Notebook News and How To’s from Notebooks.com

ASUS launched a few new gaming notebooks including naked eye 3D in their Republic of Gamers line. HP added Sandy Bridge to the Envy 17 3D which is on sale now.

We looked at our first AMD Fusion powered budget notebook from Gateway and so far are pretty impressed with what the Fusion E 350 processor can do. You can see our hands on with the Gateway NV51B05u for more details.

We also looked at five reasons we are still excited about notebooks, including the keyboard, access to the full web, necessity in the workforce and more.

Bing launched a new tool that understands natural language and makes it easier to search for notebooks in your price range.

We spoke to Phil Libin from Evernote and he let us know That future versions for iOS and Android will support some from of inking with drawing or sketching, but the experience will depend on the hardware.  Phil also told us that Evenrote will be getting smarter, with the possibility of recommendations and dynamic information coming to our memories.

We put Onlive to the test and played Just Cause 2 and Dirt 2 on the MacBook Air, it is loads of fun, but you need a fast Internet connection.

Rounding out the week Kevin rooted his Nook Color and looked at the Quirky PowerCurl, a cord wrapper for your Macbook. We dunked our iPad underwater with the DryCase waterproof iPad case, showed you how to sign PDFs on the iPad and how you can use the iPad to teach, all with video.

Tablet News and Opinions from Gottabemobile.com

We covered the iPad 2 launch, which showed us a new thinner, lighter iPad with 2X the performance and 9X the graphical power. Apple also launched the Apple Smart Cover which may have been inspired by the incase Convertible Magazine jacket for the original iPad, a Japanese bathtub cover or the pickup truck bed covers that are found all over the midwest

Chuong was at the event and was able to go hands on with the iPad 2 and the Smart Cover. You can see our iPad 2 Hands on video below. Chuong also goes hands on with the iPad iMovie app.

In the Editorial category, Xavier asked for wireless iPad display mirroring, speculates that most consumers don’t know what specs are and that they don’t matter. Warner asks if inking is dead and expands on the importance of apps in a tablet’s success.

We also showed you how to sell your iPad to Gazelle for $300, so that you can upgrade for $200. I lucked out and sold my iPad for $375 to Gazelle right after launch which means I rented the iPad from Apple for about $10 a month.

We found out that the WiFI Xoom could hit Walmart for $539, a price that could attract some more users to HoneyComb.

It looks like Microsoft could be out of the tablet game until 2012, at which time they better hit the ground running if they want to catch up with Apple and Android.

The RIM PlayBook is arriving on April 10th and Chuong was able to sit down with RIM recently to find out more about what we can expect from the BlackBerry companion.

The HP TouchPad was taken for a spin, and we get to see what gaming looks like on the webOS tablet.

Finally, it looks like the HTC THunderBolt, Verizon’s 4G smart phone, may launch on March 10th, but who knows. We could see another delay.

Notebook and Tablet News for March 4th is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

To find a notebook in your budget on Bing Shopping, just search for “Notebooks under $500“, “Notebooks Under $1000” or whatever price you want to see. You can sort your results by price, consumer ratings or expert ratings and you can even narrow by brand by searching for “HP Notebooks Under $500“.

This feature also works in the Bing for Mobile app so you’ll be able to pull up “Notebooks under $700″ on your phone while you are looking around at Best Buy, for a wider comparison.

The search isn’t perfect yet and you’ll find some notebook parts or accessories mixed in for some searches, but it is still an easy way to look for a notebook that fit’s your price range. The Natural language processing keys in on the price part of your query and can also be used to search for other gadgets or items in your price range.

We had good luck searching for Laptop bags under a certain price as well as looking for monitors and other notebook accessories that we could afford.

Learn more about how Bing uses natural language processing to figure out what you want at the Bing Shopping Blog.

Find a Notebook or Laptop in Your Price Range with Bing Shopping is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Details of the operations are explained in-depth at Search Engine Land, but essentially Google has been monitoring Bing search results and found that their Redmond, Washington-based rival was returning an unusually high number of similar sites as Google for incorrectly spelled search terms.

In the example that was presented at Search Engine Land, a user types in ‘torsoraphy,’ which is a mis-spelled word. Google’s search results shows that ‘tarsorrhaphy’ was the intended word and displays results for the correctly spelled word, displaying a Wikipedia entry for the correct spelling as the top search result.

