HP - Envy 17 3D review

After Avatar kickstarted the current craze for 3D movies and games, it was almost inevitable that HP would devise something to rival NVIDIA's 3D Vision technology. And the laptop computer they've chosen to showcase their 3D alternative is the HP Envy 17 3D.
Two words immediately sprang to mind when we first laid eyes on the HP Envy 17 3D laptop: "classy" and "massive".
Let's start with the "massive" aspect. We're talking about a whopping 17.3in monster, measuring 275x416x387mm, and weighing a hefty 3.41kg.
Heavyweight perrformance
‘Desktop replacement' is a term often bandied about with cavalier abandon - but the expression could have been coined especially for the Envy 17 3D. It will only just fit inside an executive briefcase, and is certainly not the kind of thing to be tossed casually into a rucksack.
Yet at the same time, the Envy 3D is sleek and sexy. Its solid chassis is made from its subtly patterned silver aluminium, and bears a backlit HP logo on the corner of the lid. Inside it has a deliberately minimalist look, with a single slender silver power button on the expansive work surface, and both the keyboard and (surprisingly less user-friendly than it should be) touchpad jet black and subtly recessed.

The Envy 17 3D is a thing of beauty, with carefully understated white backlights under the keyboard (the sturdy chiclet variety so beloved of the latest generation of notebooks, which comes with a complete number pad).
Bristling with ports
As you'd expect from a high-end laptop, the Envy 17 3D bristles with ports, including VGA, HDMI, one USB 3.0, 3 USB 2, eSATA, Ethernet, a 5-in-1 memory card slot and a mini-display port - in other words, everything a high-powered business executive (or an avid gamer) might desire.
Under the bonnet lurks an Intel Core i7-720QM CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz with 6 GB DDR3 RAM. Decent as the 500GB SATA hard drive is, we were slightly disappointed HP couldn't stretch to a 1TB model. Graphics are supplied by an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 chipset with 1GB of built-in memory.
Total entertainment
Naturally, that '3D' tag betrays the ultimate aim of this machine - not just to look chic and perform plenty of multitasking (both of which it fulfils in spades), but to be an entertainment machine. Hence the inclusion of a Blu-ray optical drive and with a Full HD (1920x1080) native resolution 3D Ultra BrightView Infinity display that fairly leaps out at you, it's so vibrant. Colour photos in particular are so rich you almost need shades to view them, and 2D videos really come alive.
Audio on this machine is superb by the standards of regular notebooks, thanks to the Beats sound system with its integrated subwoofer.
As for the heart of the matter, the 3D operation, HP makes use of a similar active-shutter style of 3D glasses as the NVIDIA system. It comes into its own when watching Blu-ray 3D films - we tried it on the Shrek movies, and slime never looked so appetizing!
Gaming options
As far as games are concerned, only a handful of titles (including World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2) are compatible with the ATI technology, and the jury's still out about how much it improves gameplay - even though the depth of field is impressive.
One word of warning when playing conventional 2D FPS games on the Envy 17 3D, though - the base becomes almost scaldingly hot and if one of the air vents is covered, the game will crash out.
As you might expect, given the machine's powerful spec, battery life isn't brilliant - you'll be lucky to manage two hours from each charge - but this baby wasn't intended to be hauled about on rush-hour trains, so I doubt if that will prove significantly off-putting.

Samsung - NF110 review

10.1in netbooks have enjoyed an increase in popularity over the last couple of months, mostly due to their size, price and improving performance. Last week, we took a look at the Acer Aspire One D255. Now it's Samsung's turn in the spotlight, after the company has joined the bandwagon with no fewer than nine 10.1in machines, including the new NF210 and NF110 - the latter of which we're putting to the test.
The NF110 comes in a simple two-tone design - black lid, white interior - with a thin burgundy strip running around the dividing edge to add an extra level of sophistication. Despite its slim dimensions (265x189x29mm) and ultra-portable weight (just 1.28kg), it feels sturdily built. Those who like a bit of style in their PC will appreciate the wave pattern that rises in a smooth crescendo to either side of the keyboard.
The ‘island' keyboard itself lies in its own sunken bay within the base, and is the familiar 93% chiclet model with large separated keys that are firm and smooth to operate. The touch pad is similarly ‘sunken' - thus kicking one common trend that likes to make touchpad boundaries invisible - and responds well to two-finger Windows 7 controls. Although the mouse bar is made in a single piece, it has a groove in the middle to demarcate between left and right buttons, and the rocker feels comfortable when working.

Most of the NF110's other exterior features are standard for this class of netbook: 3 USB ports, VGA and Ethernet connections, headphone and mic sockets, plus a 4-in-1 memory card slot for SD, SDHC, SDXC and MMC formats. The resolution of the 10.1in display is also the current favourite of 1024x600, with an energy-efficient LED backlight that's more than sufficient for most users' needs.
In many respects the NF110 is indistinguishable from its big sister the NF210, apart from the power of the CPU - the NF110 carries an Intel Atom N455 clocked at 1.66GHz, while the NF210 has the more punchy dual-core N550 clocked at 1.50GHz. Both models share the same Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 graphics card, 250GB S-ATA hard disk and rather limited allocation of 1GB RAM.
Given these relatively meagre resources, though, the NF110's overall performance is surprisingly impressive. Multitasking with documents, internet and Windows Media Player running simultaneously provided no problems at all, and watching movies on BBC iPlayer revealed good colour contrast and sharpness with barely a hint of juddering. The quality of the NF110's surround sound was also beefier than usual for a netbook, and the demo racing games that came with the machine created a respectably frenzied atmosphere.
The other area in which the NF110 scores heavily over the rival Acer Aspire One D255 is in its battery life - we managed a minimum of six hours at heavy usage, compared to only four hours on the Acer.

Acer - Aspire One D255 review

Netbooks appeal to a variety of users, from the youthful, highly mobile social networking crowd to business people needing a small, light computer that can perform multiple undemanding tasks and provide swift access to the Net. And it's their very popularity that causes maunfacturers a problem: it's getting harder to find unique selling points that make one model stand out from the crowd.
Acer's Aspire One series has already garnished a good reputation for portability, reliability and affordability. The latest version, the D255, attempts to get itself noticed by including two operating systems - Windows 7 Starter and Android 2.1. We'll shortly see whether this strategy has obvious attractions for the target audience.
Visually the D255 is quite striking, appearing in five shades that Acer have grandly named Aquamarine, Diamond Black, Sandstone Brown, Ruby Red and Seashell White, with the key colour on the lid matched by the palm rest area. The keyboard and the rather thick bezel remain resolutely black whichever hue you opt for. Although it's thin (less than one inch) and light (around 1kg), the netbook doesn't feel flimsy.

