It’s becoming progressively easier to land LCD monitors with IPS panels (as opposed to the decidedly less stunning TN panels), but given that there’s rarely ever enough competition to truly push prices as far south as we consumers would like, we’re welcoming LG’s latest with wide open arms. The outfit has just issued a new foursome — the IPS2062T, IPS226V, IPS236V and IPS231P — of LED-backlit displays, with sizes running 20-, 21.5-, 23- and 23-inches in order of mention. The larger three offer 1,920 x 1,080 resolutions with a six millisecond response time, and the whole lot offers a deceiving 5,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 250 nits of brightness and 178-degree viewing angles. You’ll find plenty of glossy black to go around, but sadly you’ll find plenty of questions when it comes to pricing and release dates.

LG does the IPS dance with IPS2062T, IPS226V, IPS236V and IPS231P monitors originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 21:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jimmy Eat World didn’t concoct the masterpiece that is The Middle for nothing, you know. In yet another example of the middle muddying up the waters for everyone else, DisplaySearch has found that the vast majority of systems sold in America fall into the 15.6-inch category, despite the fact that many offer no gain in resolution over 12- and 13-inch ultraportables with 1,366 x 768 panels. The reason? For one, supply and demand. The sheer quantity of 15-inch machines on the market pushes prices south, and on days like Black Friday, rarely is any size as discounted as the tried-and-true 15-incher. The numbers here would show an even greater difference if the tablets were yanked, but what’s made clear is just how little interest is being shown by the masses to the outliers. In fact, Laptop found that MSI is officially putting the kibosh on its plans to ship the 13-inch X360 stateside, and a number of other manufacturers are mulling similar decisions (though “off the record”). So, are you helping to jumble up the middle, or are you a loud-and-proud 5-percenter?

Lessons in Bell Curves: 15-inch laptops still king, despite wealth of portable alternatives originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Sep 2010 02:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Digg
Dell has a habit of releasing monitors elsewhere in the world and then subsequently letting them hit stateside with nary a warning, and so we’re wagering such is the case here. Four such displays have found their way to Dell Asia, and LogicBuy’s sniffed ‘em out. Here’s what we know about each, from the most-featured on down. The ST23220L is a 23-inch 1080p LED-backlit LCD with 5ms response time and 250nit brightness, all accentuated by a non-glare TN panel (and all Energy Star 5.0 compliant, in case you’re wondering). It offers 1080p resolution and inputs for VGA, DVI, and HDMI. One step down is the 21.5-inch ST2220L — same features, different size. The ST2220M, however, drops the HDMI support, and below that the 20-inch IN2020M drops HDMI and only hits a resolution of 1600 x 900. Can’t say for sure when or how much, but now you know!

Dell releases quartet of new monitors in Asia, US can’t be far behind originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ready to splash the cash on NVIDIA’s fresh new mobile Fermi graphics cards? ASUS is the first company to take the veils off its GTX 460M offering, which it has seasoned with a most welcome addition: 1.5GB of dedicated GDDR5 graphics memory. The ROG G53JW and G73JW machines are the beneficiaries of this upgrade, with both capable of 3D work should you ask them nicely, and offering such tasty options as quad-core Core i7 CPUs, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 750GB of storage, 16:9 displays (1,366 x 768 on the 15.6-inch G53 and up to 1,920 x 1,080 on the 17.3-inch G73), Blu-ray-writing optical drives, and 8-cell 5,200mAh batteries. The lighter of the two laptops weighs in at 3.6kg, but if that doesn’t put you off, both are available right now at online retailers.

[Thanks, LifeBringer]

Continue reading ASUS upgrades G53 and G73 gaming laptops with 1.5GB NVIDIA GTX 460 grunt

ASUS upgrades G53 and G73 gaming laptops with 1.5GB NVIDIA GTX 460 grunt originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We still consider Samsung’s Hummingbird application processor to be among the very best for mobile computers, but this morning Sammy itself is stepping up the charge to make it look real old real fast. The freshly announced dual-core Orion promises to whip us all into a frenzy of geek lust with “5 times the 3D graphics performance over the previous processor generation from Samsung,” 1080p video encoding and decoding at 30fps, embedded GPS, a native triple display controller, and on-chip HDMI 1.3a interface. Those last two bits mean you can drive two displays on your mobile device while feeding a third, such as a HDTV, all thanks to the one all-powerful chip inside. Availability for “select customers” is coming late this year, with mass production set for the first half of 2011. To say we’re looking forward to it would be a massive understatement.

