MSI has launched the GX620 a Centrino 2-based notebook with the company's exclusive Turbo Drive Engine technology to enhance the speed of CPU. The GX620 includes the new ECO Engine power saving technology to extend battery running time. The ECO quick launch touch sensor allows consumers to switch among five different modes including Gaming, Movie, Presentation, Office, and Turbo Battery.

GX620 features a 15.4-inch LCD display, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 3D graphics card and MSI's exclusive vivid image enhancement technology. GX620 also features Digital/Analog 5.1 Channel headphone output and SPDIF connection. The GX620 features Intel Centrino 2 processor technology, including Core 2 Duo processor and PM45 Express chipset, to deliver mobile solutions and provide HD capabilities, wireless connectivity, and long battery life for Blu-ray movie playback, highlighted MSI.

Gigabyte announced that a new low-priced tablet PC, the M912V. This ultra-portable and affordable tablet PC has a 8.9" frame has a screen that swivels 180 degrees. It has a screen resolution of 1280 x 768 px. The LCD is backlit to enhance battery life. At the heart of this is a 1.60 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB SATA HDD, 802.11b/g wireless, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. Connectivity includes 3 USB 2.0 ports, 56k modem, NIC, an ExpressCard slot, and an internal expansion slot for HSDPA.

With so much packed, the M912V tipps the scales at only 2.86 lbs. Gigabyte's new netbook will be available for purchase later this month with a price tag of $699.

A lot of us have high-end mobile phones which have high MSRP subsidized to a great deal of its original price by service providers (such as AT&T, Vodafone, etc.) after signing a time-bound contract for using their serivice. Some variants of ASUS Eee PC and other competing brands are equipped with 3G High Speed Down/Uplink Packet Access (HSDPA) connectivity, which allows service providers to provide internet connectivity among other features. This means a good venture for them since they could sign you on a service contract and sell you these ultra-portable notebooks at subsidized prices a-là mobile phones. ECS is already in the process of signing partnerships with several service providers in Europe.

With these notebooks falling in the same price-band as mid-high end mobile phones, PDAs, etc., internet connectivity, PC-style, is more affordable than ever before.

Electronista writes that Lenovo has decided to cease production of the 4:3 screen ratio Thinkpad T61, withdrawing units from stores. Lenovo now offers all its mid-size notebooks, including the 3000 and IdeaPad series, only in a widescreen ratio. The change represents the end to one of the last clear holdouts from IBM's notebook offerings, which used the taller but narrower screen ratio for virtually all its ThinkPad notebooks until the brand name was handed over to Lenovo in 2005. The X61 tablet and its conventional alternative are currently the only Lenovo notebooks to still depend on a standard ratio screen and may be replaced in the future by the X200 series as part of the China-based company's move to capitalize on the success of the X300.

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.

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.

Supposedly, a senior official at Acer (the Taiwan-based company that specializes in PC notebooks) told BetaNews they are thinking about producing a "PC-based game machine." Furthermore, according to Acer's senior vice president, James T. Wong, this game machine would operate off an "open standard" philosophy, in contrast to the "closed" systems (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii).

Dell today unveiled its first fully ruggedized laptop, the Latitude XFR D630. The system is one of the only in its class to simplify IT with seamless integration into existing infrastructure and deliver extreme durability without compromising performance. The rugged laptop, intended for government and commercial customers, is available today in the U.S. and starts at $3,899.

Taiwan-based notebook vendors Acer and ASUSTeK Computer have both advanced one rank to become the second and eighth largest notebook vendors in the world, respectively, according to a recent IDC report. Among the top-ten worldwide vendors, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Acer and ASUSTeK were the only vendors who saw on-year growth of over 60% in the second and third quarters of this year. Acer had notebook shipments of 4.15 million units in the third quarter, surpassing Dell's 4.01 million, while ASUSTeK shipped 1.22 million notebooks. Acer adopted a new strategy in the third quarter, separating its product lines into consumer and enterprise segments. The move brought its notebook market share up to 14.2%, noted IDC. Sony dropped to ninth position in the third quarter this year while Apple and Fujitsu both strengthened their performance in the high-end market. Sony saw large losses in the high-end market and turned to push its mainstream CE series notebooks to maintain sales performance.

Western Digital Corp. today announced it is now shipping its new WD Scorpio 320 GB 2.5-inch SATA (Serial ATA) hard drives for notebook computers and portable storage devices.

WD uses advanced head and media technology to achieve the world's highest capacity 2.5-inch, slim, 9.5mm form-factor hard drive and includes proprietary features that make the drive extraordinarily quiet while running at cool operating temperatures. The WD Scorpio 320 GB hard drives deliver high performance with 3 Gb/s transfer rate and are destined for use in OEM notebook platforms that offer the highest storage capacities to the worldwide market.

Adding a significant upgrade to the industry-leading notebook coverage and service offered through its ASUS 360 Notebook Program, ASUS Computer International (ACI) today announced its new Notebook Accidental Damage Warranty (ADW) Program. The benefits of this program will apply to US and Canadian users who purchase their ASUS notebook computers on or after Sept. 10, 2007.

To accommodate the increasing demand on better graphic performance for mobile computing, ASUS presents the A8Sr notebook series incorporated with the latest visual processing capabilities. The slim and lightweight A8Sr will be based on Intel's Core2 Duo processor and will be the world's first notebook series to utilize ATI's next generation Mobility Radeon HD2400 GPU for stunning and crisp graphics.