Manufacturer: Dell Model: Dell XPS M2010 Screen Size: 20.1 inches Weight: 18 lbs Graphics Options: ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 (Dedicated) Description: The Dell XPS M2010 is a unique 20.1-inch foldable notebook computer. The keyboard is detachable from the gorgeous 20.1-inch LCD display. The M2010 is great for gaming with an ATI X1800 graphics card and Core Duo processor built-in...
Overview and Introduction for this laptop
The Dell XPS M2010 is Dell’s largest and most fully featured notebook computer. While people argue whether or not it truly qualifies as a notebook, in my opinion, it forms a new class of personal computer that can best be described as a transportable (notebooks in the 19-20 inch form * Detachable Bluetooth keyboard and mouse
* Remote control
* Dual DVI out
* Portfolio design with integrated carry handle
* Dimensions
o Width: 18.85"
o Height: 2.90"
o Depth: 15.90"
* Weight (lbs): 18.3
I currently run it with 1.5GB RAM, but have a 2GB stick on order and due to arrive any day. I also replaced the HD with my own Hitachi Travelstar 7k100 100gb 7200rpm drive. Everything else remains the same.
Dell XPS M2010 (view large image)
Reasons for Buying laptop
Having recently graduated from college, I figured I don’t need a laptop computer anymore to carry back and forth from home and school, I never really did use it in classes anyway. Still, the idea of a million wires sticking out the back of a desktop and the reliance on a power outlet wasn’t terribly appealing. The XPS M2010 struck the perfect balance; a full sized computer that could have one wire coming out the back (power), and was an all in one solution (large screen for everyday usage).
Where and How Purchased
I bought my XPS M2010 from Dell Outlet. It came with a 3-year next day at home service warranty, at a grand total for $2,440 and change.
Build & Design dell laptop
The Dell XPS M2010 in its closed position (view large image)
This is easily one of the most stunning computers you will find, and the comments I’ve gotten from it range from “WOW” to slightly more expressive expletives of shock and envy. The build is very solid. The hinge allows a great deal of freedom for the monitor -- the hinge is very stiff and does not wobble. The top and bottom of the system feel like faux leather, while the handle feels and looks like real leather. The Dell Logo on the system top glows blue, and pulses while in standby. The blue LEDs on the computer’s main console are incredibly bright (a bit annoyingly so), but nice looking anyway.
The LED lights are very bright (view large image)
Screen
A look at the XPS M2010 screen (view large image)
The screen on the XPS M2010 is absolutely stunning for a “laptop” computer, though I would expect no less. It’s brightness is very high, with excellent side to side and decent vertical viewing angles. It falls a bit short of my Dell 1907FP, though not by much. I tilt the screen a little bit downwards, as for some reason, the bottom washes out far less, or not at all, compared to the top of the screen.
The XPS M2010 has good viewing angles (view large image)
All in all, there is absolutely nothing out in the notebook segment that could compare. I’ve had 17-inch, 15.4-inch, 14.1-inch, and 12.1-inch notebooks with various respective screens, and this puts them all to shame. I would say from my previous laptop screen experiences, the 12.1 Dell Inspiron 700M ranks the highest, while the 14.1-inch Asus A8jp and 17-inch XPS Gen2 rank the lowest in terms of clarity, contrast, and viewing angles.
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Speakers
The speakers are amazing, though they will not compete favorably with a good pair of subwoofer powered 2.1s. The highs and mids are extremely clear, while the bass is more punchy than booming. Having had a great number of speakers and headphones, this computer’s sound is better than the Altec Lansing XT2, a bit worse than the Logitech V20s, and worse than my Dell 2.1s and the Logitech Z-10s. What this means is that you really don’t need separate speakers, as these are adequate for most listening experiences, but by no means excellent or passable to an audiophile.
Processor and Performance
Performance under Windows Vista in general is not much different than what I’ve previously encountered under similarly configured systems (Asus A8jp w/ T7200 and Dell E1505 w/ T7200, 2GB RAM). Vista’s Aero however seems smoother due to the much faster X1800 graphics card being present. In terms of gaming prowess, I would not suggest this system, though it is capable of running all games adequately, but by no means with eye candy turned up or even native resolution. I wouldn’t even consider Windows Vista at this point if you are a gamer, as the benchmarks I ran show (below), the X1800 performs pretty miserably. The T7200 is plenty fast for all other applications though, ranging from HD-TV (via Hauppauge HVR-950) to every day multitasking. I would not even install Vista without at least 1.5gb of RAM though. I currently also have a (Sandisk Extreme III) 2gb SD card in the computer for Vista’s Readyboost feature, which does make the system more snappy and responsive.
he XPS M2010 scored a respectable 4.5 on the Vista Experience Index benchmark
Windows Vista Experience Index
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Heat and Noise
The console runs very very hot, but the system is for the most part, dead quiet. The only times the fans are noticeable are during gaming benchmarks. Taxing the CPU doesn’t affect the fan speed at all. I do however, have a small issue with my system that I hope will be resolved when a replacement system arrives (detailed later): the right side of my system makes a high pitched whine/buzz. It could be a fan or even the GPU, as this problem has been quite common on some laptops. It is only noticeable in a quiet environment however, so it is not the biggest deal breaker.
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Keyboard and Touchpad
The system comes with a detachable Bluetooth Keyboard with built in trackpad. I am amazed that the system is able to fire up the Bluetooth in time to boot into the setup menu… some fancy BT Bios drivers at work there I assume, but certainly impressive. The keyboard’s battery life, under heavy usage, I would assume would be months. I have used it for literally a week without charge, and it still reports a full charge. I certainly hope this reading is accurate, but since it does not charge anymore when I snap it back into place, it is pretty safe to say the battery life is astounding.
Dell XPS M2010 collapsed open (view large image)
The system also comes with a fully functional Bluetooth mouse (made by Logitech I assume, as it uses Setpoint). It has a side scrolling click wheel, plus forward and back buttons, all of which can be programmed with Logitech’s Setpoint software. Amazingly, there is no identifiable lag with either the mouse or the keyboard, in sharp contrast to my previous experience with radio frequency based wireless mice and keyboards from Logitech (such as the VX revolution, various wireless keyboards). Absolutely impressive, even suitable for gaming.
The included mouse (view large image)
Input and Output Ports
The system comes with 4 USB 2.0 ports, an Express Card slot, FireWire, IR, Compact Flash reader, SD/MMC/MS/XD reader, some standard audio/microphone inputs, S-video, DVI, and modem/Ethernet ports. Dell really did go all out on expandability, though I find the Compact Flash reader pretty useless, I would rather have an old PCMCIA slot.
Wireless
The Intel 3945ABG wireless the system comes with is just as strong as all the other (identical 3945ABGs) I’ve used, and achieves a full signal in my home network, while picking up dozens of neighboring networks.
Battery
The standard battery lasts about 2 hours on Balanced/Performance, but can squeeze to 3 hours with some power saving features turned on (Wifi Off, screen dimmed etc). Pretty impressive for such a massive system, but then again the battery feels like a bit like the weight of some table PCs and ultraportable laptops alone!
Operating System and Software
The system came with Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit edition. I use it instead of XP for Vista’s Superfetch and Readyboost features, which allow a beasty system like this to fly just as fast, if not faster than XP running most daily usage programs. Everything I use and run works fine with Vista, though I haven’t figured out how to configure my HVR-950 HDTV tuner to work with Media Center yet.
Customer Support
I have had a few issues with this system, which warranted a few support calls. First of all, the speakers came unbalanced, with the left speakers significantly louder than the right. Some balance tweaking in the sound options fixed it, but it was a bit annoying. The buzz/whine was also suspected to be the speakers, so a technician came and replaced the speakers (which involved replacing the whole back panel). Unfortunately, the system was marred cosmetically and the battery has been reported as missing more than once by Windows, and the problems were not solved. A complaint to Dell immediately authorized the build of a brand new system specced to be equal or greater than my current system, to be shipped to me as a replacement in 8-10 days. Having bought a ton of Dells in the past, I am not surprised at all. All I have to say is that Dell has hands down the best customer support of any computer manufacturer, in the world.
Conclusion
People who balked in the past at the absurd price tag of the Dell XPS M2010 no longer really have that excuse. I think $2,440 is a very reasonable amount (though it would vary based on the deal you get and state tax), an amount which many buyers of Sony and Apple products are readily willing to shell out. With 3-year at home service and warranty (Ok, to be honest, perhaps I will convince the Dell tech to let me replace the part in the future if need be) is absolutely phenomenal. This system is not for everybody though. It doesn’t really come close to matching a desktops power, and isn’t terribly useful as a portable laptop. However, it will certainly appeal to a niche audience of which I belong to, people who want a clean, stylish, powerful and functional system that allows transportability without sacrificing useability. It could easily be your media center, gaming PC, work PC, center of envy and status symbol all in one. For my needs, there really isn’t a better system.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
Dell XPS M2010 laptop
Toshiba new laptop
Toshiba Launches World's First Notebook PC with HD DVD-ROM Drive in Japan. "Qosmio G30/697HS" will be available in the Japanese market in mid May, as the latest product in Qosmio line-up of AV notebook PC series. Along with playback of HD DVD content, the new Qosmio can read and write to current DVD and CD discs, including DVD+/-R DL (dual-layer) and DVD-RAM.
The groundbreaking Qosmio series has consistently redefined the capabilities and performance of AV notebook computers. "Qosmio G30/697HS" continues this tradition by being first in the world to integrate an HD DVD-ROM drive. The slim-type 12.7mm-thick drive achieves this thin form factor with an optical system requiring only a single objective lens to read HD DVD discs and to read and write to DVDs and CDs. The PC's combination of a high-performance dual-core CPU, the "Intel® CoreTM Duo Processor T2500 (operating frequency 2.00GHz)," and high-performance graphics accelerator, the "NVIDIA® GeForceTM Go 7600," with advanced PC software technology delivers stunning image quality in playback of HD DVD content.
The Qosmio G30/697HS integrates two TV tuners, one for digital terrestrial broadcasts, the other for analog terrestrial broadcasts. As users watch their choice of program -- analog or digital -- the separate tuners allow them to record both, what they are watching as well as a program from the other tuner all at the same time.
The most striking feature of the new Qosmio is its 17-inch diagonal widescreen, full-HD liquid crystal display. This WUXGA display supports 1920 x 1200 pixel resolution, achieving true high definition and the ability to playback HD DVD content (1920 x 1080 pixel). Beyond this, the new Qosmio also integrates an HDMI output in its external interface, allowing the PC to be hooked up to an HDTV and to act as the video source for a large-sized TVs or home theater projectors.
Source: Toshiba Press Release
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SONY VAIO® UX Micro PC
VAIO® UX Micro PC
Portability
Ultra Portable Micro PC laptop
The VAIO® UX Micro PC puts the world in your pocket and at your fingertips. It's so small and lightweight you won't believe it's a full-functioning PC. This remarkably compact dynamo is designed for true PC performance on-the-go. A 4.5" widescreen display5 with XBRITE™ LCD technology delivers a clean, crisp viewing surface while an Intel® Core™ Solo Ultra Low Voltage processor and Windows Vista ™ Business operating system provide the PC usage experience you're used to........
Easy to Use laptop
Because the VAIO® UX Micro PC is a full-functioning PC using Windows Vista™ Business, application user interfaces are familiar and easy to use - you get full access to all your electronic documents, including the Internet and e-mail with attachments6 Advanced wireless capabilities6, are built right in, and expansion is a breeze with the included port replicator.
Superior Widescreen Display sony vaio laptop
The VAIO® UX Micro PC comes with a high-density 4.5" widescreen SVGA display5 with Sony's original XBRITE™ technology, providing brilliant colors, sharp contrast, and crisp images, as well as the durability required to support the unit's touch-panel functionality. And with the anti-reflective coating to minimize reflection, you're assured an exceptionally clear image from almost any viewing angle.
Portable Entertainment PC laptop
Take your tunes to-go
In addition to being a portable PC, the VAIO® UX Micro PC can also serve as your MP3 player, with the ability to download, hold and playback thousands of your favorite songs.
Two built-in cameras (yes, two)
Two built-in digital cameras are strategically implemented into the VAIO UX Micro PC, letting you capture, store, and share digital photos or even take part in live video chats6. And since the VAIO UX is capable of displaying in both landscape and portrait formats, you'll view and enjoy your media in the orientation of your choice.
VAIO UX Premium Micro PC
Premium models of the VAIO UX Micro PC feature a sleek black form factor and cutting-edge flash memory. Faster and more reliable, flash memory provides quicker access to applications and a rapid boot-up while improving battery life.
Faster
The integration of flash memory reduces the time it takes for your PC to power up, access programs, and write data to the hard drive so you can operate multiple applications simultaneously and efficiently
More Reliable
Data is written to stationary flash memory instead of a volatile rotating hard disk so you have less risk of hardware problems when you're on the move.
More Efficient
Since flash memory doesn't need the energy to rotate a hard disk, it takes much less power to operate, thereby conserving battery life.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
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Panasonic Toughbook 52 Semi-Rugged Laptop
Panasonic laptop overview
Panasonic Toughbook 52 Semi-Rugged Laptop (1.8 GHz)
Prices starting at $1,699
Product Summary Panasonic laptop
Introducing the new Toughbook 52 (1.8GHz) Semi Rugged Laptop from Panasonic. This powerful semi rugged desktop alternative gives you the flexibility to work wherever you need to, whether in the office or in the field. The shock-mounted hard drive, full magnesium alloy casing, and spill-resistant keyboard and touchpad defends your data against the bumps of mobility, while the wide area wireless-ready design allows you to stay connected anywhere you go. The 15.4 inch widescreen display is perfect for increased productivity and better group presentations.
The Toughbook 52 semi rugged laptop comes in two models; the 1.8GHz version and the 2.0GHz version. This particular version, the 1.8GHz model features an 80GB shock mounted and easily removable hard drive, an Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 processor and a DVD multi-drive.
Lenovo ThinkPad X61 laptop
Lenovo ThinkPad X61
Though the optical drive is not integrated, everything else about this business portable is top-notch, especially battery life.
In the ThinkPad X61, Lenovo has introduced its successor to the ThinkPad X60. The X61 uses Intel's Santa Rosa mobile processor. Otherwise, it's the same light, sophisticated ultraportable as the earlier model; like the X60, it lacks an integrated optical drive but offers dazzling battery life.
This 3.6-pound X-series member goes to the top of our list of ultraportables for mobile professionals. Our X61 test unit, with a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 processor and 2GB of DDR2-667 SDRAM, earned a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 75, which is tops among currently tested ultraportables. The extended-life four-cell battery lasted an amazing 6 hours and 14 minutes.
The bright, 12.1-inch screen and the keyboard might feel a bit close at first, but the cramped feeling quickly goes away. The keyboard has no touchpad, but the eraserhead pointing device is first-rate and easy to acclimate to. The usual nice touches found on Lenovo keyboards, such as volume buttons and a one-press launch of the recovery system, are also present.
The UltraBase docking station adds four more USB ports (for a total of seven) as well as legacy parallel and serial ports. In addition, the modular optical drive has a side release, so you can swap with one hand between an optical drive, a second battery, or a second hard drive (those are optional accessories). Including the base, which is easy to snap on and off, the unit's total weight is a little over 6 pounds.
Our review unit, which included an UltraBase docking station with a dual-layer DVD burner, costs $1724 (as of July 27, 2007). The great performance and features, and its reasonable price, make the X61 our current top choice of ultraportable.
HP Compaq 6720s laptop
Compaq & HP Compaq Compaq & HP Compaq 6720s
Manufacturer: Compaq & HP Compaq
Model: Compaq & HP Compaq 6720s
Screen Size: 15.4 inches
Weight: 6 lbs
Processor Options: Core 2 Duo, Intel Celeron M
Graphics Options: Integrated
Description: The HP Compaq 6720s is a 15.4" widescreen small business notebook powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor
XGA BrightView screen, onboard Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 and weighs about 2.5Kgs. It's targeted at the business market as a budget notebook.
HP Compaq 6720s Specifications laptop:
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5470 1.60GHz , 2MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB
* OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
* Hard Drive: 120GB SATA (5400RPM), HP DriveGuard
* Screen: 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800)
* Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
* RAM: 1 x 1024MB DDR2
* Optical Drive: 8x DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Lightscribe
* Battery: 6-cell lithium-ion (47 Watt/hour)
* Wireless: Intel Wireless LAN 802,11a/b/g MOW2, mini-PCI card, Bluetooth
* Ports: 3 USB 2.0 ports, VGA, stereo microphone in, stereo headphone/line out, power connector, RJ-11/modem, RJ-45/Ethernet,
* Slots: ExpressCard/54 slot, Secure Digital (SD) slot
* Dimensions: 1.27 in (at front) x 14.1 in x 10.5 in / 32.3 mm (at front) x 358 mm x 266.8 mm
* Weight: 2.5Kgs (5.5 lbs)
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Reasons for Buying
My trusty old Dell Latitude C610 was not sufficient for everyday use anymore. I carry my notebook with me everyday to my university so I was looking for a light notebook. When I heard a new HP commercial on the radio about the 6720s for only €599 (excl VAT) I got interested. It turned out this notebook had everything I needed including low weight and a very friendly price tag.
Where and How Purchased laptop
I bought the 6720s at www.obcs.nl for 666.81 including taxes and shipping. This was a very good deal for me as I got everything I wanted at a very friendly price.
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Build & Design
The 6720s looks and feels pretty solid. It's not really a consumer notebook thus is has no extra bells and whistles for media playback like a remote control or media buttons. It's made out of black and grey plastic and fits perfectly on my lap. There is enough space to rest your palms on while typing and it feels very solid (the screen can be twisted a little however). You really need to push hard on the lid in order for the ripples to appear.
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Screen
The 15.4" screen has a Samsung panel (LTN154X3-L01) with a 1280x800 resolution and comes with a reflective BrightView coating. My 6720s did not have any dead pixels and I could not see any signs of backlight bleeding. The picture is very crisp and clear. The viewing angle from left and right are very good. This is one of the best screens I have ever seen on a laptop. If you are considering buying this notebook you should really purchase one with BrightView.
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Speakers
The speakers are a bit of a let down. True, business users rarely need high quality sound but HP snuck a big mono speaker into this one. The soundcard is a Soundmax Digital HD Audio but it does not feature any digital outputs, only headphones and microphone. The speakers are above the keyboard, so if you close the lid then the screen is blocking the speaker. My advice: buy headphones or connect your external speakers.
Processor and Performance laptop
The Core 2 Duo T5470 is the slowest of the new 800MHz FSB CPU’s but it's still really fast. The Intel Speedstep Technology changes the multiplier from 6x to 8x in order to maintain maximum performance and maximum battery time. The only thing this processor lacks compared to its faster brothers is a higher frequency, 2MB cache and Vanderpool Technology (hardware accelerated virtualisation). Windows Vista boot up time from the BIOS to the Windows logon screen is about 32 seconds. The hard disk is a Hitachi HTS541612J9SA00 which means it’s a 120GB SATA drive at 5400RPM with 8MB cache. Windows feels really snappy despite only 1GB of RAM but with one open slot I think I will upgrade to 2GB soon. I don’t play games on it but with integrated X3100 graphics you shouldn’t expect very much.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
Dell XPS M1330 laptop
Introduction dell laptop Dell launched the new line of Inspiron laptops and desktops with much fanfare on June 26th, 2007 at a Macy's department store in New York. The flagship laptop, the XPS M1330, garnered a lot of press coverage. The launch coincided with a revamping of Dell's marketing efforts in an attempt to lose the 'beige-box' manufacturer cachet and move more upstream by making the brand more appealing to a wider demographic. Aside from the redesigns to the notebook line-up, Dell was also touting the multitude of colored lids that the new laptops would ship with, allowing a bit of personalization by customers. In addition, the XPS M1330 was touted as the thinnest 13.3" notebook and boasted a radically new design for Dell, challenging manufacturers such as Sony and Apple, who were traditionally viewed as more 'stylish' companies, known for their design. There was substantial press coverage for the launch as well as for the new product line, something that hasn't been terribly common for Dell in recent memory. After years of building my own computers, I decided to give Dell a try and ordered the XPS M1330. The XPS M1330 with its 13.3" widescreen display falls somewhere between the thin-and-light and ultra-portable categories. Its weight, at just under 4 lbs with the 4-cell battery and LED backlit display, puts it squarely in ultra-portable space, but its relatively large footprint means it's not an ultra-portable in the strictest sense of the word. Nevertheless, at under 0.9 inches thick at its thinnest point, with the LED backlit display, it's a very stylish and small laptop, convenient for carrying around and using in all but the tightest of spaces. My system was purchased with the following configuration. Total price: $1,831CAD after taxes Reason for buying dell laptop I entered university two years ago with a pretty powerful 15.4" notebook, the ASUS Z71V. At the time, I wanted something powerful enough to satisfy my gaming itch that was 'luggable'. For a dorm, a laptop is quite useful as there isn't much desk space. I envisioned myself bringing the laptop to class to take notes on. Unfortunately, that idea fell through. In addition to my books and notepads, I found carrying the almost 7lb notebook to be excessive in my day to day travels around the campus. Plus, I eventually noticed that even with a semi-powerful graphics card, newer games were starting to bog down. Short of an 8lb+ desktop replacement system, I wasn't going to find something that would give me the gaming performance I wanted. After my first year was completed and I moved out of residence, I purchased parts for a new desktop system. As a result, the notebook just sat there, unused. Now going into my third year of studies, I find myself playing games far less frequently, if at all. As a result the need for something small and light to take to class greatly overshadowed any need for gaming performance. In addition, I found myself babying my previous laptop too much, so I wanted something well built, perhaps a business-grade laptop, which I could throw around without worry. Initially, I strongly considered the MacBook. With its relatively small size and good battery life, not to mention fair price, it was popular at my school. However, build quality wasn't its strong suit. I also considered the Lenovo Thinkpad T61, Dell's Latitude D630 and various 14.1" HP business laptops. However, when Dell launched the XPS M1330 at a decent price, I knew it would be my next laptop. It is lighter than the MacBook and I couldn't deal with the awkward bezel of the T61, not to mention its less than spectacular battery life. HP's business laptops are limited in their configurations in Canada and I couldn't find something I was completely happy with for my budget. Where and how purchased There have traditionally been a few ways of purchasing Dell laptops, such as online, by phone or through their kiosks, (even more now, since moving into the retail space) but I ordered mine through their website, taking advantage of a 15% Mystery Coupon that was available through Dell Canada. I ordered the system on July 4th, a little more than a week from the launch of the system. Having spoken with a sales representative prior to purchase, I was ensured that it wouldn't take more than 10 to 15 days from purchase to delivery, but I was less pleased when I was instead given an August 22nd ship date estimate in my order confirmation. However, I'd heard that Dell is oftentimes very conservative with their estimated ship dates, typically getting them to the customer well before them. I paid a decent price, $1,831CAD including taxes, less than what a comparable Sony SZ would cost, certainly. I held out hope that what the sales rep told me, 10 to 15 days, would be more accurate. Needless to say, he was quite wrong. Unboxing A popular trend these days is to take pictures of the unboxing process, so who am I to disagree. Here they are. Reinstall discs are provided for most of the software pre-installed by Dell. That includes: A decent-sized owner's manual is included as are product information and contacting Dell guides. A very basic 'Getting Started' pamphlet is also included, although if you don't know how to plug in your laptop ... well, you may have other, more pressing concerns. Design Just spectacular. If anyone could say it better, it would be the friends that were over when I opened up the box. Words like, 'wow', 'sleek', and 'awesome' were uttered by them and in my mind, they were right on the money. I was also told by a few people that the M1330 is the best looking laptop they've seen, bar none. Those are pretty strong words for a laptop from a company that is more typically known as the ultimate 'beige-box' provider. Congratulations, Dell, for designing something eye-catching for all the right reasons! It goes without saying that the M1330 bears a striking resemblance to the Sony SZ series, from its wedge-shaped design to the 13.3" form factor to its use of an LED panel. Nonetheless, it's a good design that Dell has implemented well. Let's take a virtual tour of some of the more interesting design features. Using the 13.3" widescreen display popularized by companies such as Sony and Apple, Dell mated the chassis with an optional LED backlit display to achieve what they say is the world's thinnest 13.3" laptop. It sneaks in just under the thickness of the Sony SZ at the front, but slopes up towards the back, until it is thicker than the Apple MacBook, which is of uniform thickness from front to back. It is on par with the SZ in terms of weight and around a pound lighter than the MacBook, with the 6-cell battery. I opted for the color that Dell calls 'Tuxedo Black'. The finish of the lid is matte and, unfortunately, picks up a lot of fingerprints, which are difficult to remove. I chose the black color as I wanted it to look professional - something I wouldn't be embarrassed to bring to a business meeting at one of my co-op jobs. The chrome effect on the Dell and XPS logos add a bit of flair, but the overall statement is muted. Don't worry; this laptop doesn't need flashy colors or lots of lights to get noticed. Open up the screen and you'll notice a very harmonious design. The silver of the keyboard and palm rest complements the black region up the center, bordering the display. At a glance, the keyboard looks like it might be made of aluminum as well, but upon closer inspection, this is not the case. A few people who saw the laptop were definitely fooled initially. There is no mechanical latch to keep the lid closed. Instead a hinge spring snaps it shut and keeps it closed securely. Even though a larger portion of the weight is distributed towards the rear of the laptop, opening the lid can still be a one-handed task. There's no need to hold the base down while opening the lid; the laptop doesn't tip backwards. Dell even provides a little protrusion at the front of the lid to give you a finger grip to open the display more easily. The VGA (0.3MP, 640x480) webcam is by Creative and is mounted above the screen, between two microphone pick-ups. Dell made an interesting design choice for the display module. The hinge design is quite aesthetically pleasing, but the implementation leaves a bit to be desired. The hinge is of the 'bamboo' type, which rotates around a central pillar. In most cases, this type of hinge reduces the height of the screen when opened, since part of the bottom bezel may be swivelled behind the back of the laptop. However, Dell has decided to keep the screen at a higher level, by increasing the thickness of the bottom bezel, negating one of the advantages of the bamboo hinge. In addition, due to the added thickness of the bezel, the laptop itself has become deeper in dimension, measuring in at 9.4" compared to 8.92" of the MacBook, which is of similar form factor. In fact, at 9.4" deep, the M1330 rivals the Vostro 1400/Inspiron 1420 in terms of depth. On the other hand, Dell may have decided that the design of the MacBook's (and the Pro for that matter) hinge leaves the display too close to the keyboard and isn't as comfortable for viewing. Another possible reason is that Dell wanted their logo to be visible on the bottom bezel. As well, due to the hinge design, the display cannot be opened up to 180 degrees, instead, stopping at around 140 degrees. The 4-cell and 6-cell batteries bit flush with the system. The 9-cell protrudes from the bottom of the laptop, providing an incline for the keyboard and helping airflow, but makes it a bit awkward to use on one's lap. Overall, there is little I can fault the XPS M1330 for, in terms of design. The hinge design is terribly nitpicky on my part and to be honest, I rather prefer the proportionality of the screen bezel, aesthetically speaking. It doesn't affect the way I use the laptop at all, but does mean there's an extra centimetre or so that could be shaved off. Build Quality for dell laptop Here's where I can't give Dell full marks. Whether it's due to the more complex manufacturing processes required for the M1330 or because Dell has been rushing systems in an effort clear out the backlog, fit and finish is decidedly weak for what is a flagship system. Many customers have received systems with physical abnormalities from a gap at the top of the LCD panel to hard drive bays that stick out slightly. My system came with an uneven base, which results in a slight wobble with the 6-cell. In addition, the 9-cell battery feet don't