Continue reading Samsung’s Orion is the 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 we’ve all been waiting for

Samsung’s Orion is the 1GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 we’ve all been waiting for originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to Apple’s UK website, iOS 4.1 will hit on Wednesday, September 8th. The US website still displays the non-commital “Coming Soon” message, so we’ll have to keep our eyes peeled. We’re going to go ahead and guess that all those shiny new iPods will come to retail that day too… but don’t hold us to that one. Like we said, it’s only a guess.

[Thanks, Luca]

iOS 4.1 confirmed for September 8th on Apple’s UK website originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic’s gone on a real tear here, releasing two new Toughbook models at once. While you grapple with the implications of such a thing, let’s get down to details. The new 31 and 19 Series Toughbooks are 13.1-inch and 10.4-inch models, respectively, and as far as specs go, they both pack in a 160GB hard drive, up to 6GB of DDR3 SDRAM (with 2GB coming standard), and Intel QM57 Express chipset, and 1024 x 768 resolution displays. Both come with Windows 7 Professional pre-installed, and the Toughbook 31 has a 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, the 19’s go a 1.2 GHZ inside. Other than that they’ve both got Gigabit Ethernet, WiFi IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, an HDMI slot, four USB ports, and an SD card slot. Of course, they’re also drop resistant in addition to being dust and waterproof. They’ll be available starting in mid-September in Japan.

Panasonic cranks out new 31 and 19 Series Toughbooks for Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We still have memories — some would say nightmares, but we digress — of hanging out at a neighbor’s house and taking turns playing matches of Mario’s Tennis, our biological ocular displays assimilated into a rubber mask that engulfed our brains and left us in a permanent state of viewing the world in red wireframe. Crude 3D though it may be, it’s still a part of history we must accept, and if you happen to own a Virtual Boy, we have just two things to say to you. One: we’re insanely jealous. Two: if you ever need to know how to rip it to shreds for repair / stress relief, iFixit’s got you covered. In the world of Man with Screwdriver vs. Game Console, yet again Man wins. Seems a perfect ending to a week that featured Atari 2600, Nintendo Famicon, RCA Studio II, and Magnavox Odyssey 100. Check out highlights in the gallery below, or hit up iFixit for the whole shebang.

iFixit celebrates Friday with teardown of Virtual Boy, the greatest game console man has ever known originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, we spied a few of LG’s new 31-inch, 2.9mm thick displays the other day, but we hadn’t seen the standard TV-like configurations — which don’t mean too much, because this is still a prototype, but they’re a comfort all the same. We also managed to peep a 3D setup with the screens, which used polarized glasses and was surprisingly sharp. We promised ourselves it would just be a quick look, and that we had important things to do today, and that we really don’t need a new TV all that much… but three hours later we found ourselves still planted in the same spot, a small trickle of drool dripping all over our camera gear. When we finally managed to snap out of it, we clicked a few stills and grabbed a video of one of the screens spinning before running out of the LG booth with our eyes shut tight and desire still raging in our heart.

Continue reading LG’s 31-inch OLED spin-slices its way into our cold LCD hearts

LG’s 31-inch OLED spin-slices its way into our cold LCD hearts originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chinese telecom giant Huawei — which has been playing the Android game with major carriers around the world for some time now — has selected IFA to debut the Ideos, a new entry-level model running Froyo in a variety of colors. Huawei’s press release calls the Ideos “the world’s first affordable smartphone” — which seems like a bit of an overstatement (okay, a huge overstatement) to us — but really underscores the fact that this thing is going to be launching for somewhere between $100 and $200 unsubsidized in Europe, Asia, and both North and Latin America. It’s got 3G, WiFi, mobile hotspot capability for up to eight devices, and was apparently developed in direct partnership with Google, a sign that Mountain View is serious about taking Android 2.2 across the entire price spectrum.

We checked out the Ideos today and were pretty impressed; clearly, you’re not going to mistake it for an EVO, a Droid X, or a Defy, but Huawei has definitely put some effort into engineering this thing so that they were able to make it cheaply without making it feel like it would come apart in your hands. The company is quick to note that 2.8-inch capacitive displays aren’t very common — and though we could’ve definitely used HVGA instead of the Ideos’ QVGA, we were pleased with the responsiveness, both from a processor performance perspective and a touch sensitivity one. Add in the support for 7.2Mbps HSDPA and the stylish colors (black, yellow, blue, and purple) and Huawei might just have a winner here. More on this one when launch carriers start to come out of the woodwork. Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Huawei Ideos hands-on

Huawei Ideos hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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