MSI has announced their new CX480 laptop which features an Intel 2nd generation Core i processor. You can get it with either a Core i5-2410 (2.30GHz) or Core i3-2310 (2.10GHz). It also packs in an nVidia GeForce GT520M discrete graphics card with 1GB of DDR3 display memory and supports DirectX 11 and automatic graphics switching to help your battery life.

It will also boot in half the time traditional laptops take. The hard drive is moved away from the edge and encased in a sort of air bag which should protect it if you drop the laptop. Nothing on price or availability yet.

The sun is usually an enemy to laptops. Just try using your screen on a bright day. But in this case it will power your PC. First introduced for the African market, Samsung’s NC215S will be heading for Russia in August for 13,999 rubles ($479).

The lid is almost entirely a solar panel and so this netbook has an estimated battery life of 14.5 hours. The NC215S packs in a 1.6GHz N570 Intel Atom dual-core processor, 250GB of storage, and 1GB of RAM.

Acer’s new Aspire Ethos 8951G and 5951G laptops were already available for £999 in the UK and now they can be had in North America. The AS8951G and AS5951G feature 18.4-inch and 15.6-inch HD displays and USB 3.0 ports, along with Core i5 and Core i7 Sandy Bridge silicon and GeForce GT 555M graphics.

They also pack in 5.1 channel surround sound. The AS5951G and AS8951G are $1,400 and $1,600, respectively. Prices start at $1,200 and $1,500 CAD in Canada.

Acer has announced two Aspire Ethos laptops for the multimedia enthusiast and they include detachable touchpads that can also act as remotes. The Aspire Ethos series laptops will be available later this month starting at £999, with two different sizes to choose from. There’s the standard 15.6in model and a 18.4in version.

The screens are Cinecrystal LED backlit units that are full HD 1920×1080 resolution on the 18.4in model and 1366×768 on the smaller 15.6in model. They come pre-loaded with Windows 7 64-bit versions of either Home Premium or Ultimate.

Acer has refreshed their Aspire TimelineX notebooks with a redesign and Sandy Bridge processors too. The 13.1-inch 3830T, 14-inch 4830T, and 15.6-inch 5830T all sport a two-tone aluminum design, USB 3.0, a choice of Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs, and Acer’s clear.fi software for sharing media among DLNA devices.

The 14- and 15.6-inch versions feature onboard optical drives and number pads, and on some models, you can choose a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GT520M or GT540M card. The screen resolution is 1366 x 768 on all of these. The 3830T, 4830T, and 5830T are available now, starting at $799, $699, and $599.

Toshiba Europe has introduced the new Toshiba UL863 LED TV series with a new face recognition feature. The Toshiba UL863 can identify up to four users and automatically select their personal settings. Through an embedded WLAN interface, the LED TV easily connects wirelessly to the home network and allows access to Toshiba Places, Toshiba’s Web-based content and service platform for laptops and TVs.

It also supports HbbTV, the European standard for providing an open platform that seamlessly combines TV services delivered via broadcast with services delivered via broadband. The new Toshiba UL863 LED TV series is available in 32-inch, 37-inch, 42-inch or 46-inch models.

Fujitsu has announced a pair of new workstation laptops for running intensive apps like CAD/CAM offerings. Fujitsu says that these machines offer power that was previously only available in desktop workstations. These new laptops are called the Celsius H910 and the Celsius H710.

The H910 packs in a 17.3-inch screen and new Core i5 or i7 processors from Intel. It also has options for NVIDIA Quadro 4000M or 3000M graphics and up to 32GB of RAM, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G. No word on storage options or price yet however.

HP has already announced several new Sandy Bridge laptops this month and here is another. The Pavilion g6s features a 15.6-inch display with 1,366 x 768 resolution and your choice of Core i3, i5 or i7 Sandy Bridge processors.

Some other specs include up 6GB of RAM, up to a 750GB hard drive, optional Radeon HD 6470M graphics, even your choice of four different color options. It will also have a starting price of just $550.

The video above shows off the the MacBook Pro G-Form Extreme Sleeve for Laptops, which is available in 11, 13 and 15-inch versions. This is one serious Laptop sleeve that will help your device survive some extreme abuse.

How extreme? How about dropping a 13-inch notebook off a balcony, from a very tall height? The computer survives just fine thanks to Poron Xrd, the name of the custom material used inside the sleeve’s outer shell that absorbs the force on impact. The MacBook Pro G-Form Extreme Sleeve for Laptops is available in black and yellow should you want to test it yourself. It will cost you $69.95 for the 11-inch model or ten bucks more for both 13- and 15-inch models.

You always have your tablets and phones and laptops to use when you want to surf the web, but sometimes you want a larger viewing space and if you do, then Acer’s DX241H Web Station might be for you. It comes in both wired and wireless models.

It’s basically a 24-inch monitor. One that has a built-in browser, and will connect to the internet without being connected to a PC. But it does more than just surf the web. You can also watch movies on that 1080p display using Acer’s clear.fi software to stream video from other devices on the network. Sounds pretty sweet. Alot of screen real estate in a small space is always good.

MSI has now announced its new 15.6-inch CX640 and CR640 laptops, featuring a “clutter free design,” and they are priced to be budget-friendly. Both laptops feature an Intel Core i3-2310M processor, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive as well as a pair of USB 3.0 ports.

The silver CX640 has NVIDIA’s GeForce GT 520M with Optimus technology, while the black CR640 model has basic integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics. The CR640 or CX640 will cost you $630 and $680, respectively and look like they will be good mid-range laptops.

We are talking destroying data on purpose, not by accident. So don’t worry, Toshiba isn’t shipping any faulty gear here. The new MK6461GSYG Series of HDD is a secure HDD with AES 256Bit encryption that will “invalidate” the data, rendering it useless when the drive connects to an unknown computer. Therefore, making your data more secure.

You can expect these new drives to be available at the end of June in 160, 250, 320 and 640GB capacities with a 7,200rpm speed. No idea which laptops these will show up in. We will have to wait and see.

HP has announced three new business laptops: the 14-inch EliteBook 8460w, 15.6-inch 8560w and the 17.3-inch 8760w. That last one looks like it is the high end model as it comes with your choice of Sandy Bridge processors up to a Core i7-2920XM, AMD FirePro or NVIDIA Quadro graphics with up to 4GB of memory, and up to three hard drives with RAID 5 support.

With the other two EliteBooks, you can still get up to a Core i7-2820QM, but there’s no option for integrated graphics. All three will be available next month. Prices start at $1,299, $1,349 and $1,899.

With all of the great things that a notebook can do, why can’t they pump out decent sound? Even gaming laptops have this problem. Well, there are solutions available. Like plugging in a USB sound card for instance. One that will give you more hi fidelity abilities and also EAX 5.0 gaming abilities.

We are talking about the Asus XONAR U3. It’s the size of a flash drive and only weighs 25 grams. The device offers the ability to drive 150ohm impedance headphones and ASUS’ unofficial EAX 5 software based acceleration which will make games sound better. The Asus XONAR U3 also supports Dolby Digital.

Yesterday we reported that someone had found some keylogger software on some new Samsung laptops. We knew it didn’t make sense for a popular brand to take that kind of risk and as it turns out, it was all a misunderstanding.

The confusion apparently comes from the fact that the VIPRE security software mistakenly identified Microsoft’s Slovene language folder (“SL”) as Starlogger. Samsung managed to recreate it from an empty c:\windows\SL folder, Bottom line is that Samsung laptops are safe.