Dell is currently selling the Studio 1737 with Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 64 bit on their UK website, Dell.co.uk. Since Windows 7's release, they have decided to upgrade the Studio 17 range with the Studio 1747, which comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. The difference in core specifications between the two models is significant. I was curious to see what upgrade options  were available on Dell's site for the 1737 that could make it worth buying instead of the 1747. At the moment, I would imagine every prospective purchaser of a notebook would want Windows 7 Premium, which is not an option on the 1737.

Reviews of the Studio 1737 revealed the machine to be relatively disappointing, due to the availability of superior notebooks in its price bracket. You can read detailed reviews of the Studio 1737 here. Not surprisingly, the 1737 is an inferior model to the 1747, due to the newer technology Dell has placed inside its new model. So, why would anyone buy a 1737, instead of an equivalently priced 1747? I can't think of a reason, with the specifications listed below, it would be hard for anyone to choose the 1737 over the 1747, so why are Dell still selling it?

Now, on to the comparison of both machines. The most expensive 1747 package on Dell's site is £1299.00, which is almost twice the cost of the most expensive 1737 package: £649.00. To even the cost of the models for this comparison, I added upgrades to the 1737 to match the price of the 1747 as closely as possible. The only upgrade I added to the 1747 was the Blu-Ray drive, for £100, whereas the total upgrades that I added to the 1737 almost doubled its cost. At this inflated price, did the 1737 match the specifications of the 1747? The core specifications are listed in the following table, and its clear that the 1737 still can't match the 1747 even with major upgrades:-

With the operating system issue aside, the clearest difference between the two is the choice of CPU. The 1747 has the powerful Intel® Core™ i-7820QM, which is in position 8 on our CPU benchmark list, whereas the 1737 has the weaker Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9600, placed at number 18 on our CPU benchmark list.

A significant difference between the machines that further amplifies the superior performance potential of the 1747, is the fact that the 1747's processor has a Front Side Bus (FSB) of 1333MHz, with 6GB of DDR3 RAM at a matching speed of 1333MHz. The 1737 is left lagging behind, its CPU has an FSB of 1066MHz, and the accompanying 6GB of DDR2 RAM is only 800MHz. Having RAM running slower than the FSB has the potential of leaving the CPU waiting for the RAM, resulting in a slower system overall. The Intel Core i-7 is an exceptionally powerful CPU, which is able to take advantage of the superior DDR3 RAM modules installed in the 1747; you can read more about this impressive CPU here.

One could conclude at this point, having considered the CPU and RAM alone, that the 1747 is a superior machine, yet it has even more to offer. With two 500GB hard drives spinning at 7200 rpm each, the 1747's storage capabilities provide the user with more storage space and faster access to data, than the 1737's two 320GB hard drives spinning at 5400 rpm.

As both have Blu-ray drives (although the 1747 has it at a higher cost), what else separates the two? I managed to upgrade the 1737's display to a 17.0" 1920 x 1200 resolution capable WUXGA+ CCFL screen, which is a higher resolution than the 1747's 17.3" display, which is limited to 1600 x 900.

However, the difference between the two displays is overshadowed by the superior GPU found in the 1747, which is a 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650. This GPU is in the fairly high position of 33 on our GPU benchmark list , whereas the 1737's 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3650, is only in position 74 on the same list. The 1GB of memory on the 1747's GPU is excessive however, and it would only need 256MB, or perhaps 512MB in extreme cases. The money spent on the extra

memory would have been better spent on a superior GPU. (Please read our short GPU memory guide to find out more). But despite the unnecessarily large GPU memory, the 1747 is the winning machine in this comparison, and costs almost the same as a fully-upgraded 1737. 

According to NVIDIA spokesman, Brian Burke, quoted in Electronista yesterday, Intel have 'no competition in chipsets' and have 'decided that innovation is not needed for USB any time soon'; with 'no one to push Intel to innovate, PC enthusiasts are left with' no other options – implying that Intel are happy to wait until 2011, and maybe longer.

Intel are a dominant figure in the market, but is it only their apparent confidence in their market position, which is to blame for the delay in developing USB 3.0 compatible chipsets? It seems that companies such as Super Talent, are not concerned enough about Intel, to halt production on any USB 3.0 devices. Other manufacturers, such as Asus are reported to be developing motherboards with USB 3.0 support.

Assuming we will be able to use Super Talent's new flash drives, let's take a closer look at them. The flash drives are backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1, and have three different capacities: 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.

The flash drives (pictured) measure 95 x 37 x 13 mm, and can deliver transfer speeds of up to 200MBps, and up to 320MBps when used with 'a separate UAS Protocol driver with a USB 3.0 port'. They come with a limited lifetime warranty and 'more than 10 years data retention'. To receive updates about these and other Super Talent USB 3.0 products, you can register here; although it may be a long time before you can use these flash drives on a fully-compatible system.

Folks at Pocketables.net got their hold on a sample, and although they are quite impressed by the battery life and connectivity options, the keyboard is a letdown. On the outside, the S7 looks quite sleek, less than an inch thick. There are lots of switches and curves around. The battery slot also looks sturdy, and holds the tiny SIM card slot for 3G data access and voice calling.

The display panel is touch-enabled. It is connected to the keyboard by a rather strong hinge. The bezel around the screen is also rather large, making the 7” screen to look like a 10” one. It houses a speaker on the left and right, a webcam on the upper left, and two buttons on the lower right. The S7 is extremely light and thus very portable to carry around.

The S7’s touchscreen looks nice and crisp, and although the resolution of 1024 x 600 looks just about ok in an average 10” netbook, it provides a very sharp read in the small 7” screen. The reviewer says you’ll probably want to install the oft-praised Grab and Drag Firefox addon for use with the touchscreen of S7. It’s a bit glossy though which might attract fingerprints. One important thing for a tablet (or a can-be-made tablet) is to have the crucial and a few shortcut keys around the bezel – and fortunately the S7 has them. 

