Sony took an interesting approach to netbooks by wading in with the undeniably nice-looking, but underpowered and overpriced, Sony Vaio P Series last year. It seems it’s learnt its lesson with the new M Series.

We've had an exclusive look and can confirm it’s more affordable, more powerful, and almost as attractive as its predecessors.

What do you get for your considerably smaller outlay? Read below for our 10 Reasons to buy Sony Vaio VPC-M11M1E


1/ The price
At £299 it’s Sony’s best value netbook. The W Series was the same price, but that had a smaller hard drive –160GB compared to 250GB – and Windows XP instead of Windows 7.


2/ Connections
With three USB ports, a Memory Stick slot, mic and headphone jacks and a VGA port, the M Series is suitably well connected.


3/ Processor
The 1.66GHz Intel Atom processor is only single core, but can handle all your emailing and web surfing needs with ease.


4/ Screen
The 10.1-inch screen is big enough for portable movie viewing, but petite enough to slide into a manbag.


5/ Resolution
The screen’s 1024x600- pixel resolution may not be HD, but it’s passable, and the 16:10 aspect ratio can pass for widescreen.


6/ Webcam
There’s a 0.3-megapixel Motion Eye webcam on board for Skype video calls.


7/ Software
As well as the Windows Live Essentials Suite, you get Adobe Reader 9 straight out of the box, for reading PDFs.


8/ Wireless router
Bluetooth 2.1+EDR is on board, with increased security and data speeds of up to 3Mb/s.


9/ Memory
1GB of DDR2 SDRAM memory keeps everything running smoothly.


10/ WI-FI
802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi is built in as standard.


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More on Sony Vaio VPC-M11M1E 
Price: £299
Via: Sony

The design of the iPhone 4 prototype revealed by Gizmodo earlier this week, was pretty close to the final version, according to Applewatcher John Gruber.

Gruber said the barcode on the device gave an insight into how far down the production process Apple have gone. Gizmodo said the barcode on their iPhone read N90_DVT_GE4X_0493.

Gruber cites Apple sources in putting meaning to the digits. According to them, N90 is Apple’s codename for the fourth-generation GSM iPhone, due for release in June or July, while DVT stands for 'design verification test'.

Gruber concludes: "The DVT milestone is very late in the game; based on this, I now believe that this unit very closely, if not exactly, resembles what Apple plans to release."

For many Gruber's claims will come as a shock. The iPhone's design has remained basically the same since it was launched in 2007.

The Gizmodo prototype was a departure from the curved lines that has made the range such a critical and popular success.
 
Love it or hate it, it looks like the phone we all poured over on Monday is the one Steve Jobs will showing, albeit with less fanfare, come June time.

Via Daring Fireball

Nokia’s newest Symbian^3 powered smartphone has been officially launched, the Nokia N8.

N8 is carved from a single piece of anodised aluminium, and it’s 3.5-inch HD capacitive touchscreen finally includes gesture support such as multi-touch, flick scrolling and pinch-to-zoom. However, the Nokia N8 will have its work cut out to compete against the likes of the HTC Desire, and the upcoming Apple iPhone 4.

“With the Nokia N8, people can create exciting content, connect to their favourite social networks, and enjoy on-demand Web TV programs and Ovi Store apps”, said the Finnish giant.

A whopping 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash enables 720p HD video, and there’s 16GB of built-in storage and microSD expansion to stash the resulting massive files on. Additionally the n8 rocks an HDMI output to make sense of all this high-quality output.

The Nokia N8 is Nokia’s first device to be integrated with Qt, a software development environment that helps developers build apps faster and more quickly.

Available in the UK during the third quarter of 2010, the estimated retail price is €370.