In most other respects, the exterior is no different from many of rival 10.1-inch netbooks. It has three USB ports plus VGA, Ethernet, the usual sound jacks and an SDHC/MMC card reader, as well as the centrally positioned 1.3M webcam. The LED-backlit display has the standard native resolution of 1024x600 and provides generally well defined images and bright colours.
One exceptional asset is the extremely light MiniGo AC power supply, which comes with interchangeable plug adapters - very useful when you're travelling around Europe. The keyboard is the familiar chiclet style 93% standard-size which feels comfortable and smooth to operate. Acer makes the most of the space by spreading it to the edges of the base. The touchpad is reasonably responsive and, happily, incorporates multi-touch functions - though we'd have preferred the mouse buttons to have been separated rather than incorporated into a single bar.
Under the bonnet you'll find a dual-core Intel Atom N550 CPU clocked at 1.5GHz, which packs a fair bit of power. Unfortunately there's only 1GB of RAM - 2GB ought to be standard by now, especially as the D255 has to cope with two operating systems. The built-in Intel GMA 3150 graphics chipset can just about manage BBC iPlayer HD videos as long as they're not too demanding. Shame there's no HDMI output, though.
Which brings us back to the big selling point - the dual OS. If you have an Android-based phone, you might appreciate having the same system on your netbook. But apart from being able to get you online quicker than Windows 7 Starter, and thus giving you quicker access to your e-mails, it's unlikely you'll be spending much time with the handful of apps here.
As for battery life - we found with continuous video usage at full-screen resolution and Wi-Fi turned on, we could only manage four hours before it all went dark, although Acer claims double that (presumably in sleep mode). Seems like you might be very glad of that lightweight power adapter...

Samsung - N350 review

With its glossy outer shell, the N350 looks very similar to Samsung's N230 netbook we reviewed a couple of months ago. They are both 10.1-inch models, but the big difference is that this new model has one of Intel's new dual-core Atom processors beating away inside.
Samsung's done a great job in terms of making the N350 as portable as possible. Although it has the same width (264mm) and depth (188mm) as the N230, it's a fair bit thinner, at just 23mm compared to the N230's 34mm. At 1kg, it's also around 200g lighter. The end result is an extremely compact and portable netbook. However, there's a good reason for its lightweight nature: a smaller-than-average battery. We'll talk more about this in a moment.
Flip open the lid and you're greeted by the 10.1-inch display. The screen has a netbook-standard resolution of 1024x768, but it differs from most in that it lacks a glossy coating. While glossy displays make movies and photos look more vibrant, they also attract reflections like there's no tomorrow. This matt display, on the other hand, keeps reflections to a minimum and makes outdoor use possible. The display is further helped by being ludicrously bright. When using it in dimly-lit environments, we found we had to crank it down to half-brightness just to save our eyes.

Powering the N350 is Intel's Atom N550 processor. This is a dual-core CPU running at 1.5GHz and, thanks to support for Hyperthreading, Windows views it as a quad-core chip. However, as with all netbooks running Windows 7 Starter, Samsung has only been able to supply the processor with 1GB of memory. The N350 does feel a little more sprightly compared to single-core netbooks, but it's not a massive leap in performance. We still experienced those small-but-frustrating delays when performing relatively simple tasks.
Graphics are handled by the integrated Intel GMA 3150 chipset. This has a clock speed of just 200MHz and, as with all netbooks that rely on integrated graphics, means the N350 isn't suited to gaming.
Other specs include a 250GB hard drive that ticks along at 5,400rpm, and an integrated webcam. Also built in are 802.11n wireless, 10/100 LAN and Bluetooth. Unsurprisingly, Samsung hasn't found room in the budget to fit a 3G module, so mobile broadband will require the use of a separate USB dongle.
Samsung knows a thing or two when it comes to creating netbook keyboards, and the one on the N350 is great to type on. Its chiclet-style design is comfortable and the keys have just the right amount of feedback. With minimal flexing, it also feels solid and there are no nasty clacking noises when typing. Samsung's made good use of the space available, stretching the keyboard across almost the entire width of the chassis. Some of the keys towards the right edge have been slightly reduced in size, but it's not a massive issue.
The touchpad has a good texture and is comfortable to use, but the two buttons sitting below it are very thin and have a bit too much travel. When pressing them during testing, we frequently bashed our thumbs against the edge of the casing.
Samsung includes a three-cell, 2950mAh battery with the N350, which is rated at just 33Wh. During intensive use with the screen's brightness at full whack and wireless switched on, we measured a power draw of 11W. As expected, this resulted in the battery being drained in three hours, which really isn't that great. Switch the wireless off, drop the brightness down to half-mast and steer clear of processor-intensive tasks, and you should be able to achieve four, possibly even five hours.
We're certainly not against netbooks with small batteries, and some people will happily take a reduction in battery life if it means a lighter and more portable netbook. However, a shorter-than-average battery life should result in a lower-than-average price - and that's not the case with the N350.

ViewSonic - ViewPad 10 review

Say what you will about Apple's iPad tablet computer, it has certainly livened up the computer market. Every manufacturer seems to be falling over themselves to hang onto Apple's coat tails - and the resulting mess of designs, operating systems, hardware specs and prices is becoming thoroughly confusing for consumers. Is it a phone? Is it a PC? Is it fodder for next year's car boot sales? While it's entertaining to watch, if you're one of those brave souls spending real money on these products, it helps to have a bit of friendly advice.
ViewSonic has jumped in with two tablet devices - a 7in mega-smartphone based Android 2.2 (Froyo), and the 10in dual-boot tablet without phone capabilities reviewed here. This comes with the latest Windows 7 Home Premium OS installed - but, on the Android side, you're stuck with the rather-long-in-the-tooth version 1.6. Both run from a 16GB solid-state disk (SSD).

In the box, the ViewPad 10 comes with a charger for the 3200mAh Li-polymer battery, plus two CDs containing the drivers and user guide. A quick-start poster explains basic functions such as the three hardware buttons next to the display - but confusingly, it also talks about 3G mobile connectivity, which is not enabled in this model (despite it having a 3G SIM card slot at the top). It does have 150Mbps 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, though.
The ViewPad 10 is pretty chunky, with its 14.5mm thickness accommodating the twin USB ports, headphone jack, a mini-VGA port, microSD card slot and power connector at one end of the device. It's about 150g heavier than the iPad, making it less comfortable to hold for long periods.
The brushed aluminium back of the device is classy, but the loud creaks our sample emitted when we held it near the end with the ports somewhat spoiled the quality feel. There's a cooling vent on the back, plus vents for the two tiny speakers. There's another vent on the top edge for the fan that cools the 1.66GHz N455 Intel Atom CPU - this is definitely noticeable, but not too annoying.
Power, Home and Enter buttons are located next to the screen, with three small blue status LEDs above it. Android started in 17 seconds, and even Windows took just 36 seconds to load from cold. Of the two, Android gives by far the best touch-screen user experience, with a huge keyboard and snappy response. But it still thinks it's a little phone, so the menus are huge and you tend to get stuck with the mobile versions of web sites.
The slickest app is the Aldiko e-book reader, although the screen's 16:9 aspect ratio doesn't work well for books. Others, such as the camera (the ViewPad 10 includes a front-facing 1.3-megapixel model) and web TV apps, don't take advantage of the screen's resolution, either, making them pretty pointless.
You don't get access to Google's Android Market, just a third-party App Store with a pretty uninspiring collection of apps. Email and general web browsing work well, although there's no Flash support - annoying, given that this is one of the chief reasons to choose an Android device over one running Apple's iOS 4. You can't access files on the Windows partition when running Android, so any shared files need to be stored on a microSD card (not supplied).
Windows 7 is a different kettle of fish. The problem is that its touch features, while good, are tacked on to a keyboard-centric OS, and are more suited to stylus use - making it fiddly to use with fingers on a screen as small as this. You get used to it after a while, but it's always a bit hit-and-miss. The on-screen keyboard is OK, but forget about handwriting recognition unless you have an especially pointy finger. The big attractions, of course, are familiarity and the fact that you can plug in any USB device and run any Windows application that suits the hardware specs. However with only about 3GB free on the SSD, you'll soon need to resort to a microSD card for file storage.
Video performance isn't stellar, but looping a 720p HD clip gave us 2.5 hours of battery life. The 1,024 by 600 screen is bright, and viewing angles aren't too bad from the sides or the top, but viewing from below at more than about 45 degrees from the vertical (with the device flat on a desk in front of you, for example) is nigh-on impossible, due to the drop-off in brightness and contrast. Of course, you can get round this by turning the thing upside down, but it's still an annoyance. Also, the aspect ratio makes most apps look pretty peculiar in portrait mode.

