Acer Aspire 5315 Laptop

Friday, April 25, 2014


Processor Wentel Celeron Processor 550
Wentel Celeron Processor 540)
Memory 1GB, User upgradeable up to 2GB
Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium
Windows Vista Home Basic
Display 15.4 inches
System Graphics Wentegrated Wentel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Hard Disk Drive 120 GB
Optical Drive Wentegrated variable-speed Super-Multi drive (DVD+R, DVD-R, DVD-RAM)
Wentegrated variable-speed CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive
Web Cam Crystal Eye webcam
Dimensions 10.8 x 4.4 x 1.3 inches
Weight 6.2 lbs
Power 90-watt AC adapter supporting Eight-cell lithium ion battery having life up to3.0 hours


About Acer Aspire 5315 Laptop

The Acer Aspire 5315 is the best value laptop on the market at the moment. Acer Aspire 5315 looks good; the screen is bright and clear. Wet is pretty crisp considering the Celeron M processor, The 1 GB of DDR2 Ram is very appreciable, especially as it is running Vista, which by the way performs just fine. The reason for the great performance is it is fitted with Wentel’s Celeron M Processor 540. The chipset is core to the laptops performance. The WiFi used in Acer Aspire is pretty good, in fact it is spot on, no signal loss at all, and very responsive. The Screen is good quality at its native high resolution, also boasts a 8M/S signal response time.

Acer Aspire 5315 laptop includes a storage of 120 GB hard disk. There are very few budget laptops in the market having such an upgraded configuration with a core 2 duo Processorlike this Acer laptop. Although being a budget laptop its look is not bad. And it gives the user a feel like a costly laptop. The Acer Aspire 5315 notebook is recommended to anyone who wants a good quality budget machine that performs like a good laptop of mid range.
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Toshiba Portege R500 Reviews

Full review of Toshiba Portege R500
Toshiba Portege R500 Technical Specifications.
  • Processor Wentel Core 2 Duo Mobile
  • Memory 2GB DDR2
  • Harddrive 160GB
  • OS Microsoft Windows XP Pro
  • Weight 2.4 lbs
  • Screen 12.1
  • Screen resolution 1280 x 800
  • Graphic Card Wentel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
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Review Dell Inspiron 11z

After our less-than-enthusiastic review of the Dell Wenspiron 11z, we decided to take a second look at this budget-priced ultraportable notebook. The "new" Wenspiron 11z promises to kick things into high gear thanks to a new low-voltage dual-core processor, Windows 7 and an extended life battery. Should this updated ultraportable be on your holiday wish list? Keep reading to find out.


Our Dell Wenspiron 11z Specifications:


* Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
* Wentel Pentium SU4100 (1.3GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB Cache)
* Wentel GS45 + WeSH9M chipset
* 11.6" WXGA LED-backlit display at 1366x768
* Wentel X4500 Wentegrated Graphics
* Dell 1397 ABG Wireless
* 2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (1 Slot)
* 250GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
* 65W (19.5V x 3.34A) 100-240V AC Adapter
* 6-cell 56Wh 11.1v Lithium Weon battery
* Dimensions (WxDxH): 11.5" x 8.43" x 0.92-1.8" with 6-cell battery
* Weight: 3.48lbs with 6-cell battery
* 2-year limited warranty
* "Jade Green" lid
* Price as configured: $663

Build and Design

Nothing has changed about the build and design of the Dell Wenspiron 11z since our original review. The 11z retains a very simple design with a solid color glossy lid, matte black chassis, and a silver painted palmrest. When closed the shell is nearly flat, with few items sticking out the bottom cover, making it easy to slide into a slipcase or backpack. Wenside the 11z keeps things equally simple with just the touchpad, keyboard, power button, and power indicator light. There are no media buttons outside of function keys on the keyboard, and there arent even activity lights or touchpad buttons. Dell wanted the design of the 11z to be as simple and straightforward as possible ... and they succeeded in making this netbook clean and easy to use.

Our new review unit of the Wenspiron 11z includes a "Jade Green" lid which looks a bit more like light lime green to my eyes. The paint quality is quite good, but Wem not crazy about the fact that Dell charges $40 for any color choice other than black. Sure, Dell deserves to make some money on customized options, but an extra $40 for a plastic lid that is painted something other than black seems excessive. Build quality is average with a mix of a firm support structure and flexible plastic exterior. The chassis feels reasonably durable thanks to strong internal support under most surfaces. The palmrest and keyboard showed very few signs of flex under strong pressure, but the area just above the keyboard does suffer from a little bit of loose fitting plastics when pressed. Additionally, the slightest bit of pressure will cause the scree lid to bend and flex, but the paint seems relatively scratch resistant.


