I was in Sydney last Thursday for the Dell / Alienware Gaming Laptop Launch Party. As mentioned a couple of days ago, it was hosted at the Shangri La where we were treated to an array of tasty treats of course equally delicious beverages

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Get ready for some big news from Dell / Alienware next week. A couple of days ago I received an invite to their gaming launch party which will be hosted at the Altitude Restaurant situated on Level 36 of none other than Sydney’s Shangri La Hotel on the 29th October, 2009.

Gearing up for a great time!

I’m a fan of Alienware gear after owning one of Australia’s first Alienware Area 51 17 inch laptops way back in 2004. Also love the Dell XPS series – I’m currently typing this blog post on a Dell XPS M1330 which has served me well for the last two years. I wonder if Dell / Alienware will surprise loyal guests with a nice parting memento…hint hint wink wink.

I’ll post up some videos, photos and of course news from the event.

P.S. This event is via invite only.

I love getting new gadgets. Yesterday I received the tiny PicoTech USB Data Projector for review, to decide if we will be selling them on our own website or not. After an hour or so of fiddling around with it, I can confidently say that I am impressed with this little projector mostly because its minute size and the fact that it doesn’t require any powerpoint or batteries – simply hook it up to 2 x USB ports and you’ll be able to share your desktop for presentations etc.

Hoping to finalise a video review by tonight.

Thinking of even doing a giveaway… Stay tuned.

The Eee PC T91 is ASUS’ first full touchscreen tablet netbook and it is finally making its own way onto the United States retail market. Touchscreen tablets have been, in many ways, an oft-repeated mix of excitement and disappointment – great ideas coupled with mediocre hardware, or nice-looking hardware coupled with bad implementation of the touchscreen. Has ASUS managed to sidestep these issues with its own tablet PC?

• Hardware and Specifications

The Eee PC T91 is an 8.9-incher, which means you’ll have a small keyboard even by many netbook standards. Surprisingly, it is easy to type on this one. It got a nice clickiness, and while it is certainly compact, it does not feel cramped, and we really didn’t experience more mistyping than average – which was, to be honest, a pleasant surprise. The trackpad is responsive and on par with other netbook pads. The backlit LED resistive touch panel is quite bright and nice looking. The netbook boasts a VGA, two USB, and two audio ports, and it’s got a power button right on the left bottom edge of the screen. Directly to the right of the power button is another button on the bezel, which is one of the ways to activate the touch interface. The T91 also has an expandable stylus housed under the right bottom side of the chasis.

Spec-wise, the Eee PC T91 has a 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520 CPU, and if you’re accustomed to a more standard netbook configuration with an N270 or N280, you’ll definitely feel the difference. It also has 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA500 graphics, a 16GB SSD and a lithium polymer battery rated for about 5 hours of power. It also got 802.11 B/G/N Wi-Fi, 10/100Mbps Ethernet, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

• Software and Performance

The T91 has an easy, 9-point calibration process to get the touchscreen properly responsive. ASUS has also loaded the T91 with some custom-built software – namely the Touch Gate interface. From the regular XP desktop, you can activate the touchscreen interface three ways – via the icon on the desktop, the slider icon at the top of the desktop, or that physical button to the right of the power toggle. Hitting any of those brings up the Touch Gate main interface – which is essentially a very simple row of icons that can be rearranged in any order – with up to five icons in the mail row, and others behind it. For now, there is a limited amount of icons on the list – preferences, and four custom-built apps – Fotofun, Memos, Notepad, and Internet Explorer with Touch Capability. We should say that we find the interface to be really clean and pleasing to look at, and the applications are pretty elegantly designed.

• Wrap Up

Overall, the software included with the T91 is really nicely designed, and operates pretty much as advertised. There are limitations to the CPU and the resistive touchscreen – we had to move a bit slower than we liked or our touches did not always get recognized – but the touch interface also functions better than we expected. Overall, the Eee PC T91 is a product we had a hard time justifying the purchase of — because the custom apps aren’t that useful, but they are kind of fun, and we hope future iterations will improve upon the things we really like about it. The T91 is not super cheap, either, but if you really want a tablet, it’s worth checking out – especially if, like us, you also feel the need for a keyboard.

Read the complete review via Engadget

The revolutionary design of the Microsoft Arc Mouse combines the comfort of a desktop mouse and the portability of a notebook mouse. It will take you a few minutes to realize what Microsoft Arc Mouse is all about. The collapsible design at first suggested that it’s both a full-size mouse and a notebook mouse in one product. You might be confused as to who would want such a thing. Upon playing with it, you will realize that there’s actually some smarter design going on here. The unique shape and button layout does present some usability issues, but overall, the Arc Mouse may be the best solution for those looking for a full-size, travel-friendly mouse.

