Acer Aspire ONE 751H

The AO751h isn't just about its "big" screen. It has large, beefy buttons; a rugged (though not ruggedized) plastic shell; and good battery life. It all comes in a sassy chassis that's small and sturdy enough to make a great go-to machine when you're on the go.

At 11.6 inches, the display provides ample room to show off its colorful 1366-by-768-pixel resolution. With brightness jacked up--and me looking at the screen dead-on--the AO751h showed good color reproduction. I spied rich reds and deep blues, and the blacks didn't turn a painfully ashy gray. Gander at the screen slightly off-angle, though, and you're staring into a dim, murky mess with some annoying glare coming off the glossy screen.That's not the only problem. Out of the box, this is no HD marvel. You'll press your luck to hit 720p resolution with the underpowered Atom processor and integrated GPU on board. If you beef up the RAM and ditch the preinstalled bloatware, sure, you'll get a reasonable speed boost. But the 720p video installed on the hard drive had an occasional frame stutter. That said, you'll be able to watch standard-definition YouTube and Hulu video.

The AO751h packs a 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z520 processor and 1GB of memory, along with a 160GB hard drive. That CPU is underpowered--even by Atom standards--so don't expect blazing-fast performance. The processor/hard drive combo resulted in a score of 31 in WorldBench 6, a score that hovers near bottom of the barrel among our field of tested netbooks. It is a hair worse in overall performance than Dell's Mini 10. As for endurance, the six-cell battery delivers: In the PC World Test Center's battery tests, it lasted 8 hours, 13 minutes--not shabby considering it supported the AO751h's aforementioned 11.6-inch LED backlit screen all that time. While unable to unseat theToshiba NB205-310's top-rung 10-hour battery life, the AO751h is certainly good enough to last you through the average day (or extra-long flight).

Beyond that big, bright screen, the keyboard is one of the other major selling points. The oversize (for the netbook universe) buttons make it a breeze to type. There's no space wasted on multimedia shortcut keys. The function keys are small (no surprise there), but the QWERTY buttons are large. As good as the keyboard is, the navigation control is another story. Netbooks have this yin and yang balancing act between keyboard and touchpad--it seems they're always at odds with each other. You can shrink the keyboard to accommodate a comfy mousing zone, or plop down engorged buttons and all but give up on trying to navigate. With Acer's AO751h, it's the latter.

The slim little mousebar button is so amazingly, frustratingly narrow that I had a hard time just pressing it. To make matters worse, it's indented. I found it almost impossible to hit the mouse button and get things done. You ever actually yell at a touch pad? I did. I made do by tapping on the touchpad to replace the left click. The rest of the AO751h has a standard setup: 10/100 ethernet, VGA-out, three USB 2.0 ports, a memory card reader, a Webcam, and headphone and microphone jacks.

Toshiba Satellite L555-S7916

If you're looking for an inexpensive laptop with a large screen to park in the kitchen or use as a home-office PC, Toshiba's Satellite L555-S7916 is worth a look. The expansive keyboard, which includes a dedicated numeric keypad, raises the comfort level for word processing, Web site navigation, and spreadsheet editing chores--and that's about it. But you'd be hard pressed to find a desktop-replacement-size all-purpose laptop for less than the $699 asking price (as of August 28, 2009) of our test unit--aside from the odd fire sale at Walmart.

You won't want to watch movies or listen to music without external speakers connected. The Intel T6500 cruises along at 2.1GHz, but the notebook's limited (2MB) L2 cache hobbles performance. Still, the Satellite L555-S7916 chugged its way to a WorldBench 6 performance benchmark score of 81, only a few points behind themark of the Asus N90SV-A2, which sports a 2.66GHz CPU and costs two-and-a-half times as much as the Toshiba.

Though the 17-inch-diagonal screen offers 1600-by-900-pixel resolution, the display's overall image quality--particularly when playing back DVD movies--was poor. We popped in our test Serenity and Return of the King DVDs only to be greeted by blotchy colors, poor response times, and an extremely narrow range of tolerable viewing angles. The Toshiba fared a bit better in photo editing: Colors were bright and saturated, though the viewing-angle range remained very limited.

the L555-S7916 ships with a surprisingly useful software bundle. Highlights include Microsoft Works, Picassa 2, Corel DVD MovieFactory, Toshiba's own DVD playback software, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Symantec Norton Internet Security. It's a wide-ranging package for light-duty office work and casual video or photo editing. The 320GB hard drive offers plenty of storage and seemed reasonably responsive for a 5400-rpm drive.

The Toshiba also includes a DVD-R drive and 3GB of RAM. Ports are situated on the left and right sides of the case, with none on the hard-to-reach back. The left side includes VGA, ethernet, audio, and a combination eSATA/USB 2.0 port, something we're seeing more often in recent units. The right side includes two more USB 2.0 ports, a modem port, and the requisite Kensington lock slot. The dual-duty SD Card/Memory Stick slot is in the front, next to an analog volume control knob.

Hard-copy documentation is limited to a resource guide and a setup poster. The user manual--a PDF file on the system--is pretty good, but you'll need to read it on-screen or print out a copy.

Despite the massive screen, the laptop weighs a surprisingly light 6.6 pounds, thanks in no small part to the relatively wimpy guts. Still, at 16.4 by 10.7 by 1.7 inches, the L555-S7916 feels a bit bulky and awkward to tote around town. Battery life was fairly impressive in our tests, at 3 hours, 32 minutes (the average for 17-inch power laptops is in the neighborhood of 2 hours, 30 minutes). Still, we'd trade in the battery life advantage for better performance, any day of the week.

The Satellite L555-S7916 impresses - It works fine for word processing, Web surfing, spreadsheet work, and light photo editing.

Toshiba NB205-312

Toshiba spokespeople say that the NB205-N310's six-cell battery can last for almost 9 hours. Wrong. In our tests, the NB205 survives a staggering 9 hours, 53 minutes. For a little perspective, that is easily the longest time so far that a netbook has been able to run--and this is with the standard battery on board. That alone catapults this netbook's worth to a top pick on the charts.

A killer keyboard and a touchpad to match are essential for a champion netbook. After all, how useful is a machine if you can't type on it without hurting your hands? Toshiba scores by making the Chiclet-size cutout keys just big enough, and by dropping down a huge touchpad. This is simply the best netbook mouse pad to date. For starters, the surface area of the strike zone is larger than that on many full-size laptops! Next, the beefy mouse buttons camp at the southern edge of the machine--easing hand strain.

The N310 has good (though occasionally muted) color reproduction and supports a reasonably precise resolution of 1024 by 600 pixels on its glossy 10.1-inch screen; the images look pretty sharp.

Its configuration looks fairly standard on the surface: three USB ports, an SDHC card reader, a Webcam, one VGA-out, ethernet, and headphone and microphone jacks. But it's put together in a 2.9-pound package and with a sense of style that doesn't look or feel cheap at all.

Toshiba also adds a few extras to the NB205-N310 that are sure to appeal to folks on the go--and even more so to IT departments looking to deploy cheap PCs to a mobile workforce. One notable perk is a pass-through USB port that enables users to charge USB-powered devices while the computer is off. This netbook also provides an internal accelerometer to protect the hard drive in case of falls (much as the HP Mini 2140 does)--and it offers wireless WAN support as an option.

As a quick heads-up, another version of the NB205 is waiting in the wings--the lighter, scrappier NB205-N210. The big differences between these sibling Toshiba netbooks boil down to price (the N210 costs $350, $50 less than the N310), key shape (the N210 has flat, wide keys, as opposed to the N310's cut-out style), and the N310's bluetooth support (the N210 doesn't have it).

But considering all the features packed into the N310--and how well it performs in a pinch--this is an easy-to-recommend netbook that's perfect whether you are a budget-minded businessman or you just need a flexible minimachine for a long day of note-taking.

Samsung N110

The Samsung N110 is, at its core, a slightly revamped take on the company's NC10. A bit of streamlining (better plastics and a slimmer profile) here and a couple tweaks (immense improvement on the mouse button) there...it all adds up to polishing away blemishes found on the original version. So if you find some echoes between the two reviews, they're entirely intentional.

Samsung has made an interesting decision to switch from the matte screen on the NC10 to the glossy side of the force. It doesn't matter all that much: The 10.1-inch, 1024-by-600-pixel panel works reasonably in all sorts of lighting conditions. What's notable is that, in a side-by-side comparison, the glossy finish didn't really make the screen on the N110 pop that much more--but it did introduce a bit of glare.

