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Black Friday, the day when consumers can generally expect to find some good deals, is thankfully just about upon us.  With a few weeks before Thanksgiving here in the US, it seems now is about the right time for the deals to begin making their way into the public eye.  Sadly, although Dell has plenty of deals listed for Black Friday, it seems that some are not as exciting as one would hope for. 

To begin with, Dell is planning to offer the Inspiron Mini 9 for $299, which offers a $50 savings from the regular $349.  The specs for that model include a 1.6GHz Atom processor, a 4GB SSD, 512MB RAM an 8.9-inch display and running Ubuntu 8.04.

Other notebooks that are on sale (and some that will offer a much greater savings) will be the Inspiron 13 for $699 (a $329 savings), the Studio 15 for $699 (a $245 savings), the Studio 17 for $799 (a $349 savings), the XPS M1330 for $1,029 (a $319 savings) and the XPS M1530 also for $1,029 (a $319 savings).  More deals after the break.

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Intel and Asus have just launched a site yesterday that allows everybody and anybody to help them to design a PC.  WebPC is looking for collaborators to work together to help the two companies bring about a “community designed” PC.  Their ultimate goal is to be able to actually market this community designed PC, as it would be the first like it in the world.  With the motto of “You Dream it.  ASUS Builds it.  Intel inside it.“ on the front page, it’s easy to see how you can get lured in to being a part of the vision. Continued after the break.

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PC Magazine is reporting that Dell plans to change its laptop displays to mercury-free and energy saving LED backlighting.  Two thirds of their Latitude E-series will ship with the new displays by December 15th, and they plan to have 80% of their laptops include the new LED backlights. The transition is expected to be completed by 2010.

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We already know so many details about the Asus N10 since its specs sheet was leaked not so long ago. A product listing at the J&R online store even appeared after the leaked specs sheet. But no official announcement has came out from Asus, until now. Asus Taiwan has officially announced not just the N10 notebook, but a family of N-Series notebooks comprising of the N10, N20, N80 and N50 models.

Featuring the “highly-efficient Super Hybrid Engine,“ these notebooks are supposed to be able to preserve battery life up to 35%.  That 35% is “subject to system configuration.“ All four new notebooks come with the Express Gate operating system that starts up in 8 seconds to do common tasks such as Internet browsing and listening to music without booting into the full operating system.  Asus has also put in a facial recognition system which eliminates the need to login using a keyboard.

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Toshiba unveiled not just one but seven new notebooks which all belong to its SS RX2 notebook series. These are models T9GG, T9G, T8GG, T8G. T7GG, T7G, and S7G. All seven notebooks are packed with a 12.1-inch LCD screen with a 1,280 x 800 WXGA resolution, 1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 processor, Intel GS45 Express Chipset, 2GB of RAM which can be expanded up to 3G, Wi-Fi, a fingerprint sensor, SD/SDHC card slot, three USB ports, one e-SATA port and a DVD SuperMulti Drive.

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Our buddy Xavier over at Notebooks.com currently has a excellent contest running, they are giving away a chance to win either a Voodoo Envy 133 worth $2,199 or one of three IdeaPad S10s.

“We will randomly select one grand prize (Envy S10) winner and three (Ideapad S10) winners from the pool of respondents who have completed the survey, including all open-ended questions by September 3rd. Winners will be notified of their prizes by email by Sept. 16.“

Sounds like some great prizes, you do have to fill out a survey in order to qualify, but with notebooks like those I think it sounds like it could be well worth your time. So what are you waiting for, head on over to Notebooks.com and try your luck.

Read [Notebooks.com]

• You can help Intel, Asus design a PC online
• Dell’s Black Friday 2008 ads leaked
• Guitar Hero World Tou.. Ooh, fried chicken!

Here’s another announcement of new PC’s loaded with Intel’s Centrino 2 processor, this time its from Fujitsu with their new LifeBook tablet PC’s, the LifeBook T5010 and LifeBook T1010. Both models have 13.3-inch widescreen displays and are said to be the lightest convertibles in the market sporting the that size display. The LifeBook T5010 weighs only 4.5 pounds while the LifeBook T1010 weighs 5.3-pounds.

Both of these Tablet PCs have a bi-directional display hinge that would let you turn the screen in both directions for added flexibility. In addition, these notebooks feature the next-generation Intel wireless draft-N or Atheros N which are touted as three times faster than the usual 802.11n-based wireless connectivity. Both notebooks also come with an option to have a Bluetooth v2.1 and optional wireless WAN for additional wireless connectivity features.The T5010 and T1010 both come with spill-resistant keyboards and are equipped with the Fujitsu Shock Sensor for protecting their hard drives from damage due to sudden jolt or drop.

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Gamertell’s Pulkit Chandna is reporting that Alienware has again pushed the envelope, producing one of the most powerful notebooks known to us Homo sapiens. The Area 51 m17x notebook is Alienware’s newest addition to its lineup and it surely will make its owner the subject of very pleasant geeky envy.

At its heart is an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor with a 4 MB L2 cache. Combine this with the 800 MHz front side bus and 4GB ofDDR2 RAM and one can already sense a winner.

Read [Gamertell]

• Asus unveils the brushed-metal Eee PC 1002HA
• Dell quietly adds artwork options to the Mini 9, Mini 12 lineup, also adds pink, red
• HP introduces the TouchSmart TX2 laptop

Asus has quietly introduced the U6Ep notebook in the Chinese market. From its technical specifications, you could immediately see that the U6Ep might score big again for Asus similar to what they achieved when the Eee PC was released.

The Asus U6Ep features a 12.1-inch widescreen display, biometric fingerprint for enhanced personal security, Intel 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor, Intel GM865 Express Chipset, 667MHz RAM and Intel X3100 graphics. In addition, the Asus U6Ep also boasts of a 160GB hard drive with additional 256MB flash drive, Bluetooth and wireless connectivity.

The Asus China site did not yet mention anything about pricing or a release date, but it will certainly be released along the lines of Asus other low-cost notebooks.

Via [Mobile Whack] Product [Asus]

• Asus unveils the brushed-metal Eee PC 1002HA
• Asus gets official with the Eee Top all-in-one PC
• Asus rumored to launch Eee Top all-in-one PC tomorrow, beginning at $499

Dell announced two new models for its Vostro line-up, the 13.3-inch Vostro 1310 and 15.4-inch Vostro 1510. Both the Vostro 1310 and 1510 will have a thinner and lighter slot load optical drive than their earlier versions. The notebooks will have no trialware installed and will come with 10GB of free Dell DataSafe Online Backup and a free year of Dell’s PC Tune up service. Customers will be given the option to have either Windows XP or Vista installed. For their technical goodies, both 1310 and 1510 come with Intel Core 2 Duo processors, up to 4GB memory, finger print readers and other standard Vostro notebook goodies.

Both the 1310 and 1510 are now available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa with retail prices of $749 and $599 respectively. A US release is set for May 1, while Asia Pacific and Japan will see the release on May 5. In addition to these two models, Dell also has a redesign for the 17-inch Vostro 1710 that is expected to be available in May.

Via [I4U] Product [Dell]

• Dell Inspiron Mini 12 now available in the US, priced from $549
• Dell quietly adds artwork options to the Mini 9, Mini 12 lineup, also adds pink, red
• Dell rolls out 32GB SSD equipped pink, red Inspiron Mini 9’s in Japan