On the other hand, Bing just displays results for the correctly spelled word without showing the spelling correction, and the same Wikipedia entry, sending red flags to Google’s search engineers.

Across a wide range of searches, Bing was showing a much greater overlap with Google’s top 10 results than in preceding months. In addition, there was an increase in the percentage of times both Google and Bing listed exactly the same page in the number one spot.

By no means did Bing have exactly the same search results as Google. There were plenty of queries where the listings had major differences. However, the increases were indicative that Bing had made some change to its search algorithm which was causing its results to be more Google-like.

Google thought Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser was part of the equation. Somehow, IE users might have been sending back data of what they were doing on Google to Bing. In particular, Google told me it suspected either the Suggested Sites feature in IE or the Bing toolbar might be doing this.

To see if its claims were valid, Google had set up a Sting operation, which essentially involved setting up a one-time code, which would be removed. The code would force search results that had little or no relevance to certain key words–mainly irrelevant gibberish–when searched. If those same results were to appear in Bing later, Microsoft would have its hand caught in the cookie jar:

To verify its suspicions, Google set up a sting operation. For the first time in its history, Google crafted one-time code that would allow it to manually rank a page for a certain term (code that will soon be removed, as described further below). It then created about 100 of what it calls “synthetic” searches, queries that few people, if anyone, would ever enter into Google.

These searches returned no matches on Google or Bing — or a tiny number of poor quality matches, in a few cases — before the experiment went live. With the code enabled, Google placed a honeypot page to show up at the top of each synthetic search.

The only reason these pages appeared on Google was because Google forced them to be there. There was nothing that made them naturally relevant for these searches. If they started to appeared at Bing after Google, that would mean that Bing took Google’s bait and copied its results.

The results began appearing on Bing in late December, suggesting that Microsoft had been mimicking Google in the search space.

Though Bing may be using user activity at Google to help improve its search results and algorithms, there are enough differences between the results of the two search engines that suggests that Microsoft may be incorporating other factors into results:

Google’s test suggests that when Bing has many of the traditional signals, as is likely for popular search topics, it relies mostly on those. But in cases where Bing has fewer trustworthy signals, such as “long tail” searches that bring up fewer matches, then Bing might lean more on how Google ranks pages for those searches.

For now, though, Microsoft reps are flatly denying copying Google. Google’s sting operation in the search space is an interesting read and you should head to Search Engine Land to learn more.

Via: Gizmodo

Google’s Bing Sting Operation Has Microsoft Stung is a post by Chuong Nguyen from Notebooks.com.

Samsung Fascinate Specs and Features:

• Android 2.1 (Eclair) Operating System (Android 2.2 Froyo is supposedly coming)
• Samsung TouchWiz UI
• 4-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED Display (Capacitive Touch Screen)
• 1GHz Cortex A8 Hummingbird Processors
• 512MB of RAM
• 2GB of internal storage
• 16GB microSD care pre-installed, expandable to 32GB
• 802.11b/g/n WiFi
• Bluetooth 3.0
• GPS
• 5.0-megapixel autofocus camera w/LED flash
• 720p HD video recording
• Swype keyboard
• 3G Mobile Hotspot capable with support for up to 5 devices
• DLNA via AllShare
• ThinkFree Office
• Samsung social networking widgets
• Bing Search
• Bing Maps

The Samsung Fascinate is currently available from Verizon Wireless for $199, after $100 mail-in rebate and new two-year contract.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyOeEcoCtdM

Samsung Fascinate Review Roundup

Generally, those who reviewed the Samsung Fascinate found it to be a solid Android smartphone. When compared to other Galaxy S phones for other carriers, the Fascinate seems to have resolved many of the outstanding issues, such as battery life and heat. One major complaint is that the Fascinate comes preloaded with Android 2.1. Many reviewers also noted that Verizon Wireless has crippled the phone’s software too much. The company preloaded the Fascinate with Bing search instead of the default Google search found on pretty much every other Android smartphone.

