Hardware Geeks

When HP asked me if I was interested in reviewing one of their work stations, I said sure. When they told me it was on its way I expected a huge box, but what arrived was a small one.  I immediately thought it was something else, maybe some accessories to go along with it.  I was quite surprised when I opened the box though.  It was indeed the HP Ultra Slim dc7800, a workstation that measures 9.90 x 10.00 x 2.60 inches and weighs only 7 pounds.

I was immediately impressed by its size, or lack of. While the size surprised me I was a bit concerned that a machine this small could not handle the same day to day workings as a traditional work station. (But) I was always told great things come in small packages so the fact that it was being powered by Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 2.33 Ghz CPU and 2 Gigs of ram reassured me.  The dc7800 could probably deliver the same results as a traditional work station.

Epson on Wednesday will officially announce their new high end Artisan line. The new line will launch with two new all-in-one printers, the Artisan 700 and my favorite the Artisan 800.

The Artisan 800 if the mother-load of all printers, it is wi-fi capable, has a 3.5 inch LCD touchscreen that only lights up the buttons you need to use at that moment, the screen will also allow you to control the printers functions, edit images (brighten, darken, rorate and even crop).

Dish Network today announced that it is the first company in the Pay-TV industry to offer all of its standard and High-Def channels in MPEG 4, but only on the east coast.

New customers in 21 designated markets in the eastern half of the U.S. who sign up for any DISH Network HD package will be the first in the nation to receive the industry’s most advanced delivery system on all televisions connected to DISH Network service. This includes all SD and HD programming broadcast in MPEG-4 via DISH Network’s award-winning MPEG-4 HD and HD DVR receivers – even further enhancing DISH Network’s already superior picture.

I am new to photography, but on my first two photo shoots I lugged around my tx2000 notebook PC to check the pictures I had just taken.  I could’ve looked on the LCD screen on the back of the camera, but sometimes what you see on that screen isn’t what you always get.

The problem with taking my laptop is that I like to pack light and although the Nikon D60 is a small DSLR, the added 4 pounds the laptop adds to my bag are 4 pounds I wouldn’t mind shedding.

So when Epson asked if I wanted to take a look at their P-7000 I said yes, I even begged for them to send it on a Saturday as I would be leaving Sunday for Disneyland on business. Yes it was a business trip but I did get on a lot of rides before and after my business meeting with HP.

Earlier today HP told me that their new Elitebook 6930 was showing 24 hours of runtime with in benchmarks. I was surprised because yesterday I found out Dell had a notebook with a 19 hour battery life but showed no proof, and gave sketchy detail’s on the system.

HP’s Worldwide Public Relations Manager (Business Notebooks) Mike Hockey said the following in an email to me “Micheal,, it is confirmed. HP can now achieve up to 24 hour battery runtime! This is achieved with the HP EliteBook 6930p, configured with a 6-cell primary battery, HP Illumi-Lite LED backlit display, the new 80GB Intel SSD, and the optional HP Ultra-Capacity Battery.”

The 6930, the unit where we get the 24 hours with the extended battery in neither an ultraportable or ultralight. It’s a 5 pound Notebook without the extended battery you need for the 24 hours. . We don’t classify it as ultraportable or ultralight. In HP terminology it’s a balance mobility category. For the rest of the world, it’s probably called mainstream. It’s your corporate 14” notebook

I apologize to HP if this communique was under NDA, because the email did not say it was. But HP has told me that one of their new Elitebook has up to 24 hours of battery life. That is 27% more than Dells 19 hour battery life claim which was 27% more of the 15 hour battery life claim by HP.

What is different about HP’s 24 hour claim is that they are going to send me a system to put the battery life to the test for my self so that I can see with my very own eyes. So I will let you know as soon as I get it.

Last night before I went to bed I saw an ad from Dell pimping out their new 19 hour battery life, but what buged me was I saw no info in the ad or on the landing page about how you get the 19 hours of battery life. Mind you it was 3 am and I was half asleep so I forgot to bookmark the page and now for the life of me I can not find it.

But how is Dell doing it? I have emailed some people at Dell to find out and I will let you all know as soon as I do.

About a month ago, I visited with Epson and checked out some of their new printers such as the nx400 all-in-one. I have to say I was pretty impressed with what I saw and for the first time ever I actually am looking forward to the release of a printer. But something else impressed me while I visited with Epson, and that was their ink.

Epson told me about their DuraBrite Ultra ink. They told me about how it instantly drys, how it doesn’t smear with a highlighter or deposit any of it’s ink on the tip of the highlighter. They also told me something I found hard to believe. They told me that the ink would not bleed if a liquid were spilled on a document printed with their ink.

I saw various examples but I was skeptical. I wanted to perform these test especially the liquid one my self, so Epson was kind enough to send me a nx400 to test the ink with.

HP today introduced two new Elitebook one a 12.1 inch Notebook PC the other a 12.1 inch tablet PC an upgrade to the popular 2710 which was the first Notebook from HP with a built in Business Card Reader and Lamp.

Some of the improvements on the 2730 when compared to the 2710 is the stylus holder, on the 2710 the thing would shoot out and would land in another zip code if you weren’t careful, that has been fixed on the 2730, the newer 2730 also supports larger hard drives, and of course has a faster processor (Intel Core 2 Duo Ultra Low Voltage or Low Voltage) and a bit of a better video chipset (Intel GMA X4500 HD). Oh and let’s not forget the name change, the 2710 was under the Compaq brand but the 2730 is under the HP Elitebook brand.