Computex 2009 - Part 2
Next up in our Computex 2009 blast, we attended the launch of Thermaltake's much hyped Level 10 chassis. Also on the agenda, the latest consumer electronics and PC products from Acer together with P55 motherboards from ASRock, BIOSTAR and DFI. And much more!
Acer's Booth - Part 1
With its wide range of consumer electronics and PC products, Acer had the booth space to match it at Computex 2009.
Ultra-thin notebooks are available from all major vendors but Acer's Timeline series has impressed us with its weight, battery life and generally decent performance.
The largest model in the Timeline series is the Aspire 5810T which is 15.6-inch wide but less than an inch thick. It uses a Core 2 Duo with Intel GS45 Express chipset and includes options for 3G and WiMAX. Acer claims that this multimedia notebook can go more than 8 hours on a single charge.
Like so many other vendors, Acer has prepped an All-in-one PC with touchscreen to take advantage of the upcoming Windows 7 support.
The touchscreen interface in action.
In case you forgot, Acer now owns Gateway and the brand too has a comparable and rather similar All-in-one PC in the wings.
Acer's Booth - Part 2
Acer's successful Aspire One netbook was likely one of the reason Acer's sales numbers had been so impressive for the past year or so. From its original single model, the company now has quite the lineup to build on its success. Thankfully, Acer is still some way from the uncountable Eee PC models.
Acer was also showing off the first Google Android netbook at Computex and we're looking forward to seeing how Acer can adapt this operating system and user interface to the slightly different usage patterns for a netbook.
The 1.12kg Aspire One Pro 531h is aimed at the business user, with the basic Intel Atom processor with 945GSE chipset. What may attract the business class is its 3G support and its relatively long battery life (rated at 7.5 hours).
The Aspire One 751h meanwhile is slightly heftier at 1.25kg, thanks to its 11.6-inch LED backlit widescreen display. The newer Atom Z520 processor with Intel US15W chipset is used. Acer rates it at around 8 hours of battery life.
It looks almost the same but this is not the Aspire Revo but the Veriton N260G. The innards are also different with its Atom N280 CPU and GN40 Express chipset. The graphics hence is the better GMA 4500M, with a HDMI port. Like the Revo, you can mount this small PC to the back of compatible monitors.
And here of course is the AspireRevo, which we have reviewed previously and is simply the Atom paired with the NVIDIA Ion.
This 23-inch beauty is a full HD display with a sleek, blue lacquer finish and illuminated control panel. Besides the eye candy, this is a display with a 2ms response time and 100000:1 contrast ratio.
Acer's Booth - Part 3
A row of Packard Bell notebooks, another brand that Acer has acquired over the past few years in its course to becoming one of the largest PC vendors in the world.
You can add smartphone vendor E-TEN to the list as Acer has acquired the company to bolster its presence in this hotly contested but potentially huge market.
Acer had a few interesting upcoming models that are more like design concepts at this stage. This phone, codenamed L1 is one of them. No additional details are available though it was running Windows Mobile.
This is another codenamed phone, the C1. At best, you can expect the appearance to be similar when it is eventually released.
And finally, the slim and sleek looking F1. Acer hints at the presence of a 1GHz processor within this prototype.
ASRock's Booth
While we are more familiar with ASRock's motherboards, its booth showed that the company is involved in notebooks and even an Ion based nettop.
This is the Ion nettop that we saw, with a dual-core Intel Atom on the Ion platform along with a Sony Blu-ray drive and a 320GB hard drive. The demo by ASRock had it running a HD 1080p video in Windows 7.
The world awaits Lynnfield as motherboard vendors like ASRock all display their readiness with P55 boards like this P55 Deluxe. This 12-phase equipped model can support up to 3-way multi-GPU rigs and has dual Gigabit LAN. Not too shabby for a mainstream board.
This board may have the Extreme moniker but from what we see, it's a lower version of the Deluxe, with only a single Gigabit LAN and an 8-phase power design. It does do 3-way GPU however.
It's known as the X58 SuperComputer but what it is really, is an ASRock assembled Core i7 system with three NVIDIA Tesla C1060 parallel processor along with a Quadro FX5800 workstation card. It's powered by a 1250W PSU and running on Linux.
AVerMedia's Booth
Another company that specializes in media center and TV tuner applications and hardware is AVerMedia.
The AVerTV TwinStar looks a bit thicker than the usual USB DVB-T tuners because it has two such TV tuners embedded within. It even has a built-in DVB-T antenna, though given its side, there's no hardware decoding support so H.264 and other HD video streams or programs will tap on the PC's CPU prowess.
This small AVerTV Pilot merges DVB-T functionality with GPS with both an integrated GPS antenna and a DVB-T tuner. It's interesting though we can't see ourselves using it in this way.