HP - Mini 210-2000 review

Netbooks have come a long way from the early, heady days of the ASUS Eee PC and whereas much was made at first about their ultra-portability and quick access to the Internet, nowadays more is expected on the power and performance side, even though they will never fully compete with lower end notebooks.
The HP Mini 210 series was introduced to upgrade the reasonably popular Mini 110 and although it still has a 10.1-inch LCD screen, the latest Mini 210-2000 model has seen significant improvements over both the Mini 110 and the first versions of the Mini 210 released earlier in the year.
The eye-catching, red, smoothly tapered, brushed metal cover will be an immediate attraction and the earlier Mini 210s that had a black keyboard and work surface have now been supplanted by a cool silver finish. The hinges are large and feel comfortably secure, containing within them the 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery which unfortunately bulges markedly outwards from the otherwise seamless flow of the design, yet provides nearly five and a half hours of action.

HP has wisely decided to make use of every square inch of operating surface by pushing the keyboard right to the extreme edges. Your fingers will glide swiftly but firmly across the large responsive chiclet style keys, although the curiously supersized right shift button has forced the up and down arrows to be unnaturally shrunk. The touchpad is smooth but scrolling feels stiff and the left and right mouse buttons at the bottom are all of a piece with the rest of the unit, meaning that the whole touchpad rocks as you use it.
On the plus side, specific keys for Wi-Fi, sound mute, caps lock and touchpad lock are backlit by beautifully understated white lights. Running round the outside you'll discover no fewer than three USB ports together with VGA, Ethernet, headphone jack and a multi-card reader for Memory Stick, SD and MMC memory cards.
When it comes to the power under the hood, you'll discover the Mini 110's Intel Atom N280 CPU has been replaced by the more impressive Intel Atom N455 clocking at 1.66GHz with 1GB RAM, which when allied with the native Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150 graphics card allows a good degree of multitasking.
Previous complaints that first editions of the Mini 210 had no 802.11n wireless have now been silenced and there's little in the way of stuttering when streaming HD videos on BBC iPlayer and YouTube. Hard drive space has been expanded to a handy 250GB and the native 1024 x 600 display resolution provides enough brightness to play the included HP mini-games comfortably even in strong daylight.
It's also worth highlighting HP's pre-installed QuickWeb technology which allows you to bypass Windows start-up and have swift access to the Net, e-mail, music and photos; ideal for Facebook users desperate to get back to Mafia Wars...

MSI - FX600 review

There are plenty of notebooks out there, but fewer with multimedia facilities and a Blu-ray drive. MSI's FX600 is one of them and is designed as a desktop replacement for those who don't need a fixed machine. It manages with a 15.6-inch widescreen LCD panel, so can only display 1080 HD content downscaled to 1,366 x 768 pixels, but 720 may be HD enough for you. There's a 1,280 x 720 webcam built in, just above the screen.
The case has a matt finish with a texture MSI calls chequered flag. It's a relief just to have something that isn't high gloss and desperate to take every thumbprint and scratch. Open the lid and the keyboard surround and touchpad are also textured. The touchpad is recessed and nicely sensitive in use and the mouse buttons are a see-saw toggle at the front.
The keys are large, with a conventional layout, a separate numeric pad and a row of special function keys behind. The function keys, for things like volume control, wireless on/off and turbo mode, are rather badly embossed, with no coloured legends on their tops.

At either end of this bank of function keys are decent twin speakers which are THX accredited and give well above average sound, for a laptop. Still more suited to movie soundtracks than music, they do a reasonable job on games, too.
As well as the Blu-ray drive, the edges of the machine hold three USB sockets - one a combo with an eSATA connector - HDMI, VGA, gigabit LAN and mic and headphone jacks. There's a card reader which can take SD and MemoryStick cards.
The machine is built on an Intel Core i3-330M with 4GB of DDR3 memory and a 500GB hard drive. Graphics are provided by an nVidia GeForce GT325M with 1GB of its own memory. This is more than enough for video and movie playback and will happily run games like Call Of Duty 4 with decent frame rates.
Although the battery pack has six cells, TestBattery returned just under 3 hours 20 minutes on a single charge. This isn't great, though it's long enough to play a full feature film. It makes the FX600 more a machine to move between, say, home and office, than to take with you on a long trip away from a power socket.
The FX600 comes with 64-bit Windows 7 Home and an ArcSoft suite provides support for the WebCam and a useful painting applet. There's WinDVD for video playback and a Cinema Pro function claimed to improve movie colours and sound, though we didn't notice much difference.

Samsung - SF310 review

While netbooks have become the laptops of choice for the Facebook generation who mostly want to chat online and check their e-mails, small portable notebooks are growing in popularity for youngsters, low level gamers and business folk who need decent graphic card performance allied to a powerful CPU. Hence the arrival of Samsung's SF310.
This class of notebook is supposed to be chic as well as functional and certainly the wave style design on the sides creates a cool rippling effect that should impress your friends. However, while the SF310 has attractively tapered smooth edges, the Apple-emulating white exterior looks decidedly bland in an age of designer artwork and textured surfaces.
Inside there's a thick black glossy bezel surrounding the 13.3-inch LED HD display which features the increasingly commonplace 1366 x 768 screen resolution in 16:9 widescreen. The matching (matt) black keyboard is of the much favoured chiclet design with Scrabble type letters and plenty of space between the keys. Sensibly, Samsung has dispensed with a separate number pad, so there's no issue with arrow keys being squashed up, and typing feels comfortable, firm and responsive.

