Showing posts with label Notebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Notebook. Show all posts

HP Pavilion dm1z Review

09:53 sotar sadewa

Pavilion dm1z customizable Notebook PC with ; FREE Upgrade to 3GB DDR3 System Memory - 1 Dimm ; FREE Upgrade to 320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection ; Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ;
Pavilion dm1z customizable Notebook PC with ; FREE Upgrade to 3GB DDR3 System Memory - 1 Dimm ; FREE Upgrade to 320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection ; Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ;



$524.99   HP Direct


Review Summary:
The HP Pavilion dm1z delivers good value with solid performance and decent battery life for a low price.
Pros
  • Best video and gaming performance in the price range
  • Nice keyboard
  • Good battery life and low price
Cons
  • Occasional touchpad glitches
  • No USB 3.0 port
  • Doesn't deliver "9.5 hours" of battery life in real world use

HP Pavilion dm1z Full Review

 The new HP Pavilion dm1 (also called the Pavilion dm1z) is an 11-inch notebook that uses the latest AMD Fusion technology to combine a fast dual-core processor and powerful graphics inside a budget-priced netbook alternative. Is this the best new notebook for 2011? Keep reading to find out.
BUY the Pavilion dm1z customizable Notebook PC with ; FREE Upgrade to 3GB DDR3 System Memory - 1 Dimm ; FREE Upgrade to 320GB 7200RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection ; Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit ;
Our HP Pavilion dm1 (dm1z) features the following specifications:
  • AMD E-350 with AMD Radeon HD 6310 Graphics (dual-core CPU at 1.6 GHz and dual DX-11 SIMDs at 500 MHz)
  • 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 HD glossy display with LED backlighting
  • Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  • 3 GB DDR3 memory
  • 320 GB, 7200 rpm HDD (Hitachi Travelstar 7K500)
  • Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n wireless
  • Bluetooth 3.0 (Ralink Motorola BC8)
  • 6-cell Li-ion battery (51Wh)
  • Dimensions: 11.45 (L) x 8.45 (W) x 0.9 - 1.25 (H) inches
  • Weight: 3.53 pounds
  • MSRP: $449.99
Build and Design
The new HP Pavilion dm1 is an evolutionary update to last year's Pavilion dm1z and the dv2 from 2009. Stylistically, the dm1 has more in common with the dm3. In fact, if you place the new dm1 side by side with last year's dm3, you'll see that this 11-inch notebook is basically a smaller version of the dm3. At first glance it's easy to mistake the dm1z for one of the dozens of HP netbooks that have shown up over the last few years. Fortunately, the Pavilion dm1 has a lot more to offer than those low-performance netbooks.
Build quality is on par with what we've seen from the rest of the HP Pavilion Ultraportable notebooks and HP mini netbooks. The plastics used in the chassis are durable and thick enough to prevent flex or cracking under pressure. The plastic screen lid provides adequate protection for the screen but the middle of the lid does bend inward under firm pressure (be careful jamming this into overhead compartments on your next flight). The lid also features an attractive matte black paint job with black pinstriping done in glossy paint. This makes fingerprint smudges far less visible than what we see on laptop lids with glossy paint jobs.  Opening up the screen, the hinges have enough tension to hold the screen in place when it's motionless but not enough tension to hold the screen in place when you're carrying it around. The rest of the body of the notebook seems to be well designed with minimal chassis flex and no obvious creaks from the plastics.

One area of the design that will probably get a mixed reception is the bottom of the notebook. HP decided to give the new dm1 a clean look with a single massive bottom plate secured by screws that are hidden beneath the foot pads. At first glance there is no expansion bay access panel here and no way to quickly upgrade the RAM or replace the hard drive. Granted, the overwhelming majority of people who buy a $450 laptop will never open it up to make upgrades. However, if you remove the battery, slide the battery release switch again and pull forward on the bottom plate, the entire bottom of the notebook will slide forward giving you access to the RAM, hard drive and wireless cards. I just wish this was a little more obvious for owners who want to upgrade the notebook themselves.
Ports and Features
Port selection on the HP Pavilion dm1z is fairly standard for a modern netbook or 11-inch ultraportable notebook. HP gives you three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-out, VGA, Gigabit LAN (hidden behind a rubber door), and a single audio jack for headsets, microphones or headphones. It also features a SDHC-card slot for loading images off your camera while traveling or expanding your available storage. The only port that's missing here is a USB 3.0 port. Since we're starting to see USB 3.0 on more consumer notebooks and there are many USB 3.0 external hard drives on the market, we really wish HP had found a way to put at least one USB 3.0 port on this notebook. Also, since USB 3.0 has more voltage than USB 2.0, it would mean that USB accessories and phones could be charged in half the time it takes than to charge over a USB 2.0 port. Here is a quick tour around the new Pavilion dm1:

Front View: Altec Lansing branded speakers

Rear View: Battery and screen hinges

Left Side View: AC power, security lock slot, heat vent, activity lights, HDMI and USB 2.0 port

Right Side View: Media card reader, audio jack, two USB 2.0 ports, VGA and LAN.
 Read More...

