The services, introduced Friday, are designed to help companies migrate to the new OS. Dell's Latitude laptops, OptiPlex desktops and Precision workstations will ship with Windows 7 on Oct. 22, the day the OS is released, Dell said.

Dell says it designed, deployed and supported early adopter programs for Windows 7 at several customers, including accounting firm Baker-Tilly, online sports betting company Betfair and Hoover City (Alabama) Schools. Dell also has more than a thousand Windows 7 pilot users internally.

Dell's new services begin with a readiness assessment that uses electronic discovery, Web-based surveys, comparative data and reference architectures to help organizations understand the requirements and potential problems of migrating to Microsoft Windows 7.

The assessment includes determining application and hardware compatibility and determining the effect on business processes, end users and server and network infrastructures. The assessment is used in designing an implementation plan, including providing training for end users and IT support staff.

Many businesses have held on to their Windows XP PCs, delaying upgrading during the economic recession. In addition, many organizations decided to skip deployment of the buggy Windows Vista, Windows 7's predecessor.

With so many aging PCs still in use, organizations will likely embrace Microsoft Windows 7, starting next year, analysts say. The new OS is seen as a superior product to Vista.

The latest announcement reflects Dell's aggressiveness in the services market, which the company is targeting as a way to broaden its offerings beyond just hardware. Dell competes with more diversified rivals, including Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

To that end, Dell last month said it will buy tech services company Perot Systems for $3.9 billion. Dell plans to close the deal in its November-January fiscal quarter.
Source:[informationweek.com]

The Dell Inspiron Mini Nickelodeon Edition is a cool kids netbook that is aimed at providing fun and education. It features a 10.1-inch color LCD display just like the original Dell Inspiron Mini, it is powered by an 1.33GHz Atom just as the original. So basically what they did was that they took it Dell Inspiron Mini 10 Version and slapped the Nickelodeon trademark on it and pre-loaded tons of entertaining and educational content for the kids.

It has a Nickelodeon-inspired “slime” artwork scheme on it and is also available with iCarly and SpongeBob SquarePants which will be available from the Dell’s Design Studio.

The system comes with easy set-up directions and includes a 15-month subscription to McAfee Family Security, which provides comprehensive parental controls to carefully direct and monitor kids’ online activities. As kids grow, parents can relax the controls at their own pace. And if it’s lost or stolen, the Dell Inspiron Mini Nickelodeon Edition can report its location on the Internet with its built-in LoJack for Laptops anti-theft program.

Dell's first kids-focused product, the Inspiron Mini Nickelodeon Edition will be available online in the United States at Dell.com and on Walmart store shelves and Walmart.com in October, just in time for the holidays. Pricing and other details will be announced prior to first shipments.

Nvidia first disclosed the problem with its graphics chips in July 2008, saying at the time that graphics processors manufactured with a certain material set were failing in the field at a higher than normal rate.

In a Sony eSupport USA notice dated August 3, the company said: "Sony, in cooperation with Nvidia, has been looking into any possible effect to Vaio notebooks with Nvidia graphic processors. Until recently we had not identified any Vaio models that were affected by this issue."

The statement continues. "However, after closely monitoring the situation, Sony has now determined that a very small percentage of Vaio computers with the Nvidia graphics chips may experience this issue. These PCs may exhibit distorted video, duplicate images or a blank screen due to a failure of the Nvidia graphics chip."

The belated notice from Sony comes a year after Dell--in August 2008--made a similar revelation. Apple disclosed the problem in October of last year. HP began addressing the problem in support forums in November 2007.

Sony lists models affected by the issue on the eSupport Web site, which include the Vaio VGN-ARxxx, VGN-FZxxx, and VGC-LTxxx series. Though Sony doesn't specify the graphics processor, Nvidia chips cited in the past include the GeForce 9600M and 8600M.

"For any customer who requires repair of their Vaio computer due to the Nvidia graphics processor issue, Sony will cover the cost of repair (parts and labor) at no charge and, in addition to the standard limited 12 month warranty, Sony will provide a three year warranty extension for the Nvidia graphics chip," the company said.

Nvidia said earlier this month that its financial results were negatively affected by an additional net charge of approximately $119.1 million to cover costs related to this problem.

