Samsung unveil transparent OLED laptop

Samsung has revealed its first laptop featuring clear active matrix OLED display.

Such laptops which sport Samsung’s clear AMOLED allow the user to work and see objects placed behind the screen at the same time. The laptop’s display has a transparency that can go as high as 40%.

Of course, the technology is still in the beginning stages but it is interesting to see if and how the screen will be capable of “switching off” the transparency, as end-users may not always want to see directly through it when playing media, reading documents or even playing games.

Samsung unveils Wi-Fi integrated eBook

Ebook readers had already become a flourishing market even before Apple launched the iPad, but it further fueled the popularity of books in electronic content through its ability to operate in e-reader mode. Seeking to use the strong flow in its favor, Samsung has announced that it is launching a Wi-Fi-equipped e-reader. As the second such model from the company, the e-reader is dubbed SNE-60/60K (or E6) and can both view books in electronic content and allow users to take notes.

Samsung has already formed a partnership with major Korean newspapers in order to enable subscribers to automatically download their news articles. The company is also working with Kyobo Mungo, a chain bookstore in partnership with which the e-reader was actually developed. The bookstore chain will provide the device with the required online content, so that buyers will have a large collection of books and other content to choose from.

Unlike the device that was showcased at CES, the new, 6-inch SNE-60/60K will have WiFi connectivity, which is considered essential in the promotion of e-books. The internal storage capacity is of 2GB, the equivalent of 24,000 notes or 1,400 books.

Samsung unveils see-through OLED laptop at CES

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show 2010, Samsung laptops wowed the room by unveiling a laptop that has a transparent OLED screen and can let up to 40% light through it from the background. Although it might not be fully practical in a laptop design a transparent OLED screen has applications elsewhere such as being embedded on to the wind-shield of your car allowing navigation to be overlayed on to the road ahead.

The current maximum transparency on other screens is only 25%, so bumping that up to 40% by Samsung is an impressive achievement.

The laptop used to demonstrate the screen is an unknown at the moment with no specs revealed about it.

Samsung to launch OLED laptop in late 2010

Remember a decade ago when LCDs were deemed expensive luxuries? Well, fast-forward to now and OLEDs still seem like a costly, far off technology but the reality is that by next year, they’re set to take over.

It’s deemed to be most-anticipated emerging piece of tech, and it could be incorporated into laptops by Christmas next year.

As expensive as OLEDs are right now, Samsung seems to think that it’ll be able to sell a consumer laptop with the display technology by the end of 2010.

“Samsung is the largest OLED screen manufacturer. And as soon as it’s available commercially for laptops we will adopt it,” said Kyu Uhm, head of worldwide sales and marketing for Samsung’s Computing Division.

Samsung R519 laptop hits the shelves

Cheap laptops seem to be getting cheaper, which is truly great news for consumers in the global recession.

And for £380, this is emphasised with the excellent new Samsung R519 laptop which hit the shelves recently. Apple Macbook it ain’t, but it does provide an awful lot of laptop for a low price.

Unlike most laptop deals, however, it provides a much more usable screen and user interface, decent office performance and an optical drive. If you’re in the market for a bargain-basement new laptop, then the Samsung R519 is a very decent choice.

Samsung to unveil OLED laptops in 12 months

Samsung OLED laptops could be on sale by this time next year – according to one of the South Korean giant’s top bosses.

Samsung was the first ever company to knock up an OLED laptop prototype (pictured) back in May last year, but now the time that OLED hits mainstream notebooks is drawing near. Acccording to Kyu Uhm, head of worldwide sales and marketing for Samsung Computing Division, a Samsung OLED laptop should hit shelves by 2010.

“Samsung is the largest OLED screen manufacturer. And as soon as it’s available commercially for laptops we will adopt it…Probably sometime Q3 next year,” he admitted.

Samsung is already creating OLED standard in its new touch phones, PMPs and even some cameras, but a Samsung OLED laptop would be a great addition to the market – and would arguably help reduce the prices of ordinary LCD laptops meaning happy laptop deals for customers.

Samsung unveils skinny X-Series laptops

Samsung have unveiled their new range of uber-cool laptops, set to hit the UK market this autumn.

The X520, X420 and X120 have high gloss, HD, 16:9 LED screens, 9 hours life on their 6-cell batteries and even a pound coin is thicker.

Each model features a silver chrome finish and high speed wireless LAN, Bluetooth 2.1, three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI port and a 3-in-1 memory card reader – plus an integrated webcam and 2 x 1.5W speakers.

The X120, X420 and X520 come in 11.6-inch, 14-inch and 15.6-inch screen sizes respectively and weigh 1.36kg, 1.76kg and 2.09kg. They each run on 2-4GB of RAM with integrated GPUs and you can opt for between 160-500GB of SATA storage.

Stay tuned to Laptopshop for all Samsung laptop deals when these beauties are released next month.