contact the desk surface properly, exacerbating the wobble when that battery is used. Finally, the brushed aluminum palm rest in the bottom right corner is starting to separate from the base of the chassis. I have since contacted Dell and an exchange system is being built for me. Despite these issues, in terms of materials and solidness, this laptop rates very highly. Picking up the M1330 from a corner, even with it open, does not produce any bending, creaking or groaning from the system. The materials used are fantastic. A big contributor to the structural rigidity of the M1330 is the magnesium alloy base. Additionally, the brushed aluminum palm rest not only looks great, but it also ensures that there is absolutely no flex. The lid of the LCD is also well constructed, even though it is fairly thin. It seems to be made of a strong plastic that doesn't cave at all when pressed. Instead, if enough pressure is applied the entire display will flex, due to the thin design. Little to no ripples show through, except possibly due to extreme force, forces which I am not willing to test or plan to subject the laptop to during regular use. Fit and finish has been an issue, but are related to manufacturing, not the design and materials used. In fact, overlooking the manufacturing problems, this laptop absolutely feels like a premium piece of equipment, with very sturdy and appealing materials. Nonetheless, it's rather disappointing to receive a system with problems. Luckily Dell has been very prompt at setting up a replacement, while I continue to use this system in the meantime. Inputs/Output Ports Given the limited space available, the number of I/O ports is relatively limited on the XPS M1330. The back of the laptop is completely devoid of ports, with the space taken up by a fan vent and the battery. The front of the laptop has a mic input, two headphone outputs, and an 8-in-1 card reader for various types of SD cards, MMC, xD and Memory Stick. The right side is home to the slot-load DVD burner, an attachment for a computer lock, as well as a single USB port. The left side is busier, with a 4-pin Firewire, HDMI, another USB port, 10/100mb Ethernet, a HD-15 VGA output and the power jack. That there are only two USB ports is the most troubling part. However, chances are with a near ultra-portable on the go, you won't have too many things hanging out of the ports anyways. It's a fair compromise for the size. Display One of the main features of the XPS M1330 is the optional LED backlit display, which touts better color reproduction, higher brightness, lower power consumption and a thinner panel. In Canada, the LED backlit display is a $150 option, and in my opinion, well worth it. I received the Chi Mei Optoelectronics panel while Toshiba-Matsushita LED backlit panels are also used. The panel is of WXGA resolution (1280x800) and is the only resolution available for 13.3" notebook displays. Coming from a 15.4" WSXGA+ laptop, and using a 20.1" WSXGA+ desktop panel, the resolution is rather low, but suffices for the purpose. I've never used a glossy LCD panel before, so I wasn't certain what to expect. When turned off, it can easily serve a dual purpose as a mirror, but when turned on, it makes colors pop. Brightness is also impressive. At the highest brightness setting, the LED backlit display of the M1330 easily beats out my desktop's LG L204WT at 80% brightness, which I'm used to using. The display of the M1330 is very bright. Viewing angles, at least horizontal, are easily among the best I've seen on a laptop. Even at extreme angles, the colors and brightness are still quite good, although the practicality of actually using the screen at such angles is another story altogether. The glossy finish of the screen also starts to reflect more and more as you move off the centerline. Vertical viewing angles are decidedly mediocre, very indicative of the TN panel that is used. The display continues its almost flawless performance through the areas of dead pixels (none), stuck pixels (none) and backlight bleeding (so little, I'm apt to just say none). You may noticed a slight unevenness of the backlighting at the bottom - I believe this is due to the discrete nature of the LED backlight, with many spaced out around the display. Overall, brightness is extremely uniform. Games such as UT2004, which are very sensitive to panel response time, and fast-paced movies showed no signs of ghosting with this panel. This is somewhat surprising given the 25ms response times of the panel, according to Chi Mei's specifications. Overall, the M1330 is outfitted with a pleasant display to work with. Color, brightness, and viewing angles are all well above average. I only wish that the display brightness controls were divided into finer increments. I find there is too big of a difference between adjacent brightness levels. (Dell allows 8.) Processor and Performance I chose the T7100 processor as it was an additional $120 to upgrade to the T7300 at Dell Canada. Since this laptop was intended to be a complement system to a much more powerful desktop, I decided to save the money. I did strongly consider the T7300 if only for the larger L2 cache (2MB to 4MB); however tests showed that the biggest performance increases were in multimedia encoding applications and some games. I do not plan on doing any multimedia work on the go and gaming will be limited by the 8400M GS card long before the CPU. Performance of the 4MB processors is typically 2-4% faster than the 2MB processors in other applications, which wasn't necessary for me. Intel added an additional feature to its Santa Rosa platform - Intel Dynamic Acceleration. While software is beginning to take advantage of parallelization, many applications are still capable of using only a single core. As a result, the potential of multi-core processors is lost. Intel has come up with an innovative way to boost performance in single-threaded applications, while staying within the same power and thermal envelope, by overclocking the core being stressed. In this manner, single threaded applications can take advantage of the higher frequency, without compromising thermals. With the T7100, the FSB can be overclocked by 15MHz, or 7.5%, to give a final CPU frequency of around 1.93GHz. Benchmarks Here are the obligatory synthetic benchmarks. There isn't anything out of the ordinary here. SuperPI 2M - 1 min 8 seconds 3DMark 2006 - 1336 at 1280x800 PCMark05 - 4300 Cinebench - Single CPU - 1900, Multi-CPU - 3391 HDTune - Avg transfer rate: 35.9MB/s WEI - 4.1 I'd like to focus a little more on graphics performance. Aside from the XPS M140, which I never considered part of the XPS family (rebranded Inspiron 630m), the XPS M1330 is the first XPS not to focus on gaming performance. Outfitted with a relatively weak NVIDIA 8400M GS, Dell had to compromise on performance to keep size and thermals under control. The similar Sony SZ6 series is also outfitted with the 8400M GS, although that laptop has a toggle for switching between the 8400M and the integrated Intel X3100. So, with the 8400M GS clocked at 400MHz/600MHz and using the 162.22 drivers, what games can you expect to play and at what sort of image quality? I set to find out with some games I've enjoyed in the past. Oblivion - 848x480 with bloom or 960x600 without bloom When Oblivion was released, it brought just about every system to its knees. The lush landscapes and awesome HDR effects stressed even the most powerful systems. The 8400M GS provides playable frame rates at 848x480 with detail sliders around the 1/3 mark, except viewing distance which was set to max with Distant Lands enabled, and with bloom enabled. If you can make do without bloom, 960x600 is also playable. Turning down the Item Fade distance would increase performance significantly at the loss of some detail. Rainbow Six: Vegas - 800x600 or 960x600 (slightly slower) Rainbow Six: Vegas is one of the most strenuous games out there, with a desktop 8800GTS 640MB barely able to pull off 30FPS average at 1600x1200. It's not surprising that the 8400M GS struggles, with the maximum playable resolution being 800x600 or 960x600, if you want to stretch it (both in terms of performance and to a widescreen resolution) a bit. Settings had to be turned to low, with HDR off. Frame rates averaged around 25FPS, with dips occasionally down to a bit less than 20, which made aiming accurately a challenge at times. Company of Heroes - 1280x800 Company of Heroes was widely considered one of the best games of 2006, in part due to the level of graphics, which was rare for the RTS genre. Luckily, the detail settings are very customizable and at medium-low settings, the game plays very smoothly at the native resolution of the M1330. Unreal Tournament 2004 - 1280x800 Unreal Tournament 2004 is an older game, but still looks good with image quality settings turned up. The 8400M GS can power this game at native resolution with all the advanced image quality settings enabled and maintain 40FPS+, which is essential for the twitch shooter game. Speakers and Sound The speakers are located at the top of the laptop, above the media controls and are what you'd expect for a small laptop. They can get pretty loud, but there's minimal bass response and mids and highs can become quite shrill at high volume. There are two headphone ports on the XPS M1330, both situated at the front of the laptop. While this is useful for headphones where two people could listen in on a movie, it presents a problem for speakers, which would require the cord to wrap around a significant portion of the laptop, possibly becoming a nuisance when typing. The left jack does have a little bit of the oft-talked about static while the middle one is completely devoid of it. Hooking up speakers or the included earbuds gives much, much better sound quality. I'm no audiophile, but music and games sound great. Input Devices The keyboard is fairly firm, with the slightest bit of flex if keys are pressed firmly. In terms of keystroke, it definitely has a 'different' feel from a Thinkpad keyboard. It has less travel and feels a little less crisp. Whether you like it or not will be of personal preference. The flex on could use some work, but I'm happy overall with the keys' feel. The keys are slightly loud, especially when typing quickly. The keyboard layout is standard for a laptop, and makes good use of the entire width of the M1330. The left Control key is situated in its normal desktop position, outboard of the Function key. Most keys are full-sized, aside from the right Shift, which is shortened to make room for the up arrow key. The Delete key is located in the top right corner, which I'm used to and the navigation keys (Home, Pg Up, Pg Dn, and End) are located in a column at the far right of the keyboard. The touchpad is responsive, albeit a little bit small for my liking. The pad has some texture to it, but isn't 'grippy' so your finger moves smoothly over the surface. The touchpad buttons feel very nice, with a good amount of travel and no loud click, which is to my liking. Unfortunately, there is no dedicated switch for turning on and off the touchpad. The media keys are touch-sensitive as opposed to mechanical buttons found on the rest of Dell's notebook range. Luckily, they are very accurate and I haven't had any problems getting touches to register. The eject key for the slot-load disc drive is also touch sensitive. Feedback is provided by a nice blue rectangle light that fades in and out around the pressed key. I never use a webcam, but since there wasn't a webcam-less option from Dell Canada, came with the laptop. The Creative webcam can take video at up to 640x480 resolution while still pictures can be taken at up to 1280x1024 (I presume this is using digital upscaling as the webcam is 0.3MP, or 640x480). A quick test showed that video quality was quite satisfactory while images were decent as well. It's nothing special, but gets the job done if you're interested in video conferencing or taking vanity photos. I also ordered the UPEK Biometric upgrade. While there is plenty of discussion about the security merit of fingerprint readers, I purchased it exclusively for the convenience factor. Swiping a finger is much quicker and more convenient than typing in a password and provides a level of security that will prevent random people from accessing my computer in class, short of stealing it to retrieve the password. Wireless The Intel Pro/Wireless 3945 device supports 802.11a, b, and g. Initially, I had planned on getting the 4965agn card for draft-N support; however Dell Canada did not and, as of right now, still does not offer that card with the XPS M1330. The other option was the Dell 1505n card, but after reading of compatibility issues between multimode G and N wireless signals with many routers, I decided to play it safe and go with the 3945. The card and antenna implementation are good, with no dropped connections and is able to connect properly to even weak signals. The Wifi-Catcher is also a useful little tool for checking whether there hotspots in the vicinity without requiring the laptop to be turned on. You can even specify the minimum signal strength to look for. Battery Life and Power Consumption For me, the ideal battery combination is a 6-cell for situations that might include tight, cramped locations, such as on a plane or bus, as well as a 9-cell for lots of battery life, such as during my endless university classes. However, Dell did not offer this combination, only a 4-cell and 9-cell combo. Justifying the fact that I could probably get away with 2 to 2.5 hours of battery life in cramped conditions, I decided on the 4-cell and 9-cell. However, a few weeks into my order, Dell stopped offering the 4-cell battery with the dedicated NVIDIA graphics solution, citing incompatibilities. I'm not certain how they could be incompatible, but I'd venture to guess that the 4-cell wasn't providing reasonable battery life with the dedicated graphics. My 4-cell and 9-cell was bumped up to a 6-cell and 9-cell, free of charge, which is what I wanted in the first place. It seems like I lucked out. Perhaps it's the highly touted LED backlit display, or perhaps it's the Santa Rosa platform's new power saving techniques, but whatever the contributing factor, the M1330 has great battery life. With Wi-Fi enabled and the screen at 6/8 brightness, the 6-cell battery lasts for 3:30 while browsing the internet and word processing, give or take 10 minutes, depending on how heavy the web content is. Browsing around here at Notebook Review, doing some comparative shopping at Future Shop's website and reading the news at CBC.ca and CNN.com netted 3 hours 35 minutes at the above settings. With the 9-cell, that number jumps up to 5 hours 27 minutes. The following is a compilation of the power consumption under different load types. To measure these values, the system was used in the indicated fashion for 10 minutes. The average power consumption was measured by subtracting the battery capacity at the end of the test from the battery capacity at the start of the test and multiplied by 6 (for power consumed per hour). Battery life is given assuming a 6-cell, 56WHr battery with the webcam disabled. The 9-cell battery provides 51% more power than the 6-cell, so you can safely multiply the battery life by 1.5 to get the time for the extended battery. Wifi enabled, display brightness 6/8, idle - 12.6W (4:27) The T7100 in my configuration can downclock to 1.2GHz (200MHz FSB x 6 multiplier) at 0.938V. For even further power savings, it can clock down to 800MHz (100MHz FSB x 8 multiplier) at 0.850V. This is significant and shows one of Santa Rosa's power management enhancements over Intel's previous mobile platforms. Instead of lowering the multiplier only for reducing clock frequency, the FSB can also change dynamically. This provides a one-two punch for power savings. The FSB contributes to power consumption as well and lowering the frequency in low power modes helps save even more power than only lowering the CPU's frequency. Battery Life Optimization Windows Vista's Aero user interface takes advantage of the graphics capabilities of the system to deliver effects such as window animations, window transparencies and Windows Flip. Unfortunately, the by-product of these effects is increased reliance on the graphics card and CPU. Previously, with Windows XP, where the higher graphics performance levels were only needed in applications such as 3D rendering or gaming, the desktop in Vista can, and does call on the power of the GPU. This will invariably lead to lower battery life, but I wanted to take a look at just how big that effect is and what techniques can be used to maximize battery life. Throughout my testing of desktop use, I found the biggest power hogs to be transparencies and the sidebar. Without either of these two enabled (I typically do not use the sidebar and transparencies are automatically disabled when on battery power under Vista's Power Saver mode) power consumption was on par with disabling Aero altogether. Since there is no measureable difference by disabling Aero altogether, I allowed Vista to take care of managing the visual theme for me. The NVIDIA 8400M GS also has built-in power management features. PowerMizer is no longer seen in the NVIDIA control panel in the Vista drivers as the graphics card clocks are now directly controlled by Vista's power management system. Using nTune, one can see that there are three power levels for the 8400M GS. 3D Clocks: 400MHz/600MHz There is an approximately 6-7W delta at idle between the lowest power setting and the 3D clockspeed. I found that, in general, the graphics card clock speeds were too sensitive to increases and not sensitive enough to reduced graphics usage. There seems to be a 5 minute wait before the video card drops down a power level; however if even a window is dragged around the screen, the video card will immediately jump up to the 3D clocks. As a result, more power is wasted than is necessary when performing desktop activities. While it's nice that Vista has integrated all the power management features of the laptop hardware, it also takes away much of the control we previously had through the NVIDIA control panel. Notebook Hardware Control was not able to correctly read the processor speed, CPU multiplier or voltages. As a result, it is impossible to undervolt the processor through that application. Perhaps the author of that tool will update it to support this laptop. Display brightness obviously plays a role in power consumption as well. The power consumption delta between lowest brightness and highest brightness is 2.6W. The webcam also increases power consumption by approximately 0.5W, even if it is not being used. Disabling it through Device Manager will prevent it from using battery power. Noise The laptop is extremely quiet at idle or under light load. The fan is barely audible with a very hushed tone. There are no shrill sounds, which sometimes occurs with small fans. Under heavy load however, noise starts to pick up. In an especially taxing game, such as Oblivion, the fan and airflow noises become loud. Compromises had to be made to cool the small laptop, so expect it to be rather noisy when you game. Luckily the sound is still relatively smooth, a whoosh as opposed to a whine, so it is more easily drowned out by game sounds. The slot-loading DVD burner is also quite noisy. The mechanism of inserting and ejecting discs causes a loud sound that is reminiscent of poorly maintained hydraulics. Booting the system or waking from sleep causes the drive to emit this noise, which will be irritating in quiet environments, such as a lecture hall, in which I plan on using the laptop. Reading a disc produces a smooth and fairly low-volume sound, nothing close to the actual insertion or ejection of a disc. Thankfully, there is a way to save you from embarrassment. Because the intrusive noise is not associated with reading a disc, but rather inserting or ejecting one, you can place a dummy disc in the drive at all times. This way, at bootup or resume from suspend, the drive will just attempt to read the disc as opposed to trying to suck a disc in. No more noise! Heat For light use, the XPS M1330 barely heats up and is comfortable to use on one's lap. Here is a concoction of temperatures I measured through various workloads. CPU idle at 800MHz - 42C, dropping to 39C when elevated by the 9-cell battery. Under full load using Orthos, the two cores' temperatures levelled off at 82C and 83C respectively. The bottom of the laptop stayed mildly warm, except for around the air intake vent at the top left corner of the laptop. The much higher temperature is, fortunately, isolated to that area as the heat gets quickly exhausted out the air vent at the back of the laptop. Using the 9-cell battery to elevate the laptop lowers the core temperatures to 78C. GPU idle on AC at 400/600MHz - 73C GPU 30 minutes load Rainbow Six: Vegas on AC at 400/600 - 95C While these temperatures are quite high, Intel's thermal specification for the CPU is 100C, so it's within reason. Core temperature was measured with CoreTemp, SpeedFan as well as Intel Thermal Analysis Tool. CoreTemp and the Intel TAT correctly assume TJunction to be 100C. SpeedFan on the other hand assumes a TJunction of 85C. To get the accurate temperature from Speedfan, 15C was added to its readings. CPU temperature (measured at the midpoint of the two cores) was 59C under full load with Orthos, but this temperature isn't indicative of the hottest sections of the CPU. Operating System and Software Dell ships the XPS M1330 standard with Windows Vista Home Premium. Dell does not offer Linux or Windows XP configurations at this time. While there are numerous detractors, I've personally become a fan of Windows Vista. I transitioned several months ago from Windows XP to Vista on my desktop PC where I find it to be much faster than XP for desktop use. The few games I do play work well in Vista and I have not noticed any issues that have detracted from my typical usage. Memory usage is definitely higher than with XP, but with 2GB or more of memory, there isn't much to worry about, except in very special circumstances. I have not yet installed Windows XP on this M1330, but I imagine when and if I do, I will reach the same conclusion as I have for my desktop. After hearing of the software bloat some pre-built systems from the likes of Dell, HP, and Acer come with, I was certain I'd be performing a format and a reinstallation of Vista. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that there wasn't a great deal bogging down the system at all. I went through the Remove Programs list and ended up uninstalling the following programs: The system shipped started off with 67 processes, but after uninstalling the above applications and streamlining the processes that start with Vista, I was able to get that number down to 46. I do not see the need to perform a reformat for the M1330, which is very surprising. Customer Support I won't go into much detail about my experience with Dell customer support, but needless to say, it was a rather frustrating experience, to wait so long for a laptop. The frustration was mostly mitigated by two extremely helpful contacts I worked with at Dell. I was contacted a couple times regarding my order through my personal website, which was a bit surprising in of itself. Throughout the wait and delays, my contact at Dell Round Rock went above and beyond his call of duty to make certain that I was satisfied and answered all my questions and assuaged my concerns. He showed genuine care and interest in my situation and that meant a great deal to me. He has helped turn the entire problem surrounding the M1330 into one of my most satisfying customer service experiences with any company.
Manufacturer: Dell
Model: Dell XPS M1330 (Core 2 Duo 1.5GHz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD, Vista Home Premium)
Screen Size: 13.3 inches
Weight: 4 lbs
Processor Options: Core 2 Duo
Graphics Options: nVidia Go 8400m (Dedicated)
Description: The Dell XPS M1330 is a 13.3" screen ultraportable from Dell that uses the new Intel Santa Rosa platform, has a dedicated NVidia 8400GM video card, built-in web camera, slot loading DVD drive.
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Along with the XPS M1330 itself, Dell provides a few goodies for proud owners. The most substantial inclusion is the Dell XPS branded laptop sleeve. As well, Creative EP630 earbuds and an IR remote that fits into the ExpressCard slot are included. The earbuds are quite good, and retail for around $40CAD, adding to the value of the laptop.
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The LED backlit display is about 2.5mm thinner than the CCFL. (view large image)
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Is it even fair to compare it to a D810? (view large image)
Mmmm... brushed aluminum. (view large image)
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Wifi enabled, display brightness 6/8, web browsing - 15.6W (3:35)
Wifi enabled, display brightness 6/8, watching DVD - 23.8W (2:21)
Wifi enabled, display brightness 6/8, video from hard drive - 21.4W (2:37)
Wifi enabled, display brightness 6/8, video from USB drive - 21.6W (2:36)
PowerMizer level 1: 275MHz/300MHz
PowerMizer level 2: 168MHz/100MHz
An intake vent is found at the top right. (view large image)
GPU idle on AC at 275/300MHz - 67C
GPU idle on AC at 168/100MHz - 65C
The sales rep I spoke to before placing my order on July 4th told me it would take 10 to 15 days, but my order confirmation showed an August 22nd ship date. Customer Care told me the actual estimated delivery date was August 3rd. In the end, my laptop shipped on August 9th and I received the laptop on August 14th.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
Apple MacBook Pro
Apple MacBook Pro
Lightweight 17-incher has a beautiful screen and comes loaded with useful software. It's fast, too.For people who appreciate finer laptop accoutrements such as a backlit keyboard and a slot-fed DVD drive, Apple has crafted another tasty offering in the form of the 17-inch MacBook Pro. Sleek, powerful, and able to run Windows as well as the Mac operating system, the MacBook Pro makes a strong case for becoming anyone's ultimate notebook.
Equipped with a 2.4-GHz Core 2 Duo T7700 processor, the maximum 4GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and nVidia's new top-of-the-line notebook graphics card, the nVidia GeForce 8600M GT, our $2949 test unit set new speed records. The MacBook Pro outperformed the rest of the notebooks we tested, all of which claim Windows as their primary--nay, their only--operating system. We loaded Windows Vista Home Premium on the Apple notebook, and it snagged a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88. In games it achieved a blazing frame rate of 141 frames per second in Far Cry (with antialiasing turned off).
At 6.6 pounds and just 1 inch thick, the MacBook Pro is the lightest 17-inch notebook available. But it has no memory card slots and only three USB ports, and it comes configured with an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the more versatile ExpressCard/54 slot. Though it has Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi, built-in broadband is not an option. On the other hand, video editors will be happy to have not one but two FireWire ports. Battery life was disappointing: Apple pegs it at 5.7 hours on one charge, but in our tests we got less than 2 hours, 45 minutes.
Nevertheless, the MacBook Pro is elegantly designed and remarkably mobile for a 17-inch notebook.
Acer Readies New Notebook, Tablet PC
Acer also plans to release an updated version of its Tablet PC during the fourth quarter. Like other Tablet PCs from Acer, the TravelMate C300 is based on Centrino and offers a convertible design that can switch from a notebook to a tablet by rotating the TFT LCD screen and folding it back, flat against the keyboard. The C300 has a 14.1-inch screen, larger than the 10.4-inch screen offered by Acer's C100 and C110 Tablet PCs, which can also be converted from a notebook into a tablet. Acer's other existing Tablet PC model, the 250PE, also has a 14.1-inch screen but it can only be used in a notebook format and does not offer the ability to swivel its screen. The C300 also offers an internal CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, a feature that is not available with either the C100 or C110. Pricing for the C300 has not been finalized, but should be about $2000, depending on the configuration, Kan said. (from PC world)
Laptop review
AIPEI -- Acer will introduce two new laptops before the end of this year, including an updated Tablet PC model and a widescreen notebook that is targeted at home users, according to a company executive.
Aimed at home users, the Aspire 2000 laptop is based on Intel's Centrino platform, which includes a Pentium M processor and a wireless LAN chipset, and offers a 15.4-inch widescreen TFT LCD.
The Aspire 2000 offers two modes of operation. In normal PC mode, the computer runs Microsoft's Windows XP operating system. However, users can use the Aspire 2000's instant-on mode, which is based on Linux, to access the laptop's entertainment functions, including DVD playback, said Campbell Kan, chief officer of Acer's notebook product line.
Easier Access
Activating the Linux mode lets users access the Aspire 2000's entertainment functions in approximately 10 seconds, eliminating the requirement for users to boot the PC using Windows XP,
While users may get quicker access to DVD playback functions using the Aspire 2000's Linux mode, the notebook includes software, called ClearVision, which offers higher quality DVD playback in Windows XP,
"If you are watching a DVD on a desktop PC or a notebook, you will see that the brightness, the contrast ratio, is not as good as a TV," Kan said. "ClearVision gives you a better contrast ratio and enhances the DVD, the video appearance in Windows."
While pricing for the Aspire 2000 has yet to be finalized, the notebook will be available worldwide during the fourth quarter for about $2000,Updated Tablet PC
History of laptop
A laptop computer, or simply laptop
(also notebook computer or notebook), is a small mobile computer, which usually weighs 2-18 pounds (1-6 kilograms), depending on size, materials, and other factors.
Laptops usually run on a single main battery or from an external AC/DC adapter which can charge the battery while also supplying power to the computer itself. Many computers also have a 3 volt cell to run the clock and other processes in the event of a power failure.
As personal computers, laptops are capable of the same tasks as a desktop computer, although they are typically less powerful for the same price. They contain components that are similar to their desktop counterparts and perform the same functions, but are miniaturized and optimized for mobile use and efficient power consumption. Laptops usually have liquid crystal displays and most of them use different memory modules for their random access memory (RAM), for instance, SO-DIMM in lieu of the larger DIMMs. In addition to a built-in keyboard, they may utilize a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) or a pointing stick for input, though an external keyboard or mouse can usually be attached
History of Apple laptopHistory of Toshiba
Toshiba Corporation (株式会社東芝 Kabushiki-gaisha Tōshiba ) (TYO: 6502 ) is a Japanese multinational conglomerate manufacturing company, headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. The company's businesses are in high technology, electrical engineering, and electronics fields.
As a chip maker, Toshiba-made Semiconductors are among the Worldwide Top 20 Semiconductor Sales Leaders.
History
Toshiba was founded by the merging of two companies in the year 1939.
One, Tanaka Seizosho (Tanaka Engineering Works), was Japan's first manufacturer of telegraph equipment and was established by Hisashige Tanaka in 1875. In 1904, its name was changed to Shibaura Seisakusho (Shibaura Engineering Works). Through the first part of the 20th century, Shibaura Engineering Works became a major manufacturer of heavy electrical machinery as Japan, modernized during the Meiji Era, and became a world industrial power.
The second company, originally named Hakunetsusha, was established in 1890 and was Japan's first producer of incandescent electric lamps. The company diversified into the manufacture of other consumer products, and in 1899 it was renamed Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric).
The merger in 1939 of Shibaura Seisakusho and Tokyo Denki created a new company called Tokyo Shibaura Denki. It was soon nicknamed Toshiba, but it wasn't until 1984 that the company was officially renamed Toshiba Corporation.
The group expanded strongly, both by internal growth and by acquisitions, buying heavy engineering and primary industry firms in the 1940s and 1950s and then spinning off subsidiaries in the 1970s and beyond. Groups created include Toshiba EMI (1960), Toshiba Electrical Equipment (1974), Toshiba Chemical (1974), Toshiba Lighting and Technology (1989), Toshiba America Information Systems (1989) and Toshiba Carrier Corporation (1999).
