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Where Blu-ray meets wood grain: the Vaio NW160J

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Is Blu-ray the future of laptops? If Sony had its way, that would certainly be the case. And if all Blu-ray-playing laptops were as well-executed as Sony's Vaio NW160J, that wouldn't be the most daunting consideration. Sony has been packaging its Vaio laptops as design-centric, relatively expensive multimedia machines with a Blu-ray-playing focus for a while now, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the company's new line of slightly higher than midrange laptops, the NW series, culminates with a 15.4-inch Blu-ray version.

This model, the NW160J, comes in at $929. There are even more affordable NW Vaios with Blu-ray drives inside, but the NW160J also comes with above-average, gaming-capable ATI graphics along with its midrange Core 2 Duo processor, making it more expensive than slightly less graphically robust competitors. However, if you're looking for a well-designed Vaio with Blu-ray, a very good screen, and an excellent-feeling keyboard and touch pad--without moving up to a massive 17-inch desktop replacement--you've come to the right place.

Does Blu-ray matter to you, or is it superfluous to your laptop-purchasing considerations? Let us know below.

Read the rest of our review.

Sony Vaio NW160J

A lot of notebook for not much money.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Sold as an affordable media-friendly laptop with an eye toward design, Gateway's 14-inch TC7804u offers a decent collection of features and components at a low-end price.

Similar to the 15-inch MD7818u model we reviewed back in January, the TC7804u includes 4GB of RAM, a big hard drive, and a wide-screen 16:9 display, making it feel like a more expensive machine.

Still, we missed a few useful extras, such as Bluetooth and HDMI, and its touch-sensitive media controls looked better than they worked. As an aside, Gateway's convoluted naming system for laptops is still a mystery to us.

At first glance, Gateway has achieved high style: the muted cover (burgundy on our review unit, black in the final version), with its slightly chromed racing stripe is appealing, and on the inside, the alongside-the-keyboard backlit touch-sensitive media controls seem like features from a higher-end machine.

Read the full review of Gateway's TC7804u.

Gateway TC7804u

A notebook from MSI portends the crush of lower-cost, Intel-based MacBook-Air-like laptop designs to come.

The MSI X-Slim series herald Apple MacBook Air-like laptops without the luxury laptop tax

(Credit: MSI)

As I've written before, consumer ultra-low-voltage (CULV) chips will arrive in earnest this summer. The X-Slim X340 from MSI (Micro-Star International) is using the ULV SU3500, a precursor to lower-cost CULV Intel chips to come.

(Note: On April 19, Intel cut prices (PDF) on a wide range of processors. Though the SU3500 didn't see any cuts, the prices on its low-power cousins, the SL9400 and SU9400, were reduced 10 percent and 9 percent, respectively.)

What is CULV exactly? Well, one thing it's not is the Netbook-centric Atom processor: the 1.4GHz SU3500 is based on Intel's higher-performance mainstream Core 2 architecture. But like the Atom, it's a single-core chip. Single core means low power. In this case, the SU3500 draws only 5.5 watts, more than the Atom but a fraction of the dual-core mainstream Intel mobile chips rated at 25 and 35 watts. It also comes in a small 22mm chip package.

And what does all this mean? Better performance than Atom-based Netbooks. And in a well-designed system, longer battery life than a mainstream laptop.

Oh, and lower prices than luxury laptops like the Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo, which start at around $1,800. The MSI X-slim 340 with the SU3500 was launched this week in Japan and the higher-end version starts at around $1,000. U.S.-based reports say it is priced at $1,100.

The ultra-thin HP Pavilion dv2 laptop powered by AMD's Athlon "Neo" chip is also in this price range. AMD CEO Dirk Meyer said Tuesday that the single-core Neo processor will get a dual-core sibling dubbed "Congo" by summer.

Let the low-cost laptop competition begin.

The Gateway notebook roll-out is official. Sony's is not. Gateway Computer announced three lines of notebook PCs on Monday with 64-bit Windows, while Circuit City prematurely posted images of upcoming Sony notebooks.

Gateway 14-inch T6836

(Credit: Gateway )

Gateway rolled out three notebooks targeted at students. The P series desktop replacement comes with a 17-inch widescreen, the M series with a 15.4-inch screen, and the T series uses a 14.1-inch screen.

All systems come with 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium and pack 4GB of memory--the minimum for acceptable performance in 64-bit Windows.

(See Gateway goes all 64-bit in back-to-school desktops.)

The 15-inch "Garnet Red" Gateway M-6848 is spec'd with an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor, 4GB of memory, a 250GB hard disk drive, 802.11a/b/g,a wireless, DVD-R/RW drive, and Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1. It retails for $799.99.

The 14-inch "Pacific Blue" Gateway T-6836 notebook has virtually the same specifications. It also retails for $799.99.

