto, Let's call the whole thing off

Apple Tablet PC is real, says Asus

But oh, if we call the whole thing off Then we must part And oh, if we ever part, then that might break my heart

Steve Jobs, 10 months ago:

Are you getting it? … Read more

New UMPC priced to sell in Asia

When the Kohjinsha SA1 was released outside Japan, it made waves as the first UMPC priced as low as $658. Though the coming of the cheaper ASUS Eee PC has stolen the former's thunder, we were still excited to see the SA1's successor as it could well be the cheapest Vista UMPC in the market (ASUS is based on Linux).

We played around with the new Kohjinsha SH6 display unit and were impressed that the Japanese company actually listened to consumer feedback. The keyboard is now head and shoulders above the SA1. The screen can be rotated with … Read more

A very portable holiday season

If there's anything I hate more than the mole people who are, even now, planning our destruction, it's laptops of shoulder-breaking proportions. That's why I've decided to ask Santa (Hi Mom!) for something in the ultraportable range. The Sony VAIO VGN-TXN15P/W is the king of the ultraportable laptops, with a bevy of features and an amazing battery life to boot. If, however, you're looking for something a bit more stylish, the Acer Ferrari 1004WTMi might be right up your alley. It's an excellent combination of speed and style that manages to avoid being … Read more