The Sony problem was covered Monday on technology Web site SemiAccurate, citing a Sony Europe discussion forum.
Source:[cnet news]

This primo portable not only delivers where it counts with the longest battery life to date, it does so with panache and some great design decisions. In short, Toshiba has come a long way since blazing trails with its Libretto subnotebooks in the 1990s.

We're going to start this review with the Toshiba Mini NB205-N310's only real "downer": its pedestrian speed and guts. The guts are a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N280 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB 5400rpm hard drive, which together earned the NB205 a rather standard performance score of 36 in PC WorldBench 6. But that's about the only thing that we'd classify as "average" about the Toshiba Mini NB205-N310.

Toshiba spokespeople say that the Toshiba Mini NB205-N310's six-cell battery can last for almost 9 hours. Wrong. In our tests, the NB205 survives a staggering 9 hours, 53 minutes. For a little perspective, that is easily the longest time so far that a netbook has been able to run - and this is with the standard battery on board. That alone catapults this netbook's worth to a top pick on the charts.

A killer keyboard and a touchpad to match are essential for a champion netbook. After all, how useful is a machine if you can't type on it without hurting your hands? Toshiba scores by making the Chiclet-size cutout keys just big enough, and by dropping down a huge touchpad. This is simply the best netbook mouse pad to date. For starters, the surface area of the strike zone is larger than that on many full-size laptops! Next, the beefy mouse buttons camp at the southern edge of the machine - easing hand strain. A physiotherapist would approve.

The Toshiba Mini NB205-N310 has good (though occasionally muted) colour reproduction and supports a reasonably precise resolution of 1024 by 600 pixels on its glossy 10.1in screen. We noticed some dark spots that got washed into a splotch or two - but otherwise, the images looked plenty sharp.

Its configuration looks fairly standard on the surface: three USB ports, an SDHC card reader, a webcam, one VGA-out, ethernet, and headphone and microphone jacks. But it's put together in a 1.3kg package and with a sense of style that doesn't look or feel cheap at all.

Toshiba also adds a few extras to the Toshiba Mini NB205-N310 that are sure to appeal to folks on the go - and even more so to IT departments looking to deploy cheap PCs to a mobile workforce. One notable perk is a pass-through USB port that enables users to charge USB-powered devices while the computer is off. This netbook also provides an internal accelerometer to protect the hard drive in case of falls (much as the HP Mini 2140 does) - and it offers wireless WAN support as an option.

As a quick heads-up, another version of the NB205 is waiting in the wings--the lighter, scrappier NB205-N210. The differences between these sibling Toshiba netbooks boil down to price (the N210 costs less than the Toshiba Mini NB205-N310), key shape (the N210 has flat, wide keys, as opposed to the N310's cut-out style), and the N310's wireless WAN card (the N210 doesn't have one).

Toshiba may be new to netbooks, but the company is no stranger to small. Toshiba's NB205-N310 jumps into the market and claims a top spot in our rankings.

Specifications

Intel Atom Processor N280, 1.66GHz, 512KB L2 Cache 667MHz FSB; Mobile Intel 945GSE Express Chipset; 1GB DDR2 RAM 800MHz; Genuine Windows XP Home (SP3); 160GB (5400 RPM) Serial ATA hard disk drive; 10.1in diagonal widescreen display at 1024x600 native resolution (WSVGA); LED backlight; 1.3kg; 264x33x193mm
Source:[pcadvisor.co.uk]

The Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is a great laptop if the portability of a netbook is appealing, but you are worried about the cramped keyboard, and you can't afford a powerful ultraportable laptop.

The Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is substantially more expensive than a netbook, but it's also substantially more powerful and feature-packed, and it's not as expensive as high-end ultraportable notebooks such as the Toshiba Portegé R600.

Best of all, for a 14in laptop the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T offers good battery life, so it will be great to use while commuting to work or if you want to take notes in a few university lectures.

On the inside of the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is a single-core Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 CPU, which runs at 1.4GHz. This doesn't offer as much power as a dual-core CPU, but thanks in part to the 4GB of DDR3 RAM this notebook easily has enough grunt for office tasks.

In the WorldBench 6 benchmark the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T scored 50, which is a less than inspiring result compared to many notebooks that have Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs, and in the iTunes and Blender tests it scored 3min 23sec and 4min 12sec, respectively. You will probably be able to play a few games - as long as they're from the 1990s. The notebook achieved a poor score of 607 in 3DMark06

Don't let the relative lack of power put you off, however. We happily typed much of this review on the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T with an instant messenger client and a web browser running in the background. You will be able to listen to MP3s while you type up documents, for example, and crop your photos without many problems. The 320GB hard drive spins at 5400rpm and copied files at 21.85 megabytes per second in our test.

