Gadgets and Gizmos

Toshiba M100 Core Duo/Solo laptops
Toshiba is rolling out its latest laptops, the company’s first Satellite models with Intel Core Duo and Core Solo processors. The consumer-centric M100 series includes a 14.1-inch display, CD or DVD burner, hard drives running from 40GB to 120GB, maximum memory of 2GB, WiFi, integrated memory card reader, and XP Home. Pricing starts at $1,034 via Toshiba’s web store.

Intel showed off its vision of the ultramobile portable computer today, and CNET got a good look at the mini-tablet, which has a 7-inch display, runs Windows XP Tablet PC Edition and offers full internet connectivity. While the devices – which CNET referred to as “Origami-like” – are fully functional, they’re clearly prototypes: battery life is limited to a paltry 15 minutes. However, Intel execs said that early production models should have three-hour batteries and retail for under $1,000, while versions with all-day batteries and lower price tags (including that $500 sweet spot) should be available next year. According to CNET, versions of the UMPC will ship “in the next few weeks,” so if you want to get your hands on one, you may not have to wait too much longer.

Looks like Microsoft is prepared to emphasize the mobile part of the UMPC equation with one of its CeBIT presentations later this week. According to Volkswagen, the company will show off a combo GPS/media center in partnership with the German automaker. The system includes a front-seat display that stows in a console, two rear-seat touchscreens, DVD player, GPS and full PC functionality with internet access (presumably over a 3G connection, though that’s not specified). No pricing or launch date, but, hey, we’re just happy to be talking abot something that actually looks like a real product rather than a mysterious, code-named concept.

Today we’re giving away a T-Mobile MDA (aka HTC Wizard). Winning this fine instrument is easy: just tell us one of your favorite Engadget posts of the past year. It can be anything (except this post): a regular post, an interview, a how-to, a review, or whatever, just post a comment below with a link to it along with a couple of lines about why it’s your fave and we’ll pick a winner at random. Three runners-up will each win an Engadget t-shirt.

We really wish it was a US price and launch date they were announcing, but Toshiba looks locked and loaded to loose the Qosmio G30 on the UK some time in April for the princely sum of 2,300 (~$4,000 US). We know this thing packs in some sweet features (most notably, of course, its HD DVD drive, as well as a 2GHz Core Duo processor, 17-inch 1920 x 1200 display, dual 120GB RAID drives, DVB-T tuner, TV tuner, etc.), but damned is that a bank breaker for the back breaker. Guess having every single possible feature you can possibly imagine in a single laptop (no word on HDCP-output, however) comes at a cost.

We’re still trying to figure out exactly what the hell the Digital Cowboy DCT-DPM1 does, but our faithfully awful translator-bot tell us it does something to the effect of duping the mouse cursor at the click of a button, and possibly switch between the two. Hey man, any kind of gimmick will do if “labor effectiveness substantial rise you are not wrong!” you know?

There was once a time when Sharp was a cutting-edge producer of PDAs, and the company’s Zaurus was a market leader. But as the market has matured (and declined), the Zaurus line has devolved into little more than a pocket dictionary, giving it something of a second life in countries like Japan and Korea, where such products are still popular, but continuing to marginalize it as a portable computer. Still, the latest Zaurus, the SL-C3200, does have a few nice features, including a 6GB hard drive, SD slot and 3.7-inch VGA touchscreen display. But unless you need to practice for your TOEIC test, you probably won’t exactly see this as a must-have device (though we hear that it runs Linux, so there’s some hope for it).