MSI announced five
dell laptop battery new additions to their
Classic C-Series ultraportable line that bring some solid bang for your buck.
Cash-strapped gamers will appreciate the CX600 and CX700, both of which feature the ATi Mobility Radeon HD4330 discrete graphics card with 512 megabytes of video memory. The CX600 has a 16-inch
1366 by 768 pixel LCD display, while the CX700’s display weighs in at 17.3 inches with a
laptop battery resolution of 1600 by 900 pixels.
People looking for a portable multimedia PC, however, will probably opt for one of the three new models in the CR line: the CR600-013 and CR600-017 use the same 16-inch display as the CX600, and
the CR700 uses the same 17-inch display as the CX700. While the CR line’s NVIDIA GeForce 8200M G integrated graphics card isn’t nearly as powerful as the CX’s Radeon, the CR line has an HDMI port
that lets you use any HDMI-capable display as a second
dell INSPIRON 2600 battery monitor, which is particularly useful with the CR600-017’s Blu-ray optical drive (the
other four laptops use a Super Multi Optical Drive).
All five of the laptops ship with Vista pre-installed, a 320GB Hard Disk Drive, 4GB of memory, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi wireless networking, and a 6-cell battery, as well as laptop standards
like a 1.3 Megapixel webcam, 4-in-1 card reader, and 3 USB ports. Each of the laptops is powered by an Intel T4200 Dual Core 2GHz processor, except the CR600-017, which has the T4300 2.1GHz. Models
with the 16-inch screen will weigh 5.47lbs with the
dell
INSPIRON 2650 battery, while models with the 17-inch screen will weigh closer to 6.6lbs. There’s also a three-year warranty included to keep your new baby safe.
Best of all, the new C-series laptops start at a very reasonable $550. Stop by our $500-$1000 laptop chart to get an idea of what other companies are offering for that price, or check out our
reviews of the MSI WIND U123 Netbook and the MSI GT 725 Desktop Replacement if you’re looking for more beef or more sleek.
Your humble blogwatcher has selected these bloggy morsels for your enjoyment.
Kasper Jade hears the whispers:
Once rumored for extinction, Apple’s entry-level polycarbonate MacBooks are on the verge of a refresh that will solidify them at the base of the
dell 1G222 battery maker’s notebook offerings for the foreseeable future.
… The 13-inch portables are presently undergoing an industrial design overhaul that will see them reemerge in the coming months with a slimmer, lighter enclosure and restructured internal
architecture.
The white MacBook is outselling all other [portable] Macs. … Sales of the sub-$1000 system have remained surprisingly brisk amid the economic crunch, leaving management little choice but to
allocate R&D expenses in its favor. … Apple is well-positioned to begin offering a model at considerable discount to the $999 entry-level model that exists today. MORE
Chris Foresman can’t resist:
The lonely white polycarbonate
dell BAT3151L8 battery that
still remains in Apple’s otherwise all-aluminum notebook lineup hasn’t changed significantly over the years. … Apple would likely use lower-end Core 2 Duo chips from Intel and could likely ditch
the FireWire ports. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple dump the optical drive too, adding further cost and weight savings, nor would it be unusual if Apple designed in a non-removeable battery.
(Heck, throw in a physically smaller screen, and you’d pretty much have yourself an Apple netbook.)
With nearly 60 percent of back-to-school shoppers looking to spend less than $750 on a new laptop, though, shaving a couple hundred bucks off the MacBook might make even more students and budget
shoppers lean towards a Mac instead of a Windows- or Linux-based alternative. MORE
Harry McCracken joins in the fun , and even adds a car analogy:
It wouldn’t stun me if … Apple knocked $100 or so off the pricetag to make it into an upscale
dell Latitude X300 battery alternative to a netbook. … Only a matter of time until Apple ships a non-Air
MacBook with no DVD drive–in part to save money, in part to make the system thinner, and hey, maybe even to encourage consumption of movies and music from the iTunes store.
One thing I hope Apple doesn’t do is to give the white MacBook’s replacement an aluminum case. … I’m not so sure that plastic-clad notebooks don’t preserve their good looks better than their
aluminum cousins, at least if you drop computers as often as I do. (Hey, I used to own a Saturn car, in part because of the plastic body.) MORE
Robert Evans speaks of “Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage” (CULV) devices:
Apple needs to get prices down substantially in order to make their notebooks more competitive with the variety of netbooks and CULVs that have come down the pipe as of late. Increasing battery
life by a large margin is believed to be a major priority of Apple’s when it comes to redesigning the MacBook. It’s also likely that, by using last-generation processors and components, they will
be able to cut down on costs
dell W0465 battery while offering
a solid boost in computing power over the last generation of MacBooks.
This recession has really changed up Apple’s game. They’re focusing less and less on high cost computers and gadgets, and more on affordable, reliable products for budget consumers. The $99 iPhone,
the cost reduction for the MacBook Pro line, the revamping of the MacBook line, and the upcoming iTablet are all examples of this. MORE
Dieri Castrejon can’t wait:
I long for the return of glossy white in future Macs. Aluminum (as well as the combination of grey/black) seems too bleak & uber-industrial. Very Windows-esque. MORE