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If you’re in the market for a new laptop / netbook, you might want to add Acer’s just-released Aspire 3935-6504 to the list of potentials. The early reviews are in, and it looks like Acer’s got an aggressively-priced winner on its hands. Laptop Magazine calls it “one heck of a bargain,” noting particularly its sleek and sturdy design, backup and power saver buttons, full-sized keyboard, and the appealing $900 price tag. PC Magazine went so far as to give it the Editor’s Choice award for budget laptops, lauding also its eco-friendly credentials and impressive battery life (4 hours and 50 minutes, by its metric). Both sites bemoaned, however, the lack of HDMI and eSATA ports and its inability to run games as well as competitors like the Dell Studio XPS 13 or HP Pavilion dv3z. Providing a less enthusiastic tone is Computer Shopper, who seems to take more of an issue with its gaming deficiencies than the other two reviewers. Still, the site recommends it for those consider style, portability, and price tag the main selling points. Check out the read links below for more thorough dissection.

Read – Laptop Magazine
Read – PC Magazine
Read – Computer Shopper

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It’s pretty remarkable the speed at which new DSLRs are emerging these days, so it’s ever more important that you really know what’s what when selecting your first (or next) shooter. Sites around the web have already begun to scrutinize the newest cam from Nikon, the mid-range D5000. DPReview has an outstanding chart that breaks down the features, similarities and differences between this one, the D90 and the D60. It seems the biggest differentiators between the D5000 and the pricier D90 is the complete lack of an in-body focus motor and the pentamirror viewfinder (versus pentaprism on the D90). Oh, and while that 2.7-inch articulating display is nice, it can’t hold a candle to the D90 in terms of resolution. For folks hoping and praying for autofocus in movies, keep on kissing the ground; early reports suggest that the 720p footage looks eerily similar to that put out by the D90 — no shock there. Needless to say, there are far too many nuances to cover here, so dig in below if the D5000 hopped on your short list earlier this morning.

Read – Imaging Resource preview
Read – LetsGoDigital preview
Read – DPReview preview
Read – DPReview sample images

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We figure the design just to the left of the touchpad is more than enough to convince you to impulse-buy the $750 HP Pavilion dv2, but just in case you hesitated, the reviews are in and it’s not all sunshine for the AMD Neo-powered non-netbook. Laptop Magazine notes it handles HD video pretty well, but it suffers from a cramped keyboard, above average heat, and a less than stellar battery life. Instead, they suggest a Samsung NC20 as a ligher, cheaper alternative. CNET said it got beat performance-wise by Intel Core 2 Duo laptops of comparable price range, and although it bested Atom in most tests, the two processors tied when multitasking. As for PC World, like Laptop, they did give kudos for better graphics performance, but added the caveat that the NC20 and upcoming MSI X-Slim X320 would give it a run for its money. For all the nitty-gritty details, browse through the reviews below.

Read – Laptop Magazine
Read – PC Magazine
Read – CNET

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Unless you’ve started your weekend early, you have probably realized that both NVIDIA and AMD announced new GPUs this morning. Coincidental timing aside, it sure makes things easy for the consumer to eye the respective benchmarks and plan out their next mid-range GPU purchase accordingly. A whole bevy of reviews, tests, graphs and bar charts have hit the web this morning extolling and panning the pros and cons, but without getting too deep in the nitty-gritty, we can sum things up pretty easily with this. NVIDIA’s GTX 275 showed performance that placed it perfectly between the GTX 285 and GTX 260, and in all but a few off-the-wall tests, it outpaced the ATI Radeon HD 4890 (albeit slightly). Granted, the HD 4890 was called the “fastest, single-GPU powered graphics card AMD has ever produced” by HotHardware, though apparently even that wasn’t enough to help it snag the gold across the board. If you’re hungry for more (and you are, trust us), take the rest of the day off and dig in below.

Read – HotHardware GeForce GTX 275 review
Read – HotHardware Radeon HD 4890 review
Read – ExtremeTech GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890 review
Read – DailyTech GeForce GTX 275 and Radeon HD 4890 review
Read – X-bit Labs ATI Radeon HD 4890 review
Read – ComputerShopper ATI Radeon HD 4890 review
Read – Guru 3D GeForce GTX 275 review
Read – Guru 3D ATI Radeon HD 4890 review
Read – PCPerspective ATI Radeon HD 4890 review

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Not that we haven’t seen nerdy wedding bands before, but for those who aren’t really enamored with networking, we’ve stumbled upon another option that’s just too awesome to pass up. Granted, the sound wave bands have been around a finger or two, but really, how awesome is a wedding ring with an EQ interpretation of “I Do” engraved in it? We’ll tell you — really awesome. Moving on, we’ve got the 1981 Atari ring, a solid piece of kit sporting an original Atari chip splashed with gold or silver. Lastly, we’ve got Cufflinks.com’s latest, a set of Guitar Hero links that will undoubtedly make the faux rocker in your life grin from ear to ear. Dig in below for more details, but don’t expect to purchase any of ‘em but the last, and at $50 per pair, you should probably think twice.