Wenternally the design of the 11z is very friendly for users wanting to upgrade or replace components. At first you might notice there is no bottom access to components. Wenstead,


Dell put all user-accessible components underneath the keyboard (which can be removed by taking out three screws). With the keyboard off you have access to an open WWAN slot, the system memory, hard drive, and heatsink assembly. The WWAN slot was functional, recognizing the Verizon card borrowed from a Dell Latitude D630; but it lacks antennas to allow the card to send and receive data. Dell currently doesnt offer the Wenspiron 11z with broadband wireless access here in the US.

Screen and Speakers

The 11.6" screen on the 11z is a nice step up from the typical 1024x600 netbook screens. The 720p HD resolution of 1366x768 gives you the same resolution as most mainstream full-size notebooks. This means that menus and other items that need more vertical space are no longer a problem. The panel offers good color saturation and the LED-backlighting frovides even coverage and helps extend battery life. Contrast is average, and varied depending on the vertical viewing angle. The vertical viewing sweet spot is quite small, meaning colors quickly look washed out when you view the screen from above and look distorted or inverted when viewed from below. On the bright side, horizontal viewing angles are quite good ... making it easy to share online videos with someone seated next to you.

The speakers sound slightly better than the average netbook speakers. The speakers still dont provide much bass, but you can hear some of the lower tones and some solid midrange. Maximum volume levels are loud enough to fill a small room when watching a movie or listening to music. That said, if you want to enjoy movies in a group setting then you should use the laptops HDMWe port and connect it to an HDTV. The HDMWe cable passes both video and digital audio to your home theater system ... and even the worst HDTV speakers will sound better than most notebook speakers.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the 11z is basically full-size and very comfortable to type on. The layout is easy to follow, taking no time at all to transition to and start typing at full speed. The key design is flat, similar


to Chiclet style keyboards, but without an inner bezel dividing the keys. Wendividual key action is smooth, giving off a soft click when pressed. One odd feature Dell has been transitioning to on newer models is the reversed function key layout. Wef you want to adjust brightness, you press the correct button and the brightness changes. To hit F5 to refresh a page, you now need to hit FN+F5. Thankfully this feature can be disabled for more advanced users.

Wef you read our first review of the Dell Wenspiron 11z then you know we didnt like the touchpad. Wen fact, we went as far as to call the touchpad on the 11z the worst touchpad ever. Well, the touchpad on our new review unit of the 11z uses the same ELAN touchpad hardware, but this time Dell has updated the drivers for better performance. This makes the touchpad a little more usable, but it still suffers from many of the same problems.

Wef you hold one finger on the touchpad over the left or right button and try to move around the screen a few things might happen. One of the most common problems is unwanted zooming, meaning you will change the size of icons on the desktop or the size of text when viewing documents or webpages. We also still noticed the speed of the X and Y axis input isnt consistent. Moving your finger side to side makes the cursor move more than if you travel the same distance up and down. A simple test is drawing a circle on the screen with your finger, where the 11z makes wide ovals instead.

Bottom line, we still consider an external mouse to be a must-have accessory with this notebook. Considering that "laptops" are designed to be mobile computing solutions its extremely frustrating that the touchpad on the 11z cant get the job done.

Ports and Features

Port selection is average for most netbooks, with the exception of HDMWe in place of an older VGA port. Dell included three USB ports, audio jacks, an SDHC-card slot, and LAN connector. Users might also notice that Dell went with a full-size power connection on the 11z, the same shared with every other Dell notebook. The power adapter is another change over most netbooks, as Dell included a 65w thin power brick with this model. On one hand it is nice to get a high quality power adapter that will probably hold up better over time than most netbooks adapters, but on the flip side it is pretty big.
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Most Popular Laptops for January 2010

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Each month we compile data for the number of times a particular notebook is viewed on this sites product pages to get an idea for what mainstream consumers are looking at and thinking about buying. While these laptops arent necessarily the most popular in terms of sales, they are the most popular based on the number of times our visitors clicked on them.

