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Do not expect to have 5 to 6 hours of gaming and movie watching on this laptop with the battery. I found the battery to last anywhere between 2h 30m to 3h 30m depending on the screen brightness, the power profile, if Bluetooth and wireless is on or not, and other power consuming features. I found this to be reasonable because I will not be doing power intensive tasks unless I am plugged in, and at no time will I require more than 3 hours on battery. If more battery power is needed, one can always replace the Hot-swappable optical bay with a second 6-cell Li-ion battery.

The W3J shipped with Windows XP Professional edition (SP2). As I mentioned above it shipped with quite a few additional software. Few may even wish to reformat XP to a pristine state. Included with the laptop was a trail version of Norton Anti-Virus (90 days), ASUS DVD (a stripped down DVD software), NERO OEM version (not the full version), Infineon Security Platform Solution, Power4Gear, and other small programs. The drive was originally partitioned into three FAT32 drives (including one hidden) but a simple script (accessible via the desktop) allowed for the conversion into NTFS (preferred by XP).

I have no first hand experience regarding Asus customer support (and I hope it remains that way). The laptop ships with one year of global warranty. Be wary though, upgrading any parts (sans the RAM) can void this warranty.In the end, all I have said can be shortened into a few sweet words: the Asus W3J is fully worth it. This excellent laptop packs quite a punch inside of its small and sleek chassis, all while maintaining excellent build quality and looking quite incredible. The asking price may be quite steep, but like all great services, it’s worth it.

It’s easy to get confused by all the variety of netbooks on the market today. These low-cost ultraportable laptops generally have very similar features and many even look virtually identical. That said, it’s never easy to overlook the latest Eee PC from ASUS. The Eee PC 1005HA Seashell is the newest netbook from ASUS that promises to deliver the perfect balance between lightweight style and functionality. Let’s take a closer look.The Eee PC 1005HA is a lower-cost version of the 1008HA Seashell and features a similar clamshell chassis design but is a little thicker and comes with a removable battery. Unlike the 1008HA, which had plastic covers over every port, all of the ports on the 1005HA are easily accessible so you won’t have to struggle to plug in a USB flash drive. The 1005HA also isn’t as thin as the 1008HA Seashell, but the 1005HA makes up for extra bulk with a high-capacity removable battery.

If you look at the top of the 1005HA it’s easy to see the “Seashell” heritage, and thankfully it manages to retain some solid build quality for a budget netbook. The glossy black plastics aren’t prone to flex and the keyboard is very firm … two things you usually don’t see on budget notebooks. The various parts of the chassis come together with tight build tolerances like a higher-priced laptop. This isn’t the most rugged netbook we’ve ever seen, but ASUS gave the 1005HA a pretty solid build for less than $400.One nice improvement on this netbook compared to the last Seashell is the return of an easy-access RAM cover. If you want to upgrade the RAM in your 1005HA all you have to do is remove one screw on the access panel on the bottom of the netbook. I would have also liked to see an easy-access panel for the hard drive, but most netbook buyers aren’t going to mess with the hard drive.

The new Eee PC 1005HA Seashell uses a fairly standard LED-backlit display panel with a 1024×600 native resolution. The glossy screen looks identical to what we saw in the 1008HA: the glossy screen offers good color and contrast, but glare and reflections indoors under strong lights or outdoors under direct sunlight can be a problem. Again, although the 1024×600 resolution is pretty standard for a netbook these days, I’d much rather see a 1366×768 screen in the next Eee PC. Vertical viewing angles are average, with minimal color distortion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors staying accurate at extremely wide viewing angles with just a little bit of color wash out.

The 1005HA Seashell uses the same 92% of full size keyboard first seen on the 1008HA Seashell. The keys are slightly smaller than the keys on an average notebook but the spacing between the keys is quite limited. If you prefer the shape and feel of traditional keys then you’ll probably like the new keyboard. That said, I personally prefer the “chicklet” style keyboard used on the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE since there is more space between the keys to prevent me from accidentally hitting the wrong key. Still, the keyboard on this netbook is quite usable and should be perfectly fine for typing quick emails or editing documents while traveling.

The Synaptics touchpad used on the 1005HA is likewise identical to the gesture-enabled model on the 1008HA. This allows you to use multi-figure gestures such as “pinching” your fingers together or “pulling” your fingers apart to zoom in or out. You can also use a “three-finger tap” as an alternative to a right click on a mouse. The Synaptics control panel in Windows also allows you to customize these gestures as well. The touchpad surface is covered in dots that provide a clear indication of the edges of the touchpad, but this also makes the touchpad surface too rough for quick finger movement. The left and right touchpad buttons are located beneath a single rocker-style button, but with no separation between the left and right side it’s easy to accidentally press the middle of the touchpad button when you’re trying to press the left or right side. The touchpad buttons have extremely shallow feedback, so it isn’t always easy to feel when you have or have not pressed a button.

Unfortunately, the video player integrated into the Chrome OS does not recognize or play movie DVDs, though looking at the files on the disc itself shows the .VOB files. If you want to watch a DVD movie, you will need to convert it into MP4 or other format that the Chromebook can play. Technically, performing this conversion my violate the law, even if you own the DVD. On the other hand, many DVD movies now come with digital copies as well as Ultraviolet streaming video formats.

One thing that you need to consider when buying any laptop or tablet is what can you do with it? In this case, what apps are included or available for the device?The Chromebook doesn’t run iOS or even Android apps. It needs applications that have been developed to run within the Chrome browser. And even then, not every Chrome app will run well, if at all, on the Chromebook. Some apps perform calls to the underlying operating system, and some might need a component installed on a hard drive, something that’s not available on the Chromebook except through a USB port.

Apps and extensions to the Chrome browser can be found on the Chrome Web Store. Many of these apps are free, others carry a monthly fee. If you are purchasing a Chromebook primarily to perform internet browsing, watching online videos and listening to music, you should be fine. Office productivity such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations all can be performed both on and off line with Google Drive, which provides the familiar Google Docs and other applications, storing the documents online (or transferring them between the Chromebook and online storage if you want or need to work on a document or spreadsheet offline).

Of course, if you want to print any of those documents or presentations for school or work you’ll need to use the Google Cloud Print service since the Chromebook cannot be connected directly to a printer in your home or office.If you are considering the Chromebook as a second laptop, or as a gift for someone, it might be a good idea to install the Chrome browser on your current PC, laptop, or tablet, go to the Chrome Web store, and try out a few apps that you think you or whoever will be using the Chromebook, might use. There’s no guarantee that this app will run the same way, if at all, on the Chromebook, but at least you’ll get a good idea of what many of the Chrome apps feel like.

I opted to get the 6 cell battery to save $100, but at the same time l was worried l would be plagued with 2 hour battery life like with my previous Compaq V400T. This is NOT the case at all with the E1405! On 6/8 brightness, Wi-Fi on and browsing the web while listening to music I consistently get over 3 hours of battery life. The battery also has a small strip of LED lights that has a small button you can press to tell you how much charge is left in the battery, whether the laptop is on or not. This can be a handy feature to use in case you need to know if you’ll need your power brick when going out somewhere without turning the laptop on. Note, that this is also on most of not all other Dell laptops.

This configuration cost me a hair under $1,400 with the hard drive and RAM coming from NewEgg.com and the rest ordered from MilestonePC.com. All in all, I’m quite satisfied with the performance per dollar of my purchase. My one complaint is that MilestonePC used some sort of adhesive to bond my heatsink setup to the motherboard so I couldn’t add arctic silver to the CPU.

The design of the lid is perhaps a little plain. As you can see in the picture, it is a plain silver with no logo on it. I wish it came with an Asus logo. Although plain, I think it still has a clean look to it. The build quality seems high, standard Asus quality. However, the actual frame perhaps is designed a little weakly. It is definitely not as solid as a ThinkPad (for example my T60), but it is a little better than the Dell and HP consumer laptops I’ve tried.

ASUS claims that the 1005HA provides “all-day computing” with up to 10.5 hours of battery life on a single charge. As difficult as that might be to believe, it’s not completely out of the question. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 9 hours and 37 minutes of constant use. If we turned down the screen brightness even more, disabled Wi-Fi, and allowed the netbook to occasionally go into sleep mode then I’m quite certain the 1005HA could have exceeded 11 hours of battery life!

The new ASUS Eee PC 1005HA Seashell might seem like “just another Eee PC” at first glance, but upon closer examination it’s clear that ASUS has refined their popular line of netbooks with every variation. The Eee PC 1005A is one of the best eveolutions of the Eee PC line so far.Yes, on paper there’s not much to get excited about with the latest Eee PC since it features the same processor, integrated graphics, and standard 10-inch display seen in almost every netbook, but in this case the whole may indeed be greater than the sum of its parts.I’d still like to see a higher resolution screen, different graphics solution, and better touchpad buttons in this netbook, but overall there are plenty of reasons to like the latest Eee PC. If you’re in the market for a $400 netbook then this is worth your consideration.

Google introduced its Chrome browser and OS several years ago. And while Chrome has had somewhat modest success, it hasn’t taken the browser world by storm. The browser-based Chrome OS has had even more limited success, as it’s more-or-less just the Chrome browser running over a hidden OS. All interaction with the underlying operating system (essentially Linux) is performed through the Browser.

About a year ago, Samsung introduced the first Chromebook — a laptop built around the Chrome operating system. Samsung also introduced the Chromebox. Built around a low power processor, these two devices were reasonably priced and meant as an entry level laptop and desktop targeted toward the business user. The philosophy behind these was to provide a basic system with moderate RAM and almost no onboard storage.Since the Chrome OS is accessed through the Chrome browser, most applications and data storage is performed online in the cloud, rather than on the device itself. From a technical viewpoint, this approach is pretty much a thin client/server setup, with the Chrome device acting as a thin client and the server portion existing in the cloud.

The original Samsung Series 5 Chromebook was priced in the $500 range, and offered with just Wi-Fi or with Wi-Fi and 3G. At that price, the Chromebook was seen as a netbook replacement, and achieved only modest sales.The new Chromebooks (Acer also offers a Chromebook) are more modestly priced. Samsung’s Chromebook C303, the one we looked at, is priced at $249, while Acer’s $199 model is even less expensive.At first glance, the new Samsung Series 3 Chromebook is indistinguishable from a small Ultrabook. The exterior measurements are similar, as is the screen size, at 11.6 inches. The case, which looks like brushed aluminum, is actually plastic, and it definitely doesn’t have the rigidity of a more expensive laptop. But that’s one of the compromises that you have to make when you spend $250 on a laptop.

Unfortunately, it’s not the only one. While the Chromebook is good for a lot of common tasks, it’s not great for others. The CPU in the Samsung Chromebook is a 1.7 GHz Samsung Exynos 5200. This is a dual core low-end ARM-based processor with about the same computing power as one of Intel’s dual core Atom CPUs. Considering that many of today’s tablets sport an Nvidia Tegra 3 quad core CPU, the Exynos 5200 isn’t particularly impressive. On the plus side, the ARM processor generates very little heat, so the unit doesn’t require a fan, and is completely silent in use.

Other constraints are the fixed amount of memory — 2 GB DDR3 flash RAM and 16 GB of solid state storage.This isn’t a lot or memory by any means, but for basic tasks it will be sufficient considering that most of the entry-level tablets, including the iPad, have this amount of memory, or even less.The Chromebook, for the most part, doesn’t store files locally on the unit (though you can if you need to work on a file off-line), but instead stores your data and files out in the cloud. The Chromebook comes with 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage, which is free for the first two years. After two years, you are charged a minimal amount for this storage, and storage in excess of the first 100GB will also need to be paid for the first two years as well. This is not unlike the structure of most cloud-based storage such as Microsoft’s SkyDrive, Apple’s iCloud or Dropbox. For the most part, these services are free for the first 2 or 5 GBs of storage, and are then you pay for additional storage.

Given that Internet connectivity is a must for you to get any real use out of the Chromebook, you’re going to have to give some thought to how and where you will connect when you are not at home. Hot spots are plentiful these days, but if you aren’t near a free one, or one that’s included as part of your cable or other service, your use of the Chromebook is going to be seriously constrained.This isn’t necessarily the brick wall it might seem to be at first. 3G broadband from Verizon is available as an option for the Chromebook, but at $200 is almost doubles the price of the Chromebook itself. A more practical approach is tethering your Chromebook to your cell phone or Mi-Fi when necessary. Many smartphones today can also serve as a Wi-Fi hot spot.One nice plus about all of the memory on the Chromebook being solid state is that the laptop boots incredibly fast — within just a few seconds. For those consumers who are still used to waiting 30 seconds or more for a laptop to get to operational status after power on, this is a pleasant surprise.

The screen is a Samsung WXGA+ 1440 x 900 with the Trulife glossy coating over it (currently Dell only offers this screen with Trulife). The first thing that l noticed with this screen is the light leakage. When booting up for the first time on the XP loading screen there was about an inch of light appearing across the entire bottom of the laptop. But once on the desktop I didn’t really notice the light leakage. It’s only apparent when watching some movies with a black bar on the top and bottom or doing something else on it that is dark.

Viewing angles are not the best on the market. Horizontal viewing angles are pretty good and I can move my head to the left and right pretty far without noticing any distorting or colors changing. But with vertical angles there’s only one sweet spot: the center. Moving your head either up or down an inch or more and everything looks degraded. If you move your head down everything becomes darker while moving your head up will make everything brighter. The glossy Trulife coating on the screen brings out the colors and contrast well while the reflections don’t really bother me. I have read on the NotebookReview forums that many people dislike the glossy screen for their reflective nature, but for me this is not the case.

The speakers aren’t fantastic on the E1405, but they are adequate. When watching a movie they sound slightly tinny, but are loud and good enough for general use. I recommend that if you use the speakers often to pick up a pair of headphones or external speakers. I used my Sony MDR-V700 DJ quality headphones on them and they sounded great.I chose the 1.66GHz Core Duo T2300 processor for my e1405 and I find that it is very snappy. I often watch a DVD in one corner of the screen while chatting on MSN and browsing the web without slowdown. Also, Dell put a service panel on the bottom of the laptop that when unscrewed (only 3 screws) you have complete access to the processor and heatsink. 4 more screws and the heatsink is off and you can just pop a Core 2 Duo CPU in there — assuming Dell releases bios that supports it.

This is not a section you would expect for the E1405, but it doesn’t do bad on older games. Counter Strike 1.6 at 1440 x 900 will get you 50-60fps. Playing Trackmania Nations at 1440 x 900 on low settings + 8x af gets me a playable 20-30fps. I haven’t tried any other games but I hear that games such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Need for Speed: Most Wanted should run on lower settings.The hard drive that l ordered with my E1405 is a 60GB 5400RPM SATA. It is not fast but runs very cool. The only negative about it is that it comes with 2MB of cache instead of the 8MB that is nearly standard these days, this causes some slowdown:

The Dell e1405 has an average amount of ports considering the size of the laptop. It has 4 USB 2.0 ports, 1 VGA-out, 1 S-Video port, headphone jack, microphone jack, 4-in-1 media card reader, Express Card slot (no PCMCIA slot), 10/100 ethernet, modem, and firewire.In conclusion, I am happy with my purchase and while this laptop has its flaws they don’t detract enough from the experience of owning it and using it on a daily basis. For $640 I couldn’t think of a better laptop for the price that could come close to outperforming it. I would recommend the e1405 to anyone that’s looking for a budget laptop that has a small screen but doesn’t skimp on features.

I recently purchased an Asus z96j to supplement my Lenovo ThinkPad T60. I do a lot of modeling and rendering and the T60’s video card (an ATi X1300 with 64MB RAM) just couldn’t cut it when it came to rotating complex 3D models. I also have a 21″ monitor that runs a native 1680 x 1050 resolution that the T60 had trouble displaying graphics on. So I decided to get the z96j. HP, Dell, and the others all have similar setups, but Asus had the cheapest setup by way of buying a barebones notebook (barebones means you buy the hard drive, optical drive, wireless card, OS, and RAM components of the machine). If you don’t mind a logo-less machine, it seems to be the best bargain you can get. It’s got a wuxga (1680×1050) 15.4″ screen powered by a 256mb Ati x1600 thats more than powerful enough to display dual 1680×1050 resolutions.

The team at NotebookReview.com just finished our in-depth look at the latest generation of AMD’s “Accelerated Processing Unit” (APU) technology. Code named “Trinity” this complex processor combines a central processing unit (CPU) and a graphics processor (GPU) onto a single chip while promising lower power consumption. Keep reading to see if your next laptop should have AMD inside.Those of our readers who stay up to date on the latest processor technology have probably heard about AMD’s FUSION. FUSION is what AMD calls its Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) technology. The first FUSION processors were the part of the Brazos platform of C-series and E-series processors (code named “Zacate”) for the entry-level laptop market. Later in 2011 AMD released its first A-series processors (code named “Llano”) which quickly found their way into a wide range of mainstream notebooks.

The Trinity APUs consists of the three different classes of A-series APUs (A6, A8, and A10) that are divided into two categories; mainstream and ultrathin. The A6 APUs have dual-core CPUs inside while the A8 and A10 chips pack quad-core processors. The important bit of technical minutia to be aware of is that the new Trinity APUs have undergone a radical change in thermal design packages (TDPs). Last year’s A-series processors ran at either 35 or 45 watts … meaning they were intended for mid-range and high-performance notebooks but not ultrathin laptops. The wizards at AMD found a way to DOUBLE the computational performance per watt but at TDPs of just 17 to 35 watts. That directly translates into thinner notebooks and longer battery life.

The base clock speeds for the A-series notebook APUs range from 1.9GHz to 2.7GHz and higher clock speeds are reached via AMD’s “Turbo Core” technology. Turbo Core works in much the same way as Intel’s TurboBoost technology by up-clocking one or more cores depending on the processor demands of the software you’re running. Unlike TurboBoost, AMD’s Turbo Core bases its clock speed increases on the workload of the APU rather than thermal measurements of processor activity.

AMD claims an increase in CPU performance of up to 29 percent and an increase of graphics performance up to 56% over the previous generation of A-series processors. Granted the 29 percent CPU performance boost is pretty impressive, but it’s that 56 percent increase in the GPU that will be of most interest to gamers. Whether you’re a casual gamer who likes playing web-based games or a hardcore gamer who stands in line for every new release in the Call of Duty series, the GPU inside the new A-series APU genuinely lives up to AMD’s label of “discrete-class graphics.” We’ll save the details for the benchmarking section of this review, but let’s just say there’s a reason the GPU takes up half the space on this chip.

The Toshiba Tecra A6 has a silver painted lid and inner surfaces. The bottom, back, sides, screen and keyboard are coloured a flat black. The Toshiba logo on the lid is reflective and surrounded by a square of brushed metal. All in all, it looks quite modern and stylish.The 5 system status LEDs on the front left are all a pleasing green colour and not too bright. However, the “Wireless On” LED is located separately on the front of the laptop and is orange and extremely bright. I find this quite annoying, especially in a dark room. I would have preferred it if Toshiba just used another system LED for showing the wireless status.

