HP Pavilion dv3000 Notebook Unveiled in India

HP’s latest offering – Pavilion dv3000 Entertainment Notebook PC – labeled ‘The One’ in marketing campaigns was launched in India.

 

The notebook has been designed for the mobile professional and comes with powerful computing capabilities, convenient security and multimedia features.

 

The HP Pavilion dv3000 features a 13.3-inch wide-screen display based on HP BrightView technology, a built-in webcam, a full-sized keyboard and a remote control.

 

Priced at Rs. 53990, the notebook comes with a fingerprint reader and the HP 3D DriveGuard protects the hard drive while on the go.

Sharp Launches New Multimedia Projectors

Sharp launched their new series of multimedia projectors — XR-40X/XR-30X/XR-30S facilitating long-lasting high-quality performance with easy operation. Its advanced optoelectronics technology maximizes light output, providing crystal clear images at high brightness.

The Sharp Notevision XR-40 and XR-30 Series projectors are built to handle most business, education or cinema projection requirements. They utilize the Texas Instruments DDR DLP display technology in combination with TrueVision (DDP2000) image processing.

The Condenser Lens Optical System provides 2200:1 contrast ratio (2000:1 in XR-30S), along with crisp, bright and detailed images from both computer and video sources. Powerful standard features like DVI-D input, short-throw zoom lens, HDTV compatibility and up to 3,000-hour lamp life.

To enhance color accuracy, the XR Educator XR-30 and XR-40 Series incorporates a 3X speed (maximum) color wheel which ensures that all projected images are uniform and void of the rainbow effect common in other projectors . Also, the non-contact Fluid Dynamics Bearings for the high-speed rotating color wheel axle have a longer lifespan.

Its light weighs 6.4 lbs. (2.9 kg), so that one can easily carry it to their home theater room and view DVDs on a large screen or even bring the projector along with them to provide business presentations by connecting it to the computer.

These projectors optical mechanism is sealed in its structure, which prevents dust, dirt, and smoke from entering core parts of the optics to a much greater degree than LCD projectors. The system also needs no filter and less maintenance, resulting in lower cost of ownership and longer use.

Full digital projection with the DVI input terminal and DLP system enables virtually noise-free images from digital sources. The terminal also complies with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) to support digital video content in high-definition.

Projectors can be connected to DVD players, cable or satellite boxes, laptop and desktop computers, HDTV tuners, VCRs and video game consoles

Projectors also feature Direct Power Off (Instant Off), Spot light function, GUI Pointer (non IR image pointer), Theft Deterrent “System Lock”, Quick start within 3 seconds.

The XR-40X is priced at Rs. 85,000,  XR-30X is priced at Rs 59,000 and XR-30S is priced at Rs 47,000. These are available at all Sharp’s dealer outlets and through all I.T. channels across India.

Adobe Unveils Free Web-based Photoshop

The long-awaited, Web-based and free version of Adobe Photoshop is now available as a beta, Adobe announced Thursday.

Photoshop Express allows users to store up to 2GB of images, make edits to their photos, and share them, all online.

It is a way for Adobe to compete with free applications like Google’s Picasa, which have emerged over the last few years.

Since it’s to be used by consumers, the company has put a lot of effort on ease-of-use. In a few clicks, users will be able to make standard edits, such as removing blemishes and red-eye, converting to black and white, cropping and resizing. No experience is required, Adobe said.

Users will also be able to integrate with social networking sites like Facebook.

Photoshop Express works with all major browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari, Adobe said. It requires an Internet connection and Flash Player 9 to work.

The tool is based on Flex, Adobes cross-browser plug-in technology for multimedia.

At first, Photoshop Express is available only to U.S. residents and only in English. Users may experience slow performance if accessed outside of the US, Adobe warned. Future plans include availability in other languages and countries.

This isn’t Adobe’s first foray into Web-based services. Adobe announced the availability of Premiere Express, an online video editing available on partner sites such as MTV and Photobucket, early last year.

