Overview: HP HDX18t

Hewlett-Packard is now selling the recently announced HP HDX18t entertainment notebook PC, featuring a 18.4-inch screen and the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor.


The HDX18t is configurable with up to 4GB of DDR2 memory, and up to 640GB of hard drive space using two 320GB HDDs. It has an optical drive that can read Blu-Ray discs and burn DVDs, and optionally built-in HDTV tuner with remote control. The notebook features the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 512MB video card which manages the display with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a full HD resolution of 1920×1080 pixels.


HP’s HDX18t has four speakers and a subwoofer, a web camera, fingerprint reader, HDMI and VGA outputs, a wireless-N (802.11n) module, Ethernet LAN port, four USB ports (one shared with eSATA), an ExpressCard slot, 5-in-1 media card reader, and Firewire port.


The laptop includes the latest titanium “liquid metallic” design, a full-size keyboard with numeric keypad, 8-cell battery, and a weight of around nine pounds.


The HP HDX18t runs Windows Vista OS (32-bit or 64-bit) and starts at $1,549.99 at Hewlett-Packard’s store.

Panasonic Launches new Laptops

Panasonic introduced its newest Toughbook series called 8 series, featuring the lightest form factor among ruggedized laptop computers. W8 ultra-portable computer, F8 laptop and T8 tablet PC alternative weight between 3 lbs and 3.7 lbs and all come with the Gobi 3G technology for mobile broadband transfer speeds, as well as shock-mounted hard drives, spill-resistant keyboards and flexible connectors. In addition, there is the 802.11a/b/g/draft-n support, Bluetooth 2.0, and the Hybrid Cooling System for adjustable fan speed depending on the environment conditions.

Panasonic ToughBook F8 sports a 14.1-inch widescreen display providing a long battery life for running applications in the field operated by the Intel Core 2 Duo processing technology. Inside there are up to 4GB RAM memory, 160GB HDD drive with shock-resistance, built-in DVD Multi drive, and 6 hours of battery life.


Next come Panasonic Toughbook W8 ruggedized laptop computers optimized for ultra portability with a 12.1-inch anti-glare LCD display, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, expandable 1GB SDRAM memory, 120GB HDD, and 7 hours of battery life.


Panasonic Toughbook T8 is a rugged tablet PC alternative introduced with a 12.1-inch touch-sensitive display featuring stylus input, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor characterized by ultra low voltage-based technology, 120GB HDD storage, 1GB SDRAM, and 7 hours of battery life.

The security features include trusted platform module, BIOS-based Computrace theft protection agent, cable lock slot, password security and fingerprint scanner.


If you are curious about the prices for the 3 new ruggedized laptop computers, there are street prices set at $2,099 for the W8 and T8, while the F8 notebook costs $2,499.

Overview: Fujitsu ESPRIMO Mobile U9215

Another laptop computer integrating the famous Authentec Fingerprint Sensor technology is ESPRIMO Mobile from Fujitsu Siemens Computers, more exactly 2 new models called ESPRIMO Mobile U9215 and ESPRIMO Mobile D9515 from the same series.


“As a leading international IT corporation, Fujitsu Siemens wanted to create a highly mobile lineup tailored for today’s business requirements, with a rich feature set and unrestricted connectivity. We believe we achieved this goal with the new ESPRIMO Mobile and CELSIUS business notebooks, and that users will appreciate the convenient security offered with the addition of AuthenTec’s new AES2550 fingerprint sensor,” said Andreas Thimmel, Senior Vice President, Volume Business at Fujitsu Siemens Computers.


The AuthenTec AES2550 Sensor allows fingerprint-based access to the laptop only to authorized users, and in addition to it, the new business laptops feature also the latest Intel processing technology –Intel Centrino 2 – for high performance on the go.


There is also a third laptop model series with the AuthenTec’s sensor, models CELSIUS H260 and H275, providing low power consumption for increased battery life, important characteristics of mobile workstations.