Samsung has addressed the troublesome touchpad buttons of its older netbook. On that machine you have to push the button down below the surface in order for the action to register. As a result, if you press the left side of the single-button bar, the right side of the bar juts up. On the N110, the company has fixed the problem quickly and easily by changing the molding on the casing. Even though the dimensions haven't changed from those of the NC10 (10.3 by 7.3 by 1.5 inches), the N110 feels a little more slender. And since Samsung built this mouse button into the curved bottom, it hits the hands more naturally. Generally it seems more secure.

The Features of the N110 include: an SD card reader, three USB 2.0 ports, VGA, ethernet, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, headphone and microphone jacks, and a Webcam.

If you're familiar with netbooks at all, you know not to expect them to be speed demons. No exception here: The 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU and 1GB of RAM in the N110 motored through our WorldBench 6 tests with the same verve we saw from the initial pack of netbooks using the same processor. It scored a hair higher than Samsung's previous model, earning a middle-of-the-road mark of 36. Also unremarkable is the fact that the machine comes with a 160GB hard drive. Where it does shine, though, is in the battery-life department: The N110 ran for a staggering 8 hours, 23 minutes. That's long by any stretch--and by netbook standards, it outdoes the competition without having to use an overly meaty battery. The system weighs only 2.7 pounds.

Offering an improved mouse button and impressive battery life, the Samsung N110 would make a great choice for your next road trip. At $470, it isn't by any means the cheapest netbook on the block, but it certainly is a handsome, functional one.

Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708

This $4200 laptop packs a 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor with four CPU cores; 4GB of RAM; and two nVidia GeForce 9800M GTS video cards, each with 512MB of RAM, set up in SLI mode. In addition to running in standard SLI graphics mode, the Qosmio X305-Q708 lets you dial down to use the integrated GeForce 9400M graphics; this increases the laptop's battery life (which is just 1 hour, 24 minutes in full graphics mode) and decreases its heat and noise. The laptop measures 16.2 by 12.10 by 2.5 inches and weighs 12.4 pounds with the power brick in place.

On PC WorldBench 6, the Qosmio X305-Q708 turned in a somewhat disappointing score of 100. That's 33 points behind the mark posted by the competing Eurocom D901C Phantom-X, despite Toshiba's inclusion of such components as a 128GB solid-state drive to handle the OS, and a 320GB hard-disk drive to store files in). Nevertheless, the X305-Q708 did a creditable job with Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament III, cruising through them at high settings and 1680-by-1050-pixel resolution, managing frame rates of 52 frames per second and 75 fps, respectively. In comparison, Alienware's more affordable m17 posted frame rates of 44 fps and 51 fps on the same two tests.

Unfortunately, after loading this Quosmio with high-end components, Toshiba skimped on the 17-inch screen. It is fairly bright, displays vivid colors and sharp text, and even supports a fairly wide range of horizontal viewing angles, but its WSXGA 1680 by 1050 resolution is a bit underwhelming. Most other laptops in its class--even the Gateway P-7811FX (which costs about one-third of what the X305-Q708 costs--have a 1080p-friendly 1920-by-1200-pixel resolution.

But what you lose in screen resolution, you gain in visual flair. The X305-Q708 comes in a black and red case with reflective flames, glowing red LEDs, and lots of curves. The brash design won't appeal to everyone, but it adequately frames a generous array of ports, including three USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA port (which doubles as a fourth USB 2.0 port), an Express Card 54 slot, and a four-pin FireWire port. You also get a modem port (tucked away beneath a hard-to-open plastic port cover), a multiformat flash card reader, and built-in support for a wireless USB device. On the video front, the Qosmio X305-Q708 provides VGA, HDMI, and DisplayPort outputs. Since this pricey laptop fully supports 1080p resolution when outputting video to an external monitor, it's a shame that there isn't a Blu-ray drive.

The laptop's keyboard sports a superglossy coating that looks fairly sleek but makes the keys unusually slippery. Most of the keyboard (which comes complete with a four-column number pad) feels full-size, but the spacebar is extremely narrow. You'll also notice some flexing as you type, and overall the keyboard feels thin and cheap. The touchpad, which sits flush with the palm rests, has a fine grain texture that distinguishes it from the rest of the body. The effect is attractive, but often the right side of my palm would touch it as I was typed, moving the cursor somewhere else in the document--to my intense frustration.

The Qosmio X305-Q708 excels in delivering pitch-perfect sound, thanks to four Harman/Kardon speakers and an embedded subwoofer. Games, music, and movies all sounded superb, with a wide range of highs, mids, and lows. Even at full volume, the audio exhibited no noticeable distortion. Though the speakers sound great on their own, the included Dolby Control Center software can deliver remarkably effective simulated surround sound--as long as you sit directly in front of the machine. Unfortunately, the lower-left speaker sits directly beneath your left wrist as you type, muffling the sound significantly.

On the software side, Toshiba refrained from installing a bunch of bloatware on this laptop. Besides Windows Vista Ultimate, an Office trial, and various CD/DVD applications, this is a clean laptop. Toshiba does include a number of its own apps, including a voice command utility, and facial recognition software. The voice application worked adequately after calibration, but ambient sounds--even the clicking of the keyboard--caused it to open and close applications. Similarly, the system's face-recognition software, which lets you log in without using a password, worked well enough--but only when there was sufficient ambient light.

For a desktop replacement laptop--a category filled with oversize eye-grabbers like the HP HDX18 and the Alienware m17--Toshiba's Qosmio X350-Q708 is an extrovert. 

Toshiba Satellite X205-S9359

This big multimedia notebook is for on-the-go gamers and TV fans. The Toshiba Satellite X205-S9359 handles 3D shooters with aplomb, plus it comes bundled with an add-on TV tuner and remote control for watching shows. For work, productivity applications are also included in the laptop's $2400 (as of 10/9/07) price. Regardless of your pursuit, the big screen and twin hard drives make for very comfortable desktop computing. Just don't count on long battery life.

The X205-S9359 is a preconfigured retail model distinguished by a swirly red and black "carmine flare" lid that for a gaming notebook is downright tasteful. A very similar-looking model, the X205-S9349, is $500 less but has only half the video memory and storage. That configuration might be fine for multimedia dabblers, but for full-throttle entertainment, opt for the X205-S9359.

In our tests, Word and Photoshop ran quickly and 3D games looked good. Equipped with a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 512MB nVidia GeForce Go 8700M GT dedicated graphics card, the laptop logged a WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 76, putting it in the middle of a tightly grouped pack of similarly equipped, high-performing desktop replacements. For instance, a Fujitsu LifeBook A6030 and an Acer Aspire 5920G scored a point better at 77, but the X205-S9359 bested a Toshiba Qosmio G45 AV-680 that earned a mark of 74. Among all currently tested desktop replacements, the X205-S9359 scored one point better than the average of 75. It also aced our gaming tests with a frame rate of 84 in Doom 3 and a scorching 122 frames per second in Far Cry. Battery life was only average for a desktop replacement, though, at 2.5 hours.

The design is good overall. The X205-S9359 is typically heavy at 8.7 pounds (the average among currently tested desktop replacements is 8.8 pounds), but it has two 160GB hard drives and four built-in Harman/Kardon speakers backed by a bottom subwoofer for rich, satisfying sound. The Toshiba USB HDTV Tuner and brick-like power adapter bring the weight to a chunky 11 pounds. Dropped hinges on the 17-inch screen, however, give the total package a remarkably low profile. The screen itself, a 17-inch 1680-by-1050-pixel display with Toshiba's patented TruBrite glossy finish, is reflective; I had to experiment with tilting the notebook and lowering the office shades that were behind the notebook. Otherwise, it's easy to read.

The laptop is plentifully supplied with the kinds of ports, connections, and other features that you might expect of a better-than-average entertainment portable. Chief among them are an HD DVD player, a built-in Webcam, and an HDMI port for connecting a plasma screen. The generous nonmultimedia features include a gaggle of USB ports--six in all--and a keyboard with several nice extras. One is a dedicated number pad; another is Toshiba's unique dual-mode touchpad, which you can switch to a set of virtual quick-launch buttons with the tap of a finger in the upper-right corner. Microsoft Works 8.5 rounds out the offering.

If you're looking for a mainstream or inexpensive notebook, the X205-S9359 will be too much bang for too many bucks. But if a strong gaming notebook that can also feed your TV addiction and comes with Microsoft Word and Excel sounds like the ideal portable to you, look no further.

