It appears that some new owners of the brand new 2011 MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt have been facing an annoying issue. It appears that if the laptop is heavily under stress than it’ll randomly crash. Here’s what a user said:

“Received a new 15″ 2.2/6750M MBP last week and have been having some issues with the machine locking up under load.

For example if I boot up a VM using Fusion the temperature will spike up above 90 degrees and the machine will lock up most of the time. The machine appears locked (cannot move the mouse at all and keyboard is unresponsive). I can SSH into the machine still and it still is running however. This is one example but it will freeze under a number of circumstances where the CPU/GPU load is very high (rendering, DJ Software, compiling so far in my travels).”

Thus far speculations are saying that the issue is related to the graphics driver or power management, and it seems the issue is reliably reproducible. Apple is reportedly aware of the issue, but no reliable solution has been provided. They’re probably waiting for Intel’s response.

SOURCE via Mac Rumors

Sony is a partner of Google TV, and it’s no surprise if Sony actually cooks up a Chrome OS notebook, besides a “VAIO Hybrid PC”, whatever that means. The Chrome OS device is reportedly modeled after Google’s own Cr-48 reference design with roughly the same dimensions and keyboard but a slightly smaller 11.6-inch screen, which should resemble their current Y-series VAIO laptops.

The laptop is said to also runs on NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 alongside 1GB of RAM and 16GB of flash storage (yes, SSD is present). Sony’s also shooting for eight hours of battery life, and a weight of just 2.2 pounds, which shouldn’t be a problem to them.

All of that pales in comparison to what Sony’s plotting for this “Hybrid PC,” though. The publication says we’re looking at a thin-and-light Core i7 notebook with an incredible 8 to 16.5 hours of battery life, Intel Thunderbolt and an internal SSD, all of which plugs into a dock of some sort that adds a Blu-ray burner and external graphics (by AMD) for gaming and multimedia.

Of course, all these are speculations at the moment, as the Google Chrome OS is also at a very early stage of testing.

SOURCE via Sony Insider

This laptop gained quite some publicity during CES 2011 for being a true MacBook Air contender. Having the sexily slim ‘duralumin’ build and a power to show, everyone was waiting for it. Now, Samsung has officially made this 13-inch laptop available worldwide.

The 13.3-inch laptop comes with the latest Core i5-2537M processor, a 128GB SSD, 4GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Home Premium for a price of $1,649, or you can have it preloaded with Windows 7 Professional for $1,699. However, let’s not forget its beautiful body, and the 400nit display panel. The 13-inch model will be up for grabs at Best Buy, Tiger Direct, Amazon, and a number of other e-tailers. The 11-inch model will be arriving shortly in a few weeks’ time, sporting a 64GB SSD and a much disappointing Core i3-380UM processor with 2GB of memory. Of course, it’s lighter as it’s weighted at 2.3-pound, and is predicted to be priced lower than its bigger bro, at roughly $1,149.

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Western Digital might have eliminated a good contender by buying up Hitachi Global Storage, but there’s still another strong contender from East, and that’s the Koreans. Everyone might have their attention on SSD, but Samsung is still hard at work researching on these classic bricks. The Korean electronics giant has just announced a new series of Spinpoint drives with greater areal density.

The new HDDs promise to deliver up to 1TB per platter spinning at 5,400RPM, which means 4TB desktop drives and a terabyte of storage (courtesy of two 500GB platters) in standard-sized laptop HDDs. The 3.5-inch version packs a 32MB cache and SATA 6Gbps compatibility, while the 2.5-inch variety has an 8MB cache and a 3GB/s SATA interface. Though, the 5,400RPM might be quite disappointing for some.

SOURCE via Maximum PC

We finally see a proper date for Acer’s dual-screen Iconia laptop. They’ll be coming in January 28, at least in UK. Acer’s squad in Spain mentioned a hefty €1,499, which is around USD 1,999. Will indeed humiliate any notebooks out there that still has a keyboard, but then the price doesn’t really judge the fight well. We’re still looking at a laptop with Core i5 CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 750GB of storage, an optional 3G module, and — lest we forget — a USB 3.0 port. But then again, you got two screens to play with.