It's a well put together notebook. The Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T has a solid chassis and a stiff hinge. Our only concerns were some slight clicking in one part of the screen's bezel when we pressed it and some looseness in the DC connector (which we suspect is a flaw in our review unit only).

The Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T's screen is definitely a highlight. It's a great size for web browsing and word processing - diminutive netbooks like the Asus Eee PC 701 4G may look cute but their screens can tax the eyes - and it's LED backlit, so it's extremely bright. Unfortunately the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T screen reflects office lighting and we weren't impressed with the vertical viewing angles. It's a high-definition screen, with a resolution of 1366x768.

We were very impressed with the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T's keyboard, which is has isolated keys. The keys are full size with a few exceptions (the cursor keys and the function keys).

The touchpad is comfortable to use and a good size, although we wish it had separate left- and right-click buttons instead of a single strip of plastic. We were happy to see the inclusion of a button to disable the touchpad; we too often found ourselves moving the mouse cursor when we were typing.

Sadly although the button worked fine in Windows Vista Home Premium, which was installed on our review unit, it didn't work in Ubuntu distribution of Linux (it disabled the touchpad but wouldn't re-enable it).

There were no major dramas running Linux on the notebook, though during installation we did have to re-enable the Wi-Fi radio in Windows before booting into Ubuntu in order to get it to work. It's a shame that there are no physical buttons to disable and enable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, especially given the focus of this notebook on achieving a long battery life (hence the 'Timeline' moniker). The ease of getting a Linux distribution to run on the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T reminded us of how far the operating system has come since the years when even getting X to run was a challenge.

In our DVD rundown battery test, which is conducted with no power-saving features enabled, screen brightness at full and Wi-Fi enabled, the notebook lasted 4hr 19min. This is a good result for a laptop this size. Turning the brightness down a few notches, disabling Wi-Fi and using some sensible power-saving measures will mean you're likely to get a lot more life out of it. Acer claims you can achieve up to eight hours of battery life from the notebook, and this may well be possible if you take the right precautions.

The Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is much more feature-packed than a netbook, with fast 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet and pretty much every port you would expect: a multi-card reader, D-Sub (VGA), HDMI (great for connecting to an LCD TV) and three USB ports. It also comes with a DVD burner and a Kensington lock slot.

Apart from the connectivity options and the ease of use, what makes the Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T really stand out is its design. A 14in laptop often strikes a good balance between portability and usability, and the light weight of this notebook - 1.9kg - and the slim dimensions (it's only about an inch thick) make it a great choice for taking on the road or to your uni class. It doesn't get too warm to use on your lap, and it is also extremely quiet.

The Acer Aspire Timeline 4810T is light for a 14in notebook, and its battery lasted a long time in our tests.

Specifications

1.4Ghz, Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 CPU; Windows Vista Home Premium; Intel GMA 945GMS; 4GB DDR3 RAM; 320GB, 5400rpm hard drive; 14in TFT with LED backlight, 1366x768mm; D-Sub, HDMI Output, Headphone Jack, Microphone Jack, RJ45, USB 2.0; Wireless 802.11n, Bluetooth, Wireless 802.11a, Wireless 802.11b, Wireless 802.11g; built-in camera, mic, cable lock slot, SD card slot; Touchpad, Buttons, Keyboard; DVD±RW (dual layer) drive; 2 speakers; rechargeable li-ion battery; 1.9kg; 339x240x29mm

Source:[pcadvisor.co.uk]

Samsung has proved itself an accomplished maker of laptops, and when it set out to make a netbook, it came up trumps with the NC10. It didn't really bring anything new to what was already available; but it did build on other people's designs and executed them in a high-quality final product.

In the Samsung N110, little has changed from that winning formula first seen on the Samsung NC10. Or for that matter, the MSI Wind, which Samsung's latest now even more closely resembles; physically at least. Where the NC10 had a slightly square-cornered look about it, Samsung has softened the lines subtly, giving the N110 a closer approximation to MSI's pioneering netbook.

The spec list for all three netbooks are near carbon-copies: 10in screen, Intel Atom N270, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, three USB... and yet, once again Samsung has just refined the overall build to lift the Samsung N110 above the crowd.