Sony VGN-NR485

A Windows Vista Home Premium laptop powered by a 2-GHz Core 2 Duo T5750 and 2GB of RAM, the VGN-NR485 bagged a respectable WorldBench 6 score of 75. That's pretty solid performance for a laptop that stands among the cheapest machines on our current Top 10 All-Purpose Laptops chart (as of 10/29/08). It sells for $849 ($200 more than Toshiba's bargain-basement Satellite Pro L300D-EZ1001V, which the Sony bested by roughly 20 points in WorldBench 6 tests). It has the speed to handle almost any kind of application. The only performance problem we encountered was in our 3D gaming tests, which the VGN-NR485 couldn't run because of its lousy integrated Intel graphics chip.

The 6.2-pound laptop managed to last long enough in our battery life tests. It fell just short of 4 hours (3 hours, 56 minutes), ranking toward the top of the leaderboard. Surpassing this value unit was Lenovo's ThinkPad SL400, which costs $1223 and has an optional high-powered battery; it lasted 5 hours, 8 minutes in our tests as a result of the add-on.

As for features, the 14.2-by-10.6-by-1.5-inch VGN-NR485 packs a fair amount of punch, including dedicated front-mounted SD and Memory Stick slots, four USB ports, and an ExpressCard/34 slot. Typical for a sub-$1000 laptop, the optical drive is a standard (not high-definition) DVD burner. Beneath the stylish navy blue waffle exterior lies an impressively large 200GB hard drive. You can't reach it for upgrades, but barring a failure you shouldn't need to replace it. Though the 15.4-inch screen has a high-gloss finish that tends to reflect overhead lights, it's very bright and has an easy-to-read 1280-by-800-pixel resolution.

The keyboard is a matter of taste. If you can ignore the somewhat short stroke, it's comfortable, featuring keys with spacious flat tops. You also get two reprogrammable shortcut buttons, a mute button, and an A/V-mode button that launches the Windows Media menu.

The stereo speakers don't sound very good, not surprising for a Sony notebook. The volume is serviceable for low-key music and system sounds, but the bass tones are almost nonexistent. Don't leave home without your headphones.

One other small complaint: The on-screen manual, while thorough, doesn't link the laptop's labeled parts. Instead of being able to click on a label, you must type the part's name (for example, the A/V-mode button) into the search box to read a description. Pretty lame, but a minor issue.

If keeping to a budget is your top concern, these are small concessions to make. A solid performer with all the most important connections, loads of storage, and an eye-catching dark-blue finish, the Sony VGN-NR485 is a sweet little deal for the under-$1000 crowd

Lenovo Thinkpad SL400

Usually, ThinkPads don't come cheap. You expect to pay dearly for the classy keyboard, rugged chassis, and whatever top-notch parts lie under the hood. That's not quite the case with Lenovo's SL400 series of laptops.

These affordable, all-purpose machines start in the neighborhood of $650 and yet still offer much of the look and feel you'd expect from a more expensive ThinkPad. The SL400 model we received for evaluation was at on the upper end of the series, selling for about $1223 as of October 23, 2008, and it's a fairly solid deal.

Inside lies a reasonably speedy Intel Core2 Duo 2.26-GHz P8400 CPU backed up by 2GB of RAM and a 256MB nVidia GeForce 9300M GPU. Not too shabby. In our tests, this combination performed well, garnering a score of 84 on our WorldBench 6 benchmark test suite. That's well short of the Micro Express Microflex JFL 9290, which notched a 92, but it makes a strong enough showing to finish near the top.

Lenovo rolled out the SL400 before nVidia unveiled its GeForce 9400M, which debuted in the new Apple MacBooks--and the laptop suffers for its bad timing, as nimbler graphics processors will soon appear in new all-purpose notebooks.

Still, this Lenovo is a good performer for the price. Its six-cell battery kept the SL400 working for a little over 5 hours on a single charge--that's plenty of juice to keep you at the keyboard nonstop during a cross-country flight. The laptop's layout, screen, and beefy-meets-boxy 6.1-pound case indicate that Lenovo was shooting for a "strictly business" approach here.

A matte treatment on the screen does a good job of preventing sunlight from bouncing back in your face. The 14.1-inch, 1440-by-900-pixel-resolution panel is amply bright when cranked up all the way, but it's a tad dim in its native habitat (a standard fluorescent-lit office). As a result, in most settings, you'll be tempted to crank it up to full intensity, which unfortunately muddies the colors a little. On the bright side (pun fully intended), you can adjust the brightness for Video Playback mode (or any of five other default settings--or text size) with one click on a Lenovo application in the taskbar.

The SL400 has a fairly full-featured layout for an all-purpose machine. Four USB slots-- two on the left, two on the right--adorn the machine. HDMI- and VGA-out ports cover higher- and lower-end video support. In addition, you get a fingerprint reader, a Webcam, a four-pin FireWire port, a WWAN card, and GPS. The hard-drive bay is easy to unscrew, and popping in a replacement is equally effortless. Less pleasingly, this budget-minded business laptop has a boxier, less-rigid (though still sturdy) case than most ThinkPads have.

You won't buy this notebook for hi-definition audio, either. Music sounds slightly tinny (and hollow), though it got loud enough to distract my neighboring cubemates. Video streamed from Hulu sounded fine, but not robust enough for me to forgo headphones.

One corner that remains uncut is the SL400's keyboard, which--in the tradition of superb ThinkPad keyboards--is solid and buttery smooth to the touch. There was no loud clicker-clack as I typed away on the nigh-silent keyboard, and at the same time I could readily discern every key.

Another familiar ThinkPad trend: The SL400 has both a touchpad and a touch-point navigation device; not many laptops provide both these days. A couple of multimedia shortcut keys appear on the left side of the keyboard, but alt-function keyboard combos handle basic volume controls and practically everything else (for example, Fn + down arrow is the combination for Play/Pause multimedia). The one button to rule them all: a helpful blue backlit key that links to the Lenovo Cares utility suite.

The depth and breadth of the ThinkPad's software bundle goes well beyond what you normally get at first powerup. Many laptops content themselves with a 60-day trial of MS Office or some obnoxious antivirus package. Here, you receive a beefy Lenovo Cares application suite, which provides handy shortcuts and user-friendly apps without getting in your way. Everything from the ThinkVantage GPS tool (which tethers to Google Maps by default) to the proprietary Sidebar gadgets points to a well-conceived package.

Overall, the SL400 is a sound business laptop. Though it doesn't pack the firepower of some high-end machines, it gets the job done handily. Its combination of performance and value places it near the top of our charts.

Acer Travelmate 6293

Performance-wise, the TravelMate 6293 rocks. Its battery life is Energizer really amazing. Equipped with a powerful 7200-mAh battery, the laptop lasted 3 minutes shy of 8 hours in our tests. Just stick this baby in a backpack or briefcase and walk out the door declaring Outlet Freedom Day. The results are far better than what we've seen from any other all-purpose portable on the scene. Heck, because of its diminutive size, we were this close to comparing it with a Lenovo ThinkPad X200.
The speed of the TravelMate 6293 is good too. The 2.26-GHz Core 2 Duo P8400-equipped unit with 2GB of RAM turned in a pretty impressive WorldBench 6 score of 90, so it should be able to handle any type of work swiftly, limited only by the shared video memory. Lack of a dedicated graphics card is an unfortunate characteristic of small laptops that effectively eliminates gaming; the memory is just too sparse to support 3D shooters with fancy shading.
Of course, small screens don't lend themselves to entertainment, either, but the 12.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel, wide-aspect display is fine for any other job you care to squeeze into those small quarters. It's crisp, reasonably bright, and glossy, but it won't hurt your eyes under office lights.
Topping the TravelMate 6293's keyboard are seven helpful quick-launch buttons. All are preprogrammed for such activities as setting the system password, launching the onboard backup utility, and starting your e-mail program and Web browser. A nice touch is that one button triggers the Launch Manager itself, which saved me worlds of time poking around various utilities and system-tray icons attempting to find the program that would let me reset the buttons to start my own favorite apps. Overall the keyboard is well laid out and easy to type on. The touchpad is small but zippy and easy to use. Only the mouse buttons--particularly short to make room for the fingerprint reader between them, and extremely stiff--are a distraction.
At 4.6 pounds--not including the power brick, which makes the total weight 5.4 pounds--the TravelMate 6293 is a tad heavy for an ultraportable but fairly light for an all-purpose machine. (The extra beef pushes it into the all-purpose category, since it weighs over 4 pounds.) Obviously designed for corporate jetsetters restricted by a budget, it also lacks a FireWire port (which would have been handy for fast digital downloads) and sports the older PC Card slot instead of an ExpressCard slot.
In the plus column, the laptop does have a nice, big, 250GB hard drive, plus conveniences such as dedicated Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi switches and a built-in Webcam. The storage and memory are fully user-upgradeable--great news for rapid IT deployment.
The TravelMate 6293 also includes other features important to bottom-line-conscious corporate buyers, such as a gigabit ethernet connection and a standard DVD recorder (rather than a pricey high-definition optical drive).

