That’s so cool! Toshiba launched 2 new laptops, Qosimo X305-Q706 and X305-Q708 equiped with GeForce 9800M GTS cards in SLI configuration, and also an onboard GeForce 9400M for the moments when you need to save your battery and don’t need that extra power.

Apple said recently something about new MacBooks with 2 GPU but here Toshiba hit it first!

What do you say?

Well, last year OLPC released the $200 laptop. It is cheap, but not yet their target, isn’t it? However, OLPC stated that their next target is to reach the $75 computer and next, well, the…$20 computer. Speaking of cheap laptops…

I don’t know how they will reach this target, really, what can they remove from those computers to make them cost $20? What could they possibly remove? We had a target here, the 5000 Euro car, for which, personally I have paid 10200 Euro…pretty far away, isn’t it? But the target sounds good and people keep an eye on XO laptop.

I know that Intel and other big companies joined forces to reach the target. I don’t know how much they actually believe in this, but sounds good and it is a good marketing thing to do, getting involved in educational projects with such heavenly targets…

Because lately I have got more and more interested in this business with cheap laptops, I said it would be interesting to bring to your attention the fact that Microsoft works on finalizing a version of Windows XP for the One Laptop Per Child movement. It is very interesting that Microsoft got interested in this, I wonder how much it is really interest and how much just PR. Or worse, fear of not losing ground in front of competitors already involved in this business.

The General Manager of Marketing and Communication from Microsoft announced that:

“Windows on the XO looks like it is on track for availability in these types of national educational PC deals in September. We still have no plans to make Windows available for individuals who bought an XO in the Give 1 Get 1 program though.”

Personally I find it to be good even if after the announcement that Microsoft will provide Windows XP for these cheap laptops shook the foundations of OLPC and a few officials decided to resign. Come on, people, we’re speaking about a choice for an operating system, not about rocket science or aircraft parts, OK? I like Linux, I am a Windows user mostly, but not a big fan of it, but having more options is always a good thing and we should never let such a power in the hands of only one organization. Linux is good, but who says that once Linux has the save coverage as Windows it won’t become commercial, hacked and buggy?

Seems today everything is possible, even a quad-core chip for laptops. I think this will be very well received by gamers all over the world, because for them, any speed increase counts a lot.

“You’ll see gaming machines and (mobile) workstations with more compute power than servers two years ago,” Eden said.

That’s not a bad thing, we all go forward and laptop markets goes forward too producing more and more power for those tiny and beautoful notebooks. I don’t know if this will help or not the trend with “cheap laptops”, but I don’t think this was their goal. Power is the keyword here, right?

You can read more about it on cnet here.

Some time ago, $1500 was a good price for laptops (I don’t speak here about rugged laptops since there is an other price for them due to special manufacturing conditions). $1000 was considered a bargain, but lately, the market is asking for a lot of cheap laptops, net being happy with these prices anymore. People interested in laptops ask now to spend less and less for technology. I wonder if this is an effect of prices going up generally speaking, so people look for spending less on particular items, or the technology reached a point where common usage of computers require less power, thus less money?

A few years ago, in order to run particular applications, you needed good computer power, but nowadays, technology reached a point where most applications could run very well on common computers, so people may not be that eager to spend big money for technology anymore. Thus this need for cheap laptops? Who know?

Or maybe the reason is the continuous fight for market share? Maybe price became one of the most important arguments when trying to differentiate notebooks on the market, since technology is almost the same for common usage.

Think of last years’s Assus laptop that had was only $499, well, that was a cheap but basic laptop, isn’t it? Now Asus does it again coming with the $699 ASUS Eee PC 1000H. Another one that is going to shake the market, I think.

I think that soon, a lot of notebooks manufacturers will join the race and will try to provide cheaper and cheaper notebooks with each passing day!

a few days ago I have posted about the fact that 12,000 laptops are stolen every week in US airports. These last days I have seen this news posted by every possible blog and article in this niche. Really, I think that everybody was amazed by the high number of stolen laptops, I can not open Google News and look for laptops anymore cause this news appears over and over again under various forms.