1942), the TAC digital computer (1954), transistor television and microwave oven (1959), color video phone (1971), Japanese word processor (1978), MRI system (1982), laptop personal computer (1986), NAND EEPROM (1991), DVD (1995), the Libretto sub-notebook personal computer (1996) and HD-DVD (2005).
In 1987, the company was accused of illegally selling CNC milling machines used to produce very quiet submarine propellers to the Soviet Union in violation of the CoCom agreement, an international embargo on Western exports to East Bloc countries. The Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal involved a subsidiary of Toshiba and the Norwegian company Kongsberg Vaapenfabrikk. The incident strained relations between the United States and Japan, and resulted in the arrest and prosecution of two senior executives, as well as the imposition of sanctions on the company by both countries. The US had always relied on the fact that the Soviets had noisy boats, so technology that would make the USSR's submarines harder to detect created a significant threat to America's security. Senator John Heinz, former husband of Teresa Heinz-Kerry, said "What Toshiba and Kongsberg did was ransom the security of the United States for $517 million."
In 2001, Toshiba signed a contract with Orion Electric, one of the world's largest OEM consumer video electronic makers and suppliers, to manufacture and supply finished consumer TV and video products for Toshiba to meet the increasing demand for the North American market.
In December 2004, Toshiba quietly announced it would discontinue manufacturing traditional cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions. In 2006, Toshiba terminated production of plasma TVs. Toshiba quickly switched to Orion as the supplier and maker of Toshiba-branded CRT-based TVs and plasma TVs. However, to ensure its future competitiveness in the flat-panel digital television and display market, Toshiba has made a considerable investment in a new kind of display technology called SED.
Before World War II, Toshiba was a member of the Mitsui Group zaibatsu. Today Toshiba is a member of the Mitsui keiretsu (a set of companies with interlocking business relationships and shareholdings), and still has preferential arrangements with Mitsui Bank and the other members of the keiretsu. Membership in a keiretsu traditionally meant loyalty, both corporate and private, to other members of the keiretsu or allied keiretsu. This loyalty could extend as far as the beer that workers would consume, which in Toshiba's case was Kirin.
In July 2005, BNFL confirmed it planned to sell Westinghouse Electric Company, then estimated to be worth $1.8bn (£1bn)[1]. However the bid attracted interest from several companies including Toshiba, General Electric and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and when the Financial Times reported on January 23, 2006 that Toshiba had won the bid, it valued the company's offer at $5bn (£2.8bn). The bid surprised many industry experts who questioned the wisdom of selling one of the world's largest producers of nuclear reactors shortly before the market for nuclear power is expected to grow substantially; China, the United States and the United Kingdom are all expected to invest heavily in nuclear power . The acquisition of Westinghouse for $5.4bn was completed on October 17, 2006, with Toshiba obtaining a 77% share, and partners The Shaw Group a 20% share and Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. a 3% share
As a chip maker, Toshiba Semiconductors is a major player. During the eighties, it was one the two largest semiconductor companies (with NEC). During the nineties and up to now, Toshiba Semiconductors was almost always among the Top 5. In 2005, Toshiba Semiconductors is number 4, behind Intel, Samsung and Texas Instruments, but before STMicroelectronics.
History of Panasonic
panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Under this brand Matsushita sells plasma display panels, DVD players, telephones, microwave ovens, projectors, digital cameras, laptop computers (under the sub-brand Toughbook), portable CD and analog tape decks and home stereo equipment, all of which are marketed under their slogan "Ideas for Life."
Introduction
The brand Panasonic was created by Matsushita in 1955 for the US, Canada and Mexico because the National brand was already registered by others. The Panasonic brand was created from the elements "pan" meaning "all" combined with "sonic" meaning "sound", because it was first used for audio equipment.
Based on 2004 annual sales of electronics, Matsushita is the largest Japanese electronics maker ahead of Hitachi. Within the category of white goods, Matsushita is the world’s largest manufacturer. In the past, due to its imitation tactics Matsushita has been ridiculed in Japan as "Maneshita" ("mane" means imitation), but in fact Matsushita does vast amounts of its own product planning, research and development.
Including its related companies, Matsushita has developed a wide variety of enterprises, centering on home electronics, industrial equipment, and telecommunications equipment. Though not widely advertised before, in recent years its notebook computer line (Toughbook) has gained popularity and commercials for it are being aired on television. Other brand names associated with Panasonic include its Viera televisions and Lumix digital cameras.
The company's management style and corporate culture have been often compared to that of competitor Sony. When Sony is doing well, the number of books that praise Sony management increases, when conditions reverse, then more books that praise Panasonic management style are displayed in bookstores. Regardless of favorable sales and conditions, Sony and Panasonic are often viewed as rivals. This view probably arose from the videotape format wars between VHS (supported by Panasonic) and Betamax (supported by Sony).The largest direct competition between Sony and Panasonic is currently in the segment of audio products; Panasonic is also considered as Sony’s rival in sales of flat panel TVs, digital cameras and DVD recorders – areas where Panasonic is focusing its production, marketing and sales efforts. In contrast, Sony has recently diversified into the cinema, video game, and financial areas, whereas Panasonic's whitegoods have no competition from Sony.
Matsushita's current corporate strategy is to seek cooperation and joint ventures in the development of certain technologies (such as LCDs), while continuing to compete against other companies such as Toshiba, Hitachi and Minebea to become the benchmark for Japanese electronics.
Automobile Audio
Panasonic sells radio (audio) products for automobiles and light trucks in the US market under the Panasonic brand (aftermarket) and as OEM equipment in automobile brands such as the Toyota Corolla. The primary examples of the OEM Radios are the Toyota Corolla single CD AM/FM radio labeled A51813 and the six disc changer AM/FM radio labeled A51814.
Panasonic Corporation of North America
Panasonic Corporation of North America is the name for the American branch of Matsushita. It was known as Matsushita Electric Corporation of America (MECA) prior to 2005.
Panasonic Corporation in Europe
Shop@Panasonic
Shop@Panasonic is a chain of stores in the United Kingdom which sells only Panasonic electronics. The store is based on the same structure as Sony Centre. The stores are usually located in shopping centres such as Centrale, and brand itself the official Panasonic retailer. The stores along with Sony Centre are usually overwhelmed by other eletronic stores on the high street such as Currys.digital, and are often despited as overpriced, although this is mainly because as it sells only Panasonic items which are mainly upstream, however they tend to be the recommended retail price.
Panasonic Avionics Corporation
Panasonic Avionics Corporation (PAC) is the world's leading supplier of in-flight entertainment (IFE) and communication systems. Headquartered in Lake Forest, California where engineering, development and testing is performed while system installation, field engineering, major quality functions, certification and program management are performed at the Bothell, Washington facility - Panasonic Avionics Corporation employs approximately 2,800 employees based in over 70 locations worldwide, with major facilities in London, Toulouse, Hamburg, Dallas, Dubai and Singapore. A majority of the component manufacturing is carried out in Osaka, Japan.
The company provides airline passengers with a wide array of interactive applications at their seats, combining entertainment (digital music and movies on demand, games, interactive moving maps, satellite TV, and online shopping) with business tools (E-mail, live flight schedules, and in-flight internet access). PAC is also one of the chief suppliers to both Boeing and Airbus and their IFE systems will be featured on both the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A380 aircraft.
Among the many worldwide customers that use PAC systems are award-winning airlines such as Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
Panasonic Avionics Corporation is a subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation of North America (PNA).
Read more!History of lenovo
Lenovo Group Limited, (SEHK: 0992) is the fourth largest personal computer manufacturer in the world, and the largest in the Asia-Pacific region as of 2006. "Lenovo" is a portmanteau of "Le-" (from Legend) and "novo", pseudo-Latin for "new."
Lenovo produces desktop, laptop, servers, handheld computers, imaging equipment, and mobile phone handsets. Lenovo also provides information technology integration and support services, and its QDI unit offers contract manufacturing. Lenovo also offers Internet access through its FM365.com portal.
Its executive headquarters are located in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, the home of IBM's former ThinkPad group, and in Beijing, China. It is incorporated in Hong Kong.
As of May 31, 2007, 39.6% of Lenovo is owned by public shareholders, 42.4% by Legend Holdings Limited, 7.9% by IBM and 10.1% by Texas Pacific Group, General Atlantic LLC and Newbridge Capital LLC. Because the Chinese Academy of Sciences, a Chinese government agency, owns 65% of Legend Holdings, effectively the Communist Chinese government owns about 27.5% of Lenovo and is the largest shareholder
Origins
The company was founded in 1984 by a group of eleven engineers, headed by Liu Chuanzhi, in Beijing. Originally known as Legend Group Ltd and New Technology Developer Incorporated, the listed holding company was incorporated in 1988 in Hong Kong. The company had become the biggest PC manufacturer of domestic and distributed third party products through its wholesale business.
The company underwent restructuring and separated into two entities. They were Lenovo and Digital China Holdings Limited. Lenovo became the personal computer manufacturer and Digital China took on the wholesale and distribution of IT products and services.
In 2005 Lenovo purchased IBM's PC Division which transformed it into a major international personal computer manufacturer. Lenovo paid $1.27 billion to IBM which consisted of $655 million in cash and $600 million in Lenovo stock. As a result of the acquisition, Lenovo gained the rights to the product lines as well as licensed trademarks such as ThinkVision, ThinkPad, ThinkVantage, ThinkCentre, Aptiva, and NetVista. As of May 1, 2005, IBM owned 19.9% of Lenovo.
History of HP compaq
Compaq Computer Corporation is an American personal computer company founded in 1982, and now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard.
The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto — former Texas Instruments senior managers. The name "COMPAQ" was derived from "Compatibility and Quality", as at its formation Compaq produced some of the first IBM PC compatible computers.
Once the largest supplier of computing systems in the world and previously regarded as perhaps the most reputable manufacturer of mid-range hardware, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it merged with Hewlett-Packard.
History
Compaq was founded in February 1982 by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto, three senior managers from semiconductor manufacturer Texas Instruments. Each invested $1,000 to form the company. Their first venture capital came from Ben Rosen and Sevin-Rosen partners. Like many small startups with unique beginnings, the original Compaq PC was first sketched out on a placemat by the founders while dining in a local Houston restaurant, House of Pies.
In its early years Compaq was in many respects what IBM's PC Group should have been, and indeed, two of Compaq's key marketing executives, Jim D'Arezzo and Sparky Sparks, had moved from there.
Compaq Portable
In November 1982 Compaq announced their first product, the Compaq Portable, a portable IBM PC compatible personal computer. It was released in March 1983 at $2995, considerably more affordable than competitors at the time. The Compaq Portable was one of the progenitors of today's laptop. It was the second IBM PC compatible, being capable of running all software that would run on an IBM PC. It was a commercial success, selling 53,000 units in its first year. The Compaq Portable was the first in the range of the Compaq Portable series. Compaq was able to market a legal IBM clone because IBM mostly used "off the shelf" parts for their PC. Furthermore, Microsoft had kept the right to license the operating system to other computer manufacturers. The only part which had to be duplicated was the BIOS, which Compaq did legally by using clean room reverse engineering for $1 million[1][2][3]. Phoenix Technologies were the first to follow their lead, but soon "clone BIOSes" were available from several vendors.
Deskpro
On June 28th 1984 Compaq Released the Compaq Deskpro, a 16-bit desktop computer using an Intel 8086 microprocessor running at 7.14MHz. It was considerably faster than an IBM PC and was, like the Compaq Portable, also capable of running IBM software. This was the first of the Compaq Deskpro line of computers.
In 1985, Compaq released the Compaq Deskpro 286, a 16-bit desktop computer using an Intel 80286 microprocessor running at 8 MHz and capable of supporting up to 7 MB of RAM. It cost $2000 for the 40-MB hard disk model. It was considerably faster than an IBM PC AT which ran at 6MHz at that time and was, like the Compaq Portable, also capable of running IBM software.
After making half a billion dollars turnover, in 1986 Compaq released the Compaq Portable II. The Portable II was significantly lighter and smaller than its predecessor, featuring a revised design with an 8 MHz processor and 10 MB hard disk. It was cheaper than the IBM PC/AT at $3199, or $4799 with a hard disk.
Deskpro 386
When in 1986 Compaq introduced the first PC based on Intel's new 80386 microprocessor, the Compaq Deskpro 386[4], they began a period of increasing performance leadership over IBM, who were not yet using this processor. An IBM machine eventually reached the market seven months later, but by that time Compaq was the 386 supplier of choice and IBM had lost its image of technical leadership.
Systempro
This technical leadership and the rivalry with IBM was emphasised when the Systempro server was launched in late 1989 - this was a true server product with standard support for a second CPU and RAID, but also the first product to feature the EISA bus which was designed in reaction to IBM's MCA (MicroChannel Architecture).
1990s
At the same time as they began to dominate the server market, in the early 1990s Compaq entered the retail computer market with the Presario, and was one of the first manufacturers in the mid-1990s to market a sub-$1000 PC. In order to maintain the prices it wanted, Compaq became the first first-tier computer manufacturer to utilize CPUs from AMD and Cyrix. The price war resulting from Compaq's actions ultimately drove numerous competitors, most notably IBM and Packard Bell, from this market.
In 1997, Compaq bought Tandem Computers, known for their NonStop server line. This acquisition instantly gave Compaq a presence in the higher end business computing market. In 1998, Compaq acquired Digital Equipment Corporation, the leading company in the previous generation of computing during the 1970s and early 1980s. This acquisition made Compaq, at the time, the world's second largest computer maker in the world in terms of revenue. Unfortunately for the company, CEO Eckhard Pfeiffer, who engineered both mergers, had little vision for what the combined companies should do, or indeed how the three dramatically different cultures could work as a single entity, and Compaq struggled as a result. Pfeiffer was forced out as CEO in 1999 in a coup led by board chairman Ben Rosen and was eventually replaced by Michael Capellas, formerly CIO of the company. Capellas was able to restore some of the luster lost in the latter part of the Pfeiffer era, but the company still struggled against lower-cost competitors such as Dell.
During November 1999, Compaq began to work with Microsoft to create the first in a line of small-scale, web-based computer systems called MSN Companions.
2000s
In 2001, Compaq engaged in a merger with Hewlett-Packard. Numerous large HP shareholders, including Walter Hewlett, publicly opposed the deal, which resulted in a nasty proxy battle between those for and against the deal. The merger was approved only after the narrowest of margins, and allegations of vote buying (primarily involving an alleged last-second back-room deal with Bank of America) haunted the new company. Capellas left the company after serving less than a year as President of HP and became CEO of MCI Worldcom before Verizon bought MCI. Carly Fiorina, the CEO of HP, added Capellas's responsibilities to her own. Fiorina helmed HP for nearly three years after Capellas left. During that time, HP laid off thousands of former Compaq employees, its stock price generally declined, profits did not perk up, and it continued to lose market share to Dell. Facing dismissal from a hostile Board of Directors, Fiorina opted to leave in February 2005 before the board could fire her. Mark Hurd took her place as CEO of HP. Most Compaq products have been re-branded with the HP nameplate, such as the company's market leading ProLiant server line, while the Compaq brand remains on only some consumer-orientated products, notably Compaq Presario PCs. HP's business computers line was deprecated in favour of the Compaq Evo line, which was rebranded HP Compaq. HP's Jornada PDAs were replaced by Compaq iPAQ PDAs, which were renamed HP iPAQ. Before the merger, Compaq's ticker symbol was CPQ, but this was melded with Hewlett-Packard's previous symbol (HWP) to create the current symbol of HPQ. In late 2005, HPQ seemed to find its feet under the new leadership of Mark Hurd. At this same time Dell seemed to be faltering and eventually conceded the #1 sales position to archrival HPQ. Hurd took the merger once considered a huge mistake by industry experts and turned it into a huge success story for other merger candidates to model.
Compaq also made a Tablet PC notepad laptop, an interactive pen and fold down option where you can still use it as normal with on-screen keyboard & the interactive pen.
In May of 2007, HP in a press release announced a new logo for their Compaq Division to be placed on the new model Compaq Presarios. The full logo can be seen on the new Compaq Home page on
History of DELL
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL SEHK: 4331), an American computer-hardware company based in Round Rock, Texas, develops, manufactures, sells and supports personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, personal digital assistants (PDAs), software, televisions, computer peripherals and other technology-related products. As of 2006, Dell employed more than 78,700 people worldwide. Formerly holding a substantial lead in sales of PCs and of servers[citation needed], the company recently slipped behind Hewlett-Packard (HP) in these markets.
In 2006, Fortune magazine ranked Dell as the 25th-largest company in the Fortune 500 list, 8th on its annual Top 20 list of the most-admired companies in the United States. A 2006 publication identified Dell as one of 38 high-performance companies in the S&P 500, which consistently out-performed the market over the previous 15 years.
History
Origins and evolution
While a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1984, Michael Dell founded the company as PC's Limited with just $1000[2]. Operating from Michael Dell's off-campus dorm room at Dobie Center [6], the startup aimed to sell IBM-compatible computers built from stock components. Michael Dell started trading in the belief that by selling personal computer systems directly to customers, PC's Limited could better understand customers' needs and provide the most effective computing solutions to meet those needs. Michael Dell dropped out of school in order to focus full-time on his fledgling business.
In 1985, the company produced the first computer of its own design (the "Turbo PC"), which contained an Intel 8088-compatible processor running at a speed of 8 MHz. PC's Limited advertised the systems in national computer magazines for sale directly to consumers, and custom-assembled each ordered unit according to a selection of options. This offered buyers prices lower than those of retail brands, but with greater convenience than assembling the components themselves. Although not the first company to use this model, PC's Limited became one of the first to succeed with it. The company grossed more than $73 million in its first year.
In 1989, PC's Limited set up its first on-site-service programs in order to compensate for the lack of local retailers prepared to act as service centers. Also in 1987, the company set up its first operations in the United Kingdom; eleven more international operations followed within the next four years. In June 1988, Dell's market capitalization grew by $30 million to $80 million from its initial public offering of 3.5 million shares at $8.50 a share. The company changed its name to "Dell Computer Corporation" in 1988.
In 1990, Dell Computer Corporation tried selling its products indirectly through warehouse-clubs and computer-superstores, but met with little success, and the company re-focused on its more successful direct-to-consumer sales model. In 1992, Fortune magazine included Dell Computer Corporation in its list of the world's 500 largest companies.
In 1996, Dell began selling computers via its web site.
In 1999, Dell overtook Compaq to become the largest seller of personal computers in the United States of America with $25 billion in revenue reported in January 2000.
In 2002, Dell attempted to expand by tapping into the multimedia and home-entertainment markets with the introduction of televisions, handhelds, and digital audio players. Dell has also produced Dell-brand printers for home and small-office use.
In 2003, at the annual company meeting, the stockholders approved changing the company name to "Dell Inc." to recognize the company's expansion beyond computers.
In 2004, the company announced that it would build a new assembly-plant near Winston-Salem, North Carolina; the city and county provided Dell with $37.2 million in incentive packages; the state provided approximately $250 million in incentives and tax breaks. In July, Michael Dell stepped aside as Chief Executive Officer while retaining his position as Chairman of the Board. Kevin B. Rollins, who had held a number of executive posts at Dell, was appointed the new CEO.
In 2005, the share of sales coming from international markets increased, as revealed in the company's press releases for the first two quarters of its fiscal 2005 year. In February 2005 Dell appeared in first place in a ranking of the "Most Admired Companies" published by Fortune magazine. In November 2005 BusinessWeek magazine published an article titled "It's Bad to Worse at Dell" about shortfalls in projected earnings and sales, with a worse-than-predicted third-quarter financial performance — a bad omen for a company that had routinely underestimated its earnings. Dell acknowledged that faulty capacitors on the motherboards of the Optiplex GX270 and GX280 had already cost the company $300 million. The CEO, Kevin Rollins, attributed the bad performance partially to Dell's focus on low-end PCs.
In 2006, Dell purchased the computer hardware manufacturer Alienware. Dell Inc.'s plan anticipated Alienware continuing to operate independently under its existing management. Alienware expected to benefit from Dell's efficient manufacturing system.
On January 31, 2007, Kevin B. Rollins, CEO of the company since 2004, resigned abruptly as both CEO and as a director, and Michael Dell returned as CEO. Investors and many shareholders had called for Rollins' resignation because of poor company performance. At the same time, the company announced that, for the fourth time in five quarters, earnings would fail to reach consensus analyst-estimates.
In February 2007, Dell became the subject of formal investigations by the US SEC and the US Attorney General for the Southern District of New York. The company has not formally filed financial reports for either the third or fourth fiscal quarter of 2006, and several class action lawsuits in the wake of its recent financial performance. The company's lack of formal financial disclosure would normally subject the company to de-listing from the NASDAQ, but the exchange has granted Dell a waiver, allowing the stock to trade normally.
On 1 March, 2007, the company issued a preliminary quarterly earnings report which showed gross sales of $14.4 billion, down 5% year-over-year, and net income of $687 million (30 cents per share), down 33%. Net earnings would have declined even more if not for the effects of eliminated employee bonuses, which accounted for six cents per share. NASDAQ extended the company's deadline for filing financials to May 4.
Dell and AMD
On August 17, 2006, a Dell press-release stated that starting in September 2006, Dell Dimension desktop computers would have AMD processors and that later in the year Dell would release a two-socket, multi-processor server using AMD Opteron processors, moving away from using Dell's traditional Intel processors.
CNet's News.com on August 17, 2006 cited Dell's CEO Kevin Rollins as attributing the move to AMD processors to cost-advantage and to AMD technology. AMD's senior VP in commercial business, Marty Seyer, stated: "Dell's wider embrace of AMD processor-based offerings is a win for Dell, for the industry and most importantly for Dell customers."
On October 23, 2006, Dell announced two new AMD-based servers — the PowerEdge 6950 and the PowerEdge SC1435 — marking its entry into the AMD-based server market.
On November 1, 2006, Dell's website began offering notebooks with AMD processors (the Inspiron 1501 with a 15.4" display) with the choice of a single-core MK-36 processor, dual-core Turion X2 chips or Mobile Sempron.
Dell and desktop Linux
First attempt in 2000
In 1998, Ralph Nader asked Dell (and 5 other major OEMs) to offer alternate operating systems to Microsoft Windows, specifically including Linux, for which "there is clearly a growing interest" Dell started offering Linux notebook systems which "cost no more than their Windows 98 counterparts" in 2000, and soon expanded, with Dell becoming "the first major manufacturer to offer Linux across its full product line"But by early 2001 Dell had "disbanded its Linux business unit".
The reason(s) for such a quick reversal remain the subject of debate. Court documents accused Microsoft of coercing OEMs to drop Linux:
Microsoft executive Joachim Kempin described his plan of retaliation and coercion to shut down competition from Linux: "I am thinking of hitting the OEM harder than in the past with anti-Linux actions" and will "further try to restrict source code deliveries where possible and be less gracious when interpreting agreements — again without being obvious about it," continuing "this will be a delicate dance"[15]
While in a 2003 interview Michael Dell denied that Microsoft pressured Dell Inc. into doing an about-face with regard to desktop Linux, citing a lack of sales: "unfortunately the desktop Linux market didn't develop in volume. It's more of a server opportunity" but adding: "We continue to offer Linux on the desktop and there is nothing else to say." However, a 2004 report noted that Dell no longer offered preinstalled desktop Linux:
So what does it mean "factory installed Linux"? If you want Dell to install Linux for you, first add on $119. But here is the annoying part. They won't send you a computer with Linux pre-installed. They sell you the computer and the boxes of software on the side, and then they make an appointment to send you someone who comes to your house or business and installs it there.
Top 5 most expensive laptop
Dell XPS M2010 laptop
Manufacturer: Dell Model: Dell XPS M2010 Screen Size: 20.1 inches Weight: 18 lbs Graphics Options: ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 (Dedicated) Description: The Dell XPS M2010 is a unique 20.1-inch foldable notebook computer. The keyboard is detachable from the gorgeous 20.1-inch LCD display. The M2010 is great for gaming with an ATI X1800 graphics card and Core Duo processor built-in...
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WidowPC Sting 919 laptop
Ready to have full tower performance in a notebook? Introducing the Sting 919 SLI Gaming Laptop. at 12 pounds, It's the heaviest laptop we've made so far, but it's also what our elite users want: complete desktop replacement power in a more mobile platform. It's what high end graphics developers and gamers want and it's not meant to be run on pure adrenaline (not battery power)....
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Voodoo Envy H:171 laptop review
VoodooPC ENVY H:171 Gaming Notebook with Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Announced">VoodooPC ENVY H:171 Gaming Notebook with Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 Announced
VoodooPC introduced the ENVY H:171 17-inch widescreen gaming notebook today. The ENVY H:171 is the first notebook to include the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor, Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 graphics processing unit up to 600GB in drive capacity....
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Tulip E-Go Diamond laptop review
Tulip Ego Notebook Goes to New York"Tulip Ego Notebook Goes to New York
Ego Lifestyle, the Dutch high-end luxury lifestyle consumer electronics is introducing its latest luxury notebook, the Tulip Ego at Barneys New York. While most manufacturers make fashionistas pick a color they have to live with for years, the uber-fashionable Ego Tulip features round shapes and interchangeable skins, which are available in a variety of designer fabrics, finishes and colors.....
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Luvaglio One Million Dollar Laptop review
its a press release of their new Million Dollar Laptop. As you can tell, all of us here at MobileWhack are very excited for the release of this LapTop.
Rohan Sinclair Luvaglio, founder and CEO believes the luxury market is ready for change: “our company is re-establishing the value ‘made for you by someone who knows you’, thereby reviving the true origins of luxury”.....
Luvaglio One Million Dollar Laptop review
The laptop combines solid state storage, Blu-Ray, built in USB memory stick and MP3 player, integrated screen cleaning. The design of the laptop also allows for full upgrades, so its never obsolete or out of date. Following the exclusive launch this summer, a consequent range of creations will be unveiled. The seller will also have their choice of precious metals, leathers and real woods. "because the beginning of a new tradition in luxury begins with the One Million Dollar Laptop." The summer release is going to be huge, I don't know many people who really can, or want to, afford a million dollar laptop, but this should be the ultimate accessory for anyone looking for ultimate luxury.
its a press release of their new Million Dollar Laptop. As you can tell, all of us here at MobileWhack are very excited for the release of this LapTop.
Rohan Sinclair Luvaglio, founder and CEO believes the luxury market is ready for change: “our company is re-establishing the value ‘made for you by someone who knows you’, thereby reviving the true origins of luxury”.....
Basically what he means is that soon to come will be the worlds first, million dollar laptop.
“I wanted my idea to be perfectly translated. Despite the challenges, we have not given in to the impossible”, says Luvaglio. Jewellery and diamonds have been used functionally; “I envisioned and created a function for the stones, they are not there simply to add value”.
History of Apple
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL, LSE: ACP, FWB: APC) (formerly Apple Computer, Inc.) is an American multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing consumer electronics and closely related software products. Headquartered in Cupertino, California, Apple develops, sells, and supports a series of personal computers, portable media players, computer software, and computer hardware accessories; Apple is also currently involved in the creation of new technology concepts, such as the iPhone, Apple TV, and many features of its new, upcoming operating system, Mac OS X "Leopard". Apple also operates an online store for hardware and software purchases, as well as the iTunes Store, a comprehensive offering of digital downloadable music, audiobooks, games, music videos, TV shows, and movies. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of personal computers and related peripherals, the iPod line of portable media players, and the iPhone. Apple's best-known software products include the Mac OS X operating system and the iLife software suite, a bundle of creative software products that are highly integrated with the OS and are designed for amateur users. (Both Mac OS X and iLife are included on all Macs sold.) Apple is also a major provider of professional and "prosumer" audio- and film-industry software products, primarily for Mac computers, including Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Final Cut Studio, and related tools.