As the reviewer points out, it hurts to talk about the keyboard and trackpad. The trackpad is small and difficult to operate with. The keyboard is even more. It is really cramped and difficult to type – as the reviewer points out. Also I have observed the keyboards are not stresses out to the sides towards both left and right side. With such a small form factor, you need to utilize every available space. If the touchscreen was not there, it would’ve been really difficult to survive with this baby.

Let now talk about the good parts now – connectivity and battery life. The S7 comes with WiFi, Bluetooth, DVB, and 3G/voice connectivity options, although DVB cannot be accessed in US. It also voice calling and text messaging as well. The benchmarking tests are mentioned at the reviewer’s site. The battery life is incredible; let me tell you without having to go there. With full brightness, WiFi+Bluetooth on it gave an incredible near 6 hrs of juice. If you want to stress it, it can take you upwards of 10 hrs to finally settle down.

Overall, the technology is pretty good, with an exceptional battery life and plethora of connectivity options it is a very good portable computer. Just that you’ll have to understand that it is afterall portable and make up your mind for the difficulties a 7” tiny form-factor brings.

You can start by visiting Dynamism where the S7 is retailing at $629.

No word has been said about its launch or any other feature. It seems Lenovo is in a mood to throw some New Year surprises for its lovers. Lenovo Thinkpad has always been known to be robust and seeing the latest trend of offering the notebooks in a mix bag color package by its rivals, it makes sense for it to come out with this line of product to hold its fort in the market.

If this notebook comes out to be an extension to the X200 series, it will have the SimpleTap application, a new application launched by lenovo past month which enhances your multitouch experience. The X200 series tablet has created a lot of buzz in the market due to it’s advanced capacitive touch. The screens are sensitive and responsive to even the slightest touch of the finger. Lenovo also optimized the firmware to help compensate for slightly imprecise taps on the screen, such as when closing a window or navigating the Start menu, helping make navigation easier for Tablet users. To combat fingerprints, an anti-fingerprint coating helps keep smudges at bay and the screen clean. The multi-touch screens also allow users to enjoy ultra long battery life with up to nine hours on the ThinkPad X200 Tablet. Users can now interact with their ThinkPad Tablet in a more personal way with multitouch screen technology. Designed for highly mobile users, the optional multitouch screen ThinkPad X200 Tablet caters to individuals in fields such as sales, health care and education. Already supporting one finger touch, these users can now use two-finger touch to perform a variety of gestures, including pinching, zooming, tapping and flicking through documents, web pages and photos instead of using a mouse. 

VIA Technologies CPU division, after a long wait of five years, released a 64 bit central processing unit (called VIA Nano) for personal computers in 2008. The 64-bit architecture, unveiled on 24 January 2008, was designed from scratch and was launched on May 29. It includes low voltage variants and the Nano brandname.

The one which I will be talking about now is the Nano 3000 series. These processors are targeted at Windows 7-based thin-and-light notebooks and all-in-one desktops.

VIA Nano 3000 Series

The Nano 3000 chips are based on 64-bit superscalar ‘Isaiah’ architecture with core speed ranging from 1GHz to 2GHz; each is capable of flawless playback of high bit-rate 1080p HD video and they are 20 percent more efficient than existing VIA Nano processors.

Of the six initial 3000 Series, four have an idle power draw of just 100mW; the two top-speed versions (at 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz) require 500mW. This will result in higher battery life and longer battery backup time.

VIA Nano 3000 Series processors use the NanoBGA2 package, making them pin-to-pin ompatible with VIA Nano 1000 Series, VIA Nano 2000 Series, VIA C7, VIA C7-M and VIA Eden.

Also on the cards are advanced features including 64-bit support, SSE4 for enhanced multimedia processing, advanced CPU virtualization technology and the industry-leading encryption and security capabilities integrated in the VIA PadLock Security Engine.

VIA Nano 3000 Series Availability

VIA promises that we will see these new efficient processors powering up all-in-one desktops as well as thin-and-light laptops in the very near future, most probably by Q1 2010.

OLPC seems to be in full mood to revamp its line of XOs and says that model 3.0 will have a “totally different industrial design, more like a sheet of paper”. That model shall include some really aspirational aspects like sturdy hardware:- unbreakable, waterproof enclosure apart from offering some colorful variants, thickness of only a quarter, reflective and transmissive display with no bezel. It’s also being projected as consuming very less power, of only 1W to be precise. The company is eyeing to offer the tablet at a stunning price of $75 by 2012.

OLPC says it is still driven by its motto of providing a 1$ per child per week to buy, maintain and connect the machine. The company is going all out to wage a war against Intel saying its Classmate series is aimed at hurting its prospects as “One Laptop per Child” campaign will seriously affect its sales efforts on OLPC's participating countries. In an exclusive interview, the company founder Nicolas Negroponte said that "Yes, Intel has hurt the mission enormously," Intel is engaging in the All-American game of catch-up to the OLPC thought leadership. Intel is increasing its focus on the developing world as a real market, by developing new computing products like the Classmate PC. It is also centering the World ahead program on the developing world outside of India and China. Last but not least, OLPC has broken Intel from its Microsoft myopia, spurring a Linux Classmate PC.

Now the real winners in this competition are the people in the developing world. Two or three years ago, neither Intel nor AMD considered them a worthy market to develop product for. "Emerging markets" would get the developed world's end-of-life products, seconds that were soon to be obsolete. Now these economies, especially their educational technology industries, are about to leapfrog into the future with clock-stopping hot technology.