ECS G10IL: Stateside September for $399

ECS has been teasing the netbook market for months now with its G10IL -- meticulously surveying the competition and batting its eyelashes at US consumers. Fortunately, LAPTOP was able to sit down with Henry Kwan of ECS to help bring the flirtatious cycle to a satisfying end. Accordingly, we now know that the G10IL will ship in 8.9- and 10-inch models with the latter most likely shipping to US soils. It'll be available at an entry-level price of $399 in September running Linpus Lite 9.4 Linux off an 8GB SSD. It'll also be configurable with XP on an 80GB disk and EDGE/HSDPA/HSUPA data for much more. No sentimental delusions of educating the world's children here, the G10IL is meant for serious business use only. How refreshingly direct ECS.

Amex Digital gets a little too inspired with new portable Super Multi Drive

so we definitely appreciate a slim little external DVD burner that cooperates with more than one computer (natively), but no matter how hard we try to peer around the similarities, there's just no denying the likeness here. Amex Digital's Portable Super Multi Drive is, for all intents and purposes, a direct rip of Apple's MacBook Air SuperDrive. The unit gets all the power it needs from a spare USB port, arrives in black or white, burns dual-layer DVD media at 10x (single-layer at 20x) and sports a palatable $89 sticker. Can you imagine what this thing would cost with actual R&D overhead factored in?

Panasonic's Toughbook CF-U1 gets reviewed

While Panny's Toughbook CF-U1 looks mighty novel, is it really worth the cost to have it added to your gadget collection? For those who've never quite been able to wrap their noodle around the whole UMPC concept, TrustedReviews bets that you'll be able to overlook this one without losing any sleep. All in all, the CF-U1 seemed to make the best of an awkward situation by excelling at tasks that would likely take place in everyday field work, but the average joe / jane may want to see one in person before buying blind. Yeah, hot-swappable batteries, an Atom CPU and a full QWERTY keypad are lovely additions, but if you've never needed a UMPC before (let alone one built for extreme scenarios), you aren't apt to gain a whole lot from owning this one. Hit the read link for the full spill.

BlackBerry Thunder not ready, disappointing, and kills puppies

Just when we were finished telling you that the BlackBerry Thunder's haptic touch screen keyboard was the greatest thing evar, it turns out that things may be a bit of a mess over in RIM development land. According to one of Boy Genius' sources, the BlackBerry Thunder is lagging far behind on development time and is "in no way shape of form market-ready." And that awesome keyboard? Not so awesome. Reports are that it's annoying to type on and the screen ripples when the touchscreen is pressed. Meanwhile, UI response times are pretty bad, buttons don't click right, and RIM's new touch-and-drag method of selecting items isn't up to snuff. In short, says BGR's source, "Most of the people who have handled it thinks it's a joke." We haven't seen the thing ourselves lately, but if this report is true, it looks like you'll be waiting a while before you get your hands on a Thunder.

Samsung's $280 SC-MX20 camcorder is YouTube-friendly

We won't fault you for forgetting all about Samsung's SC-MX20 -- after all, it was crammed deep beneath a host of other Sammy camcorders when announced at CES earlier this year. Nevertheless, we've received a few more vital details about said shooter today, and aside from boasting a 680K pixel CCD sensor (720 x 480 resolution), this one also features a 34x optical zoom, Advanced Image Stabilization, face detection, an SD / SDHC card slot, a battery good for three hours, a 2.7-inch LCD monitor (on a swivel, no less) and ten automatic scene modes for extra good times. Additionally, the unit packs a special shooting mode that captures in a resolution and format perfect for YouTube, so those terrified of converting will surely be breathing a sigh of relief. Expect this one to land next month in red, white, black and blue for a very manageable $279.99.