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

We touched yesterday on the new iMac upgrades and talked about the notion that some people only buy Macs because they’re “pretty”. Well another new Apple product that takes all aesthetic pleasantries from the iMac and that lovely Aluminium MacBook Pro and basically makes it a simple screen is Apple’s LED Cinema Display. If you didn’t know already the Cinema Display is basically a Monitor which can be used with either Mac desktop PCs or with laptops. Older models of the Cinema Display were limited to what could actually be plugged into it, but now Apple have seen the fault and left it accessible to basically any type of current Notebook or Desktop Mac.

Ok so what’s great about it other than looks. Originally available in a 24” or 30” model Apple has now opted for just a straight 27” more than adequate space and room for you to do your work and with a resolution 2560 x 1440 it’s certainly packing the pixel power. Obviously as it’s now LED backlit, the screen is super bright with no wait time and greater control of brightness of your screen, not only that it has an ambient light sensor that can adjust the screen brightness to an optimum setting for whatever light your room is currently in.

Other things it has include built in sound, a 49W built in speaker with subwoofer, for fantastic sound whether from your games or media content. It has a built in I-Sight camera and microphone for things like Skype and also packs great connectivity with 2 USB 2.0 ports and 2 Firewire 400 ports. One thing Apple are pushing with the display is it’s eco-friendly, free from harmful toxins and is made of recyclable materials

All in all it’s a great monitor to have if you have a Mac or Macbook. However like all things Apple it comes with a price to match. As it stands there’s no price and only a “Coming Soon” date but looking back at the older models you can expect anything from £700 to £1000 at least.

We’ve been a bit slow to up this news to you but the iMac has recently had a spec overhaul (as they do) and they look pretty tasty. However I’ll always be a PC fan but I can see the draw for some people to go for the iMac providing it’s for a genuine reason other than “it’s Apple” or “it’s pretty”

Anyway what’s it got. Well firstly it’s processor power. Now packing all your favourite and latest Core i3, i5 and i7 processors with Core i3 offerings of 3.2GHz, i5 of 3.6GHz and the massive 27” iMac can house a super Quad-Core 2.93GHz Core i7. So speed is certainly upped. Memory wise they start with a decent enough 4GB of RAM which can be upgraded to 16GB. 500GB of HDD will be standard but one can now opt for the 256GB SSD or again if you’re looking at the behemoth 27”, it can hold up to 2TB of HDD. The SD card slot now supports SDXC cards which at the moment reach as far as 64GB so certainly there’s plenty of space to be found for all your media and docs. The other spec increase comes in the form of a ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics card perfectly capable of delivering high quality HD graphics and media content on the now standard LED backlit screen.

Packing all the usual goodies of Bluetooth, Firewire 800 and N-standard WiFi the new iMacs are ready to go now and will start at £999

3D is now obviously what every major tech gadget producer is aiming at with everything now coming in 3D. As a user I’m still not totally convinced but I’ve only watched the odd football match in 3D and not got my eyes on a decent 3D movie or game yet. LG recently launched the LG R590 3D laptop in Korea and it’s expected to hit our shores soon.

Powered with Intel’s Core i7 processor and 1GB of NVIDIA graphics goodness this 15.6” laptop ops for the polarising 3D effect and comes bundled with a fetching pair of the cheaper polarised frames. The 3D effect comes from the TriDef software we saw on Lenovo’s recently released IdeaPad Y560d 3D laptop, it converts the 2D images on the go into a 3D image, that when fired through a polarised screen into your Joe 90s the image “comes to life”. The laptop is also capable of HD quality sound and has the option for a Blu-Ray drive.

We have no details on the exact date of release or price but LG have also gone on to say they’re planning a plethora of 3D gadgets, including monitors for PC gaming and even 200” projectors with 3D capabilities.

Usually it’s “the bigger the better” but with Acer’s new S1 series of LCD TV screens it certainly looks like “less is more”. Announced this week, the super thin and small screens not only keep the high quality goods in a smaller space but also are “wallet friendly”. So if you’re interested in a smaller TV for your house or a decent quality, decent sized, space saving monitor, read on.

Housed in a nice glossy black outer shell the Acer S1 series truly indicate that size doesn’t matter. Opting to keep the screens small (18.5” to 23”) these little beauties only measure 15mm thick and a staggering 13mm in depth. Now I know you’re thinking squashing it so thin will mean it’ll lose out elsewhere. WRONG! They offer Full 1080p HD and a whopping 12million : 1 contrast ratio which alters frame by frame to deliver super sharp images. Couple that with a response time of 5ms and you’re looking at a belter. Now there is a downside in that the smaller screens only have VGA and DVI ports where as the larger 21 and 23 get HDMI too. Not only that with EcoDisplay low power consumption, you can sleep easy knowing your helping the environment too.