Other features include a multimedia panel integrated into the keyboard, DVD burner with LabelFlash technology, and an integrated Webcam.

Upcoming Sony retail notebook

Meanwhile, details about upcoming Sony notebooks continue to seep out.

Circuit City prematurely posted photos of the upcoming Sony portables. (Though Circuit City has pulled the links, cached images are still accessible.)

Last week, less colorful user-manual images appeared at Notebookreview.com as well as tidbits about various models. Apparently, models will use Intel's next-generation Centrino 2 "Montevina" processor, graphics chips from Advance Micro Devices' ATI unit, and sport 13- and 16-inch screens.

Nvidia has posted a video that involves the new GTX 280 chip, overclocking, lots of liquid nitrogen, and the Nvidia labs. Oh, and no quad-core processor. Get the point?

Nvidia NForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard

(Credit: Nvidia)

"A lot of people believe you need an Intel quad-core or Intel quad-core Extreme to build an extreme PC," says the post by "Steffee" on the Nvidia Web site. "Today I'm going to build a gaming PC using the Intel Core 2 Duo. That's duo. Got that? Duo, two cores."

I think the point the blogger is trying to make is that the test system has only has two cores, though I could be mistaken.

Here's an excerpt from the blog: "Think you need a quad-core CPU for an extreme gaming PC with impressive 3DMark Vantage numbers and gaming performance?...I overclocked and hyper-cooled an SLI gaming rig using two of our latest and greatest GPUs--GeForce GTX 280...and a sub-$200 CPU."

Intel, of course, has a different take on this. "Most of what people do today with their computers requires powerful processors. Examples of processor-intensive applications include: creating content, viewing/editing high definition video, using social media sites, office tools, downloading music, and editing photos," Intel said in a statement.

In the test, the blogger uses an NForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard, Intel core 2 duo E8400, in addition to the GTX 280 graphics card.

With the single GTX 280 board, the score is a 3DMark Vantage "X4796."

Then the blogger (an Nvidia employee) takes a hike to the Nvidia lab. "Now we're going to take a field trip to Nvidia labs to do some serious overclocking," she says. After adding what seems to be prodigious amounts of liquid nitrogen and adding another GTX 280 SLI board, the 3DMark score jumps to "X10,282."

Intel could respond (which it hasn't) by saying that the E8400 is not a slow processor: it runs at 3.0GHZ and has 6MB of cache. And overclocked with liquid nitrogen, it would probably get some pretty good scores too. And then, of course, it might be simpler to just get a quad-core Extreme CPU.

In the test, the Nvida GTX 280 core clock was overclocked to 727MHz and the shader to 1458MHz. The core clock is normally 602MHz and the shader clock 1296MHz.

System specifications:
--2× NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics cards running in SLI nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard
--Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 CPU
--4 GB SLI-ready Corsair DDR3 memory
--PC Power and Cooling TurboCool 1200W power supply
--Windows Vista 32-bit operating system

Intel will introduce the Q9650 Core 2 Quad processor in the third quarter, according to Chinese-language Web site HKEPC, almost halving the price of the current high-end Intel part with similar specifications.

(Credit: Intel)

The Q9650 will be priced at $530, according to HKEPC, close to half the price of the similarly spec'd high-end "Extreme" QX9650, which is listed at $999 on Intel's pricing Web page.

Like the QX9650, the Q9650 will have a clock speed of 3GHz, a 1333MHz front-side bus (FSB), and 12MB of cache memory.

The other notable desktop processor slated to debut in the third quarter is the Core 2 Duo E8600. This will have a clock speed of 3.33GHz, a 1333MHz FSB, and 6MB of cache memory, according to HKEPC. It is expected to be priced at $266.

The E8600 will top the currently available E8500, which runs at 3.16GHz and is priced at $266.

When contacted, Intel had this to say: "We publicly acknowledge that we will have future 45nm Intel Core 2 processor offerings which fit into LGA775 sockets and take advantage of currently available and future desktop platforms with similar physical, power, and thermal characteristics."

HKEPC also lists price cuts. The quad-core Q9550 (2.83GHz), for example, is slated to drop from $530 to $316 (the upcoming Q9650 will push the Q9550 down to a lower price point). The widely-used Q6600 (2.4GHz) is expected to fall from $224 to $203.

The Core 2 Duo E8500 should see its price fall from $266 to $183.

The Apple MacBook Air is a seminal computer. There I said it. I'm not going to pretend that my opinion is the final word (or anything close to it) but I will weigh in by saying it's a ground-breaking product. After using it for about two months, here's why.

(Note: I am not a Mac enthusiast. This is the first Apple I've ever owned.)

This is not a CNET review. The CNET review is here.

