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A San Francisco Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today overturned the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing the company of knowingly selling flawed notebooks. The decision asserts that a move to shutter the case and head to arbitration was “unconscionable” and that the terms Dell used to avoid a trial couldn’t be enforced. The public nature of the problem made it important to allow a proper case, according to Judge Lyle Strom.

The original lawsuit had sought class action status and claimed that some Inspiron notebook models sold between July 2004 and January 2005 had mainboards, cooling fans and power supplies that were fundamentally unreliable. Portables affected by the problem would spontaneously shut down or fail to start up at all. Without proper cooling, the systems would also wear down faster than they would have otherwise.

Many of the affected systems cost between $1,200 and $1,500 and contributed to the plaintiffs refusing to accept the original call for arbitration, as the scale of the losses meant they wouldn’t necessarily want to strike deals for each and every customer.

Microsoft has been accused of quietly removing content from its Zune Pass service, according to several posts on the Zune forums. Subscribers have posted long lists of artists and albums that have seemingly disappeared from the available music. Albums are allegedly missing from groups such as The Kills, Jane’s Addiction, Arcade Fire, Interpol, Silversun Pickups, Beck, The Flaming Lips, They Might Be Giants, Pearl Jam, The White Stripes and The B-52s, among others.

Although a portion of the omitted content appears to be from certain record labels, users have also noticed individual songs missing from albums. Several unconfirmed reports point to problems occurring only after the recent software update.

Microsoft staff have been asking for additional details from frustrated users, however the company has yet to fully explain the problems. It remains unclear if the albums have been pulled due to licensing changes or a glitch within the Zune Pass system

Today, Sony announced the VAIO E Series, a new line of  value-oriented multimedia, centric 15.5-inch notebooks with a giant heaping of style. Starting at $700, the VAIO E series features a 2.13-GHz Core i3 330M CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 15.5-inch screen with resolution of 1366 x 768 or 1920 x 1080 (depending on config), either Intel integrated or ATI Graphics chips are responsible for processing all images sent to your computer?s display.
Learn Morediscrete graphics, a 32o or 500GB The storage device that holds your OS, programs, and data.
Learn Morehard drive, and an optional Blu-ray drive. The base configuration should start at around $700 and includes the smaller hard drive, lower resolution screen, and Graphics chips are responsible for processing all images sent to your computer?s display.
Learn Moreintegrated graphics. A high-end configuration with 1920 x 1080 resolution, Blu-ray drive, and ATI graphics will debut in March for around $969.

Aside from its multimedia oriented specs, what really makes the VAIO E stand-out is its design and controversial color choices. It has an edge-to-edge keyboard with numeric keypad and an interesting gradient pattern on both its lid and deck. A layer of clear, textured plastic overlays the touchpad. More importantly, the notebook is available in Coconut White, Lava Black, Hibiscus Pink, and Iridescent blue.

Controversial Metallic Teal Color

We haven’t seen the white, black, or pink models in person, but yesterday Sony sent us an iridescent blue VAIO E in the mail. From the moment, we removed it from the box, the notebooks’ metallic teal chassis was controversial among our staff. Some editors fell in love with Sony’s bold color choice while others complained that it was way too garrish. It seemed like everyone, from our receptionist to the head of our art department had strong feelings about it.

The author of this post finds himself the self-appointed leader of the iridescent blue fan club as metallic teal has been his favorite color since childhood.

“This color reminds me of my first love, a 1990 teal-colored Plymouth Colt that I drove throughout college and grad school,” he said. “The notebook’s bold color reminds me of the 1980s, my favorite period for fashion and design.  The assist button, with its pink writing, has a Miami Vice aesthetic. I half-expected Philip Michael Thomas to be available via live chat after pressing it.”

Reviews Editor Mike Prospero also found himself attracted to the VAIO E’s design, though he maintained a sense of humor about its bright color. “Sales of the blue Vaio E will be helped by its on-screen appearance in Avatar,” he said.

However, Multimedia Editor Meghan McDonough thought the notebook’s color was way too loud. “It looks like it belongs in an aquarium as the backdrop of a coral reef exhibit. Or perhaps paired with fluorescent yellow surfer shorts on a California surfer dude,” she said.

Art Director Jeff Sass felt that the color and overall design of the VAIO E Series was inconsistent with Sony’s premium brand. “Sony quality out, cheap chintz in,” he said.

News Editor K.T. Bradford didn’t dislike the design, but noted that it would never blend into the background. “The blue color on the E series is like a needy cat. It demands attention whether you want to give it or not. You can’t look at that laptop without noticing it. If you like the color, you have no problem. You’ll enjoy it’s iridescent sheen for many years to come,” she said. “If you don’t like that color, or are indifferent to it, the very act of it being in the room will irritate you. Because you can’t look away! Attention must be paid, says the E series.”