Apple had worldwide annual sales in its fiscal year 2006 (ending September 30, 2006) of US$19.3 billion.
The company, incorporated January 3, 1977,was known as "Apple Computer, Inc." for its first 30 years. On January 9, 2007, the company dropped "Computer" from its corporate name. The change followed Apple's announcement of its new iPhone smartphone and Apple TV digital video system and reflects the company's ongoing expansion into the consumer electronics market in addition to its traditional focus on personal computers.
Apple also operates 183 (as of June 2007) retail stores in the United States, and more in the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, and Italy.The stores carry most of Apple's products as well as many third-party products and offer on-site support and repair for Apple hardware and software. Apple employs over 20,000 permanent and temporary workers worldwide.
For a variety of reasons, ranging from its philosophy of comprehensive aesthetic design to its countercultural, even indie roots, as well as their advertising campaigns, Apple has engendered a distinct reputation in the consumer electronics industry and has cultivated a customer base that is unusually devoted to the company and its brand.
History
The company introduced the Apple II microcomputer in 1977. A few years later, in 1983, it introduced the Lisa, the first commercial personal computer to employ a graphical user interface (GUI), which was influenced in part by the Xerox Alto. Lisa was also the first personal computer to have the mouse. In 1984, the Macintosh was introduced, which arguably advanced the concept of a new user-friendly graphical user interface. Apple's success with the Macintosh became a major influence in the development of graphical interfaces elsewhere, with major computer operating systems, such as the Commodore Amiga, and Atari ST, appearing on the market within two years of the introduction of the Macintosh.
In 1991, Apple introduced the PowerBook line of portable computers. The 1990s also saw Apple's market share fall as competition from Microsoft Windows and the comparatively inexpensive IBM PC compatible computers that would eventually dominate the market. In the 2000s, Apple expanded its focus on software to include professional and prosumer video, music, and photo production solutions, with a view to promoting their products as a "digital hub". It also introduced the iPod, the most popular digital music player in the world.
1976 to 1980: The early years
Apple was founded on April 1, 1976 by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne(and later incorporated January 3, 1977 without Wayne, who sold his share of the company back to Jobs and Wozniak) to sell the Apple I personal computer kit. They were hand-built by Steve Wozniak in the living room of Jobs' parents' home, and the Apple I was first shown to the public at the Homebrew Computer Club. Eventually 200 computers were built. The Apple I was sold as a motherboard (with CPU, RAM, and basic textual-video chips) — not what is today considered a complete personal computer. The user was required to provide two different AC input voltages (the manual recommended specific transformers), wire an ASCII keyboard (not provided with the computer) to a DIP connector (providing logic inverter and alpha lock chips in some cases), and to wire the video output pins to a monitor or to an RF modulator if a TV set was used.
Jobs approached a local computer store, The Byte Shop, which ordered fifty units and paid US$500 for each unit after much persuasion. He then ordered components from Cramer Electronics, a national electronic parts distributor. Using a variety of methods, including borrowing space from friends and family and selling various items including a Volkswagen Type 2 bus, Jobs managed to secure the parts needed while Wozniak and Ronald Wayne assembled the Apple I.
The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977 at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It differed from its major rivals, the TRS-80 and Commodore PET, because it came with color graphics and an open architecture. While early models used ordinary cassette tapes as storage devices, this was quickly superseded by the introduction of a 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drive and interface, the Disk II.
Another key to business for Apple was software. The Apple II was chosen by programmers Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston to be the desktop platform for the first "killer app" of the business world—the VisiCalc spreadsheet program.[16] VisiCalc created a business market for the Apple II, and the corporate market attracted many more software and hardware developers to the machine, as well as giving home users an additional reason to buy one—compatibility with the office.(See the timeline for dates of Apple II family model releases—the 1977 Apple II and its younger siblings the II+, IIe, IIc, and IIGS.)
According to Brian Bagnall's book, "On the Edge" (pg. 109-112), Apple exaggerated their sales figures and that Apple was a distant 3rd place until VisiCalc came along. VisiCalc was first released on Apple II because Commodore and Tandy computers were tied up in VisiCalc's software development office due to their popularity. VisiCalc's association with Apple was thus pure happenstance, not a technical decision. And even after VisiCalc, Apple II didn't surpass the Tandy TRS-80, whose sales were helped by the large number of Radio Shack stores. However, VisiCalc did put Apple ahead of Commodore's PET, at least in the US. (Commodore later regained the lead for a while with the Commodore 64 in the mid 80s, the best selling specific model of computer to date.)
By the end of the 1970s, Jobs and his partners had a staff of computer designers and a production line. The Apple II was succeeded by the Apple III in May 1980 as the company struggled to compete against IBM and Microsoft in the lucrative business and corporate computing market. The designers of the Apple III were forced to comply with Jobs' request to omit the cooling fan, and this ultimately resulted in thousands of recalled units due to overheating. An updated version, the Apple III+, was introduced in 1983, but it was also a failure due to bad press and wary buyers.
In the early 1980s, IBM and Microsoft continued to gain market share at Apple's expense in the personal computer industry. A fundamentally different business model evolved, once cloners forced-open the IBM PC hardware standard against IBM's will. The IBM compatible hardware market became highly competitive, with clones running a bundled Microsoft MS-DOS OS, or running a competing IBM-style DOS such as DR DOS.
Apple's sustained growth during the early 1980s was partly due to its leadership in the education sector, attributed to their adaptation of the programming language LOGO, used in many schools with the Apple II. The drive into education was accentuated in California with the donation of one Apple II and one Apple LOGO software package to each public school in the state. The deal concluded between Steve Jobs and Jim Baroux of LCSI, and having required the support of Sacramento, established a strong and pervasive presence for Apple in all schools throughout California. The initial conquest of education environments was critical to Apple's acceptance in the home where the earliest purchases of computers by parents was in support of children's continued learning experience.
1981 to 1989: Lisa and Macintosh
Jobs and several other Apple employees including Jef Raskin visited Xerox PARC in December 1979 to see the Alto computer. Xerox granted Apple engineers three days of access to the PARC facilities in return for selling them US$1 million in pre-IPO Apple stock (approximately US$18 million net).
It is said that Jobs was immediately convinced that all future computers would use a GUI, and decided to turn over design of Apple's first project, the Apple Lisa, to produce such a device. The Lisa was named after Jobs' daughter (however, a backronym, Local Integrated Software Architecture, was coined). He was eventually pushed from the group due to infighting, and instead took over Jef Raskin's low-cost computer project, the Macintosh. Branding the new effort as the product that would "save Apple", an intense turf war broke out between the Lisa's "corporate shirts" and Jobs' Macintosh "pirates", both teams claiming they would ship first and be more successful. In 1983 the Lisa team won the race and Apple introduced the first personal computer to be sold to the public with a GUI. However, the Lisa was a commercial failure as a result of its high price tag (US$9,995) and limited software titles.
In 1984, drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple next launched the Macintosh. Its debut was announced by a single national broadcast of the now famous US$1.5 million television commercial, "1984", based on George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The commercial was directed by Ridley Scott and aired during Super Bowl XVIII on January 22, 1984. Jobs' intention with the ad was to represent the IBM PC as Big Brother, and the Macintosh as a nameless female action hero portrayed by Anya Major. While the Macintosh initially sold well, follow-up sales were not particularly strong.The machine's fortunes changed with the introduction of the LaserWriter, the first laser printer to be offered at a reasonable price point, and PageMaker, an early desktop publishing (DTP) package. The Mac was particularly powerful in this market due to its advanced graphics capabilities, which were already necessarily built-in to create the Macintosh GUI. It has been suggested that the combination of these three products was responsible for the creation of the DTP market. As DTP became widespread, Apple's sales reached a series of new highs.
In anticipation of the Macintosh launch, Bill Gates, co-founder and chairman of Microsoft, was given several Macintosh prototypes in 1983 to develop software. While the company was indeed ready with its BASIC and the MultiPlan spreadsheet at the Macintosh's launch, in 1985 Microsoft launched Windows, its own GUI for IBM PCs. Although sales started slow, by the mid 1990s it became the most commonly-used desktop operating system, cutting deeply into the Macintosh's sales.
An internal power struggle developed between Jobs and new CEO John Sculley in 1985. Apple's board of directors sided with Sculley and Jobs was removed from his managerial duties. Jobs later resigned from Apple and founded NeXT Inc., a computer company that built machines with futuristic designs and ran the UNIX-derived NeXTStep operating system. Although powerful, NeXT computers never caught on with buyers, due in part to their high purchase price.
1989 to 1991: The Golden Age
Having learned several painful lessons after introducing the bulky Macintosh Portable in 1989, Apple turned to industrial designers and adopted a product strategy based in three portable devices. One portable was built by Sony, which at the time had a strong reputation for designing small, durable and functional electronics devices[citation needed]. Sony took the specs of the Mac Portable, put in a smaller two-hour battery, a much smaller (physically) 20 MB hard drive and a smaller nine-inch passive matrix screen.
Called the PowerBook 100, this landmark product was introduced in 1991 and established the modern form and ergonomic layout of the laptop computer. This solidified Apple's reputation as a quality manufacturer, both of desktop and now portable machines.The same year, Apple introduced a massive upgrade to the Mac OS, in the form of System 7. Although resource-hungry (for the era), System 7 dramatically improved the Macintosh experience, adding color to the interface, simplifying common operations, and introducing a number of powerful new networking capabilities. System 7 would be the basis for the Mac OS until 2001.
The success of the PowerBook and several other Apple products during this period led to increasing revenue. The computer press listened to Apple press releases with rapt attention and speculation was rife about what projects from Apple's famed Advanced Technology Group would next come to market. Apple merely had to mention a technology, Taligent for instance, for people to christen it the "new standard".For some time, it appeared that Apple could do no wrong, introducing fresh new products and generating increasing profits in the process. The magazine MacAddict named the period between 1989 to 1991 the "first golden age" of the Macintosh.
The continuing development of Microsoft Windows had given birth to an interface that was competitive with Apple's. Combined with a huge base of low-cost computers and peripherals and an improving software suite, an increasing number of potential customers turned to the "Wintel" standard.
Apple, relying on high profit margins to maintain their massive R&D budget, never developed a clear response. Instead they sued Microsoft for theft of intellectual property.The lawsuit dragged on for years before finally being thrown out of court. Worse, the lawsuit distracted management while a deep rot developed within the engineering ranks, which became increasingly unmanageable. At first there was little outward sign of the problem, but a series of major product flops and missed deadlines destroyed Apple's reputation of invincibility.
At about the same time, Apple branched out into consumer electronics. One example of this product diversification was the Apple QuickTake digital camera, one of the first digital cameras brought to the consumer market. A more famous example was the Newton, termed a "Personal digital assistant" or "PDA" by Sculley, that was introduced in 1993. Though it failed commercially, it defined and launched a new category of computing and was a forerunner of devices such as Palm Pilot, PocketPC, and eventually the iPhone.
During the 1990s, Apple greatly expanded its computer lineup. It offered a multitude of models ("Quadra 840av", "Performa 6116"), but many felt Apple failed to adequately differentiate one model from another and the cost of supporting so many products adversely affected profitability. Apple lost market share to Microsoft Windows, particularly Windows 95 — a major turning point in the history of the rival Windows operating system.
1994 to 1997: Attempts at reinvention
By the mid-90s, Apple realized that it had to reinvent the Macintosh in order to stay competitive in the market. The needs of both computer users and computer programs were becoming, for a variety of technical reasons, harder for the existing hardware and operating system to address.
In 1994 Apple surprised its loyalists by allying with its long-time competitor IBM and CPU maker Motorola in the so-called AIM alliance. This was a bid to create a new computing platform (the PowerPC Reference Platform or PReP), which would use IBM and Motorola hardware coupled with Apple's software. The AIM alliance hoped that PReP's performance and Apple's software would leave the PC far behind, thus countering Microsoft, which had become Apple's chief competitor.
As the first step toward launching the PReP platform, Apple started the Power Macintosh line in 1994, using IBM's PowerPC processor. This processor utilized a RISC architecture, which differed substantially from the Motorola 68k series that had been used by all previous Macs. Apple's OS was rewritten so that most software for the older Macs could run on the PowerPC series (in emulation).
Throughout the mid to late 1990s, Apple tried to improve its operating system's multitasking and memory management. After first attempting to modify its existing code, Apple realized that it would be better to start with an entirely new operating system and then modify it to fit the Macintosh interface. Apple did some preliminary work with IBM towards this goal with the Taligent project, but that project never produced a replacement operating system. A new internal effort, Copland, ran afoul of Apple's now uncontrollable engineering and became a massive failure. A fresh attempt was made with the Gershwin operating system.
In 1995 Apple made a break into the gaming industry with the Apple Pippin. Despite the success of competing game consoles like Sony PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Sega Saturn, Pippin experienced very limited success and as little as 5000 units were sold worldwide and there was a very small variety of games available for those who did own a console. Overall this was a failure for Apple; its scope was more general in purpose than serious gaming, leaving the console expensive and underpowered compared with its rivals.
Next, the company considered its options for an operating system, investigating Be Inc.'s BeOS, NeXT's NeXTSTEP OS, and also Microsoft's Windows NT. NeXTSTEP was chosen, and this supplied the platform for the modern Mac OS X. On February 7, 1997, Apple completed its purchase of NeXT and its NeXTSTEP operating system, in the process bringing Steve Jobs back to Apple. On July 9, 1997, Gil Amelio was ousted as CEO of Apple by the board of directors after overseeing a 3-year record-low stock price and crippling financial losses. Jobs stepped in as the interim CEO and began a critical restructuring of the company's product line.
At the 1997 Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs announced that Apple would be entering into partnership with Microsoft. Settlement discussions regarding Apple's "Look and Feel" lawsuit and the "QuickTime piracy" lawsuit resulted in a five-year commitment from Microsoft to release Microsoft Office for Macintosh as well as a US$150 million investment in non-voting Apple stock. (This event is often inaccurately described as a "bailout" of Apple by Microsoft. At the time Apple had a little over US$1 billion in cash and cash equivalents according to their 10-Q statement Microsoft later sold its shares for a tidy profit.) Jobs also announced that Internet Explorer would be shipped as the default browser on the Macintosh. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates appeared at the expo on the large screen, explaining Microsoft's plans for the software they were developing for the Macintosh, and saying that he was very excited to be helping Apple. This was met with a less than positive response from the audience. Steve Jobs said:
If we want to move forward and see Apple healthy and prospering again, we have to let go of a few things here. We have to let go of this notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose. We have to embrace a notion that for Apple to win, Apple needs to do a really good job. And if others are going to help us that's great, because we need all the help we can get, and if we screw up and don't do a good job, it's not somebody else's fault, it's our fault. So I think that is a very important perspective. If we want Microsoft Office on the Mac, we should treat the company that puts it out with a little bit of gratitude; we like their software.
So, the era of setting this thing up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over as far as I'm concerned. This is about getting Apple healthy, this is about Apple being able to make incredibly great contributions to the industry and to get healthy and prosper again.
On November 10, 1997, Apple announced a new online retail store, based upon the WebObjects application server the company had acquired in its purchase of NeXT. The new direct sales outlet was also tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing strategy and announced at the same time as new machines using the G3 PowerPC processor.
1998 to 2005: New beginnings
On August 15, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one Mac computer reminiscent of the original Macintosh 128K: the iMac. The iMac design team was led by Jonathan Ive, who would come later to design the iPod and the iPhone. While not groundbreaking from a technological standpoint, the iMac featured an innovative new translucent plastic exterior, originally in Bondi Blue, but later many other colors. The iMac proved phenomenally successful, selling close to 800,000 units in its first five months and significantly boosting the company's revenue and profitability. Thanks in part to the iMac; fiscal 1998 was Apple's first profitable year since 1993. Some consider the iMac an industrial design icon of the late 90s, and its designer, Jonathan Ive, has won awards for its innovation.
At the National Association of Broadcasters convention, Apple purchased the Final Cut software from Macromedia, beginning its entry into the digital video editing market, and signaling a return to application development after a decade long policy of delegating non-system software to its Claris subsidiary. iMovie was released in 1999 for consumers, and Final Cut Pro was released for professionals in the same year. Final Cut Pro has gone on to be a significant video-editing program. Similarly, in 2000 Apple bought Astarte's DVDirector software, which morphed into iDVD (for consumers) and DVD Studio Pro (for professionals) at the Macworld Conference and Expo of 2001.
In 2001, Apple introduced Mac OS X, the operating system based on NeXT's OPENSTEP and BSD Unix. Aimed at consumers and professionals alike, Mac OS X aimed to marry the stability, reliability and security of the Unix operating system with the ease of use afforded by a completely overhauled user interface. To aid users in moving their applications from Mac OS 9, the new operating system allowed the use of OS 9 applications through Mac OS X's Classic environment. Apple's Carbon API also allowed developers to adapt their OS 9 software to use Mac OS X's features often with a simple recompile.
On May 19, 2001, after much speculation, Apple announced the opening of the first official Apple Retail Stores, to be located in major U.S. consumer locations. These stores were designed for two purposes: to stem the tide of Apple's declining share of the computer market and to counter a poor record of marketing Apple products by third-party retail outlets. The company faced challenges to balance the deployment of its own retail stores with its dependence on, and the demands of, its existing channel partners and dealers. Apple slowly built up the number of stores in the U.S., (now totaling 183 as of June 2007)later opening stores in Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, recently Italy, and has plans for a France location. These efforts in retail succeeded and proved to be very profitable, averaging annual returns of US$4,032 per square foot of every store, the most in retail. These returns bested retail favorites such as Best Buy at $930 and Tiffany's at $2666.
On October 23, 2001 Apple introduced its first iPod portable digital audio player and released it on November 10 of that year. The product has proven phenomenally successful; over 100 million units have been sold.Apple's iTunes Store was introduced soon after, offering online music downloads for US 99¢ a song and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the market leader in online music services, with over 3 billion downloads by August 2007.
In 2002 Apple purchased Nothing Real and their advanced digital compositing application Shake, raising Apple's professional commitment even higher. In the same year they also acquired Emagic, and with it, obtained their professional-quality music productivity application Logic, which led to the development of their consumer-level GarageBand application. With iPhoto's release in 2002, this completed Apple's collection of consumer and professional level creativity software, with the consumer-level applications being collected together into the iLife suite.
Apple's design team progressively abandoned the flashy colors of the iMac G3 era in favor of white polycarbonate for consumer lines such as the iMac and iBook, as well as the educational eMac, and metal enclosures for the professional lines. This began with the 2001 release of the titanium PowerBook and was followed by the 2001 white iBook, the 2002 flat-panel iMac, the 2003 Power Mac G5, and the 2004 Apple Cinema Displays. Divergent to this consumer/professional identity, the low-cost Mac mini has an aluminum case while featuring the distinctive white polycarbonate top.
In the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) keynote address on June 6, 2005, Steve Jobs officially announced that Apple would begin producing Intel-based Mac computers beginning in 2006. Jobs confirmed rumors that the company had secretly been producing versions of its current operating system Mac OS X for both PowerPC and Intel processors for the previous five years and that the transition to Intel processor systems would last until the end of 2008.
On January 10, 2006, Apple released its first Intel chip computers, a new notebook computer known as the MacBook Pro (with a 15.4" screen) and a new (though cosmetically identical) iMac with purportedly two to three times faster performance compared with its predecessor. Both used Intel's Core Duo chip technology. Later in February, Apple introduced the new Intel-based Mac mini, running up to four times faster and also featuring Front Row, available with a Core Duo or Core Solo (single core) processor. In February 2006, the Apple Online Store sold its last 17" iMac G5, Apple ended the life of its 15" PowerBook G4 on February 22, 2006, and the G4 Mac mini was removed from the Apple online store on February 28, 2006 and replaced with the Intel Core Mac mini. On March 10, 2006 Apple retired the iMac G5 and on May 16, 2006, replaced the iBook G4 and the 12" PowerBook G4 with the MacBook. On August 7, 2006, the PowerMac was replaced with the Mac Pro, completing the transition of all Mac computers, well in advance of their original prediction. On September 6, 2006, Apple updated its iMac line to include new Intel Core 2 Duo processors, and adding a model with a 24" screen to the line-up, as well as quietly bumping the speeds of their Mac mini. The Xserve was transitioned in mid-November 2006. On October 24, 2006 the MacBook Pros were fitted with Intel Core 2 Duo processors as well, running up to 39% faster than the original Intel Core Duo MacBook Pros. The MacBooks were fitted with the Core 2 Duo processors on November 8, and run up to 25% faster than the Core Duo ones according to Apple's tests.
Apple's current operating system, Mac OS X v10.4 "Tiger", runs natively on the new Intel machines, as do the Darwin open source underpinnings. Many applications, such as iLife '06, also run natively on Intel chips. Other applications (including Microsoft Office) which have not been updated to run on the Intel architecture, run using a technology known as Rosetta. Because Rosetta is a translation software that allows PowerPC programs to run on Intel processors, these PowerPC programs run slower than native applications. Programs compiled only for the PowerPC must be recompiled to run at full speed on the new Intel machines. Programs that have been designed to run on both PowerPC and Intel chips can be certified by Apple as "Universal". The Intel-based machines also do not support Classic, which allows Mac OS X to run applications written for OS 9 and earlier, so applications that require this environment will not run on these machines. Apple currently has no plans to bring Classic support to the Intel platform.
The Intel chip also allows the new machines to run the Windows operating system. On March 16, 2006 a bootloader CD image and a how-to for getting XP on your MacBook Pro, iMac, or mini was released to the Internet as an entry into a US$13,000 contest. Many hackers attempted over three months to win the prize by becoming the first to run Windows natively on a new Intel Mac. The Intel-based Macs are now the only computers officially capable of running both Mac OS X and Windows without emulation (a pre-release version of Mac OS X for Intel was patched to run on non-Apple PCs through the OSx86 community; however such procedure is not permitted by the Apple EULA). Further, on April 5, 2006, Apple announced a new piece of software called Boot Camp that helps users install Windows XP on their Intel Mac alongside Mac OS X. Apple has said that Boot Camp will be included, as standard, in Apple's next OS release (10.5, “Leopard”).
The Apple/Intel partnership coined several catch phrases among Apple fans and technology reporters. Some of the most widespread ones include "Mactel" and "Macintel", a response to the phrase "Wintel", which is an informal moniker that describes all Intel-powered systems running the Microsoft Windows operating system. Another is "ICBM", for "Intel-chip-based Mac." Apple itself has not publicly used these terms.
Apple's success during this period, beginning in 1997 (the first year the company turned a profit after losses through 1995 and 1996), but accelerating between 2003 to 2005, was evident in its skyrocketing stock. Between early 2003 and January 2006, the price of a share of Apple's stock increased more than tenfold, from a little more than US$6 per share (split-adjusted) to more than US$80 per share. On January 13, 2006, Apple's market cap surpassed that of Dell.Nearly ten years prior, in 1997, Dell's CEO, Michael Dell, had asserted that if he ran Apple he would "shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders."
Delivering his keynote at Macworld 2007 (January 9, 2007), Steve Jobs announced a change of name: Apple Computer Inc. would from that point be known as Apple Inc. The event also saw the announcement of the iPhone, and the Apple TV. The following day, Apple shares hit US$97.80, then an all-time high. In May 2007, Apple's share price passed the US$100 mark.
On February 7, 2007, Apple indicated that it would be willing to sell music on the iTunes store without Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection (allowing tracks to be played on any compatible player) if major record labels would agree to drop that anti-piracy technology.On April 2, 2007, Apple and record label EMI jointly-announced the removal of anti-piracy technology from EMI's catalog in the iTunes Store, effective in May.
Tulip E-Go Diamond laptop review
Tulip Ego Notebook Goes to New York"Tulip Ego Notebook Goes to New York
Ego Lifestyle, the Dutch high-end luxury lifestyle consumer electronics is introducing its latest luxury notebook, the Tulip Ego at Barneys New York. While most manufacturers make fashionistas pick a color they have to live with for years, the uber-fashionable Ego Tulip features round shapes and interchangeable skins, which are available in a variety of designer fabrics, finishes and colors.....
Barneys New York is selling the Tulip Ego notebook in pure white, and with an additional Chique (raspberry color) skin for $5,400. A �Chique�� raspberry colored skin is included, and 11 others are available. Cheap compared to the European-only Otau Ego Diamond notebook, which goes for $350,000.
You don�t buy a computer like this for blazing speed, but the specs are good enough for most users. The Tulip Ego includes a 12.1-inch WXGA widescreen, AMD Turion 64 single core processor, 1 gig of memory, 80GB drive and DVD-RW drive.
Barney�s will carry exclusively for the next 12 months, before Ego seeks wider U.S. distribution.
Tulip Ego “Soul” faux Zebra Skin
Tulip Ego Notebook in faux Wood skin
Tulip Ego Notebook in distressed Desert skin
Otazo Ego Diamond Edition Logo in Diamonds
History of Acer
Multitech, which was founded by Stan Shih (施振榮), his wife Carolyn Yeh, and a group of five others in 1976, was renamed Acer in 1987. It began with eleven employees and $25,000 in capital. Initially, it was primarily a distributor of electronic parts and a consultant in the use of microprocessor technologies. The global headquarters is in Hsichih City, Taiwan. In 2000, Acer spun off its manufacturing operation (as Wistron Corporation) to focus itself on branding business. In deciding to support the sales of its product lines through specific marketing activities that best utilise distribution channels, Acer grew worldwide while its labour force contracted. In 2002, the pan Acer Group employed 39,000 people supporting dealers and distributors in more than 100 countries. Revenues reached US $12.9 billion that year. By 2005, Acer employed 7,800 people throughout the world while maintaining a global sales and service network. Revenues were US$4.9 billion in 2003 and US$11.31 billion in 2006. Acer's North American market share slipped over the past few years while the European market share has gone up. In Europe, Acer mounted a highly visible association with the Ferrari Formula 1 Team and the former F1 team, Prost Grand Prix in 2001. They offer a popular line of premium laptops and LCD monitors with Ferrari branding. It has recently broadened the scope of its relationship with Ferrari by announcing it will sponsor the Formula One team until 2008. Acer has recently introduced the Ferrari line of products to North America, and rolled out a Ferrari-branded line of PDA devices. Acer ranks as the world's No. 4 branded PC vendor recently surpassing Lenovo. During the IFA Consumer Electronics Fair 2007, the Blu-ray Disc Association announced that Acer had joined their ranks. Acer will be adding BD-ROM and BD-R drives to their laptop and desktop systems in their attempt to promote the format
Acer (LSE: ACID) is a Taiwanese multinational electronics manufacturer. It owns the largest franchised computer retail chain in Taiwan, Acerland. Acer's product lineup includes desktop and mobile PCs (laptops),as well as PDAs, servers and storage, displays, peripherals, and e-business solutions for business, government, education, and home users.History
On August 27, 2007, Acer announced plans to acquire U.S. based rival Gateway Inc. for US$710 million. J.T. Wang, the company's chairman, said in a statement that the acquisition "completes Acer's global footprint, by strengthening our U.S. presence."