On the other side, the ESPRIMO Mobile business laptops are great desktop replacement solutions, coming in an ultra-portable version with a 12.1-inch display and 15.4-inch standard form factor.


ESPRIMO Mobile U series comes with ConfCam web camera, mobile broadband access, Bluetooth, spill resistant keyboard, and configurable hardware components, while the ESPRIMO Mobile D series sports a larger display and the same reliability.




“Our AES2550 sensor is proving to be a popular new addition to our PC product portfolio, as evidenced by its integration into a growing number of Centrino 2 notebooks such as the new ESPRIMO Mobile Series by Fujitsu Siemens Computers,” said Tom Aebli, AuthenTec Vice President of PC Products. “Europe is an important growth region for AuthenTec, and we are pleased to further expand our relationship with Fujitsu Siemens Computers through this collaboration. We believe today’s mobile business user will quickly appreciate the added security and convenience that our AES2550 bring to these new high-performance ESPRIMO and CELSIUS mobile notebooks.”

Overview : Dell Precision M6400- Quad Core

Dell has launched this week their first quad-core mobile workstation - the Precision M6400.

The 17-inch laptop for engineers, designers, and multimedia content creators is configurable with the Intel Core 2 Quad QX9300 processor at 2.53GHz, NVIDIA Quadro FX 2700M 512MB graphics, up to 4GB of DDR3 memory, dual hard drives or solid state drives, providing up to 640GB and 128GB of storage in total respectively, and a DVD burner. Options for up to 16GB of RAM, the NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700M 1GB video card, and up to 1TB of storage will be available by the end of the year.

Offered display resolution options are 1440×900 and 1920×1200 pixels. Later, users will be also able to choose 1920×1200 screen with LED backlight and an edge-to-edge LED backlight display (1920×1200).

Connectivity features include 802.11 a/g/n Wireless LAN, Bluetooth 2.1, Ultra-Wideband, mobile broadband, and GPS.

There are also an optional 2MP web camera, two speakers, optional dual array microphones, four USB ports, VGA and Display Port outputs, Firewire and eSATA ports, ExpressCard 54 and PC Card slots, and an 8-in-1 media card reader.

For enhanced security, the Precision M6400 incorporates the Trusted Platform Module 1.2, a Smart Card reader, and optional fingerprint reader.

The mobile workstation has aluminum LCD back and base and a new industrial design. It starts at 8.5 pounds with a standard 9-cell battery.

The Dell Precision M6400 comes with 32-bit or 64-bit Windows Vista preinstalled and has a price of $2,299 for the basic configuration.

Review: Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2727

When all you have money for is a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2727, is it that such a bad thing? This ingress level, 15.4-inch widescreen notebook costs less than a hitman priced at a mere £275 and it could be the explanation to all their back-to-school requirements.


Design

The word 'Acme' coils to mind when appearing at the Amilo Li 2727. Its broad looking matte silver lid with divergent black interior barely pushes the intend envelope. It's not unattractive by any means, it just seems like it cost just £275, and that's not a excellent thing. The Li 2727 is a reasonably huge brute. It measures 355 by 256 by 24mm and ponders a quite heavily built 2.7kg, so it's not the sort of thing you'll desire to heave to and from school or university if you're living at home with your parents.


Performance

The given price tag isn't a grand deal of money to shell out on a notebook and it shows. There's no fancy Core 2 Duo CPU here, just a simple Celeron M CPU sprinting at 1.73GHz, and 1GB of RAM. That's a bit pants actually, but it's sufficient to guzzle through most customary desktop assignments, so if the kids criticizes, threaten to take away their belief fund.
3D gaming isn't the Li 2727's carrier. The Intel GMA 950 graphics accelerator adaptor is best matched to running things like Solitaire, but it'll turn its hand to the odd bit of video playback, too. Be warned, though: your kids won't be blowing up many virtual bad guys with this system -- they're going to have to get their kicks another way.

