While we’ve been waiting for news on an Haswell powered MacBook Air, MSI has snuck in and about to launch two new laptops, which will make use of the latest Intel processor. It’s clear to see that these MSI laptops will have an emphasis on gaming and will be on show at Computex.

It’s certainly nice to see that the Haswell gaming performance will be realized with these new notebooks, and working in conjunction with the new Nvidia GeForce GTX780M will make gaming that much better, although this will only be for their high-end model.

The Haswell MIS laptop range – First up we have the MSI GT70 Dragon Edition 2, which is a 17-inch flagship model, which is the one packing that Nvidia GeForce GTX780M graphics card. There is to be multiple SSDs, which has an emphasis on speed, a SteelSeries inspired keyboard, and an ability to connect up to four displays.

Next we have the MSI GS70 Stealth, which will also pack the Haswell CPU by Intel. This model will sport the GeForce GTX765M GPU and also offers a 17-inch screen. We’re told that its possible rival would be the Razer Blade notebook.

These two new MSI notebooks sporting Intel’s next-gen processors will be for sale in June, which is after the upcoming Computex show.

These are not the only laptops to be getting the new Haswell processor, although these do seem the first to center around gaming. A small German company named DevilTech is to also release a laptop powered by Intel’s upcoming CPU, which are to be called the Devil 7700 and Fragbook GTX

However, it’s the big players that we are more interested in, and so we hope to hear news from WWDC 2013, where we could see the new MacBook Air or Pro announced powered by the new Haswell processor.

Over the past few years we have seen a huge downturn in the PC market, firstly because of laptop sales and more recently tablet devices. We have seen companies such as Dell being hit hard by this because the desktop PC was a huge part of their business portfolio, and now Intel looks to be affected by this downturn as well, which is why they have made the decision that once the Intel Haswell is released it will be their last desktop motherboard.

This shows that Intel has recognized that making motherboards for PCs is not the way forward, although in the report it does say that Intel will still be committed to making boards for servers and workstations. While some PC owners will see this as a sad day, those who will not is Taiwanese motherboard makers, because they will benefit from Intel pulling out of the business.

As we said, the final motherboard will be Haswell and will be released in June, which we find very sad because it’s like the end of an era. However, we have to feel positive in the fact that Intel will now put more focus in to other areas of their business – maybe even better processors in the future then?

While the PC market is far from dead it’s clear that the decline will keep happening until there are only a few motherboard manufacturers left, although we’re sure that they will adapt as well. However, they might not have the sort of resources that Intel has.

There’s a very good chance that Intel will be showing off a new device during CES 2013 in a few days time, and if the rumors are true then what they have planned just highlights the ignorance of cable companies. The device in question is said to be a set-top box and will be able to stream both movies and TV programs, but how the Intel TV service will differ is the consumer would not have to pay for a subscription and only have to subscribe to certain networks of their choosing.

In theory this sounds like a great idea and one that many consumers have been asking for a while now, proof of this is how certain consumers stream content illegally because they do not wish to pay cable companies for a service that they feel is unfair. When you subscribe to a cable service you then have access to thousands of movies and TV shows, but most consumers only watch a handful of TV shows, so why subscribe to something with all that choice when it is not needed?

If this recent rumor is true then Intel’s new TV service would allow the user to pay for just the TV networks that they wish to view, such as HBO etc or even just the shows themselves. The set-top box is said to also come with DVR, which means that you will also be able to record those TV shows and movies to watch at your leisure. Apple was said to also be trying this kind of TV service, but Apple had a few issues trying to negotiate with TV networks, so one has to wonder if Intel will encounter the same problems?

Would you subscribe to a Pay-Per-Channel Streaming TV Service? It’s obvious that the cable companies are against such an idea, but it’s clear to see that the current service has now had its day and is high time that consumers have more of a choice.

