Hewlett-Packard has partnered with Ominfone to distribute the U.K. music provider’s MusicStation service on PCs sold in Europe, Ominfone announced Sunday.

The service, which boasts unlimited access to more than 6.5 million music tracks from the four major recording labels, distributes music in DRM-protected WMA files. Songs are downloaded to the user’s computer for online and offline play, but the songs are playable only as long as the subscription is active.

MusicStation Desktop will be preloaded on 16 HP laptop battery models sold in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. The service will be free for 14 days, at which time users can sign up for a monthly subscription, which will cost 8.99 pounds ($14.47) in the U.K. and 9.99 euros ($14.10) in most of the other countries.

MusicStation competes with Apple’s iTunes download service and the Spotify streaming service, as well as Amazon.com’s MP3 Download Store.

This isn’t HP’s first foray into bundling music service on its PCs; the company dumped iTunes in 2006 to distribute RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service on PCs dell-inspiron-2500.htm”>Inspiron 2500 battery sold in the United States.

There has been a lot of speculation as to what Apple’s laptop battery rumored tablet will look like and how it will work. One analyst is now speculating on how much potential revenue the device, expected to be announced next week, could bring the Mac maker.

Mike Abramsky of RBC Capital estimates that Apple will sell each tablet for $600, according to an AppleInsider report. At that price, the “base case” scenario of 5 billion units sold during the first year would bring Apple Latitude D830 battery an additional $2.8 billion in revenue.

Of course, we all know how important price is these days, when launching a new product, so Abramsky gave a couple of other scenarios to consider. If Apple sells the tablet for $800, Apple would see $777 million in revenue for the sale of 1 million units.

You can see the trend here–as the price goes up, the predicted number of units sold goes down.

“Anticipation for an Apple tablet (expected January 27) resembles that of Moses bringing down the 10 Commandments,” Abramsky wrote in a research note, reprinted on AppleInsider. “Despite high expectations, we believe that Apple plans to redefine portable computing–as the Mac redefined the PC–by ‘creating’ desire for a new converged portable device with innovative touch/gestures [and] iTunes content. A ‘hit’ could provide a possible new growth engine for Apple.”

Rumors surrounding the tablet Latitude X300 battery have hit fever pitch since the company announced its event on January 27, but few other than Apple CEO Steve Jobs really know what it will be yet. Expectations of a larger-looking iPod Touch with the ability to read magazines and newspapers, as well as watching video and listening to music, seem to be the consensus among the most popular current rumors.

UPDATE: Hands-on impressions added below. The IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is our Best of CES 2010 Award Winner in the category of Computers and Hardware. Also be sure to check out our hands-on impressions of Lenovo’s other Netbooks and smartbooks laptop battery from CES.

Tablets are rapidly becoming the hot chatter-buzzword of 2010. Netbooks were very 2009. Combine them both and perhaps you end up with a great idea–at least, so hopes Lenovo. In one of the boldest moves in laptop technology at CES, the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid doesn’t just flip its screen to become a tablet–the screen detaches completely as its own separately powered computing device.

Perhaps it sounds too good to be true, and we’re both skeptical and very curious here at CNET. At an estimated cost of $999, the U1 will have in its main body an Intel Core 2 Duo ULV processor, and its 11.6-inch multitouch screen will house a separate ARM processor and battery. Both devices will produce completely different experiences, however, according to Lenovo’s press release. Availability hasn’t been revealed yet, but Lenovo should release those Pavilion dv2000 battery ,Pavilion DV4000 battery details soon.

In its notebook form, the hybrid will run Windows 7 Home Premium and have an estimated battery life of 10 hours. Meanwhile, the “Slate mode” will run its own Lenovo Skylight OS with a multi-panel UI, using a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU–and it has an estimated 8-hour battery life. Stereo speakers, a mic, and a 1.3 megapixel webcam are integrated on the Slate screen.

