IFA news: Samsung OLED laptop in Q3 '10

About a year ago, we had a fortune to become witness of the first OLED panel going into mass production. Back then it was a hi-tech exhibition, and, well, the story has repeated, almost. Today at the first day of IFA Berlin Samsung’s Head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing, who is Kyu Uhm of course, has given us a deem view of what will be a show stopper in a year – a (first) OLED notebook.

I am not going to speak all about his speech at IFA. Instead, let’s just have a walk through what an OLED display on a notebook can offer and take. One glance back though: Kyu Uhm has mentioned an expected growth of netbook market. In short, what he effectively said was: "We are making an OLED netbook". How good is that? If we think of power consumption, then it makes even more sense than putting an OLED display in a standard-sized laptop. What are main juice lovers in a PC? – screen, hard drive and processor. Same thing with size and weight. Organic diodes are really thin and light. Besides being overly magnificent to behold. So the future of personal computing, which is coming from Samsung in late Q3 of 2010, is a netbook with an OLED panel, SSD and low voltage processor. I like that. If only they give it out for netbook money, which I’m afraid they won’t.

You might have though the picture above is familiar to you. Yes, it is not new and not true. It’s a last year concept.

First images of gScreen Spacebook laptop with two full screens

When using a laptop it has one clear disadvantage over desktops and that’s screen real-estate. The options range from the tiny 10-inch netbooks to the top-end 17 and 18-inch displays. Lenovo has attempted to offer more screen space with an additional slide-out 10.6-inch display on the W700, and there’s always the option of plugging in an additional display, but that’s not practical if you want to remain portable. But now there may be a solution on the horizon from company gScreen.

The gScreen Spacebook is a conventional laptop, but it has two displays of equal size. That means you can have two 15, 16, or 17-inch screens housed in a portable, yet heavy case. The screens manage to fit inside a standard footprint laptop case as one screen slides behind the other. That does mean the laptop will be thicker, but should still fit inside one of the many laptop carrying cases available. It also has the advantage of giving the user the flexibility of only using one screen instead of two depending on what tasks they are carrying out.

The specs for the Spacebook are as follows:

• 2 LED backlit display screens (15.4, 16, or 17-inch)
• Windows VISTA/ WIN XP PRO (optional)
• Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26-GHz
• 4 GB of RAM (2GB DDR2 SO-DIMM x 2)
• 320GB 7200-rpm HD
• NVIDIA® GeForce® 9800M GT with 512MB dedicated memory (or) NVIDIA® Quadro FX 1700M Graphics with 512MB dedicated memory
• 9-cell battery
• IEEE 1394 1 Graphics Card Output (15-pin, D-Sub) X 1, HDMI X 1 Mic-in X 1, Line-in x 1, Headphone X 1 PCI Express Card X 1 AC Power Adaptor Output: 19V DC, 90W Input: 100~240V AC, 50/60Hz universal Battery Pack Li-ion 9 cells

The image you see above is the first real shot of the machine as before now there has only been a concept image on the gScreen website. Gizmodo also has three other images of this first machine.

In the future gScreen is planning to go smaller and release a dual 13-inch Spacebook, but to begin with it is expected that military and high-end workstations costing a small fortune will be released before any consumer models are considered. However, gScreen has said it is trying to release before the end of this year and keep the price below $3,000.

Asus Eee PC 1005HA (blue)

The latest revision, called the 1005HA, keeps the slim, tapered design but ditches the somewhat cumbersome cover flaps on the ports and adds a more traditional six-cell battery. This means a slightly thicker and heavier system, but also one that's our current Netbook battery life leader. Add in a slightly shaved price tag, down to a more reasonable $389 (although some perfectly usable Netbooks are down to $299), and you have what may be our new go-to Netbook choice.

Price as reviewed	$389
Processor	1.66GHz Intel Atom N280
Memory	1GB, 533MHz DDR2
Hard drive	160GB 5,400rpm
Chipset	Mobile Intel 945GM Express
Graphics	Mobile Intel GMA 950 (integrated)
Operating System	Windows XP
Dimensions (WD)	10.3 x 7.1 inches
Height	1.1 - 1.4 inches
Screen size (diagonal)	10.1 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter	2.9/3.4 pounds
Category	Netbook

The design of the 1005HA is based on the (slightly slimmer) 1008HA model. There's a tapered front lip, but the new model lacks some of the space-saving features of the 1008HA, such as the angled Ethernet jack and hidden mini-VGA port. Rather than a potentially smaller SSD drive, there's a standard 160GB HDD inside, augmented by a free 10GB online data storage subscription for backing up files to a remote server.