The benefit of the Arc Mouse is not that it works as a “notebook mouse” when you fold it in half. Indeed, the power to the mouse cuts out when it’s folded, so it won’t work in that mode at all. Instead, folding the Arc Mouse makes it more generally travel-friendly. First, it reduces the size of the device, cutting its length by more than a third. But there’s also a small, magnetic cradle on the underside of the tail portion that folds in, to hold the mouse’s thumbnail-size USB receiver. When the mouse is collapsed, the tail portion secures the receiver, ensuring that you’ll have all of the necessary pieces together when you take the mouse out of your bag.

The core “mousing” functionality works as you’d expect it to. I personally like the fact that setting up the Arc Mouse is so simple. After you insert the three, Microsoft-provided AAA batteries, you plug in the USB receiver, wait for Windows to recognize the mouse, and reboot. Mac setup is even easier, as Mac OS X found the mouse as soon as we plugged the receiver in. For its intended purpose as a travel-friendly input device, the Arc Mouse does exactly what it’s supposed to.

Product Features of the Microsoft Arc Mouse:

• Mouse folds to 60% of its fully expanded size
• Micro-transceiver snaps into the bottom of the mouse
• Folding motion turns mouse on/off
• Laser tracking for precision
• 2.4 GHz wireless with up to 30-foot range

Technical Details of the Microsoft Arc Mouse:

• Brand Name: Microsoft
• Model: ZJA-00001
• Hardware Platform: PC, Mac
• input_device: Mouse
• form_factor: External
• Connectivity Technology: Wireless
• Movement Detection: Laser
• Color Name: Black
• Warranty: 3 years warranty

Check out the Microsoft Arc Mouse and other cool gadgets offered on our specials page.

Get great deals and discounts in offers that can only be found here on mrgadget.com.au.

Due to popular demand, we are now stocking Sony laptop batteries. Each of the batteries comes with a one year return-to-base warranty and are high-quality batteries.

We’ll slowly be introducing more and more brands but here is the list of Sony laptop batteries that we are currently holding in our warehouse -

Mr.Gadget Sony Laptop Battery List:

• Sony VGP-BPS9 Laptop Battery
• Sony VGP-BPS8 Laptop Battery
• Sony VGP-BPS13 Laptop Battery

If you have a particular laptop battery that doesn’t appear in our catalog, please let us know.

Sony Laptop Battery

If the new MSI X320 looks thin, it’s because it is.

MSI’s version of the Apple MacBook Air is already hitting stores in Europe for around 749 Euros. Despite its positive first impressions I wonder if it will have heating issues like notebooks of this size?

Features of the MSI X320 Ultralight Laptop:

- 13.4″ WXGA TFT Glare Display, resolution 1366×768
- 2048 MB DDR2-RAM on-board
- 320 GB Harddrive 5400rpm
- Intel Atom Z530 1.6GHz Processor
- Intel GMA 500 Graphics
- 10/100 Ethernet
- WLAN Draft-n & Bluetooth integrated
- 3x USB 2.0 ports
- 2-in-1 Cardreader
- 1.3 MP Webcam
- VGA Display
- 1x Line-out, 1x microphone-in
- Windows Vista Home Premium

Via Engadget

MSI have considered the advantages of both hard-disk drives and SSD and decided to use both for its new ultra portable, the MSI U115 Hybrid Netbook.

For those who don’t know, SSD is fast but expensive. Whereas hard-disk drives give you more bang for buck data storage wise but is a tad slower. The new MSI U115 let’s you have the best of both world’s and comes complete with ECO mode which turns off the hard-disk drive when it’s not in use to make the most of battery life. The result, according to MSI, is a netbook with exemplary battery life.

Features of the MSI U115 Hybrid Netbook:

• a 10-inch screen with a resolution of 1,024×600 pixels
• 1.6GHz Z530 Intel Atom processor
• Windows XP Home
• 1GB DDR2 522MHz RAM
• Bluetooth
• three USB 2.0 ports
• 1.3-megapixel or 2.0-megapixel webcam
• three- or six-cell battery
• 802.11b/g/n or 802.11b/g Wi-Fi
• 120GB HD with an 8GB SSD or a 160GB HD with a 16GB SSD

Via CrunchGear

It’s December and once again, after the rush of the Holiday season subsides, it’s time to look forward to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for us gadget fans. Among the positively numerous new unveiled devices and upgraded old ones are the new variants of the MSI Wind netbook.

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Yes, Fujitsu Siemens is promising that if you buy a new LifeBook laptop, you could get one for free every three years for as long as you live. The initiative called Laptop4Life calls for the purchase of a Lifebook and its registration for the scheme within 21 days.

Yes, you do get your laptop for free –mostly, a least, because you do have to satisfy a few conditions to become eligible. First of all, you need to buy a three-year extended warranty for your laptop and replace its parts if needed only with Fujitsu branded products. After three years when it’s time to replace it, you would need to turn it in “good condition” with the original receipt. I’m hoping that “good” condition meant “working condition” and not something impossible like keeping your laptop scratch or dent-free. And now we come to the caveat: this program, for now, remains a UK exclusive. Whether Fujitsu Siemens is launching this elsewhere is yet to be known.

via PhysOrg