The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 14-inch business-class ultrabook has been announced today. The new 14-inch X1 will get the Intel Ivy Bridge processor and a very thin carbon-fiber body weighing 3 pounds and measuring 0.71 inches thick. It’s more interesting than a light and thin classic 13.3″ X1, which weighing 3.7 pounds and measuring 0.84″. The new ThinkPad X1 Carbon delivers improved screen resolution of 1600×900, up from 1366×768, as well as RapidCharge for fast battery recharges. The laptop has a spill-resistant keyboard with backlight and optional 3G connectivity. There’s no word on pricing.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon business-class ultrabook scheduled for release this summer. No word about pricing yet. When it comes, Lenovo will also release the T430u, which is a lower-end system when compared to the X1 Carbon.

If you are laptop fan, you already know HP’s Ultrabook lineup – the affordable HP Envy 4 and 6. Today HP announced its premium-class addition to this line-up, called HP Envy Spectre XT.

The 13.3-inch HP Spectre XT features an metal body. With a 0.57-inch profile, the Spectre XT is thin even for the Ultrabook standards and it weighs about three pounds.
This premium laptop equipped with a 3rd Generation Intel Core processors, 128GB or 256GB of mSATA SSD storage, and a long-play battery sound as “up to eight hours”.

You also will find inside are a chiclet keyboard with backlight, a single-piece touchpad, quad speakers, Beats Audio, USB 3.0, and HDMI.

The HP Envy Spectre XT will arrive to north-american market on June 8th with $1,000 starting price.

The Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition, the Dell’s first Inspiron laptop with the 3rd Generation Intel Core proc, is now available in Singapore.

The new Inspiron 15R SE packs the i7-3612QM quad-core CPU and the AMD Radeon HD 7730M 2GB video cards as standard components, while the 1080p HD resolution instead of 1366×768 pixels, a Blu-ray Combo drive instead of DVD, and 8GB of DDR3 1,600MHz RAM instead of 6GB are optional. The laptop is offered with 1TB of storage, but an optional 32GB mSATA SSD available as add-on for better responsiveness and almost instant system resume.

Other features include Skullcandy 2x 2W stereo speakers, Waves MaxxAudio 4 technology, and Intel Wireless Display. The webcam is a 1.0MP one, and the notebook also houses Wi-Fi, Bluetotoh 4.0, Gigabit LAN, all four USB ports at 3.0 speed, HDMI 1.4a and VGA video outputs, and a 9-in-1 media card reader.

The Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition comes in an all new industrial design with Stealth Black anodized aluminum on the lid and “matching palm rest”, which probably means it’s made of plastics with the same pattern. The keyboard is with isle-style keys and it will be also offered with backlight option, which is not available at the time of this writing.

The starting price is about 1,599 SGD, which is about 1,290 USD. It’s also available on the Australian Dell website for AU$899, which is US $926.

Sony has announced a refresh for of its VAIO line of laptops. While the Z series, S series and E series will all receive CPU upgrades along with various other component updates, the C series changes are limited to updates of the cosmetic variety.

The Z series will now offer built-in LTE mobile broadband and a new Carbon Fiber Silver exterior as options. The new laptop will equipped with a Intel’s 2nd generation Core processors ranging from the Core i5 up to the Core i7 and RAID 0 solid state drives (SSDs). Prices will start at $1,949.99.

The S series get the new processors, with both the 13-inch and 15-inch models offering up to Core i7 CPUs. Hybrid Graphics comes courtesy of either an AMD Radeon HD 6470M with 512MB of VRAM, or an AMD Radeon HD 6630M with 1GM of VRAM.

Lastly, both 14- and 15-inch C series models will receive a his and hers facelift. For the ladies – or maybe guys looking to challenge traditional gender stereotypes – Sony has introduced a new Kaleidoscope Pink (to be known as Elegant Flower in some markets) that features an engraved and textured look. For those preferring the look of classic black there’s also a new Geometric Black (aka Modern Geometric) that Sony describes as “60’s retro meets the Matrix.”

Today Samsung unveiled a Series 5 Chromebook with Intel’s bugdet processor. The unknown Celeron CPU in 2nd gen Chrome OS-based mini laptop replaces the Atom N570 chip used early. Samsung said the battery life will be comparable to the original Atom-powered Chromebook and that computing performance will be significantly increased.

The new Series 5 Chromebook design gets a new matte lid finish instead of the old glossy one. Samsung Chromebook retained its old 12.1-inch screen size and 16GB of internal storage, as well as Wi-Fi and optional 3G connectivity.