Via: Nokia Conversations

The HDV-T900 is the latest solar-powered HD camcorder from Jetyo. This video camera is equipped with dual solar panels, allowing you to recharge its batteries (4 x AAA) wherever you go as long as there’s sufficient sunlight. The device itself boasts a 5.0MP CMOS image sensor, an 8x digital zoom lens, a 3-inch LTPS display, a 32MB of internal memory, an SD/SDHC card slot (up to 32GB), a USB 2.0 interface, an HDMI output and is able to capture both 1280 x 720 HD video at 30fps as well as 4000 x 3000 digital still images.
[digitalcameras]

What's better than three monstrous GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards in a 3-way SLI configuration? How about four... is what we'd like to say, if Hardware.info hadn't just discovered that said setup is a huge waste of cash. With a full four GTX 480 cards buckled into an X58 Classified 4-Way SLI motherboard plus a Core i7-980X processor and a massive 1.5 kilowatt power supply to squeeze the juice, the €4,064 ($5,440) box still lost to a similarly configured 3-way rig in a wide variety of benchmarks. You could argue the system was CPU-limited, but Hardware.info used the fastest consumer chip available -- so it seems there's no place in today's market (keyword: today) for GTX 480 4-way SLI. Except, of course, for droolworthy snapshots like the above.

Recently The New York Times reported that Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed the rumors that the company's tablet will run Android OS.

It would be worth noting that unlike Apple's iPhone operating system and Palm's WebOS, Android is an open source.

The Silicon Valley tech giant has also been developing another operating system that would be installed on low-powered netbooks and tablets - Chrome OS, which represents a browser-based operating system that Google mentioned in November. It is likely that the two operating systems from Google might confuse some consumers.

The new tablet that will run Android is expected to be manufactured by HTC, a Taiwanese company that a while ago launched together with Google the Nexus One smartphone and is considered to be Google's most trustworthy Android partner.

In the near future we will surely get some more information on Google's new tablet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Samsung unveiled its new environmentally-friendly cell phone dubbed the Restore, which is 84 percent recyclable with the casing made of 27 percent post-consumer recycled plastic.

The device boasts a large list of eco-friendly features - Samsung Restore comes in a 100 percent recyclable packaging with the cardboard made of 70 percent post consumer materials and printed using soy ink. In addition, the cell phone has an energy efficient charger (Energy Star Version 2.0 qualified), online user manual and meets the RoHS regulations.

The device is not only eco-friendly; it also has a nice design, featuring a slide-out QWERTY, 2Mpx camera, camcorder and MP3 player. You can expand the Restore's memory by using a microSD card (the phone supports up to 32GB of memory).

Among other features there should be mentioned Stereo Bluetooth wireless technology used in the phone, Sprint Navigation and Sprint TV. The phone will be available this summer at a price of $ 49.99.

[via Sprint]

Meet Muvi, the world's smallest 1.5-inch digital camcorder. The device shoots 640×480 resolution images at 30 frames per second.

Muvi comes with a 2GB microSD card. The camcorder can also accept an 8GB microSD card. It is worth mentioning that you can film in AVI format up to 1 hour on single charge. Besides you can use the device as a PC webcam.

There's one interesting feature in Muvi - you can start or stop recording using voice commands. The camcorder can be charged via USB.

More Features:

• Angle field of view 72 degrees
• Resistant aluminium casing
• Video software supplied
• Still Images: 2 megapixel
• Weighs: 40g.

It's the ultimate science project: 8 students, assisted by Tom Atchison and the Rocket Mavericks team, will attempt to design, launch and operate a rocket using new Sony® VAIO notebooks with Intel Core Processors. Launch details inside.
On launch day, the Sony VAIO will be the Mission Control for the launch. It will operate GPS tracking, telemetry, avionics monitoring, video and anything else the team can imagine.
This literal product launch can't happen without the new Sony VAIO Z powered by the faster, smarter i5 processor. The new Sony VAIO is essential in the design stage, facilitating all Computer-Aided Engineering – CAD, aerodynamic simulation, computational fluid dynamics, dispersion analysis and Monte Carlo simulation. The new Sony VAIO will power the flight simulation software – ASTOS, RS-Pro, and Rocksim – and facilitate calculations for dispersion analysis, gas dynamics, aerodynamic stability, dynamic stability, structural loading, thermal heat transfer flux, fin flutter stability and much, much more.