The laptop is quite light and fairly solid, I couldn’t notice any flexing of the screen though the screen tends to “wobble” a tiny bit if the screen is pressed, but despite that the hinges feel very solid. The Toshiba Tecra A6 isn’t quite as solidly built as some iBooks and IBM Thinkpads I’ve used in the past but is all in all quite acceptable and much better then some older Toshiba laptops I’ve used.There is quite a bit of warmth just right of the touchpad where your wrists would rest when typing. It’s not uncomfortably hot but it could make your hands a bit sweaty after a few hours of typing.The Tecra A6 features a 14.1 inch Widescreen WXGA display. Unlike a lot of recent laptops the Toshiba uses a matte screen that is more readable in bright light then glossy screens but sacrifices a lot of contrast and some brightness.

Talking about the wireless button — one thing I like about this model is that there is no irritating blue LED’s on the notebook which distract the user (like on some HP’s and Toshibas). Everything is just nice green lights. All the status lights are in a neat row below the hinge of the monitor — and they are all nice looking icons with the light shining through them. Also, application specific buttons are a nice matte silver, none of that tacky looking chrome buttons found on some machines.The notebook gets quite warm under intensive use — the processor temperature remains in the 54 degrees Celsius area when plugged in, and around 49 degrees Celsius when running on battery power. The fan is very efficient and only comes on periodically, about once every ten minute for about 5 seconds when the notebook is being used for intensive tasks like 3D games. The wrist pads get a little warm when plugged in, but nothing to worry about. It can be used on your lap, but this machine is not exactly a X series ThinkPad. It is not uncomfortable, as long as the fan underneath can get some air.

The track pad is nice and big — something which is a plus. I wish it had a Track point type button, but this will do. Anyone who has used a small track pad (like found on some Packard Bell sub notebooks) would know that a track pad has to be the right size to be usable. The track pad has a nice dedicated scrolling area, and the buttons have a nice feeling to them. I hate buttons on track pads that make a lot of noise. It also has a dedicated button which switches off the track pad completely off — it glows green when activated. This is nice for when you have a mouse plugged in at your desk and you have a lot of typing to do.

I’m going to say it straight. This machine has terrible speakers. Very tinny, and not very loud. I also use my Logitech Z2300 speakers instead. There is even a small little subwoofer installed on the bottom, but I don’t think it has any effect. Must say I am disappointed with this part of the notebook. Luckily I use decent desktop speakers at home. On the go, you will have to use headphones I guess.One nice feature is the volume wheel control. I wish more notebook manufacturers will stick with this feature. Most people prefer to turn a knob than to press Fn+F6 quickly silence a notebook.The earphone jack is also a SPDIF optical out (you can actually see a little red light glowing from it). I don’t have a digital amplifier, but it is nice to have because the notebook is equipped with Intel 7.1 High Def audio. With my 2.1 Logitech Z2300 speakers the sound is as good as ever.

There is more software included, but the user has the option of which packages he wants to install. One part I did appreciate was that there was no “crapware” installed like some other brands. Right from the start the user is given a good clean choice of software without skins and other irritating things (like included in Dell and Packard Bell machines).Software is shipped on included CD’s as well, which I like. Some brands these days do not ship with CDs at all — how cheap can you get? For example, Acer notebooks constantly remind the user to burn a software CD.All my software runs without any problems. Most of my apps focus on web development, graphics editing, benchmarking and of course the standard office type applications.Reception on this machine is fine. I have not had any problems using the wireless features. There is support for 802.11 a, b and g formats, so it is versatile in that sense. In many cases where my friends’ Acer would not have reception, I would be happy enough to have reception and at a decent speed too. I have no idea where the antenna is situated.

I really wish there is more wireless options out for the Expresscard slot though. Cellular providers do not have 3G Expresscards out yet, so I will have to wait. Guess that’s the price you pay for having the latest tech.Warranty and support:The machine ships with a standard one year warranty — nothing special. You can purchase an optional 3yr pickup and return warranty, but I did not opt for it. There is dedicated customer care number on the box, and none of that free 90 day nonsense. It works for the length of the warranty.Overall I am very happy with this notebook. I had the option of returning the notebook should I wish (I normally do if I am not one hundred percent happy) but this notebook just perfectly fits my needs. While it is not perfect (I hate the plastic silver look) its performance is great. If I could make improvements it would be better speakers and a black cover. However, the machine is well built and portable enough for daily use.

The IdeaPad S10-2 is the latest generation 10″ netbook from Lenovo, offering the 1.6GHz N270 Intel Atom processor and a 6-cell extended battery. Lenovo redesigned this netbook to make it look slimmer and more attractive than its predecessor, giving the edges a rounded look and a more modern appearance. In our review we see how well the IdeaPad S10-2 performs in our tests, to help you make an informed buying decision.A solid looking metal hinge with integrated speakers holds the screen in place. Hinge tension is good, but the range of motion is limited – you can’t open the HP Mini enough to lay it flat.

Port selection looks like this: On the left side there is a power jack, USB 2.0, proprietary connector (you can buy a VGA cord that fits this port), multipurpose minijack, and Ethernet (with rubber cover). 
On the right side you have an SDHC Card slot, one normal USB 2.0 and one recessed USB 2.0 (HP has a line of flash storage accessories planned for this slot). Whether these ports are sufficient really depends on personal preference and need. I suspect most folks will be disappointed that there are not more ports (standard VGA being a real sore point).

The setup prompts are brief and you’ll be up and running in a minute or two. Pick your username, password, location and away you go. During startup a quick Linux error message flashes on the screen, and you’ll wonder if something is broken. But it does boot so be patient. Likewise when shutting down there is a crunchy static sound blast that emanates from the speakers.Perhaps the most interesting feature is the Mini 1110NR’s operating system. HP has adapted Linux to their needs and the results are very good. Their distribution is called the Mobile Internet Experience and is built on top of Ubuntu (8.04 I think) and the Gnome desktop environment.

 

The overall build of the TZ is very sleek and lightweight, but does show some weakness with its thin panels. Sony included a carbon fiber based material for the top cover, allowing the panel to stay very thin, but still protect the LCD underneath. At times the screen flexed more than I had ever seen a screen flex (and not break) in the past. Even when opening the display under normal use the entire panel flexes, but doesn’t show any hint of breaking. This may just be a downside of creating such a thin panel and it pushing the boundaries of rigidity.

One minor issue with the design of the display hinge is that the left side of the hinge rotates more than the right side. This means that the display will actually twist if you open the screen as far as it will open.The Sony TZ happened to be the first LED backlit notebook I have played around with, and I am pleased to say that I quickly fell in love with it. Colors were magnificent making tasks ranging from typing a report or watching a movie pleasant on the eyes. The white color displayed on the screen from the LED backlighting had only a hint of blue, and was the closest to true white I have ever seen on a LCD before. The backlighting was very even across the entire screen and stayed consistent even as brightness was lowered for power conservation. For comfortable viewing, I found the 60-70% brightness mark to be just right. Anything above that and I felt an urge to grab a pair of sunglasses. Backlight bleed was mild, but noticeable on most dark backgrounds.

As other people in my office could comment, the speakers on the slim 11" notebook came through loud and clear during movies. For such a small notebook (and even smaller speakers) they produced a nice clean sound letting you easily follow the dialog in a flick. The only downside I found with the system was lack of lower volume adjustment. Playing Half-Life 1, gunshots and splatter came through almost too well at the lowest setting.

At the start we had planned for a full review of the TZ, but late in the review our pre-production review unit suffered a few hardware failures. First the battery was charging at a greatly reduced rate (10 percent an hour), and then the SSD drive failed. Normally the SSD drives are claimed to be much more reliable compared to standard hard disk drives. While playing Half-Life on the TZ the game froze, and when the machine turned back on again the BIOS could not locate the drive. Since this is obviously far from normal behavior we had to cut our main review short until a new review unit arrives.

The VAIO FW is a brand new Centrino 2 platform notebook from Sony, offering a much needed facelift, as well as a 16.4" widescreen. What sets this apart from other widescreen notebooks is the aspect ratio of the screen lets movie aficionados enjoy a video without ugly bars above and below the screen. This first look will give you a glimpse of what this notebook has to offer, in general use as well as what to expect when watching various Blu-ray titles.

The fit and finish of the Sony VAIO FW is wonderful, and the overall design is beautiful. The notebook has a streamlined sculpted look, and when opened has a palmrest and keyboard surround that looks like the graceful sloping surface of a car hood. The surface starts out flat, has a small dip, and then gracefully slopes down to the screen hinges. From working day in and day out at a ThinkPad, it is much easier on the eyes to say the least.Build quality is excellent, with the overall chassis feeling rigid and sturdy. Although thin at the very edges of the palmrest, you can pick the notebook up from the corner with minimal flex from the chassis. Even the super thin screen shows that quite a bit of effort went into making a durable design, as you are able to man-handle and even punch the back of the LCD panel and no ripples or distortion shows on the display.

Port selection on the Sony VAIO FW rates average, and one USB port less of perfection. Users have two video outputs (HDMI and VGA) for easy hookup to external monitors or your home theater HDTV. In some ways the design of the notebook hinders the port layout, as some curved locations which would be prime for an extra USB port end up being too small to work out. The ports and feature selection include the following:

System performance is one category that this notebook really shines. Even with a 5400rpm hard drive, the notebook performed quite well throughout various activities including watching Blu-ray movies, playing a few games, and installing applications. The Intel Centrino 2 platform no doubt had a hand in this, and gave us some impressive performance benchmarks. PCMark05 was into the 6,000 range and 3DMark06 was around 2,600. Battery Life Sony hinted that the price will be less than $2,000 and that it will be officially announced in October after Windows 7 launches.Sony has at last admitted that “a small percentage” of its VAIO notebooks have been affected by faulty Nvidia graphics cards. The models affected include the FZ, AR, C, LM, and LT series; Sony is offering to repair them for free if they are within four years of the purchase date, even if they have no existing warranty.

A big problem is that people are judging the MacBook Air for what it is not rather than for what it is. In my opinion, this is one of the best-valued ultraportables money can buy. Sure, the new X300 from Lenovo has way more features, but the price tag will make you gawk when compared to the baseline MacBook Air. Even though the MacBook Air is an excellent product, it does have its limitations and quirks as discussed in the review. What can we expect, though? This is a first generation product, and surely it will improve with time. That being said, I would rate the MacBook Air an 8/10 overall.When I looked at the Unibody MacBook a little while ago I liked almost everything about it. What I disliked most about the notebook was its sticker price. Apple decided to make the new MacBook more expensive than previous versions since it’s built like a MacBook Pro but lacks some of the high-end features.

What I was hoping for from a new MacBook was a device that would be competitive with the $500 Windows notebooks crowding the shelves of most computer retailers. I don’t mean something priced that low, but rather something closer to the average person’s notebook budget. Most folks can live with the decent construction techniques of the iBook/MacBook design. I thought that was the whole point of having the MacBook and MacBook Pro line-ups; different strokes for different folks.

The MacBook’s CPU is common in this price range; Intel’s Core 2 Duo P7350 CPU. This is a Penryn-3M medium voltage chip. What does this mean?It’s made using 45nm process making it smaller and cooler runningSony already has large Sony Style stores in New York and San Francisco and smaller operations in Chicago, Southern California and Boston (opening in May). Their motive is to pretty much have one of everything on display, but they will stock very little product. Instead the stores will act more like a showroom than a retail store. This move will certainly ease concerns from their retail partners where Sony derives most of their income.A glowing light will run around the edges of the neon-colored notebooks, and also around the VAIO logo and the touchpad. Each model will also feature a backlit keyboard. The 14-inch VAIO CA and 15-inch VAIO CB series will be available in neon orange and green, white, and black. Both notebooks will have LED backlit widescreen displays with 1080p resolution.

Each model will also come with three quick-launch buttons on the keyboard: one button to launch media applications, one for Sony VAIO Care, and another to quickly launch your web browser.

Each notebook will have both an HD camera with an Exmor sensor; according to Sony, the camera will work well even when the lighting is low in the room. The camera also includes face-tracking technology (when you move, it moves).With a 17-inch WUXGA (1920×1200) display, the VAIO VGN-A190 model claims the highest resolution display available on a notebook computer. And Sony’s own XBRITE technology ensures that video playback is crisp and vivid.

Users can create and watch DVD movies with the built-in DVD+/-RW drive, as well as live or recorded TV with the aid of Sony’s own Giga Pocket Personal Video Recorder and what is likely the most powerful TV tuner ever offered with a notebook. The Sony-engineered tuner is part of an AV entertainment dock that comes standard with this model.Both versions have a 26.41cm liquid crystal display (LCD) screen and will go on sale in Japan on December 6. Sony has not decided when it will sell the product overseas.The nickel-reinforced model will sell for around 300,000 yen ($NZ4488.33), while the carbon fibre one will be priced at roughly 350,000 yen.Sony aims to restore its position in the domestic PC market after its share, according to data from MultiMedia, dropped to 9.9 per cent in the three months to September 30 from 11.9 per cent a year earlier.

The VAIO Z weighs in at 2.7 pounds (1.2kg) and is made partly from carbon fiber. Sony rates it for up to seven hours of life on its li-poly battery; the optional add-on battery doubles the battery life. The notebook’s most interesting feature is the Power Media Dock, which is essentially an external graphics card. It houses an AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics card with 1GB of its own memory. The dock also features a USB 3.0 port plus other USB 2.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, and a Blu-ray or DVD slot.Technical specifications of the VAIO Z include an Intel Core i7 dual-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The notebook’s onboard graphics are integrated Intel HD. Embedded 3G WWAN is optional.

Current UK pricing puts the VAIO Z starting at about $2,300; the base model has a Core i5 dual-core processor, 4GB of RAM, and does not include the Power Media Dock ($640 extra without a Blu-ray/DVD drive). The VAIO Z is currently scheduled to ship in Europe by August. US availability and pricing has not been confirmed.

Another problem, you ask? I don’t know if this was really a problem, but on my first unit, the hard drive made a notable "" every 20 seconds. Again, a quick search on Google will reveal many people who are experiencing the same issue. The sound was by no means loud or obtrusive. Many people said the sound was normal and it was just the hard drive parking its heads. The sound is supposedly characteristic to this particular type of hard drive, which is the same used in the iPod. However, my second unit does not at all. Strange. I’ll let the reader decide on this one.
Apple really hit the nail on the head with the design on this notebook. Firstly, it is built like a tank. It does not feel fragile or flimsy at all, and is extremely solid. You need to hold it in your hands to understand how solid is really is. The build quality is impeccable. It feels like a solid block of aluminum. The screen is pretty well inflexible and shows no ripple when bent. Every detail on the MacBook Air was engineered so as to obtain the highest level of quality: you can tell that the engineers did not skimp anywhere in terms of build quality. The notebook is thin (obviously) and very light. It feels like almost nothing in a back pack. Even when compared to the MacBook (around 2 lbs more), the difference is remarkable. There are pictures all over the internet of this notebook and you need to see one yourself to judge, so that’s all I have to say about the design.When designing the MacBook Air, Apple looked at its competitors and borrowed from them what they thought was good, and improved upon what they thought was bad. For starters, they thought the 3.0 lb weight was a good target, but they felt that too often did the other companies compromise on speed. Therefore, Apple decided to go with a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo processor from Intel. Problem is, however, that this chip was physically far too big to fit into the small case of the MacBook Air. At MacWorld, Paul Otellini of Intel explained how they custom designed Apple a state of the art chip that was a 60% smaller, was the width of a dime and as thick as a nickel, yet still packed in the same power as its full-sized bigger brother.

The MacBook Air, like other Apple laptops, comes with a one-year limited warranty. Accidental damage is not covered.So far, this sounds like a pretty standard warranty, except with Apple you only get 90 days of free technical support, because $1,700 isn’t enough to give me more phone support. Thankfully, there are really great internet communities out there (like notebookreview.com) and you’ll be able to get help there. Apple also has a pretty decent online help web page with user discussion forums and troubleshooting articles. You can purchase Apple Care to extend your coverage, but I will note that when your battery is worn and needs to be replaced, Apple Care won’t pay for it because the battery is a "consumable". Only if your battery is defective (i.e. holds a 30 minute charge only after three months of use) will Apple replace it. I wouldn’t buy Apple Care for personal reasons (the cost of it being one of them), but many Mac users swear buy it.I must say that as much as I enjoy using my MacBook Air, I can confidently say it appeals to a very specific audience. Specifically, a prospective MacBook Air owner should have another, more powerful machine. Likewise, anyone considering the MacBook Air should not care about changing the battery and only needs this notebook to do basic tasks. Video editing or gaming will not do too well on this machine.

It has 3MB of level two cache versus 2MB in last year’s value processors
Benefiting from the Penryn architectural advancements makes it about 15% faster than last year’s Merom-based budget CPUs clock for clock
The latest front side bus speed of 1066MHz
Medium voltage means that it consumes less power, improving battery life
Miserly power consumption produces less heat, about 25% less than last year
MacBook uses NVIDIA’s 9400M chipset (comparable to the desktop nForce 730i). This is a core logic chipset that incorporates integrated graphics (IGP). Before we get to the video system, let’s look at the basic features. As a Centrino 2 alternative it features many of the same characteristics; faster Front Side Bus (FSB) speed of 1066MHz with DDR3 or DDR2. Unlike Intel, NVIDIA packages all on the chipset’s features into a single small chip – it uses space more efficiently.

Apple offers the base MacBook with only 2GB of inexpensive and easy to find DDR2 667 RAM. Most competitors offer 4GB at this price so Apple’s stinginess with RAM is a disappointment. Sure, you can get 4GB on sale for $30 but you shouldn’t have to. Apple’s operating system conserves memory pretty well and runs fine with only 2GB.

NVIDIA’s GeForce 9400M video system is one of the faster integrated solutions along with the AMD RADEON Mobility 3200. However, this only gets it to the ankle level of powerful mobile GPUs. Apple and NVIDIA each claim that this solution is 5x as powerful as Intel’s latest. Apple describes the chip as having 256MB of dedicated shared memory – very misleading. As an IGP it uses 256MB of system memory leaving you with approximately 1750MB free to run programs. In the Aluminum MacBook, fast DDR3 helped the 9400M post some very good benchmark scores. It will be interesting to see how slower DDR2 changes the equation.Before we test whether it can handle recent games, here are some of the salient points:

55nm fabrication process makes it smaller and cooler running
16 parallel processing units
DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1 support – these are the newest graphics APIs
256MB of shared 128-bit DDR2 memory running at 667MHz
NVIDIA PureVideo HD Technology including HDCP HDTV output
PowerMizer 8.0 microcontroller reduces temps and power use
NVIDIA CUDA processor accelerates next-generation applications
NVIDIA PhysX-ready
How much of these GPU features are used in OS X 10.5 is debatable. I did not see much evidence of it. Video playback was good, but that could just be the CPU doing its job. Encoding in iMovie did not appear to be much faster than previous Core 2 Duo Macs – GPU acceleration makes a big difference, so if it was on we would know. Whether future software updates enable PureVideo acceleration, CUDA and PhysX remains to be seen. Hopefully you won’t have to upgrade to 10.6 to see benefits.

