UN Backs $100 Laptop Project
The United Nations has put its name into backing the $100 hand cranked laptop project for school children around the globe being run by M.I.T.
Some details from the Daily Times:
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will sign a partnership agreement with the head of the project, Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Nicholas Negroponte, in the Alpine ski resort of Davos on Saturday, officials said.
The goal is for governments or charitable donors to pay for the laptops, although children will own them. About the size of a textbook, the machines developed at MIT can set up their own wireless networks and operate in areas without a reliable electricity supply, since they can be powered by hand cranking. Proponents say the devices, which have been welcomed by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, will be a boon for education. But not everyone is convinced.
I am personally glad to see that the project is moving forward. While it is not a laptop I would want, I can see it being very helpful to children, and maybe even older people looking for new ways to communicate, as I am sure the operating system will be more simplistic then your general Linux install.
Laptop Worth Close to a Million Dollars
I was reading at various websites today, that it has been analyzed how much the data on a laptop is actually worth, and that comes to basically what amounts to a million dollars.
The survey was carred out by Symantec, and they found 78% of laptop users carried substantial amounts of valuable intellectual property or commercially sensitive information.
Some respondants were found to have notebooks that had over eight million dollars of information on their machines, that if lost, could cost the company a great deal of money.
My first thought is that I would love to set up a Laptop Theft Retrieval company as it could make some pretty big dollars protecting laptops.
Source: Pocket-Lint
Sony VAIO VGN-FJ180/PR
If you are looking for some wilder colors than white, or black, then Sony might have the machine for you. Their new VGN-FJ180/PR, comes in four different metallic colors. Laptop Magazine reviews the machine and in the end they give it a three and a half out of five for the $1,599 USD machine.
Sony’s VAIO FJ series of outrageously attractive notebooks will appeal to anyone who demands a notebook that isn’t silver or black. The question is whether they’re worth the premium Sony charges.
The first thing that pops out is the notebook’s gorgeous metallic color. Our model, the VGN-FJ180/PR, has a luscious Raspberry Red color on the lid (other beautiful colors include Jade Green, Sky Blue, and Pearl White).
Epson Endeavor NT2850
MobileWhack has a quick bit on a laptop from Epson called the Endeavor NT2850.
A successor to the NT2800 range, the NT2850 offers a choice of XGA (1024 x 768 pixel) or SXGA+ (1400 x 1050 pixel) resolution display on a 15″ LCD monitor. Running off a SiS M661MX chipset with Celeron M 370J (1.5GHz) processor, this is an affordable performer. For those looking for more power, you can also choose Pentium M up to 2.13GHz.
You have room for a max of 2GB RAM, which is quite good. Thanks to Trusted Computing Group, the laptop conforms to high levels of security. A 19mm full-size keyboard with USB 2.0 connectors on both sides is provided. Thanks to an efficient air flow system, the system does not generate too much of noise.
My first thought on the machine is “Epson makes Laptops!?”, and then after that, I look at it, and I am not really that impressed. Many laptops currently being manufactured all seem more or less the same to me, with a few details different here and there. I am looking for the next big thing, and it has not happened yet.
IBM Lenovo Thinkpad X41 Tablet Review
I really like this machine, but I am not a big fan of Tablet PC’s in general, as I feel they have weak support between the machine and its screen, with Lenovo’s solid build, just like IBM used to make, I doubt that would be a problem here, and the battery life of almost five hours with everything up and running, I think this could almost be an all day laptop to have. I am really impressed with it, and after reading the review from TabletPc2.com, you probably will be too.
The Lenovo X41 Tablet PC offers users the convenience of a convertible in a lightweight sturdy package. Long Battery life and an nice selection of IBM software make the Tablet PC user experience as easy and friendly as possible and the available accessories make it an excellent choice for Students, road warriors and home users alike.
I guess the only real con that I can see here is the lack of an optical drive, but with network connections becomming faster and faster, I can barely see the need for one on my notebook. I would download, and install everything I need before I go, so what would I need a CD drive for? It would be nice to have for watching movies on long trips, but there are other ways of dealing with that.
Fujitsu LifeBook C1320D Review
Laptop Magazine takes a look at the LifeBook C1320D from Fujitsu, and gives the $1,699 USD notebook a decent three and a half out of five on their rating scale.