Posted in , , ,
Posted by sotar sadewa

Google Cr-48 Chrome Notebook Review

08:29 sotar sadewa

The Google Cr-48 is a prototype notebook currently being tested in Google's pilot program for the Chrome operating system. Google hopes consumers and businesses will abandon traditional notebooks in favor of what is essentially "a web browser in a box." Keep reading to find out what we think.

Google Cr-48 Technical Specs:




  • Google Chrome OS
  • 12.1-inch matte screen (1280 x 800) with LED backlighting
  • Intel Atom N455 processor (1.66 GHz)
  • Intel integrated graphics
  • 2 GB DDR3 RAM
  • 16 GB SSD (SanDisk SDSA4DH-016G NAND flash)
  • Wi-Fi: 802.11 a/b/g/n
  • Mobile Broadband (3G): CDMA-based WWAN (Qualcomm Gobi2000)
  • Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR (Atheros AR5BBU12)
  • One USB 2.0 port and SD/SDHC memory card reader
  • Li-ion battery (63 Wh capacity)
  • Dimensions: 11.8 x 8.6 x 0.9 inches 
  • Weight: 3.8 pounds
  • Price: FREE ... if you can get on Google's pilot program list
Build and Design
The team at Google made some interesting design choices when they developed the Cr-48. For starters, the design is a simple and traditional clamshell shape with lots of 90-degree angles and straight lines. Combine the boxy exterior with the matte black rubberized paint and you might mistake this prototype notebook for an old ThinkPad. Open the rectangular lid and you'll see a more modern looking Chiclet or island-style keyboard and a MacBook-esque touchpad both covered in an industrial-looking matte finish.

Both the screen lid and the bottom of the notebook share matching rubberized black paint that resists fingerprints and is extremely easy to keep clean. A quick view of the bottom of the Cr-48 reveals no access plates; you just get a massive battery and a small air intake for the cooling fan. The chassis feels extremely durable and doesn't bend or squeak when you try to twist the notebook between your hands. It's clear that the design team responsible for the Cr-48 wanted this laptop to look like it means business. That could be good or bad depending on who you ask.
Although I personally love the retro style of the Cr-48, it's a bit of a tough sell when you consider what the Cr-48 really is. This "notebook" is really just an Atom-powered netbook with a new operating system (which is basically only a web browser) and a giant battery. I'm not sure how many people are going to line up to buy a laptop that is LESS functional than current Atom-powered netbooks if the laptop in question is bulkier and weighs an extra pound or more.
Ports and Features
The simplistic exterior of the Cr-48 extends to the port selection on the sides of the laptop. Google gives you a VGA port for connecting an external monitor, a single USB 2.0 port, a built-in SD/SDHC memory card reader, and a single audio jack. Before you get too excited, it's important to know that only a few of these ports work (more on that issue in the performance section of this review).

Screen and Speakers
The Google Cr-48 uses a nice 12.1-inch anti-glare display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The 1280 x 800 resolution gives you a few extra lines of vertical resolution and a less horizontal resolution compared to most modern notebooks with 1366 x 768 screens. Regardless of whether you support modern widescreen notebooks with 16:9 ratio screens or love the old 16:10 displays, there is one simple thing that makes the screen on the Cr-48 fantastic: It's NOT a glossy screen!
The matte, anti-glare surface of the 12-inch display allows you to see what's on the screen even if you're viewing in under direct sunlight or you're in an office or home environment with bright lights directly behind you. Try that with a typical glossy screen notebook and all you'll see are reflections.

The viewing angles are quite good on the Cr-48 we used with minimal backlight bleed around the edge of the screen. Default colors on our review sample looked a little biased toward blue (although the photo of the notebook taken under our studio lighting makes this minor color shift look more intense than it is in real life). Overall, this is a very nice screen.
Keyboard and Touchpad
As mentioned previously, the Cr-48 features a modern-looking Chiclet style or island style keyboard with flat individual keys and a little extra space between each key to help prevent typos. Each key provides the perfect feedback with excellent depth to each press and smooth action to each key mechanism. The entire keyboard surface has a firm support structure so there's no flex or bounce while typing even under extreme pressure.
The only problem I personally have with the keyboard is that Google decided to map a few of the traditional keys so that they serve different functions. For example, all of the function keys control specific features like forward, back, and refresh or they control notebook features like screen brightness and volume. The bigger problem for me is that the default setting for the Caps Lock key has been turned into a "Search" key. Not only do I enjoy using Caps Lock when typing, but I fail to understand the need for a dedicated search button when the Google Chrome browser has a built-in search functionality in the address bar.
Of course, you can adjust the keyboard settings and turn the search key into a standard Caps Lock key ... but that only works for the handful of people who can figure out how to do it.
The multi-touch, gesture-enabled touchpad on the Cr-48 uses integrated touchpad buttons located under the left and right bottom corners of the touchpad surface. Once again, the matte texture comes to the rescue making it easy to slide your fingers across the surface and control cursor movement on the screen with minimal lag. Since the keyboard was pushed back close to the screen hinge there is plenty of room left on the notebook for a large touchpad and Google took advantage of that.
 Read More...

