CES 2008: Notebooks / Accessories

It’s no secret that Asus is taking the world by storm with its Eee PC, but the company had a lot of other new products to show us at CES, and not just notebooks. Asus plans to release its first smart phone in the U.S. this year, and it will also enter the very crowded GPS arena. Here are the highlights from our quick visit.

We had a chance to swing by the XOHM booth and get a taste of what Mobile WiMax technology will offer once it starts rolling out to select cities beginning this April. The promise: a zippy 2 to 4 Mbps per second on the downlink and 1 to 2 Mbps per second on the uplink. XOHM operates somewhat independently of Sprint, but many believe that this high-speed data network is the carrier’s best shot at leapfrogging the competition. And it has some pretty big players betting on the success of Mobile WiMax, from Motorola and Samsung to Nokia and Intel. We had a little hands-on time with some enabled devices around the booth and generally liked what we saw. The highlight: XOHM-ready Asus Eee PC.

One thing that can be said firmly is that 2008 is going to be quite a year in notebooks, and with those notebooks people are going to want strong peripherals that make their system’s features stand out. Logitech’s diNovo Mini is a palm-sized wireless keyboard that lets you sit on your couch and control your PC.

The svelte black and silver Bluetooth 2.0 diNovo isn’t only stylish enough to keep in your living room, but the keyboard controls are comfortable and very simple to use. We love the orange and green backlighting and the unique ClickPad pointing device, which, based on the flick of a switch, can serve as either a touchpad for point and click browsing or as a directional pad to navigate menus within Windows Media Center.

The Logitech diNovo’s awesome form factor and price of $150.00 stood out to us amongst every other accessory we have seen at the show.

Sleek and smart, the IdeaPad U110 is one of Lenovo’s first notebooks made for consumers, and it packs an awful lot of innovation into a 2.3-pound package.

This 11-inch laptop makes securing your system simple with VeriFace Face Recognition, which leverages software in combination with the built-in camera to log you in and make passwords obsolete. The IdeaPad U110 also includes Dolby Home Theater technology for robust audio and optional solid state drive technology for the ultimate in performance and battery life.

It’s all wrapped up in a stylish textured design that features a red aluminum alloy top cover and cool touch-sensitive media controls. If you can do without a built-in optical drive, the Lenovo IdeaPad U110 has it all.

Everex, the same company that recently released the $200 gOS Linux based laptop to Wal-Mart, today announced its little brother, the Everex CloudBook ultra-mobile PC.

Weighing in at just 2 pounds, the CloudBook certainly lives up to its near-weightless name. It features a VIA C7-M ultra-low voltage (ULV) CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, which helps achieve its 5 hour battery life on a 4-cell battery. By way of comparison, the Asus EeePC has a 900MHz Intel Celeron processor.

Everex’s CloudBook features the same 7 inch 800×480 resolution screen as the Eee PC, similar built-in speakers, and 802.11b/g that the Asus Eee PC 701 has, but instead of packing in a measly 4GB SSD, Everex has opted for a full-blown 30GB hard drive. It’s an awesome feature that media-heavy users are looking for, although it will most certainly boot slower than the Eee PC. The CloudBook also has a 4-in-1 card reader, as opposed to just a SD/MMC one, and a better 1.3 MP webcam. Unfortunately, Everex only packs in 512MB of DDR2 RAM, and it can only be upgraded to 1GB.

Instead of a Xandros Linux distribution, the CloudBook has the same gOS V2 Rocket distro that the Everex desktop has. It features pre-installed apps like Skype, Firefox, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps, and OpenOffice.org 2.3, among others. Size-wise, the CloudBook measures about the same as the EeePC: 9.06 x 6.73 x 1.16 inches as opposed to 8.9 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches.

The black faceted unit looks pretty attractive in our pictures, and we admit, it’s going to take a lot of will-power to hold back from grabbing one on January 25th when it hits store shelves for $399.

What a difference mobile broadband makes. When we previously reviewed the LifeBook U810 from Fujitsu, we liked its $999 price point, sharp 5.6-inch display, and over five hours of battery life. But something was missing. That thing was a wireless connection that lets you surf the Web from anywhere. Enter the refreshed U810 with integrated HSDPA from AT&T.

