The new VAIO F series are packing Quad Core Sandy bridge processors and NVIDIA GeForce GT540M and GT 520M GPUS to deliver the power needed to push multimedia and games to the 1920×1080 Full HD 16.4” display.

AS far as enjoying your movie, music and game audio Sony has you covered with S-Force Front Surround sound technology and Dolby Home Theater v3. This is a drop down from the Dolby Home theater v4 found on many new notebooks, but a noticeable boost over standard notebook audio.

Like the just announced VAIO S, the VAIO F series should handle well in low light thanks to a backlit keyboard and an Exmor sensor in the webcam.

Other features include the ability to connect to the PS3 and other Sony devices, USB 3.0 ports and quick access to the Internet with a push of the Web button. The Web button loads a web browser that allows you to check email and websites faster than booting into Windows.

The new Sony VAIO F notebooks are available now online and from select retailers starting around $1,100.

Sony Vaio F Notebooks Arrive Packing a Multimedia Punch is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z570 comes with a metal shell similar to the IdeaPad Z360 we reviewed last year and includes the latest technology inside. Lenovo has added the 13″ IdeaPad Z370 to the website, but it isn’t available for purchase just yet.

The IdeaPad Z570 has a 2.1GHz 2nd Generation Intel Core i3-2310M processor, 4GB RAM, a 500GB hard drive and Intel Integrated HD 3000 graphics. The 15.6″ display has a 1366 x 768 resolution and comes with an integrated camera. The Z570 has a built in Dula Layer DVD burner, 6-cell battery, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1.

The IdeaPad Z570 is billed as an entertainment notebook, which is a bit different from the typical multimedia notebook moniker. Basically this means that while the Z570 has no discrete graphics card, the built in Intel HD 3000 GPU should provide enough power for most casual users to entertain themselves. The new second generation Intel Core i family of processors include the graphics chip right on the same piece of silicon as the CPU.

This means that you can get a lot more power from these new processors in the graphics department. We wouldn’t suggest them for playing a title like Call of Duty Black Ops, but if you want to play games like Mafia II or Just Cause 2, you should be good to go on a medium setting based on test units we have used.

The IdeaPad Z570 is available for purchase starting at $699, if you need more power you can opt for a 2.5GHz Intel core i5 Sandy Bridge processor with 6GB RAM for $999.

IdeaPad Z570 Overview Video:

Lenovo IdeaPad Z570 Up For Sale With Metal Body at $699 is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

PlayOn is a service that lets users grab Internet video from sources like network TV stations and Netflix and send it via a Windows-based PC (there is no MAC version) application to devices like the PlayStation, Wii, XBOX 360 and now iOS devices through an app that was finally approved by Apple.

When Apple relaxed their app guidelines, suddenly many apps being held up by the approval process have flooded the app store including the client for PlayOn.TV. Unfortunately, it caught the PlayOn folks off guard. They were not expecting the approval and have since updated their PC software resulting in incompatibility with the old version of the iOS app submitted months ago.

The process of getting things to work, once the new compatible version is approved, is a little complicated. A user must install the PC client that starts a media server on the PC and includes some channels, like Hulu, by default. Other channels are added via either scripts or plugins. There are some plugins and scripts which can be installed automatically and others that must be copied into the right directory on the PC. My own experience was that on Windows 7 64-bit, the auto installers failed to work.

Available channels include Netflix, ABC Family, Food Network, NBC, Revision3, SyFy, Comedy Central and Netflix, to name just a few. The iOS client starts and searches on the local network or over the Internet for the server running on the PC. When it finds it, the videos from the installed channels are able to be streamed on the device. There is no iPad native version yet. And the version in the app store is not functional yet [See update at bottom], by admission from Chris from PlayOn Support in the company’s support forum. Though, apparently some have been able to get it to work, despite what the support personnel posted.

Once PlayOn is updated this could be a great way to put an end to paying the cable or satellite provider for TV content.

UPDATE: Since we published this piece PlayOn has released a new version of the iPhone app, version number 3.0.20.1221, which should fix the remote connection issues. If you experienced problems we suggest you update to the most recent version of the PlayOn.TV iPhone app and try again.

PlayOn TV Approved by Apple but Still Not Working – UPDATED is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

Windows Media Player 12 features cool interface

The most noticeable difference when you first launch Media Player 12 is the changes to how the UI is now laid out. But before we go into that, lets talk about some of the initial steps to start getting ready:

Setup:

Windows Media Player still comes bundled in Windows, 7. So unlike some applications that were once bundled with the OS but are now a part of the Windows Live Essentials suite, you don’t have to download it. Just like version 11 when you launch the executable for the first time you have a choice between doing a ‘Express’ or ‘Custom’ setup. Of course, I would like to see if there are any new changes, so lets go with the Custom Settings.

Most of the common options you are accustom to seeing during this portion of setup are there, the first change I see is the option to add the Media Player 12 executable to your desktop, which I see a lot of persons do, so looks like a make sense option. Next you can choose to make Media Player your default music or video Player or choose specific file types you would like it to play. Media Player 12 supports numerous formats now, I notice songs that I had to resort to playing in iTunes now play just fine in Media Player eg. MP3 Format Sound and the proprietary AAC.