Posted in , ,
Posted by sotar sadewa

Acer Unveils New Notebooks at CES

13:30 sotar sadewa

The 15.6-inch Aspire 5253 and the 14-inch Aspire 4253 feature the new AMD E-Series Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) and graphics, enabling stutter-free HD movie playback, HD Internet video streaming, and extended battery life. Both notebooks are equipped with high-definition (1366 x 768) Acer CineCrystal LED backlit displays.


The Acer Aspire 5253 and 4253 come with a 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (expandable up to 8 GB), Windows 7 Home Premium, a 1.3-megapixel Webcam, 802.11a/b/g/n and HDMI video output starting at $449.

Both notebooks are available in three color options--Mesh Black, Mesh Brown, and Mesh Red--with matching palm rests.
The new Aspire One 522 netbook uses the AMD C-50 with AMD Radeon HD 6250 Graphics (dual-core processor at 1.0 GHz and dual DX-11 SIMDs at 280 MHz) to offer superior video and multi-tasking performance compared to previous generation netbooks using the Intel Atom processor.


The new Aspire One 522 features a 10.1-inch Acer CrystalBrite LED backlit high brightness display with 1280 x 720 (WXGA) resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio. The Aspire One 522 will arrive in stores during Q2 2011 and is estimated to be priced around $399 or less.
 Read More...

Posted in , , , ,
Posted by sotar sadewa

Acer Aspire 1830T Timeline X Review

23:18 sotar sadewa

If you want a netbook because of the convenient size and amazing battery life but need better multitasking and video performance than what a cheap netbook offers then the Acer Aspire 1830T might be the perfect notebook for you. Keep reading to see what this $900 ultraportable offers.

Our Acer Aspire 1830T-68U118 feastures the following specifications:

  • Intel Core i7 680UM processor (1.46GHz, 4MB L3 cache)
  • 11.6-inch 1366x768 HD display with LED backlighting
  • Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
  • 4GB DDR3 memory
  • 500GB 5400rpm HDD
  • Intel HD integrated graphics
  • Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n wireless
  • Bluetooth 3.0 (Foxconn BCM92046)
  • 6-cell Li-ion battery
  • Dimensions: 11.22 (w) x 8.03 (d) x1.01-1.10 (h) inches
  • Weight: 3.09 pounds
  • MSRP: $899.99
Build and Design
The Acer Aspire Timeline X series is the latest generation of thin and light notebooks from Acer designed to offer solid performance and long battery life in a surprisingly lightweight package. At first glance it's easy to mistake the Aspire 1830T for one of the dozens of Acer netbooks that have shown up over the last few years. Looks, however, can be deceiving.
Build quality is quite good despite the diminutive size of this laptop. The combination of relatively thick matte plastics and black brushed aluminum palmrests leave the notebook feeling solid and showing almost no signs of flex. The screen stays firmly shut with a good amount of tension from the screen hinges when closed. Protection from the screen cover is only adequate; the cover flexes quite easily and distortions appeared on the display when we applied pressure to the back of the cover. Opening up the screen you can tell the hinges should hold up for a long time with strong tension that prevents the screen from flopping around once opened. The body of the notebook seems to be well designed with minimal chassis flex and no obvious creaks from the plastics.

One area of the design that impressed me was the bottom of the notebook. The expansion bay provides access to the hard drive, the WLAN and optional WWAN card slots as well as two RAM sockets. The single cover panel is held in place by five screws (my only complaint), so you'll have a spend a minute or two loosing all of those screws before you can swap out the hard drive or add more RAM. That said, I'm always happy to see when manufacturers make it easy for owners to upgrade their notebooks.


Ports and Features
Port selection on the Aspire 1830T is fairly standard for a modern netbook or 11-inch ultraportable notebook. Acer gives you three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-out, VGA, LAN, and audio jacks. It also features a SDHC-card slot for expanding internal storage or just loading images off your camera while traveling. Since we're starting to see USB 3.0 on more consumer notebooks and there are many USB 3.0 external hard drives on the market we really wish Acer had found a way to put at least one USB 3.0 port on this $900 notebook. Here is a quick tour around the Aspire 1830T:


Front View: Activity lights


Rear View: Battery and screen hinges


Left Side View: VGA out, AC power
HDMI-out and one USB 2.0 port


Right Side View: Media card reader,
Audio jacks, two USB 2.0 ports,
Kensington lock slot and LAN.


