Very occasionally, a product comes along that makes you wonder why nothing like it has ever been made before. And that’s precisely the feeling we had holding the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 for the first time. It weighs a feather-light 1.45kg, but includes a full-sized keyboard, a 13-inch widescreen and a built-in optical drive. It all seems so simple.

Once you start analysing though, you realise products like this could only appear in 2008. For the first time, technologies like solid-state-disks, low voltage processors and optical drives have reached a point they can be miniaturised – or, in the case of solid-state disks, mass produced – without making unbearable sacrifices.

Intel has announced the branding for its forthcoming range of low-power processors designed for handheld devices. Formerly referred to by the codenames of Silverthorne and Diamondville, the chips will now go by the moniker Atom.

The Intel Atom uses the same instruction set as the Core 2 Duo processor, but it’s a completely new design that represents Intel’s smallest-ever processor. The Atom is just 25mm2 with 47 million transistors, compared to 410 million on the latest 143mm2 Core 2 Duo. The new chip will run at speeds up to 1.8GHz and draw between 0.6 and 2.5W – the Core 2 Duo draws around 35W.

APC may not be a name you’d normally associate with laptop bags, but the company perhaps best known for its uninterruptible power supplies branched out into mobile accessories some time ago. It now offers a variety of laptop bags in a wide range of styles, of which the TC850N-EC Business Casual Messenger Bag is but one.

It may have only been a couple of weeks since McAfee sounded the warning bell about the imminent threat posed by mobile phone viruses, but looks like its prediction has already started to come true. A post on the security company’s blog describes a “Window Mobile Pocket PC trojan” that’s just been discovered in China – not the first piece of malware for the platform by any means, but it is the first to be found in the wild.

Lenovo has officially announced its ultra-slim laptop, the ThinkPad X300. Weighing 1.33kg and a mere 18.5mm thick, the X300 is a showcase for a raft of new performance and environmentally-conscious technologies.

Lenovo is being a little coy about the specifications so far, but leaked information suggests that it has an Intel Core 2 Duo low-voltage 1.2GHz processor. Lenovo has confirmed that it has a 13.3in LED-backlit WXGA+ (1440 x 900) screen and a 64Gb SSD. The latter, in conjunction with the carbon and glass fibre construction of its case, will make it much more rugged than its svelte lines might suggest.

Prices start from £1,997 inc VAT and the ThinkPad X300 is (or should) be available immediately. Look out for a review at Mobile Computer in the next week or so.

[Lenovo]

Launched in the US late last year, the Palm Centro caught most people by surprise. With its long awaited update to Palm OS not due until 2009, few expected it to see a new smartphone powered by the current creaky Palm OS Garnet, but that’s just what the Centro was – and it’s now available in the UK.

Anyone who’s ever used a laptop computer will know that they can get a little warm after just a few minutes. If you always work at a desk or table, this may be all you ever notice, but if you use a laptop on your lap, you could be outing your health at risk.

Sit with a very hot laptop on your thighs for any length of time and you run the risk of more than just a crease in your trousers. In 2002, a letter to The Lancet medical journal recounted the case of a 50-year old Swedish scientist who had burned a rather intimate part of his anatomy after using his laptop on his lap for an hour, apparently fully-clothed.

It’s tantamount to a video nasty, but in the interests of science, here’s a video of some French sadist casually torturing an Asus Eee PC. The good news is that the laptop survives all of the abuse; the bad news is that despite the provocative nature of the tests, it’s a very dull video indeed…

Nokia has released a beta version of its new Text Messenger application for Windows Vista and it’s now gadget that sits in the Vista Sidebar. Nokia reckons it’ll work with all Nokia handsets that are compatible with its free PC Suite application, but you’ll need version 6.85 or later installed and running.

There's a quick guide on getting it up and running after the cut.

If you suffer from slow web browsing on your Windows Mobile handheld, it may not necessarily be anything to do with the speed of your device or its internet connection. Whenever you open a web page or click on a link, your web browser has to make a DNS (Domain Name Server) request so that it can translate a domain name into the IP address of the server where the website is actually hosted.

The problem is that few mobile operators prioritise such DNS lookups, which can leave your web browser twiddling its thumbs while it waits for an IP address. The solution is to ditch your crummy mobile operator’s DNS service and use a snappier one – which is where OpenDNS comes in.