If you take a look at the all-purpose category, you'll see that not many machines go for under $1000--and those that do, such as the Toshiba Satellite U405-S2854 or the Sony VGN-NR485, are much bulkier by comparison. The TravelMate 6293 might not have all the cutting-edge features, but no laptop makes better use of a battery for carefree wireless computing. If work keeps you out of the office most of the day, put this $999 plain Jane at the top of your list.

Sony Vaio TT

Stylish 11.1-inch ultraportable laptop with integrated 3G
Probably the best ultraportable (a pile of) money can buy!!

Sony's T series has always represented the ultimate in ultraportable computing. The latest incarnation, dubbed the TT, epitomises everything the series stands for: it's attractive, has great connectivity and is highly portable. It doesn't come cheap, though. SonyStyle.co.uk is selling the entry-level machine for a cool £1,399, while the top of the range model commands a quite staggering £2,799.

Design
The Vaio TT is very compact in size, sitting somewhere between the largest netbooks and the smallest ultraportables. The chassis measures 279mm by 23mm by199mm and weighs just 1.3kg, making it ideal for lugging to and from business meetings.

Sony has done an exceptional job styling the TT -- it's right up there with the best laptop in any category. The entry-level TT 15V version is available in 'gold fever' or -- for an extra £10 -- red finishes. The mid-range TT 15W and high-end 15X, meanwhile, come in matte black (or Intense Noir as Sony calls it). We're particularly fond of this option since it doesn't attract fingerprint smudges or grease in the same way many rival laptops do, so it stays cleaner for longer.

Open the lid and you'll be greeted by the same Intense Noir colour scheme and an isolated keyboard with keys that are slightly smaller than the norm. However, there is a 2mm gap between each key, so if you're a little off with your aim, you're less likely to hit an adjacent key by mistake. This works well in practice, with high-speed touch typing a definite possibility for those who are capable.

Sony's got the mouse right, too. The trackpad is relatively large and smooth and has dedicated swipe zones at the far right and bottom edges for scrolling vertically and horizontally with a simple gesture. The selector buttons, which are typically very small on laptops of this type, are good too -- they're actually bigger than those you'd find on many desktop-replacement laptops and have a smooth action.

The number of ports on the TT is about right, all things considered. On the left side there two USB ports, a four-pin iLink (aka FireWire) port, an ExpressCard slot, and behind a flap labelled 'HDMI', there are HDMI and Ethernet ports. The flap, which is tethered to the chassis, looks rather unsightly when hanging loose, but at least it keeps dust and debris from two of the laptop's most important ports. On the right lives a D-Sub video output port and DVD rewriter drive, which is a huge bonus for a machine of this size.

Features
There are four off-the-shelf, and three user-configurable versions of the TT. The latter group includes the £1,380 entry-level TT 15V, the £1,888 mid-range 15W and the £2,798 high-end TT 15X. The TT 15V and 15W come with 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs plus 1GB and 2GB of RAM respectively, while the TT 15X ships with a quicker 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo and 4GB of RAM. The performance delta between these systems isn't enormous, but if you're more interested in running demanding applications than prolonging battery life, you can upgrade to the 1.4GHz model for an extra £50, prolonging battery life.

Storage isn't a primary concern on laptops of this type, since the TT is more likely to be a second PC than your main computer. It's therefore no surprise to learn the TT 15V uses a 120GB hard drive -- the TT 15W uses a 160GB model. We personally wouldn't bother buying the larger drive, since that extra 40GB will cost you £110. If you really do need extra storage, there's always the option to upgrade the drive yourself, or buy a USB hard drive or memory card. Likewise, we'd be reluctant to spend an extra £580 on the 128GB solid-state drive. SSDs theoreticaly provide quicker disk access and use less power, but they offer much less storage for your money.

All versions of the TT ship with an 8x dual-layer DVD rewriter drive, so you can watch DVD movies and make backups of up to 8.5GB in size.

Ordinary DVDs look fantastic on the 11-inch display anyway. This has a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels, so DVDs are scaled up to match this, while 1080p video is scaled down. It is bright, has good colour reproduction, and the glossy X-Black finish isn't so glossy it prevents use outdoors.


One crucial aspect of the TT's specification is its wireless WAN capability. The mid- and high-end models come with integrated 3G modems as standard -- users simply have to insert their own 3G SIM into a dedicated slot beneath the battery to enjoy wireless Internet access wherever they please. This feature can be installed on the entry-level TT15V for an extra £135, but if this isn't your cup of tea, you can always fall back on the 802.11g/n Wi-Fi adaptor, or connect to a Web-connected mobile phone via Bluetooth.

The TT15W and TT15X both come with a fingerprint reader for logging in without entering a password. This is linked to a trusted platform module (TPM), which provides an extra level of security. It can, for instance, encrypt your data in such a way that thieves cannot remove your hard drive and extract important files. The TT15V ships with Windows Vista Home Premium, but for an extra £60, Sony will swap that for Vista Business edition, which the TT15W and TT15V use as standard.

Performance
All versions of the TT offer balanced performance. They're by no means the quickest laptops in the world, but they're fast for their size and offer long battery life. The 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo CPU in our TT15W clocked up 2,259 in the PCMark 2005 benchmark, so it's significantly quicker than your average netbook, which tend to score approximately 1,500. We didn't expect the graphics performance to be up to scratch, and it wasn't -- it achieved just 654 in the 3DMark 2006 benchmark, which is par for the course in any laptop using an integrated Intel solution.

If there's one thing the TT should be renowned for, it's its battery life. It lasted a very commendable 3 hours 51 minutes with its CPU running at full tilt in the Battery Eater classic benchmark. In the more relaxed reader test, it lasted a very impressive 6 hours 2 minutes. That's not exactly Sony's claimed 9 hours away from the mains, but it's highly impressive nonetheless.

Conclusion
If you have the money, you shouldn't hesitate to buy the TT, no matter which version you choose. It looks phenomenal, is comfortable to use and is exceptionally portable. Netbooks offer similar functionality for a fraction of the price, but if you're not affected by the credit crunch and don't mind people laughing at you for blowing so much cash on a second computer, you should definitely join the TT club

Dell XPS M2010

When Dell unveiled the XPS M2010 laptop concept at CES 2006, few expected it to reach the retail market. The 20-inch laptop was more audacious than anything we'd seen previously and the general consensus was that its enormous size made it too much of a freak to be taken seriously. Kudos to Dell, then, for throwing caution to the wind and bringing it to market. But is this a case of boldness before greatness, or has the world's biggest PC manufacturer got more money than sense?
 

Design
The XPS M2010 looks like no laptop before it. With the lid closed it resembles a large briefcase complete with a sturdy, leather-bound handle with silver support struts that extend halfway down the lid and base. The grip of the handle has a circular Dell logo at each end, and there's another glowing Dell logo to be found towards the top of the lid. The laptop's industrial-looking graphite colour is certainly different, but some users may prefer a more conventional black finish.

Unlike smaller XPS laptops, the M2010 uses latches to keep the lid shut when not in use. These are situated on either side of the lid. Unfortunately they feel a tad flimsy and we wouldn't be surprised if they begin to fail after extended use. The base of the laptop is smoother than most, including that of the 12-inch XPS M1210. Aside from a latch for removing the battery, a single air vent and a circular subwoofer port, there's little else to be found.

With the screen open, the XPS looks far more stylish. The 20-inch screen is the most imposing we've seen on any laptop, and the fact that the top of the screen sits close to eye level means you won't have to hunch over the laptop. This is great for your posture -- the XPS M2010 felt extremely comfortable to use during long periods. Impressively, the flexible screen hinge means the screen is height and rake adjustable so you can raise, lower and bring it closer to you for optimum comfort.


The base section of the XPS M2010 is home to its power button, which is positioned to the far right-hand side. To the left of this is a Windows Media Center 'home' button, and to the far left a set of indicator lights that show the laptop's Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, hard disk and power status. The M2010 uses the most unusual optical drive we've seen on any laptop. It's a top-loading model with two transparent glass panels that let you see the CD spinning inside the unit





The keyboard section of the XPS M2010 is completely removable. It can be lifted away from the base section and, being a Bluetooth unit, it can be used from up to 10m away from the laptop. The keyboard has an integrated mouse touchpad and buttons that give you full control of the M2010, and there's also a dedicated numerical keypad featured. To the far right of the keyboard is a set of shortcut keys that give you quick access to common multimedia tasks such as play, pause, rewind, fast forward and volume control.


