Just when you thought it was safe to drop your ThinkPad, exploding battery syndrome strikes again. Lenovo is recalling Sanyo made nine cell lithium-ion batteries made for use with ThinkPad notebooks shipped between November 2005 and February 2007. It was forced to do so after a number of customers reported that their Thinkpad laptops caught fire after being dropped - why anybody would drop a laptop to see if it would explode is strange but apparently it's the done thing with ThinkPads now.

In accordance with US federal law, Lenovo alerted the Consumer Product Safety Commission after it received the reports, all of which related to an impact on the corner of the laptop. The CPSC said one owner suffered ‘minor eye irritation’ as a result of one such incident - probably when he took it back to PC World for a refund.

The batteries were supplied with the ThinkPad R60, R60e, T60, T60p, Z60m, Z61e, Z61m and Z61p series and were also shipped out to customers as replacement units. The recall has been applied to all batteries with the part number FRU P/N 92P1131. It's not the first time Lenovo has been caught shipping explosive batteries. Last year a large scale battery recall by Sony effect over 500,000 ThinkPads.

Please send any pictures of exploding laptops - we'd love to see them
 

Do It Yourself Laptop? Most people prefer to buy them ready done but have you ever felt like building your own laptop from (almost literally) scratch? This is a microcontroller-based "laptop" built from the ground up from a handful of chips and other hardware found lying around. It runs a self-hosted development environment, allowing the user to write and edit programs in "Chris++" on the machine, and then compile and run them. The carpentry looks like it could use some work, but it's a neat project!

Full Story

With Windows Vista making a splash as it sinks to the bottom of the Ocean leaving early upgrades doggie paddling for driver updates and bug fixes, Toshiba announces it's new all singing all dancing Vista laptop with a rather neat twisting display.

 Toshiba have stuck oon an extra display called the Toshiba Edge Display as a secondary screen to serve as your personal assistant. Before you start dreaming of Starbuck lattes on demand, this little device is not quite so useful. It can inform you of unopened emails, calendar alerts, battery charge, signal strength and other such mundane features.

 

The R400 looks the business with a 12 inch touchscreen display that swivels to make a great tablet PC.

Samsung is all set to launch its Aura R20 laptop, the first laptop in its Aura range. A first look at the laptop leaves you impressed with its glossy, sleek design. In my opinion, the R20 is one of the best looking ones in the recent times and the laptop performs as good as it looks.

The R20 is powered by the Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 processor running at 2.16GHz and is based on the AMD/ATI RS600ME chipset, meaning the graphics crunching on this laptop will be handled by the Radeon Xpress 1250 Hyper Memory integrated graphics chipset which is the fastest mobile graphics solutions out there today.

The laptop comes with two SODIMM slots which accounts to a maximum of 4GB or DDR2 RAM and for storage buyers can choose between a 60GB or 160GB harddrive. The 14.1" widescreen high contrast coated display supports a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. The laptop also comes with a Super-Multi DVD Burner.

Other features include 802.11b/g Wi-Fi as well as Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, 56k modem and integrated 10/100 LAN. The standard package offers a four cell battery, but an eight cell extended pack will be available as an option.

The R20 weighs around 2.4Kgs and is not the lightest of today's laptops but thats not a bad number considering its capabilities. No word yet on pricing and availability.

SOURCE URL: http://www.trustedreviews.com

Fujitsu today announced the U.S. availability of LifeBook P7230, an ultra-portable laptop PC featuring a 10.6-inch widescreen display with LED backlight.

Fujitsu LifeBook P7230 weights under three pounds and is 1.17 inch thin. It is claimed to be the industry’s smallest and lightest subnotebook with a built-in modular bay that can accommodate a dual layer DVD burner or a second battery delivering up to 9.75 hours of operation between charges.

Based on Intel 945GMS Express chipset, the P7230 is equipped with energy-efficient Intel Core Solo U1400 Ultra Low Voltage (ULV) processor and Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. It supports up to 2GB of main memory and has up to 80GB hard drive at 4200rpm rotational speed.

The new laptop incorporates integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 3945b/g connection or Atheros Super AG Wireless LAN. It also features modem and Gigabit Ethernet, and Bluetooth. It offers two USB ports, an IEEE 1394 port, a video port, one Type I/II PCMCIA slot and one shared slot for Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Secure Digital (SD) cards.

The new Fujitsu’s ultra-portable laptop is available in chic Leather Black or Leather White colors and comes with Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Professional operating system.

The LifeBook P7230 notebook, with pricing starting at $1,699 for a base configuration, is available through the Fujitsu direct sale, website, channel partners and select retail outlets.

Toshiba expends their P105 series with the P105-S6217 laptop. Weighting 7.1 lbs - pretty impressive for a notebook boasting a generous display (17 inch Widescreen XGA+ TruBrite). Toshiba P105-S6217 is powered by an Intel 1.66 GHz Core 2 Duo T5500 processor.

The new laptop is powered by NVIDIA GeForce Go 7300 graphics card and like all the new Toshiba laptops, the P105-S6217 comes installed with Windows Vista Premium. It features a 200 GB HDD, up to 4 GB of RAM , tri-mode Wi-Fi connectivity, a multi-format/dual-layer DVD burner, an ExpressCard slot, multi-format memory card reader and a fingerprint reader for added security.