Read – Guitar Hero cufflinks
Read – Atari ring and EQ wedding bands
Gallery: Nerd jewelry roundup: Guitar Hero cufflinks, gilded Atari ring and EQ wedding bands

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ASUS went for a repeat of last year’s CeBIT extravagance and threw all manner of product at us this morning. We’ve gotten to play with most of it, and while we’re sure a few more items will trickle past in the next day or two, you can check out the gist of it right here, right now.
The best:

	ASUS debuts the Eee PC 1008HA “Shell” 10-inch ultraportable ASUS has taken the wraps off its latest Eee PC, the 1008HA we heard was on the way to follow up on the S101.		Hands-on with ASUS’ Eee Keyboard Remember that Eee Keyboard that was announced during CES? ASUS did itself proud by bringing a few to CeBIT this year, and we were able to swing by and take a look.
	Hands-off with ASUS’ Dual Panel Touchscreen PC at CeBIT Live from the CeBIT floor, we present to you ASUS’ Dual Panel touchscreen PC.		Hands-on with ASUS’ galleria of Eee PCs at CeBIT ASUS broke out a stable of Eee PCs here in Germany, and we were on hand to have a look at all of the freshest ones.

The rest:

ASUS shows off Eee Stick at CeBIT
Hands-off with ASUS Marine Cool concept motherboard
Hands-on: ASUS’ Lamborghini VX5 laptop

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Our rocky history with the MacBook Air Rev. A has been well documented, and while Apple would very much like us to forget all about it and plop down another $1,800 for the much-improved Rev. B, not everybody has that sort of birthday money to throw around. Reports of cracked hinges on the laptop are nothing new, but we always assumed Apple would eventually ‘fess up to the problem and comp those repairs. Sadly, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and we just got another report of a hapless MacBook Air owner who has a broken hinge that Apple says will cost $800 to repair, despite the fact the laptop is under warranty. Our own MacBook Air Rev. A had the exact same problem — the hinge becomes loose over time, then suddenly catches and cracks from normal use, it’s not from undue stress — and Apple did the repair for free, but only after we escalated the issue to a manager, who let us know how very nice of them that was. From reading various reports, that seems the exception to Apple’s repair policy, which lists this sort of damage as “accidental,” and we’re wondering how widespread this issue may be. If you or a loved one has been affected, hit up the poll below and pour out your heart in comments. If you’re unscathed or MBA-free, feel free to show very little compassion to your fellow man. Wiggle hinge and broken hinge video is after the break.

[Thanks, Alex, and sorry for your loss! Photo courtesy of LanDung2008]

Read – Apple Discussions forum thread
Read – MacRumors forum thread
Read – Crashzone’s link roundup

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We like to spread good vibes around here, so believe us, we’re getting pretty tired of this global economic collapse. However, there’s more bad news to dole out. Kodak’s reported a 24 percent sales drop and announced it’s cutting up to 4,500 workers this year, while Toshiba posted its first loss in seven years, and announced cuts that would bring their expenditures down 80 percent from the current year. Finally, although this was previously predicted, Sony’s announced that its profits were down a staggering 95 percent last quarter — its first-ever third quarter loss posting. The Federation is not going to be pleased.

Read – Kodak posts loss, to cut up to 4,500 jobs
Read – Toshiba reports Q3 loss
Read – Sony’s quarterly net profits tumble 95 percent

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Now that the proverbial cat is out of the bag on Western Digital’s 2TB Caviar Green HDD, hardware fanatics have had a chance to take the 3.5-inch drive for a spin. While its performance leaves something to be desired — transferring files took longer than the 1TB Caviar Black or 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda — instead we’ve got low heat and noise. Of course, the biggest boon is a ginormous storage capacity for just three Benjamins, the same price as some 128GB SSDs. Solid state be damned, rotating disks aren’t going away anytime soon.

Read – Register Hardware
Read – Trusted Reviews
Read – Extreme Tech

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We’re getting rather tired of having to “roundup” the misery, loss of profits, and layoffs in this modern era of plenty and luxury, but there’s seemingly no end in sight, so here we go. Texas Instruments announced plans to cut 12 percent of its workforce (apparently as a safety measure as its profits last quarter actually topped analysts’ estimates). Meanwhile, Panasonic’s announced some modest cuts of roughly 600 workers, in addition to closing some of its plants in Asia as it posted a net loss for the first time in six years. Moving on, Hewlett-Packard’s laying off nearly 25,000 people in a “restructuring” scheme, while those IBM losses we’ve been hearing about (and which have been rumored to number nearly 16,000) are now quietly happening in several locales across the U.S. Finally, big boxer Best Buy’s just confirmed impending cuts at their headquarters in Minneapolis, but won’t release any hard numbers until February. Seriously, world: the future is disgusted with us.

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Read – Panasonic to cut 560 jobs, close plants
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