Apple computers are bloatware free–even the trials of Office and iWork that used to be part of the standard install are gone. Lack of Mac viruses is pretty well-known and continues to be a strength of the platform.Speaking of viruses, you can dual boot Windows if you like. The ability to do so is fully supported by Apple and is administered within OS X via Boot Camp. This is great if you already have an investment in some Windows software and lessens the cost of switching (you don’t have to buy Mac versions of your apps right away).

Apple’s OS seems to do a better job handling memory than Vista and so the Apple policy of making computers with less than industry standard amounts of RAM does not hurt performance. Immediately after booting the amount of RAM used on this MacBook was 294MB. This figure is amazing considering that you are dealing with a state of the art operating system with all the bells and whistles.

This efficiency means that the MacBook never really struggles when in its native OS. Multitasking with the included applications is a pleasant experience that is lag free. The Xbench score is 119.01 which is 20-25% faster than the first generation MacBook Pro. This score is very close to that of my Aluminum Body MacBook which gets 123.49 with all the latest patches and updates from Apple.Battery life is exceptional in OS X. Apple advertises five hours of use. With brightness set at 75% the MacBook scored 3:59 minutes surfing including lots of YouTube streaming. Watching movies it managed 3:19 minutes before shutting off. This was with a factory fresh battery – a few more charge/discharge cycles may condition the battery to last longer.Heat is no longer an issue with the MacBook. I watched 3 hours of movies with notebook on my lap and the temp was fine. I took some temperature readings after running Spore for over an hour. Here they are:As you can see, the new chipset seems to have delivered not only excellent performance but cool operation as well.

The first thing that I did while it was recharging was connect the iBook to my router. I got online just fine and was installing the Mac Updates and surfing the web at the same time without any problems. Safari is a much better browser overall compared to Internet Explorer. There is a built in popup blocker so it makes web surfing more enjoyable. The iBook does come with Internet Explorer 5.0 but it’s really buggy so I don’t recommend using it unless you really want to.

This laptop is also pretty expensive considering the features you’re getting. Go price up a Dell and see what you get for the same price as the Air – I guarantee you’ll get a faster processor, larger hard drive, better graphics, etc. But the Air isn’t meant to be a budget computer, and the user is paying for the design. If you want a small, lightweight, extremely durable, and good-looking machine, I wholeheartedly recommend the MacBook Air if you don’t mind the price tag. Keep in mind that on average, Macs have great resale values. Check eBay to see for yourself. For most users, though, I would probably recommend the MacBook or the MacBook Pro if this will be their primary computer.

The Satellite X205-S9349 comes with a standard one-year parts and labor warranty as well as a one-year on the battery. A Toshiba 3-Year SystemGuard + 2nd/3rd Year Extended Service Plan can be had for $269.10 when purchased with the notebook as of writing, which is a reasonable price for accidental damage coverage.During my time with the X205 I did not have to contact customer service. I encourage those interested in impressions to search inour Toshiba forum. The most objective way to describe the Qosmio X775′s design is “controversial.” I’m certain some potential buyers will love the non-traditional appearance of this notebook. That said, it’s hard to imagine a majority of people would find such a look “attractive.”The X775′s shape is not as extreme as the previous-generation Qosmio X305, but what it lacks in curves it makes up for in bizarre colors. The palm rest and lid surface have a wood grain-like texture with metal silver paint which is almost blinding in direct light; needless to say, I am not a fan. The colors fade between black and red, which adds to the extreme look (for better or worse).

The build quality is disappointing. The X775′s plastic construction does little to differentiate it from most budget notebooks; more upscale materials are required on a notebook this expensive. The chassis has significant flex when twisted by the corners, meaning this notebook needs a stronger internal frame. The lid is flimsy and can be twisted with almost no effort; ripples appear on the screen when pressed from behind, indicating the display panel itself has little protection.Overall the gaudy design is tough to like and the build quality is substandard compared to other multimedia and gaming laptops in the same price range.

If you like the high-tech, high-profile look that it imparts, the Fusion look is svelte, modern, and very appealing. The standard array of function indicators, the M305′s multimedia touch panel, and even the Satellite wordmark and touchpad surround are all illuminated with a soft glow that looks great under normal ambient light (though it can be a little bright and harsh on the eyes when working in a dark room). A shallow-inset keyboard and touchpad buttons have an equally classy, well thought-out look. A well matched grey and black striped lid just like we’ve seen on other recent Toshiba Satellite models rounds out the package.

If you’re one of those notebook users who judges the build quality of a notebook by how much metal is visible in its construction, the M305 won’t be earning many high marks in your book: this laptop is all about the plastic, with glossy (and thus, highly obvious) polymers covering nearly every inch of its surface. Again, while the slick plastic can feel a little cheap, the M305 belies this idea with a tight, solid build and lots of nice details.

Panel flex was largely nonexistent, save some give in the typical trouble spot just over the optical drive on the top deck. Similarly, I could induce just the slightest hint of screen ripple by flexing the fairly rigid lid. As with the last few Satellites we’ve looked at, the M305′s battery doesn’t seem particularly well anchored, with about an eighth of an inch of front-to-back free play.Hinges are a touch sticky, and with their plastic coverings and dodgy alignment look like they might be a weak point down the road; without a long term test, though, it’s hard to say for sure one way or another on this score. There’s no latch keeping the lid anchored shut, which makes at least one reason for the Toshiba’s hard-to-move hinges both obvious and appreciated. And assuming they’re more durable than they look, I’ll take stiff hinges to weak ones any day.

With these complaints clearly registered, the M305′s generally solid construction impresses nonetheless. If it doesn’t exactly show off the tank-like hull of a high-end business notebook, for a mid-level consumer laptop there’s very little of consequence to complain about with the M305.At 5.25 pounds, the 14.1-inch Satellite feels just a bit portly for its size, though this density contributes to an overall feeling of quality more than it detracts too much from the M305′s portability. Measuring in just over 1.25 inches thick at its widest point, the Satellite isn’t stellar in terms of overall compactness either, but it certainly lives up to expectations given its price.

The new Satellite A305 changes quite a bit of its design, while still retaining some resemblance of its older A205 brother. The biggest change is the use of the new durable Fusion finish, which can be found on practically every surface of the notebook, from the top cover to the individual keyboard keys. Unlike the older glossy surface that would scuff with minimal effort, the Fusion finish holds up very well, and I have yet to find any fine scratches or other wear on it.

The keyboard and surrounding area has changed quite a bit form the older A205, including touch sensitive multimedia keys, which are all the rage these days on most notebooks. Another change is the flush touchpad area, which is surprisingly slick with its textured surface. It is almost too easy to slide your finger around on it, and slip off onto the palm rest. The touchpad buttons have also changed quite a bit, going from rectangular slabs to chromed ovals which are easier to trigger, as well as being more comfortable to use.

The screen quality is above average for glossy screens, with an evenly bright backlight and vibrant colors. Backlight bleed is minimal, meaning better game play in dark scenes without areas getting washed out. Viewing angles are adequate, with a wide horizontal range, but shallow vertical range. When tilting the screen back, you will have to find a sweet spot, and going out of that means washed out or inverted colors.The keyboard on the Satellite A305 is made up of high gloss painted keys, which is fairly unique as far as mainstream notebooks go. The look is excellent, and goes very well with the silver striped glossy notebook. The feel is even better. There is just something about typing on a soft glossy surface that makes long typing very comfortable. Even things like gaming seem to work better, letting you easily slide from one key to the next with minimal drag.

One disappointing aspect of the keyboard is that it is not backlit, as that could be the only possible way to make it even more awesome. Hopefully this keyboard stays the same in the Qosmio, and gets some special backlit treatment. Below are some images showing how the backlights look in a dark room (the Satellite logo, media button and touchpad backlights can be disabled).

Starting at such a high price point ($1,199 online at base configuration) the Toshiba Tecra A9 is priced a bit high compared to other notebooks in its class. Few parts on this notebook really stuck out in comparison to its competitors, or even models Toshiba sells in its consumer line. Graphics and gaming performance was also oddly low, even compared to the smaller Tecra M9 with a lesser card. For the given starting price and performance, it’s hard to recommend this notebook over other models in Toshiba’s own consumer line.The Toshiba Portege A605 is a 12.1″ ultra-portable notebook designed for business travelers who want something small and lightweight, but don’t want to make any compromises when it comes to features. The A600 series notebooks offer an on-board optical drive so users can enjoy movies or install applications on the road, eSATA to expand storage, and a power saving Intel Centrino 2 platform to squeeze out as much battery life as possible. In this review we find out how well the A605 stands up to the rigors of day-to-day use, and if it is worth purchasing this notebook over a netbook or other ultra-portable notebooks.The Portege looks very classy for a business notebook, with glossy piano black keyboard bezel and screen cover along with a matte silver base. The port and button layout appears to be very well thought out with effort put into things as simple as the power and activity indicators. The silver keyboard contrasts the black finish, with a nice matte finish with black lettering that is easy to read.

Horizontal viewing angles are better than average. Colors are good and the backlight brightness remains even across the screen while viewing at extreme horizontal angles. There is some minor color inversion when you view the screen from sharp vertical angles (such as standing above the notebook or looking up at the screen from the floor. Of course, as with any glossy screen reflection from room lights can become a problem … depending on the room and the lights.The built-in webcam located above the LCD is average in terms of performance. The frame rate for video conferencing and chat is good and the camera can record higher-resolution (1.3 megapixel) still images. Colors are accurate indoors in good light but video and images are overexposed or "washed out" when outdoors or grainy when used in low light. The Toshiba webcam software was quite useful, though like several Toshiba applications it uses a pop-up "tile" for the user interface which sometimes is a bit frustrating to use.

Unfortunately, Toshiba includes much, much too much bloatware on the M8 … particularly since this machine is marketed as a notebook for business professionals. As with the consumer-oriented U305, there are so many applications pre-installed on the notebook that startup took much longer than it should. Several useful applications like Internet Explorer and Adobe Acrobat Reader actually suffered through serious delays because the notebook’s resources were being used by numerous applications that didn’t need to be running.

Just to give you an idea of how much bloatware is running upon startup, we discovered there are 93 processes running using 824MB of the 1GB of system RAM when we opened Windows Task Manager. Ninety three processes. A typical bloatware-infested notebook has between 50 and 70 processes running after the first startup.Of course, customers can always uninstall this bloatware when they start using the notebook … it’s just unfortunate that Toshiba includes this much "junk" on a machine designed for business professionals.

Although the Portege R300 is an unique slimline laptop, in its category it is not the top of the line. The Core Duo technology and 4200RPM hard drive make it less attractive. However, the design will definitely raise eyebrows and the 2-lbs of weight is an extreme advantage for mobility.Toshiba advertises the Qosmio F45 as a "mobile digital entertainment notebook" with a 15.4 in diagonal widescreen for your high definition movies, high fidelity audio and high impact gaming. With an available HD DVD ROM, Intel Centrino Duo processor technology, 802.11ag and draft/n Wi Fi, and a set of powerful Harman Kardon speakers with one subwoofer, the Qosmio F45 might just live up to the advertising hype. But can it deliver, as Toshiba suggests, a true balance of "mobility, performance, manageability and connectivity?"

One of the first things you’ll notice about the Qosmio F45, if you’re already familiar with other Toshiba notebooks, is that the Toshiba logo has been replaced on the lid with the Qosmio brand logo in glossy silver plastic. This design element is also featured in the new Qosmio G45 and it tends to draw attention in a crowded coffee shop … most people aren’t familiar with the Qosmio name. Toshiba calls the color of the F45′s lid "Cosmic Black" but I’m still (thankfully) amazed an overzealous marketing person at Toshiba didn’t label the color "Qosmic Black."As with most of the Toshiba notebooks with Harman Kardon speakers and subwoofers, external speakers are not as much of a necessity as they are with notebooks from other manufacturers.

Keyboard, Touchpad, Media Buttons and Other Controls The keyboard on the F45 is made from the same light gray plastic as the rest of the interior and features nicely sized keys with good feedback and even dedicated home, end, page up, and page down keys. Overall the keyboard felt nice but there was a significant amount of keyboard flex across the entire surface of the keyboard when typing … something that most users won’t appreciate.

As expected with most 15.4" notebooks, the F45 comes with a reasonable (if not jaw dropping) selction of ports. Since this system is being marketed by Toshiba as a "mobile digital entertainment notebook" it was a bit of a surprise not to find an integrated TV tuner or HDMI out port that have become a common site on home entertainment notebooks. The lack of an HDMI port is all the more noticable since an HD-DVD drive is an available upgrade for the F45. At the very least an IR receiver and ExpressCard remote control would have been a welcome addition. While the F45 still has a solid selection of ports, people looking for an "entertainment notebook" may be disappointed.Thanks to the 1.66GHz T5450 Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of system RAM the F45 has a foundation for a reasonable level of performance. Unfortuantely, the use of integrated Intel X3100 graphics means that the system struggles with most graphic-intensive video games. Given the price point of $1,299.99, it is a shame that Toshiba was unable to either include dedicated graphics or a more powerful processor. That said, the F45 should still have more than enough performance for playing movies and music as well as streaming video via the web.

The screen on the A215 is a WXGA(1280×800). A bit higher resolution would have been nice, but other than Dell, no one else is offering a higher resolution screen on budget consumer notebooks of this size. The screen has seven brightness levels which can be adjusted via the keyboard controls. Overall, the screen on the A215 is very good in my opinion. It strikes a nice balance between being bright without having too much glare that can often be associated with glossy screens. Colors were rich and vibrant. Web pages and movies look great. There were no dead/stuck pixels. There was some leakage at the bottom of the screen, but it did not seem outside of the acceptable range. Glare on the screen was pretty minimal unless you were outside or there was a light source directly behind. It’s really a shame cause quite frankly I look pretty good being NBR’s resident Super Model.

When I first saw the Toshiba was using a 4200RPM drive, my first thought was yuk. I thought 4200RPM drives had been banned from all but ultraportable notebooks. I think I understand Toshiba’s reasoning behind the move. The A215 is a multimedia notebook and as such buyers of it are going to throw tons of movies and music on it. Those usually take a lot of space. If they had used the biggest 300GB 4200RPM drive, I think the logic would have followed better. Due to the fact the drive is huge, larger drives have better density which allows for faster read and access times, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. When I first started using the A215, performance was a bit of sluggish. It wasn’t horrible, but when you went to do something it would hang a bit. The touchpad would occasionally become unresponsive for 5-10 seconds particularly when doing something hard drive intense like installing software. At first I chalked it up to bloatware and Vista being slower than XP. I went about the process of cleaning out the bloatware. After I finished clearing it out, it still moving at a moderate pace. Again it’s not horrible, but I would think the marginal cost of going with a 5400RPM drive isn’t more than a few bucks. Going with a faster hard drive would seem like a smart move on Toshiba’s part.

I’ve used and worked on many notebooks with AMD CPUs. I know they sometimes get a bad rap in the mobile arena compared to Intel processors, but for probably 95% of users out there they are more than adequate. AMD processors don’t get quite as much battery life as Intel chips, but for a lot people (especially on a notebook like this which isn’t likely to stray from the the couch often) that’s not that a huge issue. They’re also usually easier on the wallet too.

As I alluded to earlier, the slow hard drive hampered performance on the A215 some. I had just upgraded the hard drive on my ThinkPad. I had a spare 7200RPM drive laying around. I decided to throw it in the A215 just to see well it performed in relation to my R60. Perhaps that’s not a valid test since most buyers of this notebook are going to run out and upgrade the drive when they get it. After I upgraded the drive, performance was quite good. I think the extra generous 2GB helped offset some of Vista’s slowness. There are no XP drivers on Toshiba’s site for those looking to downgrade. Without the upgrade, performance was acceptable, but could be better. All of this points out, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

SuperPi gages relative CPU performance. SuperPi loves L2 cache which is why the Intel CPUs always score better in this benchmark. It makes it a bit unfair to AMD CPUs. The PCMark05 score below is probably a better indicator of overall performance.The A215 has the Pioneer DVR-K17LF DVD burning optical drive. It burns all types of CDs and DVDs including dual layer and has support for DVD-RAM as well. I burned some DVDs and CDs. I didn’t have any issues with any of the discs. Burn times for a full CD was about 5.5 minutes and DVDs clocked in at a little over 13 minutes, both about average for laptop optical drives.

Battery

Our M8 came with the standard 6-cell battery (10.8V, 5200mAh) but the 9-cell extended life battery (10.8V, 7800mAh) is also available. With power management set to "High Performance" and screen brightness set to maximum while wirelessly browsing the web the battery lasted 2 hours and 19 minutes. With power management set to "Power Saver" and screen at half brightness the battery lasted 3 hours and 12 minutes while browsing the web. The battery lasted an impressive 4 hours and 8 minutes with the notebook set to "Power Saver" with half screen brightness and letting the system idle without any activity and without letting the screen turn off.

You may notice that the Toshiba website indicates that the Tecra M8 has a maximum memory capacity of 2GB. However, we confirmed that the maximum RAM capacity is in fact 4GB. While 1GB is plenty for Windows XP, any notebook running Vista will perform better with a minimum of 2GB of RAM.If you read our recent review of the Toshiba Satellite U305 then the Tecra M8 should look very familiar to you. Both of these Toshiba notebooks share the same case design and many of the same parts. Like the U305, the M8 is on the border of the thin-and-light and ultra-portable categories. With a weight of four and a half pounds it isn’t the lightest notebook in the 13.3" class. Likewise, since the notebook is 1.2 inches thick at its thinnest point the M8 falls in the "middle of the pack" among recent 13.3" systems. Nevertheless, Toshiba has successfully engineered a stylish and compact frame with some unique elements that make it attractive to everyone from students to business professionals.

Although the exterior is constructed of plastic it felt relatively solid. Some of the plastics in areas such as the palm rests and the LCD lid felt thin, but overall the build quality seems good. There is very little case flex and no audible creaks to the plastics.While the extended life battery would be a worthwhile accessory for this notebook consumers should be more than pleased by the battery life of the standard battery.The Toshiba Tecra M8 is a solid business notebook with plenty of features and few problems. The quality 13.3" glossy display, thin and light lines, sizeable hard drive, good battery life and a good selection of ports help make this an excellent work machine. The Core 2 Duo processor and plenty of available RAM likewise give the system an impressive backbone for performance. In addition, the sturdy keyboard and convenient fingerprint reader interface help users immediately recognize this machine means business.

Unfortunately, the obscene overabundance of bloatware is enough to make an IT professional run away screaming. The painful touchpad buttons are also likely to leave users with sore thumbs after a full work day. Still, these are minor hurdles for an otherwise good machine. The only other issue that the Tecra M8 faces is price. Businesses willing to put up with more bulk and weight can buy a Dell Latitude D630 for $400 less than the base price of the M8. Of course, the M8 is much more thin and light than any 14.1" notebook on the market.Bottom line, the Toshiba Tecra M8 is an excellent business notebook in the 13.3" display class. If you can uninstall the bloatware and use an external mouse it makes one amazing mobile workstation.