There's a discrete collection of silver control buttons for sound and WiFi above the keys and a large touch pad below them, set in the centre of a chrome workspace. Some may find the absence of specific mouse buttons off-putting, as their role is incorporated into the same flat surface as the touch pad; but you need very little pressure for a positive reaction, even if the scrolling function needs considerably more effort.
Ports and peripherals are relatively meagre, with a single USB and a DVD player on one side and two more USBs plus an HDMI output (inexplicably hidden behind a rather flimsy plastic cover) on the other, alongside Ethernet, VGA, sound and a 4-in-1 memory card slot. The overall dimensions are a reassuringly portable 331 x 235.9 x 26.9mm and although the 2.06kg weight might seem a touch chunky compared to some of its competitors, it's hardly going to be responsible for serious back strain.
The main selling point for the SF310, though, is its general performance under the hood. With a powerful Intel Core i5-M460 CPU clocked at 2.53GHz and 4GB of DDR3 RAM, you'll have little problem cruising the Net, playing music, adding a bit of graphic design and preparing documents simultaneously. In addition, the SF310 will automatically switch between the native Intel HD graphics card and a mightier NVIDIA GeForce 310M according to load, thus allowing a decent level of competitive gaming and ensuring movies look respectably sharp and free of judder.
Battery life is a not inconsiderable six and a half hours plus at lightest usage, and around one hour forty-five minutes at heaviest. It was a little disappointing to see only 320GB worth of storage capacity but that can easily be rectified for the SF310's successor.

Asus - Eee PC 1215N review

Nothing lasts for ever, and it appears the public's love affair with netbooks is starting to lose its spark. This is due in no small part to Apple injecting new life into the tablet market, and you can expect to see a glut of these touchscreen wonders on the shelves this Christmas.
Tablets lack keyboards, though, and that rules them out for those looking for a portable computer on which to type out long documents. So although the number of new netbooks being released will undoubtedly decrease, they certainly won't disappear altogether.
Asus pioneered the netbook, and its latest model, the Eee PC 1215N that we have here, is aiming itself at those who demand slightly more in terms of raw power. It also has a larger-than-average screen at 12.1 inches.
First impressions are good, and it's instantly obvious this isn't a budget netbook. The lid has a smart, brushed silver coating, while on the inside you're greeted by the same effect on the wrist rest and a well-sized keyboard. If silver's not your bag, black and red versions are also available.

Although sturdy, the screen's hinge locks out at around 50 degrees. This is fine for most scenarios, but in cramped conditions (for example on an aeroplane where the netbook is effectively sitting on your lap) you may find the fact the display can't be tilted back further makes it tricky to use.
The keyboard is of the chiclet variety, meaning each key pokes out from its own individual hole in the chassis. Opinion on this style of keyboard is divided, but we found it very comfortable to use. Each key has a nice, textured surface along with a solid feel when pressed and, unlike with most netbooks, the arrow keys aren't slimmed down.
The Enter key is set one column in from the right edge of the keyboard and during our first few hours with the laptop we frequently pressed the key to the right of it (PgUp) by accident. Thankfully it didn't take too long to get used to this layout.
One thing we really didn't like, however, was the amount of flex to the keyboard. We're used to seeing a certain amount of flex on laptop keyboards, but the Eee PC 1215N is particularly bad. Even with light key presses you'll notice neighbouring keys moving in tandem with the one you're pressing. It's not a massive problem, but if you've a heavy-handed typing style it will soon start to irritate and it blights an otherwise excellent keyboard.
The touchpad could also be better. It's of a decent size, but its glossy nature makes it a little too slippery; we'd prefer a touchpad with a little more texture.
A suitable 250GB hard drive is installed, with Asus splitting it into two partitions. All the networking boxes are also ticked, with the Eee PC 1215N home to Bluetooth, 802.11n wireless and 10/100 LAN. As far as ports and sockets are concerned, the netbook has three USB ports, an SD card reader, VGA-out and audio in/out. Unlike most netbooks, however, it also sports an HDMI port, allowing it to quickly be hooked up to an HD television.
Thanks to the 12.1-inch display having a resolution of 1366 x 768, however, there's no need to connect a TV to view HD video. Smooth 720p playback is aided by the use of Nvidia's ION graphics, which is a step up from the usual GMA3150 integrated graphics that most netbooks rely on.
The choice of processor also helps. Asus has gone for Intel's latest Atom D525 CPU, which has a clock speed of 1.8GHz. It's also a dual-core chip, which gives the preinstalled Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) a shot in the arm. Asus has sensibly supplied 2GB of memory to sit alongside this processor.
While it's certainly more powerful than your average netbook, don't go thinking the Eee PC 1215N will be able to take on your desktop PC. The preinstalled Windows 7 runs smoothly enough and has no problem multitasking relatively simple applications such as browser windows and Word documents. However, what it won't do is let you play 3D games. With suitably low expectations we decided to fire up Call of Duty 4, and the resulting 6fps at a paltry 800 x 400 pixel resolution says it all. Still, the fact it managed to run the game at all is fairly impressive.
Slow frame rates aside, during our brief and rather jerky gaming session we noticed the audio was pretty good, with the stereo speakers situated just under the front lip of the laptop managing to belt out some loud noises. The lack of a sub-woofer means the audio is fairly tinny, but you can't expect thundering bass from a small laptop such as this.
With a power-sucking 12.1-inch display, faster-than-average Atom processor and Nvidia's Ion graphics, you'd be forgiven for thinking battery life would be relatively poor on the Eee PC 1215N. However, under general use with wireless switched on, we managed nearly four hours before the battery died, which isn't at all bad. Slip it into power-saving mode and you can expect up to six hours usage.
We noticed it got a little warm on the left side during extended use, but the wrist rest remains impressively cool so it's not a huge problem. We did, however, find the hard drive noisier than most. You won't hear it unless you're in a very quiet room, but the constant high-pitched clicking noise did start to irritate.

ASUS - G51J 3D review

Anyone who visited the Gadget Show at the NEC this year will know that much of the event was obsessed with showing off all the latest 3D computer technology in the wake of the massive success of Avatar. 2010 has become 3D Year and all the major computer manufacturers are jumping on board the supposed gravy train: the ASUS G51J 3D notebook is simply the latest evolution.
At the end of last year, Acer brought out the Aspire AS5738, a 15.6-inch laptop with a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels that produced a 3D effect through a combination of polaroid glasses and TriDef 3D software, which effectively transformed 2D images into 3D. The problem with presenting 'true' 3D on a laptop was finding a way to incorporate NVIDIA's new 3D Vision technology (which was prohibitively expensive), and the ASUS G51J 3D is the first to do that.
When you open the box you'll find a host of goodies including a rucksack, a smart gamer's mouse and the all-important 3D kit which comprises a USB connected infrared emitter that looks like a small pyramid, together with a pair of active-shutter glasses with a power button on the top. Once the emitter is plugged in, the glasses are charged up and the setup wizard completed, you're ready to start, after tapping the Republic of Gamers logo above the middle of the keyboard.