Like Equatorial Guinea's Olympic lineup, the Amilo Li 2727 tries solid but won't win any medals for recital. It scored a measly 1,403 in PC Mark 2005, and 1,310 in 3DMark 2006, so it isn't much quicker than an EEE PC 901. It'll let you waves the Web, pay attention to music and watch videos of up to 720p declaration with relative effortlessness, but it in actuality does establish to stumble if you try to multitask.

Battery sprint life is low to standard, depending on what variety of submission you're sprinting. In our CPU concentrated Battery Eater run down investigation, it generated 1 hour 28 minutes, and 1 hour 58 minutes in the far less concentrated reader investigation. That's not bad considering the size of the notebook.


Overall

It's contemptible and jovial. If you're subsequent to a low-cost 2nd notebook or something for the kids, then you could do a lot shoddier than the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2727. If you're somber about computing, though, you be supposed to seem elsewhere and practice to shell out more. The Medion Akoya S5610, for instance, offers much enhanced multitasking and graphical presentation for £600.


Pros

+ Stumpy price;
+ 4 USB ports


Cons

- Comparatively poor performance

Value For Money


Our Rating

Best Laptops- Top Rated

By combining experts’ reviews with users’ ratings we can create interesting and informative product tops like the one I’ll present to you today and which is called Best Rated Computer Laptops. It’s not like a top 10 because instead of showing you a fixed number of models, we have a list with 5 laptop models picked from each of the top 5 brands with the highest ratings on 4 reviews websites - CNET, Epinions, reevoo, and alaTest.

The first in alaTest’s top is Asus Eee PC 900, a 9-inch model with a screen large enough for watching videos and work on the go, long battery life, multi-touch trackpad compatible with Windows XP, while the bad aspects include small storage capacity, no 3G, too small keyboard for some, and no optical drive among others.

Reevoo has the Asus X51RL T2310 in the top 5 brands, a 10-rated laptop recommended by all reviewers for its long battery life, durability, design, performance and value for money.

ASUS Eee PC 4G on Epinions scored 5 stars for its overall design and ultra-portability, while the bad aspects are related to the keyboard size, monitor casing getting hot too quickly, too small memory and no disk drive. I’d like to ask these guys what did they expect from a $350 laptop?!
On CNET, the same laptop has a Very Good rating for having Windows XP installed for the same price as Linux, while the Bad includes low hard drive space and low screen resolution. Still, it is considered one of the best rated computer laptops worldwide.



Sony Vaio VGN AR11S from reevoo has a 17-inch display, long battery life, several software utilities pre-installed, and no bad reviews yet.

Acer Aspire One has a score of 99 out of 100 and people like it because it is elegant, in a slim form factor, with a large keyboard, and at an affordable price. Some say it’s limited in RAM memory, battery life and helpful features such as the Bluetooth.

On Epinions, the same laptop is among best rated with maximum of 5 stars accumulated for the price, performance, design, web camera and microphone. Some didn’t like the fact that it has no Bluetooth, but small keyboard and short battery life.

One of the lightest and thinnest laptop models available on the market is the Lenovo ThinkPad X300. In addition to these main positive aspects it provides a built-in DVD burner, WWAN, GPS and wireless USB connectivity. The thing that seems to bother many on alaTest is the price of about $1,830, which is a bit high.


Lenovo ThinkPad T61 has a lower price of $750 for having fewer features, but its durable design and long battery life allowed it to score 5 stars on sites like Epinions.


From HP, the Compaq Presario V4332EA 15.4-inch laptop is one of the few highly recommended models on reevoo, while on Epinions you can find the HP Pavilion dv6000z with 5 stars, lowest price displayed of $1099, and some Cons including short battery life, small hard drive and overheating.


HP Pavilion dv5-1000us entertainment system was reviewed on CNET and there people liked the expandable RAM memory which reaches 8GB, its design line, high processing speed, wireless draft N support and others. What they liked less includes the material used for building the housing on the exterior. It attracts fingerprints. Besides this, it is not that easy to use and users need a better user guide in order to learn how to access all its features.