While the price of SSDs have not fallen as much as we had hoped there seems to be no stopping this technology from moving forward, and the Mushkin 480GB SSD is proof of that. However, looking at a review of Intel’s latest SSD range they are also doing their best to improve on this technology, and believe it or not offer competitive pricing as well.

The Mushkin SSD is the first 480GB single mSATA module SSD and will be released in January, and while the $500 price tag may seem a little high for some, we can tell you that this is a pretty reasonable price. Looking on Mushkin’s official website their latest offering comes with a SandForce SF-2281 controller SATA III (6Gb/s) interface and unthrottled IOPS, which is protected with a three-year warranty.

If this model is not to your liking then you’ll be pleased to know that Mushkin have other 480GB options for you, but not mSATA. Firstly there’s the 7mm Chronos Deluxe 480GB Solid State Drive, the standard Chronos, and finally the Callisto deluxe. Again more details can be found by visiting their website.

To some, paying $500 is just too much so look for smaller capacity SSDs, so maybe you should consider the 335 Series, but because this only has 240GB of storage it works out $3-4 per GB compared to $1GB for the Mushkin 480GB SSD. When you think of it like that the $500 price doesn’t seem that bad after all. Maybe if you were to review Intel’s latest SSD then you will be able to weigh up the pros and cons to see what brand is for you.

However, just to make things a little tougher you might want to check out the Intel SSD DC S3700 Series Enterprise review, which offers both 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors. The former consists of 100GB-800GB storage, while the latter come with 200GB and 400GB storage capacity. It’s clear that the SSD market is heating up and because of a greater choice this will only benefit you and I because of more competitive pricing.

It is fair to say that Intel is better known for the Intel Core i5 and i7 processors than the more innovative things their trying to do in the world, which are making a difference to both the environment and protecting people using technology. Your computer more than likely has an Intel chipset and you might have downloaded some drivers from their website before, or upgraded with new motherboards containing their technology, but today we wanted to touch on a few of the projects Intel are involved in around the world that are more innovative.

Intel and KT partner to save Internet data centers money on electricity – one of the biggest non-environmentally friendly things about data centers is their power usage, and Intel know this, so we loved the news from a couple of days ago that Intel were helping with a new test center. This innovative project will really benefit companies when the outside temperature rises, which has been seen with a number of locations recently, and the HTA test center saves dramatically on air conditioning costs. You can read about this KT-Intel project in detail here.

Intel takes its plastic waste and turns it into pencil boxes – all factories have waste and when it comes to the environment it’s extremely important to see this waste managed correctly, although this can mean sending the waste overseas to dispose of it. Intel decided this is not a very productive method and wanted to do something better, so with their Chandler factory in Arizona they created pencil boxes by recycling the plastic waste. You can read some quotes from those involved in this project in an article here, although we’d love to know your thoughts on this project and if you think factories should be made to do things like this?

Protecting your car from viruses – you might know all too well about viruses on your Windows computer, and even heard about hackers using them to exploit your mobile devices in the coming years, but something you might not know is similar viruses are being used to hack cars. Intel’s McAfee unit has recently been instructed to look into this problem, and find ways to protect drives from viruses causing electrical bugs. You can read about this Intel project in full here.

What innovative projects have you seen technology companies doing recently? Hit the comments with your thoughts on Intel and their innovative projects, and we’d also love to hear about any similar stories you have seen.

The HP Pavilion 23 and ENVY 23 are two all-in-one computers that are sure to be on the wish lists of new buyers, although both cater for a different kind of computer user. The Pavilion 23 is designed for consuming the web rather than designing for it, and has processing power that is ideal for most everyday tasks. The ENVY 23 all-in-one steps it up slightly across the board with enhanced performance and a cool looking design.

You can see a quick visual look at both the HP ENVY 23 and Pavilion 23 in the video below this article, which explains exactly why you might want to consider either one of these desktop computers. HP’s worldwide marketing manager, Xavier Lauwaert, gives a taste of the specs for both these all-in-ones and explains ideal user for each.