Crucially, the LED-backlit display has a 120Hz refresh rate that helps the eye combine two images into one and keep up with fast action. However, it seems astonishing that with all the technological advancement since the Aspire AS5738, ASUS's new wunderkind has not increased the screen resolution beyond 1366 x 768. So despite having a decent Blu-ray player installed as standard, you still can't watch Blu-ray movies in Full HD unless you use the HDMI port to feed them to your HD TV.
Ironically, ASUS supplies you with a copy of the Avatar video game which shows off the 3D depth of perspective extremely well once you've blinked rapidly a few times to help your eyes adjust. You'll find your eyes tiring after a comparatively short time, though, and we wonder how long the novelty value will last for.
As there are so few 3D movies available at the moment, the chances are you'll be using the effect for gameplaying: fortunately NVIDIA has an increasingly large catalogue of compatible games to choose from. All the more reason, therefore, for ASUS to make sure that they increase the relatively dim screen for their next model.
Aside from the 3D wizardry, the ASUS G51J 3D is one of the sexiest looking laptops on the market, with its striking designer cover, cool black interior, stunningly backlit keyboard and metal encased touch pad. The chiclet style keyboard is one of the finest we've seen, too, both for its easy but firm responsiveness and for its economic yet sensible layout (they've even overcome the 'squashed arrow keys' problem of similar models).
There's plenty of power under the bonnet as well, courtesy of the Intel Core i7 CPU clocked at 1.60GHz, 8GB of RAM and the NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M graphics card. As you'd expect for a heavy-duty gaming laptop, battery life is minimal (around 2 hours at most) and heat output is considerable, but on the performance side the machine runs quietly and efficiently thanks to an inbuilt eco system.
However, improved technology also comes with a hefty price tag, especially when you remember that the Aspire AS5738 only cost around £600 compared to the £1,700 here. So ultimately you'll have to decide whether being at the cutting edge of 3D advances is worth the outlay.

Acer - Aspire 5745PG review

Acer's Aspire family of notebooks continues to mushroom and it's not hard to spot what the principal selling point of the 5745PG model is from the second it's been powered up: its considerable touch screen capability.

The Aspire 5745PG is a 15.6-inch notebook that wisely decides to make the maximum mileage out of Windows 7's built-in multi-touch technology by linking it to Acer's proprietary TouchPortal system, thus ensuring that this could be a highly attractive proposition for the business person on the go who wants the most out of a comparatively low-cost machine.
Before examining the touch performance in detail, it's worth doing a tour of the external features first. Outwardly the Aspire 5745PG is pleasingly slim (379 x 250 x 28.5mm), relatively lightweight at 2.75kg and decidedly chic with its glossy black 'pinstripe suit' lid and gunmetal grey work surface.
A quick scan of the sides reveals four USB 2.0 ports alongside VGA, HDMI, Ethernet and a DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive. Round the front is a 5-in-1 memory card reader which covers all the usual suspects, including the increasingly out-of-favour xD-Picture Card. Although higher spec models have a Blu-ray player in place of the DVD, it's a shame one of the USB ports could not have been an eSATA variant.

Thankfully Acer has decided to use a full-size keyboard of the chiclet style with square-shaped keys that are a dream to type on, being firm yet responsive. Making the most of the space, Acer has also included a full-size number pad but, as we've seen before, this inevitably means squashing down the space for the four arrow keys, which will annoy some people. Nearly invisible at the top right of the keyboard is a button to initiate PowerSmart mode, next to the manual DVD release button.
Nothing else clutters the area around the touch pad and that's probably because it will have sterling use for scrolling and pinch-zooming, etc. This brings us neatly to the 15.6-inch HD, LED-backlit, TFT display, which is brightly lit at the native 1366 x 768 pixel resolution and responds agilely to the multi-touch demands made upon it.
The TouchPortal icon sits comfortably in the corner of the frame, waiting to be dragged into full screen and enabling you to play and reposition videos, photos and music as well as browse the Net, search Microsoft's Surface Globe and play some games. It works extremely well and will clearly be an asset to anyone who dislikes rummaging through folders using the conventional Windows interface.
Even the basic model of the Aspire 5745PG reviewed here was powered by an Intel Core i3-350M processor clocked at 2.26GHz, with 4GB of DDR3 memory, and was easily able to cope with most multi-function operations.
With a not-inconsiderable NVIDIA GeForce 310M graphics card under the hood, you can even play comparatively undemanding games with pleasure and the stereo Dolby Home Theatre surround speakers do make watching movies much more atmospheric than usual for a notebook.
320GB of hard drive storage should be more than sufficient for most business needs but you will have to pack your power lead, as battery longevity is only around 90 minutes at heavy usage levels, stretching to three and a half hours of light working.

Toshiba - Portégé R700 review

The Toshiba Portégé R700 is the latest incarnation of Toshiba's ultra portable business person's notebook. It comes in several iterations and all share some defining characteristics. You can more than double the base asking price if you want an Intel Core i7 processor, 128GB Solid state drive and wireless broadband integration, or for £629 plus VAT you can go for a more humble Core i3 processor, 320GB hard drive and no mobile broadband.
Most of the models lack an optical drive, which is hardly a surprise for a notebook with a 13.3-inch screen. However, several do squeeze in a DVD drive and these models are arguably the all-rounders that could work as an everyday computer for many people.
Battery life is good, with Toshiba quoting a maximum of 8 hours and 55 minutes. On an exercise involving continuous movie playback from a USB stick on a version of the notebook without an optical drive, we got a bit over four hours of movie playback, which is pretty good going. There is an an eco utility to help you monitor power and conserve battery life.

That 13.3-inch screen manages 1366 x 768 pixels natively but will drive a 1900 x 1200 external monitor and there is a button above the keyboard for quick monitor switching. The screen has a matt finish and is clear and sharp. A joy to use.
The Toshiba Portégé R700 is a fairly light notebook measuring 316 x 227 x 16.8-25.7mm. It is light, too, at 1.28kg. If you want to carry it for long periods you may want to invest in a protective sleeve, as the lid section is rather flimsy. Heavier handed typists may also notice some give in the keyboard, though we are pretty light fingered and did not have any problems. The chiclet keyboard design is visually appealing and we find it helps with typing accuracy.
A button above the large touchpad disables it so that if you are the kind of user who brushes the touchpad with your wrists the problem is easily avoided. There's a fingerprint sensor and webcam on some models, and you can use the latter for face login if you wish.
All the various versions of the Toshiba Portégé R700 run Windows 7 Professional 32-bit and graphics are handled by Intel's GMA chipset. All also have gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
The range of ports and connectors is limited, but to be fair it is difficult to see how Toshiba could have packed in much more. On the right side, by the optical drive if it is present, are microphone and headphones connectors, a USB connector and the Ethernet port. Embedded into the wrist rest on this edge of the chassis is a cardreader for SD and compatible cards.
On the left side is an HDMI port, two further USB ports, with one doubling as an eSATA port and offering sleep and charge facilities, a VGA out port, cooler vent and mains power input.