As for memory, the main body will house an SSD up to 128GB, while the Slate tablet will have 16GB of flash memory. Other specs of note: 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, 3G wireless, and a system weight of 3.7 pounds in notebook form or 1.6 pounds as a tablet/slate.

Hands-on impressions:

To start with, the Lenovo IdeaPad U1 Hybrid is a fascinating idea. The sleek round notebook has a form almost like the old clamshell iBooks from years ago, or a Motorola PEBL as a laptop. Textured surfaces on the inside and a shiny, translucent ruby lid give the machine an instantly eye-catching appeal. The showcase feature of the U1–the undocking of its 11.6-inch screen to become its own handheld Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered tablet–is accomplished via a pin dock at the base of the screen that activates Wndows 7 when attached, or turns on Lenovo’s Skylight Linux-based OS when detached. Lenovo representatives handled the undocking for us, and it makes us curious as to how delicate the procedure is and whether the laptop might accidentally disconnect under casual use, but the tablet screen feels solid and attractive on its own.

Meshing a tablet and notebook into one device is conceptually smart, but fraught with questions. Will both devices sync well with each other? Will the battery life be suitable? None of these could be determined in the space of a few minutes, but the tablet’s Snapdragon-powered OS had a series of scrolling app-based windows that launched widgets, some of which looked more ready for prime time than others. Windows could be expanded and photos zoomed in on with iPhone-esque multitouch, but the performance was generally choppier and laggier than on an iPhone. Video playback was a mixed bag depending on the size of the video window, but we imagine its performance will be tweaked before release. The tablet’s edge-to-edge glass is comfortable and the chromed edges appealing, but the weight and slight heat dissipation on the sides made us wonder about long-term ergonomics.

Intriguingly, Lenovo told us that the 338794-001 base, when detached, can continue to function as its own Core 2 computer independent of the tablet–a monitor would need to be attached, but it opens up possibilities for the U1 to truly act as two devices in one. Separate batteries and Wi-Fi antennas are contained in both the base and the tablet screen, while the tablet has the 3G and Bluetooth antennas, as well as speakers and a webcam. The tablet doesn’t have a sensor for switching between landscape and portrait, but apps will allow easy flipping for e-reading, browsing and other functions. The keyboard is flat and somewhat squishy, a far cry from Lenovo’s generally excellent raised and tapered keys, but Lenovo said they’ll be updating to a raised keyboard before release.

Advanced Micro Devices on Monday released low-power and high-performance processors that will find their way into servers from Hewlett-Packard, Dell laptop battery, Sun Microsystems, and Rackable Systems.

The new server processors are updated versions of AMD’s 45-nanometer Shanghai processor.

“When we first came to market, we brought out the standard-power (Shanghai processors) because that’s where the bulk of our market is,” John Fruehe, the director of business development for server and workstation products at AMD, said in an interview. “As always, we follow(ed) up fairly quickly with the HE, which are the energy-efficient models, and the SE, which are the high-performance 6Y270,75UYF,C1295 models.”

The five new low-power 45-nanometer quad-core AMD Opteron HE processors operate at 55-watt ACP, or Average CPU Power (PDF). This standard differs from Intel’s Thermal Design Power, or TDP, rating.

“TDP is much more conservative,” Fruehe said. “The TDP on those (HE) processors is 79 watts,” he said. But the “average customer is going to see them running in the mid-40s (ACP) range,” Fruehe added.

AMD’s HE processor 55-watt ACP is very close to Intel’s Xeon quad-core E5430 processor, for example, which has a TDP of 80 watts.

Low-power HE processors, with speeds ranging from 2.1GHz to 2.3GHz, are designed to address a segment of the server market–such as GD761,TD347massive data centers–”that must maximize performance during peak hours while managing the energy costs during idle and low-utilization hours,” AMD said.

High-performance SE processors, which run at 2.8GHz, are targeted at customers with “the most performance-intensive data center workloads,” AMD said.