Fujitsu designed the LifeBook C1320D as an affordable high-production notebook for business users. This speedy 6.4-pound system mostly succeeds, with only a few road blocks slowing it down.
A fast 2-GHz Intel Pentium M 760 processor powers the C1320D, blowing through demanding tasks like MP3 encoding, file compression, and data encryption. A full gigabyte of RAM would have been a nice complement to such a powerful CPU, but the 512MB of 533-MHz DDR2 memory installed in our test system got the job done. You can customize the C1320D with 1GB of memory for an additional $140.
The biggest drawback for this machine is the fact that it did not go with Intels wireless card, stripping it of its Centrino badge and cutting its battery life by approximately 45 minutes. To people like me, 45 minutes is the difference between watching one more television show, or writing some more pages of a story or not.
PC Magazine’s Favorite Laptops
In an article I found on ABC News from PC Magazine, they look at four notebooks that they consider to be their favorites.
Those machines are the:
- Dell Inspiron 6000 (MCE)
The best bang-for-your-buck laptop available on the market. - Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi
This dual-core dynamo will keep you productive. - Dell Inspiron E1705
This home media system manages multimedia tasks with aplomb. - Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t
This business laptop is a treat to travel with.
Interesting how two Dell’s manage to make the cut, and one Acer, which is not considered always the most durable or dependable brand in the laptop world. They are all great machines though, and you should check out what they had to say about them, in their detailed reviews.
Undervolting a Laptop
With all the PC Modders out there cranking up the speed and power of their machines by a few percent, it is nice to see a tutorial on how to save power without losing much performance, and that is exactly what the tutorial undervolting a laptop looks to accomplish.
Because CPUs are mass-produced, the voltage is set to a stable level that will suit all samples of that particular CPU. Everything from CPUs with “Friday Afternoon Syndrome” to real overclockers. There are lots of CPUs on the market that can be run at a lower voltage than what they are specified to. Especially the kind of low power consuming CPUs found in laptops. You’ll be surprised when you see the results of undervolting your CPU.
In this article we will look further on how you can undervolt the CPU of a modern laptop without losing performance or stability.
Our test-system is an Acer Aspire 5021WLMi which appear to be a good computer to undervolt.
A very cool article on those that are hardware savvy and want to add another half hour of battery life to their machine.
Nokia 770 Instead Of A Laptop?
Mike Rundle of Business Logs is considering a Nokia 770 insead of a laptop. He states that he can’t justify the price of a notebook for the functionality and consistancy of use. I think there are going to be more and more people looking to choose something between a traditional Palm and a laptop, which is where the Nokia 770 fits in.
I just read a 9-page review at MobileBurn and it seems like a cool little device: Bluetooth, Wifi, a Linux-based OS running the Gnome window manager, a big screen, a nice web browser, and lot more stuff. Pair it with a slick Bluetooth fold-up keyboard and I might have a winner!
The small number of actual applications for it is not really a problem, considering I can write & save text and keep track of stuff all from within a browser. 770 + Bluetooth keyboard = around $500. Cheapo Mac laptop would be a few hundred more, and possibly worth it if I used it more than a week or so per year…
Tips to Keep a New Notebook feeling New
NotebookReview.com has a list of things you can do to keep your fancy new laptop secure, and running well.
So you just spent a few hundred bucks on a new laptop. You fire it up for the first time and are greeted by your “ninety day trial” of Norton Antivirus to keep your machine protected right from the start. (Or you didn’t get any included trial antivirus software, so you just fork out another $39.00+ for a one-year subscription with updates). Great, virus problem solved!
After using your new notebook for a few days, perhaps you notice that it takes more time to boot up then you’d prefer. Or you notice that your new technological wonder randomly “slows down”. Maybe your mouse pointer stutters for a few seconds. Or does booting seem a bit too sluggish for a brand new machine? Oh and by the way, what’s with all those little icons down there in the Windows task bar? Do you really need all that “stuff”?
One of the things they take a fair bit of time explaining in the article is installing Microsoft Antispyware Beta. While, I am sure this is one of the better programs out currently, I would recommend doubling up when it comes to spyware protection, and grabbing Ad-Aware, or Spybot Search and Destroy, as secondary applications to protect your computer.
Also, installing it and forgetting about it is not a good way to keep things running well, so update, upgrade, and manually run applications to make sure everything continues to work fine.
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