Mobile Computing

1 December 2007 - 1st December 2007 marks the launch of the long-awaited ASUS Eee PC in Singapore. The launch was held at Singapore Expo, outside Hall 5, drawing a large crowd to the event. It was a great success, with all stocks brought in for the event wiped clean and there were still many others who went home without an Eee PC.

7 November 2007 - Lenovo today introduced its G400 notebook - a new notebook offering mobility on a budget to value-conscious consumers who are looking to make the transition from desktops to notebooks. The Lenovo 3000 G Series notebook has a stylish form factor and impressive feature set to offer a compelling choice for users seeking performance at an affordable price.

24 September 2007 - With a piano black finish and fiery red tribal designs emblazoned on the hood, the MSI GX600 laptop looks roaring to take the lead amongst current generation gaming laptops. VR-Zone finds out about this lean, mean gaming machine!

5 September 2007 - DigiTimes reported that ASUS plans to ship 200,000-300,000 Eee PCs by the end of this year and annual shipments for next year will grow to more than three million units at least. ASUS plans to introduce second-generation Eee PCs in April 2008 which will feature Intel's Merom processors. The power consumption of the next-generation notebooks will reduce to 7W TDP, down from 11W TDP adding that it may remove the fan to save more power and reduce noise.

23 August 2007 - LG today announced the availability of three new notebooks – LG R200-G, LG R200-Q (SideShow Dual Screen) and LG R405–G, which will be equipped with Intel’s next-generation Centrino Mobile technology based on the Santa Rosa platform – bringing high performance with trend-setting designs. The glossy black and white LG R200-G is a 12.1” widescreen multimedia powerhouse that supports independent graphics, built-in ODD, and SRS WOW HD sounds, delivering the most powerful multimedia performance of sub-notebooks. The LG R200-Q (SideShow) has dual LCD SideShow. The wave-patterned, glossy 14.1” widescreen entertainment notebook – LG R405-G – is the Santa Rosa platform model of its predecessor, LG R400. Available from 30th August onwards at Comex 2007. R200 is priced at S$2499, R200 – Q (Side Show) at S$3,299 and R405-G at S$1,999.

20 August 2007 - DigiTimes reported that ASUS will begin shipping its ultra low-cost notebook, the Eee PC, simultaneously to clients in the US, Europe, China as well as Taiwan, in mid-September, with the first-round shipments targeting 20,000 units. ASUS has also landed orders for its Eee PCs from a number of education organizations, insurance companies and emerging markets. However, the company is concerned that the persistent tight supply of a number of key components might affect production in the second half of the year. The Eee PCs will be available at US$199, US$239, US$349 and US$369 depending on specifications, with the model priced at US$349 targeting the mainstream noting that the first-round shipments will be mostly of the mainstream model.

6 July 2007 - Palm today unveiled the limited edition Crimson Palm® Treo™ 680 smartphone in Singapore, aimed at customers who are ready to move up to a full-featured mobile phone that includes everything needed to stay organized, and yet looks hip and trendy. The Treo 680 GSM/GPRS/EDGE quad-band world phone, running on the Palm OS®, boasts Palm’s hallmark ease of use. It’s packed with features beyond its excellent phone capability, such as email, web browsing, messaging, multimedia, calendar, contacts, touch screen and more. The limited edition Crimson Treo 680 has a recommended retail price of S$728, inclusive of GST, and is available today in Singapore at all major IT retailers.

16 May 2007 - The S6Fm uses the latest mobile CPU from Intel, the low-voltage L7200. Weighing in just over 1.5kg and clad in white leather, the S6Fm is looking for those who want to travel light and in style. In the meantime, VR-Zone takes it for a quick spin...

12 November 2007 - Today, Asus introduced three notebooks into the market, namely the F8P, U3S and the U6S. The laptops are 14.1", 13.3" and 12.1" respectively and and are priced at SGD$2,998, $2,698 and $3,098 respctively. Click on this piece of news to check out the prices and features!

12 October 2007 - Palm and M1 today announced the new Palm® TreoTM 500v smartphone on the MobileOne network in Singapore. The new smartphone combines multiple forms of communication and multimedia capabilities with high-speed 3G/UMTS mobile Internet capabilities, allowing users to access popular websites, such as Facebook, Windows Mobile Live Spaces and eBay, whilst on the move.(1) The Palm Treo 500v smartphone is available now from M1 shops and selected M1 dealers for S$498 (on a two-year plan, inclusive of GST).

21 September 2007 - We recieved a notebook with a turbo button from MSI! The GX600 Gaming Notebook comes equipped with a Merom T7300 Chip and Geforce 8600GT M 256MB, and with a push of the turbo button, the FSB becomes 240Mhz, with the processor speeds bumped up to 2.4Ghz from 2Ghz. Check out this article for more pictures.

5 September 2007 - Research In Motion (RIM) today introduced the BlackBerry® 8820 in Singapore, the first dualmode BlackBerry smartphone combining EDGE/GPRS/GSM cellular and Wi-Fi® connectivity. The BlackBerry 8820 smartphone supports the 802.11 a/b/g Wi-Fi standards to enable data access for users in Singapore over Wi-Fi connections in the enterprise, as well as through public hotspots and wireless home networks. In addition, it is a quad-band GSM/GPRS and EDGE-enabled smartphone that provides global wireless voice and data capabilities with best-in-class performance.

22 August 2007 - Marvell and LG announced the availability of the LG-KC1 smartphone with the Marvell PXA 320 application processor on Korea Telecom’s high speed WiBro 4G network. The Marvell PXA 320 application processor (Internally code named Monahans) with XScale technology, enables high-end graphics, gaming and multimedia capabilities for the LG-KCI as well as delivering optimal business applications while consuming ultra-low levels of power.

16 July 2007 - Intel is preparing to include Penryn line-up for the Santa Rosa Refresh in Q1 2008 with Penryn-based Core 2 Extreme clocked at 2.8GHz/800FSB with 6MB shared L2 cache and Penryn-based Core 2 Duo series from 2.1-2.6Ghz clock speed with 3/6MB variants. Faster clocked and higher FSB Penryn will be available in Q2 2008 for Montevina Platform to be paired up with the new Cantiga chipsets. There will be Cantiga GM and PM chipsets with ICH9M that support DDR2-667/800 or DDR3-800/1066, 1066MHz FSB, Enhanced Intel AMT v4.0, Turbo Memory 2.0, Echo Peak Wi-Fi/WiMAX combo, Shirley Peak Wi-Fi and Boazman GbE. There will also be Cantiga GS and Cantiga GL with ICH9M later in Q3 2008 for SFF and Value segment.

25 May 2007 - ASUS today announced the free upgrading of Windows Mobile 6.0 if you have bought a previous version of Windows Mobile with your PDA/PDA Phones. ASUS will now let you to experience Windows Mobile’s 6 powerful Mobile messaging - Office applications, Windows Live Sharing and other features! Free upgrades apply only to *ASUS A626, A696 & P535 only. Consumers can simply just login to http://sg.asus.com from July onwards to download the Windows Mobile 6 version.

10 May 2007 - Currently, there are a few companies who are pushing some nice boutique notebooks into the market: Dell with their futuristic Alienware branding, Acer with their Ferrari Branding, and right here at VR-Zone, our favorite is definitely none other than the Asus Lamborghini. Presenting to you the Asus Lamborghini VX2.