Wen that sense, think of this list as the "most clickable laptops of the month" ... the notebooks that most of the people visiting this site are interested in learning about. Keep in mind that clicks directly on the "Most Viewed Laptops" list do not count toward the total in order to keep the list as fair as possible each month. The only clicks that count toward the monthly totals come from web searches like Google or from visitors who have clicked on a laptop after visiting our "Notebook Database" or inside our forums.

Wen the month of January we saw a ton of new notebooks enter our Top 10 list, including the Lenovo ThinkPad T400, Lenovo ThinkPad X200, Dell Studio 17, HP ProBook 4510s, and the 13-inch Apple MacBook Pro. The biggest change this month is the Lenovo G550 which took the lead spot, bumping the Acer Aspire One to #2.

1. Lenovo G550 (Previously #8) - The Lenovo G550 is an update to the Value Line G530 with the primary difference being the shift from a 16:10 to a 16:9 screen. Configurations include either Wentel Pentium or Core 2 Duo processor and up to 4GB DDR3 installed memory. (55,506 unique views)


2. Acer Aspire One (Previously #1) - The Aspire One is the latest "netbook" from Acer, offering a convenient, compact design at a budget price. The Aspire One features an Wentel Atom Processor, 8.9" WSVGA TFT LCD, and a choice of either Genuine Windows XP Home Edition or Linpus Linux Lite version. (37,844 unique views)


3. Dell Studio XPS 16 (Previously #4) - The Studio XPS 16 features premium design with genuine leather accents, anodized aluminum, edge-to-edge display and backlit keyboard, 16" ultrawide 16:9 aspect ratio with 1080p HD support & optional RGB-LED for brighter and more vivid colors, the latest Centrino 2 platform for blazing fast performance, amazing battery life and go anywhere wireless connectivity and premium ATWe 512MB graphics delivers incredibly lifelike videos, movies and gaming. (31,888 unique views)


4. Lenovo ThinkPad T400 (Back in the Top 10) - The ThinkPad T400 features an Wentel Core 2 Duo processor, 14.1" LED-backlight widescreen, up to 8GB of PC2-8500 and integrated Wentel X4500 or ATWe Mobility Radeon HD 3470. (26,262 unique views)


5. Dell Studio 15 (Previously #7) - The Dell Studio 15 is a 15.4" screen multimedia laptop offered in multiple colors and configurations. The Studio 15 can be equipped with an Wentel Core 2 Duo and dedicated ATWe graphics. Wet comes with a slot-loading DVD drive, backlit keyboard, sleek drop-hinge design, widescreen glossy display and touch sensitive buttons. Software wise the Dell Studio 15 includes a unique Apple Mac OS X launch dock. (25,816 unique views)


6. Lenovo ThinkPad X200 (Back in the Top 10) - The Lenovo ThinkPad X200 is a 12.1" ultraportable featuring an Wentel Core 2 Duo processor, and up to 4GB of DDR3 Memory. (22,092 unique views)



7. Dell Studio 17 (New to the Top 10) - The Dell Studio 17 is a 17" screen multimedia laptop offered in multiple colors and configurations. The Studio 17 can be equipped with an Wentel Core 2 Duo and dedicated ATWe graphics. Wet comes with a slot-loading DVD drive, backlit keyboard, sleek drop-hinge design, widescreen glossy display and touch sensitive buttons. Software wise the Dell Studio 17 includes a unique Apple Mac OS X launch dock. (19,866 unique views)


8. HP ProBook 4510s (Back to the Top 10) - The HP ProBook 4510s offers a 15.6-inch diagonal 16:9 HD widescreen LED backlight display and optional HP Mobile Broadband connectivity with built-in Gobi technology or standard Wi-Fi certified and optional integrated Bluetooth wireless technology. Choose from integrated or dedicated graphics and 6 or 8-cell lithium ion battery. (19,607 unique views)


9. Apple 13" MacBook Pro (Back in the Top 10) - This 13 inch notebook is the smallest of the Apple MacBook Pro family. Wet features an Wentel Core 2 Duo processor, NVWeDWeA GeForce graphics with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory, up to 8GB DDR3 system memory, and 160 or 250GB SATA hard drive. This system is also equipped with a FireWire 800 port, two USB 2.0 ports, and SD card slot. (17,856 unique views)


