CTIA

With all the news we bring you about sub-$500 mini-notebooks, sometimes we forget that you can get some of the most powerful systems we review for around the same price, especially on holiday weekends. We felt it was our patriotic duty to inform you, dear reader, of some of the biggest Independence Day laptop deals.

Circuit City has the a 15-inch HP Pavilion dv6833us with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive for a low $699 (after rebate). It includes 802.11a/g/n. Did we mention free shipping?

Newegg also has lots of deals going on, with free shipping on most products. You can get an Acer Aspire AS5520-5281 with an 1.9-GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 for $649. The notebook sports a 15.4-inch screen, 3GB of memory, and a 250GB hard drive.

Those are some of the cheap laptops we know of thus far. Techbargains will be updating their deals over the weekend (check the notebook bargains here). Rumor has it HP is going to have a nice blowout sale starting tomorrow. Perhaps they’re making room on the shelves for new Intel Centrino 2 systems, like the dv5?

Americans are patiently waiting until July 7 to get their hands on an MSI Wind. But not Germans. German consumer-electronics manufacter Medion is bringing its Akoya Mini E1210, a rebranded and recolored MSI Wind, to Deutschland for €399. Oh, and did we mention those Germans get it this week? The machine sporting almost identical specs to the Wind will be on sale at German ALDI this Wednesday, July 3.

The Akoya Mini has a 10-inch with a 1024 × 600-pixel resolution and looks like the MSI’s identical twin in the shots below. While it might lack the Bluetooth found in the Wind, it is bundled with Corel’s WordPerfect. I have reached out to Medion to see if the Akoya Mini will make a stateside appearance, but it looks like U.S. patriots will be waiting for the Wind over the Independence Day weekend. In the meantime, you can buy this MSI Wind e-mail address on eBay. Hey, it’s free shipping!

By now, you’ve probably seen the new Knight Rider GPS unit, but you haven’t heard it yet. Well, the nice folks over Knight Industries Two Thousand (and Mio) stopped by our offices the other day, and we took some footage of the new device, which should retail in August for $269.95.

Aside from the kitsch factor, the Knight Rider GPS has some pretty decent specs: a SiRFInstantFixII GPS receiver, a 4.3-inch touchscreen (65,000 colors), an SD/MMC card slot, and a 4 million POI database.

The 6 ounce, 5.5 x 3.2 x 0.8 inch unit will also be programmed with about 300 names to start with. Not surprisingly, the default name is “Michael.”

Featuring the voice of the original K.I.T.T., William Daniels, the unit greets you with several different catch phrases.

Check out the video below.

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I just had a hands on with the Garmin Nuvifone here at the CommunicAsia conference in Singapore. While the phone didn’t yet have a GPS connection or internet access, because it’s still in a prototype stage, it’s definitely an impressive device.

Its smooth screen has a texture that reminded me a lot of old-school big screen TVs–I couldn’t tell if it was glass or plastic, but it was soft and non-reflective. It’s obvious that the device is very GPS-centric, with tons of icons for applications to help you find nearby points of interest.

The QWERTY keypad looked to be spacious enough for easy typing, and it has auto-word complete on it, so when I typed “happy” the word was already up on the screen by the time I got ot “ha.”

I did notice that the phone had a few kinks that needed to be worked out: some applications didn’t completely load and I was left looking at a blank screen. Two of the units on display were frozen, too, and I managed to freeze a third by attempting to launch the camera. Read on for another photo and more information.

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Whoa. We were wondering what would happen when the performance freaks at Voodoo teamed up with HP, and the first notebook to come out of this acquisition is a surprise. No, it’s not a gaming rig. It’s one of the sleekest and most innovative ultraporables we’ve seen. The Envy 133 (starting at $2,099) rocks an instant-on mode that lets you surf the Web and make Skype calls without booting into Windows (called Voodoo IOS) and a slick power brick that doubles as a wireless access point. Intrigued yet?

Voodoo was kind enough to let us steal a pre-production sample for a little hands-on time, and although the Envy 133 was not benchmarkable, we wanted to walk you through everything that makes this dream machine stand out. Stay tuned for a full review.

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I’ve just taken my seat at the WWDC keynote. Already it has been quite an experience; I have never seen people sprint into a press conference. Not knowing what to do I just joined them. Note: do not wear heels to a SteveNote.

Most recent updates are on the bottom.

9:57 - About 3 minutes until Jobs is expected to take the stage.

10:06 - Lights have dimmed. Great Balls of Fire playing. Jobs takes the stage. Let’s get started. Therme are three parts to Apple: the Mac, the Music, and the iPhone. After lunch we are going to get a peak at the new OS X: Snow Leopard.

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The Samsung Instinct just arrived in our offices about an hour ago and we now have our mini-review up. In the past, we saw the Instinct at CTIA, and recently learned more about it during a Sprint webinar, but we’re excited to finally have one of our own. The Instinct comes packaged in a small box that resembles the size of a hardcover book. Inside that box, you’ll find a ton of accessories. Along with the standard charger, the box contains a USB cable, 3.5mm headset, extra battery, a microSD card, a stylus, and a leather carrying sheath. Read the rest of this entry »

Acer formally introduced its new mini-notebook this morning at its press conference here in Taipei. My apologies to Acer President Gianfranco Lanci, but I had to sneak away from the press conference to play with the third-largest notebook manufacturer’s mini-notebook.

After 20 minutes alone with the Aspire one I have to say it is promising. But can it rival other Atom-based notebooks like the MSI Wind or the Eee PC 901 and 1000 series? In some areas, yes; in others, no.

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There’s a lot to love about the MSI Wind NB: it has an 80GB hard drive, 10-inch screen, comfortable keyboard, appealing design, and an Intel Atom processor that puts every other mini-notebook’s CPU to shame. But at a time when low cost laptops from even lower-profile companies keep coming out of the woodwork, it’s tempting to trust the brand as much as the specs.

We know some folks out there are asking, “Who the hell is MSI, anyway?” For all of you considering the Wind, here’s a quick run-down on the company.

• It’s been around awhile.

Founded in 1986 in Taiwan, the company entered the U.S. market in 1998. In addition to the Wind, it sells full-size notebooks, mainboards, graphic cards, servers, workstations, multimedia products, networking devices, and technology for the health care industry.

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I am here in Taipei at the ASUS Eee PC press event. Like we have all been waiting for, ASUS has pulled the sheet off the new Eee PC 901 and 1000. Here is the low down on the newest additions to the Eee PC family.

The Eee PC 901 will sport Intel’s Atom processor. Similar to both offerings of the Eee PC 900, the Windows XP version will be available with a 12GB SSD and the Linux version with a 20 GB SSD. ASUS claims the system will get 7.5 hours of battery life.

The Eee PC 1000, sporting a 10-inch screen, will be available with Xandros Linux, a 40GB SSD, Intel Atom, 802.11n, Bluetooth and with up to 2GB of RAM. The system on a whole, though I can’t see much of it from my seat, looks more swanky than the original system. We couldn’t be any more excited about the almost 92 percent keyboard.

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