The layout of ports is identical to the N6410, which again is a good thing I believe. The only difference is that the DVD drive is replaced by a HD-DVD drive in this particular model. The only other thing on the left side is the power adapter plug towards the back, which is good placement. If you get the integrated TV tuner option you also get an S-Video input, Composite Video input and Antenna Mini Jack on the left side.On the back of the notebook is an S-Video out port, a LAN port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, Modem port, and a Lock slot. Overall a great layout, but it really is unfortunate to not see a DVI out or HDMI output on a media desktop replacement notebook. In my own experience, I would like a DVI output to allow a high-resolution external display for video editing and animation.

This new model has the same venting layout as the N6410 which is much improved over my N6210 that only had one rear vent and one fan. The N6420 has two well designed rear vents and two separate fans, I believe one on the CPU and one on the GPU, with intakes for each one on the bottom of the unit. This allows the computer to run quite cool, as well as very quiet. The only time I have even heard the fan running is when they are on at full speed and running benchmarks, etc. The only part of the computer that gets slightly warm is the Application panel area and on the bottom surface of the notebook, but even with it sitting on your lap (which most people won’t be doing with this notebook), it only gets slightly warm.The Power brick is reasonably sized, it is larger than the N6210′s, but it also must supply more power to the X1600. Not the best for portability, but not a major problem for this type of computer.

The LCD found on the P8010 is very bright, but has poor contrast and viewing angles. Colors are bright in a very narrow viewing angle, but quickly wash out if you tilt the screen forward or back by a small amount. Horizontal viewing angles are so shallow that it looks like a privacy screen.Screen protection from the thin plastic frame is questionable, as you don’t get much distortion from pressing on the back of the screen, but the screen flexes much greater than I would like to see on a business notebook. Light pressure from lifting the screen from one corner instead of the center is enough to flex that side up almost an inch compared to the other side.Perhaps the most frustrating problem with the screen on our review unit was an unacceptable amount of backlight bleed that made brightness levels vary across the surface of the screen.

The keyboard on the 12" Fujitsu P8010 is a compact style that some users may feel to be cramped the first time they start typing on it. Key size is smaller, and spacing is tighter than you would find with larger notebooks. Keyboard feedback is good, but the keyboard structure seems to float and bounce on the structure beneath it. Depending on areas of the keyboard you type on you will get a hollow tapping sound of the keyboard hitting the body frame.The touchpad is almost oddly large, being the same size you would find on a 15" notebook. It is even larger than what is on my ThinkPad T60. Sensitivity is perfect, and has all the customizable options you would ever want through the Synaptics control panel. The touchpad buttons are moderately sized with shallow feedback, and quite easy to trigger.

Battery

Battery life on the Fujitsu P8010 is near perfect with the included battery that does not even stick out the back of the notebook. With the notebook set to 60 percent brightness, power profile on "balanced," the system manages an easy 6 hours. This gives the user more than enough life for watching a full length movie on a flight using the internal DVD drive.

The Fujitsu P8010 is a great performer when it comes to battery life, system performance, and cool temperatures. When you look at the build quality and design, it’s a completely different picture, that doesn’t stack up against older Fujitsu business notebooks. Body and chassis flex is greater than we would expect from a notebook in this price range. If you can look past the build quality, it is an excellent notebook in terms of its capabilities.The LifeBook AH550 is a 15.6-inch desktop replacement notebook from Fujitsu. With a starting price of $749, the AH550 includes an Intel Core i3-330m processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard drive. Higher configurations with NVIDIA dedicated graphics are also offered, with a $200 price premium. In this review we see how well the LifeBook AH550 stacks up against other 15-inch desktop replacement systems and if it’s worthy of being your next purchase.

For a multimedia notebook we were surprised to see no dedicated multimedia keys or repurposed function keys of any kind. The only auxiliary button on the notebook was a support key located beside the power button.The touchpad included on the LifeBook AH550 is a mid-sized ALPS model with some multitouch capabilities. Sensitivity was excellent and we only found minimal lag in our extensive testing. During long click and drag movements the touchpad would sometimes unselect the item we were dragging and lock onto another icon and move it. Tweaking the settings seemed to improve this issue, but we’ve never had this problem The AH550 includes one resolution screen option for both integrated and dedicated graphics variants. Both systems include an LED-backlit panel with a 1366×768 WXGA resolution. These days I’m surprised when mid-range models don’t offer an HD-capable 1600×900 resolution display, especially if they’re multimedia-oriented. The panel itself rates average with good color and contrast. The glossy screen surface helped give colors the appearance of greater color saturation and also improved black levels. Screen brightness was fine for viewing in bright office conditions, but with a peak backlight level measured at 190 nits, it wasn’t bright enough for outdoor viewing.

The design of the V1010 is extremely basic and sparse, making some Thinkpads look like designer notebooks. With an unpainted black plastic lid, cheap silver paint, and the absence of any smooth curves you have to wonder if they looked at the new budget competition before hitting the drawing table. Fit and finish is also lacking with huge gaps around the LCD hinges, giving you a clear view of the hinge bar and exposed wiring. Playing music the speakers lacked any and all bass, and were also lacking in most midrange frequencies. Volume levels are more than acceptable, reaching loud enough levels to easily disturb those around you. For a more private and neighbor friendly listening experience the headphone jack works perfectly. Audio is clear without any interference present.

The 15.4" widescreen category of notebooks is by far the most popular size for people buying laptops for the home. Most consumers want a PC in the house that can be moved around easily and used in either the kitchen or the living area, but also that has a large enough screen to easily do work at a desk … essentially replacing the bulky desktop PC.

There’s a lot of competition in this size range and the Fujitsu LifeBook A6120 isn’t the cheapest notebook in this class. The Dell Inspiron 1525, HP dv6700 series, and Sony VAIO NR are just a few of the other popular offerings that start at a lower price. What sets the A6120 apart from the competition is a strong build, appealing conservative look, and a better selection of ports than you’ll find on most 15-inch notebooks.If you don’t care for the smooth, glossy look of most consumer notebooks then the A6120 might be just the notebook you’re after. I matte black plastics with just a hint of metal flake look quite attractive with the black keyboard. It’s more plain looking than most consumer notebooks, yet stylish in a not-too-flashy sort of way.

The speakers on the AH550 are located above the keyboard and sound below-average compared to other multimedia-oriented notebooks. Bass and midrange were very weak with maximum volume levels inadequate for even small rooms. For listening to streaming music or talking to someone using VOIP software, they’ll work just fine; still, they left a lot to be desired. Headphones or digital audio over HDMI would be preferable for listening to music.The build is commendable; it’s simply a verysolid little machine with no flexing on the case whatsoever. The case material is a mag-alloy construction. You can tap the case to hear that it’s no cheap plastic build.The screen does not have any type of locking mechanism, but stays tightly closed nonetheless through use of a hinge that’s got just the right amount of tightness. There’s certainly no wobble to the screen when in the open position but it isn’t overly hard to get open from the closed position.

One important thing to mention about the build is the fact this is a sub-sized notebook, and as such, the keyboard is a bit cramped and has to compromise to fit all the necessary buttons in. Anyone buying this notebook is obviously looking for portability over other factors. As a matter of fact, I’m typing this review while on a flight from London to New York and couldn’t be happier with how easy it is to carry and use this little guy in the very cramped quarters of a Virgin AtlanticAirlines Airbus A340-600 (there’s really no legroom in economy on this flight).The only negative thing regarding the look and build I find worth mentioning is that the lid is quite easily scuffed – I recommend using a fiber cloth for cleaning and a sleeve to protect. It’s not shiny like the black MacBook lid, so it won’t show greasy fingerprints, but it does show the effects of being rubbed against other materials such as when pulled in and out of a bag.

Battery Life

The 6-cell Li-Ion battery provides reasonable battery life for the A6120. With Vista’s power management running in "high performance" mode, screen brightness set to maximum and wireless on, the 6-cell battery delivered 2 hours and 41 minutes of battery life. We’re certain that the 6-cell could deliver a solid three and a half hours of life with the notebook set to "balanced" or "power saver" mode and the screen brightness turned down.Buy the LifeBook A6120 direct from Fujitsu.Overall, the Fujitsu LifeBook A6120 is a solid notebook with good performance and some nice features. The abundance of USB ports and the combionation of a PC Card slot and ExpressCard slot mean this notebook has plenty of room for external expansion. Although the A6120 isn’t a gaming machine, the Penryn processor can handle everyday computing tasks with ease.

If the awkward speaker placement and overall thickness and weight don’t bother you then this notebook makes an excellent choice. In short, the LifeBook A6120 is a dependable workhorse of a notebook but lacks the flashy features found on most consumer notebooks.Fujitsu recently announced the LifeBook S6510 14.1" widescreen notebook configurable with a range of Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and is the first laptop with a 14.1-inch widescreen display that can tip the scales at only 4 pounds with the optical drive … or 3.7 pounds, without the optical drive.

Rather than go into detail describing what we’re seeing, we’ve posted images below to show you what the S6510′s screen looks like:The keyboard is full sized (with the exception of a few shrunken keys) but lacks some of the dedicated keys you’ll find on other 14-inch and larger notebooks. The keys on our pre-production unit have a good texture with excellent cushion and travel. The keys are very silent in operation the keyboard was remarkably firm across the entire surface. There was almost no keyboard flex … amazing for a notebook this thin and light.

The S6510 includes four additional buttons located above the keyboard that can be programed to open the applications of your choice. By default, the programmable quick launch buttons are:The spacious touchpad provides excellent responsiveness and feels quite durable, matching the fit and finish of the rest of this notebook. The touchpad buttons provided acceptable feedback with audible clicks.On another positive note, the one-touch fingerprint reader does a wonderful job reading fingerprints without accidentally being triggered when you use the touchpad buttons. Once the fingerprint reader was set with my fingerprint and passwords all While every 14-inch notebook we’ve reviewed comes equipped with an optical drive, they tend to be thick and heavy. The optical drive on the S6510 is not only thin, but it can be removed entirely and the modular bay can be used for either a second battery or a weight-saving module.The drive itself performed perfectly well for playing DVDs and CDs. There was little operational noise coming from the drive although you can certainly feel the disk spinning inside the drive thanks to the thin alloy used in the S6510′s construction. The drive feels a little fragile when it is open, but this is likely because the rest of the notebook feels so rugged.

We typically include the wPrime synthetic benchmark with our reviews because it is a multi-threaded mathematical calculation that provides more accurate benchmarking than the old Super Pi benchmark. However, for some unknown reason we were unable to get wPrime to run on the pre-production S6510 … and for that reason we’re including the old Super Pi benchmark below:Thanks to the compact size and high-voltage processor, the S6510 produces a significant amount of heat. The average heat exhaust temperature for a notebook running idle is between 100 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit in at room temperature. The temperature of the exhaust coming from the S6510 was 115 degrees at idle … and approximately 130 degrees during benchmarking. In short, the heat exhaust coming from the left side of the S6510 can become dangerously hot. This isn’t a problem if you stay clear of the exhaust, but if the left side of the notebook is resting against your leg it will become uncomfortably hot.

Viewing angles are *perfect*, with clear and accurate color all the way to the edges in both vertical and horizontal extremes. Indoors the screen doesn’t appear as bright as other notebooks, but it is still very usable outdoors. The touch-sensitive layer above the screen does increase glare and reflection, but tilting the screen slightly will fix that in most situations.

The Fujitsu U820 offers a passive touchscreen display which is not that fun on a small high resolution screen. Trying to click icons or specific buttons can be a pain if the calibration is off just a fraction of an inch. For basic movements or using the Garmin GPS capabilities it is not as big of a problem since the targets are larger. Pen movement over the screen was almost rough at first, but got better as more oil from your hands built up on the surface. Under normal use I found the pointing stick to be the best form of input while on the go, and an external mouse if I was at work with plenty of desk space.

If you are familiar with Garmin GPS units, the Garmin MobilePC software is very similar. The interface looks just like what you would expect, and buttons are all large enough to tap with your fingertips instead of using the pen input. The internal GPS receiver works best NOT using the included external antenna and works well even indoors.During general usage, I could barely hear the fan ever coming on. Even when running it was generally as a low and quiet speed that was still capable of keeping the laptop cool. The loudest sound, not that I would even call it loud, was the sound of the hard drive as the computer needed to access data. For watching DVDs and listening to CDs this laptop is still fairly quiet and will not spoil the experience of the movie/music.

During benchmarking the laptop did have to speed up the fan a little bit. The laptop was noticeably warmer (not hot) on the surface, and the fans did make enough sound to be noticed from a few feet away. Slightly annoying, but I have heard much worse from many other laptops. However, even with the elevated noise you could just turn the speakers up a notch or two and probably drown it out. Again, the E8410 shows us how well it can perform as a business and entertainment-oriented machine.

With respect to the heat of the laptop, it does stay mercifully cool compared to many other laptops I have handled. However, it still gets warm enough that I would not use it on my lap for anything other than the most basic (aka: low power requirement) tasks. But, during the benchmarking process I took recordings of all the temperature points of interest and they are summarized below. Again, this just gives you an idea of how hot the laptop gets inside.Heat and noise are generally direct trade-offs in the balancing act of making a notebook. Fujitsu, thinking of their business customers, decided to focus on keeping the laptop quiet at the cost of a few degrees of heat. However, they actually managed to strike a very healthy balance between both needs and many consumers will appreciate that. Just do not play games or run intensive applications in your lap!

Near the power button above the keyboard, there rests a total of four special function keys that can be mapped to launch various applications. The assignments can be controlled via Fujitsu’s LifeBook Application Portal, and any program can be mapped to those keys.Input and Output Ports, Wireless, and Battery The E8410 contains a very nice range of ports to ensure both forwards and backwards compatibility with old and new hardware, to maximize your abilities to use all kinds of technology. The most welcome thing about this laptop’s array of ports is that it contains both PCMCIA and ExpressCard technology!The bottom of the notebook has access to the fan grills (middle left), access panel to both memory slots (center), docking connector (bottom center), and the battery (top right).The E8410 also features Integrated Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN (802.11a/b/g) for wireless networking possibilities. Well, it works so there is not much to write about that. The E8410 also comes equipped with Bluetooth, which I could not test as I own no BT devices. However, there is a combo WiFi/BT On/Off switch to the front of the laptop for easily access and control of those parts.

The WXGA glossy panel rates average with comfortable viewing angles and a bright backlight that works in a well lit office setting. Colors are vibrant and contrast is very nice with the glossy screen surface. The vertical viewing range offers a good sized sweet spot with accurate colors with 10 degrees forward and back before colors start to invert. Horizontal viewing angles are better, but at steeper angles the screen starts to dim and you start seeing reflected surfaces instead of the display. The screen brightness overcomes the lights in a bright office setting, but outside viewing would be limited with the reflective glossy screen.The keyboard is easy to type on with a full-size layout and comfortable key spacing. Individual key texture is smooth with a very mild matte finish that gives just enough traction to trigger keyswithout slipping when your fingers get sweaty. The keys’ action is smooth with a mild click when fully pressed. Typing is very audible with a springy surface that makes some of the noise echo off the notebook chassis. This notebook also includes a spill resistant keyboard which will contain water without letting it drip inside and short out components. After spilling a bowl of partially melted ice cream on my ThinkPad keyboard one time, I can easily say I will never buy another notebook that doesn’t offer a protected keyboard. It is usually much cheaper to replace the keyboard after an accident than try to replace a motherboard which could easily cost more than a new notebook.

The Alps-based touchpad is sensitive for accurate finger tracking, but does add mild lag to the cursor’s movement. The touchpad surface has a matte finish and is painted to match the keyboard bezel and palmrest. The touchpad buttons are large and easy to trigger with the side of your thumb without much effort. They have shallow feedback and click loudly when pressed.The Fujitsu A1110 is loaded with an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2GHz processor, 4GB of DDR2 memory, and Intel X4500 integrated video. For day-to-day use, including web browsing, word processing, light gaming or watching movies the system performs very well. Dedicated graphics would have been greatly appreciated on the upgraded model, which would have helped gaming performance and HD movie decoding. The 5400RPM hard drive performed quite well, with very little lag present when opening applications or power cycling the notebook.

The speakers are at the lower front of the notebook, one on each side. I tried playing a couple of CDs and DVDs and the found the sound to be ok, but not as good as that from typical external PC speakers I’m used to. Maybe I’ll get used to this sound after awhile, I’m not very picky about sound, so for my needs the speakers are fine.

As for noise, I think ASUS did a great job on this machine. I hardly hear it making any noise while working normally on it, fan is rarely audible. It only starts to become slightly audible at 58 C. The only other sound I hear is from the optical drive when reading files (my optical drive sometimes makes a clicking sound that disappears after a bit, looks like a problem with the optical drive, not the machine itself.)

Battery:

The battery supplied is a 6 cell, 4800 mAh battery. With brightness on a lower setting, battery saving mode on, wireless on, external USB mouse connected, and doing regular office work + internet surfing + application installation I could get about 3 hours of battery life on this machine. I don’t think that’s too bad considering the power of this laptop, and I know some people have achieved 3 hours and 40 minutes with wireless set to off.

Operating System and Software:Windows XP Home came pre-installed on this machine. I was provided with the Recovery CD’s, Driver & Utilities CD, ASUS DVD, Microsoft Works and Nero Express. Asus doesn’t install too many useless programs on the machine like some other manufacturers. The installed programs such as Power4Gear for power management and ASUS DVD are quite useful, so it’s not a waste of space and resources. Even so, I wanted to install my own copy of XP Pro and then partition and set up the hard drive according to my likes, so I wiped everything out except for the included Recovery Partition (which only takes up 1.8 GB of space, not a big deal for me) and just re-installed the things I wanted.

I’d recommend this machine to anybody; with almost every feature you could ask for in a thin and light configuration, it’s really a dream machine. The price is a bit high, but considering most of what’s in it is bleeding edge technology and is most likely future proof (maybe Merom compatible, Vista compatible), I think it’s a worthy investment.The Asus G1 is marketed as the 15” mobile answer for the hardcore gamer enthusiast. The G1 is a sharp looking package that meets the requirements of most of today’s best games and entertainment applications. The configuration for the machine reviewed follows below.

My main reason for buying a new laptop is an upcoming master’s program in Italy. I will be away for 16 months, and am concerned about taking my 30 lb home-built desktop with me. My favorite computer activities include 3D CAD and photo editing. I also enjoy a game sometimes. My favorites are MS Flight Simulator 2004 and Sim City.My first stop in my research led me to reliability ratings on all the major manufacturers. According to Consumer Reports, the most reliable name brands are Sony, Compaq/HP and Lenovo (IBM). I’ve owned computers from the first two and was very disappointed. Lenovo doesn’t sell laptops with NVIDIA video cards – which are my favorite – so it was out of contention as well.

Duly disappointed, I decided to look at other lesser-known brands. At first, the Sager 5760 seemed liked a cool bet. It had the very latest video card, the NVIDIA 7950 with 512 MB of video memory, and the keyboard was large enough that it packed its own numeric key pad. I started having second thoughts, however, when I priced the laptop at $2,400, well equipped with 2 GB RAM and a 100 GB 7200 HDD. The idea of carrying a 10 lb behemoth around also didn’t seem worthwhile.

