Netbook Review, notebook review, tablet review, PC review » notebooks

Asus N56VM – Review

Paul Merak — Wed, 09 May 2012 09:21:51 +0000

The arrival of Intel’s third-gen Ivy Bridge CPUs means massive discounts are starting to appear on machines featuring the old Sandy Bridge generation of processors. But some people won’t be swayed from buying an Ivy Bridger anyhow. Such as the Asus N56VM , priced at $1200, a 15.6-inch desktop replacement. That means powerful. The Asus [...]

Origin EON11-S Gaming Notebook – Preview

Paul Merak — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:07:26 +0000

The 11-inch gaming notebook lives on – just days after Dell announced the Alienware M11x 11-incher was being discontinued, Origin, a firm founded by former Alienware employees, has announced the EON11-S which Origin calls a ‘compact high-performance laptop’. The Alienware M11x is quietly being retired as its scaled-down gaming specs weren’t quite enough to tempt [...]

Lenovo ThinkPad L To Get Ivy Bridge

Paul Merak — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:22:50 +0000

Lenovo is to update its ThinkPad L series. The 14-inch L430 and 15.6-inch L530 replace the L420 and L520 which themselves are no slouches, but the new L-updates will feature Ivy Bridge chips, whose improved efficiency should mean even more battery life than the 11 hours-plus offered by the current crop of ThinkPad L notebooks. [...]

Gigabyte P2542G Notebook – Preview

Ashley — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 21:52:24 +0000

Taiwanese manufacturer Gigabyte unveiled the P2542G gaming laptop at CeBIT in Hannover a couple of weeks back. The Gigabyte P2542G packs in an Intel Ivy Bridge i7 CPU, a 2GB NVidia Geforce GTX660M dedicated graphics card and a full HD 1920 x 1080p screen. P2542G also offers a Blu-ray drive and a THX-certified dual-woofer audio [...]

Toshiba Updates Satellite Notebooks

Ashley — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 14:48:30 +0000

Last week Toshiba announced a whole bunch of new products, amongst them a new Qosmio X870 and upgrades for both the Satellite C and Satellite P budget series. A very capable glasses-free 3D model was also announced. Now the japanese tech giant has announced updates to the Satellite L Series, known as the Satellite L800 [...]

Gateway NV55S05u – Review

Ashley — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 00:17:22 +0000

The 15-inch Gateway NV55S05u is notable for its excellent graphics performance and chic white design, all for $579. There are actually 17 possible configurations for the Gateway NV55S05u, with an assortment of AMD and Intel CPUs to choose from. Our test model had a a 1.5GHz AMD Quad-core A8-3500M CPU coupled with an AMD Radeon [...]

Kogan Agora Pro – Review

Ashley — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 13:54:46 +0000

Kogan is established in Australia as a budget consumer electronics manufacturer which undercuts the larger producers by selling direct to web customers. Now Kogan has launched its first notebook in Europe with the Kogan Agora Pro, which runs the latest desktop version of Linux’s Ubuntu 11.04 OS. The Agora Pro features an 11″ screen, but [...]

Toshiba Satellite L755D – Review

Ashley — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 14:19:36 +0000

The Toshiba Satellite L755D is one of the first notebooks to use AMD’s new Llano architecture, and it’s impressive to see a quad-core processor on a budget notebook, but more importantly one that doesn’t shirk on any particular count. The Toshiba Satellite ships with a generous 6GB of RAM with a capacious 320GB hard drive [...]

Dell Vostro V131 – Review

Ashley — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:24:50 +0000

The Dell Vostro V131 is aimed at the small and medium business consumer. The Vostro V131 is an affordable 13.3″ ultraportable which falls within even tight IT budgets. The lastest incarnation of the range incorporates Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors and a removable battery. It’s a fine-looking businesss notebook, done out in dark gray and silver. [...]

Sony Vaio S Review

Ashley — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:56:30 +0000

Sony has released a new 15.5-inch 1080p edition to the VAIO S Series, complete with BluRay reader. The 15-inch Sony Vaio S Series shares a lot of design features with the smaller SA and SB versions. Same magnesium alloy case, same angular design – though a closer look reveals some crucial differences. Although the magnesium [...]

How to extend battery life

Guest — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 04:51:57 +0000

Although laptops are the epitome of convenience and mobile work efficiency, snags like dead batteries can leave you frustrated and impotent. Battery life is a key feature of laptops because nobody wants to find themself out of power. Fortunately, battery performance is affected by computer usage, so you can take an active role in extending [...]

