bruceb news

There are an overwhelming number of new computers on the market! It will be impossible to stay up to date on the brands and models – and almost impossible to get hands-on experience with more than a small fraction of what’s out there.

Click through to this article and take a look at some (but not all) of the new computers introduced by manufacturers on the day that Windows 7 was launched.

Random example – the first one on the list: Sony’s Vaio L is an all-in-one with a 24” touchscreen. You’re looking at the whole thing! There’s a computer in that thin monitor, with a BluRay disc drive that comes popping out the side. […] continued

Windows 7 is available today in the stores and on new computers.

It is faster than Vista and does not rely as heavily on state of the art video cards. It benefits from three years of ironing out compatibility problems that marred Vista’s introduction. Windows XP users will discover a wealth of new features – Microsoft has been working hard in the nine years since Windows XP was introduced. Vista users will find that Windows 7 looks very familiar, more than the hype might lead you to expect, but there are tweaks and new features throughout the system.

Manufacturers will be introducing new models of desktop computers, notebooks, and netbooks. […] continued

Two quick examples of why we’re waiting for the next generation of ultra-thin notebooks. The first models will be available very quickly after the launch of Windows 7 on October 22.

Dell Adamo, previewed today. About 3/8 inch thick.

Sony Vaio X, introduced at a trade show last week. Less than half an inch thick, 1 1/2 pounds.

Here’s an article that sums up the reasons to wait two months before you buy a notebook or netbook. It covers all the things I’ve been telling you recently:

WIndows 7 looks great. Plus, new laptops will have power-saving and performance features optimized for Windows 7.

Notebooks and netbooks will have new processors that are more powerful and better at extending battery life.

Laptops will be thinner and lighter. Some of them will be so thin that the MacBook Air will look clunky by comparison.

There will be sales. Retailers and manufacturers are hungry and will likely start marking things down quickly.

[…] continued

When Windows 7 arrives in a few months, it will be accompanied by new hardware that is just now coming into focus. You might find yourself buying more computers than you expect in the next 6-12 months.

Desktop computers will be the least changed. Intel has already released a powerful new generation of processors, the Core i7 series, which will increasingly make its way into mainstream business and home computers. We’ll buy more memory and the 64-bit version of Windows 7 and bigger monitors, but I don’t otherwise see any big events ahead.

Notebooks and netbooks, though, are about to go through a basic generational shift. […] continued

Google announced tonight that it plans to turn its web browser, Google Chrome, into a full-fledged operating system. Its first target is netbooks, which will primarily be used for web browsing and email and which can benefit from a lean OS that starts quickly and has little superfluous content.

The press will be all over this. It is a “direct challenge to Microsoft.” “This is Google dropping the mother of bombs on its chief rival, Microsoft. . . .And it’s a genius play.” “This may be the biggest threat Microsoft has ever faced to one it its keystone products,” says analyst Rob Enderle. […] continued

A few days ago I said that there hadn’t been any profound changes in computer hardware for a while. That’s true, but there’s a change on the horizon that might affect things deeply, beginning late in 2009.

Solid state hard drives are on the verge of becoming viable replacements for conventional hard drives, especially on notebooks and netbooks. The idea is more or less to hold all the contents of a hard drive on a few chips with no moving parts. That’s not a new idea but until recently there were high barriers keeping them off the market: extremely high cost for the memory chips required; high power consumption; and deteriorating performance caused by repeated reads and writes, kind of like a battery that can’t hold a charge after some number of cycles. […] continued

If you need a new computer, buy a new computer. Maybe your business is expanding (there are signs of life in our economy), maybe your old Windows XP computer has collapsed or is just too slow – whatever the reason, if you need hardware, buy hardware.

But if your next computer purchase is optional, there are some good reasons to wait until the fall or Xmas shopping season. That’s my plan. For the first time in years, there are some good reasons to hold off for a few months before you purchase new technology.

All of these things will be on the market by the end of the year:

• Windows 7, the replacement for beleaguered Vista.

[…] continued

Netbooks will be widespread by the end of the year, shaking up the PC market and changing our world in ways that will be more dramatic than you expect. You might not have foreseen one of the ways they’ll be distributed – sold and subsidized by the cell phone carriers.

Many notebook computer users are familiar with the concept of a separate “mobile broadband” device built into the notebook, or plugged into a USB port, that gives the computer an Internet connection anywhere within a cell phone carrier’s network. Dell has been selling Verizon and Sprint internal modems with its Latitude notebooks for years. […] continued

The world is changing in front of our eyes again. Let me give you a preview of some technology that is going to change the computing landscape permanently – and do it before the end of 2009. This is a big deal! Take a minute to read this – it will help you understand what’s happening when things start to move quickly this fall.

Maybe you’ve already seen lines of “netbooks” at Best Buy, or read some of the articles about the small new devices. Manufacturers are falling all over themselves to release netbooks – Dell has more models coming than we can keep track of, and the market is full of the little devices on the retail shelves from HP and Samsung and Asus and many more. […] continued