Via

The UPS guy handed me my new iPad just a few hours ago, and yes--the jumbo-sized screen is as glorious as they say, and I was shocked by how good HD videos looked. But I was also surprised by how heavy the iPad feels, and if you were hoping to read e-books all day under the clear, bright blue sky, well...bad news, folks. These and more iPad surprises, coming right up.
1. It screams
The early reviews all said that the iPad was "wicked fast," and boy, they weren't kidding. Applications literally fly open, and browsing the Web on Safari is way faster than on the iPhone. I could get used to this.

2. It's heavier than I thought it would be
One-and-a-half pounds sounds pretty light, especially when you consider that the flyweight MacBook Air weighs in at about 3.5 pounds. That said, the iPad felt surprisingly heavy the first time I hefted it—not so heavy that I'm bursting a blood vessel or anything, but I'm curious to see how it'll feel after an hour or so of reading an iBook, what Apple is calling the e-books you can download onto the device.
3. Good luck reading e-books in direct sunlight
Yes, the iPad has it all over the Kindle when it comes to its eye-catching color screen and sleek page-flicking animations. The beauty of the Kindle's black-and-white e-ink screen, however, is that text stands out quite nicely when you're reading in the sun; on the iPad, however, the color display looks disappointingly washed out in direct sunlight, problematic for reading e-books poolside.

4. Virtual QWERTY keypad isn't as bad as I'd feared
No, it's nothing like typing on a real keyboard, but for me, the iPad's virtual QWERTY keypad isn't nearly as terrible as many had warned. I've managed to bang out a few decent-sized emails on the thing, and it's certainly better than typing on the iPhone. The key, I've found, is to relax and let the automatic error correction do its thing; if you keep hitting backspace to fix your errors (and there will be errors, trust me), you'll be tapping all day. That said, keep in mind that to type on the iPad, you must do one of several things:
Prop it (awkwardly) in your lap to type
Place it flat on a table—not the best solution due to the iPad's curved back
Hold it in one hand and tap with the other, effectively slashing your possible WPM
Invest in Apple's $79 iPad keyboard dock
Use Apple's $39 case to prop the iPad up at a good typing angle
5. Can't charge iPad over a USB port
First I tried it on my USB hub, then on the powered USB port on my MacBook Pro, but nope...no juice—not even when the iPad's syncing with iTunes. Looks like the only way to charge the iPad, apparently, is using the included AC wall adapter. Good thing the iPad's battery is rated for 10-plus hours.
6. HD videos look amazing
Practically the first thing I did after unpacking the iPad was queue up the 720p trailer for "Avatar," and...whoa. Absolutely gorgeous. Watching movies on the plane will never be the same again.
7. Reflections on the display are pretty distracting
The moment the wife and I were done "oohing" and "ahhing" over that "Avatar" video, we started complaining about our reflections in the iPad's glass display. It's not bad at all when you're surfing or composing email, but if you're watching a movie—and especially during a darkly lit scene—prepare to see your reflected self looking back at you. (Yes, the iPhone's screen suffers from glare, too, but at least I couldn't see my entire head reflected in the glass.)

8. Location-based services work fine in a pinch
One of the problems with the Wi-Fi-only iPad versus the upcoming 3G-embedded model is that it lacks A-GPS, a system that combines satellite data with cell-tower triangulation to pinpoint your location, even when you're indoors. That said, the Wi-Fi-only version can still attempt to find where you are using nearby Wi-Fi signals, and I was impressed when my new iPad immediately zeroed in on my apartment, within half a block. Not bad.
9, The iPad makes calls, with a little help from Skype
Yes, Apple had promised that "almost" all iPhone apps would work on the iPad, but I had my doubts about Skype. Today, though, I was finally able to put Skype on the iPad to the test: I loaded it up, logged into my (for-pay) Skype Out account, and dialed 777-FILM. The next thing I heard? "Hello, welcome to Moviefone! If you know the name of the movie you want to see, press one now!" (Of course, this would all be a little more amazing if the iPad had a front-facing camera for video calls.)

10. My iPhone seems really, really small now
After testing the iPad for about an hour or so, I went to check my iPhone for a second and...yikes, what is this tiny little thing? So puny!

-Written by Ben Patterson for Yahoo ! News