Toshiba - AC100-10Z review

Android seems to be flavour of the month at the moment as far as smartphones are concerned, and it is set to start making inroads in the tablet market soon as well. Toshiba is among those set to launch an Android-based tablet, but in the meantime the company has come up with the AC100, an Android device in a notebook format. Does the combination actually work?
The AC100 comes in two flavours. We had the less expensive AC100-10Z to test, but for around £50 more you can get the AC100-10U which adds 3G data support. Apart from that, both versions of the notebook are identical and both have Wi-Fi.
The hardware is superb. A 10.1-inch screen makes for a small notebook that measures just 262 x 189 x 14-21mm and weighs a mere 0.87kg. The design is novel in that most of the chassis is brown with orange highlights. This won't appeal to everyone, but we found it rather fetching.

Processing power comes via an NVIDIA Tegra 250 Mobile Web Processor, much more the kind of thing you'll find in tablets and slates than in fully fledged notebooks. Its 1GHz dual core ARM A9 processor and NVIDIA graphics processor mean it can support 1080p video, and video playback is a real highlight of the AC100.
Ports and connectors are restricted, with a combined microphone and headphones slot, HDMI port and two USB ports being all you get. There is an SD card slot so you can boost the 8GB of built-in storage. Oh, and there is a webcam sitting above the screen so you can do a bit of video calling.
The screen's 1024 x 600 pixels can't compare to any ‘real' notebook, and its reflective coating makes it a challenge to use in sunnier conditions. We can see that a computer like this might have appeal as a machine that moves around the home - and maybe also the garden - but in reality its reflectivity may limit its potential.
The keyboard is really nicely made. It felt comfortable under our fingers, and some thought has gone into making it Android specific, with a Home button for going to the Android home screen, separate media playback buttons, and a web browser shortcut. But there's no multitouch support on the touchpad, which is a pity.
Unfortunately, the bottom line is that Android just doesn't work well on the AC100. The basic Android apps don't lend themselves to the keyboarded format in the same way they might do to a tablet. The keyboard simply feels redundant, largely because it is tricky to find software for producing and editing real documents. There's no flash support so even many web based document editing options are out of the question.
There's no Android Market, either. There is a marketplace for apps, the Camagni Market, but it doesn't have much content and concentrates on apps formatted for the large, high resolution display. Toshiba has added a couple of apps including Documents to Go for viewing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, and the Opera web browser, but without the thousands of apps in the market, Android is hamstrung here.

Fujitsu - LIFEBOOK T730 review

Fujitsu's T730 updates a long line of convertible Tablet PCs from the company. This latest model allows you to choose a version incorporating GPS, something that is still quite rare in standard notebooks, though you do find it in more ruggedised machines designed for military, industrial and other demanding outdoor circumstances.
The build is quite tough and solid, and the lid exhibits almost no flex. Fujitsu invariably adds a very solid clasp into its notebooks which helps hold base and lid together in transit. In this case the clasp doubles up to hold the lid section in place when the T730 is in tablet mode with its screen outermost.
The Fujitsu LIFEBOOK T730 is a reasonably light notebook with a starting weight of 1.8kg, though that may start to feel like a lot more if you have to hold it in the crook of your arm working in tablet mode for any length of time. Inside the chassis the 12-inch screen delivers 1280 x 800 pixels. You can opt for a standard display or a high brightness model which offers easier viewing outdoors in bright sunshine.

As befits at Tablet PC, the screen is touch sensitive. There is some multi-touch support with rotating of pictures, pinch-to-zoom and double-tapping all supported. Dragging on the screen to scroll, particularly when web browsing or reading long documents in tablet mode, is a beautifully intuitive and smooth experience.
If you want to use a stylus instead of a fingertip, or need to because you are working with an application that requires a finer point than a finger than provide, there is one sitting in the bottom front right edge of the chassis.
There is a webcam sitting above the screen, and buttons ranged around the screen bezel provide what you need for interacting with the T730 when the keyboard is unavailable. There are five buttons, offering individual functions and second functions when they are pressed in combination. You can launch two apps by pressing different combinations, for example.
There are several different configurations on offer, with Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors in the mix. Hard drives rise to 500GB and you can also opt for 64GB or 128GB solid state drives. There is a modular bay on the right edge of the chassis which you can fill with a DVD, second battery, weight saver or even a Blu-ray drive.
There are three USB ports, HDMI port, Ethernet connector, VGA out, card reader, Firewire, ExpressCard slot, headphones and microphone connectors. Unusually, the battery is a rectangular unit that sits on the front edge of the chassis nestled under the wrist rest. This means the ports and connectors are ranged on all four sides of the notebook, which is ideal if you work a lot in tablet mode.
The screen benefits from an ambient light sensor which means brightness can be automatically adjusted depending on lighting conditions.
Battery life is about average. We got nearly two and a half hours of movie playback from a full charge. Fujitsu says you should get up to seven hours of life from the provided battery, but obviously that assumes fairly light usage.

HP - Pavilion dv7-4050ea review

he clue, as ever, is in the name. All of HP's laptops that end in the "ea" suffix are primarily designed to be entertainment machines, which means you can forget tucking them into your student rucksack and concentrate instead on providing a powerful and fun replacement for your desktop PC.
Entertainment laptops are as much about style as performance and certainly the smooth copper-silver aluminium casing with its intricate engraved rope patterning scores high on the cool leader-board. Flipping up the lid reveals a 17.3-inch HD+ High Definition BrightView LED display and a full-size black keyboard unusually lacking many of the usual peripherals: just a slim power button, a fingerprint reader and a large, highly responsive touchpad.
A tour of the outside reveals three USB 2.0 ports, VGA, HDMI, an eSATA/USB port, Ethernet, a multi-card reader and surprisingly a Double Layer SuperMulti DVD player. We say "surprisingly" because an entertainment machine that looks this good, costs a shade under £1,000 and packs an Intel Core i7 720QM Quad processor with 4GB of memory under the bonnet ought to be able to provide at least a basic Blu-ray drive. Why else have HDMI output? The sound quality, however, is much fuller than the usual laptop fodder, thanks to the integrated subwoofer, and the notebook comes pre-loaded with Windows 7 Professional 64-bit.

The more you examine it, the more the Pavilion dv7-4050ea appears to be the Nearly laptop. The native resolution, for instance, is 1600 x 900 and, while you can watch movies quite enjoyably on the bright screen at 1280 x 720, you're still falling well short of the 1920 x 1080 resolution of Full HD. Thankfully the CPU is linked to an impressive ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650 graphics card which has 1GB of dedicated DDR3 memory, so multitasking is relatively easy, as the more than respectable PCMark05 benchmark score of 6,935 illustrated.
Personally we would have liked to have seen more functions around the keyboard for quicker access to the Internet and entertainment features, and a slightly smaller number pad to allow for a more prominent layout of the cursor arrows. On the other hand, the keys themselves were firm, smooth and comfortable to glide over.
Battery life, though, was a shocker at a maximum of 1 hour and 25 minutes, so don't plan on watching any movies on the go. Another reason for keeping it firmly on the desk is the heat that rapidly builds up in the left underside, which would soon become painful if the machine were balanced on your thighs.