Features
We'd expect any laptop of this size to have a strong specification, and M2010 doesn't disappoint. It uses a fast Intel Centrino Duo T2600 processor running at 2.16GHz. This isn't as fast as the latest 2.3GHz T2700 model, but its dual-core architecture means it's quick enough to give most desktop PCs a run for their money and it's capable of handling everything from everyday Internet surfing to more strenuous video-editing tasks. The basic model comes with 2GB of DDR3 667MHz RAM, which is an ample amount for just about every type of home or business user.

Its graphics capabilities are solid, too. It uses an ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 graphics card -- ATI's most advanced graphics processor and the fastest we've seen in any laptop. Its presence gives the XPS M2010 the ability to run the latest games, including the likes of Prey and Half-Life 2: Episode 1, at high resolutions with good image quality and consistent frame rates.

The XPS M2010's audio capabilities are admirable. There are four speakers on either side of the lower portion of the screen, and a subwoofer on the underside of the laptop. Unlike most laptops, even those with subwoofers, this setup sounds rather good, but serious audiophiles will want to connect a set of external surround-sound speakers.

There's plenty of space to store files on the XPS M2010. Dell has supplied a pair of 100GB hard drives configured in a RAID 0 array for a total of 200GB of storage. That's enough to hoard over 190 hours of high-definition movie content, or over 51,000 average-sized MP3 audio files.

Accessing multimedia content is a breeze with the M2010 as it uses the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system. It also comes with a customised remote control that lets you control the device from the comfort of your armchair. Commendably, Dell has opted for a remote that has an integrated LCD screen, and this can be used to select songs or tracklists in your music library without going anywhere near the laptop.

Arguably more impressive is the remote's gyroscopic ability -- it lets you move the mouse cursor around the screen simply by waving it at the laptop.

Being an XPS product, the M2010 comes with one a one-year next business day on-site warranty, plus free online and telephone technical support. XPS customers are given a special phone number which expedites their calls to agents ahead of standard customers, so there's potentially less time spent waiting on the phone.

Performance
Unsurprisingly the XPS M2010 offers strong performance in most aspects. Its 2.1GHz processor helped it achieve a solid PC Mark 2005 score of 4,122, which was in line with our expectations.

The XPS M2010 gave us the rather pleasant surprise of operating in a very quiet and composed manner during our test period. It runs extremely quietly during everyday use and its cooling fans only piped up when we subjected it to more strenuous activities, such as video encoding or game playing.

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MacBook Pro (aluminium 2008 edition)

The MacBook Pro -- for so long the final word in high-end multimedia laptops -- is back. It now sports a new aluminium chassis and twin graphics cards, and promises significantly better performance than its predecessors. Prices for the entry-level machine start at £1,399, while the slightly faster model retails for £1,749.

Design

Our first impression of the MacBook Pro, apart from noticing how pretty it is, was that it seems more solid than the vast majority of laptops -- its predecessor included. That's because it uses a new 'unibody' enclosure forged from a single piece of aluminium. This pretty much eliminates the flexing you get in laptops built from multiple panels and gives the Pro an almost indestructible feel.
Despite the use of metal, the MacBook Pro is relatively thin and light. Both new 15.4-inch models tip the scales at just 2.49 kilos and measure 364mm by 249mm by 25mm. That's just 450g heavier than the 13.3-inch standard MacBook.
As ever, all the MacBook Pro's ports are positioned on the left side in a logical arrangement. Going from left to right, you'll find a Magsafe power AC connector, which allows easier and safer connection of the power source. Next to that there's a Gigabit Ethernet port, FireWire 800, two USB ports, a MiniDisplayPort connector, audio in and out, ExpressCard/34 and a side-mounted battery indicator light.
It all sounds pretty straightforward in principle, but it isn't. Our main gripe is that the Mini DisplayPort is such an unusual -- and largely unsupported -- connector. We can't think of a many monitors that directly support it, even those made by Apple. Those who wish to connect the laptop to an external display of up to 24 inches in size will need to spend an extra £20 in the Apple store on a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adaptor. Those who want to go larger will need to buy an adaptor costing £69.
While we're complaining, we should also mention that the MacBook Pro also lacks many of the features we take for granted on ordinary desktop replacement laptops. There's no memory card reader, it has fewer USB ports than a netbook, there's no dedicated numerical keypad, no hardware wireless switch to turn the Wi-Fi off in a hurry, no status LEDs and no emergency power-fail disc eject feature.
On the surface, it's really rather basic, but there are also touches you won't get on a Windows-based laptop The keyboard is backlit, which makes it easy to use in the dark; the enormous mouse trackpad has a silky, smooth feel to it and supports gesture inputs, which can make it easier to navigate. Our only gripe is that it has no buttons -- instead, the entire trackpad can be depressed and used as a selector. You'll almost certainly grow to hate it when you're dragging and dropping files and find your finger has reached the edge of the trackpad, but the cursor is still some way from where you want it to be. Lifting your finger means releasing the button and cancelling the drag and drop operating.

Features

There are three versions of the MacBook Pro on offer -- a 17-inch model that uses the old chassis and two new aluminium 'unibody' versions. The entry-level 15.4-inch version uses a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and has a 250GB hard drive -- all for a rather pricey £1,399. The high-end 15.4-inch model gets a slightly faster 2.54GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive, although you'll have to pay a whopping £1,749 for the privilege.
The graphics adaptors in the two new MacBooks bring the most surprises. Instead of just a single card, they now come with two. The first is an Nvidia GeForce 9400M card that's integrated on the MacBook Pro's Nvidia chipset. That's paired with a more potent Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT card, which on the entry-level machine has 256MB of dedicated memory, and on the top-end model, 512MB of dedicated memory.
Visit the settings menu in the operating system and you'll see two power options: high performance or longer battery life. Selecting high performance switches the 9600M GT card on, while selecting longer battery life turns it off. Annoyingly, switching between modes requires you to log out and log back in again, which involves closing applications and saving any open files.

Like the standard MacBooks, the new Pros can be customised at the time of purchase. Using the entry-level MacBook as an example, you can add up to 4GB of RAM (£100), a 7,200RPM 320GB drive (£105), or a 128GB solid state drive (£420). Software includes Time Machine for creating backups, Mail, iChat, the Safari browser, Photo Booth, Front Row, Boot Camp (for installing Windows XP in addition to OS X), and the iLife '08 suite.

Performance

The MacBook Pro has always been a strong performer, and a long-time favourite of video editing professionals. If you fit that bracket, you'll be pleased to learn the new models are, on the whole, just as quick as those that came before it.
The 2.53GHz MacBook Pro completed our multimedia multitasking test in 402 seconds. That's around 67 seconds quicker than the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro from the previous generation, and 29 seconds quicker than the current generation MacBook we reviewed recently.
Graphics performance was solid, too. With the single GeForce 9400M card enabled, it ran Quake IV at 55.7 frames per second. With the two running in tandem, this jumped to 84.9 frames per second. Don't get too excited, though: we hardly noticed any difference in desktop graphics applications when running the two cards simultaneously.
With the two cards enabled, the MacBook Pro lasted 3 hours and 16 minutes in our video playback test, which isn't bad for a laptop of this size. With just the integrated 9400M enabled, it lasted a more impressive 4 hours and 5 minutes. That's not quite the 5 hours claimed by Apple, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Conclusion

The MacBook Pro is an excellent laptop, but we find it difficult to recommend. It's great in its own right, but it offers relatively little in comparison to the standard MacBook, except perhaps in gaming terms. If you can afford it and can live with its numerous foibles, it'll be fine, but given the price, our money's with its little brother.

Advent 6441

Once hideously expensive, Blu-ray drives have now come down in price, and, as Advent demonstrates with the 6441, you can pick one up in a laptop for under £500.
The 6441 also comes furnished with a large, 17-inch display and full Qwerty keyboard. But has Advent skimped on quality to achieve the low price?

