Widescreen Wallpapers

Viewsonic also announced a new series of HD PC/TV displays today called the Diamani DUO. Viewsonic says the displays are precision LCD TVs that double as Pc displays and will be available in 19-inch and 22-inch sizes.

Both display sizes will share the same 5ms response time, 2400:1 dynamic contrast ratio, and wide viewing angles. Six different inputs are offered on the displays including HDMI and VGA inputs. The 19-inch NX1932w will have a 1440 x 900 screen resolution and the 22-inch NX2232w will have a resolution of 1680 x 1050.
The 19-inch display will retail for $349 while the 22-inch will sell for $399. The expected availability date is not mentioned in the Viewsonic press release, but odds are we can expect to see them in October or November along with the other new displays Viewsonic announced today.

Source: Viewsonic

Description:
Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

This section provides information on resolved issues in this release of the ATI Catalyst™ Software Suite for Windows XP. These include:

* 3DMark05/06: A performance drop is no longer noticed when running the benchmark under Windows XP. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33497
* Lost Planet: Setting AA to either 4x or 8x no longer results in the game failing to respond. Further details can be found in topic number 737-28492
* Setting the language option to any supported language other than English no longer results in the Help file for Configure and Diagnostics failing to appear. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32605
* Setting the language option to Russian for the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in some text being cropped for the secondary display device in the display properties. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32663
* Setting the language option to German for the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in some translation errors being noticed through-out the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32664
* Setting the language option to French for the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in some translation errors being noticed through-out the Catalyst™ Control Center. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32665
* Connecting a CRT and TV and enabling either clone mode or extended desktop no longer results in Overlay Theater Mode failing on the secondary display device when attempting to change the TV format to D/PAL. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32606
* Catalyst™ Control Center->3D: AA options are no longer missing on certain system configurations. This issue may also have been experienced under the Windows Vista and XP Professional x64 Edition operating systems. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33400
* The Apply button no longer fails to become disabled when changing the display resolution on a system with extended desktop mode enabled and the secondary display device having a different color scheme. This issue may also have been experienced under the Windows Vista and XP Professional x64 Edition operating systems. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33401
* Setting the language option to French for the Catalyst™ Control Center no longer results in cropped text being noticed within the Catalyst™ Control Center. This issue may also have been experienced under the Windows Vista and XP Professional x64 Edition operating systems. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33402
* The display device no longer displays a green image when launching the Catalyst™ Control Center when PowerDVD is running. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33405
* The Windows XP operating system no longer fails to respond when switching between user profiles. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33414

Known Issues Under the Windows XP Operating System

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of Catalyst™. These include:

* Enemy Territory: Quake Wars may have corruption on the water and sky after increasing the game resolution. Restarting the game at that higher resolution or issuing reloadImages command in the game console corrects the corruption. This issue only impacts graphics cards up to the ATI Radeon™ X850. Further details can be found in topic number 737-29947
* Connecting a CRT display device as the secondary display and playing a Blu-ray DVD using a Cyberlink player may result in no video playback if extended desktop mode is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30587
* Connecting a Dual Link Panel to the on-board DVI port, followed by hot plugging a DVI display to the add-on DVI card may result in clone mode becoming disabled when rebooting the machine and the secondary display device remaining blank. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31166
* The Catalyst™ Control Center menu option may fail to function when changing the skin from system skin to any other available skin. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30570
* Setting the display resolution to 1440×900 or lower may result in corruption being noticed when playing a DVD title. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31168
* Connecting a CRT display device as the secondary display and playing a Blu-ray DVD using a Cyberlink player may result in no video playback if extended desktop mode is enabled. Further details can be found in topic number 737-30587
* The floppy drive may fail to read or write under Vista on a Dell XPS410 system. Further details can be found in topic number 737-31148
* Intermittent flashing may be noticed in the right portion of the display when playing a 720p or 1080i media file when using the Windows Media Player v10. Further details can be found in topic number 737-32666
* The ATI OpenGL driver may fail to be applied on systems containing an ATI Radeon™ 3600/3650 AGP series of product. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33467
* A warning message may fail to be displayed when reaching the maximum number of modes in the Predefined and Custom HDTV modes section of the Catalyst™ Control Center. This issue may also be experienced under the Windows Vista and XP Professional x64 Edition operating systems. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33468
* Underscan may fail when setting the display device to either 1080i 25Hz or 1080i 50Hz. Further details can be found in topic number 737-33469 Before proceeding with your driver installation we suggest you make sure you are installing the latest version available and for the appropriate model/revision and Operating System. We strongly suggest following ‘readme’ instructions for installing drivers when available. Often restarting your system will be necessary for the new driver to become active and start functioning properly.