SOURCE via Engadget Spain

And here’s more info regarding Google’s ‘unnamed’ Cr-48 laptop. Besides getting 2-years Internet gratis, for 100MB at least, Google’s also providing live customer support for Cr-48 owners, which Google claims to have reached ‘over thousands’ at the moment, and more to come. Google will provide live support for those that receive a Cr-48 and help with any and all issues. However, they fail to mention what happens after the 2 years relationship. Probably another “extended warranty promotion” package.

Besides saying that Acer and Samsung (just examples, there’s others on the wagon too) will have Atom-powered laptops with Chrome OS in mid of 2011, Google also stressed that the laptop will not support dual boot environments in ‘most’ scenarios. Google probably is stating clearly that major manufacturers won’t be shipping laptops with Google and Microsoft operating systems living side by side. And I wonder, is that Cr-48 made by Samsung? The keyboard design looks awfully similar to Samsung’s design, and since Nexus S (aka Nexus Two) is made by Samsung, there’s more reason to believe that this is also collaboration between Google and the Korean giant.

SOURCE via Engadget

When Google announce their Chrome OS yesterday, it’s obvious that the operating system relies heavily on Internet connection and a very stable one too if possible. But Google’s plans for the Chrome OS seemed to be delivered very swiftly, as they’ve managed to make sure that every Chrome OS netbook (if you call a 12-inch reference system a netbook instead of a notebook) sold in the US will be well equipped with an Internet connection.

Since they want you to always be connected, they’ve teamed up with Verizon to help make sure that you do. Buy a Chrome OS netbook, and you’ll get 100MB of free Verizon data each moth for 24 months. $9.99 will give you unlimited access for a single day and there are no contracts to fiddle with. Obviously, this will be US-only at the moment, so we’ll probably see similar partnership from Google and other nation’s 3G ISP in the near future.

SOURCE via Engadget

Dell has launched a new all-in-one desktop for the mass market, by introducing the new Inspiron One 2310 AI45T-R. Picking a fight with Apple’s Mac desktop system, this new Dell sports a 23-inch display with LED-backlit technology, and has a 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution. As a space-saving machine, all the gears are common specs found in laptop, and are squeezed into the back of the display.

The computer sports a 2.4GHz Intel Core i3-370M processor, an Intel graphics HD, a 4GB DDR3 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, a 2.0-megapixel webcam, a DVD burner, a TV tuner, WiFi, an HDMI port and is pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS. Pricing info is still unknown at the moment, but do expect them to be available before Christmas.

SOURCE via kakaku

Rumors have it that Google will be holding a press conference on Tuesday, December 7 to talk about something Chrome-related, and a very big chance that it’ll be the Chrome OS and netbooks. However, there will only be around 65,000 units of Chrome OS netbook available to Google’s closest “friends and family” — and that the Cloud-based OS is still very much in a beta, non-consumer-friendly state. We’ll only know whether it’s true or not when the event goes live.

SOURCE via Engadget

Intel’s Sandy Bridge is right around the corner as we all know it, but somehow it seemed to have started invading the market as we speak, secretly. Intel’s Core i7-2630QM chip (notice the four digit naming compared to the older three digit naming) has made into HP’s notebook flagship lineup, the dv7. HP has updated its component list in its massive 17-inch gaming laptop to include a 2GHz quad-core CPU. Neither HP nor Intel has given any official statement on this.

HP is not the only one updating their lineups, as laptops from Gateway and Lenovo has also offered the yet unannounced part. Looks like vendors are also as eager as Intel themselves to have Sandy Bridge out to consumers. We’ll probably see more vendors have them listed soon in the coming weeks.

SOURCE via HP