Samsung Series 7

The Samsung Series 7 Gamer laptop that was on display at this year’s CES is expected to be available in North America in April 2012. The device, which has been available in Europe since last spring, has been updated and will put Samsung in a position to compete in the competitive gaming market. The Samsung Series 7 is a purpose-built device. From the ground up it was designed with one thing in mind: hardcore gaming.

Samsung did not cut any corners when designing and building this laptop. Evidence of their focus starts from the motherboard itself, which has 8 GB of flash storage built in. That is more than just a nice add-on. It means that you can load an entire operating system directly on the motherboard itself, improving boot speed and overall stability and performance. System performance in any computer is closely tied to the amount of RAM onboard. Gamers will be pleased to know that the motherboard will support up to 16 GB. The most important factors in a gaming system though are undoubtedly your CPU and GPU. In these two areas the upcoming Samsung Series 7 shines.

Let’s start with the CPU. When the Series 7 launched in Europe, it came with the then impressive second generation Core i7 processor. Samsung has decided to sweeten the deal and has upgraded the processor. The US model will come with a third generation quad core Core i7 CPU. That quad core brute is capable of running the latest games at full speed without lags—that is, if it has a GPU to match.

For the true hardcore gamer their video card is perhaps even more important than their CPU. Samsung seems to understand that fact and has decided to also upgrade its GPU. Gone is the Radeon HD 6970M. In its place will be a new card by NVIDIA, the GeForce GTX 670M. This combination of CPU and GPU promises to not only run any game at full speed, it also promises to do so with the settings maxed out. That’s impressive.

The one aspect where the U.S. release of the Samsung Series 7will take a step down of sorts will be the display. The 3D display that is on the European version will not be available when the device ships stateside. There will, however, be a DisplayPort Jack that will give users an additional display option outside of the standard set of VGA, HDMI DVI, etc.

The Series 7 may be designed for gaming, but it does not mean that you cannot use the 17-inch laptop in more traditional scenarios. With that in mind, Samsung included a physical switch that will let you change power modes. You will be able to dial down the power when using the device for, say, watching movies off the included Blu-ray player or when simply browsing the web. When you are ready to get into some serious gaming, crank it up to turbo and the CPU will be clocked up and the keyboard will be optimized for gaming.

In hands-on tests, the laptop’s performance was impressive. When running a top-tier FPS (first-person shooter), it ran at full speed with no lags at max settings. When configured with 2 TB of storage, it is expected to cost around $1799 at launch.

A brand new Asus U30S notebook packing a Sandy Bridge processor has been spotted overseas. This is the first Asus notebook in the mainstream U and UL series to sport a Sandy Bridge processor.

Precisely, the Asus U30S has an Intel Core i5-2410M Sandy Bridge processor, 8GB of RAM and NVIDIA’s 520M discrete graphics with Optimus automatic graphics switching technology. The notebook comes standard with an 8-cell battery rated at 84Whr. It reportedly runs over five hours on a single charge.

The U30S has a 13.3 inch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. Other specifications include a 500GB, 7200rpm hard drive, built-in DVD-RW optical drive, WiFi 802.11N, Bluetooth 3.0, Gigabit LAN, HDMI, VGA, webcam, card reader and 3 USB 2.0 ports. The laptop runs Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. No word on pricing at the moment.

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Lenovo has updated its ThinkPad T, L and W models with Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge Core i series processors and NVIDIA Optimus or ATI discrete graphics. The new laptops also feature improved VoIP features. Here is a quick overview.

ThinkPad T series
The 14 inch ThinkPad T420s and T420 and the 15.6 inch ThinkPad T520 are now available with Intel’s new Core i5 and i7 processors. They now also offer more battery life and faster boot-times. Lenovo says that the T420s will boot 30 percent faster than the previous model. As for the ThinkPad T420, well, it will reportedly get up to 30 hours of battery life with its nine-cell slice extended battery. The new models will also have the NVIDIA GeForce 4200M discrete graphics with 1GB of video RAM and Optimus technology. The top-of-the-line ThinkPad T420s is priced at $1,329. The T420 and T520 start at $779 and $909 respectively.

ThinkPad L Series
The 14 inch ThinkPad L420 and 15.6 inch ThinkPad L520 can be configured with Intel’s latest Core i7 and i5 processors, up to 8GB of RAM and ATI Radeon HD 565 discrete graphics. While the L420 has a lower resolution 1366 x 768 pixels display, the L520 is available with a higher resolution 1600 x 900 pixels panel. An 80GB mSATA SSD option is also available if hard drives aren’t your thing. Both laptops start at $719.

ThinkPad W series
Lenovo has also updated its mobile workstation ThinkPad W520. It is now configurable with Intel’s latest Core i5 and i7 processors and NVIDIA Fermi Quadro 100M or 2000M discrete graphics. It has a 15.6 inch display, 2 USB 3.0 ports and up to a 160GB SSD option. Prices start at $1,329.

All the laptops also feature improved video calling features including dual array microphones and keyboard noise reduction technology. All six models will be available by the end of March.

NVIDIA is expected to bring a quad core mobile processor to the market towards the end of this year. The new processor will be based on the platform code-named Project Kal-el. Tablets powered by this processor should hit the market in August. Smartphones will follow.

The project Kal-El processor has a quad-core CPU and 12 core NVIDIA GeForce graphics. While the NVIDIA Tegra 2 and many other dual core processors from Qualcomm and Samsung can decode 1080p HD video, the Kal-El processor will be able to play 1440p on a 2560 x 1600 pixels display.

NVIDIA says that in overall performance the new processor is 5 times more powerful than the Tegra 2 processor while at the same time consuming less power. It is not clear whether the new chip will be called Tegra 3. Kal-El, by the way, is Superman’s Kryptonian name.

NVIDIA’s roadmap for 2011 has leaked and it looks like the company will begin sampling of its Tegra 3 T30 SOC (System on a chip) in Q4. That is in addition to the Tegra 2 3D (T25) chip NVIDIA is expected to release later this year. The NVIDIA Tegra 3, meanwhile, will be the world’s first mobile quad-core processor packing up to four 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 cores.

Tegra 3 will deliver 3 times faster graphics performance than Tegra 2. It will also be capable of driving a 1920 x 1200 display. That means tablets with super-high pixel density will soon be a reality. The Tegra 3 chipset also provides Blu-ray video support and NVIDIA’s ultra-low power CPU mode for efficient power consumption.
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