If there's one thing that chaps our hide, it's lousy drivers. But coming in at a close second are the craptastic speakers that manage to infiltrate almost every notebook on the planet, including the so-called desktop replacements. Would it kill OEMs to shove a decent pair of cans into their laptops?
Apparently that's not a chance many are willing to take, so it's up to third-party peripheral makers to fill the void. Enter Choiix, a company you probably never heard of, but hold your horses before you go gallopping off. Choiix isn't some generic brand you'll find in the clearance section of Walmart, it's actually a subsidiary of Cooler Master, which we're willing to bet you have heard of (and if not, then welcome to the world of computers, junior!). Cooler Master's Choiix division focuses on lifestyle products, including the BoomBoom Slim Travel Speaker we're looking at today.
As Choiix describes it, the BoomBoom is a "cleverly designed" external speaker accessory offering "rich sound" in a slim package. Given our experience with laptop speakers, that sounds good to us. But can they deliver? Let's just see, or hear, as the case may be.

"Well, here's a way to make those 3D tellies attractive -- slim them down to unreasonable proportions and kill as much of the bezel as you can. The newly announced LX9500 isn't quite as skinny as the stuff we saw LG show off at CES, but at 22.3mm it still makes the majority of laptops look on in envy. Paired to a pleasingly minimal 16mm bezel, it makes for quite the gorgeous living room accessory, whether on or off (one more pic after the break). The new LED-backlit set will offer a full 1080p resolution and a 400Hz refresh rate, which is more than enough to make those active shutter glasses useful. A 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio is given, but that number wouldn't impress us even if it was the total US national debt to 1, we want real contrast numbers or nothing at all. Anyhow, Reuters is reporting a 4.7 million Won ($4,134) launch price for the 47-inch model, which should go on sale a week from now in Korea. A 55-inch variant should also be available when these 3DTVs make the journey westwards in May. " source
"If you needed another reason to not stop believin' in plasma, look to LG. The company is introducing a pair of the sets in its home market of Korea dubbed "Skinny Frame," a reference to the 25mm thin border around the panels -- which honestly isn't mind-blowingly thin, but nobody likes beefy bezels, right? The sets are available in 50- and 60-inch sizes, both offering 600Hz refresh rates, automatic contrast adjustment based on lighting conditions, and the ability to play photos and videos from a connected USB drive. Not bad, but at 1,700,000 and 3,800,000 won ($1,150 and $3,325) they're not cheap, either." source
"Dell is serious about its thin and light class of machines judging by its ability to churn out these lovely lappies from its Adamo design studio. Today we've got the Latitude 13. Oh sure, it looks almost exactly like the Vostro v13 for small businesses but this is Latitude brother, Dell's mainstream business brand. As such, it comes fully IT-ified with a preinstalled Citrix client, easier virtualization options, and baked in know-how for system image and software update distribution. So it's not really new, but it's still "the world's thinnest 13-inch commercial client laptop," according to Dell and that's gotta be worth a second look when it begins shipping in a few weeks." source
"Another week, another "world's thinnest." LG's new LCD looks like an OLED, and at just 2.6mm thick, it's actually a shade thinner than Sony's XEL-1.
Thankfully LG didn't compromise on diagonal size, with this prototype coming in at 42-inches. It's LED-backlit, with a 120Hz processor (for the US market, anyway) and apparently only weighs 4 kilograms." Source