Designed for the Apple Mac, the AVerTV Volar M is a DVB-T tuner stick that supports the Apple Remote. But besides that and Mac OS X drivers, we don't see how else is it specific to the Mac platform.
If the USB dongle for DVB-T is too visible for your liking, AVerMedia has a tuner card that uses the ExpressCard slot. It supports analog TV, DVB-T and FM radio.
A media center wannabe, the AVerTV MediaPort supports both analog and digital TV with resolutions of up to 1920 x 1200. You can transfer your media files via its USB, MMC, SD and MS storage options.
BIOSTAR's Booth
Biostar had both its motherboard and graphics products at its booth.
Reaching out to enthusiasts with overclocking is predictable but it's a good start nonetheless.
Biostar's TP55 XE is a fairly typical P55 motherboard, with CrossFireX capable 2x PCIe slots, 4 DDR3 memory slots and six SATA ports. The layout looks generally clean and well planned.
The TPower I55 is the other P55 board from Biostar at its booth. Highlights include both CrossFireX and SLI support, dual Gigabit LAN and up to 4 DDR3 DIMM slots.
Not forgetting the existing X58 and P45 boards from Biostar.
Compro's Booth
Compro's core business has been its media and TV products, with a dash of web security products.
A sample of the many varied models of TV and media center related products from Compro. Form factors range from standalone set top boxes to USB dongles that can receive digital TV over the air.
One of Compro's newer products is the VideoMate Vista U3600F which is a hybrid DVB-T with analog TV/FM tuner stick. It comes with a Windows Media Center remote and allows one to easily watch digital or analog TV. 1080i HDTV is supported, along with other TV tuner features like timeshift and replay live TV.
A set top box for those looking for true HD resolutions, the VideoMate W800F allows for either analog or DVB-T to be streamed to your display at up to 1920 x 1200 and 1920 x 1080, HD resolutions.
Finally, we saw this VideoMate network media centre last year but according to Compro, some improvements to its stability have been made since. This home media device can play full HD videos and even come with a Bittorrent client to help users download these files.
DFI's Booth
DFI's booth showcased both its consumer and industrial oriented motherboards but we'll only be looking at the more familiar consumer products.
The three main motherboard series in DFI's stable, the LANParty JR, UT and DK. Some of the latest chipsets in these series are on display.
Predictably, we saw a demo of DFI's upcoming P55 motherboard.
The higher end version is this P55-T3eH10, which has 10 power phases and more fancy features. One of these is this feature that allows the user to restore a board that has had its BIOS corrupted to its original state using another PC like a notebook. One just needs to attach the USB cable to a special port at the rear of the motherboard and with the proper software tools, restore the failed BIOS.
KWorld's Booth
KWorld was demonstrating its Kanvus tablet and pen solution for those who can't do without their pen. However, its core business remains its multimedia products like TV tuners and media centers.
First, we saw its external TVBox, which allows one to watch analog TV with NICAM. There's even a picture in picture feature for this device, which can output via DVI and HDMI.
A DVB-T tuner stick that comes with integrated antenna, this is the Pico TV from KWorld, paired with a rather flat and squarish remote.
Applying the finishing touches to his art using a Kanvus tablet.
These are the Kanvus 106 and 95, with the numbers representing a 10 by 6 inch working area and 9 by 5.5 inch respectively. Both tablets have a resolution of 4000 LPI and up to 1024 pressure sensitivity levels.
LUXA2's Booth
The luxury brand from Thermaltake, LUXA2's booth certainly grabs one's attention since we weren't expecting such glamorous products at a tech trade show.
Some of the quite extravagant examples of LUXA2's products, with embedded crystals to add some bling to your everyday tech products.
The LM300 OLED is a HTPC enclosure with class and style. Besides the eye-catching OLED display, this chassis is silent due to its solid aluminum design and a 1300rpm rear cooling fan.
Simple but elegant mobile phone holders.
The M1-Pro laptop cooler is designed for 13 to 17-inch MacBooks (though all notebooks of that dimension should fit) and is made of aluminum with Swarovski crystals. Heatpipes do the actual work of transferring the heat from the notebook.
Microsoft's Booth
Microsoft had a booth that showcased the products of its many partners who are using Microsoft's technology in some way or another.
Of course, the other big thing at the booth was Windows 7 naturally.
Here's a demonstration of Windows 7 and its touch interface with an All-in-one PC used
We spotted this rather interesting notebook from Sharp that had an optical sensor LCD pad. Known as the Sharp Mebius, it's the first notebook in the world to have such a feature
A closer peek at the sensor LCD pad. No bets that it will only be available first in Japan.
This tablet PC from Amtek that we saw at Microsoft's booth combines the software giant's not so successful tablet PC concept with the new touch craze. It has both a digitizer and a touchscreen and is powered by an Intel Celeron ULV processor.
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