Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

Although officially not released by Sony yet, Tesco had put up a new Sony Vaio M Netbook for sale for just under £300 but now it appears to have been removed from the site probably due to the fact Sony are keeping quiet about its official release, oops.

A nice little black number the Sony Vaio M if pricing is true will be the cheapest Vaio we’ve seen to date and if you’re looking for a netbook this offers some pretty decent spec and the obvious recognition of quality Sony craftmanship. Inside the 10.1” Netbook will be Intel’s latest Atom chipset the N450(an improvement in speed and power consumption) powering a 250GB HDD, 1GB RAM and Windows 7 Starter Edition.

As said Sony haven’t confirmed it for sure and are still staying coy about it and although it appeared on Tesco the other day, I’m struggling to find it now but surely it won’t be long till it’s in officialdom.

The D241H Display+ is a new monitor with what i can only describe as bizarre features for a monitor. I’m not saying their bad features by any means just strange. In a world where most people own mobile phones or PMPs which can do your social networking, emails and photos, why not have a monitor that can do it independently of your desktop PC.

This 1080P Full HD panel with a 2ms response time, HDMI and DVI port, it’s your standard fairly decent LCD monitor for your desktop, What makes it stand out though is its ability to connect via Wi-Fi(or ethernet) to the net when your desktop is powered off. Once connected it’s widgets can check your email(Gmail and Yahoo! mail) collect RSS feeds from your favourite MightyGadget blog, and other assorted web feeds.

You can also plug in an SD card or USB dongle and playback your pictures turning the monitor into an oversized picture frame. What’s cool is you can have three widgets working at once too. It also comes with a remote with a slide out QWERTY keyboard making it easy to write your emails or messages from a comfortable distance.

No pictures of the screen yet but it’s believed to be available in May and pricing is still TBC.

Taiwanese giants Asus have recently announced this monstrous new 27” monitor with 3D support. Asus seem to be embracing the new future of 3D tech already with a 3D supported laptop out on the market and it seems to continue here with this super monitor.

Design wise it’s not the best looking monitor in the world but Asus can please aesthetically if they want. Quality is the name of the game here though, 27” screen with NVIDIA 3D vision support, will also be available in a smaller 23”(MG236 and VG236H) and 23.6”(PG246)(but why would you want that when you can get 27?). It has dual link DVI allows for full 1080p HD quality images at a staggering 60fps so when you slap on your 3D specs, the image is smooth and jerk free.

Due out later in the year, we don’t have any price available as of yet so keep your eye out for that. It is believed however that the smaller model will be available before the gargantuan one.

MSI seem to be going full steam ahead bringing out top spec PC’s and laptops recently and they don’t seem like stopping. Next month is the CeBit expo in Germany and it is expected that MSI will be showing off a few numbers but one in particular catching the eye is its All-in-One system.

Although specs are a bit vague at the moment MSI  have said "The combination of a 24” 120Hz 1080p LED panel and 3D shutter glasses brings the kind of 3D video experience into your home that you would normally only expect from a modern 3D movie theater." We are expecting the latest Intel Core i3/5/7 processors, ATi GPUs and the screen will display at 120Hz adopting the Active Shutter 3D system. This means when its firing 3D, each eye will see the image at 60Hz each, allowing a much clearer smoother 3D image. More info expected at CeBit.

We saw t’other day the mid/top-range gaming laptop MSI offered the GE600. At CeBit we’re expecting to see the GT660. Again we’ll be looking at Intel Quad-Core processing, GeForce GTX285 GPU and the possiblity of up to 12GB RAM and brand new USB 3.0 ports aplenty.

The GE600 is MSI’s new 16” gaming notebook bringing together Intel’s HM55 chipset with a Core i5 processor, offering the latest tech in computer spec. Unfortunately we can only fill you in with the spec details as MSI haven’t released prices or release dates yet. What we do know though is that MSI will be giving two “theatre class” speakers and its own ECO Engine Power with the laptop.

So what’s the spec for this new laptop that “enables customers to enter a new era of mobile video/audio enjoyment experiences," ?

• Windows 7 Home Premium
• 2 DDR3 RAM SO-DIMM slots
• 1920x1080 16” HD LCD screen
• ATI Radeon HD5730 1GB DDR3
• 250, 320 or 500GB SATA HDD
• 4 in 1 card reader
• Bluetooth
• 802.11 a/b/g/n
• HDMI out

The lappy also has a 720p HD webcam and features a built in sub woofer with SRS Premium Sound. Also customers can choose between a standard 6 cell battery and a more gaming orientated 9 cell.

Apple iPad maybe stealing all the headlines as usual but let us just remember there are other tablets out there worthy of getting a shout, Apple isn’t the be all and end all when it comes to tech. I’ve had an Archos 605 for the past 18 months and it still gets used regularly, they make a mean gadget.

Anyway last week the specs on the soon-to-be Archos 7 Android tablet got the leak. If the recent Archos 5 wasn’t quite enough for you then the 7 is it’s big brother. With a 7” 800 x 480 screen what makes Archos greater than an iPod touch or maybe the new iPad is the sheer amount of filetypes it plays is much greater. MP4, WMV, AVI, and FLAC. Plus one up already is the ability to download FLV(thats flash to you and me) files and playback those too.(see image for Full Specs)

The Date has been set for the end of March(iPad release ouch!!!)  but should be priced at a very reasonable £150.

click on for the full specs!!

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Obviously CES this year shows all the goodies that are coming soon, but we cant comment on them all just the more interesting ones. One that has caught my attention in particular and hopefull will yours two is this fantastic little notebook from MSI.

With a lot of great laptops and notebooks predicted this year (like the Apple Tablet etc) one is going to need some “pulling power” to draw in the customers. This should do that job. This notebook has two 10 inch screens. The lower of the two will have a software keyboard so no more filthy keyboards. The notebook will run Windows 7 and will have a SSD as storage. MSI have also said despite the obvious power usage of two screens the book will be somewhat efficient with the juice.

However the one shown is just a concept and full details on spec and pricing are in limbo at the moment. A spokesmen from MSI has apparently said it should be ready this year so watch this space.

MSI have announced that its laptop ranges will be modernised with the latest Intel Core i5 and i7 chips and Windows 7 improving them by a minimum of 30%.

The Classic ranges will come in 3 models of CR420, CR620 and CR720 and will have LED screens starting from 14” to a massive 17.3”. These will be the general all round laptop you need for everyday work and web use and will pack the i5 chips within. No details on release for these or prices yet.

The Gaming range will come in 2 models. The GX640 and GX740 will contain the more powerful i7 chipsets and will also come bundled with ATi Mobility Radeon HD graphics chips supporting DirectX 11 gaming and will really make good use of the HD screens.  Release is looking at March 2010 and prices will start at £999

The gaming lappies will also benefit from what is called “Turbo Boost Technology” which will efficiently distribute system power and resources with Intel Hyper-Threading Technology. They’re also packing Smart Cache and Graphics Media Accelerator HD to improve multimedia operation. The top end GX740 will also have 5 speakers for surround sound gaming but also a 7.1 optical out.