News Bits: Sony Notebooks, Windows Roadmap, Developers Still Making Software for XP

By Charles P. Jefferies, NotebookReview Staff | | 17618 Reads

Sony Montevina FW, Z, SR, BZ on the way

According to a post in our forums, Sony is planning to introduce several new notebook series based on the upcoming Intel "Montevina" Centrino 2 platform later this summer.

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The SR series will feature a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics card with 128MB of dedicated VRAM. Prices range from $1250 - $1550.
The BZ series is a 15.4-inch business-class notebook, with prices ranging from $986 - $1271.

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The FW series features a new 16.4-inch screen size and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics card with 128MB of VRAM. Price range is $1043 - $1710.

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The Z series features a 13.1-inch LED-backlit display (most likely 1366x768) with an Nvidia GPU and HDMI out. Prices range from $1777 - $2277.
The TZ, CR, and AR series will come later in the fall and winter.

Special thanks to forum member PhilFlow for posting this information.

Learn how to cool down your notebook

Several of our forum members, including X2P, Johnny T, Gophn, and Flipfire have put together a "Cooling Central" section of our forums, dedicated to educating notebook users how to cool down their hot notebooks. The guide is sorted into beginner, intermediate, and expert sections.

NBR Cooling Central

Microsoft issues letter to Windows customers, talks about roadmap

Microsoft has issued a letter to its Windows customers that details the fate of XP, Vista improvements, and some details about Windows 7.

June 30, 2008 will be the last day for Windows XP sales - it will no longer be licensed to major PC makers and sold at retail. Microsoft will provide extended support for XP until April of 2014. Microsoft is not cutting off the availability of Windows XP entirely, however.

Businesses will be able to purchase Vista Business or Ultimate and have "downgrading" rights to use Windows XP. Downgrade rights are available to all businesses that license Windows. Windows XP Home and Starter Edition will still be available on low-cost "netbooks" and "nettops".

Microsoft says they have made significant progress with Windows Vista since its release, harping on increased security and a better overall user experience. They say Windows Vista is a great step forward.

Windows 7, the successor of Windows Vista, is slated for release three years after the general availability of Windows Vista, meaning sometime in January 2010. Windows 7 will be built off of the same core architecture of Windows Vista to ensure a straightforward migration process.

Read the Letter (Microsoft.com)

Only 8 percent of developers making software for Vista

According to a report from Evans Data Corporation, only eight percent of developers are developing software for Vista. Almost half (49%) are developing software for XP, and even Linux development surpasses Vista's at 13%.

Vista continues to fail to make headway in business environments; most are sticking with Windows XP.

Although the numbers say otherwise, Vista's situation is not as bad as that it seems. Most software written for XP will run on Vista; the two operating systems are generally compatible with each other. Hardware support for Vista has greatly improved since its release over a year ago, and now almost all hardware released over the past several years should work with it.

Full Story (ArsTechnica.com)

More than 1 billion PCs in use

According to research firm Gartner, the number of computers in use in the world is more than one billion. The firm predicts that number will double by 2014. More than 180 million computers will be replaced this year alone, 35 million of which are to be dumped in landfills.

Full Story (Reuters.com)
Via (Engadget.com)

HP Pavilion dv5z "Puma" notebooks now available

The new HP Pavilion dv5z notebooks based on the new AMD "Puma" platform are now available for purchase.