Looking for an elegant new Sony Vaio laptop? Do NOT buy one until you've checked prices online: the difference is staggering. The current Vaio VGN-N11M/W model retails at €1,090 in Sony Centres, Peats and other Irish shops. On Play.com, however, it costs €900 (including delivery). Unbelievable.
Lenovo has launched its first Thinkpad laptop with a Linux operating system. The Thinkpad T60 uses Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 on top of an Intel Centrino Duo chip. No Irish price has been announced yet, though the Windows version starts at €1,270.
4.1 million laptop batteries are being recalled by Dell. The batteries could catch fire, apparently. "It is possible for these batteries to overheat, which could cause a risk of fire," said a statement from Dell Ireland today.
The laptops affected were sold between April 2004 and July 2006 and include: Dell Latitude D410, D500, D505, D510, D520, D600, D610, D620, D800, D810; Inspiron 6000, 8500, 8600, 9100, 9200, 9300, 500m, 510m, 600m, 6400, E1505, 700m, 710m, 9400, E1705 and Dell Precision M20, M60, M70 and M90 'mobile workstations'. It also relates to XPS, XPS Gen2, XPS M170 and XPS M1710.
I'm generally a fan of Sony Vaios -- they look great and handle beautifully. Just released on the Irish market is the new TX3. It's slim and light (1.25kg) and has an 11 inch widescreen. It has a claimed battery life of seven hours and built-in cameras and microphones. It also has a few new security features, such as a fingerprint reader (which, in my opinion, is overhyped as a feature). It's priced at €2,350 and €2,660, depending on the model spec.
Get ready for cut-price deals on whatever remaining iBooks are out there. Apple has just launched its new replacement, the Intel-based MacBook (in either black or white). Starting at €1,120, it now means that Apple's cheapest laptop is over twice the price of an entry-level PC laptop.
As expected, HP and Vodafone Ireland have announced a deal for built-in 3G sim cards in HP's laptops. The feature will be available on any HP laptop, subject to the buyer signing up to a 'business plan' contract with Vodafone, details of which aren't yet available. Dell and Lenovo have already entered into similar arrangements with Vodafone.
Mac laptop users are on sales alert over the coming months. The reason is that with Apple moving its laptop range over to Intel chips, it will soon start to discount the older ranges to clear them out. €250 off one of the current laptops could be good value, seeing as many experts aren't convinced that the new Intel range is quite ready to work with everything yet. Current price range is here (with US prices here).
I wonder who buys and uses gaming laptops in Ireland? I've never met anyone who owns one, maybe because they're expensive, heavy monsters. Then again, I'm over 30. But Dell, which recently bought gaming computer specialist Alienware, must be selling them to someone. Its latest is a 4kg behemoth, with a steroids-induced 4GB (667MHz) DDR2 capacity, 17 inch WUXGA screen and 9 cell battery. I haven't seen the machine yet, but Slashdot contributors are dubious on the value of its dual-core (2.16GHz) chip. It costs a bare minimum of €1,900 (which in Dell-speak probably means €2,200 with essential 'optional' extras). The real question is whether the kids will want to be seen with Dell's circular badge as opposed to one of those spiffy-looking Alienware models...
I've been using Lenovo's first own-brand laptop, the 3000 C100. The 1.5GHz, 512MB Ram model I've had has a Celeron chip and is a budget model, priced at €750 (including Vat). Overall, I give it 6.5 out of 10. In summary:
The Good The Bad
4-in-1 card reader Heavy (almost 3kg)
Good battery life (5 hours) Ugly (looks like a budget Dell)
Budget XGA screen
A little slow dealing with some applications
Underpowered for upcoming Windows Vista
Vodafone Ireland will launch new 1.2Mbs data card products for laptop users later this year. The technology, HSDPA (higher speed data packet access) is designed to give far faster internet access speeds than its current 3G datacards.
"By this time next year, we should have most of the country covered," said Chris Handley, head of product development in Vodafone Ireland.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that it is to dump its charge-by-data-downloaded pricing model on its current laptop data cards. The current data-download model is punitive on modern internet use with enhanced graphics and larger files being e-mailed. In addition to the new faster datacards, the company's HSDPA technology will also be incorporated into Dell laptops. In a struggling wi-fi market, Dell has been impressed by Vodafone Ireland's figures showing almost 7,000 of its post-pay 3G customers using a 3G handset as a means to connect their laptop. That is almost certainly more than the entire daily figure for wi-fi connections in Ireland. Add O2 and Meteor's figures plus specialised datacards and sim card internet access is beating wi-fi up.
