The flexibility of the ExpressCard port on laptops is well noted for the variety of cards you can shove into it. AverMedia is now adding to this variety with the new availability of the AverTV Hybrid ExpressCard for around $130.

The AverTV Hybrid ExpressCard is a card based TV tuner which does double duty to let one view both analog and ATSC television programming. The card, with on-board hardware compression for taking some load off of the host laptop, also lets you record programming through its interface. You’ll be able to enjoy, says AverMedia, over-the-air and coax analog as well as over-the-air HDTV.

TabletKiosk is a mobile products developer which seems to fly under the radar most of the time. It has a new product out now though which is turning heads for its slate form factor featuring both pen and touch screen input.

The Sahara Slate PC i440D Tablet PC, priced at around $2,295 for the default configuration, runs either Windows XP Tablet Edition or Vista Business operating systems. The touch screen input is based upon resistive touch technology, said TabletKiosk, that responds to contact from a finger, gloved hand or stylus. It does not require direct skin convergence to react. There’s also a biometric fingerprint reader, 12.1-inch wide angle display and built-in 802.11 wireless networking.

Today Alienware announced that they will start selling notebooks that utilize Solid State Drives (SSD) to improve performance through the drives faster read and write speeds. The SSD drives will be offered in the Area-51 m9750, Aurora m9700 and Area-51 m5550 notebooks.

In addition to getting your notebook with the fast flashed-based storage, two of the notebooks will also offer dual 64GB SSD drives in a RAID 0 configuration. The company is even offering a dual drive configuration that combines a 32GB SSD drive for faster booting and running applications along with a 200GB standard hard drive for general storage, which really gives you the best of both worlds in one (likely heavy) notebook.

Notebooks running with flash-based storage are starting to become more commonplace not only due to the increased speed but also because they’re able to run quieter with no moving …

How often is it you cramp up while working on your laptop all day? There are quite a few laptop stands out there to help combat this issue and one of the better looking ones we’ve seen come along is the new LapWorks Futura Laptop Stand.

The LapWorks Futura Laptop Stand sports an oval-shaped burst and comes initially in a gun metal gray color. Other colors will be available in the coming months. This laptop stand functionally is geared for providing an ergonomic workspace. It folds into a wedge shape which offers five typing angles for more comfortable keyboard use. It also elevates the screen to provide a better viewing angle.

Lenovo is going eco-friendly with its latest ThinkPad notebook computer. The new ThinkPad T61p is also sporting some other impressive features, making it perhaps worth the $1,814 starting price tag.

The ThinkPad T61p sports a 15.4-inch display and a top cover roll cage for durability. Inside you’ve got enhanced wireless capabilities, Nvidia Quadro FX 57OM graphics certified to the open GL graphics GPU standard, an Intel Centrino Pro processor, extended battery life, Linux certification and a quieter cooling system.

Sony has some new VAIO notebooks added to their lineup, this time in some new glossy colors including sangria, cosmopolitan, dove, indigo and black. Adding to the personalized colors that dress up the new VAIO CR series notebooks, they also have an optional matching bag and mouse, a custom keyboard configuration and font, and a unique matching wallpaper.

The CR’s are 14.1 inch notebooks weighing decent 5.5 pounds so it won’t require any super-human strength to carry it the length of the airport terminal. The notebook is powered by Intel’s Core 2 Duo CPU (1.8GHz) along with 2GB of RAM. It also has a built-in web-cam, optical drive, the latest 802.11n wireless LAN, an S-video port and media slots for SD cards, Memory Sticks and ExpressCards.

Pricing for the Sony VAIO CR notebooks start at $1,350 and won’t ship until …

The Palm Foleo looks like it will be a pretty interesting device despite it’s questionable necessity and a $600 price tag. When we first read about the Asus Eee PC we thought it might be pretty cool as well, but we’re confident about the Eee in the ‘coolness’ arena now with an expected $199 price tag.

The Asus Eee UMPC looks like its no slouch in the world of 7″ notebooks, either. It’s designed particularly for portability combined with browsing the web with a 7″ screen, full keyboard, webcam and microphone. It has a weight of just 1.9 pounds and promises 512MB of RAM with a flash drive for storage in sizes from 4GB to 16GB. Wireless comes standard and built-in, and rumors of 3G abound as well. It would be nice to see a few more specs or something …

According to the Notebook Italia website Dell is about to unveil a new series of Inspiron and a new model laptop called a Vostro. The Vostro selection will appear initially as two models, the 1500 (with a 15.4-inch display) and the 1700 (17-inch screen) with the latter unit coming out in July.

The Vostro models will only use Intel processors while the Inspirons use either the Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion 64 X2 chips. Among the new Inspirons forthcoming are the 1520, 1521, 1720 and 1721 and you can select from 15.4-inch or 17-inch displays.