While slightly thicker and heavier than other recent Netbooks, it's still a vast improvement over the first few generations of mini laptops, which had a universally boxy, toylike feel. Our review unit was glossy black, which was prone to picking up fingerprints; blue is also available.

The flat, wide keyboard, similar to what we saw on the Eee PC 1008HA, is among the better Netbook keyboards we've used, and the full-size right Shift key is one of those things you don't realize is very important until it goes missing. The touch pad is demarcated by a rectangle of raised dots on the wrist rest, and works well, although we found ourselves going into the touch pad settings and jacking up the default pointer speed.

A single quick-access button above the keyboard is for disabling the touch pad (handy if you're using an external USB mouse), and Asus' different preset power profiles are accessible by hitting the FN key plus the space bar. New to this model is a software suite that acts as a software dock popping out of the top of the screen (by default, but switchable). From there, you can access functions such as screen brightness presets and media players. Most Netbook users we talk to are no-nonsense types who just want to surf the Web or send e-mail, so learning the ins and outs of a proprietary menu bar system may not be high in the list of priorities.

The 10.1-inch LED display offers a 1,024x600 native resolution, which is standard for a Netbook, although higher-end systems are starting to add 1,366x768 display options. The backlit LED allows the lid to be very thin, and also use less power than a more traditional LCD display.

ViewSonic debuts with VPC100 All-in-One PC

ViewSonic debuts with its first all-in-one PC. It is the VPC100. Let’s take a look at ViewSonics novelty. The VPC100 has an 18.5-inch LCD display that works at 1366x768 resolution and with a 16:9 aspect ratio. The all-in-one PC is powered by 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU with 1GB of RAM. Capacity of the hard drive is 160GB. All the hardware is in the 1.4-inch thick case. Also the PC comes with Windows XP Home operating system.

The VPC100 comes with all that is needed. It has a DVD burner, a 4-in-1 card reader and four USB 2.0 ports. Connection to the world is provided by an integrated Wi-Fi connection. And this is not all. The all-in-one PC has a wired gigabit Ethernet. Also the VPC100 comes with 1.3 megapixel camera for video conferences and 2.5W front speakers. Consumers also get an optical mouse and a full-size keyboard.

The price of the VPC100 all-in-one PC is near 599 USD.

PC Line 90W Universal Laptop Power Adapter

Sometimes power packs just die. In fact it seems to be fairly common that your shiny new notebook will arrive with a power pack that has been sourced rather cheaply. Should the worst happen, you probably only have a few hours of life in your PC before the world grinds to a halt. Ordering a new power pack could take days which you don't have. Fortunately universal power packs are not uncommon, but can they step into the breech?

PC Line is best known as a budget brand providing no frills PC accessories on the high street, in places like PC World. As finding the right charger for your PC is near impossible on the high street, your options are a little limited, so you may find yourself plumping for this universal solution. Fortunately this jack of all trades boasts compatibility across the front of the box, including Acer, Advent, Asus, Compaq, Dell, EI Systems, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Lenovo, Packard Bell, Philips, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba.

To provide this level of compatibility it comes with 11 connectors in the box. These plug into the cable connected to the transformer, with a groove to ensure it is the right way around. This connection doesn't lock together in any way, it is simply a case of a push fit.

The other part of the equation is the output of the transformer itself. A simple rotating switch allows you to select the voltage of your choice. This information can normally be found on the old power pack, or on the bottom of your PC. It steps through 15V, 16V, 18V, 19V, 20V, 22V and finally 24V. This should cater for the majority of notebooks on the market supported by the included tips. A small key is provided to allow you to switch between voltages, although a screwdriver will also do it should you lose this small part.

At the mains plug end there is a little more magic too, as it features both a UK and European plug. You simply unscrew the UK plug and take off the adapter and you are good to go on the continent. Rated to 90W, it is good for both powering your laptop and charging the battery at the same time.