Design

The glossy lid and its contoured lines certainly make a good first impression -- but it doesn't last long. Open the 6441 up and you're greeted with a plastic chassis that both looks and feels cheap.
The keyboard and numeric keypad have flat keys with very little spacing, which makes typing more difficult than it should be, given the amount of room Advent had to play with. The keys are also of a very poor quality, wobbling when pressed, and we're not sold on the layout -- the delete key is stuck in between the insert and page-up keys, while the function key sits where the left Ctrl key should be. Worse still, it's far too easy, when typing, to bash your thumbs against the ridge next to the space bar.
We were also left unimpressed with the trackpad buttons, which you have to depress with far too much force to activate. The fact that there's no scroll section on the trackpad is nothing less than bewildering.
On the plus side, the 17-inch screen is reasonably bright, but only if you look at it straight on. Despite the glossy coating, colours looked a little washed-out.
There's no FireWire, but you do get a multi-format card reader, 54mm ExpressCard slot and three USB ports. Two of the USB ports are sat on the left, while the third is at the rear and doubles up as an eSATA port -- useful if you want to expand on the 160GB hard drive.

Features

Despite costing under £500, Advent has managed to find room in the budget for a Blu-ray drive. As expected, it's read-only (although it can write DVDs and CDs).

The DVI output at the rear is HDCP-compatible, so you can use it to pump protected HD movies to a TV (assuming it also has an HDCP-compatible DVI port). For some reason, though, Advent opted not to include an HDMI output. There is, however, a digital S/PDIF audio output, so you can divert sound away from the rather tinny built-in speakers to your monster surround-sound system.
Powering the 6441 is an Intel Pentium dual-core T3200 processor running at 2GHz. Compared to Core 2 CPUs, it's a little lethargic and won't be up to much more than basic tasks. A total of 4GB RAM is installed but, as always, the 32-bit Vista Home Premium means you'll only get to use 3GB of this.
Graphics are taken care of by Intel's integrated GMA 4500MHD chip, which will be enough to persuade gamers to look elsewhere.

Performance

Given the relatively slow processor and graphics, it should come as no surprise that the 6441 struggled in both the PCMark05 and 3DMark06 benchmarks, returning scores of 3,926 and 796 respectively. So, while older games at low resolutions will just about be playable, you can cast aside any thoughts of playing modern 3D titles.
Although battery life isn't hugely important with a desktop replacement such as this, we were hoping for more than 48 minutes in Battery Eater's Classic test and just over two hours in the less-demanding Reader's test.

Conclusion

Advent has clearly gone all out to sell a Blu-ray laptop for as little as possible. Although it's commendable that the price tag is under £500, the keyboard and trackpad are woeful. You could always attach an external keyboard and mouse, but that rather defeats the point of a desktop replacement.
Ultimately, you're better off buying a stand-alone Blu-ray player for your TV and opting for the cheaper HP Compaq Presario CQ70-116, which has similar specs but no Blu-ray drive.

Toshiba Qosmio F50-10Z

Priced at a reasonable £899, the Qosmio F50-10Z offers a wide range of multimedia features. It also houses Toshiba's new Quad Core HD processor, a chip separate to the main CPU that aims to boost video performance -- something we first heard about back in June. You can imagine, then, our excitement to review the lap and find out how performance stacks up.

Design

Aesthetics were clearly high on the agenda for Toshiba when designing the Qosmio F50, but the glossy black and silver chassis looks and feels just a little tacky. A bewildering array of lights adorn the already over-the-top chassis -- thankfully one of the touch-sensitive buttons lets you turn the unnecessary ones off . Harmon Kardon speakers, controlled by an old-fashioned dial, manage to produce deep and rich, if not incredibly loud, audio.
The keyboard is sturdy and features very little flex, but the glossy coating is way too slippery for extended periods of typing -- a prime example of style over substance. Various ports are dotted around the chassis, including four USB (one of which doubles up as an eSATA port), one mini-Firewire, a multi-format card reader and an aerial socket for the hybrid (analogue and digital) TV tuner. There's also an HDMI output, though to make full use of this you'll need to add a Blu-ray drive, as only a standard DVD rewriter is included.

Features

With a resolution of 1,200x800 pixels, the bright 15.4-inch widescreen display is good for 720p HD video, but not 1080p. True HD aside, Toshiba makes much of its Quad Core HD processor that's housed within the Qosmio F50. This aims to provide extra oomph when video editing and watching films, as well as let you control the laptop by using hand gestures via the built-in webcam.
But is this Quad Core HD thing really worth shouting about? If you're only interested in the gesture feature, the answer is a resounding 'no'. We gave it a fair crack of the whip, but it was a painful process with most of our gestures being completely ignored.
For movies, though, the Quad Core HD processor does perform quite well. We tried out the Upconvert feature (upscaling to the rest of us) while watching Ocean's Thirteen and video did appear more detailed, though closer inspection does reveal a heavy amount of sharpening that can end up making certain scenes look worse.
There are also some important caveats regarding Upconvert. You can only use it with the included Toshiba DVD Player software and, more importantly, it won't operate when the laptop's running off the battery. When activated, you also lose certain features, such as fast forward and rewind, and the laptop fan soon ramps up to an annoying level.

Performance

With its Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26 GHz) processor, 4 GB RAM and Nvidia Geforce 9600M GT (512 MB) graphics, the Qosmio F50 returned some decent benchmark scores. In PCMark 2005 it notched up 5,445, while the 512 MB Nvidia Geforce 9600M graphics card helped drive it to a score of 4,920 in 3DMark 2006. Battery life wasn't quite so hot, though, at 88 minutes in the BatteryEater Classic test and two hours and 13 minutes in the less strenuous Reader test. But weighing in at a hefty 4.1Kg (including power adaptor), it's unlikely you'll be using much away from the mains.

Conclusion

While the Quad Core HD processor works well when upscaling DVDs, the gesture-control feature is next to useless. That said, the Qosmio F50-10Z is reasonably priced at £899, it has plenty of features and, as long as the over-the-top chassis doesn't put you off, it serves well as a mid-range, entertainment-focused laptop.

SAMSUNG X360

Describing its X360 as 'lighter than air', Samsung is looking to persuade potential buyers that there are alternatives to the MacBook Air. At 1.29kg, the X360 is only a smidgen lighter than the Air, but it's also substantially cheaper than the equivalent SSD MacBook, at around £1,300, and includes a host of features that Apple charges extra for.

Design

With its smart red and black chassis, the diminutive X360 makes a good first impression, and it's clearly designed with portability in mind. Ports are kept to a minimum, with the chassis home to just VGA, HDMI, gigabit LAN and three USB sockets. These are joined by a 34mm ExpressCard slot on the left and a multi-format card reader on the right.
Samsung's desire to take on the lightweight Air also means there's no DVD drive, although you do get an external USB model included in the price.
Open the lid and you're greeted by a very Air-esque keyboard, with each key poking out from its own slot in the chassis. The keyboard isn't particularly comfortable, however. We found the flat, plasticky keys too slippery to type on at speed, while the cramped shift and arrow keys on the right-hand side proved similarly tricky to master. If you're prone to forgetting passwords, the fingerprint reader, at the bottom right of the keyboard, lets you log on with nothing more than the swipe of a pinky.

Features

Like the £1,760 MacBook Air, the X360 comes with a 128GB solid-state drive. Although the actual performance benefits of SSDs are debatable, they place less of a demand on the battery compared to traditional hard disks. They're also very expensive, however, so Samsung has done well to include a 128GB model at this price.
Another power-saving feature is the display, which uses an LED backlight. Measuring 13.3 inches and with a resolution of 1,280x800 pixels, it's impressively bright -- your eyes will soon start complaining when it's at full whack. Horizontal viewing angles are also good, but vertical angles aren't so impressive -- tilt the screen up or down by even a small amount and clarity will be lost.
Being a Centrino 2 laptop, you also get 802.11n Wi-Fi, while other extras include Bluetooth and a built-in webcam.

Performance

Samsung was clearly aiming for decent battery life with the X360, and the Intel Core 2 Duo U9300 certainly doesn't place much strain on the six-cell battery. But, while it's not particularly power-hungry, neither is it going to impress performance-wise. With a clock speed of just 1.2GHz, this processor won't thank you for troubling it with intensive applications such as video editing. That said, multi-tasking more basic applications within the installed Windows Vista Business isn't a problem.

Combined with 3GB of RAM and Intel's GMA X4500 graphics chipset, the X360 scored 3,322 in PCMark05 -- had it not been for the SSD, its score would most likely have been much worse. It really suffered in 3DMark06, though, only managing a miserable 676. Needless to say, playing the latest games on this laptop isn't an option.
If battery life is more your thing, the X360 will most definitely appeal. Samsung quotes up to 10 hours of use from a single charge, and, in Battery Eater's undemanding Reader's test, we managed 9 hours and 31 minutes. If you plan on doing more than slowly scrolling through a word document, around 6 hours' use is more likely. Battery Eater's more aggressive Classic test exhausted the battery in 5 hours and 6 minutes, which is hugely impressive for such a light laptop.

