Pandas, East Asia, wood. Nope, “laptop” hasn’t ever been on the list of words we typically associate with “bamboo,” but ASUS sure has us willing to tack it on with the introduction of its U Bamboo Series

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ASUS U33Jc-A1 Bamboo series review

MSI’s GT660 has been kicking around in various forms for a few months now, but the latest edition (dubbed GT660R) is just now splashing down on a few e-tailer websites. Boasting a 1.73GHz Core i7-740QM processor, 6GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive (7,200RPM), Blu-ray combo drive and NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 285M, this 16-inch beast is more than capable of handling whatever HD media and first-person shooters you’ve got sitting around.

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MSI’s Core i7-equipped GT660R makes itself available to US consumers

Wondering about the fate of the MagicJack femtocell now that its promised second quarter launch window has passed?

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MagicJack’s femtocell misses its launch date, still hasn’t been submitted to the FCC for approval

15-year old Nick Lee snuck tethering capabilities into a seemingly inconspicuous $0.99 flashlight app and got it approved by Apple .

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Kid Tricks Apple Into Approving Tethering App

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Max, who seems to be putting his old scattered life behind him in an attempt to get organized. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com

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Ask Engadget: best note-taking tablet / laptop for under $200?

We’ll be honest — we weren’t the biggest fans of SYNC from the onset, but that had more to do with its insistence on playing Run DMC on our request for Naughty By Nature during a cross-town CES run than anything else.

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Ford’s SYNC learns 100x more voice commands, integrates Nuance technology

We’re not sure what tea they’re being served in the Far East these days, but the peeps at Lenovo have somehow convinced themselves to let go of the legendary 13-inch ThinkPad X301 and replace it with the 14-inch T410s by the end of the year. Ouch. While you mop up the tears pooling around your boots, here’s Marketing Director Wang Lipin’s reasoning: with the T400 series capable of offering more powerful CPU and GPU at a similar portability but much lower price (we’re talking about a $980 difference between the T410s and X301 base models, at the time of writing), the X300 series has since lost its special place in the ultraportable category

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Lenovo ThinkPad X300 series to be phased out, replaced by T400 this year

Right now, Intel has every right to lay contentedly atop the laurels of its biggest quarterly profit ever , but that’s not what the company is doing at all. Instead of protracting the life of its current-gen processors unduly, Intel is planning to accelerate the roadmap for its next generation of multicore parts, codenamed Sandy Bridge

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Intel’s Sandy Bridge CPUs to tape out ahead of schedule, could be with us this year

If your gear isn’t pushing the performance envelope , you typically have to resort to alternative means for attracting those precious customers.

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Sony thinks E Color is the new black, gives you a whole site’s worth to choose from

With the NVIDIA Ion 2-powered Acer Aspire One 532g falling by the wayside and the ASUS Eee PC 1201PN hitting the market sans NVIDIA Optimus , all eyes are on the ASUS Eee PC 1215N to be the true Ion 2 machine. Well, super-charged netbook fans, we’ve got good news: the 12-inch laptop, which has a 1.8GHz dual-core Atom D525 CPU and NVIDIA’s Optimus to intelligently switch between discrete and integrated graphics, will ship in the US around August 23. And while an MSRP hasn’t been set in stone, we’re told “it should be below $500.” Sure, a glance at the calender will reveal that you won’t get your mitts on this bad boy for at least 40 days, but we’re confident you’ll find something to pass the time.

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ASUS Eee PC 1215N to ship in the US at the end of August