The Synaptics touchpad used on the T91 is surprisingly large considering the 8.9-inch form factor of this netbook. The touchpad surface is covered in a simulated brushed metal finish that provides smooth movement and good sensitivity. The left and right touchpad buttons are located beneath the touchpad under a single rocker-style button. Unfortunately, with no separation between the left and right side it’s easy to accidentally press the middle of the touchpad button when you’re trying to press the left or right side. The touchpad buttons have extremely shallow feedback with sharp yet quiet clicks.

This is the section that I hate the most whenever I write a netbook review. There isn’t much to say about performance benchmarks in a netbook review because most netbook have virtually identical specs (thanks in large part to the limitations Microsoft enforces for Windows XP licenses). All Intel Atom-based netbooks have nearly identical performance in terms of actual real-world use. Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like Web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and watching DVD-quality movies. If you’re in a bind you can even use photo editing software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing.

In order to keep heat under control the T91 uses the Intel Z520 processor with a slower clock speed of just 1.33GHz compared to 1.60GHz or even 1.66GHz used in most other netbooks. Still, despite the lower clock speed the real world performance of the T91 is on par with other Atom-based netbooks.The use of Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics continues to be a mixed blessing for netbooks. This integrated graphics processor (IGP) is powerful enough to handle displaying a PowerPoint presentation on a projector or watching DVD quality movies, but if 720p and 1080p video playback is your primary concern then you’ll want to look elsewhere. We selected a family-friendly movie trailer and downloaded three different versions in 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions. We used the CCCP Codec Pack for decoding and Media Player Classic Homecinema (version 1.1.796.0) for playing all of the video files.

Battery life with the integrated 3-cell lithium-polymer battery is reasonably impressive for a compact travel tablet. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 4 hours and 31 minutes of constant use. Although it’s frustrating that you cannot replace the battery or use an extended life battery, the fact that the Eee PC T91 delivers more than 4 hours of battery life with constant use is pretty impressive.

Conclusion
The new ASUS Eee PC T91 deserves serious praise for being the first budget-priced tablet netbook on the market. The closest direct competition to the T91 is the Fujitsu U820, but with the Fujitsu retailing for more than $1,000 the Eee PC T91 essentially stands alone in the marketplace at half the price.The hardware specs might not seem too impressive at first glance, but if you’re in the market for a low-cost tablet this is indeed your only real option priced below $700 without rebates or coupons.I came back to Asus and found the Z33a. I could configure it to fit my needs and it was in the same price range as the X series ThinkPads. I was a little concerned about the quality compared to the ThinkPads, but relaxed a bit after reading the comments and reviews about Asus notebooks in general.

There are several highly regarded resellers of Asus notebooks to choose from. Several of them regularly participate in the NotebookReview.com forums. I decided to go with Geared2Play (G2P) because I could configure the notebook more to my liking and the price was a little better compared to the other resellers. There was a slight delay in receiving my notebook because of hard-drive availability but it made it to me in a timely fashion and in great condition. It was triple-boxed and well padded.

The notebook comes with one power adapter, drivers CD, and a carrying case. The power adapter is small compared to other adapters that I’ve seen. I ordered a second one so I can leave one at home and one at work. The case is actually better than I expected. It is bigger than the Z33a but has a pocket inside with a Velcro strap to hold it in place. There is room for other stuff like papers and accessories. I may eventually go with something smaller.

The display is a 12.1″ XGA (1024×768) TFT LCD. It is a standard matte finish (not glossy) and standard aspect ratio (not wide-screen). The display is fantastic in my opinion. It is bright and has a wide viewing angle. I can not detect any light leakage or bright spots. There are 4 dead pixels. Two are dark all the time and are next to each other, one is bright against a blue backdrop, and the other one is dark against a red backdrop. Asus’ dead-pixel policy is available online. I am in contact with G2P now about the pixels and will update the review when I know more. Eddie at G2P was surprised to hear that I had any dead pixels at all let alone four so I think my situation is an exception. The display is very crisp compared to my CRT. I can understand why LCD displays are so popular (aside from the size).

Along with those items, Asus also included a fine gaming mouse from Logitech (too bad it’s not wireless) and recovery disks. Most brands charge extra for those.The G1 itself is a pleasant sight. The case is shiny and beautiful, showing off a carbon fiber construction look. In reality it’s all plastic, but it feels solid. The lower portion of the palm rest area is made of anodized brushed aluminum, and feels very smooth. I found no crooked corners or blemishes. I expect this laptop to last a long time.The screen did ripple slightly when twisted by the sides, but I don’t see this happening on day to day activities. I’m always careful on opening the laptop to avoid lifting it from the table. The lid opens with a positive feeling of resistance, but wobbles slightly once I let it go.

The monitor has 16 levels of brightness adjustment. I picked level 12 for writing this review – as I’m seating by an open window and the sun is out. However, one could use any of the levels and still be able to see the screen.Regarding light leakage, this screen has none! The screen is sharp and the lighting is of uniform coverage. I took a picture in the dark with a dark photo in the background (San Diego Bay) for you to see.

Note also that the optical 8X DVD-RW drive is fairly loud when reading data.The keys above, minus power, also work along with Windows Media Player when the laptop is fully turned on. The buttons are tiny enough that I cannot press them by mistake.Aside from the player, there are four additional hot keys besides the power button. They are for adjusting the speed of the fan/processor, calling out your e-mail software, Internet browser, and turning the keypad on/off. The fan setting has five options: quiet office, presentation (which sends video to video out and turns the monitor off), super performance, high performance, and game.

On the right, you will find an RJ11 modem, an RJ45 LAN jack, an S-video out (an adaptor cable to RCA form is included with the laptop), a microphone-in jack, a line-in jack, a dual purpose headphone-out and S/PDIF jack, and a Fire Wire port. A Type II PCMCIA slot and a MMC/SD/MS/MS-Pro card reader are also included.The optical drive, ExpressCard, and card reader are all of good quality and I can find no parts on the notebook which might be break with time. So I’m very satisfied with the build and design of this notebook.

The notebook is equipped with a 15” screen, which is a colour-shine screen (glossy), on the model I bought, and has a maximum resolution of 1400×1050 (SXGA). Personally I really like the screen. It is not too vivid and gives a really good natural look. The display is really clear and crisp both in the middle and the corners. The colour-shine increases the amount of contrast which means that blacks are blacker and whites are whiter. However, it also increases the reflection in the screen, but I really haven’t noticed it. The vertical viewing angle on the V6J is very good. On my previous notebook (a Dell C640) the viewing angle was below 15 degrees, but on the Asus the picture is still clear from a 45 degrees angle to each side. It does get a bit a bit darker, but not much. The vertical view angle isn’t as good. When seen from above the picture gets really matte and has very little contrast. The same happens when you see the screen from a lower position. However, it still has a vertical view angle of around 20-25 degrees.

The internal speakers are placed in the two front corners next the touchpad and the Asus team did a great job of blending in the holes for the speakers with the general design of the notebook. In my opinion the treble is a bit too dominating, but that is pretty usual on most notebooks. Overall they sound really good with no distortion. The headphone-out is also suffering from a bit too much treble, but aside from that, the sound is fine, clear, and crisp. The notebook has the necessary function keys; Hibernate, Wifi on/off, Brightness up/down, Volume up/down, Mute on/off, and LCD/VGA. Furthermore, the Asus notebook comes with 5 Asus specific keys (instant keys]; Touchpad on/off, Power Gear 4+, Bluetooth on/off, Internet, and Wifi on/off. The touchpad on/off button is a really good idea and great when you use an external mouse. These extra Asus buttons are all part of the overall design and feels real sturdy.

I am very surprised by the keyboard. I have relatively large hands (I’m 6’3″ tall) and was somewhat worried about the keyboard on any ultraportable. I think I can type better on the Z33a keyboard than on my desktop! The keys feel great and the keyboard is very solid. The only place I can find any flex is near the F7 key and it is very minimal. The spacing of the keys is great. The keys are made of a dark gray translucent plastic.

This notebook has ports aplenty! On the right side there are two (2) USB 2.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks, and VGA-out port. On the back there is the power connector and a 1394 Firewire port. The left side has the 10/100 LAN and modem jacks, one (1) USB 2.0 port, PCMCIA slot, and 4 in 1 memory card reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO). There are no serial or parallel ports on the notebook. It appears that the VGA-out port can support up to 1600×1200 resolution monitors (at least for my external CRT).

The notebook came with an integrated Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 B/G miniPCI card. I had no problems connecting to my Netgear wireless router. On occasion the wireless card does not power up when booting the computer and I need to restart it to get the card to work. I have not looked into the issue yet. There is no bluetooth or infrared port.

Battery

The Z33a comes standard with a 3-cell Li-Ion battery. I also ordered the 9-cell battery but it is on backorder. I have been averaging ~1.5 hours of battery life with wireless on with the 3-cell battery. I have done a little tweeking with Centrino Hardware Control but haven’t tested it to see if there is an improvement. I will update the review once I receive the 9-cell battery.I purchased the notebook without an OS because I had an extra copy of Windows XP Pro at home. I also wanted to set it up to dual-boot Windows and Linux. The system came with a driver disk that had everything I needed to get up and running. It also came with other free titles but I didn’t bother installing them.

ASUS has continued expanding on the Eee line with larger and more powerful models, and in June 2008 released the 1000 series, based on a 10” form factor. Many people did not approve of a 10” netbook, arguing that ASUS was crossing into the threshold of mainstream small-and-light notebooks. Moreover, at a launch price of $649, it was creeping into the price range of mainstream notebooks as well. Fortunately, that price has fallen considerably, and I decided to purchase one.

The price of $449 is a steal for a netbook of this functionality. Just a few weeks ago the 1000H was selling for $549, then ASUS announced a $100 price drop. The only comparable netbook, the MSI Wind, is still selling at $549 with the 6-cell battery. One important note – the 1000H ships with a slipcase. I think it’s pretty handy to keep the netbook from scratching and getting dust, but it certainly won’t protect it in a fall. I like to keep the 1000H in the slipcase and then in my backpack.

The W7J gets considerably warm around the palm rests, warmer then any other notebook I have used. It has been 100 degrees almost everyday of this week in Los Angeles. Using the W7J my palms have been sweating more than a thirteen year old in an adult book store. What’s generating all the heat? I suspect it is a large part due to the hard drive. Asus integrated a 2.5mm hard drive where others would have used a 1.8mm.2.5mm drives are faster than 1.8mm drives. The fastest 1.8mm drive I have found that didn’t cost an arm and a leg spins at a meager 4200 RPM. 2.5mm drives come in 5400 and 7200 RPM flavors.

The new Eee PC T91 uses a nice and bright 8.9-inch LED-backlit display panel with a 1024×600 native resolution. The glossy screen offers good color and contrast, but glare and reflections indoors under strong lights or outdoors under direct sunlight can be a problem. The touchscreen accuracy seems good, though our review unit required recalibration after it arrived since the touchscreen was showing activity about a half inch to the right of where we touched the screen. After calibration everything worked fine.

The only issue I had with the 8.9-inch screen is that the small size makes if difficult to use your finger to highlight text or perform other precise tasks. Vertical viewing angles are average, with obvious color inversion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are less than impressive with colors starting to shift at wide viewing angles (possibly a result of the touchscreen layer).

The built-in speaker performance on the Eee PC T91 is pretty good for a 8.9-inch tablet netbook. I’m not a fan of the location of the built-in speakers since they’re located on the bottom of the chassis, but the audio quality is fine for netbook speakers. The speakers produce good volume (enough to fill a small room) and there is minimal distortion until you get to higher volume levels. The speakers lack any real bass, but the range of highs and midtones are fine. That being said, the audio output from the headphone jack is probably the best solution when paired with earphones or a good set of external speakers.

All the keys are smaller, and to maximize the amount of keys they could fit in the 1000H’s small frame, they’ve severely cut the size of some of the extra function keys. The right-shift key, for example, is smaller than any of the letter keys, and is awkwardly placed to the right of the up-arrow key. This makes it tricky to use, and you have to get used to its placement. What many users have done is used a keyboard remapping software to swap the up-arrow and right-shift key functions, and then physically swapped the key tops. If you want to, know that option is available to you. Along the top row, you have four additional keys. From left to right, there is a screen on/off key, a resolution switcher, a performance switch, and a Skype hotkey.

The touchpad is small, but it is relatively large for a notebook of this size. The 1000H uses a Synaptics touchpad, which to my pleasant surprise has multi-touch features built in. You can, for example, scroll by dragging down the touchpad with two fingers. If you tap two fingers, you activate the “mouse wheel”, and can scroll by dragging one finger. Right-click is activated by tapping with three fingers. I thought this was a great feature, and definitely was unexpected. The touchpad functions are remarkably similar to those on Apple notebooks, which leads me to believe they also contract Synaptics for their touchpads.

The 1000H comes reasonably well-equipped in the input/output department, for a netbook. It has three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA-out port, a 10/100 ethernet jack, mic in, headphone out, and a Kensington lock slot. None of the ports are stacked, and all of them are far enough apart from each other that you could have something plugged into each one without issue.

If your computer doesn’t survive the shipping process, then it is of little value. Dell should be proud of their packaging as it stood up very well. Upon opening the box I was greeted first by a copy of the most recent Dell catalog bearing a coupon good for 15% select electronics and accessories purchases, perfect for the SanDisk Extreme III SD Card I’m hoping to purchase.After removing this I next encountered the accessories box. This contained the system Owner’s Manual (which I did not expect to receive a printed copy of), a Dell Product Information Guide, a guide on how to contact Dell, a set of reinstall discs for Windows Vista Home Premium, Roxio Creator and MyDVD SE, and the system drivers, as well as a disc to reinstall Media Direct should you ever need to, and my two 90W power supplies.

On handling the laptop for the first time, I found it to be a bit heavier than I had expected, but not too unwieldy. It is definitely an attractive piece of gear. The base and the lid are, in my configuration, a matching black. The screen bezel, keyboard, and base are all a silver / aluminum color. The Dell logo at the base of the screen bezel is done in a mirrored silver color. This laptop means business.After removing the laptop from its packing materials, I set out to take a series of pictures of the laptop for the consumption of the online community.Facing the laptop, you first notice the large chrome piece that allows you to get a good grip on the lid/screen. In the center of the bezel rest the dual 3.5mm headphone jacks, so that you and a friend can listen to your tunes or, alternatively, you can get multi-channel sound out, and the single 3.5mm microphone jack. To the left of these jacks you will find the 8-in-1 card reader (Secure Digital (SD), SDIO, MultiMediaCard (MMC), Memory Stick, MemoryStick PRO, xD-Picture Card, Hi Speed-SD and Hi Density-SD) and the wireless radio switch / Wi-Fi catcher. For those curious, a full-size SanDisk MemoryStick Pro inserted in the card reader sticks out 7/16” from the bezel. Above the radio switch and card reader are indicator lights showing power state, hard drive activity, battery charging status, Wi-Fi radio status, and Bluetooth radio status (if installed). All the indicator lights glow a bright blue.

On the left edge of the laptop are, from the rear working forward, a laptop lock slot, the power supply connector, the processor fan exhaust port, an IEEE-1394 (Firewire 400 mbps) mini-port, two USB 2.0 ports, and above those the single 54 mm ExpressCard slot.The first thing I noticed upon opening the screen was the spring tension that helps to hold the screen in place when it is closed. The Inspiron 1420 has no latch so the hinges and spring tension are all that hold it closed, though it seems to be plenty secure. The spring tension releases after about two inches of vertical movement of the lid from the closed position.The base of the laptop houses, from the rear working forward, the speakers, Media Direct button, power button, media control buttons (which light up blue when pressed), NUMLOCK, CAPSLOCK, and SCROLL LOCK indicators, keyboard, and touchpad.The vertical viewing angle is more limited. If you try to look down on the screen from above, the screen quickly becomes unviewable. The story is much better from below, where you can open the screen completely and, from a normal sitting position, still read the text onscreen, though again the screen fades noticeably.

The keyboard on the Inspiron 1420 is a full-size keyboard, which I understand is the same keyboard as used on the new XPS M1330 laptop. Having used it to type this document, I can say confidently that it has absolutely no flex whatsoever. The keys are not loud while typing, but they are not soft-touch either. I could imagine people with longer fingernails encountering issues with catching their nails under the keys while typing quickly if they are not careful. I don’t have that problem, however.The Fn key, used to access special functions like screen brightness, video output, and volume, is located inboard of the Ctrl key on the left hand side of the Space bar. Across the top are a smaller set of keys for Esc, F1 – F12, Num Lk, Prnt Scrn, Insert, and Delete. On the right hand side of the keyboard is a beyond the typical Backspace, Backslash, Enter and Shift stack are an additional vertical row of keys housing the Home, Page Up and Down, and End keys. In the bottom right corner of the keyboard are a set of arrow keys in the usual inverted-T layout.

I have noticed something odd about the keyboard on the Inspiron 1420, and this is echoed in some pictures from another user online. At the top left of the keyboard, below where the Inspiron 1420 logo resides, there seems to be somewhat of a rise or bulge in the keyboard. I’m not sure if this is an optical illusion, or if the keys are spaced further away from the base of the keyboard at that point, but it is present. They keys in that location (contained within a square approximately from ESC to F4 horizontally and ESC to Tab vertically) don’t feel any different and the keyboard again does not flex in that area, but it is odd.The Inspiron 1420 has an ever popular trackpad for controlling the cursor on screen. The trackpad is nothing out of the ordinary. It allows you to tap to select items on screen or double tap to open documents and programs. On the right side and bottom of the trackpad are two areas that can be configured for vertical and horizontal scrolling. Software included by Dell allows you to configure the width of the scrolling are and the pressure required to activate it.Now seems as good a time as any to discuss the BIOS. The Dell BIOS (a screenshot of it is shown in the LoJack section at the end of this review) offers nothing in the way of performance configuration options but other than that, it has everything a typical PC BIOS does. It allows you to control all the radios in the laptop, the boot order, and the default screen brightness for example. It has information on the processor, system memory, graphics card, and more. But overall the BIOS on the 1420 puts the “Basic” in BIOS.

This laptop has impressed me with its performance. It boots nearly as fast as my XPS 410 desktop system. Application performance is excellent. Web browsers, Photoshop, Microsoft Office, all start up quickly – more so than I expected with a 5400 RPM drive.There has been some controversy with the discrete graphics cards present in the new Inspiron laptops from Dell. The Inspiron 1520, for example, was slated to come with an nVidia GeForce 8600M GT with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory, but they have instead shown up with GDDR2 memory at a much slower clock speed than expected. This has caused some performance concerns. I am sad to say that the situation has repeated itself on the Inspiron 1420, though not to the same extent. RivaTuner indicates that the nVidia GeForce 8400M GS in my laptop does indeed have 128 MB of GDDR3 memory as was intended, but at a lower clock speed than the bandwidth information provided by Dell would lead one to believe. It may be possible to make up the deficit through overclocking, but I have made no such attempt as yet.I ran several benchmarks on my Inspiron 1420, and they are discussed below. I did not perform any tweaking or optimizations before running the benchmarks below unless otherwise noted. I used the drivers included with the computer to run the benchmarks unless otherwise noted. In general, I simply restarted the computer each time and once the system reached a steady state condition, I ran the benchmark.