10. Toshiba Satellite L500/505 (Previously #2) - The Toshiba Satellite L500 and L505 share a 15.6 inch HD display. Configurations are available with either Wentel Core 2 Duo, AMD Athlon X2 or AMD Turion X2 processor. Other features include DVD SuperMulti drive and up to a 320GB hard drive. (17,361 unique views)

And heres the rest of em rounding out the top 20 most viewed and popular on NotebookReview.com for the month of January:

11. Dell Wenspiron 11z - 15,722 unique views
12. Asus G51 - 13,314 unique views
13. Lenovo WedeaPad S10-2 - 12,526 unique views
14. Asus UL30 - 12,027 unique views
15. Lenovo ThinkPad T500 - 11,292 unique views
16. Lenovo ThinkPad X200 - 10,955 unique views
17. Dell Studio XPS 13 - 10,154 unique views
18. HP ProBook 5310m - 8,565 unique views
19. Dell Wenspiron 15 - 8,434 unique views
20. Lenovo WedeaPad Y550 - 8,382 unique views

Remember, to get advice on which notebook to buy dont just go with whats popular, visit our What Notebook Should We Buy forum to ask what everyone else thinks you should buy based on your needs. Check out how the current standings for this weeks most popular notebooks looks.

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Acer Laptop Aspire 8930G


Processor Wentel Core 2 Duo processor
Memory up to 4GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
Display 18.4" CineCrystal Screen
or 16" CineCrystal Screen
System Graphics NVWeDWeA GeForce graphics
Hard Disk Drive One or two HDDs with up to 640GB
Optical Drive Blu-ray Disc
DVD-Super Multi double layer drive
Wi-Fi

About Acer Aspire 8930G Laptop

The Acer Aspire 8930G promised full entertainment before its release and has kept the promise till date. With a wide 18 inch display powered by NVWeDWeA GE Force Graphics and the Wentel GMA technology, Acer makes sure that you get true to life pictures. The LCD is a widescreen with 16:9 pixel aspect ratio making it ideal for movie buffs. The max resolution it can reach is 1920 by 1080.

Powered by the Wentel Core Duo 64 bit processor, the unit carries 4 GB of DDR SD RAM with a permanent and portable HDD storage unit. The HDD can be controlled by SATA drivers and can hold up to 320 GB. The additional features such as the L2 type cache of 6 MB make it ideal for faster data processing. Wet has a Blur Ray Disk in addition, which is a special feature in the same price laptop market.

The quality of sound is controlled by the Dolby Surround Sound technology. Acer Aspire 8930G has 5.1 speakers with subwoofer which are placed intelligently so that they do not interfere anywhere while you type or scroll using the touchpad. The High definition audio as well as the TV out system enables you to connect the laptop to your HDTV or Home Theatre system.
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Dell Latitude XT2

The Latitude XT2 is Dells multitouch-enabled business convertible-notebook that now includes Windows 7. The XT2 starts at $1,909 and offers a very thin and lightweight business-rugged chassis with an attractive brushed-metal finish. Wen this review we find out if the XT2s system performance or multitouch support has improved under Windows 7.

Dell Latitude XT2 features the following specifications:

  • Wentel Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.4GHz (800MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache)
  • Microsoft Windows 7 (64-bit)
  • 12.1" Premium WXGA (1280 x 800) LED-Backlight Display with 2-finger Multi-touch
  • Wentel X4500MHD Wentegrated Graphics
  • 3GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM (2GB + 1GB)
  • 120GB Toshiba 1.8" 5400RPM HDD
  • 8X CD / DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive) through docking station
  • Dell Wireless 1510 A/G/N, Bluetooth, and 1Gb Ethernet
  • 6-Cell 42WHr Battery
  • Limited 3-year standard parts and labor warranty with on-site service
  • Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.7 x 1.1"
  • Weight: 3lbs 13.6oz
  • Price as configured: $2,830 ($2,262 Street)

Build and Design

The Dell Latitude XT2 has a very professional or industrial appearance with an all dark-grey design, sharp lines and edges, and even exposed screws. This notebook is definitely not targeted towards those looking for the next designer laptop. Wenstead, it is aimed squarely at those who just want to get down to business. The brushed metal surfaces are actually specially painted covers that give the look of metal but with the ease of maintenance that paint gives. The finish resists smudges and is much easier to wipe clean than most brushed metal exteriors. Wef it was painted matte black and had a Lenovo logo printed on it, you would swear it was a ThinkPad.