There are many new supported codec’s making WMP 12 a definite choice for Media.

After you have completed the setup process, you are greeted by the media player, which takes you immediately to the music library. Based on my observations, Media Player adapts a combination of Windows Explorer bread crumb menus which help you to easily back track path ways throughout a folder hierarchy but in this case your music library locations. There is also separation between task and locations as evident by the location arrangements and features like ‘Play’, ‘Burn’ and ‘Sync’ which are now situated on the far right of the interface. The familiar back and forward buttons are still there and makes it easy to move between different areas of the interface.

Below these options you will find a second toolbar which display menus for Organizing, Streaming, creating a playlist, Library Mode and searching in addition to Help. The Navigation Pane situated on the right of the interface is revamped with a new addition. In Media Player 12 Library links such as Year, Rating, Songs are now a part of the library table. You can still find Navigation Pane options under Organize > Customize Navigation Pane. The Recently Added link has been removed. Two new library links Video and Pictures are available providing a central location to truly view all your media. Today’s Portable Players are complex media devices that not only store music and videos, but also photos and those are just two more of the great things users can look forward to in this release.

Lets look a little closer at the different components and within their locations:

Play tab – a combination of ‘Now Playing’ (which exist now only as a mini playing mode – discussed later) with Playlist wrapped into one. Its quite convenient and provides the option of easily navigating back and forth between your custom playlist while also viewing your main library of music. I wish there was a separator to make it easier to identify different albums from the artiste, also, I would have liked to see an option for one song within that active playlist to have the option of Repeat when selected though, instead playing over the entire playlist or having the user manually choose to play over that particular song by double clicking.

Burn tab – provides the same functionality as previous versions without the need to leave your music library. Some nice options are available such as Eject Disc After Burning, Apply Volume Leveling Across Tracks on Audio CDs and Name Disk (not checked by default).

Sync tab – provides synchronization capabilities for your portable player. I was not able to accurately test this since I do not own a MP3 player at this time, but similar options available in prior versions are just the same in this release.

The new mini playing mode, also works for video clips and movies.

If you find activated Tabs distracting, you can easily hide them by clicking the Tab once which will show the entire library. Organization of music in Media Player 12 has been greatly enhanced and the new layout of songs in the library provides a more simplified, yet detailed approach to interacting with your collections. I do find it frustrating that certain areas still cannot be customized, for instance, the Album art column cannot be unchecked, I would like to use that space for another column such as Date Added or Play Count.

One of the nice things I like about playing songs from my personal ripped collection of albums, when I hover the mouse pointer over the Album art in the ‘Play’ tab, it does not display buy. I found that annoying in Media Player 11, I already have the album on my hard disk, why is it suggesting that I purchase the album, a more neutral ‘shop’ link is displayed which could suggest buying more music from that artiste. You can also preview tracks in your library. You might ask, how different is this from simply double clicking a track and listening to it for a few seconds. When you hover a track and click the preview song link on the floating balloon, you will hear the song for approximately 15 seconds, the sweet part is, when you have heard enough, you simply move the pointer away from the floating balloon which will stop playing the song. The Windows Media Player Team could have made it even more innovative by simply hovering over the preview button without any manual clicking.

Windows Media Player becomes a true media player, you can also play slideshows.

Working with Management

Options once available under hidden drop down menus for each button of the player interface in Media Player 11 (Now Playing, Library etc) are now clearly exposed through Organize, Share and New Playlist.

Organize – Features menus for managing your library content, whether its Pictures, videos or Recorded TV. You can customize and arrange your library views by checking or un-checking columns in addition to customizing the Navigation Pane displaying drop down menus and access entire options for Media Player 12.

Stream

A new Stream Menu provides quick access to sharing your media and configuring options for how you can access it from other PC’s, some of the new options include:

• Set up your home PC so you can access your media libraries while away from home
• Allow other Windows 7 PCs and devices to push media to your Player and control it
• Quickly authorize all home PCs and devices to access your media collection

‘Play To’ allows playing media to be streamed from other shared media libraries within Windows Media Player, Windows 7 can now send media to be played on other Windows 7 PCs and DLNA-certified digital media renderers. With Play To,” you can browse or search from within Windows Media Player or Windows Explorer to find your desired media, and then choose where you want it to be played.

A versatile remote control window is presented for each Play To” session, providing you with the ability to control the entire experience. Play To” is available for both local media libraries and for shared media libraries. If you would like to send media from one Windows 7 PC to another, choose Allow remote control of my Player” from the Windows Media Player Stream” menu on the receiving PC. This will cause Windows Media Player to be discovered in the Play To” menu of other Windows 7 PCs on the same network.

Create Playlist – has its own dedicated menu which allows you to quickly create new custom playlist of your favorite content. There is also a sub menu for a New Auto Playlist which is a playlist that changes automatically according to criteria you have specified.