Dell is reportedly set to officially announce the new laptops on June 26 with their complete specs and pricing.

via Engadget

Today Sony unveiled a new VAIO FZ series laptop which packs a Blu-Ray disc player along with a 15.4 inch widescreen display. This combination results in a lightweight multimedia notebook that can play movies in 1080 HD resolution as well as record and play back personal content on the Blu-Ray media.

Aside from the hi-def player, this new premium model of the VAIO FZ comes with a Centrino Duo processor, a built-in 802.11n wireless LAN and Windows Vista Home Premium. The laptop also has a built-in camera and microphone and support for an ExpressCard to help with those large file transfers.

The VAIO FZ premium model will retail for around $2000 while the FZ standard (without the Blu-ray player) will go for about $1400. You can find the VAIO FZ series at the Sony site and should be showing up at …

HP has formally announced the Pavilion HDX laptop, or as the company has dubbed it, the Dragon. It certainly is a beast that demands you take notice of it: inside is an Intel 2.4GHz Centrino Duo processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256 MB, 400 GB HDD, up to 4 GB of DDR RAM memory, HD DVD ROM with SuperMulti DVDA±R/RW, wireless/Bluetooth Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN network connection and 4 USB ports. Four Altec Lansing speakers and one HP Triple Bass Reflex subwoofer deliver the sounds.

But along with the serious gaming power come cool features like a dockable media remote control that pops out of the laptop if you want to carry it around. The 20.1 screen can deliver true HD 1080p resolution and its two lamps deliver what HP calls “Ultra BrightView” for extra illumination. The display also has a unique …

The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project head Nicholas Negroponte has announced the the OLPC laptops have had a price increase and may not start actual production until October.

The OLPC machines were previously touted for the very inexpensive price of $100 each, but now Negroponte is saying that the price of the machines may be as much as $175 each due to increased prices in materials, including nickel in particular.

The actual production of the OLPC laptops may be delayed, as well. In order for production to begin orders of around 3 million laptops must be in place, and despite interest from multiple countries an order of 1 million back in February, they are still not quite to their goal in order for Quanta to begin production. Quanta Computer out of Taiwan has agreed to assembly the OLPC laptops …

The latest laptop in Toshiba’s Qosmio line has been sighted. The futuristic looking Qosmio G40 is getting a facelift from its predecessors, changing the keyboard base color for a silvery art deco angular finish.

Inside the beast there’s an Intel 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 512MB of RAM, HDMI 1.3 output and two 200GB hard drives. A major change is the inclusion of a HD-DVD-R so that you’ll finally be able to burn your own HD-DVDs. The unit’s 17 inch widescreen display has a max resolution of 1920 x 1200.

Since all we’ve got to go on for the Qosmio G40 are leaked photos and specs at this point, take all intel with a grain of salt until the official word comes down. That said, supposedly Toshiba will let this baby fly loose onto …

This is one of the oddest yet appealing tech concepts seen yet: a laptop designed specifically for the needs of today’s on-the-go desk jockey. The Cario Notebook was designed for the mobile worker, someone who could use a laptop while on call but in the confines of their mobile office (meaning their automobile.)

The notebook is envisioned so that it can hook up to the car’s controls so the user can turn on the A/C or adjust the temperature all through the laptop instead of, you know, reaching over 5 inches and fiddling with the dials on the center console. According to the designers the Cario would only be allowed to operate in heads up display mode when the vehicle was in motion, eliminating the temptation to play a quick round of “Half-Life 2″ while stuck in traffic.

The thin design certainly has visual appeal …

You may never need your computer to have a tough outer shell capable of withstanding the great outdoors but for search and rescue personnel, fire and emergency crews or military personnel stationed in out of the way places, it’s a necessity.

Motorola has stepped up to the likes of the Diamond SwitchBack offering two new PCs designed for such jobs, the ML910 Rugged Notebook and MW810 Mobile Workstation. Both systems are wireless-enabled and made to work in different extremes of climate, with the ML910 having a hard drive heater (!) just in case you snap open this baby in a place where it’s below freezing, as well as having diagnostic software that monitors the internal temperature, working to prevent any lock-ups or power outages as a result of high heat or sub-zero cold.

Powered by a Intel Core Duo 1.66 …

Due to the potential of overheating and a resulting fire Lenovo, a global developer, manufacturer and marketer of PC products and services, announced a recall of around 100,000 laptop batteries. This marks the second recall for the company in six months.

The company urges customers to stop using the recalled batteries immediately as dropping them in a certain manner could cause the overheating problem, and until a replacement battery has arrived you should power down your notebook and remove the recalled battery. Powering your notebook should only be done through the AC adapter during the interim according to the notice, although the Lenovo states a small drop will not cause the problem. “If you have it in your hand and it goes one or two inches and hits the ground, that’s not going to do it,” Mr Gorman said. “It has to be maybe …