This must have been a hit of some sort, the news I mean…

UK workers take their laptops with them while in holiday! At least that is what vnunet.com says. Well, what’s the big news, after all? I plan to go to a holiday in a couple of weeks and I also plan to take my laptop with me, so no news here! The fact is that we can not live without our internet connection and computer, no matter where we are and what we do, right?

What I don’t agree with is that over 65% will contact the office while in holiday, well, not me, from my point of view, I go for good! However, I want to stay in touch with my websites while there and with my personal email. For the rest, nope! If you have some kind of smart device, one of those Nokia E Series phones, use them for something else, not to contact your office while in holiday, OK?

The only thing that we should consider there is that report of the 12.000 laptops being stolen every week, because, I guess nobody wants to missplace the computer somewhere while in holiday. It would ruin your holiday AND your days at the office!

Seems that the game is on and the race is tough! Period! A few months ago, NEC joined the race and now ASUS comes in too! It must be good!

The laptop I speak about is the new ASUS B51E, which is MIL 810F approved which surely tells a lot about it. let’s see:

• The laptop can drop up to 75cm and still lives on! Good one!
• The drainage holes on the keyboard prevent up to 120cc of liquid from entering the internal components.
• The baby has a Magnesium-alloy chassis with rubber bumpers.Tough guy!
• High-strength protective film protects LCD from scratches so it can be operated outside, in difficult environment without any issue.
• Sponge protection system keeps harddrive from losing data due to vibration and drops. If you also add this one to the first one with dropping it from 75 cmm, we have a good solution here, I would say!

What the laptop has inside? Well, a Core 2 Duo chip, integrated Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth radios as well as an optional integrated Webcam, so kind of a regular laptop, isn’t it?

I don’t know anything about the price at this moment so let’s wait and see!

I was reading this morning how computer Italian market is driven by laptops, how sales for laptops grow year by year. Actually, if you look to the 35% growth rate for laptops sales in Italy, then you must agree that it is something to consider…The whole computer market in Italy seems to be doing pretty well, but nothing compares to how laptops are sold there!

Then, to my surprise, I’ve seen an other article on an other site about how sales for laptops in Germany boom! Seems these guys give a free laptop for every purchased one, or they sell really cheap laptops or I can not explain it,really!

An improvement in the German economy coupled with the rising strength of the Euro has contributed to a 44 per cent year-on-year increase in sales of mobile computers.

Ooo, this is good! This is even better than in Italy! But wait, how are other European countries doing? Let’s see!

In UK, seems that there is a 40% growth in laptop sales. Over 60% of the 3.1 million units shipped in the UK last quarter were notebooks while France, Spain and Sweden show gains of between 30 and 40%.

I think this is also the situation in Romania, even if I can not give you numbers. As a short conclusion, we purchased 3 new computers for our office, all of them were laptops and not desktops.

Well?

Israeli researchers Marianna Khorzov and David Andelman from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, and Rafi Shikler, from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Ben Gurion University say that considering current research, in a few years we may have flexible laptops and 1 cm thick TV screens. Well, it would be very interesting to see this.

For this, scientists say that the conventional materials will be replaced and soon we could rely on plastic based transistors and organic light sources. If it sounds strange to you to have plastic based transistors, they also say that these components are easier and cheaper to make. Imagine that!

This was actually a report published in Physics World. Researchers stated that current display technologies are rigid, consume more energy that organic based technology and it may be soon replaced by organic based components, which could bring high changes including in the cost price considering the fact they are cheaper.

“We expect that, for many applications, these materials will gradually replace silicon and metals, and may even make possible entirely new technologies in the field of bionics,” the researchers said.

I personally wait to see how those flexible laptops will look like. If you think about, people try to build rugged laptops, to be as strong as possible, to not be easily damaged and on the other hand people try to make them flexible…
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