I noticed through my usage of the different temperature programs that none of them could tell me what RPM the system fan was running at. Also, none of the utilities could tell me the hard drive temperature. I was able to read the hard drive temperature using HDTune however. During the benchmark run it read a solid 36°C. Additionally, CoreTemp had a specific problem in that it could not detect the correct CPU. It thought the system was a Core 2 Duo T7000 running at 1.0 GHz. These issues may relate to specific settings not being enabled in the utilities, or it might be due to changes in the computer that aren’t accounted for in each of these utilities. I have run two different battery rundown tests to look at different usage patterns. In my first battery rundown test, I had the power profile set to “High Performance”, but I did modify some settings. I turned off everything related to the laptop going to sleep or hibernate, and I changed the length of time that the laptop would wait before turning the screen off. I also had the screen set to full bright. I then engaged in a variety of different tasks. I worked in Microsoft Word, I did some web browsing via Internet Explorer and Firefox, I did some file downloading both from the Internet and a computer on my home network, some driver updating, and I engaged in light gaming in Half-Life 2 and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition trial. I used a shareware program I found online to measure the time it took for the computer to go from 100% battery to 5% battery, at which time the computer shut off. This took place in 3 hours and 17 minutes. At that time my Windows Sidebar battery gadget told me I had 15 minutes of additional life, though it fluctuated a great deal based on what I was doing due to the reserve capacity being so low at that time.

The second battery rundown test was more indicative of what someone working long term on battery power would encounter. For this test, I chose the “Power Saver” power profile, but it was again modified to prevent the computer from sleeping or hibernating, and I again increased the amount of time before the screen would shut off. I also changed the maximum allowed processor performance to 100%, as the default for this profile was 50% and I wanted to be able to game at full speed should I choose to do that. My usage pattern was a little more typical of an office or mobile user. I ran Firefox with an auto-reload plug-in that allowed me to simulating checking CNN.com every 10 minutes. I ran iTunes in the background for the duration of the test with a pair of Shure E2C headphones connected, to simulate listening to music while working. And I again ran Microsoft Word. I also used Adobe Photoshop to do some light photo editing using an external USB mouse. I used the same stopwatch program to time the battery capacity diminishing from 100% to 2%. This took place in 4 hours and 51 minutes.

I expected World of Warcraft to perform the best out of the games I tried because it truly is meant to run on a huge variety of computers of different performance levels. I ran the game at 1280×800 resolution, with all quality options set to high except for antialiasing, which I turned off, anisotropic filtering, which I set to one click below max, terrain distance, which I set to the middle setting, the glow effect, which I turned off, soft shadows, which I turned off, and terrain highlights, which I turned off. I also turned on triple buffering as the tooltip indicate this would increase performance.These settings garnered framerates, as displayed by Fraps, in the mid 30s to 60 (with V-sync on). I noticed however in combat that there would be what I would call hiccups in the gameplay. When I would go to cast a spell or action, or otherwise cause additional data to be loaded from disk, there would be a distinct pause in the action while the information was cached to memory.

As I often find myself in the air with nothing to do, I figured that being able to watch a movie of my own selection would be an enjoyable way to pass the time. So I set about making testing the DVD playing ability of the 1420 with a copy of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. I’ve included some photographs of the screen. I found the video to have a slightly grainy quality to it, but this is not unlike what I notice when I watch DVDs on my desktop and its 24” display.As I mentioned in the initial Screen section above, at default settings the colors are a bit washed out but with a bit of moving sliders in the nVidia control panel, you can achieve quite a beautiful picture.The colored banding you see in some of the screenshots is not visible on screen during viewing – rather it is a side-effect of my digital camera.

The Intel Wi-Di option adds $100 to the price of the Inspiron 15R. In theory this is a great value, although at the time of this writing Dell only offers this on the highest configuration of the 15R. Our $599 model cannot currently be configured with Wi-Di on the Dell website. Instead, the lowest priced model with Wi-Di starts at $949.The Dell Latitude D830 is the successor to the Latitude D820, a mid sized business notebook with a 15.4" screen and the new Santa Rosa platform. Weighing in at nearly six pounds it tips the scales at the upper end of the thin-and-light category. Pricing as of this writing starts at $899, and like most Dell notebooks there are plenty of customization options available.When I began looking for a laptop nearly a month ago my primary objective was to find a solid machine that would last me through four years of college. My last notebook was an old Inspiron 500m which I deemed sufficiently thin-and-light for heavy travel and light tasks so I began looking into a larger, more powerful machine though I did not want a full-out desktop replacement. As this notebook would also be a graduation gift, price was not an object and I wanted something that was really something!Being a long time Dell user, my initial inclination was towards a Dell, but I looked into machines of other brands as well. HP and Asus dropped out early on due to cosmetic preferences, but I put some consideration on the 14 and 15 inch Lenovo T60 series.

A series of touch-sensitive media buttons with blue LED backlights are located above the keyboard similar to the buttons on the M1330. One nice feature about the media buttons is that the blue LEDs only stay lit for a fraction of a second after being pressed, so they won’t distract you by staying lit all the time.Dell also includes a Media Center remote control that fits neatly into the ExpressCard slot on the side of the notebook. This is a great accessory for presentations or if you want to control a DVD from across the room.The built-in HDMI is a very nice thing to have for those that want digital video output, S-Video is also there for the more old-fashioned approach to that. With FireWire, three USB ports, a media card reader, two headphone jacks, microphone jack, ExpressCard slot and Ethernet port you’re well equipped ports wise.Without any tweaks to drivers or removal of software, the machine performed very well — the 2.20GHz Core 2 Duo processor and Nvidia 8600M GT 256MB card will satisfy most gamers with exception to those more hard core, and will certainly please the average PC user. The 3DMark benchmarks might look unusually high at first glance, but the Nvidia 8600M GT card in the M1530 uses GDDR3 RAM instead of the more common GDDR2.

Frame rates for games like the Crysis demo and Call of Duty 4 were all quite playable and smooth with a few moments of lag during Crysis.The XPS M1530 does a reasonable job keeping heat under control. The system fan and heatsinks in the M1530 do a great job managing heat when the system is under load … as we discovered when we ran multiple benchmarks back to back. The CPU temperature peaked at only 58 degrees Celsius during multiple 3DMark06 tests. The fan moved a significant amount of hot air but the noise was reasonably low and wasn’t noticeable over background noise most of the time. However, when the fan was at the highest setting we did record the volume of the noise at 53-56dB from about two inches away from the fan exhaust.The chassis felt durable with strong internal support under most structures. The palmrest and keyboard showed very few signs of flex under strong pressure, which is a must for a good typing experience. Outside of the marred battery, the screen cover and chassis resisted scratching and other wear. The screen hinges felt durable, and kept the screen securely shut even when held in a vertical position.

If you hold one finger on the touchpad over the left or right button and try to move around the screen a few things might happen. Either the cursor will pop into a corner, usually the start menu corner without warning, or sometimes the top right. Another problem is unwanted zooming, which now controls the size of icons on the desktop, viewing size of documents, and even the size of webpages. We experienced everything except the zooming of documents roughly 10 minutes after turning the 11z on for the first time. The last problem which isn’t as important, but still annoying, is the speed of the X and Y axis input. Moving your finger side to side makes the cursor move more than if you travel the same distance up and down. A simple test is drawing a circle on the screen with your finger, where the 11z makes wide ovals instead.For the majority of the reviewing process we had to resort to using an external mouse exclusively. While the average user could easily do this, it takes away from the portability of a netbook and really shouldn’t be required.Ports and Features
Port selection is average for most netbooks, with the exception of HDMI in place of an older VGA port. Dell included three USB ports, audio jacks, an SDHC-card slot, and LAN connector. Users might also notice that Dell went with a full-size power connection on the 11z, the same shared with every other Dell notebook. The power adapter is another change over most netbooks, as Dell included a 65w thin power brick with this model. On one hand it is nice to get a high quality power adapter that will probably hold up better over time than most netbooks’ adapters, but on the flip side it is pretty big.

The Dell Precision M4500 is the latest 15-inch mobile workstation featuring powerful Intel processors up to the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition and Nvidia Quadro FX 1800M discrete graphics for video editing, animation, and CAD manipulation. The Precision M4500 boasts an optional 64GB SSD MiniCard for fast start up and your choice of up to a 256GB SSD or a 500GB HDD for file storage. Is this the most powerful workhorse on the market? Take a look and see if it’s time for an upgrade at your office.So, after looking around I was pretty close to ordering a Sony TZ. It meets all the requirements, and I even found a clearance model that doesn’t carry the $3,000 price tag. Until I saw Dell’s official announcement for the XT.In this section we will take a closer look at several components. One of the most important things on notebooks is usability, particularly how comfortable it is to use. Since I’ve already talked about the keyboard, lets look at the screen next.

Part of the XT’s hype has to do with its LED backlit screen. If I remember correctly this is the first LED-backlit convertible tablet, and LEDs are supposed to offer better battery life, brighter display, better color accuracy and wider color gamut.Well, I can’t attest to power consumption, but I will at least debunk one thing: LED screens are NOT necessary always more accurate in color. Take a look at the picture below.The first thing you will notice is that this image looks different then all the other pictures. This is because the exposure was metered strictly on the screens, with the ambient light (done via fill-flash) dialed down to reduce glare (so everything else looks slightly under-exposed). Also, this image was shot RAW, and then opened in Photoshop with the white balance manually adjusted to 5500K. No other color, contrast, and sharpness adjustments were done. In this setting, white should appear as white, and guess what, white wasn’t white on the XT.

As you may have read from the forum, there seems to be a bug with Vista’s Tablet feature and FireFox (and only FireFox… it doesn’t happen on Internet Explorer). On certain hyperlinks, the first click (either by using the Stylus, touchpad buttons or an external USB mice) would only "select" the link. Only the second click takes you to the target page. The problem is that I can’t really tell which link(s) will exhibit this problem… since about half the links you can just single click. So sometimes I would click on something, wait like 30 seconds just to realize it wasn’t clicked or I click on something twice by habit and end up submitting a forum post twice.Some of the documentation is incomplete. For example, one of the touchscreen modes is "auto" where pen input is prioritized. It says on the application "switching to touch is done via a gesture" but I looked and looked and just couldn’t find what that "gesture" is. Turns out it is tapping your finger on the screen rapidly 10 consecutive times (I found that by accident). Normally Dell have very good documentation, but since the N-Trig touchscreen is so new, there are a few things missing.

While the Mini 9 won’t win any awards for performance within applications, startup is quite fast and overall performance is fast enough to keep most users happy.Under normal use, backlight at 100 percent and using wireless for web browsing and watching several DivX movies at 75 percent volume, the Mini 9 managed to deliver three hours and 38 minutes of battery life. This is similar to what we’ve seen from Atom-based netbooks with 3-cell batteries, but we were hoping for more given the 4-cell battery in the Mini 9. Hopefully battery life will improve when we test Windows XP on this machine. Still, even with only 3+ hours of battery life, the Mini 9 provides a reasonable travel experience for a netbook priced below $400. Lowering the screen brightness and turning off the wireless card should provide enough battery life for prolonged use.The battery is a 4-cell unit and lasts a bit under 2 hours. A heavier 6-cell unit is available for those who need more mobile power. I haven’t had the notebook long enough to gauge the true battery longevity which is claimed to last about 300 charge cycles (about a year if you use your notebook daily on battery power). Lithium ion batteries might charge faster, may not suffer from memory problems but we still need something with a longer lifespan. Work is in progress, from what I hear!

With any modern computer, heat is always a problem. I am happy to report that this notebook only runs warm and not hot (I have used it for several hours at a stretch, days after days) and I did not observe any use-related errors or sluggishness or worse. If you are concerned about heat, though, USB powered cooling platforms are available, though given that the notebook is not really slim, you might find the raise’ a bit troublesome. I tried a thin cardboard wrapped in several layers or aluminum foil and it was quite effective in dissipating the little heat that the notebook produces. It is really a minor point. Incidentally, I have found the best posture to use a notebook to keep it on a table with the notebook set farther away at the back so that the elbows can rest on the table and the wrists on the notebook. This is somewhat different from what is recommended when using a conventional desktop keyboard. To each his own, as they say.Comment: Note the two non-standard’ partitions which hold the backups for the system files should you need to restore. This may seem like a waste of 3 GB space to some, on an already smallish harddisk, until you stand in my shoes and have had to restore the system a few times (read the review!). The loss of hard drive real estate is peanuts compared to the time saved during restore operations.

I did not set out looking for a notebook or acquiring one. Finding one would have been nice, as I did need to move to the next step in terms of mobility and slightly better performance (from the 800 MHz desktop I was using!) before this Dell essentially landed in my lap! Once communications were established (network and internet) and the fiddly early adjustments (software re-installed) were behind us, and we found a home with enough room to work without cramming each other’s space (after memory was added), it looks like it is going to be a happy, loving relationship — until one of us dies (worst case) but even after that, I am sure, the memories shall linger — both modules to boot (pun unintended)!

The Dell Inspiron 1420 is a new-to-market 14” Intel Santa Rosa platform-based laptop. It is the successor to the previous Dell Inspiron e1405 laptop, and is the smallest in a new line-up of laptops from Dell. It is available with a wide array of processor options, from the Core 2 Duo T5350 to the Core 2 Duo T7500, removable drive options up to and including a Blu-Ray drive, wireless-N internet, integrated or discrete graphics chipsets, and more.Ordering a computer from Dell can be a daunting experience. The Dell website offers up a seemingly endless array of computers and accessories to suit the needs of all different types of users, from the elementary school student through to the mobile professional. The Inspiron 1420 is focused at the typical home user, but due to its size it will likely be popular with those individuals seeking a more powerful mobile platform than the Dell Latitude D430, or a more gaming capable platform than the Latitude D630.

Once I had decided upon an Inspiron 1420, I had to select first what class of 1420 I was interested in customizing. Dell presents typical “Good”, “Better”, and “Best” configurations on its website. As I consider myself a power user, I thought it best to start from the “Good” configuration as it offers the greatest number of choices to arrive at an optimal price/performance ratio. Through the customization process, you select from a series of options, consisting of lid color, processor, operating system, amount of system memory, graphics card, removable drive, hard disk drive capacity, wireless networking, cellular networking, support options, and pre-installed software. I chose the below configuration as it best suited my needs of a powerful portable computer to be used around the home and on travel for web browsing, e-mail, multimedia, and occasional gaming.

In addition to the above options, I also selected an additional 90W Dell power supply as a spare, a 1-year Accidental Damage / Theft protection plan, and a Belkin 14” notebook sleeve in jet black and cabernet (red). Through the use of a promotion granting free 3-5 day shipping, another granting 2 GB of DDR2-667 RAM and a 160 GB 5400 RPM hard disk drive for free, and a coupon granting $350 off the purchase of select Inspiron systems $1399 and up (before tax and shipping), I was able to purchase all the above for $1170 including tax.I ordered my system at 4pm on Friday, July 6th 2007. I received my system at 11:33am on Thursday, July 12th 2007. The Belkin sleeve case and LoJack theft protection software shipped separately but they arrived on the same DHL truck with the laptop itself.

The Asus W3j represents Asus’ latest foray into the crowded waters of the high-performance thin-and -light market. Built as a highly upgraded refresh of the immensely popular Asus W3v, the W3j maintains the sleek mobility of a 14″ widescreen and adds the mid-high graphics capabilities of the ATI X1600 video card. The notebook sector has seen a recent influx of such designs, and while this review won’t serve as an adequate comparison between these systems, it should illustrate why the Asus W3j stands deservedly among the upper-tier of these products.Asus has recently up-dated the hardware configuration for the W3j (H026P). The reviewed computer represents the stock specifications of the W3j at the time of its release in May 2006 (H017P). These specifications are as follows:

Given the commercially-competitive nature of our society, the decision to jump for a big-ticket item can be a mind-numbingly painful one. While this pain might have been absent in my case, the decision to purchase the W3j was the result of 6 months of research. Being indecisive has its drawbacks, but a lack of patience is not one of them. My principle needs in a computer were portability, graphics-capability, longevity, and quality. Given my itinerant (occasionally consuming) gaming habit, a mid-high range GPU was a strong factor in my choice to buy. Combined with my needs for portability this originally caused me to look at 15.4″ widescreen media notebooks. Among these were the MSI-1039, HP dv4000 (when it had the ATI x700), the Sager 5320, and the Asus V6va. All of these were appealing options, but a combination of release delays (in the case of the MSI-1039) and the up-coming inclusion of higher-end GPUs (such as the x1600) caused me to postpone my purchase. Whilst in the throes of the waiting game I heard about the Asus W3j, and decided that a 14″ widescreen might actually better serve my needs than its larger counterparts.

This computer is intended to last me through medical school, all the while satisfying my note taking and graphics needs. As such, versatility in function and ease of mobility needed to be combined with a high build quality. I’m of the mind set that a few extra dollars are worth it, if the added attention to detail will prolong the aesthetic and functional life of the product. This was the primary factor which caused me to shift my attention from mass-market distributors such as Dell and HP, towards the designer models like Asus and Sager. While this meant my price range jumped from $1400 to $1800 I believe the end-result is worth it. The Asus W3j will undoubtedly serve me for 4 years in all manners necessary. While this time-frame will see such innovations as the introduction of Windows Vista and the release of 64-bit processors, I believe these issues will be addressed adequate to my needs.

Heat is naturally going to be an issue when such a powerful graphics card is packed into such a small unit. Although I won’t go so far as to state it is a problem, it is definitely noticeable. As stated before, this fact is aggravated by the situation of the heat vent on the right side. If you are using graphics intensive programs you will feel heat out of this vent. Nevertheless, I do not find the heat level to prohibitory to computer usage, nor do I find that I can’t bear to keep it on my lap. Overall, I find the balance between performance and heat capacity to be in accord. I purchased this computer knowing it was a performance machine, and I’m not disappointed in the consequences thereof.

The W3j is exceptionally quiet. On several occasions I’ve taken it to meetings and did not find it distracting in any regard. I say this with one caveat. Once the optical drive kicks in, it will be noticeable in a quiet room. If the optical drive is not used the noise level is minimal.I enjoy both these aspects of the W3j. The keyboard is very well executed in most respects. The keys are individually mounted and the pressure required to press them is homogeneous across the board. I find the stroke distance to be slightly more than that of typical notebook keyboards, which I also enjoy. The keys themselves are a little noisier than I’ve come to expect on a notebook, but I don’t perceive this to be enough of a phenomenon to be bothered by it. The font on the keys is noticeably different from that of the standard keyboard. Principally, in that the font is more curved. It’s a subtle effect taken as a whole, but an entirely pleasing one. In fact I’ve had several people spontaneously comment that they like the font design. In my opinion, the one drawback of the keyboard is the situation of the Left Control and Function keys. The function key occupies the bottom-left corner of the keyboard as opposed to the control key. This becomes slightly annoying when performing functions such as cutting and pasting. I would have preferred to see these key positions switched, but in the end it serves as only a minor irritation

The touchpad is a pleasant surprise. Experience has blessed me with a healthy bias against touchpads, but I find this one to be more reliable that those I’ve used in the past. Tracking seems to be consistent and accurate and the button sweet-spot’ is large enough to maintain ease of use. The design of the touchpad itself is a pleasure. I find the single button style appealing and the patterned face to be aesthetic.Included in the W3j is the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 A/B/G miniPCI wireless card. I have used the local wireless connection multiple times in my home and office and have yet to find a problem. Connection is quick and reliable, and the card identifies networks rapidly as they become available.