Sahara Launches Mini Multimedia Keyboard

Sahara Computers has announced the launch of its latest Mini Multimedia Keyboard.

This new 63DUBG31 Mini Multimedia Keyboard is an ultra slim notebook keyboard with 88 keys and 19 hot keys. The keyboard also provides static resistant magnetic field and disturb resistant functionalities.

The ergonomically designed keyboard has 10 million minutes life. It is a user friendly keyboard, which is WIN 95/98/NT/2000/XP/Vista compatible.

Sahara 63DUBG31 keyboard is available through Sahara Computers’ authorized channel partners and ITJ Retails at a Price of Rs. 499 + Tax.

Lenovo Unveils Y510 Notebook in India

Lenovo unveiled its Y510 series multimedia notebooks in India.

The Lenovo Y510 features a 15-inch screen and face recognition for locked-down security. The notebook introduces a Dolby 4.1 Home Theater speaker system along with four speakers and a subwoofer. The Y510’s multimedia features can be accessed through a touch-sensitive pad. The notebook also features an in-built TV tuner card.

The notebook also has One Key Recovery to restore factory preload settings. The Y510′s keyboard has been inspired by the ThinkPad keyboard, and its extended battery management feature can be to customized user-specific battery usage patterns.

The Y510 also incorporates a 6-in-1 multi-card, slot-in optical drive and a 1.3MP integrated camera. The Y510 comes with 160GB SATA hard disk, 1 GB DDR2 RAM, 802.11 Wi-Fi and Vista Home Basic/Premium version. It weighs 2.77 kg and supports battery life of up to 4 hours.

The Lenovo Y510 notebook prices start at Rs. 45,990 and is available at all Lenovo authorized stores.

Acer Unveils Multimedia-Optimized Notebooks

Acer unveiled a line of multimedia-optimized laptops in New York at its first-ever U.S. press conference, where it also announced the close of its acquisition of Dutch computer-maker Packard Bell.

Acer unveiled the Aspire 8920 and 6920 series of notebooks with a new design, the company is calling Aspire Gemstone “blue.” The laptops, which come in both 18.4-inch and 16-inch versions, include a Blu-Ray disc drive, full high-definition (HD) LCD screens and support for the Dolby Pro Logic 2.0 surround-sound audio system.

Speaking at a press event, Senior Corporate Vice President Jim Wong said the new design is aimed at bringing a “true multimedia innovation” to the notebook form factor. The new notebooks are based on Intel Core 2 Duo processors and run either Windows Vista Ultimate or the Windows Vista Home Premium OS because of the multimedia functionality those OSes can deliver. However, Wong said, Acer would consider running a different OS — presumably Linux — on machines that don’t require rich multimedia capability.

The New York event, was a U.S. coming-out party of sorts for the Taiwanese computer-maker. Acer is eager to woo U.S. consumers now that it is offering not only its own notebooks here, but also eMachine computers from Packard Bell and PCs from U.S. computer-maker Gateway, the acquisition of which Acer revealed last August.

In his first official press appearance in the U.S., Acer’s President Gianfranco Lanci clarified company’s branding strategy going forward, saying products from all three companies will remain in the market under their own names. “We didn’t buy a company to kill the brand,” he said.

Lanci said Acer plans to keep all three brands in the U.S. and Europe, although Gateway computers — including the eMachines brand — will be sold in “some countries only.” In Asia and the U.S., the Acer and Gateway brands will be most prominent, including the Gateway eMachines brand in the U.S. Lanci said Acer is basing its brand distribution on how well the different products sell in each geographic area.

Having all three brands also will diversify Acer’s market penetration across its three main geographical regions, broadening its reach in the U.S. while reducing the amount of business that comes from Europe, he added.

For the most part, Acer will keep the design of each of the three brands consistent with their current design. The new Aspire Gemstone “blue” design, for instance, will only be used for Acer notebooks.