The laptop also includes S/PDIF digital audio output,FireWire (also known as IEEE 1394 or i.Link) ,VGA monitor port, PCMCIA (or PC Card) slot (Type II, PCMCIA R2.01, PC Card16, CardBus,1 headphone jack and a microphone jack.

Toshiba P105-S6217 is now available, priced at US$1,600 after a 50$ mail in rebate.

Last week we showed you the Dell Latitude ATG D620 ruggedized laptop, and today, I came across yet  another super-tough notebook - the Itronix GoBook XR 1. If you work in harsh environments the XR 1 is another great laptop that should be worth a thought.

The design is very good for a rugged laptop of this sort. It has a handle fitted for carrying it easily and the casing is made from a solid die cast magnesium shell which is of course very tough. It weighs 3.1kgs which is not bad given its ruggedness, and measures 30cm x 24.5cm x 5cm (WxDxH).

The XR 1 features a 12.1" XGA resolution screen and guess what - its touch screen! The Itronix GoBook XR 1 comes with two styluses which are located on both sides of the laptop but you can use your fingers too if you wish. The keyboard is back lit.

The GoBook XR-1 has an Intel T2400 Core Duo processor running at 1.83 MHz and 512MB of RAM which is expandable to 2GB. The graphics are powered by an ATI Mobility Radeon X300 GPU with 128MB of memory.

The laptops comes with either 40GB or 80GB hard drives and also features a Intel Pro wireless Wi-Fi connection. There is a Type II PC Card slot and a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive and a SmartCard slot too. The laptop also has Bluetooth 1.2 GPRS/EDGE/3G/HSDPA and GPS modules.

Everything on this laptop is protected with special coatings and plastics to protect it from the rigorous conditions it will face. Battery life is expected to be around 4 to 6 hours with the standard battery but with the 3,800mAh battery you can expect to get 5 to 7 hours. The GoBook XR-1 is available for around US$4,330 (approx £2160). For more details head over to www.gobookXR-1.com.

Dell announced its first first semi-rugged laptop - the Latitude ATG D620. This All Terrain Grade laptop is intended for customers who work in tough environments. The Latitude ATG is now available in the U.S. and will be available in other parts of the world next month.

The Latitude ATG meets military standards for vibration, humidity and altitude and is designed to protect against accidental bumps, moisture, and other elements that customers encounter while on the field.

The Latitude ATG provides hard drive image compatibility with the Latitude D620. It is also compatible with all D-family wireless and security products as well as accessories like docks, port replicators, and power adapters. Latitude ATG is designed with the environment in mind including a lead-free motherboard and chassis. It is RoHS compliant and designed to be energy efficient in multiple customer environments.

The Latitude ATG 620 features 500 NIT LCD with non-reflective coating, 14.1-inch WXGA screen (1,280 X 800 resolution), Supports up to 4GB DDR2 SDRAM, ATG task lights for keyboard lighting, Shock mounted-hard drive and LCD, Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and is Microsoft Windows Vista Capable. This laptop is available from US$2499.

VoodooPC is the Canada based gaming PC company which has been acquired by HP last year in a move to strengthen their presence in the gaming scenario. Today, VoodooPC starts shipping the new ENVY HW:201 notebook PC, featuring a 20.1" display, the world's largest for a laptop display.

The laptop is powered by a 64-bit Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor from AMD and has two GeForce Go 7950 GTX GPUs or from Nvidia running in Nvidia SLI (Scalable Link Interface) mode. SLI is a technology introduced by Nvidia that allows two graphics units to run in parallel to produce a single output.

Users can choose between two Nvidia graphics cards, the GeForce Go 7950 GTX with 512MB of memory for high-performance PC gaming, or the Quadro FX 2500M with 512MB of memory if they are looking for a high-performance portable workstation, the company. Users can also select to use a single graphics card or two graphics cards in SLI mode.

The Envy HW:201 comes with up to 320GB of storage using two hard drives. Users can also choose RAID 0 (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) storage, the company said.

With all these features, the new notebook is large and measures 18.75 x 13.5 x 1.9 inches, and does not offer a lot by way of battery life. Other features of the notebook include a Webcam, Bluetooth and 802.11a/b/g connectivity, and a theater audio system, HP said. The company did not disclose the pricing of the product.

With CES around the corner, be prepared to be see a plethora of laptop announcements. One of Asus' laptops headed for Las Vegas (CES is being held there) has already made an appearance at Notebook Review.

The Z84Jp with a piano black finish is a desktop replacement laptop and weighs a hefty four kilos. The 17" wide-screen (WSXGA+) has a resolution of 1680x1050. It comes with Intel's latest Core 2 Duo processors (up to T6700 (2.33 GHz), features a 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7600 GPU and can have a maximum of 4 GB of DDR2 533/667 MHz memory.

It uses Intel's 945GM chipset and uses a SATA hard drive. It comes with 4 speakers and more interestingly a sub-woofer (I hope they don't sound like crap!). For television output it has S-Video and HDMI. HDMI is a feature we have lately seen on desktop replacements.

It features 4 USB 2.0 ports and an eSATA port. This is the first time we have seen a laptop with an eSATA port though we expect a lot more of them to have it, especially the ones that are going to be showcased at CES. The Z84Jp will be released mid January.

Read on for full specifications...