History of Sony Vaio
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VAIO, an acronym for Video Audio Integrated Operation, is a sub-brand for many of Sony's computer products. The branding was created to distinguish items that encompassed the use of consumer audio and video, as well as being conventional computing products. One example of this was the Sony VAIO W Series personal computer, which functioned as a regular PC and a miniature entertainment center. Although Sony made computers in the 1980s for the Japanese market only, Sony withdrew from the computer business around the turn of the decade. Sony's re-entry to the computer market, this time globally, under the new VAIO brand, started in 1996 with the PCV series of desktops. The VAIO logo also represents the integration of analog and digital technology. The 'VA' represents an analog wave and the 'IO' represents digital binary code.
Products laptop sony vaio
Sony is expanding the use of the VAIO label. It can now be found on notebooks, subnotebooks, desktop, and a hard-disk-based audio player that comes in both 20GB and 40GB variations (called VAIO POCKET player). Network media solutions by Sony will also carry the VAIO brand. High-end VAIO notebooks are usually shipped with Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium or Business, while low end laptops such as N series come with Microsoft Vista Home Basic. As of October 2005, VAIO notebooks and desktop are available upon request without pre-installed software at a slightly lower price. Most recently, some models no longer ship with a Recovery CD, but a special partition on the hard drive is used for the recovery information, including operating system and all bundled software. VAIO users are prompted to create a set of recovery CDs or DVDs immediately after purchase.
VAIO computers come with components from companies such as Intel processors, Seagate Technology or Fujitsu hard drives, Infineon RAM, Sony (usually made by Hitachi) or Matsushita optical drives, Intel or NVIDIA graphics
Technology
The VAIO brand holds many unique technologies to its name. Some of these are:
Some Sony VAIO models come with Sony's proprietary XBRITE (also named as ClearBright in Japan and Asia-Pacific region) displays. The first model that introduce this feature is the VAIO TR series. It is also the first consumer product to utilize such technology. It is a combination of smooth screen, anti-reflection (AR) coating and high-efficiency lens sheet. Sony claims that the smooth finish provides a sharper screen display, the AR coating prevents external light from scattering when it hits the screen, and the high-efficiency lens sheet provides 1.5 times the brightness improvement over traditional LCD designs, while also extending battery life due to less usage of the LCD backlight. The technology was pioneered by Sony engineer Masaaki Nakagawa, who is in charge of the VAIO TR development. More information can be found here: [1].
Recent models, such as the TX or SZ, have implemented the LED backlit XBRITE LCD, which further enchance power saving and accurate color reproduction capability of the LCD unit.
The SZ series features both an Intel GMA 950 graphics chip and an NVIDIA graphics chip. These laptops can cold-switch between the GMA 950, to preserve battery life, or the NVIDIA chip, to enhance graphics performance. Currently, these laptops are the only products on the market with this function. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mobile/display/sony-vaio-vgnsz.html
The high-end AR Series VAIOs were the first to incorporate a Blu-ray Disc burner. These laptops were designed to be the epitome of high-definition products including a 1080p capable WUXGA (1920 × 1200 pixels) screen, HDMI output and the aforementioned Blu-ray burner. The AR series also include an illuminated logo below the screen.
Top ten laptop
Dell Inspiron 1520
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| Manufacturer: | Dell |
| Model: | Dell Inspiron 1520 |
| Screen Size: | 15.4 inches |
| Weight: | 6 lbs |
| Processor Options: | Core 2 Duo |
| Graphics Options: | Integrated, nVidia Go 8400m (Dedicated), nVidia Go 8600m (Dedicated) |
| Description: | The Dell Inspiron 1520 is a 15.4" screen notebook that has Intel's new Santa Rosa processor platform. The 1520 offer multiple color configurations and also comes with a built-in web camera. |
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Lenovo (IBM) ThinkPad T61
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Toshiba Satellite A130 / A135
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| Manufacturer: | Toshiba |
| Model: | Toshiba Satellite A135-S2386 Notebook |
| Screen Size: | 15.4 inches |
| Weight: | 7 lbs |
| Processor Options: | Core Duo, Core 2 Duo |
| Graphics Options: | Integrated |
| Description: | The Toshiba Satelite A135 series is a 15.4-inch mainstream Core Duo or Core 2 Duo based notebook with optional dual hard drives and Windows Vista operating system. |
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Sony VAIO SZ
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| Manufacturer: | Sony |
| Model: | Sony VAIO Notebook SZ Premium Series - VGN-SZ460N/C |
| Screen Size: | 13.3 inches |
| Weight: | 4 lbs |
| Processor Options: | Core Duo, Core 2 Duo |
| Graphics Options: | nVidia Go 7400 (Dedicated) |
| Description: | Configure the SZ notebook to create your own perfect blend of functionality, portability and style. The ultra-slim VAIO SZ notebook delivers an uncompromising blend of intelligent mobile design, cutting-edge performance and contemporary style. The 13.3" widescreen display with XBRITE LCD technology, razor-thin LCD panel, long battery life, Intel Core Duo processor, 5400rpm SATA hard drive, advanced DDR2 memory and sleek charcoal black casing, come together in a package designed to let you work faster and play longer. Value added features, such as the built-in camera and microphone for convenient and fun communication or biometiric fingerprint sensor for premium security without the added hassle, round out this incredible package and equip you with a powerful tool for both work and play. |
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HP Pavilion dv6500t
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| Manufacturer: | HP |
| Model: | HP Pavilion dv6565us - Core 2 Duo T5250 1.5 GHz - 15.4 |
| Screen Size: | 15.4 inches |
| Weight: | 6 lbs |
| Processor Options: | Core 2 Duo |
| Graphics Options: | nVidia Go 8400m (Dedicated) |
| Description: | The HP dv6500t is a 15.4" screen laptop with Centrino Duo technology, optional web camera and Nvidia graphics or integrated |
| Specs: | 6.2 lbs, Intel Core 2 Duo (1.5 GHz) , 2 GB DDR II SDRAM , 15.4 in TFT active matrix , Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium |
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Apple MacBook Pro
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| Manufacturer: | Apple |
| Model: | Apple MacBook Pro 2007 Edition (Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, 17-Inch Screen) |
| Screen Size: | 15.4, 17 inches |
| Weight: | 6 lbs |
| Processor Options: | Core Duo, Core 2 Duo |
| Graphics Options: | ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 (Dedicated) |
| Description: | The MacBook Pro may give Apple bragging rights to the prettiest and most powerful laptop on the planet. Featuring the new Intel Core Duo and an ATI X1600 graphics card along with the Tiger Mac OS X this laptop boasts both power and style. |
| Specs: | Intel Core 2 Duo (2.4 GHz) , 2 GB DDR II SDRAM , 17 in TFT active matrix , Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger |
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Dell Vostro 1500
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| Manufacturer: | Dell |
| Model: | Dell Vostro 1500 |
| Screen Size: | 15.4 inches |
| Weight: | 6.3 lbs |
| Processor Options: | Core 2 Duo |
| Graphics Options: | nVidia Go 8400m (Dedicated), nVidia Go 8600m (Dedicated) |
| Description: | The Vostro 1500 is a terrific balance of performance and portability, featuring extensive technology options, enhanced wireless connectivity, exceptional durability, and many features great for business users. |
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Acer laptop TravelMate 2480
Acer laptop for everyone
Experience the new standard in affordable mobile technology for self-employed professionals as well as small- and medium-sized companies. The Acer laptop TravelMate 2480 is powered by an Intel Celeron M Processor and provides dependable functionality and efficiency to enhance your business potential.
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Panasonic laptop Y5
Full Specifications: Panasonic Toughbook Y5 Laptop Computer
| Processor Brand | Intel |
| Processor Class | Core Duo |
| Processor Speed | 1.66 GHz |
| Mobile Technology | Intel Centrino Duo |
Click here for more information
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Toshiba laptop Qosmio G45-AV680
Toshiba laptop Product Specifications
Processor for laptop
Processor Type * : Core™2 Duo Processor Number * : T7300 Processor Speed * : 2.0GHz Front Side Bus * : 800MHz Operating System **
Genuine Windows Vista™ Ultimate (32-bit)Click here for more information Read more!
Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi laptop
Overview/Specifications: Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi (view larger image) Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi Specs: Reasons for buying this laptop: Well, asides from the obvious? To give some background quickly, the Acer Ferrari 4000 series consists of the Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi and the 4002WLMi. The 4002 is not widely available yet, but it will be slightly cheaper, less powerful, and have a glossy screen. Purchase details: Purchased from ZipZoomFly, I got a great deal at $2,079. Price has since gone up to $2,149, but that does include free ground shipping. Took about a week, but was very easy and convenient, and it arrived in perfect condition. Out of the box: 
Radeon Xpress 200M Chipset
I don't like the glossy screens in general though, and the power drop to the 4002 is significant. Before hearing about the Ferrari, I was debating between the Dell Inspiron 6000, and the HP dv4000. I loved the dv4000's media controls, but it had integrated graphics and low maximum ram (1 gb). The Dell was a great value, but the look left something to be desired in my opinion. Still, it was going to be my choice until I heard about the Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi. I had seen the previous Ferrari itterations (3000, 3200, 3400), and I loved the look; however they were a tad too flashy for me. I wanted something that could look respectable in a formal setting, but also would look and feel very nice in an informal one. I really dont think there is any question this is the best looking laptop ever made, with a possible exception of those Chameleon paint job Alienware's a while back. Everyone will comment on how nice it looks, which can be a good or a bad thing. Still, its not as theft-prone as the Ferrari 3000 series, as it doesnt immediately stand out as much. However up close it looks much better in my opinion. Getting off of the physical aspects, I also wanted a laptop that could play games somewhat well, and would last a while. The x700 graphics card is somewhat overkill for me, but you will be able to play any game you want on the highest settings for a while. The 64 bit processor will also ensure that this will work with Longhorn when that comes out. I wanted a 15.4" screen; weight wasnt a huge issue, but i didnt want something that was really bulky. Well as you can see in the specifications, this baby weighs a mere 6.3 lbs, and is both thin and light. About the Ferrari name, basically they license Acer to make a computer with their logo on it. Yah, you might pay a bit extra for it, but the computer is worth it without the logos and the look. With them, honestly it's a good value.
Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi box (view larger image)
Yah, even the box is beautiful. Comes with a ton of stuff too; mouse, a very good set of guides and easy manuals. Quick reference sheet, phone cable, LCD screen cloth, warranty information, and a several software disks for both drivers and a windows XP Pro disk.
Build & Design laptop:
I had never h
Aeard of Acer until I saw the Ferrari; however they have a great reputation as a computer maker, and that prooved true to form with this computer. I dont want to go back into the design too much, but this looks sensational. The lid is made of a carbon fiber covered in a plastic resin, and it is very sturdy in addition to looking great. The screen and laptop as a whole are a bit bendy, but the screen doesnt ripple at all if pressure is applied to the lid. This is great since if you by accidentally drop something on the top, the screen is well protected. There is no wobble on the hinges, it feels very sturdy, and gives a decisive click when you close it. Again, it bends a VERY small amount, but nothing more than any other laptop I'd expect. It is a very wide screen, so that could be part of it. All the ports and slots are well placed, as there are USB ports on both sides of the computer. Headphone jack on front is nice. Design as a whole is very nice. It does get hot if you leave it on for a while, specifically the mouse pad and lft side under computer. However the rubber finish surrounding the keyboard insolates fairly well. Fans are positioned well on sides so as to not heat user. Kensington lock slot is always nice.
Acer Ferrari 4005 right side (view larger image)
Acer Ferrari 4005 left side (view larger image)
Acer Ferrari 4005 back side (view larger image)
Acer Ferrari keyboard area (view larger image)
Free mouse included! (view larger image)
...and a free cloth (view larger image)
Screen:
Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi Screen (view larger image)
No dead pixels! Resolution is 1680x1050, which looks spectacular for games and movies. No leaks or any other issues, just a great screen. Some things people might not like though is that it is a very wide screen, which is great for excel stuff but not so good for web browsing. Turning up the text size on pages makes this a fairly small problem though, as does installing Microsoft Cleartype. Also, movies will have black borders around every side, as the screen is too big I think. I personally like the matte finish better than the reflective ones, as I will use this outside quite a bit. Finally, some icons might be a little blurry, as they are not made for the high resolution. Brightness can be turned down by simple function task.
Speakers/Sound:
Integrated microphone and two speakers. Microphone/line-in and stereo headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support ports. Works great, as you will see when you first turn on the computer: a roaring ferrari sound greets you once you first log on (not sure what program they use for this but its very cool). Headphone volume is very weak though, and I would recommend getting the Turtle Beach USB Audio Advantage Micro. Sound is crisp though, works very well for movies as the surround sound gives a very cool feel. Speakers are set on front of computer as well, so it is very clear.
Processor and Performance:
Honestly, I have no complaints about speed on this laptop, as would be expected. From pressing the power button, it takes 20 seconds to get to the Windows log in screen, and after putting in password, a little under 5 seconds to hear the Ferrari roaring by, signaling your computer is ready to go. Hard drive is very snappy, and I havent encounted any speed issues. Might upgrade to 2 gb ram eventually, but for now everything I run is pretty instantaneous. Very nice to work with a computer with no lag. I know this isnt a lot about performance, but I really cant see how this would fall short of anyone's expectations in this department. It would give a serious challenge to even the best of the big 17" desktop replacement laptops, and blows away any of the 15" ones. Decided not to undervolt, overclock, or partition it; dont want to risk anything happening, and it runs perfectly anyways.
The processor matches the performance of the logo (view larger image)
DVD Super Multi Drive:
First the stats.
- Read -- 24X CD-RW, 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 8X DVD-ROM, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 3X DVD-RAM, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer)
- Write -- 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 4X CD-RW, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer), 2X DVD-RAM
Slot drive is a cool feature, if for nothing other than its novelty. Can't play mini-cds which sucks a little, but if it ever became a huge deal I could replace this or get a USB one. Burns very quickly.
Benchmarks:
The popular Super Pi benchmark for this site gives a rough approximation how the Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi stands up to other notebooks:
| Notebook | Time to Calculate Pi to 2 Million Digits |
| Acer Ferrari 4005WLMi (AMD Turion 64 ML-37, 2.0GHz) | 1m 50s |
| Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Alviso Pentium M) | 1m 53s |
| IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Alviso Pentium M) | 1m 45s |
| Fujitsu LifeBook N3510 (1.73 GHz Alviso Pentium M) | 1m 48s |
| Dell Inspiron 6000D (1.6 GHz Alviso Pentium M) | 1m 52s |
| Dell Inspiron 600M (1.6 GHz Dothan Pentium M) | 2m 10s |
| Sony VAIO S360 (1.7 GHz Dothan Pentium M) | 1m 57s |
| Gateway 7510GX (AMD Mobile Athlon 64 3700+ Processor, 2.4 GHz) | 1m 31s |
| Sony VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Alviso Pentium M) | 1m 42s |
3D Mark 2005 Score: 2356
Note: The games loaded VERY quickly, and watching some of them was like watching a movie.
Input devices:
88-key Acer FineTouch keyboard with five-degree curve, inverted T cursor layout, 2.5mm minimum key travel, international language support. Web browser, e-mail, user-programmable easy-launch buttons; Empowering Key; front-access wireless LED and Bluetooth buttons. Touchpad with four-way integrated scroll button. Gloss-black optical mouse. Keyboard is very well built, although the curved layout takes a bit to get used to. Not sure if I like it more than a regular one, but it isnt horrible. Touchpad is very nice, although it gets hot, but its large to accomidate widescreen. The function buttons are good, and volume/brightness are especially easy to change. Screen doesnt flex at all. Programable buttons at top are nice; you can change all of them to do whatever you want very easilly through launch manager; however initially they are set for Outlook (email button), Internet Explorer (world button), Acer Emanager (e button), and Launch Manager (P button). The latter lets you change the buttons, but I like to use it for Microsoft Word. Very nice feature. Bluetooth and Lan buttons are nice, but not sure why they are on front. Still they glow nicely when on. Definately could use some media controls, thats a fairly large negative imo, as only thing you can control is the volume. The mouse has gotten some flack for being fluky, but I had no issues with it. It is very easy to connect, and recharges via USB (although you can still use it when its plugged in). Looks nice, and has a good feel. Not a great mouse per say, but it looks good and is functional. On a quirky sidenote, has a Euro key and Dollar key right next to the arrows. Not sure this is really necessary, but not a negative.The touchpad comes with a very cool software, Synaptics touchpad 5.9. Basically it lets you customize the touchpad completely, including sensitivity, layout, and a really cool button feature. Basically, you can set the four corners of the touchpad to do different functions when tapped. For example, I have the upper left set as "Back", the upper right as "Forward", the bottom left as "Goto start menu" and the bottom right as "Refresh". The buttons give a good click, and the four way scroll is a very cool feature. If you want the four buttons here are also reprogramable, a general theme of this notebook.
Input and Output Ports:
VGA, DVI-D (digital visual interface-digital) and S-video TV-out ports. Support for simultaneous display on notebook LCD and external monitor. Intel AC97 compliant, Interface Ports, DC-in, RJ-11 modem, RJ-45 LAN, VGA, DVI-D (digital visual interface-digital), S-video TV-out, Microphone/line-in, Stereo headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support, FireWire (IEEE 1394), FIR (fast infrared), Four USB 2.0, Connector for optional ezDock docking station. Type II PC Card slot, 32-bit PC CardBus architecture, Zoomed Video support. Easilly accessible USB and ethernet ones. 5-in-1 is in front and easy to use.
Wireless:
Acer InviLink 802.11b/g wireless LAN, Acer SignalUp technology for enhanced antenna efficiency, WI-FI CERTIFIED . Bluetooth wireless PAN. Acer SignalUp is great, and bluetooth is very good. Controls are accessible as previously mentioned, but a little annoying as you can accidentally turn them off depending on how you type. No complaints.
Battery/AC Adapter:
90-watt AC adapter, which is actually not too big. Eight-cell lithium ion battery; up to 3.0 hours life depending on configuration and usage; 2.5 hours recharge time with system off, 3.5 hours with system in use. Very easy to put in, as it just fits in the back. Doesn't stick out, but if you dont have it in there is a gaping hole that you can see
Operating System and Software:
Installed software: Acer eManager, Acer GridVista Acer Launch Manager, Adobe Acrobat Reader, CyberLink PowerDVD *, Norton AntiVirus *, NTI CD-Maker *, on CD shipped with system: Acer System Recovery. All very easy to use, and convenient. I reinstalled drivers upon getting it, figured why not. Software is very nice though, especially the Launch manager. Nothing amazing, but a nice touch. Comes with XP Pro, with SP2 already installed. User and administrator BIOS passwords are easilly set up through EManager.
Customer Support/Warranty:
Haven't talked to anyone at Acer, because honestly I dont really need to. It was simple to set up, and registration consisted of me looking at the bottom of my computer and typing in numbers. After that, the warranty was set; however I bought a 3 year total protection plan for $280, as it seems worth it for a computer this beautiful.
Pros (will try to limit to 5, although I think its fairly obvious I could go on for a while!):
- Ferrari (it's so pretty.....)
- Performance (works perfectly and is insanely fast)
- Easilly customizable
- 64 bit procesor (ensures future viability)
- Included extras are a very nice touch
Cons (seriously, this is all of them, not including that EVERYONE will notice your laptop):
- Bluetooth/wireless controls on front (vs being near keyboard)
- Lack of media controls
- Keyboard/mousepad heat
- Headphone volume
- Screen/carbon fiber top tend to smudge, although the cleaning cloth gets rid of those quickly
Conclusion:
Great laptop, which will last you a while. Definately get the USB sound drive and the total protection warranty extension. At around $2,200 from most retailers, it is a tad pricey; however it really is worth it if you want a great performing laptop. The sensational design is the icing
(from http://www.notebookreview.com) Read more!
Sony VAIO SZ2 laptop
Background of Sony VAIO SZ2 laptop The VAIO SZ is Sony's latest thin and light range of notebooks, available in a range of specifications all with dual Intel / nVidia graphics and Intel dual core processors. I opted for the flagship SZ2VP model with the following specifications: Being the limited edition prestige' model, this was only available to purchase through Sony Centres or Sony Style online. After a visit to my local Sony Centre and being told a very vague "we might be able to get one for mid September" I decided to pursue the online method! Build and Design My first thoughts on unpacking the SZ were "wow...it's small!" This is my first laptop, yet with the top level VP' only weighing in at 1.69 kilos (3.7 lbs) I was very pleased with the size and weight of the unit. The VP features a carbon fibre top casing, yet there is much discussion as to how much carbon fibre is actually present in the laptop! The casing does not feature the weave' you would expect from this material, yet it still provides an interesting effect and also contains blue metallic particles visible in certain light conditions. The palm rest and keypad area have a brushed aluminium finish which makes a great change from the plastic of many other machines and gives great aesthetic appeal. There are a total of 5 switches located above the keyboard; two shortcut switches, a wireless on/off switch, power button and the graphics switch. It's a shame you can't turn off wifi/Bluetooth independently with hardware switches but it is easily done from the software utility. Screen The LCD features LED backlight technology, which gives a very thin screen and lid -- only around 5/6mm thick. Whilst helping to reduce weight and giving a great look to the product, it does make the LCD seem slightly fragile with a little amount of twist (though probably not as much as you'd expect from something this thin). The 1280 x 800 resolution works excellently on the 13.3" screen. Not having perfect eyesight, I was concerned about a high resolution on a smaller screen but I find it a pleasure to use with absolutely no problems. It features Sony's X-Black technology, which gives the typical glossy effect to the screen. Not having a massive range of experience with various manufacturers, I can't really compare it to others, yet suffice to say it also seems to feature some kind of anti glare coating which is hard to describe but it seems to reduce the visible reflections from objects behind you. I am also impressed with the very large viewing angle on the screen, far more so than any other LCD's I've used. The brightness on the screen is excellent and I find myself turning it down from the highest setting when indoors and only using the brightest setting when outside, which still gives a decent picture. Features and Performance I'm not a gamer yet I tend to run multiple applications at the same time, particularly resource hogs like Photoshop. The Core Duo seems to live up to the task very well though I can't say it's any faster compared to my desktop running an Athlon XP at 2.17Ghz with the same 1GB of RAM and a lowly graphics card. The dual graphics are a fantastic feature and allow you to switch between the integrated Intel GMA 950 chipset, or the dedicated nVidia GeForce 7400 with 128mb dedicated memory. Use the Intel while running office applications to conserve battery life, or the nVidia for more extreme use. A restart is required to flick between the two chips, which is a bit of an annoyance yet it is still an excellent innovation and something I haven't come across in any other laptops. The fingerprint reader is located between the two touchpad buttons and although I considered it a toy in the pre-purchase stage, I now consider it a godsend! It can be used for logging onto Windows, launching applications (assign an app. to each finger) or entering passwords into web windows. It does the job very well and recognises my fingers first go around 95% of the time. To check security I asked a co-worker to try and logon to my system but they were denied access even after 5 minutes of trying! While I'm sure it's not that secure, it is certainly a viable alternative to entering hundreds of passwords. The optical drive provides pretty much every kind of functionality I could ever dream of with dual layer DVD +/- rewrite ability. My only gripe would be that the disc tray seems a little fragile, yet for the amount I use the drive this is only a minor concern. I suspect this is due to the thin form factor of the laptop. Expresscard 34 and a PCMCIA slots both feature on the laptop, yet the Expresscard is filled with Sony's included card reader which seems to cope with all the main formats such as SD and MMC. A built-in Sony memory stick duo reader takes care of their own format, but it's a shame they shun the popular SD format to a separate reader in favour of their own cards. It also seems Sony were a bit tight on room by only including two USB 2 ports, which although is adequate for myself, I'd have preferred to have seen more. There's VGA out but no composite video for outputting to a TV, which I consider a major downside on a laptop costing £1800 ($3,000)! Also, my VGA to TV converter doesn't work on this laptop like it did on my Mac Mini meaning it will be difficult to output the image to a standard TV screen. Heat and Noise The laptop seems exceptionally quiet, and the fan noise is almost inaudible in anything other than total silence. I've yet to hear the fans totally shut down, but this may be because I primarily use the nVidia graphics. Shortcut button 2 is pre-set to drop fan noise and CPU clock, yet whenever I've used it the difference has been minimal. The optical drive is far from quiet when in use and during start-up, yet again as I use it so little this is not a problem for myself. It seems to produce a fair amount of heat when using the nVidia graphics, though no more than I'd expect from a performance orientated machine with dedicated graphics and it never gets annoyingly hot, just quite warm. Again this is something I can live with. Using the Intel graphics allows the laptop to run very cool and quiet. SONY Keyboard and Touchpad laptop After reading various forum reports of problems with the spacebar and keyboard in general on the SZ I was very sceptical. However after using it for a few weeks it seems to have none of these problems. I neither greatly like or dislike the keypad and assume it's something I'll grow to like over time but at the moment I'm still adjusting from my full sized Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard. The key travel seems about right and it seems relatively quiet in operation. Being a touch typist, I still occasionally hit the wrong key but again, I'm sure this is something I will adjust to over time. The touchpad has a slightly rough texture to it which works well, and it is easily configurable from within windows for scrolling and tapping speed, etc. Another neat feature is the ability to use the top left corner to maximise, minimise or close windows. Perhaps this is common to other laptops too, but I was still impressed by this simple feature. I later discovered, however, that I kept inadvertently tapping the top left corner while typing and this led to me closing the window I was working in! So this corner functionality has now been disabled; a shame really. Sony peakers laptop I was all set to purchase a cheap pair of speakers to supplement my laptop, yet I think I'll leave this for a while now given the quality of the built in speakers. Peering through the grille results in what looks like a pair of tiny (half-inch) diameter drivers which result in an exceptionally clear and loud sound. Of course, there's no bass but I really wouldn't have been disappointed had the speakers had JBL or similar logos on! External audio is provided through a 3.5mm line out socket, though the output seems very quiet when using this into my amplified external speakers. There is also a massive amount of hiss/feedback that appears only when the AC power cord is plugged in. If someone uses the external audio a lot then this will prove annoying and the Sony representative I spoke to did not have any idea what it could be. SPDIF optical output would have been nice, especially as this one of the most expensive laptops on the market today! Sony Battery laptop Doing everyday tasks as I have been for the past weeks, using the nVidia graphics and wireless and Bluetooth on I reliably get just under three hours battery life. This is using a high/mid LCD brightness setting. I expect 4+ hours easily using the Intel graphics with wireless switched off. Sony offer an extended life battery, but it is far too expensive at around £240 and increases the size and weight of the laptop considerably (see the notebook review forums). Sony Bundled Software laptop This is by far and away the laptops worst feature. The amount of bundled useless software was unbelievable and performance out of the box was far below my expectations. Sony make it reasonably difficult to do a clean install, by not providing a separate windows CD (or any CD's... for that matter) in the box. They include a hidden recovery partition on the hard drive and there is an option to create your own recovery discs. The problem with recovery is that it would reinstall all the bundled nonsense! I have a separate standalone copy of XP pro so I installed this on the laptop with no problems, using the drivers available to download from Sony's website. Though there are many forum posts relating to this issue, I had a problem free clean install and everything works perfectly. Benchmarks: Super Pi calculated to 2 million: Notebook Time Sony VAIO SZ2 (2.16GHz Core Duo) 1m 14s Asus W3H760DD (2.0 GHz Pentium M) 1m 33s Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo) 1m 16s Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo) 1m 18s Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.00GHz Core Duo) 1m 18s Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo) 1m 29s Dell XPS M140 (1.86 GHz Pentium M) 1m 41s Sony VAIO FS680 (1.86 GHz Pentium M) 1m 53s IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M) 1m 45s
Sony VAIO SZ2 (view large image)
Sony VAIO SZ2 setup (view large image)
VAIO SZ2 right side view (view large image)
VAIO SZ2 left side view (view large image)
VAIO SZ2 front side view (view large image)
VAIO SZ2 back side view (view large image)
Included media card reader in the ExpressCard slot (view large image)
3DMark05:
| Notebook Comparison | 3DMark05 Score |
| Sony VAIO SZ2 (2.16GHz Core Duo, nVidia GeForce 7400) | 1,851 |
| ASUS W3V (2.0 GHz Pentium M, ATI X600 | 1,263 |
| Lenovo ThinkPad Z60m (2.0GHz Pentium M, ATI X600 128MB) | 1,659 |
| ThinkPad T43 (1.86GHz, ATI X300 64MB graphics) | 727 |
| Asus V6Va (2.13 GHz Pentium M, ATI Radeon Mobility x700 128 MB) | 2,530 |
| HP dv4000 (1.86GHz Pentium M, ATI X700 128MB) | 2,536 |
| Toshiba Satellite M100 (2.0GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400 128MB) | 1,660 |
HD Tune:
Conclusion
I am very pleased with the SZ2VP. Is it a performance machine...is it a thin and light...is it a desktop replacement? It combines extreme performance in an exceptionally lightweight package. I was after a super-fast notebook to take to university and the weight saving is a fantastic plus.