Even inside the Las Vegas Convention Center the U810 got five bars of coverage, and sites loaded in about 15 seconds. We can’t wait to take a final review unit of this UMPC for a spin. It’s funny how you’ll overlook things like a tiny keyboard when you can check your e-mail and update your blog on the fly.

We’d like the 12-inch P8o10 even more if it had mobile broadband, too, but based on our hands-on impressions we think it could be one of the better value-priced ultraportables of the year.

Case Logic has launched a set of laptop bags which serve a (equally great) dual purpose - they protect your system and also help crank open your beer. The SN Canvas line of bags not only look stylish with their slick screened “street art” graphics, but the bottle cap opener looks more like a part of the design than a tool to open up a brewsky.

We also checked out the new SN Artist Series. Perfect for the breakout artist the canvas bags comes along with markers that allow you to draw your favorite image or design. Case Logic is definitely putting the cool in laptop protection.

We can’t blame Samsung for trying to enhance its ultra-niche UMPC, especially when the latest model features a split keyboard with larger angled keys for somewhat easier typing, a zippier 1.33-GHz ULV Intel Core Solo processor, and up to 7.5 hours of battery life. Actually, we can.

I got a chance to check out the new Spurs Engine on the Toshiba Qosmio G45. Toshiba explains it as a cross between the Sony PlayStation 3 and the Wii. It lets you control movie playback up to ten feet away with hand gestures.

So for instance, you can pause the movie by holding out your hand in a “stop” motion. Then you can bring up a menu for scene selection and whatnot and move a dot around the screen like you would a mouse. Doing so requires you to hold your arm up and out away from your face, and then use your thumb as a mouse button (you hold your hand like you would were a remote control in it).

Honestly, it was kind of tricky. The cursor seemed too sensitive, and I ended up giving up before mastering it because my arm hurt. I asked if you could adjust the sensitivity, but they couldn’t answer me just yet. But the woman doing the demo seemed to have it down, so it must not be too long of a learning curve. I suppose if we invested in a Qosmio, we’d get it mastered pretty quickly. And either way, it’s very cool technology, and if it means never searching for the remote, count me in.

Showing some 45-nanometer love for its laptop line, Toshiba has announced that its Qosmio, Satellite X205, and Satellite U305 notebooks will all have Intel’s latest Core 2 Duo processors under the hood in the near future. Both the gaming-friendly X205 and travel-friendly U305 will get the 2.1-GHz T8100 (with up to 3MB of L2 cache). The top-of-the line Qosmio will get the higher end T9300, which clocks in at 2.5 GHz with up to 6MB of L2 cache. Stay tuned for full reviews of these refreshed systems.

Forget carrying a backpack and a separate iPod speaker dock to the beach. Targus’ new SonicPak speaker backpack has removable front panel speakers with a lightweight amplifier. The SonicPak comes in silver tones and features a padded compartment for protecting laptops up to 15.4 inches. A custom pocket holds your iPod or MP3 Player in place and the bag’s 3.5-mm audio jack connects to the speakers. The SonicPak has a battery compartment with an on/off switch and a power-indicator LED light. The new backpack will be available in March 2008 for $99.99.

We will be checking out the backpack later today and will be bringing an iPod to report back on sound quality…

Not long ago OQO dropped the starting price on its model 02 UMPC to $1,299. Now the company is taking the high-end road with the ability to order a version with both a 64GB solid state drive and a Sunlight Optimized display. You’ll pay $3,000 for the privilege of owning the ultimate handheld Vista computer, but for those who do a lot of work outdoors or in a car, it’s worth the splurge.

The SSD promises quicker application load times, longer battery life, and storage that can survive shocks. OQO uses proprietary anti-reflective films to reduce reflections and improve contrast when in the field. Pricing should be around $3,000. We’re even more excited about the model that you can’t buy yet.

Intel doesn’t have the entire CES spotlight to itself when it comes to notebooks. Today Toshiba announced the 15.4-inch Satellite A215 and 17-inch P205D, powered by AMD’s Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology. The three available configurations of the A215 and two P205D models feature a built-in webcam and DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash technology for burning discs with high-quality images and text. But as you’ll see there are significant differences as you move up the price ladder for both series.