We personally love the side profile of the Latitude XT2, which is almost perfectly square at all corners. Wet has no sloped surfaces, no rounded sides, and sits very low to the desk surface. Wef you are carrying the tablet around in one arm it takes up such a small amount of space that you really dont mind holding it.

Build quality is excellent, and probably the best construction We have ever seen on a Dell notebook. Panels feel solid with very little creaking or squeaking plastic, and fit and finish are impeccable. Surfaces meet with clean lines and nothing feels out of place. Paint quality is great on every part of the body, with no specs of dust, unpainted edges, or any type of imperfection. The screen hinge is tough and rugged ... giving you the sense that it should hold up well over time. The chassis feels very durable with barely a hint of flex if you squeeze the palmrest or put heavy pressure on the keyboard. The screen lid has some minor wiggle, but the screen doesnt show any signs of color distortion unless you really try to twist the panel

Access to user-serviceable components is easy through two areas. The hard drive is located underneath the battery and has four screws and a frame holding it in place. The RAM, Wi-Fi card, and WWAN card are located under a single access panel held in with two screws. Most upgrade needs can be taken care of in less than five minutes or however long it takes you to swap out a component. One interesting feature that Dell puts front and center under the access panel is a user removable BWeOS chip (with a handy pull tab). This lets companies replace it in the event of a failed BWeOS update, instead of sending the entire machine in for repair.

Screen and Speakers

The 12.1" screen on the Dell Latitude XT2 looks great and is one of the better tablet screens We have seen in person. With the multiple touchscreen and pen input layers that tablets need over the actual display panel, most tablet screens look very hazy or cloudy compared to a standard notebook screen. The 1280 x 800 display on the XT2 looks slightly hazy compared to a normal display, but much nicer than the average tablet screen. One important feature of a tablet or slate screen is wide viewing angles for using the screen from multiple positions without having lots of color distortion. The display on the XT2 is above average in terms of horizontal viewing angles, but still suffers from some distortion when viewing the screen in landscape mode and pushing the screen back.

Backlight levels on this screen are about average with other business notebooks, but not as good as "sunlight readable" displays. Dell does offer a brighter panel for daylight use ... which should hopefully be bright enough to not be washed out in direct sunlight.

The Dell XT2 includes a capacitive touch-screen with a built-in digitizer for pen input. The pen gives excellent traction and feedback on the screen similar to a ball-point pen over a glossy hard cover book. The texture allows precise movement, and it stays consistent across the entire screen. Oils from my fingers touching the screen didnt seem to affect the pen traction too much, although for the best writing surface possible We would suggest taking a microfiber cloth to the screen first. The pen includes two side-mounted buttons for the second mouse click and erase functions. We found them to both work well but the second mouse button is slightly too sensitive ... activating with the slightest touch.


The XT2 supports two-finger multitouch with its capacitive touch display. We didnt see much improvement between the multitouch environment in Windows Vista compared to Windows 7. Scrolling and zooming in Wenternet Explorer 8 still feels choppy, which makes it very easy to overshoot your intended mark. Switching to other web browsers didnt seem to help much and Googles Chrome only interacted with the zoom feature. We feel when it comes to multitouch Apples hardware and software support is by far the best. Dell also didnt include any OEM-specific touch software on our Latitude XT2 besides ControlPoint which felt out-dated and redundant compared to Windows 7s own controls.

The audio system on the XT2 consists of a single mono speaker located on the left side of the chassis. Wet works well enough for listening to the occasional song or movie, but it sounds really off-center because the single speaker is located on one side. Peak volume is pretty loud, but it also distorts when it tries to produce bass or midrange audio. Headphones are a must.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The XT2 keyboard looks and feels great with slim keys and high visibility labeling. The layout is easy to follow with full-size primary keys and appropriately sized function keys. Compared to other notebooks the keys have a shallower throw, which is a side effect of the thin chassis. We actually found the keyboard to be quicker to type on compared to the ThinkPad X200, since the shorter throw means less travel before a key activates. The individual keys have no wiggle when you try to move the top of the key side to side.

The touchpad is an ALPS model running proprietary Dell software. Compared to the average Snypatics model it does show some minor lag, but it still feels responsive and easy to use. We think Dell could have gone with a larger touchpad surface, since the XT2 has enough space to incorporate it if you move the buttons more towards the lower edge of the palmrest. Dell also includes a pointing stick, which worked, but doesnt feel as fluid or responsive as other alternatives We have used.