Engadget – Samsung Fascinate review: “It’s not that the device isn’t a solid phone or a reasonably capable Android representative — it’s just that Samsung and Verizon have made far too many compromises on this device to class it with something like the Droid Incredible or the Droid X (though we have complaints about the latter device’s software as well). Unfortunately, the Fascinate (and perhaps the entire line of Galaxy S phones) are a byproduct of Google’s ongoing fragmentation issues and seeming lack of focus for the Android platform.” - Joshua Topolsky

Gizmodo – Samsung Fascinate Lighting Review: When Greedy Carriers Ruin Decent Phones: “The Fascinate is a sad emblem of what happens when a carrier’s worst instincts and moneylust run unchecked (those big branding deals are worth millions). Piled on top of the occasionally horrific aesthetic liberties Samsung’s taken with Android, it’s an abomination. And yet, these things are totally acceptable because of Android’s openness. It just sucks that in this case, it’s working against users, not for them.

If you’re looking for an Android phone on Verizon, you’re far better off with either the Droid Incredible or Motorola Droid 2. If you’re looking for a Galaxy S phone, you’re far better off switching carriers.” – Matt Buchanan

Brighthand – Samsung Fascinate Review: “The deck of Verizon applications, the impressive battery life, and lack of issues with heat leads me to believe that Verizon might have done best to wait so long to bring their variant to market.

I do think that taking away Google Maps for VZ Navigator was a bit of a power grab on Verizon’s end.

I would have no qualms in recommending the Fascinate to anyone who is interested in a Galaxy S device, prefers something that looks like an iPhone, but wants the service quality of Verizon.” – Antoine Wright

Slashgear – Samsung Fascinate Review: “The Fascinate is undoubtedly the best phone Samsung has made on the best network in the US right now, but the carrier’s DROID focus means the Samsung is perhaps not receiving as much love as it deserves. We’d pick the Fascinate over the DROID X, and while we’d miss the Motorola’s physical buttons, the Samsung’s stronger camera performance and better display would be ample compensation.” - Vincent Nguyen

CNET – Samsung Fascinate (Verizon Wireless): “Sleek and powerful, the Samsung Fascinate is another strong addition to Verizon’s Android lineup. Its user interface won’t appeal to everyone, particularly seasoned Android users, but it’s a good smartphone for the masses.” – Bonnie Cha

DroidLife – Samsung Fascinate Review: “The Samsung Fascinate doesn’t disappoint in look and feel, but the custom OS skin, lack of Google experience apps and Android 2.1 are a pretty substantial turn-off at this point.  We understand that the phone will get Android 2.2 someday, but until then we’re not ready to adopt our new Verizon Android relative.

It has an amazing screen and specs to put many phones to shame, but it’s just not ready to play with the big dogs until it gets one major OS update, a Bing removal and a LauncherPro installation.” – Kellex

Geek.com – Review: Samsung Fascinate for Verizon: “If you aren’t going to do a bunch of UI customizations on your phone and you’re a big consumer of video and photos then I don’t see how you pass the Samsung Fascinate up. Especially, when you note that the Fascinate is lighter than the Motorola Droid phones. If you want to do a bunch of customizations to the UI and aren’t as concerned with screen quality then the Fascinate is not for you.” - Brian Osborne

PhoneArena – Samsung Fascinate Review: “When it comes right down to it, there’s a lot we like about the Samsung Fascinate, mainly its styling and hardware, such as the impressive Super AMOLED screen and 1GHz Hummingbird processor. But at the same time we feel that the software, mainly the TouchWiz UI, is holding the device back. While we can appreciate what Samsung attempted to do with the UI, it in turn makes the Fascinate feel less like an Android phone, and with the addition of the Bing search, one might mistake the device for a Windows Mobile phone upon first glance. At this point, we can only hope that the Android 2.2 update will soon give the Fascinate that Google feel” that people expect when using an Android device, because it’s lacking that feeling right now. But if you are OK with that, or plan to use something like LauncherPro to allow for more customization of the home screens, then the Fascinate is one device that’s hard to beat.” – PhoneArena Team

Samsung Fascinate Review Roundup is a post by Carter Sprunger from Notebooks.com.

For as long as Google has been around, they have presented a simple mostly white search site. The philosophy seemed to be “less is more” with Google. But when Microsoft introduced Bing, they also had a very simple search page but presented some very beautiful images as backgrounds. Now Google is doing the same as you can see from the screen capture below.

Is Bing having an effect on Google? Seems like it. Google doesn’t have the popup hotspots that give info about the image like Bing. If they add the feature then you will know for sure that Google is paying attention to the competition. Now that Bing has nearly 10 percent of the search market in the US, it seems like a good idea for Google to keep tabs on them.