Performance and Quality

Media Player 12 is faster based on my testing, songs instantly play when double clicked in the library. To reduce the waiting time to launch full media player when you might only want to play an album or a few songs, there is a Mini Player mode called Now Playing Mode. This convenient setup instantly opens when you launch a song from an Explorer for instance (by default), immediately your music begins playing, no waiting, no hitching and no glitches. Media Players familiar Now Playing tools are situated here with visualization effects (that I think needs to be updated) and album art in the visualization similar to ‘mediaviz’ that was released for Media Player 10. Its quite nice and makes it more fun playing songs from a folder when you are not particularly interested with working the full media player library. The Mini-Player itself is resizable and intelligent in doing so, it knows when to show certain player controls and reveals more when it resized to a larger size. If you want to go back to the full Media Player, simply click the ‘Library Mode’ button on the player controls. I would have liked to see an option to hide the window border though, to give it a floating appearance. I still would like the option of turning it off and go directly to full library whenever a song is double clicked from Explorer although you can easily switch Library mode from the player controls, it’s just the extra step I would like to get out of the way.

Quality is very good, audio comes back pumping and clear to the listeners ears. This is something I have noticed since version 11, but I think it has more to do with the improvements to Audio in Windows 7/Vista. Since audio sounds puny when played in Windows XP I get a much richer experience on both Vista and 7. I imported 5.4 GBs of music (which is significantly small compared to some libraries), but there were no problems doing so and all my tracks were recognized along with album art. What I notice about miscellaneous tracks in a folder that the meta data such as song information and album art in particular needs to be downloaded again regardless its there hidden. There is also a mis-match of album art for different songs and artiste – kinda funny seeing Bill Haley’s Jingle Bell Rock represented by Shanice Wilson’s Greatest Hits.

You can enjoy your videos and movies in a number of cool ways from full screen to mini.

Watching Video

Watching movies is a favorite activity in Windows Media Player. Version 12 adds some improvements such as automatically going into full screen mode when you insert a DVD. There is also support for the new Mini-mode which looks lovely. From a technical point of view, Media Player 12 supports new video codec’s which were once available through Third party vendors, some include: MPEG-4, 3GPP standards, H.264 video, DivX and xVid. This of course delivers a richer playback experience for the consumer, which results in less disappointment, something which was true of Media Player 11. Often you would download some particular video just find out the correct codec is not installed to view it.

Changes and some missing options:

• Cannot play movies in the Library interface of Media Player 12.
• I cannot find a way to get Media Player 12 to open up in full screen mode when I play a media file, it always starts up in preview mode first – I still love preview mode though.
• Advanced Tag Editor isn’t included in Media Player. Microsoft says editing media information in the details pane of the Player Library allows you perform some of the tasks once available in Advanced Tag Editor.

Overall, Windows Media Player 12 looks like a solid release that will surely keep loyal users happy. Its fast, great design and user interface make it great application that I will continue to turn to for my media. The ability to now work with photos in addition to video is just a great way of defining WMP 12 as a true media player.

Playing with Windows Media Player 12 is a post by Andre from Notebooks.com.

At the heart of the new Aspire is an Intel Core i7 Quad-Core 720QM processor that gives the notebook the power to handle the demands of many applications, such as gaming and entertainment. The power of the Intel Core i7 processor comes from its ability to provide a better multitasking environment. One such way is through Turbo Boost, a feature that lets the computer speed up the processor by up to 75% to match your needs.

The 18.4″ screen is LED backlit with a 1920×1080 resolution was designed with movie watching in mind; a feat made easy by the included Blu-Ray drive and five built in speakers including an “Acer Tuba CineBass booster” for clearer deeper bass. The multimedia experience is backed by an NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250M which provides 1 GB of dedicated video memory to round out the power of the Acer Aspire AS8940G.

Other features of the Acer Aspire AS8940G include a touch-capacitive media control interface for quick access to multimedia controls and a backlit keyboard that makes working in the dark a much simpler affair.

Acer Aspire AS8940G-6865 Specs:

• Intel® Coreâ„¢ i7 Processor 720QM (1.60GHz, 6MB L3 Cache, 1333MHz FSB)
• 18.4″ Full HD Widescreen CineCrystalâ„¢ LED-backlit Display

  (1920×1080 Resolution, 16:9 Aspect Ratio)

• 4GB DDR3 Dual-Channel 1066MHz Memory
• NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 250M with 1GB dedicated DDR3 VRAM
• 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive ⁽¹⁾
• 4X Blu-ray Disc^â„¢/DVD SuperMulti Double-Layer Drive
• Multi-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
• Intel® Wireless WiFi Link 5100 802.11a//bg/Draft-N Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
• Acer Crystal Eyeâ„¢ Integrated Webcam
• Touch-Capacitive Media Control Interface
• 5 USB 2.0 Ports, 1 HDMI Port, 1 eSATA Port
• 8-cell Li-Ion Battery (4800mAh)
• Dolby Home Theater® Audio Enhancement
• Acer CineSurround Sound System (5 built-in speakers)
• Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• MSRP $1,349.99

The Acer Aspire AS8940G-6865 is already available for sale at Newegg.com for $1349.99

Acer Aspire AS8940G Brings 18.4″ Screen and Intel i7 to the Party is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.