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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Review
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 A couple of months ago we were checking out Lenovo’s then latest ThinkPad offering, the X220. Based on Intel’s second generation Core processors, this system was classic business-oriented ThinkPad throughout. A few months before the X220, I had the IdeaPad U260 in-house which was classified by Lenovo as a “thin, light, stylish travel companion”.
I mention those two units as a transition to what we have for review today, the new ThinkPad X1. As the thinnest ThinkPad ever, the X1 seemingly takes the best features from the X220 and the U260 and merges them into one. The result is an extremely thin and sleek 13.4” notebook that is a real follow-up model to the X300 series that many came to own and love a couple of years ago.
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BlackBerry PlayBook Tablet Review
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The BlackBerry PlayBook is RIM's entry into the burgeoning tablet market that is currently dominated by Apple. It faces a stiff competition from the iPad and the various Android tablets that are just now coming to market. Does RIM have what it takes to compete at this level of consumer tablet? Is the BlackBerry PlayBook something that the average customer should be parting with their hard-earned money for?
In a nutshell, no. The PlayBook has a lot of things going for it, solid hardware, speedy processor, and dual-cameras. But hardware is only half the story. And the story of the PlayBook is as much about what RIM left out as what it put in. The PlayBook is not quite ready for prime time, and could definitely benefit from going back in the oven for a little bit longer, especially on the software side. Considering that ensuing updates to the OS and integrated apps could improve the PlayBook, bear in mind that this review is current only as of launch time: April 2011. Read on to find out what the PlayBook does right, and why we think it is sorely lacking in other areas.
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ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Launches in Taiwan
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"ASUS has come out with the Android-powered Eee Pad Transformer that snaps into a special dock to become a laptop. The Eee Pad Transformer is a pretty decent tablet to start; a half-inch-thick, 10.1-inch NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered unit that's running Android 3.0 or Honeycomb.
What makes us pay attention to this device is the fact that it transforms. The big deal here, of course, is the transformation. The Transformer is a half-inch-thick tablet with a metal back. The transformation occurs when there is a metal snap to physically attach a keyboard so that you can close it to look like a laptop. It's a seamless transformation."
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HP Pavilion dm1z Fusion Ultralight Notebook Review
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What began as a trickle -- as AMD finally introduced a shipping version of the long-awaited Fusion platform -- has turned into a steady stream, and we're definitely excited to see APUs, as AMD calls the product, finally making an impact. AMD had played up the idea of an Accelerated Processing Unit for years, and now, it's clearly a reality. Lenovo's ThinkPad X120e, which we reviewed a few months ago, instantly became one of our favorite ultraportables, and now HP has what appears to be a rival machine, of sorts.
The Pavilion dm1z is an 11.6" machine, that is a touch larger than the myriad 10" netbooks already on the market, and honestly, we're struggling with what to classify this machine as. Is is a netbook? Is it an ultraportable? In reality, it's probably a hybrid of the two. You're getting the portability and longevity of a netbook, but the power and price of a nicer ultraportable.
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Lenovo T420 notebook
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Whether it’s their ultraportable PCs, business models or workstations,
Lenovo solutions are always touted to be uncompromising solutions, with
excellent quality and flawless product support. The ThinkPad series
became well-known for the aforementioned features all the way back when
IBM still held this company segment. Split into several series, the
ThinkPad family comprises several important subcategories: the
ultraportable X-series, the workstation W-series, the accessible
SL-series, the stylised Edge series, the “green” L-series, and finally,
the most popular of all, the balanced T-series. The newest
representative of the T-series, T420, is the one that we’ve received for
testing, and its intention was to convince us that it’s worthy of
replacing one of the company’s best-selling models, T410…
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Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch Review
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The new MacBook family is available in five different models: two 13.3-inch units, two 15.4-inch versions, and a 17-inch behemoth. The base prices for these models range from $1,199 up to $2,499, but with configuration options such as faster processors, more memory, and larger-sized hard drives or SSDs, you can easily boost the cost considerably. In the past we’ve dinged Apple for putting a premium price on its notebooks when compared against models with similar specs from other manufacturers. You could easily make the argument, however, that this is simply not a fair comparison--comparing apple and oranges if you will--you’re not going to find another laptop that runs the Mac OS (at least not legally) and you’re going to be hard pressed to find another laptop that comes even close to the MacBook Pro’s design aesthetics.
In the case of the 13.3-inch MacBook Pro that Apple sent us, we need not rehash our past critiques. While its $1,499 price tag puts it firmly out of reach of those looking for budget units, this price is commensurate with similarly configured Windows laptops that are powered by Intel Core i7 mobile processors...
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Dell XPS 15z Laptop Review @ HardwareHeaven.com
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Dell XPS 15z Laptop Review @ HardwareHeaven.com Dell are back with the XPS 15z, a slimmer, higher specification model which combines an aluminium chassis with 2nd Generation Core CPU and GeForce GPU in a portable form factor which Dell states is the thinnest 15 PC available, anywhere. Today we have the XPS 15z on our test bench and will be putting it through a selection of real world and synthetic tests to find out if the great features and performance of the XPS 15 has been continued in this new model."
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Sony VAIO S
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“If environmental considerations are important to you then the fact that 85% of the plastics in the VAIO VPCS13V9E/B are made from recycled materials may well appeal. You’ll also like that the LED is mercury free. The plentiful RAM and large hard drive might make this laptop appropriate for small business users who lack networked services and carry all their data and applications with them at all times. But you’ll be stacking these factors up against a somewhat chunky, heavy build, relatively expensive price, plenty of unwanted software to remove and a battery which will need feeding in the early afternoon.”