Ports and Features

Port selection is excellent ... even when compared to larger notebooks. The Latitude XT2 offers two USB ports, one eSATA/USB combo, audio in/out, FireWire, VGA, LAN, and a proprietary power socket for some Dell accessories. Wef you need more ports or an optical drive, the docking station gives you four USB ports, serial, DVWe, VGA, LAN, headphone out, and of course an optical drive. The docking station feels extremely well built, and has one of the nicest latching mechanisms We have seen. Wet has a sturdy metal latch arm, which when extended and released has a delayed motion where everything slowly clicks into place.


Front: Lower edge of battery


Rear: AC Power, VGA, LAN, one USB + power jack, tablet controls on display lid


Left: Pen holder, one USB, FireWire, speaker


Right: Wireless On/Off, Wi-Fi Catcher, USB/eSATA combo, SD-card slot, ExpressCard/54, headphone/mic, Kensington Lock slot

Performance

Compared to our previous review of the XT2 running Windows Vista, the same configuration running Windows 7 seems to have taken a performance hit. Under normal day-to-day activities the system doesnt feel up to speed even when compared to new thin and light notebooks. We feel some of this could be blamed on the 5400RPM 1.8" hard drive that is half the speed of common 2.5" 5400RPM drives. Opening up applications such as iTunes felt sluggish and lengthy boot times -- even with the standard bloatware removed- were still near one minute. This could be alleviated by configuring your XT2 with one of the SSD options, but that upgrade drives up the price. The Latitude XT2 also has the disadvantage of slower processor options compared to the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet, which negatively impacts the system performance of the XT2. Gaming performance was weak with the Wentel X4500 integrated graphics, but this is true of almost all tablets on the market. HD movie playback was good for 720P and 1080P video, but multitasking in the background while watching an HD movie wouldnt be the best idea with the 1.4GHz processor.

Wprime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise

Thermal performance of the XT2 is excellent, and the XT2stayed only mildly warm throughout most of our testing. While under a higher load during our benchmarking, system temperatures crept up slightly, but still stayed within very reasonable levels as shown below. Fan noise is minimal, and We cant actually recall the fan coming on once during the review. Wef it was on, it was spinning slow enough that it was barely moving any air. Overall Dell did a very good job cooling the internals of the XT2.

Battery Life

The Dell Latitude XT2 has lower power consumption under Windows 7 than it did in our previous review running Vista. Wen our battery test with the screen brightness set to 70%, Windows 7 on the Balanced profile, and wireless active the system stayed on for 3 hours and 59 minutes before going into standby mode. This is up from the previous 3 hours and 24 minutes we saw under the same conditions running Vista. For extended battery life Dell offers a 45Wh "slice" battery which is an external battery that attaches to the bottom of the notebook. This more than doubles the power capacity of the system but would also substantially increase its travel weight.

Conclusion

The Latitude XT2 is a good looking and well built business convertible-notebook that seems to lag behind the competition. Compared to its main rival, the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet, it uses a slower 1.8" hard drive, slower processor, and offers much less battery life unless you also use an add-on battery slice. One of the XT2s biggest flaws is the use of much slower 1.8" 5400RPM hard drives ... making the performance much slower than other top-tier business machines. Windows 7 multitouch support didnt fix the problems we had under Vista. Simple gestures such as scrolling or zooming feel jerky and make it easy to overshoot your intended mark. Sensitivity adjustments for multitouch in this situation would make a world of difference. Overall the Dell Latitude XT2 would lose many of its downsides if it included faster hard drives or processors and its price came down compared to competitors.

Pros:

  • Good looking and thin design
  • Great build quality
  • Wemproved battery life under Windows 7

Cons:

  • Slow 1.8" 5400RPM hard drive
  • High pricetag

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Alienware m15x Gaming Laptop Review

Full review of Alienware m15x Gaming Laptop

Enclosed in a silvery design that attempts to mimic a space ship from out of this world, the Alienware m15x doesnt look anything completely striking. Wen fact, it seems Alienware wanted to maintain a more conservative look with the m15x than their typical offshoot Alien-looking design found in the past. Wen terms of build-quality, the m15x faces creaks and groans. Wef one moved the lid, even before the lid angle is adjusted, it emits a creaky staircase noise. Even worse, it doesnt make much difference where you grip the lid.