Bing doesn’t have one thing Google’s search background does. With Google you can customize the background. In Bing you can just scroll through the most recent default images.

It is hard to see in the above image, but in the lower left corner is a link that says, “Change Background Image”. Click it and a box pops up with many more to choose from.

As you can see form the above screen shot you are not tied to just their chosen images. You can also pick from images on your computer, your Picasa Web Albums, if you have one, and the special Editor’s picks. After you select your new image, if you do not like it, just select “Remove Background Image” from the same area that the “Change Background Image” link was found.

Having a background image showing is apparently temporary. When I tried to find out how to totally remove it for this article I found a link that said the following:

… Google’s homepage has a series of photos on it to celebrate our new Change background image link. Please be assured these images will only be displayed today, and the homepage will return to its regular white background tomorrow.

So starting tomorrow, if you like the new background image feature, you can turn it on. But it seems that it will be off by default. If you can’t wait till tomorrow, and want to change to a single color which may be less distracting, follow these instructions:

1. Click the Add background image link in the Google homepage’s lower-left corner

2. Sign in to your Google Account (if you aren’t already signed in)

3. Select Editor’s picks

4. Scroll to the bottom of the list and choose your favorite color

5. Click Select

Doing this will change the print on the Google home page to white so that it shows up on the new background color. So pick a color that will display white text well.

I personally welcome the change. I really like the images offered and may upload one of my own. Until I do, here is the one I picked from the Editor’s Picks list.

Which one do you like the best? Will you turn it on or stay with the default white background when it returns tomorrow?

Google Introduces Customizable Background Images on Home Page is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Consumers will be able to take advantage of Bing Cashback rewards up until July 30, 2010 at 9:00 PM PST. Also, all current Cashback savings may be redeemed through July 30, 2011, giving everyone a full year to claim their savings. During this one year grace period, the Bing Cashback customer support system will remain active. In an effort to encourage early savings redemption, Bing will be waiving the $5 minimum payout, effective July 31,2010. Customers are encouraged to visit http://cashbackaccount.bing.com to verify that their account information is current.

Despite the program being terminated, there is hope. The Bing Cashback team hints at a new program emerging with this statement from their email: “Thank you very much for being a loyal cashback user.  We remain committed to delivering great value to our customers, and we are currently working on an exciting new program which you will hear more about from us later this summer.” It’s anyone’s guess as to what this new program will consist of, but for now, take advantage of the time remaining to get some good deals.

Bing Cashback Program Discontinued July 30 – Rewards Good for 1 Year is a post by Carter Sprunger from Notebooks.com.

The Bing CashBack deal doesn’t appear to have any restrictions so in theory you could purchase the HP ENVY 13 at the retail price of $1,449 and receive $360 in cash back in 60 days. If you prefer a cheaper notebook or a netbook then your final price for a baseline HP Mini 210 would by just over $200 and the stylish but affordable HP G62t, with Intel Core processors, starts around $450 after cash back.

To use Bing CashBack and save 25% on your HP purchase follow these simple steps.

1. Go to Bing.com
2. Search for HP
3. Click on the golden $ coin icon in the Sponsored site box (Shown above)
4. Enter your email address in the popup prompt
5. Find your HP computer and purchase – Do not use a coupon code
6. Look for email confirmation and wait approximately 60 days for your Bing CashBack.

Using Bing CashBack with coupon codes, student discounts or employer discounts may cancel any cash back. If you choose to purchase a computer with Bing CashBack it is best not to try and stack savings. The deal is OK with Instant savings that HP offers.

Newegg is also offering several notebook discounts with promotion codes to newsletter subscribers. These deals include the following notebooks.

• Lenovo G530 – Intel Pentium Dual-Core – $379.99
• Acer Aspire AS5542G-5281 – AMD Turion II M500 – $549.99
• HP Pavilion dv4-2167sb – Intel Core i3 – $679.99
• ASUS G51JX-X1 – Intel Core i7 – $1,179.99

Check out the newsletter landing page for more information and promo codes. There are also discounts on notebook upgrades including Windows 7 Professional, Solid State Drives and more at Newegg.