The HP Envy 23 includes a TV tuner, Blu-ray drive, HDMI-in port, the ability to choose up to 2TB of storage, Beats Audio for amazing sounds, a 23-inch 1080p display, and the option of AMD trinity or Ivy Bridge (Core i5 Ivy Bridge) processors. The Pavilion 23 might miss out on some of the higher specs, but you’ll find up to 2TB of storage, a 1080p screen, and the same processor options. Watch the video below this article for further information.

Are you more of a casual computer user or do you like something a lot more demanding? You can also see a visual review of both these machines thanks to official photos, which can be seen below. These press pictures give you a close-up of the Pavilion 23 and ENVY 23 from all angles, so take a look and let us know what you think of both these computers from a visual point of view.

Both computers will be available to buy at retailers from August 5, although the release date is 3 days sooner if you buy direct at HP.

Every current-gen iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini model available from the Apple store utilizes one of Intel’s second-generation Core processors (aka Sandy Bridge), this platform will be superseded by the Ivy Bridge platform and it makes no sense to release any new Apple desktop / MacBook models until Intel launch this new platform – we’ve now heard (from SlashGear) that Ivy Bridge chips won’t ship until June.

The new delay was confirmed by Sean Maloney (Intel’s vice-president and chairman of Intel China), he didn’t have a lot to say on the matter but suggested that the delay was not due to lack of demand, instead it was related to the manufacturing process which is undertaken when manufacturing these new smaller chips.

This has a direct affect on Apple’s 2012 release plans as Apple will want to give its next-gen products all the benefits which the Ivy Bridge platform brings (mainly lower power consumption and more processing power). In 2011 Apple refreshed its MacBook Pro (February 24), iMac (May 3), MacBook Air (July 20) and Mac mini (July 20) models with Sandy Bridge processors, therefore we half expected a similar release pattern this year, however now Apple has to wait longer than expected for Ivy Bridge processors to ship before they can manufacturer products which utilize them developers will have to optimize software and firmware to get the most out of the new platform.

Putting an exact date on Apple’s 2012 refreshes is impossible, however it will be worth the wait as Intel’s new 22nm process and 3D Tri-Gate transistors should ensure that next-gen models have processors which perform 37% faster than their predecessors whilst consuming up to 50% less power.

If you check out our previous article you can see a full spec sheet listing all the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor offerings which we know about so far. It’s worth noting that the i3 options don’t boast the advanced Intel technologies or PCIe 3.0 support which the more expensive chips will offer, so take this into consideration if you plan on buying a system or building a PC with a Core i3 Ivy Bridge CPU.

Will you wait for an Ivy Bridge Mac, rather than but one within the next few months?

The i3 chips have always been the lowest-end Intel Core offerings, therefore we aren’t surprised to hear that Intel has decided to make a few compromises in regards to features, thanks to a recent CPU-World article we have all the specifics to divulge to our readers.

There are three Ivy Bridge Core i3 processors which we can tell you about today, these are the Core i3-3240, the Core i3-3225 and the Core i3-3220, these have clock speeds of 3.40, 3.30 and 3.30GHz respectively. They all boast a 3MB Cache, two cores, four threads, support for 1600MHz and 1333MHz DDR3 RAM and TDP ratings of 55W. Also the i3-3240 and i3-3220 utilize Intel HD Graphics 2500, whilst the Core i3-3225 gives you Intel HD Graphics 4000.

As you can see things look promising, however there are some corners which have been cut, these include no support for Turbo Boost or PCIe generation 3.0. In regards to advanced Intel Technologies we can also reveal that there’s no Intel Vpro technology, Intel VT-d, Intel TXT or AES-NI.

If you check out this image on Softpedia you can see a full breakdown of Intel’s Ivy Bridge specifics – we think the lack of support for PCIe 3.0 may put a lot of people off, but let’s face it if you’re buying components for a gaming PC you probably wouldn’t have opted for a i3 chip anyway. If you want a graphics card which offers PCIe compatibility you’ll have to go for a Core i5 or Core i7 Ivy Bridge processor.