MacBook Air

(Credit: Apple)

1. Very thin, very light but comparatively fast. That's no mean feat. Subnotebooks I've had in the past (e.g., the Compaq Evo N400c) were thin and light but slow. Usually compromised by an ultra-slow hard disk drive (more on that below). The Air is not a speed demon but it's not slow either. (It uses a full-blown Core 2 Duo 1.8-GHz processor not a slower ultra-low-voltage processor). Granted, this is a subjective evaluation. But day-to-day subjective experience matters too.

2. Solid state drive (SSD): The SSD is revolutionary. At first, I thought the SSD was, at best, a fascinating novelty. But it has turned out to be one of the most practical, useful hardware improvements to a notebook computer since the active-matrix color liquid crystal display, in my opinion. I can't overstate enough that hard drive bottlenecks have been virtually eliminated. I could give a number of examples but here's the most salient: No disk thrashing. On my other (faster, high-end) PC notebook, lots of open applications means lots of disk activity. Which slows everything down. This has not happened on the Air. A blessing.

3. Sturdy. For a sub-one-inch-thin notebook, it feels remarkably solid. Enough said.

4. Battery life. The consensus is that the Air's battery life is bad to awful. I can only compare the battery life against the other PC notebooks I use. The Air beats them all. For what I do on the Air (a lot of open windows, occasional moderate Web development, writing), it lasts anywhere from three to five hours. In this sense, I agree with this post that says using the Air as your main, do-everything computer (which I do not do) is missing the point of what the Air is intended to be (and will result in lousy battery life).

5. Looks. You can't beat the aesthetics. The Starbucks status factor can't be ignored.

Notes. Obviously, the Air has its (well-publicized) shortcomings. I will mention three: It can get hot occasionally, the keyboard is OK but not great, and the high price is off-putting. But I will say this: for a cutting-edge, groundbreaking design, it has surprisingly few faults. (The fact that it has few ports and no optical drive has not fazed me one bit.)

Here's another take at Macworld.

The PC industry is wasting little time getting in line behind Apple to use Intel's spiffy new notebook chip.

Lenovo and Fujitsu plan to use the same Intel chip that helped the MacBook Air get so thin.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

CNET News.com has learned that Lenovo and Fujitsu are in the process of putting together systems based on the special Core 2 Duo chip that Apple is using in the MacBook Air. The new laptops should be out shortly, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans, and will give customers a chance to see what the rest of the PC industry can do with the power-thrifty chips.

Representatives for Lenovo and Intel declined to comment, while a Fujitsu representative did not immediately return a call.

Apple asked Intel to design the special Core 2 Duo chip last year as it was putting together the design that would become the MacBook Air. The chip fits into a package that's significantly smaller than the garden-variety package Intel uses with its notebook chips, and it uses less power than the standard Core 2 Duo, allowing it to fit into the slim MacBook Air without melting the inside of the package or eating the battery.

While Apple got the scoop on that new chip--which, since the company asked Intel to build it, seems fair--Intel has other customers. After the MacBook Air was introduced at Macworld, Intel representatives said the chip would be offered to the rest of the PC industry if they were interested. And much of the technology used in the chip will become part of Intel's mainstream offerings when the Montevina platform is released later this year.

This is a chip for ultraportable notebooks, loosely defined as notebooks weighing 3 pounds or less. Those kinds of notebooks aren't for everyone, but they tend to appeal to the frequent business travelers that might already be Lenovo ThinkPad customers. Fujitsu might not be a household name in this country when it comes to PCs, but its LifeBook lineup of small notebooks and tablet PCs has been focused on small designs for several years.

The problem is that most of those notebooks use low-voltage or ultra-low-voltage versions of Intel's Core 2 Duo processors to fit into the tight spaces required by ultraportable designs. That takes a toll on processing power that could be avoided with the special Core 2 Duo chip. You'll still see sluggish performance with the special Core 2 Duo design compared to a regular Core 2 Duo chip, but not as much of a drop-off that would come along with the LV or ULV versions.

No details were available on the specifications that will come along with the new Lenovo and Fujitsu laptops, but they are expected to be out shortly. It will be interesting to see how the companies respond to the design gauntlet thrown down by Apple with the MacBook Air; they might not be able to duplicate the exact design, but they could offer features like an optical drive and a user-replaceable battery that may have some prospective MacBook Air customers hesitating before taking the plunge.

News.com's Erica Ogg in San Francisco contributed to this report.

(Credit: Apple Computer, Inc.)

Apple updated its MacBook line this morning, but the new models don't include many of the rumored features such as Intel's new Santa Rosa platform, LED-backlit displays, or solid-state hard drives. But what did you expect? Anything larger would have required Steve Jobs to take the stage. Using the same design, MacBooks now feature 2.0GHz or 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo processors, 1GB of memory, 80GB to 200GB hard drives, and 802.11n networking. Pricing still starts at $1,099.