Prices start at an ultra-low £119.99 too.

It wasn’t long ago that Chinese Computer firm Lenovo announced its IdeaPad Y560d, it’s first 3D laptop. Well it’s on sale in the States now. 3D technology is a bit of a blur to me sometimes with active, passive technology etc and now it appears there’s another way that this laptop achieves it. Read on for more.

To start with the basic specs which compared to most laptops aren’t that “basic”. Windows 7 Home Premium, powered with that fantastic Core i7-720QM processor and 4GB of RAM should be able to keep the laptop running smoothly, surely running any 3D content types on it’s 15.6” Full HD will be more strain than your average images. It also packs a 500GB HDD.

Now the 3D bit. It uses what’s known as TriDef 3D. A mixture of polarised glasses like your normal 3D stuff. A layer of special coating on the screen and then a 3D software generator that renders standard content into a 3D affair. This means rather than it being true 3D the combination of the three give it what Lenovo say a “life-like 3D experience.” So basically your standard 2D photo snaps could be made to look 3D by the laptop. Sadly 3D inputs, such as 3D Blu-Ray will not be compatible, but the software will give a good go at your movies to make them look 3D too. How good this looks I don’t know.

Available in the States now at $1499 or £990 in English monies, we don’t have an official UK date or price yet.

A lot of laptops we’ve seen recently are trying to be as “portable” as possible whether that being the thinnest, the smallest or the less weighty but usually when you steer down that path the goods that are produced are very limited. Samsung has recently issued the Q series laptop. Its not looking for the worlds thinnest laptop title nor are we looking at a gaming powerhouse with a half hour battery life. It’s just a standard sized laptop with a good spec and above all a nice price range.

Coming in a fabulous 3 sizes, 13.3”(Q330), 14”(Q430) and the 15.6”(Q530) are certainly aesthetically pleasing with a brushed metal look. Running Windows 7  you’ll get a choice of Core i3 or Core i5 chipsets to power the lappy. One can also get an HDD up to the size of 640GB. The 13.3” laptop has the option of GeForce 310M GPU whereas the larger two laptops an get GeForce 330M although what is slightly disappointing is the screen resolutions on all will only get to 1366x768. Also with 3 HDMI ports, N-standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 3.0 it attends to the rest of your needs.

Available this month Samsung say the prices will start at £599.

I think quite a while ago we looked at a prototype of a dual screened netbook/slate type computer substituting the keyboard for another touchscreen with a software keyboard for extra screen space. Well now Toshiba have announced the “clamshell” Libretto W100 a similar affair, obviously taking the simplicity of a DS and adding the functionality of a netbook and smartphone.

The two 7” screens run Windows 7 Home Premium, with an Intel Pentium U5400 Processor. Further look at the specs show it’s no simple pushover either. With 2GB of DDR3 RAM, a 62GB SSD storage, N-standard WiFi, SB, microSD and a 1MP webcam the user also has a choice of built in 3G connectivity too. Sadly the downside is the battery life which Tosh claims is a measly 3 and a half hours.

Everybody was looking forward to a Microsof slate after iPad rocked the world but it never surfaced. This is certainly looking promising as a player in the market and certainly will be interesting to see in action. Bad news is we only know it’s getting released sometime over the summer and there’s no price.

As we touch on the portable computing seen quite a bit, you can see an obvious regular trend. If you want a power house of a machine running top spec applications and games then you have to buy a big bulky power hungry (rubbish battery life) laptop. If you want portability with good battery life you have to get an under specced netbook only capable of browsing the net and sending the odd email. Now obviously computer technology improves at quite a vast rate and it may seem obvious that eventually the low end technology will catch up to the high spec, which in turn will advance further etc……anyway Toshiba have developed a laptop that kinda incorporates both……

The Portege R700 is a 13.3” Windows 7 operated laptop that weighs a mere 1.3Kg. The picture we found courtesy of Electricpig shows that it can be held with one hand at one side and the weight distribution is so spread out it doesn’t feel heavier at one side than it does another.

Spec wise you can choose between Core i3, i5 or i7, up to 4GB of DDR3 and a choice of 320GB HDD or 128GB SSD. It also has 3 USB ports and an HDMI out socket. It’s available with built in WiFi like most machines but also comes with optional 3G connectivity. Now whats also interesting for an ultra light, ultra thin laptop like this is that it has an optical DVD drive. Now what is also surprising, with all that spec, Toshiba claims it’ll do 9 hours of use on a full battery charge.

As per we don’t have a release price but we do know it should be with us next month sometime so if you’re after a lightweight, portable but powerful lappy, this could be for you.