Notebook Improvements For 2009

The laptop world is currently being swept away by a wave of low-cost netbooks. Critics and reviewers alike are raving about the little brother of the the larger traditional notebooks, and the consumer it seems cannot get enough, with demand for the smaller versions continuing to grow.

So what is the notebook sector doing about the competition from its cheaper, minature laptops rival?

Netbooks, whilst ideal for children, students or businessmen on the go, is not necessarily to everyones tastes or needs, so for those still requiring a more traditional laptop it is interesting to see just what new specifications are on offer this year.

Notebooks are progressing with time, with each new model attempting not only to outdo it’s rivals but also the previous models supplied by their own company. The specifications are becoming more extravagant to meet the growing expectations of laptop enthusiasts, and in some cases, so are the retail asking prices! 

Until fairly recently standard hard disks with capacities of 250GB or 320GB were the norm but, amongst the current models 500GB is becoming more common with most manufacturers offering that choice including Panasonic, Samsung and Asus. Several machines have SSD drives as a main system drive alongside a normal disk for storage. 

Whilst the price of the machines at the top end of the market may have increased, the features included have improved dramatically. HDMI ports and eSATA sockets were rarely seen in the laptops of yesteryear but now theyíre so common that it’s unusual when they arenít included. Hardcore gaming addicts will not be disappointed with the improvements neither. Graphics hardware has seen an improvement in notebooks with plenty of machines equipped with ATI chips, including the Alienware M17 which was the First laptop with explosive ATI CrossFireX graphics.

Features like Blu-ray drives were rarely seen, but are now common on any laptop with a screen large enough to handle HD resolutions.

DisplayPort outputs are now also more prominent. The Apple MacBook Air and Pro now including Mini DisplayPort instead of Mini DVI of previous models.

Performance and innovations from notebooks of today and tommorow continue to grow as quickly as some of the price range, but whilst the smaller netbooks are currently in fashion for some, the steady demand for better and better netbook laptops remains for others.

Intel Release New Atom Processors

Intel has announced the introduction of two new Atom processors for use in the ever increasing market for miniature laptop and portable Internet devices. The Atom Processors will used in netbook laptops, and other mobile internet devices (MIDs), in a move makers Intel said would significantly cut power usage in machines.

Netbook laptops such as the Asus Eee have proved immensibly popular recently and the release of the new Atom processors is in response to an ever growing market in this field. 

Intel announced in March by Intel that it would begin outsourcing production of it’s Atom processors to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) in order to keep up with the ever growing demand from laptop manufacturers.

The two new Atom processors, the Z550 and Z515, have enhanced performance compared to previous models. The Z550 is the fastest Atom chip yet and runs at 2GHz. The Z550 also supports Hyper-Threading, a technology designed to allow more calculations to be carried out at the same time. The chip’s improved performance allows the processor to run at under three watts of power. The Z515 is aimed at devices which run on lower power and runs at 1.2GHz

Intel will market the chips under the Intel Centrino Atom brand-name. Intel believes the demand for the low cost ‘netbook’ laptops and other Mobile interner devices will continue to grow substantially over the next several years, and believes the Atom processors is ideally suited to satisfy this new market.

Intel’s Ultra Mobility Group general manager Anand Chandrasekher also recently gave the first demonstration of ‘Moorestown’ an Atom-based platform set for release next year, during a keynote speech at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, showing the company continuing commitment to mini laptop and MID markets. The Samsung N120 and Dell Inspiron Mini 10 are just two of the recently introduced netbooks to incorporate Intel Atom processors.

Anti-theft software closes the net on laptop thieves

Laptop theft is on the increase and figures from the Federal bureau of Intelligence estimates losses due to laptop theft in the US alone cost companies more than $6.7 million dollars in 2005. The Computer Security Institute found the average theft of a laptop to cost a company £60,000.

The computer industry and associated security sector are constantly coming up with new anti theft gadgets, devices and software to combat the growing trend in laptop theft.

Security analysts reveal that laptops connect to the Internet soon after they’ve been stolen, and some security software is able to track the location of the laptop, enabling the owner to call the police to catch the thief and retrieve the laptop.

The software is hidden and stays on the system even if the thief tries to wipe the hard drive. The US makers of Laptop Lojack say they can locate a laptop within minutes and they get three out of every four back.

The way it works is we put a piece of software in the computer and that software is programmed to call home, home being out monitoring center, on a daily basis, said Affect Strategies Rich Cohen.

We engage with local law enforcement to get an understanding of where the computer is calling from. They go after the bad guys and we get it back, Cohen explained. Whilst that software is only currently available on the US market, Absolute Software’s ComputraceOne is available for UK laptop owners.

The software connects the company’s monitoring centre to a machine every 15 minutes if it is reported stolen, enabling police to locate stolen laptops that access the Internet

A laptop’s information is only tracked in the event of a theft and the software can only be disabled by the specialised team at Absolute Software, this is the case for all well known brands of laptops for example panasonic, toshiba, sony and samsung. Police and laptop owners hope the growing number of security measures will increase conviction rates among criminals, providing a future deterrent and eventual reduction in laptop thefts.