Review: Dell XPS 15z

Paul Merak — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 21:22:23 +0000

In the past, the ultra thin laptops were the greatest motivations for Dell engineers and designers, only to fail miserably in one feature or another. It could be a lousy battery life, low performance or just tad too pricey. Now, in 2011, Dell promised something that will balance out all these issues. For quite some [...]

Whitebox cheaper brands of tablets emerging

Paul Merak — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:00:17 +0000

Display Search released Mobile PC shipment and Forecast Report. In diagram above we can see that Apple still dominates Tablet market by whopping 53.6%, but we also see quickly emerging and fast growing segment of local or non-branded manufacturers – whitebox. In Q4 of last year whitebox produced 567K units and by growth of 235% [...]

OpenTablet 10 with transreflective display by OpenPeak

Paul Merak — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 00:54:50 +0000

Open Peak recently released its 7 inch tablet and now, they just introduced the new OpenTablet 10. It is quite bigger than the first one and on top of that, it uses a trans-reflective display. This means, you will not have a hard time reading on the device and using it outdoors. The company has [...]

Hands On: HP Pavillion dm1 with AMD Fusion

Paul Merak — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 20:24:16 +0000

Ay $480, you would not expect the most amazing ultraportable, unless you do not know HP. Recently, the brand allowed a hands on test of the HP Pavilion dm1 for Laptop Mag. The new HP Pavilion dm1 utilizes the Fusion APU from AMD with a dual core CPU running at 1.6GHz.the GPU is a Radeon [...]

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 for $549!

Paul Merak — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:25:13 +0000

For a limited time offer you can pick up this IdeaPad for $300 off of a regular price. This Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 15.6-Inch Core i3-i5 laptop for $549 is a deal and a half. Core i3 CPU and 3GB RAM has plenty horse power to handle multitasking. 500GB HDD offers enough space for storage. It [...]

1st smartbook of its kind

Paul Merak — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:55:02 +0000

Why first? Well, it’s sort of a cross between a smartphone and a notebook. Compaq Airlife 100 Android powered netbook was first shown in January on Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. It has a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 10.1 inch. 1024 x 600 pixel display, 16GB of flash-based storage, and SD card slot, 3G and [...]

Two new models of MSI netbooks seen at FCC

Twinkle — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:06:34 +0000

Two new models of MSI notebooks, with names MS-1243 and MS-1241 were noticed at FCC. According to the PDF found, they have an 11.6-inch (and 12.1-inch) display, 1366x768 resolution, 3G WAN, HDMI, TV output (optional), Bluetooth and WiFi.

Broadcom single-chip WiFi/Bluetooth combo approved by netbook makers

Kamal DS — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:46:49 +0000

Broadcom's new all-in-one chip, which features both WiFi and Bluetooth radio on a single chip has been selected by the various netbook/notebook vendors. This includes the big guys like Acer, ASUS and Lenovo.This chip will help the manufactures and vendors to lower the cost of their netbooks as-well-as notebooks as they won't have to buy separate chips and will help them to conserve space on the already cramped logicboards. Broadcom's triple combo which includes three radio, WiFi, Bluetooth and FM has been selected by HTC, Acer, Qisda and Foxconn to lower the price of their upcoming models.

Flash 10.1 – no love for netbooks, at least for now

Paul Merak — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:26:11 +0000

Adobe released BETA of newer version of flash that is supposed to provide GPU acceleration. However, since it does not supports GMA 950 which is used in most of the netbooks, it is going to make little to no difference at all in the flash performance in the netbooks.Right now, it only supports GMA 4500 and Nvidia ION. So, users ION powered netbooks and nettops should update to the this version. Others shall wait for Adobe to include GMA 950 supportNote: Linux and Mac netbooks/notebooks are not yet supported[Download Flash 10.1]

MSI offering $80 discount on X340, X400, X600 and Wind12 U200 – India, Australia and Italy only

Brooke — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:10:02 +0000

MSI is offering crazy discounts on the Xslim series and one Wind model. This includes X340, X400, X600 and Wind12 U200. However, the discount is valid in only 3 countries: India, Australia and ItalyCustomers need only access the online e-coupon, print it out, and take it to an MSI notebook retailer or visit MSI cooperative online electronics stores to take advantage of an exclusive discount when purchasing an X-Slim Series X340, X400, X600 and Wind12 U200. The whole series of 12" to 15.6" ultra-thin, power-saving notebooks with amazing entertainment capabilities are eligible for this discount!Visit http://xslimseries.msi.com/ to get the latest information on special offers.