It’s scheduled for release in second quarter with a price of $399 for the Wi-Fi model and $449 for the 3G version.

Asus has released the Eee PC Flare netbook design which is successor of the Seashell look. Now the Eee PC Flare models have chiclet-style keyboards and provide various color choices. Display sizes of the Flare netbooks vary between 10.1 and 12.1 inches. Although we didn’t know that the recently leaked AMD-based Asus Eee PC 1225, Intel-based 1025 and X101 were Flare, their images suggest that they belong to the new design line.

Asus’ Flare netbooks are expected to be showcased on the 2012 CES show and to hit the market soon after that.

The CTL MB40U is a new Intel Core i-based laptop which features Ubuntu Linux operating system instead of Windows.

The 14.1-inch MB40U is equipped with Ubuntu 11.10, which includes with a wide range of free applications. The laptop is configurable with Core i processors ranging from i3-2330 to Core i7-2630QM. Customers can also choose 2 – 8GB of DDR3 memory, and up to 500GB HDD or up to a 512GB SSD. There’s no info on optical drive in the specs sheet. Intel’s HD integrated GPU is the only graphics choice.

The 4.85-pound laptop has a screen resolution of 1366×768 pixels and the battery life is rated at five hours of typical usage.
CTL’s MB40U includes a 1.3MP camera with mic, stereo speakers, HDMI and VGA ports, three USB connectors, a media card reader, eSATA support, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, and optional Bluetooth.

The starting price for the CTL MB40U 14.1″ Ubuntu laptop is $449.

Great news for Samsung lovers. This Korean company has announced their first ultrabook. The 13.3-inch Series 5 ultrabook is 14.9mm thin and weighs 1.4kg. It’s powered by Intel’s Core i5 ULV processor and comes with a 128GB SSD drive or a 500GB/16GB HDD/SSD hybrid, with up to 8GB of RAM and Intel HD integrated graphics onboard.

Samsung’s ultrabook features ExpressCache technology, enabling booting from hibernation in “7 seconds” and to wake up from sleep mode in just “2 seconds”.

The Series 5 ultrabook will be available in South Korea by the end of this month. It will be priced from $1,125 to $1,298. There’s no info on pricing and availability in other countries.

Also, Samsung has relased a similar 14-inch laptop. Sammy Hub reports that it’s an ultrabook, but it doesn’t match standard ultrabook specifications. As you know, ultrabooks have a screen diagonal of up to 13.3 inches. Measuring 20.9mm, it’s slightly thicker than maximal 20mm for ultrabooks and weighs 1.8kg, breaking 1.4kg ultrabook limit.

The 14″ Series 5 will be priced from $1,167 to $1,341.

The new ViewSonic ViewPad 7e offered on Amazon has the 7-inch screen size, Android 2.3 OS, ARM A8 1GHz CPU, 3MP and 0.3MP cameras and that famous $199 price tag.

The ViewSonic 7e model includes only 4GB of internal storage 8GB and lacks a GPS receiver, HDMI output, the multitouch screen on the 7e is at 800-by-600 pixels.

The product page on the manufacturer’s site still doesn’t exist and Amazon doesn’t say is if the 7e has access to Android Market. The retailer only says the slate offers Amazon App Store for Android, so a lack of Android Market access could be an explanation for the low price.

The ViewSonic ViewPad 7e, also listed as V7e, sports Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi, a Micro SD card slot, and USB.

Below the screen, it has four physical Android buttons. The offered model has white front and back with black sides.

Full specifications of the Asus Eee PC Slider SL101 Android tablet with a physical slide-out keyboard have been published today. The Asus Eee Slider SL101 runs Android 3.1 Honeycomb OS on a 10.1-inch multi-tiouch IPS display with a resolution of 1280×800 pixels. The keyboard is QWERTY with isle style keys, but with no trackpad.

Tegra’s dual-core CPU is clocked at 1.2GHz and is accompanied by 1GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of internal Flash memory storage. The included 25Wh Li-Polymer battery in the 0.68-inch thin 2.1-pound tablet provides up to 8 hours of run time.

The SL101 weighs 2.1 pounds. It equipped with Wi-Fi card, Bluetooth 2.1, GPS, USB 2.0 and mini HDMI ports, Micro SD card reader, G-sensor. Its front camera has a 1.2-megapixel sensor, while the rear cam, actually located on the lid of the keyboard, is 5MP.