Men Free Blog

Conjuring up your own desktop is pretty far down on the list of “world’s most difficult tasks,” but actually building your own laptop is another thing entirely. As we’ve seen with Ben Heck’s creations, assembling a lappie rather than buying a pre-fabricated model is a serious undertaking, and while Computer Shopper’s guide to constructing your own is more of an “upgrade an existing” walk-through, it’s still chock full of interesting tidbits. Ever had the urge to snap up a barebones lap warmer and have your way with it? Head on down to the read link, and don’t be afraid of getting your hands covered in thermal adhesive, okay?
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Dell is busting out a “Flamingo Pink” version of its much-loved XPS M1530 laptop, but unfortunately for any prospective buyers there aren’t any pictures of the thing yet. We’re sure it’s magical. Just like Midnight Blue, pink will cost you $25 extra.
Update: Somebody apparently from Dell said this picture of the laptop was making its way around the office. We can’t imagine why.

[Thanks, Brett]

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Samsung hasn’t exactly been flooding the market with its Aura laptops since it kicked off the line last year, but the few models it has released so far have certainly been decent enough, and its just-announced R410 model looks to be no exception. This one squeezes right into the middle of the pack with a 14.1-inch, 1,280 x 800 display, which gets backed up by “Intel’s latest 45nm Penryn CPUs,” ATI Radeon Xpress 1250M graphics, a DVD burner, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth, and a welcome ExpressCard slot. All of that comes in an expectedly glossy package that weighs in at just over five pounds, and boasts a starting price of £499 (or about $1,000). Look for it to hit Europe in May, with no word of a release ’round these parts just yet.

source:engadget

The PS3 Laptop: you saw the stills (if not, look down), now see the video. It’s posted after the break — enjoy.

P.S. -Don’t forget, next week we’ll be putting this one of a kind console up for charity auction. Save your pennies, a Friday night beer only lasts a few minutes, but a Ben Heck PS3 Laptop will last forevah.

source:engadget

Take that WD, Toshiba, and Hitachi. Fujitsu just returned from exile with a claim to the biggest fastest laptop-disk throne. The 3Gbps SATA-equipped MHZ2 BJ series measures in at a standard 9.5-mm and spins at 7,200rpm with a 16MB cache and 25dB idle noise level. Average seek times are listed at 10.5-ms for data reads and 12.5-ms for writes while drawing 2.3 watts of power. Oh sure, a couple of 2.5-inch 500GB disk drives have already been announced. But most of those measure in at a non-standard 12.5-mm making them unsuitable for the majority of laptops on the market today. Sales of the new MHZ2 BJ-series begins in June.

Update: Oops, almost forgot about Samsung’s Spinpoint M6 which does hit the 500GB mark in a standard 9.5mm-height package.

source:engadget

Check it high-enders. DigiTimes has been milking their Taiwanese motherboard sources for information about Intel’s laptop-class, Core 2 Extreme QX9300 processor. They’ve come away with a Q3 ship date and price of $1,038 when purchasing the quad-core proc in bulk. Digitimes’ own sources had originally pegged the QX9300 for a May release. But such is the life of the muckraker.

source:engadget.com

Pushing pixels is great and all, but sometimes we’ve just got a hankering to see how far those dollars can stretch, and Averatec’s 2575 laptop mostly satisfies those urges. For $1100 you get Vista Home Premium running on an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual Core chip, with 2GB of RAM, ATI RS690 integrated graphics, 250GB of HDD and a Super Multi DVD drive. The 12.1-inch screen runs at 1280 x 800, and sports a 1.3 megapixel webcam. There’s even ExpressCard 34 / 54 and a 4-in-1 memory card reader, and the whole shebang weighs in at 3.9 pounds and 1.5-inch thick. It’s available now.

Here’s an innovative concept of integrating WiFi location technology into a stylish suitcase, making WiFi hotspot searching easier.

Instead of the usual “take the laptop out of the bag and turn it on and hope there would be a signal” routine, all the user has to do is to look at the LCD display on the bag to get quick information on WiFi signal. The developer Soyntec calls it the “Wiffinder”, which target business executives and travelers everywhere.The WiFi locator on the laptop bag is easy to use. Just a single touch of a button and the user would be able to figure out the available WiFi signal surrounding them. It also has a signal bar indicating the signal strength that would provide a more stable network connectivity. The Wiffinder is also available in a variety of luggages such as a trolley bag, executive case bag, university backpack among others.

There is only one glitch though: The user cannot tell if the signal is free-on-air or encrypted. Overall, despite its usefulness, the Soyntech Wiffinder would probably become overshadowed by more advanced locators in the not-so-near future.