Lenovo - ThinkPad L412 review

If you want a laptop with green credentials then the Lenovo ThinkPad L412 is certainly worth a look. It has been produced using up to 30 percent ‘post consumer content' which means recycled materials. It is energy efficient too, with plenty of advanced power management settings. And to put the tin lid on things, it comes in nearly 100 percent recycled packaging.
None of this is worth a jot, though, if its performance and usability aren't up to scratch. Fortunately, they are.
Notwithstanding its green credentials, a single quick glance at this laptop marks it out as unmistakeably a Lenovo product. The chunky design which makes it well protected for carrying around, the large blue Enter key and the combination of a trackpad and (red) TrackPoint stick are dead giveaways. Oh, and the ‘ThinkPad' logo is a giant clue, of course.
The solid build is a boon for anyone who needs to carry their laptop with them a lot of the time, though it does mean the ThinkPad L412 weighs 2.4kg, which is quite a bit for a 14.1-inch screened computer.

The screen itself has a fairly standard 1366 x 768-pixel resolution. It doesn't have the best viewing angles and is a little lacking in vibrancy. Its matte finish won't please everyone, either, but we found it very comfortable to work with.
The keyboard feels a little clunky to us, as Lenovo keyboards tend to. Others will put a different spin on this and say it is solid and responsive. You are probably best off trying before you buy to see how the feel suits you. Even though the keyboard's feel isn't quite to our taste we had no trouble touch-typing at speed. We do like the thin, wide buttons down the left side of the keyboard which give fast access to volume control, speaker mute and microphone mute.
You can tweak the configuration of the Lenovo ThinkPad L412 to upgrade various of the core elements. At the quoted price you get an Intel Core i3-350M processor, Windows 7 Home Premium, 2GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.
The default battery is a 4-cell one, and you may well decide to upgrade this to a 6-cell or even an 9-cell option, particularly if you want to use the ThinkPad L412 away from mains power a fair amount of the time.
You can't alter the fact that graphics are handled by Intel's HM55 Express chipset, and you get Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Gigabit Ethernet and an optical drive as standard.
Dotted around the edges of the chassis are three USB 2.0 ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port. There is also a memory card reader, DisplayPort, ExpressCard slot, VGA connector and headset connector. That is not the best array of ports and connectors we've ever seen, but it is a solid basic collection, and the DisplayPort isn't something we see every day on business focussed laptops such as this one.

Toshiba - Satellite Pro C650-121 review

The range of Toshiba Satellite Pro laptops stretches from a tiddly 11.6-inch T110 that weighs a sylph-like 1.58kg, all the way up to an enormous 17-inch L550 that comes in at 3kg. At the extreme end of the scale we have the slightly larger 17.3-inch L670 Pro. The point is that Satellite Pros come in a variety of sizes with a mix of AMD and Intel hardware, yet the model codes give you no useful clue about the size of the screen or the spec of the hardware that lies inside.
The Satellite Pro C650-121 that we are reviewing has a 15.6-inch screen with 1366 x 768 resolution. It is powered by an Intel Core i3-330M dual core CPU that runs at 2.13GHz but which uses Hyper Threading to present four virtual cores to the 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium Edition Operating System.
Toshiba supports the CPU with an Intel HM55 chipset and 4GB of DDR3-1066MHz RAM which are both perfectly satisfactory. Things get a bit more contentious when we look at the Intel GMA HD graphics with 256MB memory, as the hardware is capable of playing movies from the tray-loading DVD drive or digital files from the 320GB Toshiba SATA hard drive, but is fairly hopeless for gamers. Toshiba has chosen to use Atheros hardware for the 802.11b/g/n wireless and Gigabit LAN, presumably as a cheaper alternative to Intel chippery, but we found they worked perfectly well and delivered decent performance.

The combination of the specification and the Satellite Pro name raised our expectations so we suffered something of a dip when we unpacked the laptop from the box. At a distance the chassis looks like it might be carbon composite but as soon as you get up close you can see it is actually made of textured black plastic. Unfortunately the chassis looks rather cheaper than its £540 price tag might suggest and the surfaces of the lid and the deck around the keyboard act as magnets for greasy fingerprints.
The arrangement of the ports and connectors also leaves something to be desired. The power jack is on the right-hand side behind the DVD drive and the SD/MMC card reader is on the front, but the other connectors are all arranged on the left side. The selection is rather basic and consists of a VGA output, two USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet and a pair of jacks for a headset.
Many laptops sport an HDMI output and we quite like to see an ExpressCard slot for future expansion. We consider two USB ports to be the absolute minimum that is acceptable and prefer to see three or four USB ports, however we are also unimpressed by the layout of the ports. It is our guess that the mainboard inside the Satellite Pro C650-121 has a simple construction to save on the cost of materials and the result is a laptop with the minimum of features. That said, the quality of the keyboard, mouse and screen is average yet acceptable.
Toshiba has tried to enhance the Pro nature of the Satellite by adding a handful of Toshiba utilities including the Toshiba Bulletin Board. The idea is that the software checks for updates to the drivers and software and then flashes you a message in a similar manner to Windows Updates.
In practice the system doesn't work especially well. We were faced with three alerts which included an update for Tempro (software that allows you to fine tune the performance of your laptop), a BIOS update and a wireless network driver update. Each update worked well enough but required a manual download and installation and wasn't a process we would recommend for the technically unschooled.

HP - Pavilion dv6-3085ea review

The HP Pavilion dv6-3085ea is an unusual laptop and not just because its model name is such a mouthful of gobbledegook. Where it strikes out from the mainstream is in its use of an AMD CPU with ATi graphics and Broadcom 802.11n wireless. As far as we can see there is no Intel hardware inside this model, which puts the HP dv6 firmly in the minority of the laptops we have seen in recent years.
The AMD 785GX chipset supports the AMD Phenom II P920 CPU which runs at a relatively lowly 1.6GHz, however the use of four cores means that it delivers plenty of performance. The chipset has a trick up its silicon sleeve as it includes integrated ATi RS880M graphics (aka ATi Mobility Radeon HD 4250) that have 40 unified shaders and 320MB memory. Added to that HP has included a discrete HD 5650 graphics chip with 400 Stream processors and 1GB of memory.