Has anything here put you off the upcoming Core i3 processors?

Specs which we can confirm include a 4.5-inch display which outputs at 720p, a single-core 32nm Intel Atom Z2460 (1.6GHz) processor, an 8 megapixel camera on the rear and WCDMA HSPA+, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS connectivity. The K800 smartphones at CES 2012 all ran Android 2.3 Gingerbread and we’re not sure whether an update to Android 4.0 Ice Scream Sandwich is planned, all we do know is that Lenovo developers have heavily skinned the OS and bundled lots of pre-installed applications. Sometimes skinned’s versions of Android can adversely affect Android user friendliness, also third-party software can often be pretty lackluster, so we have some minor concerns about this aspect of the K800, that said the guys over at Engadget seemed to suggest that the skin didn’t take away from the Android-experience which millions of us now love.

Currently there is a big question-mark hovering over Intel Medfield performance and power consumption, sadly the sample at CES had no access to the Android market so benchmarking tools couldn’t be installed, however we are told that in SunSpider it slightly outperformed the Galaxy Nexus, if efficiency isn’t great we are glad to reveal that under the battery cover there’s a 1900mAh battery.

If you head over to LaptopMag’s blog you can see a brief hands-on video where we get to see the K800′s great multimedia capabilities, the single-core chip seems no slouch and when panning to different parts of a video there is no lag whatsoever. We also get to see a beautiful-looking gallery app where the user can see captured photos etc, sadly the video is less than two minutes long so there’s not much else on show.

In terms of design the K800 seems a little hit and miss, the soft comfortable finish is complemented by Engadget and so is its ‘noticeably light’ weight. On the top edge there’s a power button, speaker and 3.5mm jack, on the bottom edge there’s a microUSB port and a weird grill which almost looks like a vent for cooling (perhaps this is another speaker, we’re not sure what it is at present) you can see what we mean below.

As previously mentioned the Medfield processor is what people want to know more about, as the K800 is the ‘World’s first Intel-based smartphone’ we don’t yet know how it will compare to ARM, but we think that Mefield’s true potential will show once we see Medfield-based Android 4.0 and WP7 smartphones, also now that we have seen a single-core Intel processor for smartphones we’re sure that a multi-core offering isn’t too far away.

Sadly the K800 won’t arrive in the US, but it should hit China in Q2 2012, hopefully we will see a follow-up device in the near future with LTE connectivity, a multi-core Intel processor, a thinner design and a more up-to-date operating system – if so it could be a formidable smartphone.

Do you think Intel has a strong future in the smartphone market? Are you surprised to see Intel’s first-ever smartphone running Android rather than WP7 given Microsoft’s close relationship with Intel in the past? We sure are! You can see a full gallery of K800 photos here.

At the show Intel linked an Ultrabook up to a steering wheel and projector during the demo and appeared to play Codemaster’s F1 2011 in DX11 mode, the game looked great but anyone who has ever used VLC media player will recognize that the control panel which pops up during the demo – so despite the fact that Intel’s General Manager of Intel’s PC group, Mooley Eden, appeared to be playing the game in real-time, we were in fact seeing a video.

We have embedded a video at the bottom of this post which showed exactly what happened, Intel has now admitted that a video was used during the Ivy Bridge demo, but they assure us that the video shown was recorded when playing the game using an Ivy Bridge processor. So why did they fake it? There’s two likely reasons for this, either Mooley sucked at the game and didn’t want to show his lack of skill to a live audience, or perhaps there’s some stability issues and Intel didn’t want to ‘biff’ such an important demo in front of so-many influential people – either way it’s pretty embarrassing!

The good news is that the guys over at BrightSideOfNews.com recently tried out the game on an Ivy Bridge-based Ultrabook and say that it looked great and ran smoothly with the resolution set to medium, check out their article for full details and a video showing the game running.

Do you think that measures should be put into place to ensure that what we see during press conferences is ‘real’?