At the 105-watt ACP thermal envelope, these new processors are immediately available in three new systems from HP U4873, as well as from other technology partners, AMD said.

Refurbished laptops from Apple and Hewlett-Packard are relatively inexpensive and, in many cases, virtually new. But it all depends on how you define “new.”

Let me begin by saying that I would not recommend a refurbished laptop. That’s just my experience, of course. I recognize that others have had positive experiences and that some would swear it’s like buying a new computer, just cheaper. But I have purchased two refurbished laptops–one from Apple laptop battery, another from HP–that were both defective out of the box.

Apple case first. I recently purchased a refurbished Apple MacBook Air. Unpacking it revealed a pristine, brand-new looking MBA. Until I turned it on. The screen was dimmer than the screen on a one-year-old Air I have been using and the backlighting was uneven. In short, the bottom 25 percent (roughly) of the screen was noticeably darker than other 75 percent of the screen.

Moreover, upon closer inspection I could see that the screen had rather prominent dark blotchy areas (more prominent than the “normal” blotching you get on these screens). Ironically, the much older Air did not exhibit this. Now, I realize that I may not have considered the screen defective if this had been my first Air and I hadn’t been using another MBA (which, by the way, I had intended to pass on to someone else) that had a gorgeous, uniformly backlit screen. But nobody, I would submit, likes trading down from something great to something less than that dell-latitude-d510.htm”>Latitude D510 battery.

And what is the single biggest difference (aside from specifications) between the two Airs? The non-defective, problem-free one was purchased new.

I have a lot of scary, unpleasant theories about refurbs–none of which could ever be proven unless I actually worked at a PC manufacturer–but I think I can safely say this much: some refurbs are less than meets the eye. They may look pristine on the outside but mask internal problems.

Which brings us to my HP business laptop refurb. This is a much longer story that I will summarize briefly as follows: out of the box, the keyboard was defective and the unit randomly shut down (that latter problem, I concluded, was due to overheating). I had to go through a pretty painstaking series of steps to get both of these problems resolved.

The moral of the story may be this: you get what you pay for. A buyer of a refurbished HP business laptop can save a lot of money–sometimes more than 50 percent off the list price of a new unit. The cost savings on a refurbished MacBook that is still being actively marketed by Apple A1175，A1185 is less: in the case of the Air, a few hundred dollars.

So, what is a refurbished laptop? Here’s what HP says on its FAQ page:
“Stringent guidelines are followed. All units are brought up to fully functional condition, with defective parts replaced by working parts…Refurbished business products go through two quality control checks before being re-boxed for sale to ensure high reliability.”

I’m sure both companies strive to offer just-like-new refurbished laptops but my experience is that refurbs may be more trouble than they’re worth. I would like to hear the experiences readers have had.

Resellers are beginning to show a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion laptop with Intel’s more powerful mobile Core i5 processor, which will debut at the Consumer Electronics show on Thursday along with its lower-end sibling, the Core i3.

The 15.6-inch HP laptop battery Pavilion dv6-2170us comes with a 2.26GHz Intel Core i5-430M processor that is advertised as automatically overclocking to 2.53GHz via Intel’s Turbo boost technology. This feat is not possible with laptops packing the Core i3 chip, which doesn’t feature Turbo Boost.

Prices of the new HP laptop typically range from $900 to $920 at resellers.

Intel will officially roll out the mobile Core i5 and i3 processors on Thursday in tandem with a slew of system announcements from PC makers. The Core i5 and i3 are the first Intel laptop processors to combine two processor cores and a graphics function in one chip package (previously, the graphics chip was in a separate chipset), resulting in better Latitude D500 battery overall power efficiency.

The Core i3 and i5 part ways on Turbo Boost technology, which speeds up or slows down individual cores to meet processing or power efficiency needs. This will only be offered in higher-end Core i5 and i7 processors.