From Apple there is the MacBook 2008 Edition, a great portable computing system with fast operating speed, large hard drive, high-quality built-in web camera for video conferences, as well as many security layers. There are no negative reviews, just that it seems a bit pricey for some on CNET.

Apple MacBook Air, the thinnest notebook, has 158 user reviews on alaTest and 81 expert reviews. From what I read there, it is considered too expensive for having a non-replaceable battery, small storage on Solid State Drive, limited connectivity, and slower operating speed compared to other laptops from the same category.

Advent appears in the top 5 best rated computer laptops on both reevoo and alaTest, but with different models. While Advent 4211 is appreciated for screen quality and value for money, and disliked for not having 3G connectivity and a longer battery life, the Advent 8109 on reevoo has a score of 10 for all categories: size/weight, design, value for money, battery life and performance.




I have to recognize I don’t know much about Everex products’ quality but after taking a look at the reviews on Epinions and CNET, I can say that the Everex StepNote SA2053T has a good design at under 4 lbs, costs under $600, but supports maximum 2GB of RAM memory and has no web camera. Let’s say it’s a mid-level laptop. On CNET, Everex StepNote XT5000T shows that users are satisfied for the graphics quality and all other stuff, excepting the fact that it overheats from time to time and the battery life tends to shorten.




What brand do you think is missing from the picture till now? – Toshiba probably, as it scored 10 on reevoo with the Toshiba Satellite Pro L40-15A and almost 5 stars on CNET with the Toshiba Satellite M65-S809 model. The latter has a noisy hard disk, low sound, and gets hot quickly, these in addition to being kinda heavy. You might like at it the display quality and the overall design.

Review: ASUS N50V

We remember when Asus' notebooks looked like they were planned by 5-year-olds with broken down crayons. The G2P gaming notebook was hideous. Fortunately the firm's got its act in concert and begun to whip out gorgeous notebook after stunning notebook. Its most recent stunner is the N50V -- a desktop replacement intended to handle all approach of hi-def content even though pricing and make public dates are yet to be definite. We'd gamble it will be out before the closing stages of the year.


Design

We've expressed it before, and we'll articulate it again -- the N50V is a nice-looking mechanism. The lid has fragile curved edges and a dark chocolate terminate that almost emerges purple in some lighting stipulations. Look intimately and you'll see dozens of vertical spotted lines that are evocative of the scrolling green code from the Matrix movies.


Performance

The N50V is a Centrino 2 notebook with a concrete core design. It comes with a Core 2 Duo T9400 with a core rate of recurrence of 2.53GHz, plus 4GB of RAM, and an NVidia Geforce 9650M GT graphics accelerator card and hence it's a very competent all-round machine.

The 320GB hard drive is reasonably middle-of-the-road by desktop PC norms, and even by notebook norms, Asus' M70 managed to transport with a 1TB drive, but this should only have an effect on pirate’s unrelenting file-sharers. Most notable, however, is the addition of a Blu-ray drive. With this, you'll be proficient to watch high-definition movies on the notebook, or on a large, exterior display.

Our mock-up of the N50V came with no operating system at all, but concluding accounts are predictable to ship with an edition of Windows Vista. The N50V has a fat, 15.4-inch exhibit, but we're not influenced by it. First of all, it's lustrous, so it's needlessly reflective, and poorer still, its vertical viewing angle is extremely limited. We had to slope it to a 145-degree angle, as far as it'll go, in order to acquire an even picture.


Overall

The N50V is a grand-looking, well-planted notebook. It's not ideal by any means, the storage space is restricted and the screen has issues, so the Asus M70 may be a superior bet. But if you desire a stylish desktop replacement with abundance of power and features, it's worth a glance.


Pros

+ Grand design
+ Speedy CPU and loads of memory


Cons

- Only 3 USB ports;
- Lustrous terminate gets filthy without difficulty


Value For Money


Our Rating