Toshiba's Digital Products Division, a division of Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., announced the addition of five new models to its affordable Satellite Pro family of laptops. With a starting price of $699, the new Satellite Pro series offers the necessary business essentials for today's mobile professionals and students, including a choice of display sizes and configurations to suit a broad range of computing needs.

BenQ expands its Joybook R series lineup with the launch of Joybook R45. Powered by a 2.10 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the Joybook R45 features an extra-bright 14.1" widescreen display enhanced by the BenQ's patented UltraVivid technology, an integrated 2-megapixel webcam for video calls and a luxurious leather-like finish with special soft-touch coating. The Joybook R45 also comes equipped with the best-of-class nVIDIA GeForce 8400M G discrete graphics and supports major WiFi standards, keeping you connected at much faster speed.

Apple and Sony have decided to settle at least one lawsuit stemming from the whole lithium-ion battery debacle of '06. The two companies are jointly paying a Japanese couple a total of about 1.3 million yen (that's $12,903) for damages to their home and burns the man sustained while trying to remove his flaming Apple computer from the house. The couple argued this fire was caused by a defective Sony lithium-ion battery.

To date, Sony has recalled 9.6 million of these occasionally unstable batteries with the help of some major laptop manufacturers, including Apple, Toshiba, Lenovo and Acer.

Apple, while accepting liability in the case, insisted it would not settle the dispute out of court because the couple had demanded excessive compensation (they were asking for 2 million yen). Despite agreeing to pay its share of the settlement, Sony still maintains there was no link between the fire and the battery.

Ever need privacy when working on your laptop or computer? Perhaps you were working on top-secret data that could compromise the safety of hundreds of millions of people if seen by terrorists or similar organizations. Or you simply didn't want you co-worker knowing what your login to MSN was. Either way, Sternlab has a solution for you. Named the BodyTechnologyInterface, the wooly jumper will make sure that nobody but you sees your laptop screen or keyboard. A smaller, keyboard-only version is available.

According to Gizmodo, Lenovo will be adding some new laptops to the X series, namely the X200, X400 and X500. As with the X300, and the whole X series for that matter, these new laptops will be focused on portability. They will come with a 12-inch, 14.1-inch or 15.4-inch screen, respectively, and will all be armed with Intel's latest 45nm Penryn processors. Other features include HSDPA and EVDO, 25% improved battery life, as well as 6MB L2 cache.Lenovo's R, T, and W series should also receive a few updates, more about that after the jump.

Dell has a semi-rugged notebook planned, dubbed the "E6400 ATG". The laptop should offer increased durability at little compromise to size and weight. It will either come with 14.1" WXGA normal or touch screen (with brightness 750cd/m2 or 650cd/m2, respectively}. The notebook will be dust-proof, shock-proof, and spill-proof to military standards.

The E6400 ATG will be an addition to Dell's line-up and will not replace the fully-rugged XFR D630.

Sager has refreshed their 17-inch desktop replacement model NP5792 with beefed up cooling system to handle the NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX and the latest Intel 45nm processors. The NP5792 is a powerful machine with all the latest features such as Intel Wireless-N technology, fingerprint reader, and 1GB Intel Turbo Memory. It can be customized with Core 2 Duo models including Penryn T8100/T8300/T9300 /T9500, 4GB RAM, Blu-ray drive, 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) widescreen display, 200GB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX with 512MB or GeForce 8700M GT (512MB), built-in 8ch Azalia Sound System, 8 cell Lithium-Ion battery, Bluetooth 2.0, Intel 802.11a/b/g/n wireless LAN, 2.0 mega pixel webcamera, built-in TV-Tuner with remote, and Windows Vista OS. The NP5792 starts at $1,679, but the high-end specs will charge you about $3624. Visit Sager NP5792 product page to get more facts.

Official confirmation has been made of two upcoming Area-51 notebooks by Alienware, the 15-inch and 17-inch m15x and m17x systems. A formal announcement is expected to be made on Monday in New York City. The company has revealed that the notebooks will come in two case designs, called Skullcap and Ripley; no other details are being made official however, with the exception of some teaser photos, seen below. Leaked information suggests that the systems will have the option of a new GeForce 8800M GTX video card, with the m17x being capable of hosting two such GPUs in SLI mode. The 17 may also be able to scale to a 2.8GHz mobile Core 2 Extreme processor, and fit in Blu-Ray for the optical drive.

Toshiba is now offering all new laptop customers a full refund, as well as either a repaired or replaced machine if their notebook fail within its warranty period. The offer is available on all laptop purchases made up until, and including, 24th December 2007. A huge range of business and consumer notebooks are offered in the promotion including all of the following models: Qosmio G40, Satellite A200/P200/X200/U300/A210, Satellite Pro A200/P200/U300, Portégé R500/R400/M400 and Tecra A9/M9. Customers must register their purchases here within seven days of purchase.

VoodooPC is now offering a new performance notebook equipped with Intel's Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor and up to 600GB of hard disk space. The Envy H:171 is one of the first notebooks to be available with Intel's latest mobile processor. In addition to the 2.66GHz quad-core CPU with 8MB of L2 cache, the system has a 17" WUXGA screen (1920x1200) and can be ordered with up to three hard drives. The base version of the X6800 system with 1GB of memory and a single 80GB drive sells for just under $6000. However, VoodooPC offers plenty of option to elevate the price to more than $8400 - including up to 4GB memory, three hard drives (with up to 600GB capacity according to the press release and up to 750GB according to the configuration page), a TV tuner and a $650 custom paint job with tattoo finishes.

Electrical superstore PC World has started an campaign to prove that unlike most electrical superstores it can do even better than giving up free routers and modems and has announced that anyone who signs up for a two year Orange broadband contract will be given a new laptop worth over £300 ! Niall O'Keeffe, marketing director of PC World said: "The chance to have a free laptop is an amazing offer that is sure to tempt thousands of customers to sign up to Orange broadband through our stores. Orange broadband is already highly competitive, with one of the lowest monthly tariffs on the market. I am sure that the inclusion of a free laptop will electrify the market."

Samsung introduced its new 19-inch Notebook which will hit retail in late july in the Korean market.
The known specs so far inlcude an SATA2 320GB hard drive , seven USB2.0 ports and of course a 19-inch wide LCD that supports 1000:1 contrast ratio and 300cd/m2 brightness.

OCZ Technology Group, today released PC2-5400 2GB SODIMM modules, an addition to their line of premium upgrade laptop memory. Specially targeted at the notebook PCs running Windows Vista, these modules are priced aggressively and offer exceptional quality for its price. The latest line of OCZ SODIMMs will be available in 2GB modules rated to run 667MHz at CL5-5-5-15 with 1.8V default operational voltage. Each module comes backed with industry leading technical support and the OCZ Lifetime Warranty. For more information on the DDR2 PC2-5400 SODIMM, please click here.

LG Electronics (LG), and Google today announced a global collaboration to pre-install Google's services on millions of LG mobile phones. Mobile users around the world will now be able to easily search for information, find locations, update blogs and manage email while on the move.