The Prisoner was a 1960's take on surveillance societies, virtual reality, and artificial intelligence.

We're saddened to learn that actor/writer/director Patrick McGoohan has died at age 80. His cult favorite TV series, The Prisoner (1967-68), was startlingly forward-thinking in its imaginative use of technology, presaging ...

Originally posted at Digital City Podcast

Despite the small overall size, we found the keyboard fairly eay to use. At first, the lack of a touchpad worried us, but the trackpoint was fast and responsive, and after 15 minutes or so, we got used to navigating with it -- a very light tap on the pointing stick will give you a left mouse click.

The 1,600x768 screen has a higher resolution than many 15-inch laptops. Some initial attempts at online video streaming played fine, and the built-in Verizon-powered mobile broadband worked as advertised.

Even with Vista as the operating system, the Vaio seemed to run about as well as any Intel Atom system with XP we've used (2GB of RAM and an SSD hard drive help). With Windows 7, purportedly excellent for Netbooks, it would probably fly (relatively speaking).

It's hard to convey just how small this thing actually is. In the photos below, you'll see it positively dwarfed by an HP Mini 1000. ...

Originally posted at CES 2009

What could be better than a small, low-cost, easy to use Netbook laptop? How about a small, low-cost, easy to use Netbook laptop with a swiveling touch screen? Conceptually similar to the recently updated Intel Classmate PC, the new Eee PC T91 has a rotating display that can ...

Originally posted at CES 2009

Asus is still chasing the "upscale Netbook" market with its latest shiny little box, the S121. Rather than being part of the well-known Eee PC line, the S121 is being called an "Ultra Slim Mobile Notebook," and uses Intel's Atom-based Menlow platform--essentially an updated version of the ...

Originally posted at CES 2009

Hyperspace boots up automatically when you start your laptop, instead of Windows. The emphasis is clearly on Web surfing, as the landing screen is a custom Web browser with a sidebar full of links and settings. Shortcuts on the left side are basically just bookmarks for popular Web sites and services.

Originally posted at CES 2009

HP's new Pavilion Dv2.

The highlight of HP's CES lineup is this new, thin, 12-inch AMD-powered model, called the Pavilion Dv2. At first glance, another glossy HP laptop with an AMD processor may induce yawns, but when we learned this was the first system to use AMD's new Netbook-like Athlon Neo platform, our ears perked up.

Pitched as a kind of step-up from Netbooks, Neo provides for a little more processing muscle--at least enough to power Windows Vista. The CPU is called the Neo MV-40, runs at 1.6GHz, and comes paired with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 graphics.

Besides that, the Dv2 also has a fairly large keyboard for a 12-inch laptop, starts at about 3.8 pounds, and is 1.3-inches thick at its thickest point. The display is a 1,280 x 800 LED.

Look for the HP Dv2 later in January, somewhere north of $500. Check out some more photos after the jump. ...

Originally posted at CES 2009

After the initial 7-inch Celeron versions and the second wave of 9- and 10-inch Intel Atom-powered systems, we're finally seeing the third wave of Netbook laptops--machines that take the basic concept of low-cost, low-power computing and start to add in useful extras and features largely missing from the until-now rather Spartan design philosophy of most Netbooks.

Even though the Mini 1000 only hit a few months ago, HP was actually an early player in the Netbook field. The company's business system side came up with the Mini-Note 2133 in spring 2008, with a solid brushed-metal chassis and a nearly full-size keyboard. Unfortunately, this predated Intel's Atom CPU, and rather than using the Celeron processor that came with the very first Netbooks, HP went with an underpowered Via C7-M, which pretty much killed any chance it had of becoming a mainstream product.

Now that the plastic-clad, Atom-powered consumer version has become a hit, HP's business side is taking another crack at the Netbook market with a radically updated version, called the HP Mini 2140.

It keeps the aluminum construction and big keyboard, but updates the components to an Intel Atom CPU, and hard-drive options that include standard platter drives up to 160GB and solid-state drives up to 80GB. The LED display is 10.1 inches, with a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Two new additions that threaten to make this our favorite new Netbook are an accelerometer for the hard drive and a full ExpressCard/54 slot--a Netbook first (Lenovo's S10 has a smaller Express Card/34 slot). We recently told HP's consumer side that, as much as we liked the Mini 1000 Netbook, its business-side colleagues had just decisively leap-frogged them.

Look for the HP Mini 2140 later in January, starting at $499. More pics after the jump.

Originally posted at CES 2009

The HP Pavilion dv3.

We'll come right and say it--we love 13-inch laptops. One point we're fond of making is that in a world where we have 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and even 20-inch laptops, the 13-inch size is the biggest we'd consider carrying around on a regular basis, as well as the smallest we'd be able to use as a full-time work machine.

HP is debuting a new 13-inch model, powered by a variety of AMD CPU options (although, not the new low-power Athlon Neo). We've always liked HP's snazzy dv-series designs, with their glossy finishes, metallic accents, and subtle imprint patterns. HP describes this new model as having, "an argyle-like pattern for subtle contrast to the liquid appearance of the metallic finish." Then again, matte black works for us, too.

While the new dv3 is reasonably svelte, starting at 3.8 pounds and about 1.3-inches thick at its thickest part, we're most excited about the backlit keyboard--an extra we'd point out only comes with the more expensive $1,699 version of the 13-inch MacBook (and you can't even get the dv3's Express Card/34 slot in a 13-inch MacBook).

Look for the HP Pavilion dv3 later in January. Check out some more photos after the jump. ...

Originally posted at CES 2009

You and I may see the laptop market as completely oversaturated, but chipmaker AMD sees only opportunities and underserved markets. Hence the new Athlon Neo, which AMD calls a "platform for ultrathin notebooks."

The company sees Netbooks as occupying the space between 7- and 11-inch displays with prices under $499, ...

Originally posted at CES 2009

Lenovo's S10 Netbook.

We liked both the 11-inch U110 ultraportable and S10 Netbook from Lenovo, so we're pleased to see the company not messing with success and making only minor revisions to these two models in what might be the first set of official laptop announcements from ...

Originally posted at CES 2009