 Read More...

Posted in , ,
Posted by sotar sadewa

New Dell XPS 17 3D Laptop and Alienware M17x Take Center Stage

22:36 sotar sadewa

XPS 17 3D Notebook


Dell revived the XPS brand of notebooks in late 2010 with the XPS 13 and XPS 15 multimedia notebooks, but arguably the most impressive entertainment experience comes from the new 17-inch XPS 17 3D laptop with built-in 3D display (using NVIDIA Nvision 3D glasses, sold separately). The new 3D capable XPS 17, like the rest of the XPS lineup, features JBL-branded sound, an integrated subwoofer and glossy high-definition screens

This is the first Dell laptop with native support for 3D in both the display as well as the graphics card. The XPS 17 with 3D display comes equipped with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M graphics card to provide the rendering muscle needed to generate stereoscopic 3D images at fast enough frame rates for HD video playback. The XPS 17 3D laptop also features NVIDIA 3DTV Play software, allowing movie lovers and hard-core gamers to connect their XPS laptop to a compatible 3D HDTV and enjoy 3D Blu-ray disc playback or play PC games in 3D. Dell will also be including the newest generation of Intel Core i7 processor options from the Intel Sandy Bridge platform.



Our initial impressions from the show floor at CES pretty positive: Despite naturally being thicker and heavier than the smaller 15-inch XPS 15, the new XPS 17 is pretty thin and light for a 17-inch multimedia notebook with 3D capabilities. The keyboard in the demo systems feels firm and enjoyable to use. The JBL speakers sound nice, but we'll have to see if the placement in the palm rests was a good idea. Sound is directed up and toward the user but since the speakers are right where you're wrists naturally fall I suspect at least a few people will find the audio muffled from time to time.


We'll hold our judgment until we've had enough time to fully test the new XPS 17 in our lab.

Dell "Stage" On All Dell Notebooks and Mobile Devices
It's no surprise that most consumers use a variety of electronic devices for staying connected. The average American home may have a desktop PC, a notebook or netbook, a media tablet, and a smartphone--any one of which might be used for watching video and listening to music. Dell realized this and has announced it is extending its "Dell Stage" software across the company’s entire consumer portfolio. The software is intended to make it easier and faster to transfer your favorite music, photos, movies and TV shows between multiple devices.

The team on our DesktopReview.com site first saw the Dell Stage software last year on touch-screen models of the Inspiron One all-in-one desktop. The software also appears on the Inspiron duo convertible tablet. Stage uses a tile-based user interface that works on both touchscreen and non-touchscreen devices. Later this year, Dell plans to add the sync capability via software update to all Stage-equipped devices allowing the same photos, videos, music, documents and other files to be synchronized across Dell PCs, tablets and smartphones.
Updated Alienware M17x promises the "most powerful" 3D gaming experience so far
Dell's Alienware team has been hard at work on developing the next generation of its popular 17-inch gaming notebook: the M17x. We first stumbled upon leaked photos of the new M17x last month, this third revision of the M17x or (M17x R3) raises the bar by using the latest Intel Core i7 quad-core processor technology from Intel's Sandy Bridge platform and combining that with the NVIDIA GeForce 460M and a built-in 3D display.


In the same way that the XPS 17 is a first for Dell, the new M17x is Alienware’s first out-of-the-box 3D-capable gaming laptop. The Alienware team promises this notebook has more than enough power to offer realistic, lifelike, mobile gameplay on the 17-inch display. If you want the new 3D functionality then you must purchase the M17x with the optional 120Hz with 3D Bundle WideFHD WLED LCD display and NVIDIA 460M graphics card. Full pricing on the 3D configuration will be available on Monday, but the new Alienware M17x will have a starting price of $1499.
Key features on this update to the M17x include, support for up to 32GB of DDR3 system memory, optional 256GB solid state drives, USB3.0 ports, slot-loading optical drive, VGA, mini DisplayPort, and HDMI. The new M17x also features built-in wireless HDMI so that you can watch movies or play games on your HDTV (with wireless HDMI adapter) without needing to connect any cables.


The M17x is available with either red or black exteriors, both of which feature the "soft touch" finish that Alienware first made available on the M11x R2 last year. The team at NotebookReview.com will have a full review of this gaming notebook very soon, so be sure to check our homepage and visit the Alienware discussion forum on our site.


 Read More...

Posted in , ,
Posted by sotar sadewa
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)


Powered by Blogger