Early Test Results

Aside from getting into violent arguments over its color, we also have had a chance to start testing the VAIO E Series. Our review unit came with the ATI Mobility Radeon 5470 Graphics chips are responsible for processing all images sent to your computer?s display.
Learn Moregraphics chip, Blu-ray, but only a 1366 x 768 screen, which is low resolution for a notebook with Blu-ray. In early tests, we found the graphics performance was really strong, enabling us to play the graphically-intense game Far Cry 2 at 47 frames per second in 1024 x 768 resolution and the not-as-demanding World of Warcraft at 60 frames per second, also in 1024 x 768.

The 500GB 5,400 rpm hard drive in our unit was nothing to write home about, completing our file transfer test, in which we copy 4.97GB of mixed media files, in 2 minutes and 55 seconds, for a rate of 21.7 MBps which is faster than the mainstream notebook average of 20.5 MBps, but not by much.

With a weight of 6-pounds, you wouldn’t expect the VAIO E to be very portable and its battery life reinforces that idea. The 3500 mAH battery has fewer mAH than most netbook batteries (4400 to 5600 mAH is typical for 6-cell netbook) and when you combine it with a power hungry system you get only 2 hours and 44 minutes of endurance.

Overall, though, we’re impressed with the VAIO E’s performance, many of us are in love with its design, and we look forward to completing our testing and posting our full review later this week.

In the mean time, let us know whether you would buy a metallic teal or “iridescent blue” notebook by voting in the poll and posting your comments below.

While Apple is being lamented here and there for not supporting Flash on its shiny new iPad – boy does Cupertino have a strong dislike for the platform – Adobe has already responded to the news on the official Flash Platform blog.

The blog post, unambiguously titled “Building iPad Applications with Flash”, is mostly just to remind people of the company’s Packager for iPhone product, which will enable developers to make Flash apps function on the iPhone / iPod Touch through a work-around whereby Flash apps can be easily converted into iPhone apps using Creative Suite 5 (CS5). Adobe also published a post on its Adobe Flash Platform blog addressing the apparent lack of Flash support in the iPad.

We’ve written before that this could turn 2010 into the year when approximately 2 million Flash developers could potentially start cooking up stuff for the iPhone en masse. You can now add the iPad to that, it seems.

The company notes:

We announced the Packager for iPhone at MAX 2009 which will allow Flash developers to create native iPhone applications and will be available in the upcoming version of Flash Pro CS5. This technology enables developers to create applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad (though applications will not initially take direct advantage of iPad’s new screen resolution). It is our intent to make it possible for Flash developers to build applications that can take advantage of the increased screen size and resolution of the iPad.

For that latter part, Adobe points to this article by Christian Cantrell, Product Manager and Application Developer on the AIR team. The article goes in depth about how developers can build apps using Flash with authoring with multiple screen sizes and resolutions in mind.

Update: Adobe’s definitely frustrated with the non-Flash policy at the Apple headquarters. Read ‘Apple’s iPad — a broken link?’.

You won’t be able to fire up, say, Hulu through your browser on the iPhone or iPad any time soon, but Adobe appears determined to show the world that Flash has its place on Apple’s products one way or the other.

And it’s also sending a message to Flash developers that they can and should stick to the platform rather than look at other ways to join the App Store goldrush.

Motorola’s Devour edged closer to launch on Monday with a shot of a box destined for Verizon shops. The Android slider should ultimately reach Verizon in silver and will emphasize MOTOBLUR just as much as the Cliq at T-Mobile. It also drops any immediate connection to the Droid label.

Price details and the actual release date still aren’t public but, with the new slip, is likely soon.

The Devour is poised to be a lower-cost alternative to the Droid with a 3-megapixel camera and a smaller, lower resolution display. It would also be the first Motorola Android 2.x phone to use the custom MOTOBLUR interface and will carry an uncommon optical trackpad for navigating one-handed. [via Android Central]

Remember, doing it yourself doesn’t always mean you’re making something look nicer. Sometimes you turn a perfectly good Honda motorcycle into a recumbent spearmint pod. It’s worth it, though, when that pod gets 214mpg going 55mph.

Allert Jacobs designed and built this contraption from a Honda Innova motorcycle. In its previous incarnation, the bike weighed 231 pounds and got a still respectable—but not mind-blowing—114mpg.

By giving it an aerodynamic shell (that splits in half for easy entry), Jacobs has undoubtedly made his hog a much more efficient vehicle in all aspects, aside picking up ladies or applying to the Hell’s Angels.