You can check back regularly for the latest updates at TechSpot’s Drivers or stop by our frontpage for the best daily PC technology news coverage on the web.

Source: TechSpot

Today we are having a look at the ViewSonic PJ258D iPod Projector. This projector fits neatly into the ViewSonic line of iPod connectivity devices and allows you to watch your iPod movies and TV shows on a large screen.

The projector has nice specifications, but lacks HD inputs seriously limiting its usefulness to home theater buffs. If you are looking for a light projector to take on the road and don’t need HD capability, this may be the projector for you.
Review excerpt: “ViewSonic packed some very nice specs into the ViewSonic PJ258D projector. Brightness is rated at 2000 lumens making it quite bright and easy to watch in rooms with lots of light. The unit utilizes DLP technology for improved color and sharper graphics. One of the cool features of the ViewSonic PJ258D projector is that you can simply unplug it and go; you don’t have to go through a lengthy cool down process.” Read the full ViewSonic PJ258D iPod Projector Review here.

Quote from the review:

“On their website Viewsonic tells us that the VX2235WM is an “elegantly styled, fast widescreen”. The days of LCD specialization in anything that sells for under $2000 are clearly dead and no one has done a better job of embracing this than Viewsonic.
With a 5ms response time there is no doubt this these displays are fast, especially for a 22″ model that sells for under $400, but the claims of elegance are up for dispute. ”
Read the full review on XYZ Computing.

The Satellite X205 belongs to the new line of SLI gaming notebooks (Toshiba Powered). Seems to be that this year Toshiba really is trying to make sure their buyers can lay their dirty little hands in some powerful gaming piece of hardware.

While the X205-SLi5 and X205-SLi6 models are not packing the most powerful mobile chips available, they do include an ass-kicking nVidia GeForce 8600M GT combo that will be the envy of many desktops in the loop, even with while facing the more demanding new generations of 3d Mine Sweepers.

It also seems to be that they won’t be a hard pain in the pocket because they will land with price tags between $1950 and $2450, which is not enough to snap the next line of more powerful processors in any known brand anyway.

X205 Specs:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 (1.80GHz/ 800MHz Front Side Bus/ 2MB L2 cache)
• Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit
• 2GB DDR2-667 dual-channel RAM
• 1GB Intel Turbo Memory module
• 17.0” WXGA+ (1440×900) display with TruBrite technology
• Nvidia GeForce 8700M-GT graphics card with 256MB dedicated memory (511MB total with TurboCache shared memory)
• 240GB hard drive space (120GB 5400RPM x2)
• HD DVD-ROM/DVD Super Multi (+/- double layer)
• Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965 AGN (802.11a/g/n)
• Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• Built-in 1.3 megapixel webcam and microphone
• Fingerprint reader

A full review of the X205 can be found following the link.

Toshiba has added the 17.1-inch laptop, the L355D-S7819 to its existing Satellite L350 series. The Satellite L355SD-S7819 is bringing multimedia features and high-speed processing power with AMD’s advanced family of dual-core processors. Sweetest deal is, the L355SD-S7819 will sell at an affordable price, starting at $749.99.

The Toshiba Satellite L355SD-S7819 packs a 17.1-inch diagonal widescreen TruBrite display with a 1440×900 resolution, built-in Webcam, powerful ATI Radeon X1250 graphics and a DVD SuperMulti drive. In addition to these features, the L355SD-S7819 also offers an 2.0 GHz AMD Turion 64 X2 dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 200GB hard drive and built-in stereo speakers.