Both the i3 and i5 come with Hyper-Threading, which can double the number of tasks–or threads–a processor can execute. This is not offered in current Core 2 chips Latitude D505 battery.

I’m not one to get excited about patent filings, but this one was enough to make me think twice about what the future might hold.

Apple laptop battery filed a patent this week with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. It describes an “electronic device for providing a display that changes based on the user’s perspective.” The patent says that the product would include “a sensing mechanism” that’s capable of detecting the user’s position relative to the display. MacRumors originally reported on the patent.

The filing said that the device would include “a camera operative to detect the position of the user’s head.” Using that detected position, the device would then “transform” objects displayed on a monitor so the perspective the user sees “reflects the detected position of the Latitude D410 battery user.”

The overarching goal behind Apple’s patent is to provide a realistic 3D experience. But it gets better. The technology would also be able to detect the user’s environment and affect objects on the display based on the data it collects. For example, if the technology finds different areas within the user’s environment that reflect or refract light, the objects on the display will do the same.

Apple even said that it could add depth and 3D-like characteristics to 2D objects on the display.

I, for one, am excited about the possibility this Latitude D420 battery technology affords. By using a video camera, it can literally change objects on a monitor to react to the user’s environment. Gone would be the days of viewing simple content on a display. If Apple’s technology becomes a reality, it could totally transform the way people interact with their monitors. It could also have a major impact on the Web.

For now, Apple’s technology is years away. But it’s still fun to wait. And dream.

With all the crystal-ball-watching over the seemingly imminent Apple tablet, one issue hotly debated around the CNET offices, but infrequently mentioned elsewhere, is the hypothetical device’s status as a mobile computer.

There are two schools of thought on this: either the Apple tablet (or iSlate, or whatever it ends up being called) will be a 10-or-so-inch tablet PC with a full Mac OS X operating system; or it will merely be a larger-screen version of the current iPod Touch, which has a closed, limited phone-like OS.

The former would mean it could very likely run any software you’d run on a MacBook, from Firefox to Photoshop, and maybe even install Windows 7 via Boot Camp or Parallels. The later points to a hermetically sealed ecosystem, where apps would have to be approved and sold through an official app store (as in iTunes).

Initially, at least, the scant evidence hinted at the Apple tablet being akin to a touch-screen, keyboardless version of the company’s current laptops. After all, convertible tablet laptops are, if not common, than at least easy to find. While mostly intended for medical, education, or other specialized markets, there are a handful of consumer-oriented ones, such as HP’s TouchSmart series Inspiron E1405 battery,Inspiron E1505 battery,Inspiron E1705 battery.

There is even already a tablet version of the 13-inch MacBook you can buy. It’s from a company called Axiotron, which takes apart stock MacBooks and rebuilds them as tablets, with a touch screen and stylus. We reviewed one a couple of years ago and found it to be an interesting, if expensive, alternative for tablet-loving Apple fans.

The last several rounds of Apple tablet rumors, however, point more decisively towards an iPhone or iPod Touch style device. The Financial Times reports that Apple is planning a press event on January 26 in San Francisco, while the Silicon Alley Insider claims several app developers have been asked to prepare large-screen versions of their current iPhone apps.

While the recent rumors all seem to point towards a device without a full PC-style operating system, the purported 10-inch screen of the Apple tablet may create a different set of psychological expectations from consumers. After all, that’s the size of most Netbook PCs, which, despite costing as little as $299, offer the same (or in some cases, the “Starter” versions of) Windows XP or Windows 7 as full-size laptops, and which can install and run virtually software (with the possible exception of power-hungry apps like 3D games and video editing suites).

And, even with single-core Intel Atom CPUs, a 10-inch Netbook can run multiple apps at once–something currently not allowed (with a few exceptions) on the iPhone/iPod Touch platform.

Would a 10-inch device without that added flexibility feel unduly crippled or underpowered? Is an OS X-powered tablet the right way for Apple to go?