Dell recently issued a BIOS fix for its Studio 17 with Core i7, designed to solve a serious crashing issue. However, after the release of Intel’s new Core i5 processor and a number of vocal user complaints about its Core i7 product, the company has made the lower-powered and priced Core i5 the Studio 17’s default CPU choice. Though, as of this posting, we did not see a Core i7 option on Dell.com, a rep assured us that the Core i7 model, labeled the Dell Studio 1747 has not been discontinued and will return to the site within days.

When we reviewed the Dell Studio 17 with Intel’s Core i7 processor (aka Dell Studio 1747) in November, we gave the notebook a 4-star rating due to its blazing performance and relatively affordable price. However, we noted two major problems we experienced with our review unit. First, the initial system we received stopped booting (and made several beeping noises) just after testing had been completed and, second, we noticed that the exterior of the chassis got hot, with the underside of the system registering a troubling 112-degrees Fahrenheit after just 15 minutes of playing a Hulu video.

We returned the first unit to Dell, which repaired it and sent it back to us a couple of days later, saying that the first issue we encountered was an isolated incident. The repaired unit worked, but we did experience experience a couple of mysterious blue screen crashes the first time we tried to play Hulu videos on it, though these seemed to disappear on subsequent tests. After we informed Dell about the uncomfortably hot temperatures, they sent us a second review unit to test. This second unit  did not break or crash, but was just as hot as the original.

Readers Respond

Without having tested an entire assembly line of Dell Studio 17s with Core i7, it was impossible for us to tell if the one defective review unit we received was a fluke or a harbinger of trouble. However, after the product began shipping, we began receiving negative reports from many users, claiming that their Dell Studio 1747s (with Core i7) had died after a few days or hours of use.

A number of users also posted on forums that their Dell Studio 1747s slowed down after intense use. For example, a French-speaking user posted this experiment, which claims that after running two CPU-intensive programs, Prime 95 and Furmark, the CPU speed dropped from 1.6 to 1.06-GHz. Notebookcheck.com, a professional review site, did not see a clock speed drop but did see their test notebook’s 3DMark06 scores drop significantly after 12 hours of intense use. We did not test our review unit for performance throttling before we had to return it to Dell.

Dell’s BIOS Update

Recently, Dell  issued a BIOS update that fixes what they call the “7 beeps problem,” the same issue that bricked our first review unit. Dell advises that, if you own a Dell Studio 1747 that is working properly, you should install the BIOS update to insure you never get the 7 beeps problem. If your Dell Studio 1747 has already stopped booting, you can call Dell support or try re-seating the CMOS battery to bring the system back to life.

Whether the new BIOS update (termed the A04 BIOS) makes the system cooler or resolves its alleged performance issues remains to be seen. If you have a Dell Studio 1747, please let us know if the BIOS update has improved your system by posting in the comments below.

Own another Dell notebook or netbook? Sound off here on what you think of the brand.

Oppo has begun its week by launching the lowest-cost Blu-ray player in what’s normally a high-end line. The BDP-80 is similar to the BDP-83 but drops the secondary video processor, moving all work to the main decoder; it sheds 24p DVD upscaling in the process. Slightly older DACs as well as the absences of IR and RS-232 (serial) ports also help separate the BDP-80 from its earlier but more expensive predecessor.

The player is still fully capable of all modern Blu-ray features and carries both an Ethernet jack and 1GB of internal memory to support BD-Live. It can still play Blu-ray movies at 24p without pull-down conversion and carries an HDMI 1.3 output with support for 36-bit color on matching TV sets and receivers. Non-disc formats are still an option and range from simple audio and photos to video formats like AVCHD (H.264), whether it’s stored on a disc or on an attached USB drive.

Oppo is already taking orders for the BDP-80 and puts it at a comparatively low $289 versus a much higher $499 for the older BDP-83.

The Dell Inspiron 11z is a thin and light laptop with an 11.6 inch display. It’s a bit larger than Dell’s Inspiron Mini netbook line, and it comes with an Intel CULV processor, which provides more power than the Atom chips found in Dell’s netbooks. But the Inspiron 11z is still portable, cheap, and a little slow compared with many of the company’s larger laptops.

The laptop comes with a variety of configuration options. Dell sent me a review unit with a 1.3GHz dual core Intel Pentium SU4100 processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, a 250GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM, and a 6 cell battery. This configuration sells for $544 (or actually, $584, since this model has a $40 jade green lid), but the base model is available for just $379.

Of course, to get the lower price, you’ll have to settle for a 3 cell battery, single core processor, smaller hard drive, and Windows Vista.