Dell's Inspiron 13 already reviewed: basic, but capable

Look, we know you've spent the last three or so hours toying around on Dell's build-to-order page, but be honest with yourself -- are you really willing to pull the trigger on an Inspiron 13 without taking one tiny peek at a review first? NotebookReview has snagged one of the new 13-inchers and taken it for a ride on the test bench, and overall, things are lookin' up. Reviewers found the design to be "sleek," the specifications to be "reasonable" and the price point "attractive." Beyond that, it also found the battery life to be surprisingly satisfactory, though the "cheap palm rests and noisy slot-loading optical drive" were small (albeit noteworthy) nuisances. In the end, critics summed things up by suggesting that if you're scouting "a basic mobile companion with good looks and a low price tag, then this is probably the right notebook for you." Hit up the read link for the full writeup and even a few benchmarks.

MSI rolls out EX300, EX400 laptops

While it may seem like MSI has nothing but the Wind on its mind these days, the company is, in fact, still in the general laptop business, and its just let loose a pair of decidedly ordinary new models to prove it. From the looks of it, the "athletic and fashionable" EX300 (pictured above) is the slightly more interesting of the pair, with it sporting a 13.3-inch WXGA display, an unspecified Core 2 Duo processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD3450 graphics, a max 320GB hard drive, up to 4GB of RAM, and a Blu-ray drive, among other standard fare. The EX400, on the other hand, opts for a slightly less portable 14.1-inch display and some more traditional styling, along with some virtually identical specs to its more "athletic" counterpart. No word on a price for either of 'em just yet, unfortunately, nor is there any indication of a release 'round these parts.

Dell's Inspiron 910 netbook limps a bit closer to release

You're looking at official Dell pics of its upcoming Inspiron 910 netbook nabbed from their on-line support docs. These images match the others we've seen down to the key (look, no dedicated function keys) which pretty much confirms the mini laptop's final appearance. Now if Dell could just hit one of the rumored release dates we could all get back to pillaging market share from standard sized laptops.

[Thanks, Mike and Hao]

Hands-on with LG's X110 netbook: HSDPA, GPS and a price to match

A USB shuffle here, a logo swap there and here's what you get, the MSI, uh hem, LG X110. Sporting a fairly obvious MSI Wind base, LG's X110 is making its first appearance in Berlin. Prices will range from €399 to €499 (about $590 to $738) which takes home an 8.9-inch display, 120GB disk (6GB SSD option), 1GB of RAM, and choice of built-in 3G HSDPA and GPS modules. Yes, XP running atop a 1.6GHz Atom processor, too. On sale in Europe at the end of September.

Fujitsu Siemens' Amilo Mini netbook gets official, spec'd

When it was revealed, the appropriately titled Mini netbook looked like a toy next to a 17-inch Fujitsu Siemens Amilo notebook. That short video we saw managed to prove it was indeed the real thing, and now we have some official specs to go with the two-tone looks. The 8.9-inch Amilo Mini Ui 3520 will retail for €399 ($588), and come equipped with a trendy 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 60- or 80GB hard drive (no SSD on offer), and the usual accoutrements: 1.3 megapixel webcam, Bluetooth, 802.11b/g, and a copy of XP Home Edition. No mention of battery size or life, but with a weight of just 2.2lbs we're guessing a wee 3-cell, which means no coast-to-coast flight duty for this one.

Samsung debuts X360 "lighter than air" ultraportable

Newsflash, Samsung: your (previously rumored) new X360 laptop isn't actually lighter than air. Also newsflash: it's still pretty special. Samsung shouted a resounding "me too!" today with its new X360 13.3-inch ultraslim / ultralight / ultraportable laptop. Weighing in at 2.8 pounds and measuring as thin as 0.66-inches (1.2-inches on the fatter end), the laptop is based on a Centrino 2 ULV processor and is built to compete. 1GB of RAM is standard -- there's room for up to 4GB -- and you can pick a 64GB or 128GB SSD, or opt for a 5400RPM 120GB HDD if you're feeling boring. Graphics come from X4500 integrated graphics, and the screen runs at 1280 x 800. The best and worst news comes with the inputs and outputs; Samsung didn't integrate an optical drive, but did find room for a 7-in-1 card reader, three USB ports, PCI ExpressCard/34, HDMI, VGA, LAN and a docking port. There's naturally WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR and a 1.3 megapixel camera. Battery life is specced at 6 to 10 hours, but we're guessing the upper end of that spectrum will add considerably to the weight. No word on price or availability, but as far as we know Samsung hasn't gone backsies on its "no computers for those dirty Americans" policy, so it looks like we're stuck with the other dozen or so similarly specced laptops out there.

Samsung X360 handled, fights MacBook Air to the death

We're not just staring down a boring press release of Samsung's new X360, we actually got to fiddle around with it for a few minutes and came away fairly impressed. It has a build somewhere in-between the plastic-ish Voodoo Envy 133 and the rock-solid ThinkPad X300, though probably closer to the latter, and the sheen of Silver Nano Technology on the technology saves us from bacteria but adds a slightly cheap flavor to the keyboard. The isolated keys aren't as deep as those found on Sony's latest models, nor not quite as crisp as an Apple keyboard, but should make for a comfortable typing experience. The port layout seems reasonable, the LED-backlit screen bright and not-too-terribly-glossy, and the brushed metal finish on the back is surely a nice touch. We didn't play much with the Korean OS, but Samsung claims the next-gen 128GB SSD offers a 25-50 percent boot time bump. Up against the MacBook Air the X360 is significantly thicker, but actually a tiny bit (3 ounces) lighter. We'll leave it to you to decide the victor while we swap USB devices willy nilly in an attempt to finish this post.