When you pull out the power cord (or plug it in) a utility called ATi Power Xpress springs into action and asks whether you wish to switch from the high power graphics to low power (or vice versa). The difference between the two chips is that the HD 4250 doesn't have the ability to play serious games, although it does have the juice to display the Aero interface in the 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. The movie decoder in the graphics chips means that 720P HD movies play smoothly on the 15.6-inch screen with its 1366 x 768 resolution.
By contrast the HD 5650 graphics are definitely up to the task of playing games, however there is a trade-off with battery life, hence the need for Power Xpress to play its part. We found that the HD 5650 graphics delivered 100 minutes of battery life with continuous hard use, while the use of HD 4250 stretched the battery to 125 minutes, which is rather impressive.
Of course, the matter of which graphics chip is in action at any particular time is hidden away beneath the surface. There are plenty of features that are more obvious to the eye, starting with the chassis. The covering of the lid and the deck surrounding the keyboard are clad in metal that is machined with patterns that make the whole thing look rather interesting. HP has also included a fingerprint reader which can be used as a security device and also as a short-cut for signing in to instant messengers and other software.
HP includes a copy of its Support Assistant software to keep the drivers and software bundle up to date.
The keyboard looks good and feels solid when you type but it can get frustrating to use. A number of the keys carry short cut functions so, for instance, the F2 key dims the brightness of the screen and F3 increases the brightness. The trouble is that when you tap F2, intending to edit a file name, you'll instead find that the brightness of the screen changes. If you want to use F2 as God intended you first need to hit the Function key, and that's a pain in the neck. It should be the other way around.
We could live with the keyboard of the Pavilion dv6 as it has both good and bad, but the mouse buttons are beyond the pale. The click action is so heavy that the mouse pointer would move on the screen when we were performing a simple double click. Truly this is the worst mouse we have ever experienced.
Other features are laid out with a reasonable degree of thought. On the left hand side there are headphone jacks, an SD/MS/MMC/xD card reader, one USB port, one combo USB/eSATA port, Gigabit Ethernet and HDMI and VGA graphics outputs. Stereo Altec Lansing speakers are located on the front and there are two USB ports on the right side along with the tray loading DVD writer.

Lenovo - ThinkPad Edge review

ThinkPad has a clearly defined place in our affections as the serious business laptop that costs a fortune. You probably wouldn't buy a ThinkPad with your own money but you hope like heck that your company will provide one as part of your package.
At this point your correspondent wishes to point out that he is self-employed so the sight of a ThinkPad drives him into a rage of childish envy. It's all so unfair that these people are given a ThinkPad for free!
This makes the ThinkPad Edge particularly interesting as it is a budget ThinkPad or, if you prefer, a ThinkPad that you might consider buying for cold hard cash. The ThinkPad Edge is available in a 13.3-inch chassis without an optical drive or 15.6-inch with a tray-loading DVD writer. Both sizes of screen have an HD resolution of 1366x768 pixels.
In addition to making a decision about the chassis you also have to choose between AMD and Intel hardware for the CPU and graphics. This means that there is no such thing as a typical ThinkPad Edge and in addition there is a long list of options to navigate. Our review sample was a relatively basic model that came without 3G mobile Internet hardware, and the 4GB of RAM was installed in two modules so there is no scope for an upgrade unless you start chucking away the existing memory.

The guts of the hardware all come from Intel's shop and include the 2.27GHz Core i5-430M CPU, HM55 chipset, GMA 4500HD graphics and 802.11b/g/n wireless. While the graphics won't win any plaudits from gamers, they do a perfectly serviceable job and support the HDMI output on the left-hand side of the chassis. Lenovo has also included a VGA output which should guarantee compatibility with pretty much every projector on the market.
The arrangement of the ports and connectors is very convenient. On the rear there is a single USB 2.0 port, with two more USB ports on the right hand side along with the optical drive and power connector. On the front of the chassis there's a card reader and then we have a slew of connectors on the left side. These consist of the Ethernet port, an ExpressCard 34 slot, VGA and HDMI graphics outputs, a headphone jack, a regular USB 2.0 port and a combination eSATA/USB port, which gives a total of four USB ports. The final feature is a 2-megapixel webcam set in the lid of the laptop.
Lenovo changed the Operating System on our sample from the default option of 64-bit Windows 7 Professional which should appeal to the typical ThinkPad customer. We were startled to see that these changes took the nominal price for the ThinkPad Edge to £1,154 before it was discounted to £831 on Lenovo's website. Give or take a bit, that's £200 more expensive than a Dell Inspiron 15R with a similar specification, however we haven't considered the all-important ThinkPad factor. For instance, there is air bag protection for the hard drive and Lenovo includes its usual suite of ThinkVantage Toolbox and System Update 4 software.
The keyboard looks smaller than you might expect as it doesn't have a number pad on the side. It looks good and feels superb when you type, with an excellent action and rock solid stability. There is a TrackPoint set in the keyboard with three mouse buttons positioned below the space-bar. Move further down and you'll see a regular touchpad and two more mouse buttons, so you can either work the Lenovo way or settle for controls that will be familiar to any laptop user.

Dell - Inspiron 15R review

In recent months we have noticed that Dell has been placing an emphasis on the cosmetic appeal of its laptops. This is another way of saying that you can buy a Dell laptop with a coloured lid, instead of settling for dull, traditional black or grey. We feel this is a smart marketing strategy as it gets away from that dull Megahertz stuff, but we weren't prepared for the visual impact when we unpacked our sample of the Dell Inspiron 15R.
The lid of the Inspiron 15R comes in a choice of red, pink, blue or black and the deck of the chassis surrounding the keyboard is chromed. Our sample was supplied in pink, although we would argue that it was a blackcurrant sort of pink rather than a vile bubblegum colour, but we ran into a snag when we tried to get a price for this option. Did we mention that Dell charges for its fancy colours? In the UK Dell offers the Inspiron 15R in Mars Black, but if you fancy Peacock Blue, Lotus Pink or Tomato Red you need to phone Dell and quote system code N07N5016. Lord knows why they have made life so complicated.

There's a number of other cosmetic touches as the power button and activity lights use muted white LEDs that look rather classy. When the power cord is plugged into a mains socket a blue LED lights up near the socket that connects to the laptop. This could be considered to be a handy way of finding the charger in the dark, or you might find it irritating. We took a positive view and liked what Dell has done.
Under the bonnet you'll find an Intel Core i5 CPU which was a 2.27GHz Core i5-430M in our sample, however Dell tells that that production versions will ship with a faster 2.4GHz Core i5-450M. Core i5 is a dual core processor that uses Hyper Threading to present four virtual cores to the 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System and it delivers all the performance you need in a modern laptop.
Dell has allied the CPU with 4GB of DDR3-1066MHz memory and an ATi Mobility Radeon HD 5470 graphics chip, which delivers enough grunt to play a reasonable selection of games.
When the Dell is performing everyday tasks it is nice and quiet, but the cooling fan gets noticeably louder when the system is under load as the cooling has to deal with a decent CPU as well as proper graphics.
The screen is a 15.6-inch affair with 1366x768 resolution and LED back-lighting that presents a decent picture, but it's nothing to write home about. The screen appears to use basic TN hardware in the panel and it doesn't have a clever coating to improve the appearance of the image.
The 2.7kg weight is a tad on the heavy side for a mid-sized laptop but we were disappointed to see that Dell has supplied a relatively small 4080mAh battery. The combination of smallish battery and Core i5 hardware means that we only got 92 minutes of battery life in a continuous test. We would have hoped for 110 or 120 minutes.
Other parts of the specification include a tray-loading multi-format DVD writer, Dell 802.11n wireless and a 500GB hard drive. Bluetooth is notable by its absence, which is a shame, and the layout of the ports and connectors is less than ideal. In total there are four USB 2.0 ports, with one port doubling up as an eSATA port, and two of the USB 2.0 ports are located on the rear of the chassis along with the power connector, where they are rather inconvenient.