Spending an afternoon reformatting isn't much work for the machine you have at the end, but it shouldn't be a required step.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com ) Read more!
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 laptop
Overview for Toshiba laptop My grandmother's Toshiba Satellite 1805-S207 has never been a speed demon, and to say that it was slow was an understatement. This unit would crawl from one screen to another, and even my grandmother would leave a Solitare window open so she could “play a bit while the computer caught up.” When her birthday rolled around this year, I suggested purchasing her a new laptop computer. Upon checking the circulars on Easter weekend, a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 was on sale for $599 at Best Buy. So, with her consent, we went and purchased it. I can't say that I looked up any others; I've always been a Toshiba loyalist myself. My grandmother, cousins, several friends, as well as the school system I attend and work for all have Toshibas, and all have fantastic track records. Some friends who have Dell, Acer, and HP have all had major problems. So it was only natural that I would continue to buy Toshiba. The system has very nice specifications for the price: Toshiba laptop The Screen The first thing that I looked at when I opened the box was the screen. I've been annoyed by the prominence of the high glare screens in most notebook computers sold today, and took the opportunity to see just how distracting my reflection and the glare would be. The “Tru-Brite” screen isn't nearly as annoying as I thought it would be, though it is more annoying than my laptop's matte screen. (I have a Toshiba Satellite A15-S157) It is certainly much brighter than mine, though that could also be explained by the fact that my system is nearing four years old and has been almost constantly used during that time. I also notice fingerprints beginning to show up on the screen, which are more distracting than the various reflections and glare. The screen itself was of good build quality, seeing as it had no dead pixels that I could see. There is no leaking at the edge and the backlighting seemed very even. Even when I booted Kubuntu and had just a command line, the lighting seems to be quite even. The screen on the unit, especially with the “Tru-Brite technology,” exceeded my expectations with its quality. Toshiba laptop Build Quality laptop The case is a thick plastic that is black on the inside and on the bottom, with a gray finish on the outer shell. It feels well-built, as there's not much “give” to it when pressed on. Pressing on the screen from the inside or from the shell causes no change in the appearance of the screen, and it feels well-protected from normal pressures, especially compared to my current Toshiba. I attempted to twist the screen and though it was definitely not flimsy, it does twist a little bit. The screen is held on by two hinges on the unit, and they provided a nice amount of resistance. My laptop's hinges failed after two years of heavy use and were repaired under the extended warranty, but initially felt just as sturdy as these, so only time will tell as to the quality of these hinges. Toshiba laptop Speakers and Sound One of the first things I noticed about the Toshiba is that the classic sound dial on the front of the machine was no longer a hardware control. The dial now controls the master software volume control, and for this reason was quite a bit less sensitive. It took several turns of the dial to adjust it from high volume to no volume, though I imagine this could be adjusted in software. The speakers themselves seemed to be of moderate quality. I did not try to max them out, but after a certain point the sound did become distorted on the music I was listening to, a Q8 Ogg Vorbis recording downloaded from Jamendo. The sound jacks are on the front of the system, which is somewhat of a mixed blessing. My current laptop has the sound jacks on the side, and this makes angled connectors favorable in all conditions. By moving them to the front, they seem more awkwardly placed. Without an angled connector, it seems that a plug could be easily pulled or leaned on, but with an angle connector the cable would then go out to the sides better. However, it seems that by putting them on the front, you gain a greater ability to reposition yourself with respect to the system without worrying about pulling too much on the cord if you pull too far to one side or the other. Toshiba laptop Processor and Performance/Heat and Noise laptop The system features a Core Duo processor, a last generation chip, but for the simple tasks my grandmother will be using it for, it functions just fine. In fact, the system was quite snappy in its response compared to what I expected from a system running Windows Vista. One thing that sticks out about this system was how cool the area under the processor fan is. Unlike my current system (Netburst Celeron 2.2GHz), which can get too hot to touch, this system never felt hot to the touch underneath, and even the air that blew out of the side never got very hot, even under stress. The processor fan is also much quieter than my own system's fan, and the palm rest stays cool. Below are the results of HDTune when run on the A135, HDTune measures the hard drive speed and performance Keyboard and Touchpad The A135 line looks to be the last line to use the classic Toshiba keyboard layout, that puts the Windows and Menu keys at the top right, and the Ins and Del keys below the right hand. I've always preferred this layout on laptops, seeing as I am primarily a Linux user and the Windows key could easily be replicated with Ctrl+Esc. As far as the construction quality on the keyboard itself, it seems to be well-made. It has almost no flex to it, and the keys are much quieter than the keys on my current system. The keys are shifted to the right on this system to allow for the power button and four media buttons to be placed to the left of the keyboard. These keys seem to perform their purpose, though admittedly I haven't spent much time with them. The touchpad is correctly placed so that one can easily type without touching it. As with both old systems, this unit will also scroll by sliding up and down the right edge of the touch pad. I was disappointed to find that the included software would not emulate a middle-click by clicking both buttons at once, but this is a driver issue rather than a hardware issue. Input and Output The system is covered in ports. Slots: Ports: I don't understand the logic in placing two of the USB ports on the right side right where one would be using a mouse, but it's good to at least have them. Toshiba laptop Battery I timed the battery on the system, and during an intense session of uninstalling default software and then installing things that were required, the battery life hit 3% after 121 minutes. This is a bit shorter than my current system's battery when new, and I wish that Toshiba could have squeezed an extra half an hour out of it. However, it is difficult to know how it would perform when merely surfing the Internet. Toshiba laptop Wireless The wireless card included in the unit is an Atheros card. My grandmother's old laptop had no internal wireless, and thus was connected with a D-Link PCMCIA wireless card. This system works flawlessly all over her house, whereas the old system would lose signal in the Family Room where she would watch TV most often. The unit also includes a switch on the front to turn this functionality on and off. Toshiba laptop Windows Vista My expectations were so low for Windows Vista that it should come as no surprise that I was mildly impressed by it. The first thing that struck me was how slow it was to start up, given how Microsoft had claimed to speed up the boot time on Vista. After sitting on the BIOS screen for 13 seconds, Vista then took 2:01 to get to the desktop, with system tray applications still loading. The 3D effects and translucency were all very nice, and I'm finding that I miss those now that I'm away from that system. They certainly add to the experience and make things feel smoother. Another thing that annoyed me was the sluggishness of I/O operations. File transfers seemed to take forever and a day. I tried to move 300MB worth of files off of the hard drive and onto a USB disk and gave up after the first twenty minutes. The system came with much less junk software than I'd expected. It came with a collection of quickly-removed Wild Tangent games as well as a McAfee Security suite that was also quickly removed. I left the Office 2007 trial on it as well as Works 8, which I have not yet tested. Kubuntu Linux I took a few minutes to boot up the Kubuntu 6.10 Live CD on it and see how it responded. Naturally, the Atheros wireless card was detected but was not in a functional state. In addition, though the 5-in-1 card slot was detected and even detected when disks were inserted, apparently the driver that actually reads the card does not exist. With those exceptions, the system seems to run Kubuntu just fine.Buying Choices for the Toshiba Satellite A135-S4437 (Core Duo T2250 1.73GHz, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD) 
Amazon.com | $1,049.97
BigCityDirect.com | $998.98
Eritech | $1,095.00
69.6% of people recommend this product - view 56 opinions | rate product
Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 (view large image)
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Top view of Satellite A135 (view large image)
Underside view of Satellite A135 (view large image)
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( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
Lenovo ThinkPad T61p laptop
The T61p is the first widescreen ThinkPad mobile workstation, and the latest high-end offering from Lenovo. It comes with almost every feature a demanding business user could want, and is starting at a very reasonable price point below 1400 for the 14.1” model. This model has also gone under a number of changes from the previous generation, and in this ThinkPad T61p review you will find out how it stacks up. The ThinkPad T61p comes in two sizes, one being 14.1” and the model being reviewed at 15.4”. The key difference between both these lines, besides screen size, is the memory size of the NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M video card included with the system. You receive a 128MB card in the smaller 14.1” model, and double the memory at 256MB in the 15.4” model. The processor selection is the same, spanning from the Intel T7100 to T7700, memory from 1GB to 4GB, and hard drives from 60GB to 160GB in 5400 or 7200rpm flavors. Other options include a fingerprint reader, Bluetooth, Intel Turbo Memory, N-wireless, and an extended battery version. The following are the features of the 15.4” T61p being reviewed: Link to detailed specs for T61p Build and Design I’ll have to admit, as a current owner of a ThinkPad T60, I was quite eager to see what had been updated and changed with the T61. The items that gained the most attention out of the box were system operating temperatures, as well as the new LCD cover construction. Lenovo had advertised both items on how they were improved across the board, and I wanted to see just how much. Starting off with cooling system changes, I turned on the laptop and opened up tpfancontrol to watch the internal temperatures. CPU temps were very similar, but compared to my T60, GPU temps were 15-20C lower at idle! Obviously something changed under the hood of the laptop besides the wider heatsink grills. To take a closer look, I removed the keyboard from both machines, and compared the heatsinks side by side. The fan structure and CPU pad are quite similar, but the GPU/Northbridge side changed quite a bit. Key parts changed: All these changes account for the dramatically lower GPU temps at idle, even with the higher-end GPU that T61p has in comparison to the T60. Below are some figures clearly showing the differences in temperatures across the board. When the GPU was put under load, the playing field evened out. Both laptops have roughly the same size heatsink/fan meaning they will dissipate energy just at roughly the same speed. Both laptops had GPU temps peaked around the 80-81C range, with the T61p slightly higher (though it's a much better card than the old X1400 in my T60). Another aspect some might notice is how quiet the new T61 series is under load. At first I was thinking it was a new fan design, but playing with tpfancontrol I noticed you only have 3 fan speeds instead of 7 on the T60. It is quieter under high load because the fan is limited to ~3300rpm, whereas the T60 can go upwards of ~4300rpm. Less noise yes, but also less peak airflow. Speeds 1-3 are roughly the same noise level, but the T61 (with its newer heatsink design) spends more time without the fans on at all. The LCD cover was also changed on the T61, going from the stamped magnesium piece, to plastic. I am happy to say that not only is the plastic lid just as sturdy, but it has much less flex than the older cover. New on this model was an internal magnesium framework behind the screen for support, and this has obviously helped out a lot. With the old design, although it protected the screen just fine, you could still flex it in if you pressed hard enough with your thumb. On the new design, the internal framework supports the lid completely, preventing almost all flex. For those curious about items that didn’t change, the AC adapter, battery, and keyboard are the exact same parts found on the previous 15” T60 and Z60m/Z61m. Keyboard is tried and true, and you don’t have to worry about replacing your spare power cords, batteries, or even the docking station. Performance and Benchmarks With the broad range of Core 2 Duo processors available, combined with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M graphics, the T61p doesn’t fall short on performance. Even with its being targeted towards business applications, it has more than enough raw power for the latest games. Another fun fact for those curious about the video ram configuration, you will be happy to know this laptop has GDDR3 modules, Hynix hy5rs123235b to be exact. To keep system lag to a minimum, this particular configuration also had a 7200rpm Seagate hard drive. The following benchmarks are a testament to this business laptop’s shear power.Buying Choices for the Lenovo ThinkPad T61p 
Best Buy for Business | $2,917.99
83.8% of people recommend this product - view 37 opinions | rate product
Lenovo ThinkPad T61p (view large image)
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A look at the GPU and cooling system (view large image)
Screen
The WUXGA high resolution screen that comes standard on the 15.4” T61p has a very good contrast, and plenty of backlighting. I found the screen to be very easy to read in bright rooms and even outside. Direct sunlight does wash out the screen, but short of a perfect reflection off the screen it is quite readable outside. On higher backlight settings some mild backlight bleed was visible on a completely black screen. Viewing angles I felt were lacking, as colors washed out with vertical movement up or down. Horizontal angles were better, with little color distortion as you moved towards a steeper angle. Those who are worried about the off center screen causing viewing problems; I didn’t notice it once I started concentrating on what was on the screen. If that type of thing bugged you, the matte black finish, squared edges, and industrial looks would have turned you off well before that wider bexel on one edge. Overall the screen was fine for normal use sitting in front of the laptop, but deep down inside I wish some screen manufacturer offered a Flexview screen in this format.
One problem that wasn’t directly related to the screen itself was my eyes viewing the extremely fine resolution. This is a more personal preference than anything, and I would highly suggest that you find a 15” WUXGA screen to play with in person before you make the purchase. My preference is the lower SXGA+ (1400x1050), or SWXGA+ (1680x1050) resolution range for the 15” screen size for ease of viewing.
Keyboard, Touchpad, and Fingerprint reader
The keyboard hasn’t changed much, in fact it is the identical part number to the one found on the older T60. This is great news for those hoping that the trusted layout and feel stayed the same into the new model. Same goes for the touchpad and fingerprint sensor. With many keyboard reviews, you generally see that particular model being compared against the “ThinkPad Keyboard” and this really holds true. You can type comfortably for hours at this keyboard as if it was your desktop in front of you. The support under the keyboard is very sturdy, with absolutely no flex anywhere.
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The touchpad while being on the small side compared to versions found on other laptops is still easy to operate. The semi-rough texture I find to be preferable to polished feel for better control, and it seems to hold up longer to oils on your finger without getting too slick. The Trackpoint hasn’t changed much over the years, and gives the same feel as it always has. The buttons for both the touchpad and trackpoint give a nice solid clunk when pressed, never needing to be forced to register the click. The fingerprint reader works great, although in general they take a while to get used to the swiping motion. If you have never used one before, it may be a few days before you get the single stroke login down pat.
Input and Output Ports
Front and center you find the firewire 400 connector, master wireless on/off switch, and 4 in 1 card reader:
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Left Side we see the VGA port, modem, LAN, microphone/speaker, USB, and Smartcard/PC Card slot:
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On the Right side we have the SATA HD Bay, Optical Drive Bay, USB Ports, and Kensington lock slot:
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The rear side has the battery, and AC connector:
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Audio and Speakers
The onboard audio on the T61p is more than adequate for mild entertainment while traveling, or listening to music in a smaller room. Don’t expect much in terms of bass and midrange from the speakers, and you won’t be disappointed. They provide more than enough volume for most tasks, but don’t compare to the speakers found on some of the media center laptops. The external headphone/speaker jack gave clear and hiss free sound, and had plenty of power to drive a larger set of headphones.
Networking
The T61p comes with Intel gigabit wired networking, as well as your choice of 3 wireless card offerings and a Bluetooth option. This configuration had the Intel 4965AGN card, but an Atheros based 11a/b/g card, as well as the Intel 3945ABG were also options. I had no problems connecting onto networks promptly, and configuration was easily controlled through Windows Vista. I had no problems connecting with “Very Good” signal strength anywhere around my 2500 sq ft brick house, with the Linksys WRT54g located in a central point. The Bluetooth transceiver was plug n play with all accessories I had laying around, although a few items were strict about using the MS Bluetooth stack or the Widcomm stack.
Heat and Noise
The T61p managed heat much better than the older T60 under normal use. In situations where the CPU and/or GPU would be close to an idle state, heat was dispersed passively through the chassis and keyboard with the fan turning on in small intervals. Under heavier loads the fans would come on more, but heat would still stay in acceptable ranges. Fan noise was minimal, with the 7200rpm drive almost always louder. Specific idle and load temperatures are listed in the “Build and Design” section above.
Battery
Off the grid users would be strongly recommended to look into the 9 cell battery for the T61p. With its beefier configuration, it has a tendency to suck down power at a greater rate compared the standard T61 or T60. While my old 15” t60 w/ t7400, x1400, 2gb, and 120gb 7200.2 can string out more than 5 hours on the 9 cell, the T61p comes in below 4 hours running in balanced mode with 50% backlight. It hit 5% on the battery gauge after running for 3 hours and 33 minutes.
Conclusion
Buying Choices for the Lenovo ThinkPad T61p
83.8% of people recommend this product - view 37 opinions | rate product |
Starting at around 1500 for the 15.4” version, the ThinkPad T61p is a great value. With many configurations possible depending on processor speed, ram, hard drive size, operating system, security features, and battery sizes you are bound to find a setup perfect for your needs. This machine offers high performance for both business and leisure (gaming) uses, without sacrificing any of the build quality of previous ThinkPad models. Platform updates from the T60 series seem to all be for the better, with other trusted components staying the same. Overall I find the T61p to be an excellent choice for almost any situation given its midrange price point.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
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Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop
Introduction for DELL laptop Inspiron 1520 The Dell Inspiron 1520 under review here is the latest 15.4” in an ever-growing succession of what can be categorized as “consumer mainstream” notebooks offered by Dell’s Home & Home Office division. Since the release of the 1520, Dell has also made available a very similar machine, the Vostro 1500, which can be purchased from the Small Business site. Unlike the Inspiron 1520, which can be configured with any one of eight different colors, the Vostro 1500 is solid black. The Vostro also provides a Windows XP option, which is unavailable in the Inspiron 1520. It should also be noted, for the benefit of anyone who is somewhat new to this website, that there is plenty of additional information on the 1520, including an excellent full-featured review by someone who actually purchased the 1520, as well as a side-by-side comparison of the 1520 and the HP dv6500t; this comparison includes a video that is definitely worth watching for anyone considering the Inspiron 1520, the HP dv6500t or any other 15.4” consumer notebook. Dell Inspiron 1520 Specs: Initial Impressions This Inspiron 1520 weighs about six and a half pounds and is considered a mainstream consumer notebook. Though Dell allows customization of the lid in up to eight different colors, our model has a conservative looking black lid. Because of that our machine lacks some of the consumer flair a “Flamingo Pink” lid would have offered. Nonetheless, my first impressions had to do with a couple of things that distinguish the 1520 from its predecessors: These two characteristics are what make the 1520 such an impressive achievement. I actually briefly owned the previous Inspiron generation's e1705 model, and reviewed the prior-generation e1405 thin-and-light notebook. I must say, the look of the current lineup is immeasurably more appealing. The old silver-and-white style always got me thinking of things like shag carpet and popcorn ceilings: sure, one can make a case for these innovations, just as one can make a case for thick white plastic trim around a notebook, but in the end (which usually comes within a matter of weeks if not months), the style grows tired, the initial promise hollow. The new Inspiron series design is cleaner, simpler and more tasteful. A cousin of the 1520, which shares its look, is the AMD-based Inspiron 1521. Purchasing Considerations laptop Though this notebook was sent by Dell for review purposes and not purchased, I wanted to touch on the above topic, simply because there is something of an art to purchasing a Dell consumer notebook. There are many decisions to make, and like all decisions, they carry with them the opportunity for regret or satisfaction. I heartily endorse this web site’s forums for a little glimpse into the thought, action and subsequent level of satisfaction of other buyers. As of this writing, deliberately moving along the Dell purchasing highway results in: These prices reflect no special discounts or coupons, just today’s standard upgrades and reductions, which are plainly available to anyone who orders a 1520 today. In any case, at the high end particularly, these prices strike me as very competitive, and a savvy shopper who finds coupons, buys their own memory and times the Dell marketing promotions can do better on price. One thing I found interesting while configuring a couple of 1520s on the Dell site was the price of a RAM upgrade from 2GB to 4GB: $850. Had I selected a higher-priced starting point, meaning a more full-figured set of warranty and support options, the cost of these 2 gigabytes of RAM would have moved away from the direction of a cool grand, but not by much. I saw no mention of this upgrade including a complimentary iPhone or round-trip flight to London, but it is there and available. That said, I would definitely opt for the T7300 CPU and the 8600M GT graphics included in this review model, if at all possible. While these enhancements will probably add three or four hundred dollars to the final price, they are well worth the cost and will almost certainly give the 1520 a longer useful life. Design As noted, I like the look of the Inspiron 1520 and see it as a vast improvement over the Inspiron e1505, the 1520’s predecessor. However, one thing I’ll mention is that my own preference is the black lid of this review model because I find, in pictures at least, that the machines with colored lids have too much color for me. Two distinct colors, in this case silver and black, are just about right. I also like the aforementioned Vostro 1500, very similar to this 1520 and available at the Dell Small Business site, because of the all-black look, including a black keyboard, and the possibility of Windows XP. Though many won’t, I see a black keyboard and XP as decided advantages. Also a welcome change is the placement and position of the keyboard and touchpad. The prior line of Inspirons featured a somewhat odd shaped keyboard that was set very close to the LCD, and a rather large touchpad placed in the middle of a vast sea of silver plastic. While this did allow the palm rests to accommodate even the most monstrous palms, the new Inspiron line, as represented by this review 1520, has a slightly smaller touchpad and a more centered keyboard; this redesign makes for more comfortable typing and touchpad operation, besides being more aesthetically harmonious. Build Laptop The Inspiron 1520 feels very solid. The only issue, which has been mentioned elsewhere, is the screen latch, which does have some play. Aside from this lack of a nice, snug fit, the latch did not bother me, and I found nothing in the build quality that would make me hesitant to purchase a 1520. Firm but gentle pushing and prodding revealed no flex or weakness. Input and Output Ports The Inspiron 1520 has the following ports selection: The screen Color and brightness were both good on the WSXGA glossy LCD. While I like and would myself choose this option, other resolutions are available: 1280x800 WXGA, in both glossy and non-glossy, and 1440x900, glossy only. This represents improved LCD variety and is a major selling point of the 1520; there is something for nearly everyone. Careful scrutiny revealed only one utterly trivial imperfection in the screen: an eighth of an inch or so of uneven backlighting at the bottom of the LCD, which was only visible when I looked very closely while running a screen saver with a dark background. There has been some discussion in this site’s forums about “grainy” LCDs in the 1520, but I detected none of this. However, I am admittedly not a good cohort for those studying LCD perfection; generally (but not always) I’m okay with the screens I use. Everest Home lists the screen as an SEC3350, a Seiko Epson manufactured LCD. Graphics The NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT is currently among the cream of the crop in notebook GPUs. Athough RivaTuner indicated that the 8600m in the Inspiron 1520 had DDR3 memory, in reality it is DDR2, which may be dissapointing to some. All the same, it's a powerful card and there were no graphics-related problems during my time with the 8600M. For those interested in gaming considerations, there is plenty of real-world information in this web site’s forums. Sound As always, or almost always, when discussing notebook sound: more than adequate for getting the gist, feel and intent of what’s being played, but definitely lacking in bass. Headphones or external speakers will provide a much more lifelike experience. Multimedia Features This 1520 came with a remote, snugly ensconced in the ExpressCard slot, as well as an array of physical media buttons on the front of the notebook. Both the built-in buttons and the remote worked as expected, forwarding and pausing and muting in accordance with my wishes. Processor and Performance Thanks to the very strong components, performance was always good, regardless of the stress put on system resources such as RAM and CPU. The new Santa Rosa platform coupled with an Intel T7300 CPU, together with a stronger GPU, outperformed my “old” T2400-based Dell Precision M65 by a wide margin on all benchmarks. For prospective buyers, it may be worth adding that this review 1520’s configuration is worth considering if one is looking for excellent performance while keeping the price reasonably modest. The T7300 is the cheapest available CPU that comes with 4MB of Level 2 cache, the 8600M GT GPU will provide optimal graphics performance, and anything less than 2GB RAM will significantly hinder performance.Buying Choices for the Dell Inspiron 1520 Notebook Computer (Core Duo T5450 1.66GHz/80GB/1GB) 
Dell, Inc. | $849.00
81.8% of people recommend this product - view 22 opinions | rate productBuying Choices for the Dell Vostro 1500 Notebook Computer (Core 2 Duo T5470 1.6GHz/120GB/1GB) 
Dell, Inc. | $734.00
81.8% of people recommend this product - view 22 opinions | rate product
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(view large image)Buying Choices for the Dell Vostro 1500 Notebook Computer (Core 2 Duo T5470 1.6GHz/120GB/1GB) Dell, Inc. | $734.00
81.8% of people recommend this product - view 22 opinions | rate product
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Left view of Inspiron 1520 ports (view large image)
Right view of Inspiron 1520 ports (view large image)
Front view of Inspiron 1520 with buttons (view large image)
Rear view of Inspiron 1520 with ports and battery (view large image)
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HDTune results:
Keyboard and Touchpad
Dell Inspiron 1520 keyboard (view large image)
Keys are responsive and have good travel. Overall, I’d say Dell has done an excellent job with the 1520’s keyboard, both in terms of the feel and the new placement that doesn’t err northward the way the last-generation Inspirons did, especially the e1505 and e1705. Individual key placement makes sense, being more or less standard, and the half-height function keys are consistent with, and just as comfortable as, their larger brethren. The touchpad, which is smaller than that of the e1505, is eminently usable and did everything I expected of it with no discomfort or untoward behavior.
Battery Life
Under fairly heavy usage, e.g., a lot of hard drive activity, wireless going and the screen set to maximum brightness, I managed to run on the battery for almost three hours. Very light usage and a dim display, but wireless still running, yielded an additional hour or so. I expected a greater disparity, given that my usage for the two tests was at opposite ends of the spectrum, but I did have wireless enabled for the light-usage test, and both times seemed fairly strong for a machine with this power. With a little tweaking, I’m sure others could squeeze more life out of the 9-cell battery.
Heat and Noise laptop
The 1520 was remarkably quiet (virtually silent, in fact) the whole time I had it, and heat was never a problem. The bottom of the unit became a little warm after protracted heavy activity, but not unusually so.
Service and Support
I have used Dell support in the past and have always been satisfied, in the end, with the experience, but I had no reason to contact support regarding this 1520.
Software
Being a creature of habit, I removed most of the “trialware,” along with some other common programs I loathe, as soon as I received the notebook. I was barely paying attention while doing this, but the whole process for this review notebook seemed to go very quickly. There were no apparent software issues, though I do find myself longing for Windows XP whenever I use a Vista machine. The availability of XP is reason #2 for my seriously considering the Vostro 1500 if I were in the market for a high-powered 15.4” notebook at a reasonable price.
