CEATEC: Toshiba develops laptop HD DVD writer drive

On Tuesday Toshiba will unveil the first slim-type HD DVD writer drive suitable for use in laptop computers.

The SD-L902A drive is the standard 12.7mm high, which means it can fit in the drive bay of most laptop computers. It can read and write HD DVD, DVD and CD discs, Toshiba said Monday.

It will be shown at Ceatec, Japan's biggest electronics show, which begins Tuesday. At last year's Ceatec, Toshiba debuted its slim-type HD DVD reader. The first laptop to feature the drive, its Qosmio G30, went on sale earlier this year.

Samples of the new writer drive will be available to PC makers by the end of this year, and if it follows the same path as the read-only model it could be on sale in laptops in 2007.

HD DVD is one of two formats battling to replace DVD as the de facto storage standard for high-definition movies. In addition to their home entertainment applications the discs can also be used to store data. A single-sided HD DVD-R can store 15GB of data. A disc for the competing Blu-ray Disc format can store 25GB on a single-side.

This year's Ceatec is expected to see the unveiling of several new products for the two new formats. The show will kick-off with a Sony news conference at which the company is promising a new Blu-ray Disc product. Sony hasn't said what it will be but the company recently showed a prototype Blu-ray Disc video recorder. A similar prototype recorder was also recently displayed by Hitachi.

Clarion car sat-nav designed to go places

We all know we’re not supposed to leave out car navigation systems actually in the car when it’s parked, lest they become just another crime statistic, which is probably why Clarion Japan has blended its newest sat-nav with a PDA that slips in a pocket.

The ¥50,000 DrivTrax P5 weighs 198g and measures 90 x 132 x 22mm, making it about the size of a paperback book. The 4.3in screen is touch-sensitive (is there any product that doesn’t want us to poke at it these days?), coming with a stylus for operating the various menus.

The GPS satellite navigation contains maps of all of Japan, from which driving directions are read out by the voice guidance function. A USB port is included to allow Clarion to update the maps in future should, for example, Tokyo be decimated by giant fire-breathing lizards.

Aside from that, the DrivTrax also has a database of 11 million addresses and telephone numbers in its 2GB of flash memory and can play back MP3, WMA and WAV audio files. The operating system is Windows Mobile 5.0 and the battery lasts 4.5 hours after a full charge from the car’s cigarette lighter socket.

Review: Toshiba Satellite P105 gaming notebook

For a long time, the notion of a "gaming laptop" was a contradiction in terms. After all, everyone knew that notebooks had to compromise on features and performance to achieve maximum portability, right? And even with advances in chips that make it possible for today's laptop PCs to outpace the desktops from 12 minutes ago, you're still faced with awkward controls and a screen that's too small. Am I right?

"Dude, you've been misinformed," is what Toshiba would say to that. The notebooks in the company's Satellite series are designed with gaming in mind, as the P105-S9722 shows. It sports a 17-inch widescreen LCD monitor (1,440 x 900 pixels) and some serious multimedia hardware, including an Nvidia graphics card with 256 MB of memory and dual-core processing power. We're way beyond Pong here.

Not everything's in the specs, though. When it's all said and done, the P105 has one simple mission: Convince me that a laptop can serve as a primary gaming platform. After all, if you're spending 2 Gs on a rig, it damn well better not be a "secondary" one. Let's see how it did.

Dell’s World of Warcraft Laptops Goes on EBay

Besides, the 27-inch monitor and Dell’s first rugged notebook, Dell also unveiled a unique creation of the World of Warcraft edition of its XPS M1710 laptops at CES designed by the renowned artist, Mike Lavalle. Dell has now put up those special edition gamer’s notebook for eBay auction. The custom-painted XPS M1710 Burning Crusade Edition features Lavalle’s airbrushed re-creation of original composition from the new World of Warcraft expansion and both of these special editions are signed by company’s founder and Chairman, Michael Dell and Rob Pardo. The two special Dell XPS M1710 laptops are currently up for a price of $5,100 and $4,300, respectively and the proceeds will be benefiting America’s Second Harvest.

Kensington VoIP phone hides in your laptop

VoIP phones are neat and all, but not neat enough to take up space in your pocket or bag. I mean, since you need a WiFi hotspot to connect with them, it's not like you can just chat it up while walking down the street.

This Kensington Vo200 BT Internet Phone is a pretty sweet twist on the idea, as it hides itself inside your laptop. Fitting nicely into your PCMCIA slot, it charges itself up while you do your normal computing tasks. Then, if you want to make a call, just pop it out. Chances are you'll be at a hotspot if you're using your computer, so you won't need to worry about finding one. It's a clever design for a device in a field of devices trying to find their niche. You can pick one up now online for $90

Samsung takes aim at the MacBook

Those black MacBooks are pretty sexy, but not everybody wants to spend that kind of money for an Apple computer. Generally speaking, PC laptops are cheaper but somehow less desirable than their Mac counterparts, what with PC laptops generally being bigger, boxier, and uglier. Samsung is looking to change that with their new Aura laptop.

This sleek black lappie features a 14.1-inch glossy LCD screen and a shiny outer case. On the inside, you get AMD ATI Radeon Xpress 1250 HyperMemory chipset that'll handle games on the go in a more than acceptable fashion. All the other guts you're free to fiddle with as you please, from the low end Celeron M up to the Core 2 Duo processor with all the fixings. Will that be enough to convince people to get their fashionable computer with Windows inside rather than picking up another ubiquitous MacBook? Time will tell.