Apart from the rounding of corners and stripping away of tacky chrome-effect side trim, the Samsung N110 adds a gloss-finish screen in place of the respectable matt version on the NC10. While this is a usually step backward for any laptop, the item fitted to this netbook is not as annoyingly reflective as some.

About 70g of weight has been lost along the way, although to look at the spec list it's hard to see where. The Samsung N110 has the same hard disk, same USB complement, 802.11b/g wireless card, ethernet and SD card slot. And yet somehow, the new Samsung N110 also manages to last longer on battery.

When testing the NC10 we measured 464 mins life - over 7.5 hours - and were suitably impressed. And the Samsung N110? A netbook record-breaking 595 mins; just five minutes short of ten long hours.

In build quality, the Samsung N110 shines with its excellent firm keyboard, precision-tracking touchpad and good positive-clicking buttons. There's also some useful software additions that make Windows XP look less antediluvian, such as a translucent graphical screen overlay when adjusting screen brightness and speaker volume.

And sound quality is another area where the Samsung N110 excels, as it sidesteps the squawky tinniness of the MSI Wind, with smoother sound and higher sound levels possible.

A bit of streamlining (better plastics and a slimmer profile) here and a couple tweaks (immense improvement on the mouse button) there... it all adds up to the Samsung N110 polishing away blemishes found on the original Samsung NC10. So if you find some echoes between the two reviews, they're entirely intentional.

Samsung has made an interesting decision to switch the Samsung N110 from the matte screen on the NC10 to the glossy side of the force. It doesn't matter all that much: The 10.1in, 1024-by-600-pixel panel works reasonably in all sorts of lighting conditions.

What's notable is that, in a side-by-side comparison, the glossy finish didn't really make the screen on the Samsung N110 pop that much more - but it did introduce a bit of glare. We'd almost prefer sticking with the matte screen of the NC10.

Thank goodness Samsung has addressed the troublesome touchpad buttons of its older netbook. On that machine you have to push the button down below the surface for the action to register. As a result, if you press the left side of the single-button bar, the right side of the bar juts up. On the Samsung N110, the company has fixed the problem quickly and easily by changing the molding on the casing.

Even though the dimensions haven't changed from those of the NC10 (261x186x30mm), the Samsung N110 feels a little more slender. And since Samsung built this mouse button into the curved bottom, it hits the hands more naturally. Generally it seems more secure.

What hasn't changed a whole lot is the keyboard. The buttons satisfy, and the firm, solid keys give a little as you press down. The feel is reminiscent of what you find on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. Lacking any extra shortcut buttons (like the S10), the Samsung N110 comes across as a semi-stylish but bland netbook on the surface.

Of course, it all comes down to personal taste. (For instance, I think the HP Mini 1000 makes better use of that same amount of space with its wide, flat keyboard.)

Otherwise, you're getting the standard-issue layout for a netbook: an SD card reader, three USB 2.0 ports, VGA, ethernet, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, headphone and microphone jacks, and a webcam. And don't forget the tinny speakers - the curse of most netbooks.

If you're familiar with netbooks at all, you know not to expect them to be speed demons. No exception here: the 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU and 1GB of RAM in the Samsung N110 motored through our WorldBench 6 tests with the same verve we saw from the initial pack of netbooks using the same processor.

It scored a hair higher than Samsung's previous model, earning a middle-of-the-road mark of 36. Also unremarkable is the fact that the machine comes with a 160GB hard drive. Where it does shine, though, is in the battery-life department: the Samsung N110 ran for a staggering 8 hours, 23 minutes.

That's long by any stretch - and by netbook standards, the Samsung N110 outdoes the competition without having to use an overly meaty battery. The system weighs only 1.26kg.

The feature attractions lie in the bundled software package. Samsung Recovery Solution III is a handy backup and system-restore program that even throws in a couple of suggestions regarding the possible causes of your machine's problems, giving you a recommended course of backup action to resolve the matter.

Easy Network Manager lets you quickly and effortlessly connect to networks; it's a superfluous bit of software for anyone remotely savvy enough, but it puts a pretty face on the standard Windows XP option. We even like the well-annotated and easily navigable digital user guide. We're not kidding - we wish every netbook came this well prepared for battle.
Source:[pcadvisor.co.uk]