While we’re on the topic of the screen lid, I want to draw your attention to a small design feature that deserves much greater praise: the webcam privacy filter. The two-megapixel webcam included on the U33JC might not seem like anything special at first glance, but if you look closer you’ll notice a simple plastic slider switch with the words “ON” and “OFF” printed on either side. Slide the switch to the “ON” position and the webcam is available for use at any time. Slide the switch to the “OFF” position and a simple plastic tab slides over the camera lens preventing anyone from seeing you.ASUS U33JC Bamboo ASUS U33JC Bamboo Yes, you could open up Windows Device Manager and deactivate the webcam completely if you are concerned about privacy, but this simple on/off switch makes it much easier to use the use the webcam for video chats and disable the webcam when you’re not using it. Whether it’s perverted hackers or overzealous school districts, we’ve seen many news reports of people using webcams to spy on people without their knowledge. The privacy filter is a simple way to resolve that security issue and put control back into the hands of the PC user.

ASUS U33JC Bamboo
The bottom of the notebook includes a single access plate for the RAM, wireless card and the hard drive. Granted, most people who purchase a luxury bamboo-covered notebook probably won’t perform upgrades. Still, if you want to add more RAM (the U33JC can be upgraded to 8GB) or a new hard drive or SSD, all you have to do is remove two screws to make it happen. ASUS was also kind enough to place a plastic protective sticker over the serial number sticker and the Windows 7 key so these important numbers won’t rub off over time. The Chiclet-style keyboard on the U33JC isn’t one of the better keyboards I’ve seen on an ASUS notebook. Each key suffers from weak (mushy) feedback and the center of the keyboard shows some flex under heavy typing pressure. There are no dedicated multimedia keys, but the arrow keys do serve double duty as media controls when used with the function (fn) key. On the bright side, each key is flat with a nice matte texture and a little extra spacing to prevent typos. Again, since the keys are mushy you don’t have to worry about much “click-clack” noise while typing. Still, the typing noise is there and is pretty loud if you happen to wiggle the keys slightly while typing. The Synaptics touchpad is a fairly nice with the same bamboo covering as the palm rests. The touchpad drivers provide excellent accuracy and minimal lag with a range of options. The touchpad buttons are hidden under a single “rocker bar” and have a shallow press with audible “click” when pressed. The biggest problem I had with this touchpad was the thin touchpad button bar combined with the extremely sensitive touchpad. The cursor often jumped across the screen while I was using the touchpad because I would click the touchpad button with my thumb and the edge of my thumb touched the touchpad … making the cursor unintentionally move to the lower edge of the screen.

The ASUS U33JC features a great selection of ports for a 13-inch notebook. ASUS gives you two USB 2.0 ports, a single USB 3.0 port (which is backward compatible with USB 2.0), Ethernet, two video out ports, a media card reader and dual audio jacks. The only thing that is missing is an ExpressCard slot, but I’m willing to forgive that omission since ASUS included USB 3.0 on this laptop. The U33JC also lacks an optical drive, but since the last three laptops I’ve owned haven’t included an optical drive, I’m not concerned. However, this might be an issue for people who like to watch DVDs during a flight.With a solid mix of portability and durability the Vivobook is a solid choice for those looking to travel. It’s not the lightest notebook on the market, but the ergonomic design helps to ease the burden and it’s sturdy enough to hold up during travel.

Ports and Features
The Asus Vivobook V500CA ultrabook will easily meet the average user’s needs with its wide selection of ports. The left side is outfitted with a Kensington security slot, two USB 2.0 ports, a headphone/microphone combo jack and an SD card reader. The right side offers a power jack, an Ethernet connector, a VGA connector, an HDMI connector and a USB 3.0 port.The screen is a widescreen 14.1 WXGA (1280 x 800 pixels resolution), with ASUS Colour Shine technology. I was really expecting them to come out with a WXGA+ (1440 x 900) screen, but when I saw what things looked like in WXGA, I realized that it was quite enough for most people.

Since it has a glossy type screen, there is quite a bit of glare when working in really bright areas. Mine doesn’t have any dead pixels and is just perfect in terms of manufacturing quality. Wanting to keep the screen in perfect shape, I haven’t taken the protective screen off until now! I see some extra brightness near the bottom part of the screen when looking at it in a certain angle, but it’s hard to detect and so easy to say light leakage is minimal for this screen. Viewing angles are also very good; I can still see the items on the screen even when viewing from some pretty weird angles.In a typical room with average lighting conditions I think most people will be fine looking at this glossy type of screen. I get a lot of glare on the screen when working in areas close to 9′ glass windows I have in my home. However, when I use it in my home’s den, which better resembles lighting conditions for a place most people would work, the glare is much reduced and not a concern.

As mentioned above, the processor in this A8Jm is a Core Duo T2400, clocked at 1.83 GHz. I also added in an extra 1GB of memory so I won’t need to upgrade in the near future. The exception is if Merom indeed can be put into this machine, then I probably will upgrade.I put in 667MHz DDR2 speed memory, although I’ve read lately that it shouldn’t be too much different than the 553MHz speed RAM due to the latency. The current 667 MHz memory sticks have a CAS latency of 5, while the 553 MHz ones have a latency of 4, hence making only a slight difference in speed.The hard drive that came with this machine is a Hitachi Travelstar 100 GB 5400 RPM HD. I decided against upgrading to a 7200 RPM hard drive because I really didn’t need much faster access times for the things I do. To add to that, some people have warned me that increasing the RPM might also reduce battery life and cause some more heat to be generated. I reformatted the drive and partitioned it using GParted Live CD into 2 partitions, a 20 GB partition for the Windows OS and programs, and the rest for storage. I left the Recovery partition that came with the notebook alone.

I purchased the notebook from PROPortable.com. It’s owner, Justin, is a frequent participant here in the NotebookReview.com Asus forums, and I consistently find his advice to be exclusive, accurate, and timely.The purchase price was the same as that of other retailers, namely $1,799. Combined with shipping costs and a $50 discount for NotebookReview.com forum members the final price came to $1821.32. Although I had seen promotional sales for slightly less, I found the shopping experience through PROPortable to be phenomenal. I believe the extra $50 I could have saved is more than made up for in the comfort I feel working with Justin’s company.

This is one area which I can talk about without equivocation. The W3j is a masterpiece. The diligent student will realize that in specifications the Asus W3j is nearly identical to the Asus A8j and S96j. The difference you ask? Build quality.Design has always been Asus’ forte, and this fact is attested to in the construction of the W3. First impressions on opening the box were somewhat akin to Homer Simpson, being a combination of euphoric moaning and drool. The brushed aluminum lid is poetically elegant, and the seamless touchpad is gorgeous. The bamboo-style hinge maintains the curvaceous nature of the design, as do the fonts of the keyboard which are decidedly less angular than is typical. The colorations of the computer itself lend a great deal to the aesthetics of the machine. I particularly enjoy the charcoal black of interior, the chrome trim of the touchpad, and the gun-metal gray of the lid.

I purchased the notebook from PROPortable.com. It’s owner, Justin, is a frequent participant here in the NotebookReview.com Asus forums, and I consistently find his advice to be exclusive, accurate, and timely.Battery:Battery life is one area in which the nature of this performance machine is readily noticeable. I have found battery life to range between 2h 45m and 3h 15m. The difference between the ranges is determined by CPU usage, screen brightness, and optical drive activity. 3 hours is a responsible estimate. While this is short I’ve found it sufficient for my needs. Also, keep in mind that the Asus W3j features a Hot-Swappable’ optical bay which can be filled with a hard drive or a 2nd optional battery. This second battery is a 6 cell Li-Ion as opposed to the main 8 cell, and should extend battery life by as much as 50%.

The W3j shipped with Windows XP Professional. Additional software was minimal and easy to remove. Included was a trial version of Norton AntiVirus, Asus DVD software, and Nero (for burning CDs and DVDs). Norton, I have since replaced, but I find the other software to be useful, although not critical. Also provided was a CD containing all necessary utilities and drivers, and a system restore disk. The drive was initially partitioned FAT 32, but a simple program on the start-up desktop allowed quick conversion to NTFS.I have as yet not had occasion to deal with Asus Technical Support. I hope this remains the case for some time. I have heard that the quality of their service is excellent (this too was a factor in purchasing from Asus), but I have no first hand experience and so will remain silent on the subject for the time being.The 13.3-inch diagonal display on the U33JC-A1 features LED backlighting and a 16:9 aspect ratio. Once again, we give this screen a “very good” rating within the narrow vertical viewing angle sweet spot. The backlight is even and bright, contrast is sharp and colors are good at default settings. The only obvious issue with the screen is the narrow vertical viewing angles. While the horizontal viewing angles (side view) are nearly flawless, the colors become over exposed when viewed from above and significantly inverted and distorted when viewed from below. If you are using this laptop for color-accurate editing you will need to be certain you’re viewing the screen from straight ahead.

The display’s 1366×768 resolution is a standard resolution for mainstream notebooks. The horizontal resolution is adequate, however only 768 pixels of vertical space means a good deal of scrolling while surfing the Internet and only enough space to view about one-half of a page in a Microsoft Word.The ASUS U33JC features stereo speakers located just below the palm rests on the bottom front edge of the notebook. The speakers sound absolutely fabulous when the laptop is resting on a hard surface like a desk as the sound bounces up off the desk and toward the user. Unfortunately, the sound isn’t as good if you’re using this notebook as a “laptop.” In the NotebookReview.com test lab we usually call downward-facing speaker “crotch speakers” because they direct sound at your lap rather than your ears. If you’re using the U33JC on your lap you can expect the audio to sound muffled and distorted against your legs. On a happier note, the headphone jack provides a great, static-free connection for external speakers or earphones.

Another interesting addition to the ports and features on the U33JC is Intel Wireless Display (Wi-Di) technology. Wi-Di allows you to wirelessly transmit video from your laptop to an HDTV or desktop monitor–assuming the HDTV or monitor either has a Wi-Di adapter or has built-in Wi-Di to receive the wireless video signal coming from the laptop.The Asus Vivobook V500CA-DB71T is the typical mid-tier notebook. It lacks an identity though; and that’s not to say that the Vivobook is a poor product, but instead that the notebook struggles to stand out in any one particular area. For every notable feature the Vivobook offers, there is a corresponding flaw that quickly follows.Equipped with a fourth generation i7 processor and 8GB of RAM the Vivobook provides a fair bit of performance for its mid-tier price, though the lack of SSD storage may leave some consumers wanting. With its solid performance and durable design, the Asus Vivobook is not without merit. However, with little to set the Vivobook apart from the competition, does its well-rounded dependable approach outweigh the notebook’s apparent faults? Read the full review to find out.

At first glance, the Asus Vivobook V500CA offers an alluring aesthetic. The black brushed aluminum lid complete with braised metallic ‘Asus’ lettering complements the silver deck. The bottom portion of the chassis is comprised of a black rubbery plastic that matches the lid and provides an easy to grip surface. The inward slants towards the front end of the chassis provide a stylish ergonomic design that is both visually pleasing and functional. In pristine condition the notebook is fairly attractive, especially for a budget mid-tier ultrabook; however, keeping the device in that condition is not so easy. Unfortunately, the brushed aluminum cover proves susceptible to fingerprints. Any firm indentation will likely result in a visible smudge on the lid’s surface. Unless users plan on cleaning the chassis on a daily basis, they should expect a few visible smudges.Measuring in at 15.” X 10.2″ x 0.8″ and weighing in at 4.6 lbs., the Asus Vivobook manages to provide a solid level of portability. Weighing over four and a half pounds, the Vivobook certainly isn’t a feather weight and users will most certainly notice the heft of the device, but with its comfortable curved design the Vivobook is comfortable to transport.

The plastic and metallic chassis proves resistant to pressure offering minimal flex, even when extreme pressure was applied. The display case also proved sturdy giving slightly to pressure, but no noticeable rippling occurred on the display.The keyboard is excellent, there’s no flex at all to it when I’m typing. One problem I find in using the keyboard is the location of the left located FN and CTRL keys. Most people are used to having the CTRL key on the furthest lower left key on the keyboard, many other manufacturers take this approach. In ASUS’ case this is flipped, the Fn key is in the far left bottom corner and then the Ctrl key is next to the right of it. This may cause some users to mis-press the keys every now and then if they’re used to the buttons being reversed. As far as I know, there’s no way to swtich them around. I like the fact that I can function lock the keyboard so that part of it acts as a keypad, as it’s very useful when inputting numbers.

The touchpad is silver in color, the same as the palmrests and cover. I’ve read that some people don’t like it because of the texture, but I didn’t really have any trouble using it the first week when I didn’t have an external mouse to use. Seemed to work like just any regular touchpad to me. The Synaptics touchpad device settings allows customization of the 4 corners of the touchpad to act as command buttons. Tapping in a programmed corner area can register as a double click, right click, etc. and is quite useful.There is also a scroll area on the right side of the touchpad, which simulates a mouse wheel. I don’t really use this too much, but have found it quite difficult to use. It requires quite a lot of pressure in the right place to get it working correctly. What’s interesting is that the left click and right click mouse buttons below the touchpad are seemingly joined together as one button, but they function correctly when you press the left and right sides of it. For some reason, my right click makes a louder clicking sound than the left one.

Now here’s where I’m a bit disappointed in with ASUS. There are 5 control buttons above the keyboard that should perform in order: Power4Gear, Bluetooth, Wireless, Splendid and InstantON. Out of those 5, only 3 work on mine (because Bluetooth is not included and with no InstantON software included it just launches your Windows default media player). I would really have appreciated the option to re-assign functions to these buttons. As it stands right now, there’s no way to do it and I’m stuck with 2 useless buttons up there.The Asus A8Jm I have came with the Intel 3945 a/b/g wireless card as well as an infrared port. The A8Jm is definitely Bluetooth capable (there is a Bluetooth button and indicator present), but ASUS for some reason omitted the internal Bluetooth module from all North American models (why ASUS, why?). All other versions should have Bluetooth installed.

What I found is that by pressing the InstantON button, my notebook just boots windows and loads the default media player. So I emailed tech support through the ASUS website, and got a reply from the tech, to call a 1-888 number and speak to a rep. I did call in, and talked to a support person. When I told him about the button, the guy seemed lost and insisted on calling it Audio DJ. He said he’d call back later on to confirm.He called back later, saying there’s no Audio DJ on my model. (at this point, I was just cursing under my breath. I told him at the beginning it’s InstantON, not Audio DJ). So I explained the location of the button and he put me on hold. After about 20 minutes or so, I got disconnected and the guy never called back. I proceeded to email tech support again explaining the situation, and got another reply asking me to call the 1-888 number and to talk to a specific person.Within hours, I got 2 calls. First one was the person I was recommended to talk to; he said it’s a known problem and that HQ was investigating, hoping to get a solution soon. The second one was the original guy I was talking to and got disconnected from, saying that it’s an error with documentation, that it’s supposed to load Windows, not an external media player.

HP ZBook 17 TouchPadHowever, those who would rather opt for a touchpad will find a sizable one located directly below the keyboard’s space bar. The touchpad features a smooth surface, providing excellent control while scrolling or swiping across its surface. As with the top of the touchpad, the bottom is also outfitted with left, right and middle mouse buttons.Equipped with Synaptics drivers the touchpad performs admirably accurately responding to each swipe, click and multi-finger gesture with minimal delay. One feature that may see strange to users is the touchpad’s dead zone. Only the center of the touchpad will respond to taps, the outer edges will ignore the command, though multi-finger gestures will work anywhere on the touchpad’s surface. This feature allows users to easily scroll thorough pages without accidentally clicking on something, though it may take some getting used to.The HP ProBook line of business notebooks has always attempted the meet the needs of businesses and consumers alike. The new HP ProBook 5330m looks like the perfect solution if you want a powerful, aluminum-wrapped laptop for work and play but can’t afford a MacBook Pro. Is it possible to find a lust-worthy business laptop for $899 or less? Keep reading to find out.

Let’s be honest. Anyone who thinks the new HP ProBook 5330m wasn’t designed to directly compete with the 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro is likely suffering from some type of delusion. The 13.3-inch ProBook 5330m combines all the aluminum-clad beauty of the MacBook Pro with the Windows-based business features of the HP Elitebook laptops. The 5330m is less than 1-inch thin (if you don’t count the rubber feet on the bottom of the notebook), features a dual-tone color scheme, brushed aluminum chassis and backlit keyboard and is HP’s first business notebook to offer “Beats Audio” with software-enhanced audio playback over the built-in speakers and the earphone jack. The ProBook 5330m features a 13.3-inch anti-glare display (1366×768) and second-generation Intel Core i-series processors, including the dual-core i3 and i5 variants. It does not have an internal optical drive but weighs only 4.0 lbs.

The display is of very high quality and has excellent definition. My resolution is 1366×768; it has no dead pixels and is 16″. When the screen is black there is a small amount of light leak on the outside corners of the screen. The back light leak is not present with the black task bar on the bottom of the screen in Windows Vista Premium. I would recommend the 1920×1080 screen with a Blu-ray player. Sadly that is the one thing I did not do.The sound from this laptop is far better than any other laptop I have ever used! I love the built in subwoofer. The sound is very crisp and very audible for a laptop compared to my older hand me down Dell Inspiron (512MHz processor with 512MB RAM), which had very muffled audio quality. The HP HDX 16 has Altec Lansing speakers and subwoofer that make playing games very nice when you can use them. There is the media smart bar, which is located above the keyboard and below the screen. It works well if you know how to use it, but it takes some time to know how to use it, it is also very touchy. (One click really is 2-3 clicks.) You can also control the trebble and bass from the media smart bar, which is nice.

HP’s MediaStyle although striving for a Windows MCE look and feel is very basic. It’s like a simplified Apple Front Row. Sure, it can display photos but I was hoping to find some integration to online photo hosting. Pulling a photo stream from Flickr would be a great way to provide photos without requiring proper storage capacity. When dealing with local storage the app is too slow. Reading a series of forty 10MP images off a SanDisk Extreme III SD card was pretty sluggish. Thumbnails took a while to load, flipping through full size views was also a bit laggy.Likewise, MediaStyle’s video playback was spartan. You’ll obviously need a memory card to keep a video library because there is no room on the Mini for more than a full resolution single Xvid movie. YouTube integration would be a good idea in MediaStyle.