Conclusion

The Samsung X360's lightweight design and extra-long battery life are its main attractions, and, while Samsung couldn't squeeze a DVD drive into the chassis, it has found room in the budget for an external model. Similarly impressive, at this price, is the inclusion of a 128GB SSD.
Build quality is acceptable but, if you're expecting something similar to the aluminium-clad MacBook Air, you'll be disappointed. On the whole, though, this is a decent effort from Samsung.
If you can stomach a slight drop in screen size, however, Sony's Vaio TT series is well worth a look. Only slightly heavier, the TT has the bonus of a built-in DVD drive, which may be enough to swing it for some.

HP Compaq 2510p

Key Features and Benefits
Enjoy reliable business performance with a choice of pre-installed operating systems: Genuine Windows Vista® Business, Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic, Genuine Windows XP Professional and FreeDOS.

A 12.1-inch diagonal Illumi-Lite widescreen display, dual-pointing devices, integrated wireless and security solutions all provide productivity on the move. The optional integrated optical drive provides built-in flexibility and convenience.

Intel® Centrino® Pro mobile technology and Intel® Core™2 Duo ULV Processors mean you can experience new levels of system responsiveness while reducing the total cost of operating and managing your PCs.

HP Professional Innovations help mitigate risk with Drive Encryption for HP ProtectTools, increase productivity with HP QuickLook enhance reliability with HP DuraKeys, and improve connectivity with HP Broadband Wireless.

Three flexible battery solutions offer just the right level of power and convenience ranging from our lightest weight configuration to all-day computing.

Technical Specifications

Operating system installed: Genuine Windows Vista® Business

Processor type: Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor U7600

Processor speed: 1.20 GHz

Audio: High Definition Audio, integrated mono speaker, stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in, integrated microphone

Battery life: Up to 4 hours with 3 cell battery or up to 8 hours with 6 cell battery or up to 12 hours with 9 cell battery

Cache: external 2 MB L2 cache

Optical drives: DVD+/-RW SuperMulti with Double Layer

Centrino Technology: Intel® Centrino® Pro processor technology

Chipset: Mobile™ Intel® GM965

Display size: 12.1 inches diagonal

Display type: TFT

Docking solution: HP 2400/2500 Ultra-Light Docking Station, External MultiBay II, HP Monitor Stand, HP Adjustable Notebook Stand (all sold separately)

Expansion Slots: Slots available for additional devices: 1 Type I/II PC Card slot supports 32-bit CardBus and 16-bit cards or 1 optional integrated Smart Card Reader, 1 Secure Digital slot

Fax/modem: 56K modem

Graphic subsystem name: Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

Graphic subsystem video card memory: Up to 384 MB shared system memory

Internal drives: 80 GB

Hard disk drive speed: 4200 rpm

HP Protection tools: HP ProtectTools, TPM Embedded Security Chip 1.2, HP Fingerprint Sensor, integrated Smart Card Reader, HP Disk Sanitizer

Operating humidity range: 10 to 90% RH

Non-operating humidity: 5 to 95% RH

External I/O ports: 2 USB 2.0 ports, VGA, stereo microphone in, stereo headphone/line out, Firewire (1394a), power connector, RJ-11, RJ-45

Keyboard: Full-sized keyboard

Manageability features: Intel® Centrino® with vPro™ technology capable

Memory slots: One user accessible SODIMM slot

Standard memory: 1 x 1024 MB DDR2

Memory upgrade: Upgradeable to 2048 MB maximum

Pointing device: Dual-pointing devices (touchpad and pointing stick)

Multi-bay devices: Optional external Multibay II devices

Network interface: Intel Gigabit Network Connection 10/100/1000 NIC

Power features: 3-cell (28.8 WHr), 6-cell (55 WHr) or 9-cell (83 WHr) Lithium-Ion battery

Power requirements: External 65W HP Smart AC Adapter, HP Fast Charge

Security management: Kensington Lock slot, HP Privacy Filter

Supported applications: Windows Vista® Premium ready

Software included: Additional software available from the Web: HP Client Manager Interface, Java Card Security for HP ProtectTools

Pre-installed software: Preloaded software: PDF Complete, HP Backup and Recovery Manager, HP Help and Support Center, HP QuickLook (Windows Vista® only), HP OpenView Radia Management Agent, HP Universal Print Driver, HP ProtectTools Security Manager, HP Quick Launch Buttons, HP Wireless Assistant, Roxio Creator 9 (for optional DVD+/-RW and DVD/CDRW drives), Symantec Norton Internet Security with complimentary 60-day live update, Intervideo WinDVD - DVD Player

Processor front side bus: 533 MHz FSB

Operating temperature range: 0 to 35° C

Storage temperature range (Celsius): -20 to 60° C

Upgradability: Windows Vista® capable

Video resolutions description: 1280 x 800 WXGA

Wireless capability: Yes

Wireless technologies: Intel® Wireless LAN 802.11a/b/g mini-pci card, Bluetooth

Dimensions (W x D x H): 2.5 (at front) x 28.2 x 21.3 cm

Weight: Starting at 1.3 kg (weight will vary by configuration)

Warranty
Standard Warranty: 3 years carry-in (pick-up and return in some countries (upgrades available, sold separately)) 1 year warranty on primary battery.

HP Pavilion DV8000Z

The HP Pavilion dv8000z notebook rivals a desktop PC for storage and entertainment while saving room. The unit has a gorgeous 17-inch WXGA+ screen, superb sound (thanks to built-in Altec Lansing speakers), and a full-size keyboard with dedicated numerical keypad.
QuickPlay buttons located above the keyboard provide one-touch access to DVD movies, music, videos, and photos without starting Windows. HP's credit-card-size remote control lets you sit back and control the action on the big screen. When you're not using it, you can store the remote in the notebook's PC Card slot. You could amass a vast number of digital photos, MP3s, and home videos on the maximum dual 120GB 4200-rpm hard drives (which our unit featured), or you could use the second drive for backup.
Add the Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system ($30 extra) and an ExpressCard Analog TV tuner ($130)--both of which the unit I looked at had--and your dv8000z can function as a portable TV, too, letting you watch, pause live action, and record your favorite shows wherever there's a cable connection.

The only one thing the dv8000z doesn't do well is games. The notebook's ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics card comes with 128MB of dedicated RAM and can pull up to 128MB more from main RAM. The new memory management scheme is supposed to be faster than traditional integrated graphics because it can take advantage of the bidirectional speed of PCI Express to access system RAM, but this doesn't seem to help much. The best the dv8000z could manage in Far Cry at 1024 by 768 resolution and 32-bit color (with antialiasing turned off) was 23 frames per second. More typical was its performance in Doom at the same settings, where it staggered along at an unplayable 10 fps.
Equipped with a top-of-the-line single-core AMD 2.2-GHz Turion 64 ML-40 processor and 2GB of RAM, the dv8000z turned in an overall WorldBench 5 speed score of 95--strong but nevertheless a little below the marks that most mobile Intel dual-core notebooks we've seen so far have achieved. And in the multitasking portion of the test, the dv8000z was 30 percent slower than the average new desktop replacement at browsing the Internet while converting a sound file, taking almost 12 minutes to finish versus a little over 8 minutes. If you can get by on less than 240GB of storage, you can give performance a boost and save $175 by choosing dual 80GB 5400-rpm hard drives. Though the 8000z is heavy at 9.2 pounds, its tested 3.1-hour battery life indicates that it is truly portable.

The dv8000z is a chunky but attractive black-and-silver unit with many thoughtful design touches that make using it as a desktop replacement a pleasure. Among them are hidden hinges and an easy-to-find eject button on the right-side optical drive (a DVD burner in our review unit). Four USB ports, a FireWire port, and a six-in-one card reader help handle connection and data-swapping needs.

An expansion port mounted on the right side gives the notebook further desktop replacement credentials by allowing docking in the optional HP xb2000 Expansion Base, which features a screen stand, port replication, and housing for a third hard drive.
Even without the expansion base, the dv8000z is a solid all-round option

To review this Laptop, CLICK HERE

Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV650

Qosmio G35-AV650 lets you play high-definition content almost seamlessly.