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Lenovo IdeaPad U260 12.5-inch Laptop Review
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“It is not often that I look at a laptop and say wow that looks beautiful and then pick it up and fall in love with it even more. I think the only time that has really happened was with a Macbook Air, but I’m not even a Mac user. Lenovo is not a company you really think of when it comes to beautifully designed laptops, they make great laptops no doubt, but most of them are not that eye catching. Today we are going to be taking a look at the Lenovo IdeaPad U260 12.5-inch laptop, which is one of sleekest laptops I’ve ever seen and comes packed with an Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of mem ory. Is the U260 all looks or will it really perform?"
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ASUS U36JC Notebook Review
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"The Asus U36 offers the absolute best combination of performance for the size?. With the U36 weighing in at a mere 1.44kg with a 4-cell battery, it is also the lightest notebook with a standard voltage CPU. We will check the Features from the Asus Sub-Notebook in the following Review."
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Coolermaster Storm SF-19 Strike Force battles high notebook temperatures
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If you're even half the nerd that I am you might eventually have wondered what's inside your notebook, where the irritating noise of a fan suddenly came from when watching Youtube vids, and very maybe you might have wondered why your notebook sometimes gets so hot! I'm a bit being sarcastic here as I perfectly know most of our readers indeed do understand what's going on inside the metal or plastic housing, yet still what's there to do when temps keep on rising? Notebook coolers to the rescue! Todays we'll be having a look at one of the more performant notebook coolers you'll stumble against upon your search for the perfect solution, or did we just find it four you? Read on!
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GIGABYTE T1125N-CF1 11.6-inch Tablet Convertible Notebook Review
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"What we have here is an 11.6" notebook that measures in at 11.4" x 8.7" x 1.1" and weighs 3.8 pounds. It's a little heftier than you'd expect in an 11.6" device, but that's due in part to the fact that this is no ordinary notebook; it's a convertible. The hinge and touch screen adds a bit of beef to this notebook turned tablet; it would have been nice if they had made it a little thinner to compensate.
Because the GIGABYTE T1125N is a convertible tablet, there's a single, chrome-colored hinge under the screen that rotates 180 degrees to the left. The hinge felt very sturdy as this is the third generation of convertible notebook GIGABYTE has produced; they have definitely gotten the quality of the hinge right on this model."
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Maingear eX-L 15 Gaming Notebook Review
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Enthusiasts generally prefer to roll their own rigs, but when it comes to notebooks, the notion of building a system from scratch becomes less practical and appealing. We recently had a chance to meet with Maingear and tour the company's build facility, and one thing was immediately apparent: these guys are enthusiasts just like us. So, when Maingear offered to send us what they claim is the fastest 15-inch notebook on the planet, we rounded up our gauntlet of benchmarks and told them to "bring it on."
Maingear sent us their revamped eX-L 15 and it's equipped with an Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge processor and the fastest mobile graphics chip Nvidia currently offers, the GeForce GTX 485M. Let's see if Maingear can make good their claims of the fastest 15-inch notebook we've ever tested.
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ASUS N53SV Notebook Review
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Here is a snippet:
"Today we have the ASUS N53SV notebook on our test bench. This multimedia/moderate gaming notebook has a lot of style to go with some nice specification under the hood. This machine looks really good with a brushed aluminum lid and wrist rest and a lot more. This notebook has a 15.6-inch 1366 x 768 resolution screen, Intel Core i7 2630QM CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M graphics processor, 750 GB of storage, 4 GB of RAM, and a lot more. Come along as we see what this notebook is made of!"
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MSI CX640 15.6-inch Notebook Review
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"The Sandy Bridge issue no doubt caused problems for motherboard manufacturers, but many forget about the issue affecting notebook ones. With the issue all sorted now, it's time for companies to start releasing notebooks based on the Sandy Bridge chipset.
The first one we're looking at comes from MSI and is labelled the CX640, and on the specifications front it does indeed look the goods with an Intel i5-2410M clocked at 2.3GHz on the H65 chipset. We've also got 4GB of DDR3 memory clocked at 1333MHz in the form of two 2GB modules. Graphics comes from NVIDIA with the 520M that carries with it 1GB of GDDR3. Looking at storage, we've got a 500GB Hitachi drive. The screen is quite large at 15.6" and carries with it a 1366 x 768 resolution. Outside of these specifications there's a fair few extras on the CX640. On the left side we've got our power plug, 10 / 100 / 1000 networking port, VGA and HDMI out along with two USB 3.0 ports."
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Asus G73SW Sandy Bridge Gaming Notebook Review
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Now in its third generation, the G73SW represents an architectural upgrade to what was already a powerful mobile PC. The goal remains the same, which is to recreate the desktop experience in a portable form factor. Whether you need to hammer out a spreadsheet, encode a Blu-ray video, or frag some foes at a LAN party, the G73SW promises to help get the job done. By all means, this is a desktop replacement, but with the addition of Intel's Sandy Bridge architecture, there's potential here for battery life to be extended beyond what you would normally expect from a high octane notebook. The question is, can it deliver on all fronts?
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| The best Guides by the best writers on the internet; PCstats Beginners Guides explain computers, software, and all those other wonderful things that cause you frustration.
Learn how to use your computer better, master the internet while protecting yourself, and know what to do when your hard drive kicks the bucket.
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