The Toshiba Satellite L350 laptop series should appeal to users who are looking to replace their desktop with a more portable and yet equally powerful computing machine. With a good docking station for the mouse and a USB port for connecting to other computer peripherals, the Satellite L355SD-S7819 laptop would seem to be a good buy indeed.

Dell’s Latitude E4000 comes to the field covered by Apple’s MacBook Air and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300. While both the E4200 and E4300 will offer LED-backlit, 12-inch displays, the E4200 will measure between 0.6 and 0.8 inches thick and will  weigh just 2.2 versus the 3 of its challengers. The E4200 will require either a 32GB or 64GB solid-state drive instead of a conventional hard disk. The E4300 will be a full system slightly over one inch thick but will have the option of a regular hard disk as well as a sharper, 1440×900 display (yei!) and a bay to fit either an optical drive or extended battery. Faster processors will also be optional and are likely to involve regular low-voltage Core 2 Duos versus ultra-low voltage chips for the E4200.

Both models will use the new DisplayPort standard for video output and should support DDR3 memory, the updated version of Intel’s 1GB Turbo Memory flash cache, external SATA, and an ExpressCard/34 slot. Both are due in September and launching in time with the Centrino 2 platform.

Dell’s Latitude E4000 comes to the field covered by Apple’s MacBook Air and Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300. While both the E4200 and E4300 will offer LED-backlit, 12-inch displays, the E4200 will measure between 0.6 and 0.8 inches thick and will  weigh just 2.2 versus the 3 of its challengers. The E4200 will require either a 32GB or 64GB solid-state drive instead of a conventional hard disk. The E4300 will be a full system slightly over one inch thick but will have the option of a regular hard disk as well as a sharper, 1440×900 display (yei!) and a bay to fit either an optical drive or extended battery. Faster processors will also be optional and are likely to involve regular low-voltage Core 2 Duos versus ultra-low voltage chips for the E4200.

Both models will use the new DisplayPort standard for video output and should support DDR3 memory, the updated version of Intel’s 1GB Turbo Memory flash cache, external SATA, and an ExpressCard/34 slot. Both are due in September and launching in time with the Centrino 2 platform.

The MacBook Air came to the ultralight limelight early in 2008, but some competition is arising: the X300.

It’s Lenovo’s latest try to give a fight, before the Thinkpad brand vanishes with all memories of an IBM past, and with a piece of hardware that is 231mm thin and has a 1.4kg bantamweight (1.8kg with power cord) it surely tries to stand up and kick some ass.

There is not fashionable, following IBM’s principle “black bricks for the stylistically handicapped”, on the bright side it has a nice 1440×900 screen that can display more colors than no man should ever see.

There are two versions, the X300 647818M and the X300 6478A11, the main difference being in wi-fi options and the latter sporting “Fingerprint Reader Embedded Security Subsystem 2.0″.

Other features are:

- 1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (kind of yesterday’s news)

- an Intel X3100 graphics chip

- Windows Vista Business (crap!)

-  2GB of memory,

- A solid-state 64 GB hard drive

- An ultra-thin DVD burner

- 6-cell Li-Ion battery life

- and plenty of cable and wireless connection options.

All up, it’s a great little general-purpose lightweight machine for well-heeled laptop warriors constantly on the run, but not tough enough for intensive tasks such as playing the latest games or editing high-definition video.

A nice article is here to find X300

SPECIFICATIONS:
2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 • 2GB 667MHz RAM • 100GB hard disk • DVD writer • Nvidia GeForce Go 7700 graphics • 14in 1,440 x 900 TFT • 0.3-megapixel webcam • 802.11a/b/g • 56K modem • Gigabit Ethernet • D-SUB • DVI-D • S-Video out • 5 x USB 2 • mini-FireWire • SD/MMC/Memory Stick reader • ExpressCard/54 • Windows XP Professional • 2yr worldwide RTB warranty • 340 x 245 x 40mm (WDH) • 2.5kg

A great article about this great notebook by Dave Stevenson is to be read at Asus A8Js at PCPro.co.uk.