The just announced Acer S5 Ultrabook kicks off the new ultrabook genre that manufacturers are going to push at CES. It’s 13.3-incher that checks in at under 3 pounds, is 15mm thin, offering Instant On functionality, a magnesium-aluminum alloy cover (in Onyx Black), HDMI / USB 3.0 / Thunderbolt (!!!) ports and an SSD for good measure. It will ship in Q2 of 2012, and that’s all we know about it, at the moment. PR after the jump.
For the computer users eagerly awaiting Windows 8, or had a taste of the developer preview that reached 3 million downloads, then it is high time that you know a Windows 8 beta will be made available for download on February of 2012, Microsoft states. That sounds nice a well, doesn’t it? While a specific date isn’t set in stone you can be sure to get a partition ready, check your drivers, your workspace, etc. for the installation of the upcoming beta. Also, the beta will contain the full Metro Windows 8 interface; essentially the new and refined look of Windows 8 not properly recognized in the developer preview.
Three laptops launching December 7th: the Envy 15, Envy 17 and Envy 17 3D starting at $1,100, $1,250 and $1,600, respectively. What they all offer you is a really original design that has been tuned to the likes of HP quite nicely this time, and has some great specs to boot (including Beats Audio software enhancements). The Envy 15 will receive an optional 15.6-inch, 1080p Radiance IPS screen panel, built-in backlit keyboard that adjusts to light settings and a great thin design. The entire Envy line will have access to quad-core CPUs, and come standard with six speakers, a subwoofer, HP’s CoolSense technology and support for HP Wireless Audio. The Envy 17, in particular, can be configured with either a 128GB mSATA SSD or dual 1TB drives. And of course all of them have Beats Audio on-board.
As for what you were waiting for, the Envy 15 will come with the following base specs: Core i5-2430M CPU, 6GB of RAM, a 500GB 7,200RPM hard drive, 1366 x 768 display, Bluetooth, Intel Wireless Display, a slot-loading DVD burner and AMD Radeon HD graphics (HP didn’t say which one, yet), HDMI, one DisplayPort, two USB 3.0 sockets and one of the 2.0 persuasion. As for the 8-cell, 76Wh battery, it purportedly provides up to nine hours of life. The Envy 17 starting specs aren’t much different, as they add more hard drive space and more ports.
Press release after the break.
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Oh sweet merciful Skyrim.
The next 3DMark will be releasing soon, built to truly test the awesomeness of your so-called “PC gaming rig”. It will be built around Windows 8 (!) and will be useful i just about any device that supports and that uses Windows 8 (like a tablet to a laptop, for example). As the CEO of Futuremark said, ”With Windows 8 gamers will be able to enjoy their games on a wide range of devices from lightweight tablets to heavy-duty desktop rigs. Faced with so much choice it will be hard to work out which devices offer the best value for the money. Fortunately 3DMark for Windows 8 will be our most wide-reaching 3DMark ever, able to accurately measure and compare gaming performance across all devices and graphical feature sets available with Windows 8.”
The new benchmarking software will use real-time analysis to test systems, will work in both Metro and traditional Windows UIs, and will be released sometime in 2012.
If the HP Slate 500 was proof that a Windows 7 tablet won’t work, then it’s the Slate 2 that will show you HP is dedicated to keeping the Slate series alive. It’s the same 8.9-inch tablet seen last year, except with Swype, a price tag of $699 with stylus, a refreshed CPU (that being Intel’s Atom Z670), and a 32GB SSD. The rest of the specs for this Windows 7 tablet are a 1024 x 600-resolution for the 8.9-inch N-Trig panel touchscreen and a TPM chip for added security, making it very enterprise-friendly. It goes on sale worldwide later this month. Via: HP (Finland)
With the exact same starting price-point of the Macbook Air, the Zenbooks by ASUS are also designed to function and look like the Macbook Air, specifically in weight, thinness, and with speed. The system recovers from sleep in 2 seconds and is .11 to .67-inches in thickness and weighs 2.9 pounds (the 11.6 model weighs a feather-like 2.4) all with a brushed aluminum exterior. Now, for pricing: the first, Core i5-powered, 11.6-inch UX21 with a 128GB SSD will come up at $999, while the 13.3-inch UX31 with a Core i5-2557M processor and the same 128GB SSD drive will reach $1,099, with the only real “bummer” about these laptops being that they do not have backlit keyboards, unlike all the other Macbook Airs, and that the 11.6-inch version has no SD card slot, just like the 11.6-inch Air, whereas the 13-inch models (both the ASUS Zenbook and the Macbook Air) do have one. The new Zenbooks debut in the States tomorrow. Via: ASUS
Straight out of today’s BUILD conference for Microsoft was a developer preview for Windows 8, as well as a Samsung touchscreen tablet that was running it. But let’s cut to the important part: Windows 8 is available for download for anyone, even with low-end specs. You can easily install the .iso as a partition on your hard drive (however it may require a full wipe and install), and get going. The dev preview without developer tools on a 64-bit machine measures in at 3.6GB, which is what I’m downloading now. In the meantime, get downloading and check out the source links for info on Windows 8 and where to download it!
Via: Microsoft Press Pass, MSDN (download link)
Wouldn’t be cool if Windows 8 booted up in 8 seconds from hibernation? Well, that’s exactly what Microsoft is planing, due to a new form of hibernation for computers — the process of saving the current state on the hard drive, then resuming by performing a full start. Well it turns out that Windows 8 hibernation would pre-load the kernel of the OS, rather than all of your open apps, meaning that boot time from such a small file takes literally no time at all (especially using a solid state drive), so the new boot time from hibernation is 8 seconds. Pretty boss, I know. Video of it in action after the break. Via: Building Windows 8
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