Conclusion
Much of what I found while using the Inspiron 1520 is consistent with (to the point of being almost identical to) what has been written elsewhere. There was really only one thing about this notebook that bothered me, my preference for the all black Vostro 1500 notwithstanding: the play in the screen latch mechanism when the notebook is shut. Is this a big deal? I would say no, not at all.
There are so many positives, including the overall build quality, and so much flexibility in terms of configuration, the 1520 would seem to make a lot of sense for a wide range of notebook users, and a little bit of latch looseness should not be a determining factor. There are many fine notebook deals in the Sunday ads, as well as online, but there is often something about these machines, such as the keyboard, the graphics or the resolution, that would make me reluctant to purchase one of them. The 1520, or the Vostro 1500, for that matter, can be configured just right. If I weren’t already happy with my two laptops and in no hurry to get a replacement, I’d definitely consider the Inspiron 1520 or its nearly identical sibling, the Vostro 1500.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com )
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HP Pavilion dv6500t laptop
introduction for HP laptop
The HP Pavilion dv6500t is a “Santa Rosa” equipped update to the very popular dv6000t series of mainstream laptops, which topped the NotebookReview.com Most Popular Laptops chart for quite a while. A 15.4” widescreen, consumer-oriented laptop, it delivers a solid, well-rounded package that updates the HP lineup nicely.
Buying Choices for the HP Pavilion dv6565us - Core 2 Duo T5250 1.5 GHz - 15.4" TFT
view detailed pricing from 14 stores starting at $949.00 85.7% of people recommend this product - view 14 opinions | rate product |
Specifications and Pricing
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz, 4MB L2 cache), PM 965 “Santa Rosa” chipset @ 800 MHz FSB
- OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
- RAM: 2GB DDR2 SDRAM @ 667MHz (2 x 1GB)
- Hard Drive: 120GB SATA @ 5400 RPM
- Screen: 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280 x 800)
- Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS, 128MB dedicated VRAM + up to an additional 256MB shared
- Optical Drive: Super Multi 8X DVD+/-/R/RW w/double layer support
- Audio: Reaktek High Definition Audio with digital output
- Battery: “High capacity” 6-cell lithium ion
- Wireless: Intel PRO/Wireless 4965 802.11 a/g/n + Bluetooth
- HP Imprint (Radiance) finish + 2 Microphones + Fingerprint reader
- Ports/Slots: one IEEE 1394 (FireWire); HDMI; three USB 2.0; 5-in-1 memory card reader; VGA monitor out port; S-Video out; RJ-45 Ethernet LAN; RJ-11 modem; Express Card; IR receiver; Expansion Port 3; two headphone/speaker jacks; microphone/line-in jack
- Remote: HP Express Card IR media center remote
- Warranty: 1 year standard warranty + 1 year extension (see below)
- Weight: 6.14 lbs.
- Dimensions: 14.05" (W) x 10.12" (L) x 1" (min H)/1.69" (max H)
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Design and Build laptop
The build of a laptop is important, especially one that will be carried around and used constantly, but I do not equate a solid feel with ultimate build quality. I am pleased with the apparent quality of the dv6500t, but only time will truly tell how it fares. The case is plastic but feels solid, with the top a shiny black coated plastic and the base a more standard matte black. The area around the screen and keyboard also has a shiny finish that reflects less than the top. The screen flexes significantly under stress but I cannot produce any ripples in the screen. The hinges are solid and keep the screen in place. The only flex found in the case is under the optical drive in the center right of the base and a slight amount to the right of the touchpad. I can pick up each corner of the base without feeling any sag. Nearly all ports are on the left; only a USB port, the optical drive, the express card slot, and the power connection on the right. The express card slot has a plastic placeholder rather than a true cover, but the media center remote is stored in this slot, anyway, so a cover would be superfluous. All vent openings are placed on the back and bottom. This arrangement does allow some of the vents on the bottom to be blocked without completely obstructing the air flow. The front lip holds an IR receiver, a microphone/line-in jack, and two sound output jacks.
The lighting adds a very classy touch to the design. The row of media controls at the top of the keyboard glows an iridescent blue, as does a ring around the power plug when the AC adapter is connected. The media buttons are all touch sensitive and very responsive. A click sound accompanies a press, but this feature can be turned off in the BIOS. The mute button turns orange when activated, as does the icon above the touchpad when disabled via a hard button. The caps-lock and number-lock keys have blue lights beside each of them to indicate activation. Finally, three small lights in the bottom left corner show power, charging state, and drive activity.
The one big consideration in all of this shiny, fancy, coated plastic is how easily it can accumulate dust and fingerprints. A microfiber cloth comes standard, and neat freaks, including myself, will wipe down the top and area around the screen at least a few times a day.
The media buttons and Altec Lansing speakers. (view large image)
The included media center remote. (view large image)
A macro view of HP's imprint finish. (view large image)
Screen
The dv6500t’s glossy WXGA LCD sports a 1280x800 screen resolution with HP’s Brightview technology. The colors of the glossy screen really stand out in comparison to a matte display, and the accompanying reflection has not bothered me. Brightness and contrast are outstanding. Adjusting the backlight can be done in very small increments, and even at half brightness the image looks brilliant. I have found that in a dark room with the brightness at full, I have to squint due to the amount of light coming from the display. The horizontal and vertical viewing angles stretch across a wide range with even lighting in all areas. Light leakage is undetectable. In short, this display might be one of the best I’ve seen, even with its standard resolution.
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Speakers
Again unapologetically inserting my opinion here, I do not expect much out of the built-in speakers of a laptop. The Altec Lansing speakers in the dv6500t sound fine from this perspective, and with the volume at maximum they are powerful enough to project sound into a fairly large room with only some distortion.
Processor and Performance
The 64-bit T7300 runs two cores at 2.00 GHz and includes the Santa Rosa chipset’s ability to dramatically shift power from the second core to the first when a single-core process demands it. The benchmarks and battery test below show first-rate processing ability and improved efficiency.
The GPU, an NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS, lies at the lower range of their new line-up. The GS runs slightly more slowly than the GT, which is a slower version of the 8600m GS. From the benchmarks, don’t expect great gaming performance. I do not have the time to play too many games during the normal week anyway, but this card does manage to handle the older games I have. Running a demo of Armed Assault requires most settings turned down to medium for a smooth experience. Aero effects in Vista run smoothly. The X3100 integrated option is also available for $80 less.
HDTune results:
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Everest: 2011 MB/s read, 1199 MB/s write, 87.8 ns latency
Heat and Noise
The case does not heat up beyond what I would call warm during even intense operation. The touchpad, of all places, remains warmer than the surroundings whenever the laptop is on. The left center of the bottom also warms up during normal use, but not enough to become uncomfortable. The fan runs nearly constantly when the laptop is on external power. The sound created as it speeds up is more than I expected. On battery power, this sound reduces to nearly silent. In other words, if you are taxing the processor, expect a fair amount of fan noise.
There is a noticable amount of warmth and noise despite the number of vents on the bottom and back of the dv6500t.(view large image)
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard feels very similar to my old Thinkpad, with perhaps a little more flex. The keys travel a good distance, and a slight, unobtrusive noise accompanies each movement. Some of the larger keys, like the carriage return/enter key, do have a louder click as they are hit, but the noise would not be enough to bother anyone in a quiet room. Keyboard flex is moderate in the middle and bottom, but only with firm pressure does it start bending. As mentioned before, the right palm rest flexes slightly with heavy pressure, although this would not be noticed under normal use.
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The touchpad is relatively large and matches the dimensions of the screen. Straight out of the box, my fingers would not glide over its surface easily, but after a day’s use, a little oil from my hands apparently coated the touchpad and made it feel smoother. Personally, I find that somewhat strange, but it does work better now. One nice feature is an on/off button located directly above the touchpad allowing you to deactivate the touchpad when you use an external mouse. A red-orange LED lights up when the touchpad is turned off ... which helps if you forget you turned the touchpad off.
I/O Ports
The dv6500t features a good selection of ports (more than most notebooks in this price range):
- VGA monitor out port
- S-Video out
- RJ-45 Ethernet LAN
- Expansion Port 3
- RJ-11 modem
- 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire)
- HDMI
- 3 USB 2.0
- 5-in-1 memory card reader
- Express Card
- IR receiver
- 2 speaker jacks, with digital out
- Line-in jack
Front view with IR receiver, microphone in, and dual headphone ports. (view large image)
Right side view with Express Card slot, optical drive, USB port and DC jack. (view large image)
Left side view with lock slot, S-Video out, VGA out, Expansion Port 3, Ethernet, modem, HDMI, two USB ports, FireWire and 5-in-1 card reader. (view large image)
The back view doesn't offer much except hinges and the fan vent. (view large image)
Wireless
The newest draft-N wireless comes as part of the Centrino Duo package, though I don’t have a wireless-N router to actually use or test this with. The adapter does pick up the 802.11g router in the area with no problem, and the Bluetooth adapter works well. This integrated Bluetooth and the 802.11N come together as an option, priced at $45 extra.
Battery Life
If you need something that can last at least two hours on a charge to take notes during class, the dv6500t’s 6-cell battery more than accomplishes that. Rather than select the 12-cell which lifts the back and adds about an inch to the thickness, I opted for the “high-capacity” version of the standard 6-cell, which has a 16% increase in capacity. While word processing and moving a few files around, with wireless off and screen brightness at a lower but acceptable level, the battery lasted 4 hours and 1 minute. The 6-cell lasted for about 3 hours while watching a DVD with the screen at half brightness.
OS and Software
This laptop comes with a minimum of bloatware, and I thank HP for that. Expecting enough pre-installed junk to mandate a fresh install of the OS, I uninstalled only 3 programs after booting up for the first time. I also immediately turned off Vista’s User Access Control. The included programs I have found most useful include VeriSoft’s biometrics software, which is very intuitive and integrated seamlessly with other programs to remember passwords, with loads of customizable settings for the fingerprint reader. Vista’s photo viewing and editing utilities are a welcome addition and make simple fixes quick and easy. HP’s Quickplay software requires a full Vista boot, but it works well and makes for a flashy way to show off media.
Vista took 58 seconds to reach the desktop during a cold boot, including several seconds for fingerprint verification and log-on. I’m favorably impressed with the OS itself, and many tasks take a significantly shorter time than in XP, like Microsoft Update. The plethora of shortcuts seems designed well and with the end-user in mind. My one complaint is the lag in opening folders in the Start menu under battery power. I have never experienced this lag in XP, and I fail to see why a menu under All Programs should take several seconds to show its contents in Vista. When running under external power, this pause disappears.
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Apple MacBook Pro 15"laptop
Overview & Introduction Apple laptop We'll be taking a look at Apple's MacBook Pro, to be specific the most recently updated model as of June 5th, 2007. The MacBook Pro line is aimed at the professional market, including those who do heavy amounts of video and photo editing. The MacBook Pro is best described as a mid-size desktop replacement, or performance laptop. Before I go to far I should say this is not only my first laptop review, but also my first Mac computer. Thus, this review will be geared more toward people considering the MacBook Pro as an alternative option to a Windows based laptop, including some things that would seem trivial to the veteran Mac owner.
Apple MacBook Pro (view large image)
MacBook Pro machine specs as purchased
- Screen: 15.4" LED Backlit Screen @ 1440 x 900 Native Resolution
- Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU at 2.2ghz (4MB Shared L2 Cache)
- Memory: 2GB DDR2 PC2-5300 667mhz RAM
- Hard Drive: 120GB HDD @ 5400RPM (Fujitsu)
- Graphics: Nvidia 8600M GT with 128MB VRAM GPU
- Optical Drive: Slot-loading 8x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVDRW/CD-RW)
- Wireless: Apple Airport Extreme Wireless B/G/N
- Built-in Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
- Mac OS X 10.4.9 (Tiger)
- Dimensions & Weight:
- 14.1" x 9.6" x 1.0" (35.7cm x 24.3cm 2.59cm)
- 5.4lbs (2.45kg)
- Cost: $1,999 USD ($1,799 with Education Discount)
Everything in the box: you get the power cord and adapter, two OS discs, one remote control and an instruction manual (view large image)
Reasons for Purchasing
Few other laptops can compete with the sexiness of the MacBook Pro's looks. Designed for the professional market, it's considered a premium product for the power user. It offers dedicated graphics and the most recent mobile processor platform. The most recent MacBook Pro update to the Intel Santa Rosa platform narrowed the price gap between similar spec PC's closer than I've seen before, and drove me to take the challenge to be a "switcher". Other laptops that I felt were in a similar market were the ASUS G1S, Compals HEL-80, and HP Pavilion dv6500t series.
I purchased my Macbook Pro at an Apple Retail Store in Nashville, TN at the education discount of $1799 -- a great $200 dollar discount for students and teachers.
Build & Design
The MacBook Pro (hereafter abbreviated as MBP) keeps the same gorgeous design as its predecessors, using an aircraft grade anodized aluminum chassis that provides a sturdy build to the laptop, as well as a sleek, refined and sexy look.
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With the lid closed the MBP has a side width of only one-inch. Opening the lid reveals the gigantic one button track-pad, along with the full size back-lit keyboard, and power buttons, all keeping with the shiny silver look of the outside. On the front
placed right beside the latch release is a slot-loading Super Drive, adding even more to the sex appeal of not having the usual tray based drive. The laptop chassis has almost no flex to it, even around the port buttons. The screen's hinges are thick and firm, pushing back on the screen from the front shows no visible wobble. Giving a strong push and tap on the back of the screen's enclosure doesn't ripple the LCD either, this is impressive and demonstrates a strong lid cover. The case feels extremely sturdy, and doesn't have any signs of give.
Thinner than three CDs stacked (view large image)
I was a little hesitant at first about the MBP's girth, as I originally wanted a much smaller laptop. Weighing in at 5.4lb's, the MBP isn't so bad on the muscles, but it's not a lightweight by any means (relative to some thin and lights). The general size is as expected from a 15" laptop. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that will move constantly with it, and wants it to go unnoticed. But if you're like me and carry a messenger bag around with all your hi-tech toys, the MBP is fine. It's easy to use in your lap, and carrying it around doesn't feel awkward.
Screen
A big improvement for this generation of the MacBook Pro over the last is the introduction of the LED back-lit screen. LED back-lighting is touted to provide a more evenly lit screen with sharper images and colors without sacrificing battery life. All these I find to be true, the screen is without a doubt the best i've ever seen on a laptop, and better than a lot of desktop monitors I use. With the brightness up to full, even in the most well lit rooms, solid whites are almost blinding, which allows you to turn down the brightness and use less battery. In dark rooms, it's so bright that it illuminates the keyboard, making it unecessary to use the keyboard lighting! I selected the Matte style screen as opposed to a reflective glossy scree. I'm pleased with that decision, the screen is so crisp it makes up for the lack of the higher saturation from the glossy. One other perk is the ambient light sensor, which will adjust the screen's brightness according to the lighting in the room.
Showing the excellent dark levels in the screen (view large image)
Color and detail are rich and full (view large image)
Very impressive viewing angles from the side (view large image)
Speakers
You can't expect too much from laptops in the audio category, small spaces don't make for great speakers. The MBP manages to do fairly decently, having plenty of volume, and a clean sound. The optical mini-jack out is a real plus though, allowing you to hook directly up to your surround sound systems that support optical for a great media experience.
Performance
The processor in the model of the MBP I have is Intel's Core 2 Duo T7500, with a speed of 2.2GHz on two cores, a front-side bus speed of 800MHz, and 4MB's of L2 cache shared across both cores. This MacBook Pro has an updated GPU in the form of Nvidia's brand new 8600m GT, our particular version supporting 128MB's of dedicated VRAM. This version is slightly underpowered compared to the next model up in the MBP series, which has 256MB's of VRAM. Our hard drive is a Fujitsu 120GB drive, spinning at 5400RPM's. The stock amount of RAM included is 2GB's of DDR2 PC5300 clocked at 667MHz.
Following are some benchmarks taken within Mac OS X:
Windows Vista Experience Index Impressive scores for the MacBook Pro, in Windows or OS X! Battery Battery Life on high powered laptops is usually quite dismal, but the MacBook Pro makes some leaps to change that. The new Santa Rosa platform, NVidia graphics chip, and LED backlighting all are touted as being better on the battery. With full brightness, and my usual array of applications going (iTunes, Firefox, Adium, Mail, etc.), I was able to see about 3-hours of battery life, which is okay. Cutting back the screen brightness to half resulted in about 4 hours of battery life. These numbers are achieved when you set OS X to run on "Better Battery Life" operation. Luckily, for the long battery life lovers out there (like myself), there are options for 3rd party extended life battery's. Heat & Noise Another situation where powerful laptops usually see a downfall is in generating a lot of heat. The HDD on the MBP can get pretty hot to the touch when under a heavy load such as a 30 gigabyte file transfer, but other than that the case remained mostly cool, only picking up a good bit of warmth when I did my benchmarking. It wasn't enough to have me take it off my lap though. The average temperature after 2.5 hours use on battery while drafting this review with iTunes, Firefox, and installing a couple of packages is below: Noise levels were almost non-existent on the MBP, you only get a short hum when first booting. I was even suprised to see no increase in noise when benchmarking, this is a very quiet machine. Keyboard & Touchpad The MBP has a full size keyboard, and a jumbo size touchpad with, in true Mac fashion, a single large button. The keyboard has a soft feel to it, but still gives excellent feedback when pushing keys. The single massive button touchpad took some time for me to get used to, I am now used to using the "double finger click" though, a technique in which the usual right click can be done by putting two fingers on the touch-pad and tapping. Scrolling can also be done with two fingers, just place them on the touch pad and pull down, up, right or left. The only real issue I've had is Apple's swapping of the Function and Control keys on the bottom-left. The F1-F10 keys are mapped to do various functions such as adjusting the brightness of the screen, volume, numlock, DVI-out control, and managing the keyboard backlights. On the end beside the F12 is a easy eject key for the slot-loading drive. Input & Output Ports The MBP comes swith a wide array of ports. Let's look : On the left hand side we find Apple's MagSafe power adapter, one of the two USB2.0 ports, optical audio in & out ports, and Express Card slot. Quarter Not included. And on the right, a Kensington Notebook Lock hole, the second USB2.0 port, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, Gigabit Ethernet RJ45, and DVI out. Wireless & Bluetooth Apple has built-in Airport Extreme to this MBP, featuring wireless connectivity to 802.11 b/g/n networks. The signal strength and range it acquires is excellent, picking up networks I didn't even know were near my house, along with my own. Bluetooth is also built-in, but I have yet to find a use for it, but probably will find a mouse for it in the next few days to continue to keep the limited USB ports free. Operating System & Bundled Software The MBP comes preloaded with Apple's latest version of OS X, Tiger (10.4.9). I must say, it's a welcome feeling to see something new. OS X is very responsive, and a much easier adjustment than I originally thought. Other software included is Apple's iLife suite, bringing alot of great software to you for free. Some of these include iPhoto, iDVD, iTunes, iCal, GarageBand and many many more. Packaged with your MBP are 2 OS X installation discs, and a manual. Customer Support Being early in my switch to the Mac OS and using Apple hardware, I've yet to to use any Customer Support. Included with the MBP was 90 days of toll free service by phone, and a 1 year standard warranty covering basic hardware issues. The extended warranty, known as AppleCare, runs an extra $340 dollars, but extends your coverage and telephone service by 3 years. You do however, have an entire year to purchase the AppleCare, something I will consider in the next few months. This is an excellent upgrade to the MacBook Pro, I'm extremely satisfied with it so far. I'm new to Mac computers, new to OS X, but I am one happy switcher. The MBP would be an excellent choice for anyone looking to purchase a performance laptop, or even desktop replacement. Combine that performance with Apple's sexy design, and the MBP is a great purchase.
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You can see there's a battery meter on the physical battery as well (view large image)
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Left side ports (view large image)
Right side ports (view large image)Buying Choices for the Apple MacBook Pro (Core 2 Duo 2.33GHz, 17-inch) 
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Final Conclusions
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Dell Vostro 1500 laptop
First Impressions vostro 1500 laptop
Upon unpacking the Vostro 1500 and first handling it, I was rather impressed by the build. Upon picking up the system, it’s clear the computer is very sturdy and will hold up over time. Unfortunately, the side effect of this build quality is the heaviness and size. This machine is a beast. I make a note of handing it to people and watching their reaction. Everyone is shocked by the sheer weight of this machine.
Build/Design
The design of this system is rather spartan, but also very professional with the solid black styling. It’s not flashy like a high-end gaming laptop would be, but it doesn’t look bad to my eyes. The LEDs have a nice saturated blue color, though Dell was inconsistent in the styling. Several lights, including the battery level LEDs, the CD drive LED, and the “Wi-Fi Catcher” LED are green. In addition, the low battery light is an odd shade of hot pink, which fits with nothing else in the system. While this is by no means a major functional concern, I would have preferred the colors to be more consistent. I also dislike the hot pink color the battery light turns when the battery reaches a low level.
The build of this system, as noted above, is very good. The back of the screen and bottom of the case appear to be a fairly thick magnesium alloy, which is solid, but has the side effect of adding a lot of weight. My configuration, without the battery, is 6.2 pounds. The battery is 1.1 pounds, as is the charger. In total, the system carrying weight is 8.4 pounds. Clearly, this computer is not designed to move very far. When I pushed around the casing, the only places that gave were in the largest areas of the palm rest, and then only a little bit. The keyboard has no discernable give. I was disappointed, as I was with the Inspiron 1501, with the Express Card release button. In the out position, it’s extremely difficult to push back in for those of us with chubby fingers.
The build of the screen is a not quite as good as the rest of the notebook. Neither twisting nor pushing on the back of the screen yielded any rippling. However, the screen itself is relatively easy to twist, and squeaks when twisted. Pushing on the top of the screen yields only a small amount of wobbling, but not enough to be a problem in my opinion. As noted in reviews of the Inspiron 1520/1521, the screen latches leave a slight amount of room between the rubber pads on the screen and the palm rests, about the thickness of a dime. This is enough to wiggle a bit and make some noise if it’s closed and it gets jostled.
Right side
The right side of the case features the DVD burner, Firewire, two USB ports, the memory card reader, and Ethernet.
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Left Side
The left side of the case includes the wireless card switch, as well as the audio plugs and the ExpressCard slot.
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Back
The back of the case has the modem, the power plug, two USB ports, and an S-Video plug.
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Front
The buttons on the front are the media control buttons, which are mute, volume up, volume down, pause/play, skip backward, skip forward, and stop. Also on the front is the infrared window (receive only).
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Screen:
The screen on the Vostro 1500 is relatively ordinary. I opted for the anti-glare 1280x800, 15.4” resolution model. The vertical field of view on this screen can be described as poor at best, and I frequently find myself adjusting the tilt of the screen to match the way I’m sitting. The horizontal field of view is considerably better than the vertical, and I have no complaints. Even looking closely at the screen, I am unable to distinguish the “Dell noise” that some other reviewers have described. What does bother me, however, is this screen’s ability to attract dust. Cleaning the screen is an ordeal that has to be done frequently to remove the dust from the screen. I do not know if the glossy screen would improve this or not.
In the screen’s defense, it is rather bright when put on full brightness, and colors seem adequately saturated and accurate to my eye. The light leaks are relatively minor on this computer and are only noticeable on a completely black screen, and then only on the top and bottom.
Speakers:
As can be expected of most laptops in this price range, the speakers are nothing spectacular. There is an excess of sound in the 4K range, and not nearly enough in the lower-end range, causing very tinny sounding speakers. I would recommend using an equalizer if you intend to listen to music on this computer. As an example, the following screenshot shows my iTunes EQ settings. Fortunately, these speakers do get rather loud, and due to the position on the underside of the computer, they don’t get muffled by hands.
Processor, Performance, and Benchmarks:
The Core 2 Duo processor is, simply put, awesome. The T5470 that was configured in my system was the slowest processor available in the Core 2 Duo variety, but it still performs tasks with great ease. When multi-tasking, the dual-core functionality of the system really shows what it’s capable of. Having run single-core processors up until this computer, the difference is amazing. It’s possible to do CPU-intensive tasks and still have a perfectly responsive computer at the same time, which is a welcome relief.
Super Pi is an application that calculates Pi to 2 million digits of accuracy and reports the time it took to perform the calculation. The time on the T5470 was 1 minute 16 seconds with no applications running, and 1 minute 27 seconds while watching a DVD in Windows Media Player.
| Notebook | Time |
| Dell Vostro 1500 (Intel T5470 1.60GHz) | 1m 16s |
| ThinkPad X61s (1.6GHz Core 2 Duo L7500) | 1m 08s |
| ThinkPad X61 (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300) | 1m 01s |
| Macbook Pro (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T7700) | 53s |
| HP 6515b (1.6GHz Turion64 X2 TL-52) | 2m 05s |
| ThinkPad T42 (1.8GHz Pentium M 745) | 1m 58s |
| Sony TX850p (1.2GHz Core Solo U1400) | 1m 22s |
| ThinkPad R60 (1.66GHz Core Duo T2300e) | 1m 26s |
| Lenovo C100 (1.5GHz Celeron M) | 2m 19s |
| VAIO S380 (1.86 GHz Pentium M 740) | 1m 45s |
PCMark 2005 is a synthetic benchmark that tests all areas of system performance. The Vostro 1500 was, however, unable to complete this test. I am uncertain why, but it seemed worthy of note.
Unfortunately, the stock 5400RPM hard drive doesn’t always cut it. Since I now use this computer as my standard gaming computer, I’ve loaded games onto it. What I’ve discovered is that with some games, Battlefield 2 in particular, the hard drive loads everything slowly enough that by the time I have loaded the game, the match is half over. If you’re intending to use this computer for gaming and you have the money, spend the extra on the 7200RPM hard drive. If you intend to use it solely for less hard drive-intensive applications, the 5400RPM drive will be fine.
HD Tune is a basic hard drive benchmark that tests the transfer rate and access speed of the hard drive. As is evident, this hard drive sets no performance records, and the transfer rate is inconsistent.
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The graphics card, the 8600M GT, in this computer configuration has been no less than spectacular thus far. Among the games I own, I was unable to find one that I could not run at full graphical settings acceptably.
3DMark 2006 is a synthetic graphics benchmark that is designed to take advantage of the latest and greatest in graphics technology. The 8600M GT performs well for this price range, at 3319 3DMarks.
3DMark06 comparison results:
| Notebook | 3DMark06 Score |
| Dell Vostro 1500 (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T5470, Nvidia Go 8600M GT) | 3,319 3DMarks |
| Dell Inspiron 1720 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8600M GT) | 2,930 3DMarks |
| Dell Inspiron 1420 (2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500, NVIDIA GeForce Go 8400M GS 128MB) | 1,329 3DMarks |
| Sony VAIO FZ (2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, Intel X3100) | 532 3DMarks |
| Asus F3sv-A1 (Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz, Nvidia 8600M GS 256MB) | 2,344 3DMarks |
| Alienware Area 51 m5550 (2.33GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7600 256MB | 2,183 3DMarks |
| Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700 256MB) | 1,831 3DMarks |
| HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, NVIDA GeForce Go 7400) | 827 3DMarks |
| Sony Vaio SZ-110B in Speed Mode (Using Nvidia GeForce Go 7400) | 794 3DMarks |
| Samsung R20 (1.73GHz T2250 and ATI 1250M chipset / GPU) | 476 3DMarks |
Optical drive performance was not what I would consider spectacular. The DVD burner drive appears to be capable of reading and writing at a maximum of 24x for CDs, and is capable of burning DVDs at 8x. Nero InfoTool shows the drive’s capabilities:
Running Nero CD-DVD Speed on an audio CD reveals the drive’s lackluster speed:
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Heat and Noise:
The Dell Vostro 1500 produces an ungodly amount of heat if you run processor or video-card intensive programs. While the system manages to keep itself cool enough to continue operating, it can get almost uncomfortable to leave this computer on your lap while playing games or running processor-heavy applications. The areas I noted that get the hottest are noted below.