Dell Mini OPI Designer Lids Now up for Sale

Twinkle — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:47:57 +0000

Last month, we informed you about Dell and OPI tie-up to offer new designer lids for the Dell Mini netbooks as-well-as notebooks. Now, they are finally available to the consumers. As mentioned earlier, the designer lid is going to cost you whopping $85There are 26 designs to choose from.“Who doesn’t love New York? It has everything – fashion, theatre, four distinct seasons, energy, excitement, and the best bagels anywhere. Hands down. The place where the official color of fashion is black, this city offers big buildings, big ideas, big beauty – and big inspiration. For this big color.” - Suzi Weiss-Fischmann, OPI

HP ProBook 5310m packs CULV chip – shipping in Europe

Twinkle — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 01:54:34 +0000

This HP new netbook may give you a glimpse of business netbook, but it comes with a CULV chip that is becoming more and more common in the netbooks and ultra-portables these days. However, that has not stopped HP in using those processors in this sleek netbook with aluminium chassis touting a pretty chicklet keyboard.There are several variants for 5310m. You can go for Celeron SU2300 dual-core or Core 2 Duo SP9300 CULV processor. The RAM capacity ranges from 1GB of memory (SU2300) and 160GB of storage to 4GB of memory (SP9300) and 320GB of storage. The SP9300 model has many other goodies including 3G connectivity. The entry level version comes with FreeDOS and is listed over €500, while for around €1000, you get high end model that comes with SP9300 processor.Where most CULV notebooks carry a glare/glossy screen, the ProBook 5310m is surely an exception on that list. Several SKUs of HP’s 13-inch ProBook 5310m have already started shipping in Europe.

AMD looking forward for triple core for notebooks

Twinkle — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 07:20:00 +0000

Many new CPUs have been planned for Q2 2010 by AMD. Danube is part of a 2010 platform and it supports AMD-V. The Phenom II triple-core N820 mobile processor has a 35W TDP and has three cores, which is nothing more than a quad-core with one core disabled. It has 1.5MB total cache or 512KB [...]

HP Pavilion DM3 CULV notebook gets new CPU – Core 2 Duo SU4100

Twinkle — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:00:18 +0000

Announced a month back, the HP Pavilion dm3 packs Core 2 Duo SU4100 that runs at 1.3GHz clock speed, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD and, oddly, a DVD burner. It packs in discrete graphics, Nvidia's G105 with 512MB of memory which is huge as most CULV-based notebooks do not feature discrete graphics.It roughly has a battery life of upto 8-hours. Impressive specs with a not-so-impressive price, €799.

Toshiba Mini NB205 updated – slapped with Windows 7 starter

Twinkle — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:00:19 +0000

With no time left in Windows 7 release, every netbook/notebook company is working its finger to the bone in upgrading their existing netbooks/notebooks with Windows 7 OS. Toshiba has updated its Mini NB205, a 10.1-inch netbook with Windows 7 Starter edition. It will be available with either a 160GB or 250GB HDD.

It will be shipped on 22nd October and will be priced at $399.99. You get choice of five colors: Sable Brown, Frost White, Indigo Blue, Posh Pink and Onyx Black

[Toshiba NB205]

Children, start pedaling to charge your OLPC XO notebook!

Twinkle — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:10:48 +0000

Made by OLPC Afghanistan, you can now get your OLPC XO charged by pedals! And you can work on your XO too while pedaling, if you can do that.The system connects the Freeplay hand crank with pedals underneath to enable the XO to be used as long as desired at home, into the night, etc; and it requires no additional or backup battery.Who thought a day will come when we will be able charge our netbooks/notebooks by pedals. Somebody please make a charger so that I can charge my netbook while cycling.[OLPC Afghanistan]

Hasee Ultrabook – An Atom netbook with 12-inch screen

Twinkle — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:28:52 +0000

Couple of months back, we mentioned about Hasee Computers where we said that they are now serious about launching few ultra-slim notebooks and here is one called the Hasee Ultrabook.This new 12.1-inch Haseee Ultrabook model has 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and WiFi. It comes with an Intel Atom processor and runs good 'ol Windows XP. Priced at 380 Euros, it will be available in the UK starting next week.

Rebate of $500 on Sony Vaio P

Twinkle — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:10:15 +0000

You must be very glad and excited after knowing that after using the coupon code VAIO500P during the checkout, you will get rebate of 30% on Sony Vaio P models. So hurry-up as offer is valid till Oct 13. Note that high capacity SSD +2GB RAM models are validREAD our VAIO P review here

Netbook vendors conservative about netbook shipments in 2010?

Paul Merak — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:00:55 +0000

All the notebook vendors are expected to turn conservative towards their netbook shipments in the coming year, 2010. Reason: thin profits. Interestingly, netbook shipments have increased by 50% compared to the year 2008. However, shipments are expected to drop by 20% next year.Commentary: Most of the netbook vendors are now jumping to the slim-notebooks as that is the category which would provide these manufactures handsome margins.