25% Bing CashBack and Newegg Notebook Deals is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The new visual search is in beta, and for good reason, since the initial laptop listing is as helpful as searching Bing for Bing. As you can see in the screenshot below the first glance is row after row of black screened computers with only a bit of wallpaper to differentiate.

Thankfully, if your potential notebook stands out in the crowd or is part of the major categories the search gets even easier. For example, you can search the top netbooks and see a more manageable number of choices.

You can also sort by brand, processor, and other specs to narrow your results.

Mousing over any of the images will provide you with more information about the specific notebook so that you know what you’re looking at.

Just as Google Goggles won’t replace mobile search, I don’t see visual search putting a stop to standard searches; but it is a fun way to look for gadgets.

Bing Visual Search Helps You Find Notebooks Based on Looks is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

While users will be free to change the home screen and search engine away from Bing this partnership will put Bing in front of more users; many who won’t ever change those default settings. There’s no doubt that the partnership will lead to more market share for Bing as these new computers penetrate the market; especially since the new partnership includes business machines which may not give users the ability to change.

Most of the Notebooks.com crew prefers Google Search over Bing, with my dissenting vote for Bing’s shopping site which offers cashback and decent research capabilities for making a purchase.

Bing is the New Default Search Engine on HP Computers is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

It’s 4am here in San Francisco and I’m working way too late/early again. I don’t want to read anything extensive right now, but I do want to catch up on the news as quickly as possible and see what different points of view people have about the GM bankruptcy so far. I like using search engines to read diverse opinions on breaking news because it offers a much richer experience compared to going to a single news source.

My first search term for Bing was “GM Bankruptcy.”

At the top of the Bing search engine results page there were three irrelevant ads about personal bankruptcy. Another five irrelevant ads were along the right side of the page.  There was a link to “news about gm bankruptcy.”  Beneath this link were three headlines about the bankruptcy from Bloomberg, AOL and Allentown Morning Call. There were no counters, or indicators of the velocity of news articles related to my search term.

The search engine results below the small news section was filled with various news articles, but many were dated and not very useful in this context. For example, there was  a link to a year-old MSNBC story with the headline: “GM bankruptcy unlikely despite tough times.” Obviously, not what I’m looking for.

Clicking through to the full news results was disappointing. At the top of the screen were four videos supposedly related to my search term.I like how the videos on Bing begin playing when you mouse over them, but unfortunately the videos were mostly irrelevant to my search term. The first video was about personal bankruptcy, the second was about President Obama’s hot date with the first lady in New York and the forth was about the White House florist retiring. The third was the only one that was somewhat relevant, but it wasn’t very informative. It was a stale, undated AP video that showed several employees talking about the possibility of a bankruptcy.

Another problem with the news page for the search term “GM Bankruptcy” was that there were only 142 items. This is earth-shattering news and all Bing can give us is 142 stories? Not that I’ll read 142 stories, but I’d like some diversity. The first page of news results were exclusively from U.S. news outlets.

Google’s search engine results page for “GM Bankruptcy” was an entirely different experience. Right up top were news results for the search term. The first result was from Bloomberg and there were 12,382 related articles. There were zero ads up top and only one ad on the sidebar, which was actually very relevant to the search term.

Below the news section were several articles that were absolutely relevant to the search term and extremely timely. There was an article from the Associated Press explaining how the government will take a majority ownership in GM. There was a dated Business Week article from 2005 titled “What if GM Did Go Bankrupt.”

Clicking through tot he news section showed that Google had indexed over 45,000 articles about the GM bankruptcy. While Bing’s news search results were simply listed one after the other, Google’s results were tied together by sub-subjects. At a glance I could see the different angles. Another thing that Google’s smart enough to do is to include the ticker symbols of companies mentioned in the articles and link to the companies’ Google Finance pages. It’s pretty logical that someone searching for “GM bankruptcy” would be interested in seeing how the industry’s stocks are holding up.

I’m sure Microsoft will improve Bing over time, but based on this experience Google will remain my go-to search engine for breaking news. While Bing has some nice eye-candy, the shopping centric interface and irrelevant videos really get in the way of soaking up breaking news. This experience makes me wonder how serious Microsoft is taking news when Bing only displays  .003% of the news items that Google did.

Next time I test Bing I’m going to use it to buy something to see how that experience compares to Google.

Searching for “GM Bankruptcy” News is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.