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While it does get hot, this computer never gets noisy. The whir of the hard drive and fans remains whisper-quiet even when the fan is on full blast. I often keep the system on overnight because I can hear no difference between having it on and having it off.
Keyboard and Touchpad:
The keyboard and touchpad of the Vostro 1500 are both very sturdy and without flex. The keyboard, as with all laptop keyboards, takes some adjustment to learn the unique positioning of the keys. I am a huge fan of the way Dell laid out this machine’s keyboard. The function key, as seen in pictures, is placed just to the right of the control key, and is the same size as the Windows key (I have on occasion pressed the Windows key instead of the function key). The delete key is positioned in the upper right corner, and it’s probably the most natural spot it can go. It’s out of the way enough not to be accidental, and it’s easy to find. Function keys are fairly standard, and include F1 for sleep/hibernate, F3 for battery status (Which requires installed Dell software to operate), F8 to switch monitors, and the up/down arrow keys for monitor brightness. One gripe I have is that the numpad not only requires numlock to be on, but the function key must also be held down while using it. I also had a key stop working properly for a while. I will explain in the customer support section.
The touchpad is not as good as the keyboard. Dell chose to move down the keyboard in this line of computers, which, while it makes it more attractive and better laid out, shrinks the touchpad significantly vertically. By my own measurements, it’s 3” wide by 1.5” tall -- certainly usable, but far too short for my tastes. The scroll zones at the top and bottom are also difficult to adjust properly using software, and I frequently have trouble getting them to activate regardless of their setting. Large-handed users beware: I often find the edge of my palm rests or taps the touchpad on occasion, causing clicks where they weren’t intended. The large buttons placed below the touch pad are suitably sized, though they are mushy as with the older Inspiron computers. There’s no satisfying click as there is with some touchpad buttons.
Input and Output Ports:
This computer features a host of ports, though surprisingly it lacks a DVI-out port as may be expected. The VGA port is located on the right hand side of the system. Dell designed this system to have 4 USB 2.0 ports, two on the back next to the power plug, and two on the side next to the Ethernet port. Also featured are an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port on the same side as the VGA plug, 10/100 Ethernet port, and the CD drive. The system also has an 8-in-1 memory card reader, which can read: SD, xD, MMC, SDIO, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, Hi Speed-SD, and Hi Density-SD. In contrast to the heavily utilized right side, the left side of the case features few ports. There is a microphone jack, a headphone/speaker jack, and an Express Card slot. The back is also fairly unused, with nothing but the power input, an S-Video output (notably also supporting several adapters Dell will sell you for component video and the like), and the two USB ports I noted earlier.
Wireless:
I opted for my computer to use the Dell Wireless 1505, which features pre-N functionality. The wireless range on this card is fairly average, and it connects to most networks with ease. However, it’s important to note that this card does not communicate with all wireless routers without a fight. My recommendation, for compatibility, is the Intel Wireless card instead of the Dell wireless. It seems to be more compatible according to what I have read (the lower-end Dell cards also seem to have the same connection problems). I do, however, like the wireless switch on the left-hand side of the notebook. This switch allows control (configurable via the Dell software in Windows or through the BIOS) of the system’s internal wireless cards, including, if installed, Bluetooth, 802.11X, and any WWAN cards. This switch has three options: On, off, and a third, momentary switch, dubbed “Wi-fi Catcher.” This technology, if used while the system is off, will turn a small LED green if a wireless network is detected in range of the system within around five seconds. If used from within Windows when the Dell software is installed, a window will instantly pop up with all the wireless networks in range. While it sounds pointless, considering a similar feature is available through Windows, the Wi-Fi Catcher is considerably faster.
Battery:
I opted for the 9-cell extended life battery on the notebook. This battery extends about three-fourths of an inch past the edge of the computer, and spans nearly the entire back. On the underside of the battery are 5 LEDs and a button which, if pushed, illuminates the LEDs to indicate battery charge remaining (20% per LED). I tested the battery life by instructing the computer to standby when the battery got to 2% and to not shut down anything on inactivity. On full brightness, while connected to a wireless access point and watching a DVD, I managed to squeeze 3 hours and 20 minutes out of the battery before it abruptly went into standby. This seems adequate for most purposes, and it is likely that with lower power consumption (Word processing on low screen brightness with no wireless, for example) would yield above four hours, a reasonable amount of time for a desktop replacement machine. Don’t expect it to be a road warrior. If you need the extra battery life, Dell offers a battery that replaces the optical drive.
Operating System and Software:
The Dell Vostro 1500 comes with only two CDs: One to reinstall the Dell MediaDirect feature and the other is a driver CD, including both XP and Vista drivers. No operating system reinstall disk is included, much to my dismay. The Dell MediaDirect install disk appears to be only for Vista, if Vista was the chosen operating system. More on this in a moment.
My system came preconfigured with Windows Vista Home Basic. After a day with Vista, I decided I preferred Windows XP, and promptly began to install the older operating system. This process, which in the past has taken around an hour, took 10 hours to do. My attempts were plagued by the Dell MediaDirect software. MediaDirect, for those not familiar, is a quick-booting Linux operating system accessed using a small ‘home’ button near the power button. It allows one to watch movies, read documents, listen to music, look at pictures, and a few other things. According to the instructions packaged with the disk, the MediaDirect disk is to be installed first, then the operating system is to be installed in the empty partition MediaDirect leaves. I did this. Several times. As it turns out, Dell did not intend to leave a downgrade path. When I tried invoking MediaDirect, the first few times it didn’t install properly. When it finally did, it set itself up then told me it couldn’t access the information on the hard drive. Upon restarting the system, it became apparent that MediaDirect was going to be a problem. It went through its “unable to access the hard drive” routine again- I was stuck out of Windows. Eventually, my solution was to install Windows without MediaDirect and simply not press the MediaDirect button.
The software on the Vostro is surprisingly free of bloatware, as is advertised on the Dell website. I requested my system without security software, and it came exactly as I wanted it: A clean slate. This was a very welcome relief after some systems I’ve worked with that take hours to uninstall the bundled software.
The Dell configuration software is relatively spartan and pales in comparison to the configuration software available in systems manufactured by some other companies, particularly Toshiba. There are a few power setting options, a configuration tool for the Wi-Fi Catcher, some basic screen settings, and that’s all that’s included. There is no option to slow down the CPU to improve battery life that was visible to me.
Customer Support for this laptop:
Several weeks after receiving the laptop, the ‘a’ key on the keyboard began dropping keypresses seemingly randomly. I contacted Dell technical support on a Sunday evening with my problem. They asked for an address and by Tuesday morning, the new keyboard was at my doorstep. It was a self-install keyboard, which was easy due to the instructions in the substantial manual. When I was done, I put the old keyboard back in the box that was shipped to me and used the included return label to ship the old keyboard to Dell. (If you don’t do this, they invoice you for the replacement keyboard).
On the note of the manual, it is impressive by today’s standards. It’s 222 pages long and covers everything that a basic user could likely need. In the second half of the book is the shortened service manual, which includes how to remove and install the hard drive, memory, keyboard, and wireless cards. For me, having the printed copy was a nice touch.
Apple Powerbook G4 laptop
Apple Powerbook G4 laptop Introduction
Light weight and yet powerful, these models continue to astonish even the die-hard fans. After you finish admiring their stunning displays and marveling at their fit and finish, take a good look at the number of ports each PowerBook provides. These models ship with an astonishing lineup of built-in professional capabilities.
Apple Powerbook G4 laptop Design
In keeping with the clean lines of the system, the PowerBook has a slot-loading CD-RW/DVD drive. It has a flip cover that hides its various ports and connections, including an IEEE 1394 port and two 12-Mbps USB ports. It also has a built-in 56K modem and a 10/100Base-T Ethernet connection, and it offers 802.11b wireless networking via an internal AirPort card.
Apple Powerbook G4 laptop Features
A study in power and functionality, packaged in a thin and light enclosure that’s a pleasure to open in public. The entire family of PowerBook G4 notebooks incorporates higher-resolution displays, longer battery life and a host of features that keep it high on the wish list of every pro. And with new low prices, your wish is more affordable than ever before.
Apple Powerbook G4 laptop Performance
The PowerBook G4 line boasts high-performance PowerPC G4 processors up to 1.67GHz, 512MB of DDR SDRAM and 5400-rpm hard drives up to 100GB. You can even order your PowerBook model with the phenomenal 8x SuperDrive (DVDRW/CD-RW) that lets you listen to CDs, watch DVDs, or burn CDs and DVDs of your own. Apple engineers put this power at your fingertips, all the while maintaining a light, thin, durable notebook design complete with Sudden Motion Sensor technology that helps protect your data in the event of a drop or fall.
Whats included in the package
The PowerBook G4 comes loaded with software so easy to use, you’ll find yourself accomplishing things you had only dreamed of. Included with every PowerBook are QuickBooks for Mac New User Edition, Art Directors Toolkit, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, GraphicConverter, Zinio Reader, FileMaker Pro Trial, and Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive.
Conclusion
The PowerBook G4 has all the style and performance you have come to expect from Apple’s machines.
Read more!The VAIO® TX laptop
The VAIO® TX Notebook Laptop
DESIGN Laptop
Color Options
The luxuriously sleek and ultra-portable VAIO® TX Notebook boasts an incredibly small and lightweight form-factor encased in super-durable carbon fiber. This best-in-class PC weighs just 2.8 lbs1 (with standard battery) and is less than 1" thin2 with an incredible 4-10 hours of battery life6.
LAPTOP Magazine
Editors' Choice
Carbon Fiber casing
The VAIO® TX Notebook is enclosed in a carbon-fiber casing, the same cutting-edge material used to keep jet airplanes light and quick and sports cars fleet, yet durable. This heavy-duty form factor is made of multi-layered carbon fiber, which is much lighter and stronger than the magnesium alloy used for most notebooks. Just like a jet or a luxury sports car, the VAIO TX Notebook is built to last even through the toughest daily wear and tear.
Express your inner VAIO
Much like the car your drive, the notebook you own says a lot about your personality. Now available in Charcoal, Platinum, Slate Blue and Sienna form factors, the VAIO TX Notebook was designed to turn heads, providing a unique outlet for personal expression for those who take pride in looking their best while using the best.
11.1" Widescreen Display
The VAIO® TX Notebook comes with an 11.1" widescreen display2 with Sony's original XBRITE™ LCD technology. It provides brilliant colors, sharp contrasts and crisp images to help you deliver high-quality, professional presentations. And, with the anti-reflective coating to minimize reflection, you're assured an exceptionally clear image from any viewing angle.
PERFORMANCE laptop
Powerful and Efficient
he lightweight and portable VAIO® TX is the premier mobile notebook PC that also packs a powerful punch with a state-of-the-art, ultra-low voltage Intel® Core™ Solo processor. This next generation mobile processor for power-optimized mobile processing expertly manages power resources to increase computing stamina and deliver incredibly long standard battery life.
DVD Creation
Although the VAIO TX Notebook is amazingly thin and small, it still has room for a built-in DVD+-RW/+-DL drive8 letting you burn CDs and DVDs with ease. With Click to DVD™ software, you can create or record up to 8.5GB of home video, movies, music, or digital photos on one Double Layer DVD disc.
Super-long Battery Life
Sony's innovative battery technologies, when combined with an ultra low voltage Intel® Core™ Solo processor, work to expertly manage power resources to increase computing stamina and deliver from 4 up to 10 hours of standard battery life6.
Windows Vista Business
The VAIO® TX Notebook comes pre-installed with Windows Vista Business - the definitive choice for your business today and tomorrow. A stunning and simple new user interface lets you easily find, use and share information. Powerful safety features provide you with a safer computing experience, and help protect your critical data. Mobile computing enhancements allow you to stay connected with your business and customers whether you're in the office or on the road. And as your business and technology needs grow and change, Windows Vista Business can grow with you, providing the best return on your investment.
MOBILITY laptop
Wireless Wide Area Network (WAN) Technology
The VAIO® TX Notebook is more than just portable; it's a truly mobile wireless companion. True mobility is about broad access, just as much as it is about slim, lightweight design. And the VAIO TX Notebook is taking that access farther than ever before. With integrated wireless WAN3 technology, you can access the Sprint Mobile Broadband network to extend your wireless coverage beyond LAN access networks and hotspots.
Wireless LAN Technology
The VAIO® TX Notebook features integrated 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN4 technology, enabling easy access to your existing home or office wireless network and local hotspots without the need for additional hardware or network cards.
BLUETOOTH Technology
The VAIO® TX Notebook features integrated Bluetooth® technology5 for effortless communication with Bluetooth-enabled devices, such as PDAs and wireless headsets, without the need for additional hardware or software.
SmartWi™ Technology
Sony's original SmartWi™ technology seamlessly integrates wireless Wide Area Network (WAN)3, 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN4, and Bluetooth®5 technologies. Now you can quickly and easily toggle among your wireless connectivity options - wireless LAN for home, office, and hotspots; Bluetooth for peripherals; and wireless WAN3 for access to the Sprint Mobile Broadband network when you're traveling outside the reach of LAN access networks and hotspots.
SECURITY
G-Sensor™ Shock Protection
G-Sensor™ Shock Protection makes your data even less vulnerable to loss or damage. When the built-in 3D acceleration sensor detects a risky movement like being dropped, the HDD-head will lock up to secure its position and reduce the risk of damage from scratching.
Biometric Fingerprint Sensor
Fingerprint biometrics is a convenient and secure way to protect your computer and the information on it with a simple swipe of your finger. It also stores passwords to secure websites you visit, so authentication and access are quick and easy - you only need your fingerprint.
ENTERTAINMENT Laptop
Watch Movies
With its 11.1" WXGA widescreen display7 with Sony's original XBRITE™ LCD technology and a long-running battery, the VAIO® TX Notebook is well-equipped to entertain you when you're away from home. Widescreen design lets you watch movies and DVDs with stunning clarity in the intended aspect ratio for theatrical presentation. And Dolby® Headphone and Virtual Speaker technologies complete the package with true-to-life audio even when you're wearing headphones.
Easily-accessible Entertainment Controls
The VAIO® TX Notebook with Sony's ingenious Instant Mode allows you to go straight to watching a movie, playing music, or viewing photos at the touch of a button, without having to boot-up the operating system. Convenient, built-in A/V control buttons let you stop, play, fast, forward, reverse, eject, mute, and control volume with one-touch ease.
( From http://www.notebookreview.com ) Read more!
Powerful Sony Vaio laptop
The VAIO® CR Notebook (laptop)
DESIGN VAIO laptop
Thin, light and absolutely stunning
Step out and be seen with the VAIO® CR notebook, a gorgeous and colorful 14.1"2 thin-and light mobile masterpiece with XBRITE-ECO™ LCD technology, built-in web cam and powerful technologies.
Loaded with extras
Both inside and out, special personalized extras are abundant throughout the VAIO® CR notebook. From the unique keyboard font and structure to the A/V controls, radiant silver trim and pulsing LED glow function, this fun and personalized notebook is packed with a great deal of innovative design and entertainment extras that will set itself and its owner apart from the crowd.
High technology meets Fifth Avenue
Like the clothes you wear and the car you drive, the color of your notebook reflects your style and taste. With a deep, glistening multi-layer coating of paint, a luminous silver trim and four gorgeous colors to choose from, the VAIO® CR is a functional fashion statement, helping you get the job done while separating you from the crowd.
Sangria
Energetic, bold and sexy, the glossy deep red chassis and black interior of the Sangria VAIO CR notebook will turn heads and draw attention wherever you roam. Akin to a high-end sports-car, the remarkably beautiful Sangria VAIO CR notebook will impress with luxury and perform with finesse.
Indigo
Stunning, smart and sophisticated, the spectacular Indigo VAIO CR notebook features a radiant deep blue exterior and chic silver interior. Trendy, yet timeless and strikingly cool, the color-combination is so noticeable and unique it’ll draw “oohs and ahhs” right from the box.
Cosmopolitan
Like Grace Kelly and Aubrey Hepburn, the Cosmopolitan VAIO CR notebook is classically beautiful and loved by everyone. Decked in a soft silvery-pink with a strawberry-milk interior, you’ll fall in love with its beauty and elegance and adore its charm and grace.
Dove
Pure and simple, the Dove VAIO CR notebook has a look of natural beauty and elegance. With a silver and ivory blended exterior and smooth white keyboard, it’s warm and comfortable addition to the home and a gorgeous, yet functional travel accessory.
- The lustrous coating is carefully brushed across the chassis like the finish to a luxury sports car
- Silver luminous trim frames the body, giving it a distinguishable shimmering accent
- Pulsing LED ground effects emanate and glow from beneath the silver luminous trim
- Comfortable, cleverly-engineered keyboard is easy to keep clean
- Specialized keyboard font is a unique, fun and personalized touch of personality
- DISPLAY OFF button turn offs display without shutting down your notebook
- Built-in camera and microphone for video chatting4
- Instant AV mode & multimedia controls for entertainment without boot-up
- Specialized keyboard font is a fun added touch to an already quite-special approach to keyboard design
Intricate painting process
Available in Sangria, Cosmopolitan, Dove, and Indigo, the VAIO CR notebook's line of lustrous coats and exquisite color shades are the result of a painstaking paint-blending and application process.
Like the finish of a luxury sports car, multiple layers of paint are meticulously applied to the chassis of the notebook, which is then buffed and dried to get that "just right" shade and beautiful luster. Each color is framed by an iconic silver luminous trim, a luxurious characteristic that makes the paint coating pop - especially when the notebook is closed.
Complete the outfit
With such a uniquely colored notebook, you’re going to need some matching accessories. To make the look complete, each VAIO® CR notebook comes with its own funky VAIO branded wallpaper and optional matching carrying bag and mouse.
MOBILITY Laptop
Get moving. Get noticed.
With its cool colors and stunning silver trim, the VAIO® CR Notebook is just too pretty to leave at home. Weighing just 5.9 lbs1 with a built-in CD/DVD player/burner, up to 3-6 hours of standard battery life6 and a 14.1" display2, the VAIO® CR is perfect for personal computing and entertainment on-the-go.
Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N technology
Introducing the next great advancement in wireless technology – Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N. With built-in Wireless-N technology3, the VAIO® CR notebook lets you wirelessly surf the web and e-mail with greater performance, range and reliability than ever before.
Wireless-N offers a massive boost in speed and considerably more range than 802.11 a/b/g connections. You can even wirelessly stream video throughout your home or office with blazing-fast speed5. Also, Intel® Next-Gen Wireless-N is backwards compatible with existing 802.11 b/g networks, so there is no need for any additional hardware or cables – it's all built-in
Portable entertainment paradise
Enjoying entertainment on a notebook has never been easier or more fun. Simply select the "AV mode" button just above the keyboard and your VAIO® CR notebook will jump to entertainment mode without booting up the operating system. A complete set of multimedia controls make content navigation a breeze while a built-in 1.3 megapixel digital web camera lets you quickly snap photos and participate in live video chats. Complete with a great set of speakers, a stunning 14.1" widescreen display2 with XBRITE-ECO™ LCD technology and a CD/DVD player/burner5, the VAIO CR notebook is a portable, easy way to enjoy your digital entertainment.
ENTERTAINMENT laptop
AV Mode
Imagine having the ability to enjoy your entertainment on your notebook without ever booting up. The VAIO® CR notebook with instant AV Mode lets you kick off your entertainment with a single push of a button. Go straight to watching a movie, playing music, or viewing photos without ever booting-up the operating system. Convenient, built-in multimedia control buttons also let you play, pause, rewind, fast-forward, stop, eject and control volume – all with one-touch ease.
Built-in camera and microphone
The VAIO® CR notebook features a built-in 1.3 megapixel digital web cam that lets you quickly snap photos and participate in live video chats5. The CAPTURE button makes it easy to take digital photos with the MOTION EYE® camera, which is discreetly located above the LCD screen to allow easy angle adjustment and natural eye movement while video chatting.
XBRITE-ECO™ LCD technology
Developed by the people you trust to deliver amazing flat-panel TVs, Sony's patented XBRITE-ECO™ LCD technology delivers razor-sharp details, crisp, bold colors and glare-free viewing – all while conserving battery life. Brightness is evenly distributed across XBRITE-ECO displays, which also feature a special anti-reflective coating to lessen glare and light reflection while reducing eye fatigue when viewing for long periods of time.
Lots of slots
With plenty of slots, ports and jacks, the VAIO® CR notebook lets you enjoy entertainment easily, and makes it easy to transfer files to and from external devices and your notebook.
- S video out: Connect to a compatible TV and watch a DVD or play games the big screen
- Monitor connector: Connect to a projector or display monitor for larger space entertainment
- Memory Stick® media/SD card slot: Great for photo and music transfers
- 3 USB ports: Connect to a printer, mouse and portable music player at the same time
- i.LINK® port7: Perfect for connecting plug-and-play devices and digital video transfer
- Microphone and headphone jack: Belt out some karaoke or listen quietly to your headphones
- DVD/CD burner4 and player: Watch movies, listen to music and create your own CD or DVD
- Express card slot: Great for memory expansion and adding wireless communication cards
Create your own DVDs
Create, manage and share your home movies and photos with the beautiful and powerful VAIO® CR notebook. With a built-in suite of multimedia tools and CD/DVD burner4, you can create your own customized DVDs, complete with interactive menus and customized themes. With Click to DVD® software, you can present your digital video content in a fun DVD package – complete with interactive menus and customized themes.
PERFORMANCE Laptop
Intel® Centrino® Duo processor technology
Get the ultimate mobile experience with unparalleled processing speeds, longer battery life6 and enhanced wireless connectivity3. The VAIO® CR notebook features Intel® Centrino® Duo processor technology, Intel's latest and best notebook technology to date.
Powered by an Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor and an 800 MHz Front Side Bus, this state-of-the-art technology provides screaming-fast performance and the mobility, power and flexibility you need for high-speed5, wireless computing on-the-go3.
Windows Vista™ Home Premium
The VAIO® CR notebook comes pre-installed with Windows Vista™ Home Premium, a breakthrough operating system that brings your computing world into sharper focus while delivering the productivity, entertainment and security you need.
See the difference with a spectacular new look, instant search, built-in Windows® Media Center and automated security features. Create beautiful family albums and home videos, listen to your favorite music, and connect with friends and family. Windows Vista™ Home Premium makes it easier and more enjoyable to do just about anything on your PC.
Read more!
Panasonic laptop
Full Specifications: Panasonic Toughbook 19 Touchscreen PC version Laptop Computer
| Processor Brand | Intel |
| Processor Class | Core Duo |
| Processor Speed | 1.06 GHz |
| Mobile Technology | Intel Centrino Duo |
| Installed Memory | 512 MB |
| Maximum Memory | 4 GB |
| Memory Technology | DDR II SDRAM |
| Cache Size | 2 MB |
| Hard Drive Capacity | 80 GB |
| Display Type | TFT active matrix |
| Graphics Processor | Intel GMA 950 |
| Resolution | 1024 x 768 pixels |
| Max. External Resolution | 1280 x 1024 pixels |
| Battery Life | 7 hour(s) |
| Battery Type | Lithium ion |
| Bluetooth | Yes |
| Modem Speed | 56 Kbps |
| Network Support | Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11g |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows XP Professional |
| Interface Provided | VGA, Phone line, Ethernet, Headphone, Microphone |
| Warranty Information | 3 years warranty |
| Base Warranty | 3 years warranty |
| Input Devices | Keyboard, Touch-screen, Touchpad |
| Included Sound Card | Sound card |
| Tablet PC | Yes |
| Weight | 5.1 lbs |
| Also known as | Panasonic 19 Touchscreen PC version, Panasonic Toughbook CF-19CHBAXBM, Panasonic CF-19CHBAXBM, Panasonic Toughbook 19 Touchscreen PC version, Panasonic Toughbook |
| Manufacturer Part No. | CF-19CHBAXBM |
| UPC | 092281864716 |
| Dimension | 1.9 in x 10.7 in x 8.5 in (HxWxD) |
HP compaq laptop
HP laptop introduce
screaming performance, and unsurpassed style? Redefine your home PC experience with our cinematic HDX series, a brand-new class of notebook PC that merges awesome 20.1", dual-lamp displays with 15.5 lb. of portable performance.
HP Lap top, The best of Windows Vista
Get more done, stay better connected, and enjoy a wide variety of entertainment in a more secure environment on the go. Windows Vista Ultimate, optional on the HDX, is the most comprehensive edition available. It combines all the management and efficiency features of a mobility-focused operating system and all the digital entertainment features of a consumer-focused operating system. An HP Pavilion HDX Entertainment Notebook PC preinstalled with Windows Vista Ultimate makes it easier, safer, and more entertaining to use your PC virtually anytime, anywhere.
HP laptop Premium dual-core processor
The Pavilion HDX features a dual-core processor for mobile computing—Intel's most energy-efficient performance processor, with enhanced multitasking responsiveness that is 64-bit enabled. The HDX comes with 2GB memory to support this powerful processing, or you can upgrade to 4GB for the ultimate in performance.
HP laptop Stylish design
The HDX features a dramatic, high-gloss exterior with the latest HP Imprint finish and our exclusive Dragon design.
Easy fingerprint security
There's no need to memorize multiple passwords anymore. Simply swipe your finger across the integrated fingerprint reader to log on to your HDX, as well as log on to password-protected Web sites and files. If multiple people use one computer, each can use their fingerprint to log on to their own account.
HP laptop Mega entertainment
The ATI Mobility Radeon HD2600 XT, which supports DirectX 10 graphics, delivers exceptional performance with visually intense applications and 3-D games. It uses ATI HyperMemory memory management technology to support 512MB graphics memory for superior visuals. The spacious, 20.1" WSXGA+ dual-lamp Ultra BrightView widescreen supplies brilliant, high-def playback and Web surfing at the same time. A dual hinge lets you tilt the screen and move it forward or backward for optimal comfort.
Four discrete Altec Lansing speakers and an integrated triple bass reflex subwoofer supply best-in-class audio; integrated amplifiers provide approximately 20W total output while supporting a full range of treble and bass for outstanding stereo. And the integrated audio processor supports the latest external PC speaker solutions for true HD audio with surround sound. Lastly, there's an integrated dock for the mobile remote.
HP laptop Great for games and movies
The built-in HD DVD-ROM drive provides ultra-realistic high-def playback. You'll get astonishing 1080p resolution when viewing on an HD TV with an HDMI notebook connection. HD DVD resolution is far superior to that of regular DVDs, and even superior to what you'll see on most HD TVs.
HP laptop TV, music, photos, videos
The integrated hybrid TV tuner lets you watch, record, and pause live TV. You can use ATSC to receive broadcast HDTV transmissions, or switch to analog for access to cable or satellite TV programming. You can use HP QuickPlay for access to DVDs, videos, photos, music, karaoke, streamed or recorded TV, and games–all at the touch of a button. And you can drag and drop to add music to slide shows or videos.
HP laptop Excellent for self-expression
The HDX series includes full versions of the tools and software needed to capture, create and share your life experiences. muvee autoProducer lets you make great home movies and slide shows. Roxio Creator 9 supplies DVD authoring so you can preserve digital memories. A