Performance of the bundled applications is very good although it’s tough to measure speed without my usual array of testing applications. I can say that you won’t be waiting for programs to load or respond. The whole experience is snappy. Stability is good too, I have not experienced any crashes.Heat is not a problem. On battery power the 1110NR gets warm. When plugged in for several hours the peak temperature I was able to record was 106 degrees Fahrenheit immediately below the space bar and 124 degrees Fahrenheit on the bottom of the unit next to the memory compartment.

Performance of the included 3-cell 26 Wh battery was 2 hours and 37 minutes using a highly unscientific mix of word processing, lots of Web surfing and a little bit of YouTube watching. In other words pretty close to the typical usage scenario for this type of device. The result is good but HP needs to figure out some form of Asus battery magic, or they need to equip these with bigger batteries. The less expensive Asus Eee 900HA gets almost double the battery life.HP on the other hand, decided to provide a full OS CD & a separate application/driver DVD. This allows the user to manually re-install their OS at a later time without having all of the extra applications and old drivers cluttering up the notebook. Newer drivers can also be downloaded from the HP Support site and installed without worries that there might be a conflict with previous versions. This also enables the user to repair an OS by installing on top of an existing OS. It just replaces the OS files with a working version without wiping existing user data.

The HP Compaq nx8220 comes standard with a 1-year worldwide warranty for hardware and 90 days for software. Telephone support is provided 24h a day, 7 days a week. Other methods to obtain support are online via live chat with an HP Support rep as well as a self-help section or through HP’s support forums.Extended service plans are also available to increase your warranty coverage beyond the standard 1-year service plan. As an extra layer of protection, an Accidental Damage Protection plan can also be purchased. This plan will cover most “accidents” that may occur to your notebook. Extended service plans will pay for itself after your first major repair.There was one annoying item I noticed (as well as other nx8220 users/owners on www.NotebookReview.com) with the casing. Some of the edges were a bit on the rough/sharp side. One major edge was the cutouts for the LED’s on the left side of the palm rest. While in a standard typing position, your wrists would scrape across the edges and would cause some irritation. I found it annoying as soon as I felt something scrape across my wrists. I just took a knife and rounded off the rough/sharp edges. It only took me approx 30 seconds, but this should have been done at the factory.

While using the Compaq 2510p I had the opportunity to take it on some travels, which is what an ultraportable is designed to do. The 2510p was used on a 4-hour train ride between Boston and New York and on a plane trip I took between Cincinnati and New York. Even though my regular 14-inch screen laptop weighs a fairly light 5lbs, it was so nice to have a laptop that had a weight of just over 3lbs, I could hardly tell it was in my backpack as it weighs less than some textbooks. The real miracle with the 2510p is that it has an integrated optical drive — something I really prefer to have that a majority of ultraportables leave out. I weighed the 2510p using a scale and below are the readings for various weight configurations:

The speakers are a little above average, and do not sound tinny or squeaky to me. While I am not a great judge of speaker quality, these speakers sounded better to me than most laptops. At the highest volume settings were significantly loud enough to make me want to back away, but they were still clear and not distorted.The T7500 is part of Intel’s latest lineup of Core 2 processors that features an 800MHz FSB powering a CPU at 2.2GHz. Also, the Santa Rosa platform supports up to 667MHz DDR2 RAM, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, TurboMemory, and more of the latest technologies. So how does this processor perform?

The pointing stick supplied with the 2510p is a feature I love to have on a notebook since it’s my preferred cursor navigation method. However, using the pointing stick on the 2510p was problematic. Any time I used the stick to move the cursor and then used the left mouse button in conjunction with the stick, such as when resizing windows, the left mouse click would register erratically — sometimes opening multiple windows, sometimes freezing the system momentarily, or sometimes working okay. HP sent a couple of 2510p units and both behaved the same way. I tried updating drivers and changing various settings in the included Synaptics driver software to get rid of this problem, but it persisted. Hopefully we just got twice unlucky in regards to this issue, I’m sure HP will address the problem if it does turn out to be something more widespread, they’re pretty good at listening to user feedback and updating drivers when necessary.

HP needs a service like Apple’s Mobile Me that is relatively full-featured with applications and tight OS integration. Lack of cloud service integration is the missing link here that HP needs to address – it would really fill the holes in a product like the 1110NR. HP does have an online storage and backup service called HP Upline that starts at $59/year for unlimited storage space – you get a free six-month trial if you live in the USA (other regions are not available yet). If they could tie the MediaStyle browser directly to Upline or their line of HP MediaSmart home servers they could really have a nice vertically integrated solution.

Looking at the installed client applications we find the staples of any Linux distribution: Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, Pidgin and a pile of crappy looking games. In general all the applications work well but there is a slight lack of polish. For example, the Open Office languages were not installed on my 1110NR, making a basic spell check impossible (my monkey-like typing style requires a lot of proofing).The touchpad borrows the unorthodox layout from the Acer One and HP 2133, putting buttons on the left and right side rather than underneath. A vertical scroll zone is present, but unlike the Asus Eee and Apple MacBook there is no multitouch capability. The mouse control panel has a couple of interesting options such as Dwell Click (where the software detects no mouse motion and prompts you if you want to click) and Simulated Right Click (hold the left button down for a definable period to right click) but neither of these works as well as two finger clicking and scrolling.In this case HP has designed a simplified interface that is much better than those found on other Linux netbooks such as the Acer One and Asus Eee PC. The main feature is HP’s Home screen which gives you access to email, web, music, photos and program launcher. The Home screen has a dedicated button on the keyboard and an icon where you would expect to find the Windows Start menu. Switching between running programs is accomplished by clicking on a switcher icon in the system tray, or pressing the dedicated task switcher button.

MediaStyle’s music capabilities are more of the same; a nice simple interface but very little common sense applied to the challenge of how to play media on a device that has 2.1GB of available storage. Some Internet radio capabilities would be great for this device as it would give you access to lots of music despite the limited storage space.HP directs the package manager/installer application to a special repository rather than the standard Ubuntu one. This gives them control over compatibility of the software with HP’s hardware, but it also makes it harder to install applications you might want. In my case, WINE and Gnome-RDP. I would really like to see something like Apple’s iPhone app store here.

Intel has done a great job of making the hardware sections of netbook reviews redundant. There is little to say about the Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz CPU and its matching rickety old chipset the GMA900. The CPU is a good performer, with low power requirements and Hyper threading for some added kick. The chipset however is weak, eating lots of energy and belching out lots of heat (22 Watt TDP).There is one RAM slot, in this case occupied by a single 1024MB module. That means single channel memory (which could reduce performance ever so slightly). You can replace this with a 2GB module. Strangely, the memory compartment door is not secured to the chassis with screws.

In terms of hardware and performance, there is little to choose from between most netbooks. This particular chassis was made for a 10” screen so the 1110NR’s 8.9” screen looks out of place. Also, the 8GB SSD is simply too small given HP’s current lack of Mi-integrated cloud services. Sadly, the 10” model that comes with a much larger mechanical HDD is only available with Windows XP. I would appreciate being able to buy the 10” model with hard drive running HP Mi (or even a dual boot). The Hp Mini chassis is very nice, but the memory compartment door is flimsy – a really bone-headed design decision.I still think that in general the asking price for netbooks is a bit high for the functionality they offer. Looking specifically at the HP Mini some of its immediate competitors offer better bang for buck. At the moment you can get an Asus Eee 900HA for $30-50 less than this HP. The Asus comes with XP, a proper 160GB 5400 RPM notebook drive and a higher capacity battery – although it’s not as pretty looking as the HP and has a cramped keyboard in comparison. The Linux iteration of the Acer Aspire One with 8GB SSD is being blown out for as little as $279 CDN and it is very comparable to the HP Mini. Clearly value is an issue (at least in my tightwad opinion).

There have been recent promotions on HP’s own website taking the HP Mini Mi as low as $329. That price is better, but I would need to see a $299 USD price tag to unequivocally recommend the 1110NR. You might also want to wait for HP to fix the memory compartment door issue and actually release a restore utility as promised.If you have your heart set on a netbook you will almost certainly find the combination of features and value you need – it just may not be this one. You might want to wait for the PC makers to bleed a bit more red ink and get aggressive with pricing before you plunk down your cash.My HDX 16 takes just under a minute to boot up to the log in screen with a 5400rpm hard drive that came with this computer. I needed the 4GB of memory because I am a programmer, but the more you have the better off your computer will run, Vista premium takes about 1.5GB of your memory while its idling, so be sure you get at least 3-4GB of memory. I play Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare online, The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Civilization 4 and pretty much anything else I want to on this laptop without anything going wrong. It does not over-heat, and runs those games at playable resolutions and with high frames per second. It does play them at the highest resolutions (everything on, and 1366×768) smoothly, I just chose to use a smaller resolution so it runs the smoothest and stays cooler than at full resolution.

I check the exhaust fan in the far back left corner to see if there is anything hot coming from it, I am surprised by cool air being blown by the fan. I always expect it to be hot to the touch, but to my joy this laptop disperses its heat very effectively. I do have the 12-cell battery, which lifts the laptop ~1″ off of the ground, so that might be the big help with it not being hot. When I am typing on it my hands do get warm, but not hot or uncomfortable.The keyboard is great, there is a full number pad on the right, the arrow keys are smaller than I am used to with a desktop, but that comes with the territory, none of the keys are out of reach or in ridiculous locations. They are very well spaced even with my big hands.

I had to call customer support to make sure my rebate went through. The operator I spoke to was very pleasant and knowledgeable while offering useful support. Overall, it was a pleasant experience with customer support. I was going to get the 1-year accidental warranty, but opted out because of the cost. I am very good at keeping my technological items safe and very clean and up to date.As the first laptop I bought, the HP HDX 16 has exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend this to anyone who likes to play games but also needs more than just a video card. The HP HDX 16 is a very well rounded machine that does everything I ask of it. If you want to play games online, do video editing, program or just surf the Internet, or everything simultaneously; this laptop is definitely for you. It is more portable than the 18″ HDX but not extremely portable like the HP dv4 (14″). If it is a choice between the dv5 and HDX 16, go with the HDX 16. It is well worth the cost, and you will not be disappointed

While HP has changed the name of its mobile workstation notebook line, the HP ZBook 17 remains a traditional workstation device. What does that mean for serious business users? The ZBook is a sizable notebook with strong performance levels and ample connectivity; the perfect work horse for users looking to tackle demanding computing tasks. However, with our test unit priced well over $3,000 that performance comes at a steep price.The HP ZBook 17 features a 17.3-inch LED FHD (1920 x 1080) WVA Anti-Glare display. Boasting a vibrant 230 nits max brightness the display offers a crisp clear image. Notebook Review (NBR) was particularly impressed by the panel’s rich color contrast, as the device was able to accurately detail the black edges of the fog of war against the bright green grassy fields in the game League of Legends. Whether you are reading text or editing pictures the HP ZBook 17 offers a high-quality viewing experience.
Users can rest assured that the HP’s image quality will hold up as well, thanks to the display’s flexible viewing angles. On the horizontal axis images holds up till around 170 degrees with no noticeable distortion. The display proves just as flexible on the vertical axis as well, with image quality remaining pristine even at extreme angles.

The HP ZBook 17 houses a speaker grill located on the notebook’s deck directly above the keyboard. The speakers offer boisterous audio levels capable of filling an entire room with ease. At 100 percent capacity the speakers did produce a small amount of distortion while playing an orchestral track. However, the speakers held up much better while listening other tracks and watching various YouTube videos. For simple tasks the HP ZBook 17’s speakers should suffice, but for optimum audio quality users should opt for an external device.HP ZBook 17 Keyboard The HP ZBook 17 features a full Chiclet-style keyboard complete with number pad. The keyboard stretches across the large chassis offering ample spacing between each key. The rounded keys are coated in a textured plastic that provides ample grip. With its thick frame the notebook offers solid key travel and responsive feedback allowing users to type quickly with assured accuracy.

There is a number pad on the right side that should please accounting types. One note about having the number pad squeezed in is that it means the alphanumeric keys are not centered to the display, but rather they are shifted to the left relative to the display center, this might bother some people who like precise symmetry.The ENVY dv7t touchpad has quite a large surface area measuring 4.13-inch wide by 2.13-inch deep. That’s nowhere near as large as the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch that offers a 5.2-inch wide by 4.3-inch deep trackpad, but HP chose to offer dedicated mouse buttons instead of the integrated clickpad buttons Apple uses. With Windows 8 the more room you get on the touchpad the better, there are a lot of touchpad gestures you can do and swiping from side to side is encouraged for navigation, therefore a clickpad and deeper touchpad surface may have made more sense with the ENVY. Worth noting is the fact the touchpad is slightly sunken, which is helpful for finding it in the dark or to avoid looking down. Unfortunately if you opt for the keyboard backlight the touchpad does not receive the same backlight treatment.

The performance isn’t really what you’re looking for in an ultraportable though. It’s the utility factor and how capable it is for on the go work that matters with such a machine. The integrated optical drive, light weight, great screen, nice keyboard and overall good design will serve therefore serve as a focus in this review.The HP Compaq 2510p looks like a mini-me version of the larger 6510b (14") and 8510p (15") business notebooks. HP uses the same design across its line of business notebooks, which is a good thing, they’ve standardized on a professional yet stylish bluish-silver metallic lid with black trim on the inside that should appeal to just about anyone. The front corners are slightly rounded to give a nice smooth look and to avoid any sharp edges from poking you.

The lid of the notebook is constructed of a firm mag-alloy material and will endure the bumps of the road. When the back of the lid is pushed on no screen ripples appear, indicating that the protection is quite adequate. The same mag alloy material is used on the palm rests area which makes sure this area is sturdy and doesn’t sink under the weight of your hands. The keyboard is also firm with absolutely no mushiness or sink to it.The hard drive is shock mounted for protection, though there is no fancy accelerometer like ThinkPads have that lifts the hard drive head in the event of a drop. The entire bottom of the laptop is as sturdy as the lid with little flex to it, so your protection there should be good. Overall the 2510p is a very well built and solid feeling little laptop.

HP went the route of using touch sensitive button controls instead of regular push buttons. This is something they started doing with their consumer line notebooks a while ago. I can’t say I’m a big fan of this. While it provides for a clean look, it makes it a bit tougher to control the volume. There are five quick launch touch sensitive buttons for disabling the touchpad, muting volume, turning on/off wireless, launching a presentation software manager, and launching an HP software utility — simply touching these buttons ie easy enough and there’s never any problems registering the touch. The touch sensitive volume control that requires you to slide your finger up or down to control volume was a bit finnicky though and not as responsive as a good old fashioned button. Toshiba put a volume dial on their business line Portege R500, while that’s pretty old school in terms of design, it sure works and is 100% intuitive.

In the end the build quality is slightly better than expected for this price range. Those seeking to add additional RAM or replace the hard drive will be able to do so with ease; a single panel on the bottom of the notebook holds both components and the wireless card.The body of the Mini 100e is made of a durable plastic that seems like it would be more at home on a rugged notebook instead of a netbook. When the system is open no area around the keyboard exhibited any sort of flex. The palmrest was rock solid alone with the keyboard and trim near the screen hinges. The hinges themselves were very strong, completely without wobble, and held the screen firmly shut when the system was closed. Even the keyboard keys seemed to be a step above what was found on standard notebooks, with an etched label for each symbol instead of just being printed on the surface of the keys.

Also, from looking at the picture it is very clear that the graphics card of the 8510w is a modular card. It is possible this is the real MXM technology here, but it is more likely that this is an HP variant of it. However, the possibility that the GPU in this laptop may be upgradeable in the future is enticing. 8700M anyone?Finally, here is a summary of all the temperature tests done and how hot/cool the notebook was. The CPU and HDD temps were obtained via Notebook Hardware Control, and the GPU temps read through RivaTuner.The keyboard on the 8510w departs from the design of its predecessors as HP decided to use keyboards similar to their Pavilion consumer lines of computers. The layout of keys has been changed, and not for the better in my opinion, as several important keys for me were located in odd spots.

The touchpad has not changed since the last refresh of this series, and remains to be its snappy and smooth self. It is very responsive to my touch, and the three rubber mouse buttons are quiet and about the right size. There is also a secondary set of mouse buttons above the touchpad to work with the touch stick that comes with all 8510w’s. The touch stick is also equally comfortable to use.Here we see the security lock slot, GigE Ethernet, Firewire 400, HDMI-out, two USB ports, a PCMCIA card slot, smart card slot, and an SD card slot. It is a disappointment that this laptop does not have an ExpressCard slot integrated into it, but one would be available via the HP Advanced Docking Station (not reviewed) which costs an additional $229 USD.Operating System and Software The 8510w comes equipped with Vista Business Edition as the OS of choice, with no known options for XP.There was almost no bloatware, and what was there consisted of Norton (installed by default) and HP ProtectTools Suite (installed by default and required to use the finger print reader or smart cards). Additionally, other useful applications like PDFComplete, WinDVD with BluRay support, and Sonic MyDVD were either installed by default or you could install them yourself by browsing the C:\SwSetup directory.The notebook also comes equipped with an HP Backup and Recovery Utility that allows you to create your own backup discs and do regular backups of your OS and data.

I wanted to see how all of the software and drivers installed by the manufacturer would affect the runtimes, so I performed the test twice. Once with the original OS loaded by HP and the other using their OS Recovery CD (this CD loads just the OS without drivers or additional software).Last year’s HP Mini-note 2133 looked great, but it was let down by a pokey slow VIA C-7 CPU and 4200rpm HDD. I can imagine many people who got to handle a 2133 trying to rationalize how they probably didn’t need too much CPU power because of how well-built and attractive the 2133 was. I know I did, but thankfully I came to my senses before plunking down $500 on what was sure to be a disappointing investment.Even before we get our hand on the 1110NR configuration of the Mini 1000 Mi edition we can see that HP has really pushed their game up a level. Much like their recent Touchsmart and HDX line, the Mini comes in an attractive black box. In terms of packaging, HP is not quite at Apple levels yet. For example the Mini box is much larger than it needs to be, but HP are giving us a better first impression than Toshiba or Acer.

I have to say, HP might be on to something here. I prefer this UI to both Windows (XP, Vista and 7) and OS X for basic computing tasks. I am not just referring to the eye candy factor. Having almost everything I want to do waiting for me on the Home screen as soon as the computer boots is great. It’s like the Today screen on PocketPC PDAs but adapted for full featured computers. You can ignore it if you like, but I like the convenience. Also, unlike some simplified Linux shells access to the terminal is just one quick setting away (Fn-F2 brings up a command line where you can launch the terminal – or anything else).

With only an 8GB SSD, of which 2.1GB is available for use, having music and photos on the Mi Home screen is a bit of a tease. This OS really calls for either a full sized HDD or integration to online services (such as Live, Flickr, Google, etc.). The Mini needs one or the other – its either a cloud computer or it needs proper storage capacity. As it stands the Mini seems to have a foot in each camp and that compromises the experience. It’s incomplete.If you click the MediaStyle “Settings” tab the only option is “About.” Perhaps this is so we know where to send complaints. If I were the developer of this product I would want to stay anonymous. Overall I really don’t see the point of this application it seems to be a big part of HP’s plans but it is too basic to really be of any use.

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