For many students around the country summer vacation has just started. The cold, hard reality of it is that back to school is just around the corner. To help make back to school a bit more tolerable Gateway is announcing new desktop and notebook computers.

Gateway is offering multiple new models of desktop and notebook systems that will retail from $549.99 to $1149.99. The three lines of Gateway notebooks; the P-Series, M-Series, and T-series are all offering new configurations. One new configuration in the M-series is the M-6848 featuring a Core 2 Duo T5750, 4GB of RAM and more for $799.99.

There is something a bit cheeky about a company who calls itself Genius. Still, I have looked at several Genius products over the years and for the most part they tend to perform well. The latest product from Genius has been announced and it is called the SP-T1200 2.0 Touch Speaker System.

As you might surmise from the name of the product, the speakers are controlled with the touch of a finger. Users are able to control the volume, bass, and treble by sliding a finger across the front of the speakers. The slide bar illuminates as you move the finger across the bar to show what level settings are at.

German manufacturer Singulum, has some new luxury notebooks with cases made of high quality wood. The sort of high-end wood that you would normally find on violins. They’re available with ivory and 24 carat solid gold keyboards. The whole Richie Rich luxury design is nice sure, but they also have some advanced tech specs like a core 2 duo processor, Windows Vista, Ehternet, DVD recordable (dual layer) with a 15.4inch screen.

It’s all hand made from one block of wood, and every piece is apparently processed with a special production tool, making each notebook unique. I don’t know. I think the violin probably looks better in this particular wood. But if you have money to blow and really need to show off, you don’t care what I think, so go ahead and buy your tacky overpriced notebook.

When it comes to your notebook computer everything is a compromise. The performance of everything from the CPU inside to the hard drives and video cards are a compromise of performance for battery life and vice versa. The trick is to get a good balance of performance while still getting good battery life.

Western Digital announced today that its line of Scorpio Black 2.5-inch SATA notebook HDDs are now available. This line of drives gives high performance with a 7200 RPM rotational speed, but adds some technology to help reduce the battery power needed and increase the runtime of the notebook.

With the success of the XO laptop from OLPC, it makes sense to start working on a second generation device called the XO 2.0. It will be much smaller compared to the first one, and will feature a foldable e-book factor.

It will also be just half the original’s size, with dual indoor-and-sunlight displays that provide both a right and left page when held vertically, a hinged laptop in horizontal format as well as a flat, dual screen continuous interface for tablet mode. Power suckage has been reduced to just an impressive 1 watt. You’ll have a nice long wait though, since it will be released sometime in 2010.

Business users are typically more demanding of their notebooks than normal consumers. Business users tend to want portability, power and pretty much everything else. The boss approving the orders wants all that stuff too, but at a cheap price.

Dell says it has listened to its business customers and delivered everything they want with its new Vostro 1310 and 1510 notebooks. The 1310 notebook has a 13.3-inch screen and the 1510 is a 15.4-inch notebook. Dell says that the 13.3-inch Vostro has 94% of the viewing area of the 14.1-inch Vostro, but weighs 20% less.

With the end of the format wars it’s time for those out there who have been waiting to buy a HD format DVD player to jump in with Blu-ray. The players are still expensive for the most part, but they are expected to begin dropping in cost soon.

Dell announced that its Inspiron 1525 now features a Blu-ray player and HDMI out at well under $1000. Dell says that a Blu-ray equipped 1525 will start at $879. If you have needed a new notebook and have an HDTV this is the way to go. $825 is reasonable for most notebooks and the addition of the Blu-ray and HDMI out will have you watching on your big screen in no time.

If you have been holding out for a new notebook Dell has a deal for you. Right now Dell is offering the XPS M1530 with $599 instant savings and the XPS M1330 with $599 instant savings and free shipping.

That means you can get the 15-inch M1530 starting at $1199 with a Core 2 Duo T7250 CPU, 3GB RAM NVIDIA 8600M GT, Bluetooth, 802.11n, and a finger print reader. The normal price for the rig is $1898. If you want something a little more portable you can check out the M1330.

For many road warriors, business people and students what is most appealing in a notebook is a small size. The problem is that the smaller the notebook, the more they tend to cost on average. Thankfully, Averatec makes some decently speced systems at reasonable prices. Averatec has introduced a new ultra portable notebook called the 2575 that won’t break the bank.

The 2575 is a 12.1-inch notebook that runs on an AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor running at 2.2GHz. The operating system for the notebook is Vista Home Premium and the tiny computer has built-in 802.11 b/g networking as well.

ASUS launched its latest ultraportable notebook today and it’s a looker. The ASUS U2E is an 11-inch notebook weighing only 2.7 pounds and clad in leather. According to ASUS the notebook is hand crafted and designed to appeal to the user’s sense of style.

The U2E claims to be the lightest notebook available with a built-in DVD-RW drive and the system runs on Windows Vista. Since Vista is resource intensive ASUS ships the U2E with 3GB of high-speed DDR2 memory.

There are a few things most of us would like to have on our notebook computers including longer battery life, more performance and more storage capacity. Samsung can’t really help with the first two items I mentioned, but it can help with the storage space issue. Samsung announced today that it is now shipping its Spinpoint M6 500GB hard drive for notebooks.

The new 500GB M6 drive sports a trio of platters that each has 167GB of storage space packed into a 2.5-inch frame designed specifically for use in notebook systems. The drive is only 9.5mm in height and uses the SATA 3.0Gbps interface, making it a direct upgrade for many notebook users.

Apple always loves to keep things interesting. As iPod fanboys await the launch this month of the iPhone Apple continues to update other product lines. The latest case in point is the refreshed MacBook Pro notebook computers announced today.

The latest Apple MacBook Pros, priced between $2,000 and $2,800, sport the newest Intel Core 2 Duo processors as well as up to 4GB of RAM. You also get nice add-ins like an iSight video camera for video conferencing, a power adapter which disconnects the computer when under strain and built-in 802.11n wireless networking.

Three models are available in the new MacBook Pro line up – 2.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz 15-inch MacBook Pros and a 2.4 GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro. All come housed in a lightweight, aluminum enclosure one-inch thick. Apple is touting that “the 15-inch …