Words have it that Acer is planning to launch a new ultra-thin notebook that will feature a frameless design.
Would it be thinner than this?
The new ultra-thin laptop from Acer will come with a touch keyboardand use the back of the panel’s glass substrate as the cover. According to sources from notebook players, Acer is expected to adopt Corning’s reinforced glass substrate and simply print color on its back to allow the substrate to function like a notebook cover for a frameless design.
The design will help reduce the thickness of the ultra-thin notebookand can also reduce material costs. Acer will also adopt a touch keyboardto allow the notebookto be even thinner, the sources noted.
Acer is expected to release the new ultra-thin laptop with the frameless design and touch keyboard in the second half of 2010.
Turn off extraneous hardware.
Every component on the laptop requires power, even when it is not being used. Most things on today’s systems don’t use a lot of power, but in critical situations where maximum runtime is vital it may be worthwhile to turn unused components off. These include Ethernet ports, fingerprint readers, optical drives, modems and various ports. Many laptops have utilities pre-installed to help turn these off, but even if yours doesn’t it can be done in the Device Manager. On Windows 7 laptops, this can be accessed by right-clicking on the Computer icon and then selecting the Device Manager link. Select the port or device you want to turn off and on the Driver tab click the Disable button. Don’t forget to turn it back on before needing it again.
Dim the screen and keyboard.
It may be obvious that the laptop screen is a power-sucking component, but I often see travelers using laptops with the screen at full brightness. Nothing will drain the battery faster than a fully lit display. Turn the screen brightness all the way down, and then gradually bump it up until it is just barely viewable. This will extend your battery life tremendously, in some cases, for hours. If your laptop has a backlit keyboard, turn that off entirely. It’s not a big battery drain but all of the little things together add up to mean less time at the keyboard.
Kill the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
If you don’t need to get connected to a hotspot, kill the Wi-Fi. Many laptops have switches to do so easily, but for those that don’t there is usually a utility to turn the radios off. Even if you need the Wi-Fi you should definitely turn the Bluetooth off. This uses a radio and that means it needs power to function. You shouldn’t need Bluetooth at all while mobile. If you use a Bluetooth mouse, consider leaving it turned off so you can kill the radio. It may keep you running for a few more minutes before the laptop dies.
Put movies on a USB flash drive.
If you normally watch DVDs on trips, consider ripping them to a USB flash drive. Spinning optical drives drain the battery rapidly, where USB drives take tiny sips. This can make a big difference when watching a movie on the plane. The same can be said for any content that is usually accessed through the optical drive. There are many utilities on the web that can get content from optical drives to a USB flash drive.
Background/ unneeded programs.
This one is only for those who must squeeze as much runtime out of the laptop battery as possible. Every system has a lot of programs running in the background, and these programs hit the CPU for processing power. This results in a power hit, and while it is very small everything has an impact. If it’s vital to get maximum runtime, turn off any background apps that are not actively needed for the work session. If there are programs you have installed that run in the background, such as desktop widgets, turn them off manually for the session. You should be able to do this safely for anything on a temporary basis, and save power by doing so.
These methods will go a long way to extending the amount of time that can be spent working on battery power. Hours of runtime can be added by aggressive power management obtained by these 5 steps. Some laptops, ThinkPads in particular, have a Battery Stretch setting which should also be used.
This monitors the system aggressively when running on the battery, and when the battery starts getting low the system starts shutting down components to “stretch” more runtime. This utility is user configurable and should certainly be used for those extended times away from an outlet. I also advocate getting a second battery for laptops, especially those who travel a lot. The cost can be significant, with some laptop batteries costing up to RM600.00, but it is an instant doubling of run time.
Part 1 of the Hardware section of my personal review of the Samsung NC10 netbook. I’ve had the unit for about a week and a half now and I’m very impressed with it so far, for reasons I describe in the video. I’ve tried to go into as much detail as possible, I noticed some other reviews skimmed over a few things which I considered to be important. Apologies if I ramble on a bit for that reason The software video will be up soon, as soon as I find time to film it haha Link to part 2: www …
Kinda like a little description of my laptop, also I am trying to see what kind of quality videos I can get out of my cell phone camera……TruckerSteve Please HELP!!! I need a HD Camera! I promise to make great videos with it!!
COMMENTS ARE WELCOME!! SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE OF MY GEEKY VIDEOS LOL YOU KNOW YOU WANNA
Specs of this PC:
2GHz AMD Athlon Dual Core QL-62 CPU 1MB L2 Cache (Both Cores) 512KB per core 2GB DDR2 667MHz System Memory 2x 1GB
256MB nVidia 8200M Graphics
250GB Toshiba (Yes Toshiba lol) 5400RPM Hard Drive
CD/DVD-RW Drive
1366 x 768 max screen resolution
IBM enhanced (101-or 102key) keyboard
Integrated Touchpad (obviously)
Windows Vista Home Premium w/ Service Pack 1 Build 6.0
Another thing you might wanna know is I did not receive any kind of recovery CDs or Windows install disc with this, to recover your PC you press F12 I believe in the BIOS screen and it recovers from a partition already on the hard drive.
Any other info anyone would be wanting to know post a comment and I’ll try my best to answer you!
KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) switches are supposed to make it easier to manage multiple systems from a single workstation. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could pack that same convienence into a laptop? Making it possible to manage severs, desktop and the like without ever having to pack a keyboard/mouse andmonitor?
On this episode of ‘gadget’ we take a look at the ATEN CS661 Laptop USB KVM Switch. This little device lets you use your computer to manage another simply by linking them together via a USB cable.
You can find more episodes in high resolution at http://www.TheTechStop.net
The software 
