technicalupdates

Jun 20, 2009

Lenovo's ThinkPad T400

Lenovo is apparently slimming down its T400 series ThinkPads, with the new T400s being caught in the wilds of technologyland. Despite looking nearly a century old in these hands-on shots, the laptop seems to be pretty modern under the hood, with SSD, DisplayPort, eSATA, WWAN, a 14.1-inch WXGA+ LED backlit display, 5-in-1 multicard reader... the list goes on. It's all packed in at around 0.83-inches thick (including a built-in disc drive), and under four pounds, which makes Apple sound a little silly for crowing about packing a little SD card slot into its latest unibody lineup. Word is that the build quality hasn't been traded in for the slimness, and while there's no word on price, hopefully it won't be too much more than the T400, which currently starts out at $750.

New AMD Neo Athlon / Turion chips emerge in HP Pavilion dv2z

HP's newly unveiled Pavilion dv2z just so happens to have a bit of fresh silicon within, as AMD's latest Neo chips are front and center in the configuration options. The thin-and-light machine can be ordered with single- or dual-core AMD Athlon Neo and Turion Neo dual-core processors, and if you're looking for specifics, you'll find the new 1.6GHz Athlon Neo X2 L335 and 1.6GHz Turion Neo X2 L625. Other specs on the 12.1-incher include a LED-backlit WXGA panel, optional Blu-ray drive, discrete ATI Radeon graphics, up to 500GB of HDD space, a built-in webcam, WiFi, optional WWAN (Verizon, Sprint or AT&T) and a 6-cell battery. It's up for order right now starting at $599.99, but if you're looking to leave that aged Neo MV-40 behind, you'll have to pony up a bit more than that. Full release is after the break.

Compal Intel-based KAX15 MID

We're not so sure that being the "world's smallest Windows-based MID" is really a benefit for those who appreciate keys that are large enough to mash and screens that are large enough to see, but whatever the case, Compal seems pretty proud of its accomplishments here. Shown off along with scores of other me-too MIDs at Computex, the KAX15 is based around Intel's existing Menlow platform and sports the polarizing tilt-and-slide mechanism for unmasking the QWERTY keyboard. As for specs, we're told that it packs an 800 x 480 display and an 800MHz processor, but further details have yet to flow. There's a hands-on vid just past the break if you're somehow intrigued with shoving Windows in your left cargo pocket.

Samsung's 12 megapixel WB1000

While it's not the first name you think of in digital cameras, Samsung makes a decent piece of kit and its SL820 took the top prize in our recent summer shootout. So we figured you'd want to know that its WB1000 compact with those smokin' analog battery and capacity gauges is now on sale for KRW548,000 or about $418 closer to home. The 12.2 megapixel WB1000 features a 24-mm wide-angle 5x zoom Schneider-KREUZNACH lens and 1/2.33-inch CCD with 720p video record mode in H.264 format, max ISO 3200 sensitivity (at 3 megapixel resolution), and Samsung's Dual IS optical and digital image stabilization to compensate for hand jitter. The viewer won't disappoint either with a full 3-inch 480x260 AMOLED display rocking the backside. Why should you care? Check the video after the break to see how AMOLED compares to the TFT-LCD found on the Canon SD990 IS under different lighting and viewing angles

Casio's EXILIM EX-H10

Casio's just pushed another 10x zoom compact camera into the market with its EXILIM EX-H10. Here we've got a 24-mm wide-angle lens stabilized by a 12.1 megapixel 1/2.3-inch CCD-shift sensor with up to ISO 3200 sensitivity, a 3-inch LCD, and the ability to grab Motion-JPEG video at 720/24p. EXILIM 4.0 image processing and a 10 frames per second burst mode for 1,280 x 960 pixel images too in a point-and-shoot measuring just 102.5 x 24.3 x 62-mm. Watch for it to hit Japanese retailers first starting next month for ¥40,000 (about $400). Pink rear-end after the break.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 Silver

Reaction to the rumored X2 pictures leaked this far has been lukewarm at best, but hold up -- it's looking a whole lot different (and arguably better) in silver. We can certainly buy that this is dead-on real, since... well, it looks real, and also because the X1's also available in both shades. We're still not convinced it outshines its predecessor for sheer sex appeal, but an 8.1 megapixel camera upgrade is hard to argue with, isn't it? Anyhow, with this many units seemingly floating around in the wild, let's hope we're not too far off from an official announcement.

Toshiba REGZA ZV650 and SV670 HDTV

If you're not down with waiting for Toshiba's internet-connected range of HDTVs -- which, by the way, should be out before the dawn of 2010 -- here's a bit of excellent news: the REGZA ZV650 and SV670 series are now shipping. Both of the sets were initially announced way back at CES, and the latter of the two is Tosh's first-ever LED-backlit HDTV. Said set also packs local dimming, ClearScan 240 dejudder technology, PixelPure 5G 14-bit video processing and that questionably useful Resolution+ system. There's also a USB socket, four HDMI connectors, IR pass-through, a PC input and REGZA-LINK (HDMI-CEC). As for the other guys (yeah, there's more), head on past the break and take notes on the ones relevant to your interests.