Toshiba's latest luxury notebook, the Qosmio G35-AV650, is the first notebook available with an HD DVD drive for playing high-definition content. We looked at a shipping unit, and we liked many of the heavy portable's outstanding audiovisual extras. However, while HD content looked fantastic, the pricey Qosmio has some minor limitations.
The $2999 G35-AV650 uses Toshiba's own HD DVD tray-drive, the HD TS-L802A. This combo drive serves as a 4X multiformat, double-layer DVD burner as well as an HD DVD-ROM reader. To enable HD DVD playback, the G35-AV650's 17-inch wide-screen display has a native resolution of 1920 by 1200 pixels, more than enough to support the 1080p HD format. The display also features a glossy coating to increase the viewable angle, and it gets power from two lamps instead of one for greater brightness.
We watched The Last Samurai in HD DVD on the laptop; the video looked sharp, and exhibited incredible detail and depth. (We then watched the same movie in standard definition, and found it lacking in comparison.) The Qosmio's sound is superb as well, thanks to an integrated 1-bit digital amplifier, Harman/Kardon speakers, and Dolby Home Theater enhancements that together simulate easily discernible multichannel surround sound.Connect to an HDTV
Another unique feature of the G35-AV650: It includes an external HDMI port with HDCP support. This lets you connect the unit directly to an HDMI-equipped HDTV for use as a high-priced HD DVD player. If your TV lacks HDMI, though, you're out of luck in regard to an HD signal; the G35-AV650's other outputs are for analog S-Video and a VGA monitor, neither of which will facilitate an HD DVD signal.
If you've hooked the notebook up to an HDTV, you can close the screen and still play content inserted into the HD DVD drive, once you've used Toshiba's power-management tools to prevent the notebook from hibernating. An instant TV-out button sends the display signal to the television. Alternatively, you can use the Fn and F5 keys to toggle through output options.
Using this method we were quickly able to send an HD DVD signal to our test HDMI-equipped HDTV. However, despite HDMI's ability to carry both video and audio, in our tests the audio emitted from the Qosmio's built-in speakers rather than the television. (Toshiba reps said this shouldn't happen; we're still working with the company to resolve the issue.)
Another drawback: Like Toshiba's HD-A1 and HD-XA1 HD DVD players, this notebook outputs video over HDMI only at 1080i, a disappointment considering that Hollywood studios are starting to encode their discs at 1080p resolution.
The G35-AV650 is bundled with a coaxial adapter cable (for use with its coaxial antenna input), as well as a composite video/audio adapter cable (for connection to the composite input, which also doubles as a stereo audio input). The notebook has an S-Video input port, too, but as with the HDMI, no cable is supplied in the box.

Like previous Qosmio notebooks from Toshiba, the G35-AV650 runs Windows XP Media Center and comes with a TV tuner and a remote control. Though using the remote control is easy, we also like the numerous media playback buttons located just above the keyboard, some of which have multiple uses. For instance, if the notebook is on, the dedicated TV and record (DVR) buttons will initiate the Media Center interface. But if you press the TV button when the unit is turned off, you can watch TV via Toshiba's QosmioPlayer interface without having to boot up Windows.

Unfortunately that ability to play media without booting Windows doesn't extend to playing HD content. We were able to play HD DVD movies only through the preinstalled InterVideo WinDVD HD application. Toshiba intends to have "instant on" playback for HD DVD movies in the future. The ability to play content such as MP3s and video files without having to boot up Windows would be an added bonus.Top-Notch Features

The G35-AV650's top-of-the-line features include a 2-GHz Core Duo T2500 processor, 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM, and a 256MB nVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics controller. It also offers 200GB of storage in the form of two 5400-rpm SATA drives.
Among its other connections are four USB 2.0 ports, one Type II PC Card slot, and one ExpressCard slot compatible with the ExpressCard/34 and ExpressCard/54 standards. A four-in-one media card reader and a fingerprint reader are provided as well.
Though Toshiba's Qosmio notebooks each feature a full-size keyboard, it's worth pointing out that they don't have a dedicated number pad--a feature sometimes prized by gamers and number crunchers alike--though there is room for one.
One feature that does stand out on the G35-AV650's keyboard, however, is the dual-mode touchpad. In addition to controlling mouse-pointer movement plus vertical and horizontal window scrolling, you can use the programmable touchpad to launch up to six programs by holding your finger on one of the designated areas.
In its secondary mode the touchpad's back lights illuminate, and its corners become hot spots for a switching tool; a pop-up interface lets you quickly switch programs or access favorite links and even hard-disk locations you've previously specified. It's quite straightforward to use, as well as to program (via another one of Toshiba's many little utilities).
Though the G35-AV650's glossy silver lid helps it resemble a home theater component, it will probably travel from your desk to the living room only rarely, as it tips the scales at 10.1 pounds.

We're currently running our WorldBench 5 benchmark as well as our battery life tests on the unit, so check back soon for our performance scores and overall rating. We enjoyed our first few hours with the Qosmio. As the first HD DVD notebook to ship, it still has a few kinks--but overall it's a solid, powerful portable that likely won't disappoint early adopters with money to spend.

To review this Laptop, CLICK HERE

Acer Aspire 8920

This big, beautiful consumer laptop's 18.4-inch screen could be brighter, but speed and other features make up for that.

The $2599 Acer Aspire 8920 is a whole lotta laptop, crammed with so many features that we kept checking for a kitchen sink. It has a humongous screen, a Blu-ray drive, six speakers, a giant hard drive, a top-flight processor, and a gadget-laden keyboard. You won't skip the light fandango while carrying this 9-pound monstrosity, but you will get awesome performance (and anemic battery life). In other words, it's a powerful desktop replacement laptop that will take up most of your desktop.

The 18.4-inch screen, with a fully HD-capable 1920-by-1080-pixel resolution, makes the 8920 good for creative types or for a family room. It's a dream screen for watching movies, editing graphics, or engaging in other highly detailed work. The screen is so surreally large that complaining about anything hardly seems fair, but we do wish that it was a little brighter.
Acer offers two fixed configurations of the 8920; we reviewed the beefier AS8920-6671, which includes a 2.6-GHz T9500 Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of main memory. Given its power, we weren't too surprised when it smoked our performance tests with a score of 97, just one point shy of the Montevina-equipped HP Pavilion dv7t. The 512MB nVidia GeForce 9650M GS graphics card turned in solid gaming scores of 127 frames per second in Doom 3 and 162 fps in Far Cry with antialiasing turned off. One drawback of the 8920: The 2.6-hour battery life will give you more than enough time to move this beast to another room and find a new outlet, but not much else.

Acer switched to a richer-looking, dark-metallic-blue lid and a shiny piano-black keyboard for the 8920, ditching the light case colors of its older Gemstone notebooks. The keyboard has a nice layout, including a dedicated number pad and tons of shortcuts for you to get all sorts of things done with the press of a button. The most conspicuous is Acer's giant 'E' shortcut key in the upper right of the keyboard, shaped and colored like a big fake jewel, which launches Empowering Technology on-screen shortcuts, a drop-down menu for setting sound effects, power management controls, security (file encryption) settings, and Acer eRecovery Management for making full or partial backups to the D: drive. Four long, skinny silver buttons lined up vertically underneath the 'E' handle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth combination power/indicator controls, always welcome conveniences.

To the left of the keyboard is the CineDash Media Console, a large touch-sensitive control pad that resembles a seating chart for a concert hall: The round "stage" area is Enter, the semicircular parts that look like rows are the volume swipe, and so on. It's easy to use once you get your bearings, though it does take some getting accustomed to. (Is that a concession stand or the Pause button?) Too bad the laptop's speakers don't sound better; the bass was so timid that we didn't even know a subwoofer existed until we looked underneath. Still, the speakers are loud and pleasing enough for you to listen to music or watch a movie without headphones.
The 8920 is nearly 2 inches thick, with lots of case space for connections--and this laptop mostly delivers on ports. The stylish dropped hinges leave a clean, port-free rear. A six-in-one card reader and an infrared receiver that works with the included entertainment remote control sit conveniently on the front. The machine has four USB ports--two on each side--and on the left side are an HDMI port and extra audio line-in. Somewhat surprising, though, is this laptop's complete lack of FireWire or eSATA ports.

The 320GB hard drive should be storage nirvana for video fiends. Acer rounds out the package with a set of basic productivity applications, including Microsoft Works 8.5.

If you need a basic, workhorse desktop replacement, you have cheaper, more sensible choices than the Acer Aspire 8920. But if flashy looks and big-screen entertainment are your goals, the 8920 deserves a spot on your short list.

To review this Laptop, CLICK HERE