Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Sure, most of the Microsoft antitrust action is going down in Europe nowadays, but Uncle Sam’s lingering judgment against Redmond is still kicking around — Judge Colleen Kollar Kotelly (remember her?) just issued a ruling extending the consent decree against Microsoft for another two years. The judge said that the company has been extremely cooperative with the government thus far, but that “the extreme and unforeseen delay” in acquiring technical documentation from Bill and the boys requires that monitoring continue. That pretty much leaves things at the status quo, although we’re not exactly holding our breath for anything to change once the consent judgment actually does expire.

Filed under: Laptops

Straight out of Cupertino’s mouth, the MacBook Air is officially shipping. ‘Course, we’d already heard a few reports from early adopters that they had received shipment notifications, but now we can all rest assured they weren’t just dreaming. Brace yourselves, MBA pre-orderers, your wee machine should be on its way soon, but it seems as though folks placing their orders as late as today will still face a “2 to 3 week” lead time.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Just as we feared, Dell will indeed be axing 100-percent of its US mall kiosks — 140 in total. Unsurprisingly, the official word attributes the move to Dell’s shift into big box retail stores, but we’re sure that’s not the least bit consoling to the fine folks who were pushing Round Rock’s machines to mall-goers just yesterday. According to Tony Weiss, vice president for Dell’s Global Consumer business, the move “fits in with how its broad global retail strategy is evolving,” and for whatever it’s worth, kiosks outside of US borders are still safe for now. You might still be getting a Dell, but dude, it won’t be from the mall.

[Image courtesy of NotebookReview]

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Filed under: Laptops

Dubbed “the best-looking 20-inch laptop on the market” by PC Mag, HP’s monolithic HDX-9000 was recently hoisted onto the test bench and put through a number of paces to see if it really was worth the fortunes it demands. The stunning 1080p display and LED-backlit keyboard were both highly praised, and while one wouldn’t expect a 15-pound rig to excel in the battery life department, it did manage to stay alive for 2.5 hours on a full charge. Unfortunately, the crew was a bit disappointed by the Penryn’s performance, but to be fair, it did play back Blu-ray Discs beautifully and handled most everything that was thrown at it with ease. But hey, it’s not like we can’t understand the lofty expectations given the extraordinarily high price tag. Overall, the newest HDX-9000 didn’t seem to blow any minds, but if money ain’t a thang, you aren’t likely to find a brick more lovable than this.

Read - PC Mag review (3.5 out of 5 glistening stars)
Read - CNET review (8.2 out of 10 golden hoops)

Filed under: Laptops

Come on Everex, first the CloudBook would be available on January 25th, then February 15th, now the 25th? And to think that you announced this before the Eee PC. How can we trust you? Here, take back your ring, this ol’ girl can’t wait forever.

Update: Uh, Everex, please put down the Whiskey. Now your site says 1/25/2008 at Wal-mart.com. Definitely no CloudBook at Wallys.

[Thanks, JAmerican]

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

They may not be the first, but Dell’s 17-inch XPM M1730 “Beast” deserves a warm welcome to the NVIDIA 8800M GTX club regardless. The dual-card update represents a 49% performance gain (3Dmark06) over Dell’s previous top-end, dual 8700M GT card configuration. That puts the laptop on par with the DX10 performance of many new desktop rigs. Available now-ish in the US for $700 more than the dual 8700M GT option. However, orders placed today are estimated to arrive on February 20th with a cautionary footnote of possible delay. Ready for EMEA and AsiaPac regions sometime “soon.” Now, if only Alienware would update us on their M17x availability we’d have our 17-inch, 8800M GTX gaming options sorted.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Sad news brewing in Round Rock this morning. After slashing “dozens” of call center employees in Ottawa yesterday (and scrapping plans for 1,200 more), it looks like Dell is taking its cost cutting initiatives retail. Unfortunately, we’re not talking lower prices here. We have word from a number of sources that Dell’s 150+ Dell Direct Stores are about to meet the business end of the corporate axe. Whether that be in full or a partial reduction we don’t know. Nevertheless, with Dell now firmly entrenched in Wal-mart, Staples, and Best Buy, the mall kiosks sure seem redundant. Expect more on this later in the AM after Michael Dell’s had a chance to address the troops.

Read — Dell Ottawa closures

Filed under: Desktops, Home Entertainment, Laptops

Just as we feared, Asus is getting ready to dilute their Eee branding until it’s RAZRed down to a hint of its former panache. The new family of low-cost, Eee products will include the E-DT (desktop), E-TV, and E-Monitor. The $200 - $300 E-DT will initially sport a Celeron processor when it ships without a monitor sometime in April or May. The E-Monitor then, is more than that name would have you believe. It’s a 19- to 21-inch all-in-one PC with built-in TV tuner and a remarkable $499 price tag. It’ll be based on Intel’s Shelton platform when the AIO launches in September. The 42-inch E-TV will also launch in September and feature a Linux PC integrated into the LCD. It’s expected to list for a $200 premium over the low-cost 42-inch sets it will compete with. Just don’t get too hung up on those prices, kid. The Eee PC was only supposed to cost $200 when it was announced.

Now for the bad news. ASUS will not be offering a touch-panel in their next generation Eee PC after all — their market research shows limited demand. Not avid Engadget readers, are we ASUS?

Filed under: Laptops

The last we heard from Japan’s Mouse Computers, it was offering up a cheap’n'easy path to Merom — and true to form, it’s followed that up with a low-cost ticket to Penryn town, the J131. The 1280×800 13.3-inch unit is pretty basic, as things go — 120GB drive, 2GB of RAM, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam — but unlike some other machines on the market, its price is just as stripped-down as its featureset: just

Filed under: Laptops

We’re short on specifics, but MSI looks to be getting behind Intel’s upcoming 45nm Diamondville processor in a big way — a totally unsurprising turn of events. Diamondville is pretty much built from the ground up for powering low-cost ultraportables of the Eee PC’s ilk, so we’re sure to be seeing it in all sorts of cheap computers in the coming year or so, but MSI is one of the first to announce a budget laptop built around the platform. The chip is due to be formally unveiled in April, and MSI says the “when Diamondville is ready, our project will be ready.” That should be around July or August, and we can’t wait to see those design chops (pictured above) put to good use.