If you were to tell me that I could get a PC laptop with nearly the portability of a Macbook Air, but with enough power to make my desktop machine envious, I would probably laugh at you. If you followed up by showing me the X460 series of slim laptops by MSI, you could make me eat my words. Not to mention the $200 – $400 lower price tag, the tripled storage capacity, and a few more gigs of RAM standard. MSI, you had me at hello.

The new X460 model leads the power-house product lineup at $1,199.99, with its little brother X460DX coming in at $799.99/$899.99 depending on how much RAM you want in the load-out. Each weigh in at 4.5 lbs and sport a sub 1 inch thick body. MSI provided a demo video to show off the other impressive features of this new slim line.

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Distributors of the retro cassette tape iPhone 4 case and Headphonies, iCovers4U.com has agreed to throw in two prizes instead of one.  First place winner of the Balls of steel E3 swagbag giveaway, will also receive a $80 gift certificate code to iCovers4U.com.  That’s just enough to get the new hardback laptop case.  Also, they are throwing in a second place $40 gift certificate code prize.

So, thank you again to our newest Swagbag sponsor, iCovers4U.com and good luck to everyone.

When we sent the call out for things to stuff into our E3 swagbag prize, AViiQ answered with a nifty little laptop stand.  Sorry, the women in the below pictures do not come with the prizes.

AViiQ: Portable Laptop Stand
World’s thinnest stylish laptop stand folds down to ¼” for exceptional storage and portability

• Provides optimal ergonomic angle that reduces strain on your wrist and allows air to flow underneath, dissipating heat from the laptop thus improving battery life and computing efficiency
• Designed to improve visibility, decrease screen glare, and maximize productivity
• German-made Hylite patented material provides a flexible weightless solution that is extremely durable
• Folds flat for easy storage access in any laptop bag with a weight of a mere 5.5 ounces (Video Demo)

Available at: aviiq.com
Price: $59.95
Website: www.aviiq.com

 

Swiftpoint Ltd is off to a fine start with its Swiftpoint wireless mouse, awarded the CES Innovations 2011 award.

The diminutive mouse is a radical departure from conventional wireless and laptop mice, developed with a focus on mobile users. Held with three fingers in a pen-style grip with buttons arranged in a row along the mouse’s crest, it fits easily into the palm. The Swiftpoint is designed for use atop the laptop’s palm rest next to the touchpad, but has a wireless range of 30 feet. It can zoom, page, and scroll with specialized gestures, and includes two buttons and a track wheel.

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Just like your dad’s lame-ass blue jeans make him look like a senile old fart; your sleek, perfectly designed MacBook makes you look like a total dweeb.  So it’s time to… uhm… upgrade(?) and make your MacBook look like it’s lived life and been around the block a few times.  That’s where Twelve South’s BookBook comes in!  It’s $80 and totally super sweet, but if you’re looking for something a little more sinfully deceitful, I really recommend this.

So, here I was at Best Buy looking for a $250 Acer Laptop that was posted on WalletPop the other day. After walking up to the laptop section, I saw it right in front of me. I was so excited because it was perfect timing! My father’s birthday was tomorrow and he’d been looking for a cheap netbook or laptop with a webcam.  I was kind of afraid that the specs posted on WalletPop wasn’t going to be the same specs when I actually saw it for myself.

I quickly noticed that the price tag had no specs on it. But, I saw the specs on the sticker and noticed it was the one I was looking for. Also, it came with an on-board Webcam. Oh joy! I asked the Best Buy employee for the laptop. The employee responded with “Sorry. We are sold out of those. But we do have optimized ones still.”

I quickly learned what the difference between a regular laptop and an “optimized” one. An “optimized” one has the “awesome” feature of having no bloatware. To have an “optimized” one, you need to pay $39 more. WTF?

Isn’t that backwards? To have NO extra software or trial ware installed costs extra? If they wanted, I could pull the laptop out, hook it up to their wireless hotspot, and install all that bloat crap myself to keep the price tag to $250. But of course they wouldn’t allow me to do it. I complained a little more towards the employee. She talked to her supervisor and came back to offer me a half-off discount on the “optimization fee.”

I agreed to the “deal” just so I can get this present to my father. Ugh. Best Buy, you win, but never again.

I guess shes more leet than me.  I still look at my keyboard when I’m typing. =

An old friend of ours, DJ Fillmatic, was able to review the Razer Sphex Mouse pad & laptop sleeve. Here is his review:

So I was chatting with Razer|Grl the other day and she said “Hey Fill, we have a new mouse pad called the Sphex” I said “Oh really?” she then said “Yeah, I’ll send you one to try out.” Lo and behold, a couple days later UPS knocks on my door and the driver says “This is for you.”

Now I’m thinking “how does he know this is for me?” Driver turns out to be a gamer, the box says Razer on it, I’m wearing a shirt that says 1337 on it when I answer the door. Anyway I get this big box like “This is a huge mouse pad.” In true kid like fashion I immediately opened it before even walking back in to the laboratory. Turns out Razer|Grl sent me the Sphex and 17″ Razer Gear Laptop Sleeve (awww, she remembered the size of my laptop without even asking.)

So I pulled out the sleeve, read the Certificate of Authenticity, suspended my laptop and put it in the sleeve… Like a glove. Ballistic nylon goodness with shock absorbing interior. On top of that, nothing says “I’m going to frag you” to people before you even open your laptop like the Razer logo on the sleeve. I mean what more can I say? It’s a laptop sleeve, it fit my laptop, it does it’s job. Thumbs up.

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Now you can rest your head without that embarassing homerow imprint on your forehead with the laptop pillow. Oh, and for your MAC vs PC freaks out there, its a hybrid of the two. Mac wallpaper with a Windows toolbar. So everyone wins.

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Today was my nieces 13th birthday.  Because she is growing up and almost in high school my dad/her grandpa, bought her a compaq laptop.  Now, being the nice geek uncle I am, I told her I would help set it up for her. And by setup, I mean:

• Install FireFox 3
• Delete all Internet Explorer shortcuts
• Install AVG
• Uninstall Norton Antivirus 60day trial version
• Stop all programs from launching when Windows starts up
• Install Windows Updates
• Install Adaware
• Run Adware
• Make recovery discs

Wait, wtf? Make recovery discs? Yes. I had to make recovery discs because the box didn’t come with one.  Instead it came with this paper:

My first thought after reading this was, “Since when did this type of thing started happening?” Then I thought, “This isn’t a good feature at all.  What if the hard drive completely dies?”  You wouldn’t be able to do a full recovery when you put in a new hard drive. Or would you?  So, just to make sure, I created those recovery discs. What surprised me was that it took 2 DVDs and 2 hours to create them.

It was no big deal to me.  I just kept playing Street Fighter 4 on Xbox Live while the recovery discs were created.  But all these procedures to get a PC laptop running out of the box and smoothly completely made me hate Windows even more and OS X less.

Out of the box, OS X takes less than 30 minutes to setup.  That’s even with the software updates.