Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

We sort of figured Dell’s Studio branding would come to the XPS line sooner or later — the family resemblance between the Studio laptops and the XPS m1330 and m1530 is hard to ignore, after all — and it looks like we don’t have much longer to wait, if you believe these slides discovered by Jayson in the NotebookReview forums. The Studio XPS 13 and 16, due in November, will be Intel Centrino 2-based machines with hybrid SLI support, slot-loading Blu-ray drives, edge-to-edge glass displays with optional LED backlighting, backlit keyboards, and WiMAX and UWB support. We’re digging the funky woodgrain on the Studio XPS 16, but it’ll be interesting to see how much these cost if and when they hit — the Studio line was supposed to sit in between the Inspiron and XPS lines, so we’re hoping these’ll also come in below the current XPS price tags. Check the other four slides, including the Studio XPS 13, after the break.

[Thanks, L. Rawlins]

Continue reading Dell Studio XPS 13 and 16 leak out, due in November?

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Laptops

It’s not as momentous as the new enterprise-focused Precisions and Latitudes, but Dell’s got a tiny little treat for consumers today as well: an available $450 Samsung SSD for the XPS M1330 and M1530. Sure, the benefits are debatable, but c’mon — you know you want it.

[Thanks, Justin R.]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Storage

Watch out, archive junkies. The 1TB internal HDD game just got one more player. Hailed by Western Digital as the “fastest 3.5-inch 7200RPM drive on the market,” the Caviar Black SATA drive is available in both 750GB and 1TB flavors, with the latter obviously being the most appealing. On these beasts you’ll find “twice” the processing power, 32MB of cache, StableTrac / NoTouch technologies and a respectable five-year warranty. Both units will be ready to grab next week, with the smaller of the two going for $199 and the kingpin $249.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Truth be told, we knew this gem was waiting in Sony’s pocket, but it finally came clean and made things official over in Europe. The 2.1 BRAVIA DAV-F200 home theater system features S-Master digital amplification, which delivers a potent 135-watts of power to each speaker (including the subwoofer). The firm also threw in its S-Force Front Surround technology to help convince your mind that 2.1 is really 5.1, and as for the integrated DVD player, it plays nice with MP3 / photo / DivX discs, too. Better still, the unit includes 1080p upscaling over HDMI along with a built-in USB port for listening to WMA / AAC files, and there’s even optical / coaxial digital inputs for other external sources. Regrettably, there’s no word on a price nor US availability, but we can say for certain that those across the pond can claim their own this June.

[Via Pocket-lint]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Hi-def and DVRs go together like peanut butter and jelly, but even with all the great DVRs available today, none are perfect. TiVo offers the best overall user experience and features, but lacks a few fundamental features that most cable STBs have — like VOD, for starters. Although this isn’t TiVo’s fault, when it comes down to figuring out what’s right for your family, it really doesn’t matter. During Tivo’s earnings call yesterday, it was reaffirmed that TiVo is working one step closer to making the ultimate cable DVR by including two-way functionality using the latest CableLabs standard tru2way. For those who haven’t been keeping track at home, tru2way has undergone an identity crisis, and if you go back long enough, you’ll find that it was called CableCARD 2.0 — by someone. The way this would work is that you’d have a way on a TiVo to access the cable company’s UI, so good or bad, when you’re accessing VOD content, you’d see the same thing as if you were using a Moto or SA Cisco box. What isn’t known is if current HD TiVo owners, with the help of a tuning resolver and some software, would have access to the same features. We don’t see why not, but this stuff is already way more complicated than it should be, and at this point we wouldn’t put anything by CableLabs.

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Original post by Ben Drawbaugh

Filed under: CES, GPS

The two new Sony nav-u GPS units we knew were on the way Stateside are officially announced today. As expected, the NV-U73T is sporting a 4.3-inch screen with the higher end NV-U83T sizing up at 4.8-inches. The latter also features Bluetooth, gesture command, split-screen dual view, and an accelerometer for more accurate navigation when signal is low. Both units feature text-to-speech and a new “super suction cup” that reportedly really sucks (…in a good way) to achieve maximum adhesion to your location of choice. Both will be available this February for $350 and $500, respectively.

[Via press release]

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Original post by Barb Dybwad