Twelve South Gives Your Mac Stylish New Accessories

Mac accessories made specifically for the Mac and not recolored PC stuff.

As Mac users, we hardly ever come across accessories made for Mac. The best we’ve ever gotten was PC accessories colored white and labeled “For Macs”. We know that the one most important reason that we chose to buy a Mac was for the design and looks. What’s the point of getting an overpriced Mac when we’ll have ruin its marvelous looks by pairing it up with mismatching PC accessories?

Well, that time has finally come to an end. Twelve South, a fairly new company, has gone on a mission to develop accessories exclusively for Macs. The result: perfect match and beauty.

So far, they’ve released 3 different accessories. Our favorite, no doubt, is called the Backpack. The Backpack is a gorgeous little shelf that you can attach to the back of your iMac or Apple Cinema Display. This stylish space-saver can keep your peripherals out of sight while still in reach. You can put anything from USB drives, external hard drives, to even a Mac Mini! The best part is that this shelf relies entirely on gravity and two little adjustible clips, so you won’t ever need to hurt your Mac with cruel screws. This means that you’ll be able to hang more than one Backpack on your Mac! Backpacks are available to be purchased on their official website for HK$230 each, or HK$1,200 for 6 plus shipping.

The BookArc (pictured below) is a stand that can hold anything from a Macbook Air to a 17″ Macbook Pro. The BookArc not only can save valuable desk space, but it also can protect your Macbook by hugging it perfectly with silicone cushions. The best part about it is– it’ll look perfect next to your iMac.

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Hewlett-Packard Leads PC Sales Worldwide in 2nd Quarter 2009

The market for new PCs slowly creeps forward.

As the recession continues to affect worldwide markets, the PC industry has released sales figures for the second quarter of 2009 through IDC and it looks like HP is at the top of the heap in worldwide sales but Dell who is #2 in worldwide is the leader in the US market.

HP does have a slight gain on market share worldwide with 19.8% of the PC market, with Dell following closely at 13.7%, Acer at 12.7%, Lenovo at 8.7% and Toshiba at 5.3% (Where is Apple and Sony? We don’t have data outside of these top 5)

Comparing numbers in shipments from last year the number has been slowly rising but market share is down specifically for Dell. As shoppers are more cost conscious when buying new PC’s, it seems HP has been giving Hong Kong computer buys more value for money with cross-promotions of scanners and printers and a better quality product that they are able to stand in the forefront. But how long will this last and when the economy begins to get better will more money be spent on higher end computers like Apple’s offerings?

Google Chrome OS Coming to Eat Your Windows Next Year

Your day of reckoning is here, Microsoft!

Google has announced the Google Chrome OS. It had to happen, first it was the Chrome browser to take on Internet Explorer, then the Android OS to take on Windows Mobile, just what does Google have against Microsoft anyways.

This is a heads-up Hong Kong, by the second half of 2010 expect alot of your favorite manufacturers to start switching over to the Google OS for certain types of PC’s – netbooks, laptops AND desktops! This is a real turning point for the future of personal computing, while there are many corporations that are tied to Microsoft, over the next few years you will see a big change in the way you buy a personal computer. For better or worse, Google is hopefully going to weld the power that Microsoft has held for the past 30 years much better and help the general public instead of stiffling them with ill-developed products and us buying them because there was no PC alternative.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

And how does this affect the mobile phone OS Android?

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

Yes, its the day of Michael Jackson’s memorial, but yesterday will also go down in history as the day the walls of Microsoft’s PC supremacy begin to fall down.

Too dramatic? We think its OK, this one time.

Sony Ericsson Unleashes the Ultimate Media Phone

Looks like a beauty. Works like one too.

Sony Ericsson just announced their upcoming phone, the Aino. Not the best name for a phone if you ask me, but it sure works better than it sounds. This phone has some of the features never even heard before.

With the new fashion led by the iPhone, the Aino, as you may have expected, will feature a big, beautiful touch-screen display. However, it goes even beyond that with a wonderful slide-out keypad as well.

Next, it offers the first ever Remote Play function on a mobile phone. This feature allows you to control and access media on your Playstation 3 with your Aino. Whether you’re right next to your PS3, or your thousands of miles away, you can access your PS3 content via the internet wherever you are.

This phone also features Media Home. This allows you to sync media from your PC to your phone automatically through WiFi. When you place your phone on the charging stand, it automatically will sync the newest media content from your PC to your phone.

Take a look at its awesome specs:

• Network: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100
• Form Factor: Slider
• Display: 3″ touch screen display, 240×432
• Camera: 8.1-megapixel with LED flash, 30fps VGA video recording
• Memory: 55MB internal, up to 16GB with SDHC card
• Battery: Up to 13 hours talk , 380 hours standby
• Misc: WiFi, Stereo Bluetooth 2.0, Remote Play, Media Home

As of now, there are no announcements yet on the price of this phone, but don’t expect it to be anywhere near cheap! It will be available “in select markets” starting in Q4 this year, in Obsidian Black and Luminous White colors.

Asus Taking Pre-Orders for its New Eee Seashell

Asus’s latest netbook sure catches the “apple” of your eye.

What does this remind you of? To us, it sure looks like Apple’s Macbook Air. However, Asus’s new netbook, the Eee PC 1080HA sure packs some great performance along with its sleek looks.

At only 1″ thin and weighs only 1.1kg, the Asus Seashell is definitely quite portable as well as attractive. Its shiny outside is also matched with its 10.1″ LED Backlight 1024×600 glossy LCD display with a built-in 1.3 mega-pixel webcam.

Inside, it packs an Intel Atom N280 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, and 160GB of hard disk drive storage. On top of that, Asus also offers a complimentary 10GB of free online Eee storage. The netbook comes with the new Asus Super Hybrid Engine to offer the maximum power efficiency, offering an impressive battery life of 6 hours.

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Top 5 Netbooks for Hong Kong

Let’s take a look at Neonpunch’s top 5 netbooks!

Netbooks are really becoming popular these days. They offer excellent portability, yet offer a lot more power than your smartphones at a similar price. If you were planning to get your hands on one of these, take a look at our recommended netbooks.

5. Asus Eee PC 1000HE

Being probably the first to come up with the netbook idea, the Eee PC still remains as popular as ever. The Eee PC 1000HE improves on its prodecessors. Like the Samsung NC10, this netbook also offers a super long battery life– 9.5 hours. Also, it funs on one of the faster Intel Atom CPUs, a 1.66GHz one. Its other features are similar to the other netbooks, offering a 160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and a 10″ screen. This one goes for around HK$3,100, a fairly inexpensive price.

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