LAS VEGAS–Alienware laptops are powerful, but they’re not exactly known for being ultraportable or affordable. At Dell’s press conference this morning, however, a chief focus was put on their new M11x laptop, which seems to be attacking both ends head-on. In a form approaching Netbook size, the 11.6-inch laptop laptop battery comes packed with switchable graphics, including an Nvidia GT335M GPU as its main powerhouse, and will sell this spring for less than $1,000.

According to Dell representatives, the M11x will achieve over six hours of battery life in its lower-graphics function mode, and with a hot switch to the faster Nvidia GPU that will take under 2 seconds and not require logging out, will attain around two hours of “intense gaming.” The tiny laptop was shown off in the hands of Dell executives, and an M11x was also connected to a larger monitor to demonstrate how the laptop–with DisplayPort, HDMI, and VGA ports–can connect to larger monitors and HDTVs to play games as well. Dell Inspiron E1405 battery,Inspiron E1505 battery claims that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 will run at over 30fps in full-HD mode and settings set to high, which would certainly be a feat.

Hands-on update: We got a chance for some hands-on time with the M11x, and made several observations: first, its processor is in fact an Intel Core 2 ULV, the U7300–this is the same processor we’ve seen in higher-end thin-and-lights. It’s augmented with Nvidia’s GT335M discrete graphics, making it a kind of a hybrid machine. Its purportedly strong non-gaming-mode battery life would be because of its ULV processor.

Compared to other Alienware laptops, the M11x is surprisingly slim. In fact, its overall dimensions weren’t far off from the Asus EeePC 12.1-inch Atom Netbook we were carrying along with us. It’s a bit angular and blocky, but the M11x represents a massive move to true portability for the Alienware brand.

We were also told that, even with the advertised “under $1,000″ price, models Inspiron E1705 battery will be sold for as low as $799. That’s close to what standard thin-and-lights sold for earlier last year.

Earlier this week, Asus unveiled a 15-inch laptop with Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology built in. The $1,699 Asus G51J 3D has a 120Hz LCD panel, an Intel Core i7 CPU, and a high-end Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M GPU, and comes bundled with a pair of Nvidia’s active glasses and the USB-powered IR emitter required to make the glasses work.

We’ve just had a chance to take the system for a test drive, and came away largely impressed with the results, especially compared with Latitude D810 battery,Latitude D820 battery, a 3D laptop that uses a pair of passive polarized glasses and a special screen coating to create a 3D effect.

That Acer model was unfortunately underpowered for gaming, especially with the added overhead of running its 3D software in the background. The Asus G51J, on the other hand, with a high-end processor and video card, seemed well-suited for mid-to-high-end gaming. Of course, it lacked dual SLI video cards and the 1,366×768 15-inch display is no match for some of the nicer 17-inch 1080p displays we’ve seen.

While playing Left 4 Dead 2, the 3D effects appeared crisp and appealing, and didn’t seem to distract from the speed of gameplay or the screen brightness. There appeared to be no real hardware burden in generating the 3D in terms of frame rate or graphics detail, either. On the other hand, the 15-inch screen is a little small as compared to a nice big gaming monitor, and that mitigated the overall immersion of the 3D effects.

The bigger problem is that 3D gaming is still a novelty. It’s not actually needed to appreciate any game at this point, and it has an expensive and often clunky set-up for users to navigate through.

Many people haven’t even seen 3D of the caliber that Nvidia is currently offering, and so they have no idea how smooth and crisp it is compared to the fuzzy double-vision experience of years past. What’s particularly great about Asus’ solution is that it’s already integrated into a reasonably priced Core i7 gaming laptop Latitude D410 battery, so the set-up and research into compatible hardware components is almost entirely eliminated.

This is an interesting trend to watch for in gaming laptops, and it should be included in more Core i7 laptops aimed at gamers, especially if Nvidia is serious about getting a larger adoption. We expect to see more 3D Vision capable laptops from major PC makers by early next year.