SlashGear Week In Review - Week 39 2009
In case you missed something this week, it's time for another week in review for you to enjoy on a lazy Sunday. Asus quietly let the Eee 1201N Ion netbook slip from the bowels of the netbook kingpin. The machine sports NVIDIA Ion power, it's nice to see more Ion netbooks coming to market. Acer has its line of smartphones coming in Q4 according to reports early this week. The Acer F1 and the HTC Leo will hit in Q4.
The Zune HD has proven to be reasonably popular leading to shortages of the device. These shortages have brought retailers who like to price gouge out with one selling the Zune HD 32GB player for $599. Netgear debuted a new NAS device for home users called the Stora 1TB. The device may be just right for media fans to store their content.
The drama between Intel and AMD over alleged anticompetitive practices is never ending. More emails surfaced this week showing some of the tactics outlined in executive emails. The Vilivx X70 hit Newegg with a price higher than its rivals making us wonder if the price will drop soon. There is a recession going on, some companies seem to forget that.
Seagate debuted the fast Barracuda XT 2TB SATA 6Gbps HDD this week. Now all we need are boards to hit market supporting the new speed and we are all set. The MSI Wind U110 Eco with a promised 15 hour battery life got official this week. I always take this huge battery life claims with a grain of salt, can't wait to see this thing in action.
SGI Octane III desk side super computer debuted this week with mega performance. The machine packs up to 80 cores inside a desk side form factor. Dexim announced a new external battery pack for the iPhone and iPod called the P-Flip this week. The thing can hold your iPhone upright and allows for hours more playback at the same time.
The Acer Aspire One D250 with Android was previewed mid-week and found lacking. It's not fun to wait for a product that sounds so cool only to be disappointed when it shows up. AMD launched the ATI HD 5870 video card this week as its new top of the line offering. The card is DirectX 11 compliant and has 1GB of memory.
The BUGbase Wi-Fi shipping in Europe this week after a long delay. The device was originally only available in America. Trendnet unveiled a tiny USB 802.11n Wi-Fi dongle this week that is the smallest ever. It's great to see the Wi-Fi dongles get smaller like some of the USB dongles for mice.
Dell offered up five new Alienware computers this week sporting new graphics card and CPU options. The machines aren't cheap either, but you don't except bargain basement from Alienware. MSI announced a seriously cool motherboard at IDF this week called the Big Bang powered by the Lucid Hydra 200. The board will allow the mixing and matching of any brand or model video card at once.
Toshiba debuted a new Qosmio X500 notebook this week with 1080p resolution, Blu-ray, and a Core i7 CPU. Graphics are from a discrete NVIDIA GPU so the machine should be at home gaming and playing Blu-ray flicks. The Microsoft Pink Turtle and Pure phones leaked late in the week. They look a lot like some of the Motorola phones already on the market to my eyes.
An Android-powered PMP called the Telecast T58 was spied and looks pretty cool. The machine will be one of the first Android PMPs to hit market. Intel pulled the covers off several new quad-core CPUs for notebook this week including a new Core i7 Extreme quad-core part.
Sony finally officially said that the PS3 Motion controller is coming in the spring of 2010. Gamers wanting more motion sensitive controllers should be happy. The Wacom Bamboo Pen and Touch tablets were reviewed this week and are called decent entry-level units. For the $99 asking price, the Bamboo is good enough it seems.
Details were leaked this week that have Verizon possibly pulling back on plans to offer the Palm Pre in its stores. This would be a catastrophe for Palm who hasn't exactly been selling Pres like gangbusters on the Sprint network. The Lenovo IdeaCenter Q110 NVIDIA Ion nettop computer went on sale this week. The little machine should make for a good HTPC for many users.
Vertu unveiled its first flip phone this week called the Constellation Ayxta. As you expect from Vertu, the handset is high-end and far from cheap. Honda pulled the U3-X personal transportation device out of hiding this week with plans to show it off at the Tokyo Motor show. The device looks like a high-tech unicycle.
We found out that Sony is pulling back on plans to allow PSPGo buyers to get digital copies of their existing UMD games on the new portable console. The move will make the PSPGo even less appealing to longtime PSP owners. Another week bites the dust, until next week! Happy reading!