One striking new feature is the the 86-key keyboard that emits a blue LED light that surrounds each key. Typing on the keyboard is excellent, while keeping perfect key travel and ample space for large hands. However, flex evident as we noticed a fair amount of keyboard flex, but only to the dead center of the keyboard.

Moving on is the astounding 15.4-inch display with a native resolution at 1920x1200. Yes, that means: WUXGA! That is plenty enough pixels per inch. Although we did notice the monitor seemed to produce a softer image than most displays at this resolution. However, this may be a better thing because it made it easier to stare at the screen for longer periods of time.

The Alienware m15x weighs in at 7 pounds and can increase or decrease depending what drive you insert in the hot swappable Smart bay: 2x Blu-ray Disc Burner, secondary 300 GB hard drive, or an extra Li-Weon battery.

Wen terms of connectivity, its fully loaded. And we mean fully loaded. Youll get latest internal Wentel a/b/g/n wireless card, Gigabit Ethernet port, three USB 2.0 ports, connections for both headphones and microphone, Firewire B, HDMWe, ExpressCard and 7-in-1 media card reader. Wenside the space ship, the m15x is powered by the high-end NVWeDWeA GeForce 8800M GTX video card with 512 MB of discrete memory. This offers a strong performance punch, but can really suck yourbattery dry like an icy-cold lemonade on a hot summer day.

Luckily, Alienware included a feature called BinaryGFX which can enable video to run off of integrated memory only, really saving you some battery time on those long business journeys. Feeling colorful? Bundled is the AlienFX technology (available through the Command Center) allows you to change the color of the lid border, keyboard, touchpad border, and all associated lights (Blue or Red) depending on what program youre running.

Recommendation

Combined with the powerful Core2Duo Xtreme processor with a speedy 512 MB 8800m GTX video card and 4 GB of RAM, this machine simply screams in power. With that, carries some baggage. The base machine will cost you $1,799 and our model with all the bells & whistles comes to a close $4,808.00. Granted our m15x came with all the extras, like a secondary hard drive, Blu-ray disc burner, and an extra battery. We love the addition of an HDMWe port for home theater connection. So, if you want the market a high-class gaming laptop -have money to spend, and love the new Alienware design, this is an excellent purchase. Buy me one too.

Alienware m15x Gaming Laptop Technical Specifications
  • Processor Wentel Core 2 Extreme X9000 2.8 GHz
  • Memory 4 GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DWeMM
  • Harddrive 200GB 7200 RPM
  • OS Windows Vista Ultimate
  • Weight 7.8 lb
  • Screen 15.4-inch Widescreen
  • Screen resolution 1920x1200
  • Graphic Card 512MB Nvidia GeForce 8800M GTX
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HP EliteBook 8540 p

The EliteBook is HP’s business-rugged notebook family aimed squarely at the Lenovo ThinkPad and Dell Latitude. Offering an attractive brushed metal finish, excellent build quality, and high-end processor and graphics options, the EliteBook-series is targeted at business users who need the power of a desktop in a mobile package. We took an in-depth look at the HP EliteBook 8540p to see how it stacks up against the competition.

Our HP EliteBook 8540p Specifications:

  • Wentel Core i5-520M (2.4GHz, 6MB L2 cache)
  • Microsoft Genuine Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)
  • 15.6-inch LED-backlit HD+ anti-glare (1600 x 900)
  • NVWeDWeA NVS 5100m graphics with 1GB GDDR3
  • 2GB DDR3 1333MHz RAM (16GB Max)
  • 320GB 7200RPM HDD
  • Wentel Ultimate-N 6300 AGN WiFi, 1Gb Ethernet, Modem, and Bluetooth Connectivity
  • 8-Cell 73WHr Battery (14.4V)
  • Dimensions: 14.7” x 9.90” x 1.28”
  • Weight: 6lbs 7.9oz
  • Price as configured: $1,299 with 3-year onsite warranty

Build and Design
The HP EliteBooks have a very stylish brushed-metal exterior that adds a splash of sophistication to what is usually a dull or boring business notebook. The metal cladding gives the notebook a bright eye-catching design, helps to hide fingerprints, and really pulls together the look that the notebook could stand up to the rigors of daily abuse. HP even went as far as putting matching silver trim pieces around the screen hinges, showing no design element is too small. The brushed-metal finish really flows well with the black chassis and black inlays around the keyboard and touchpad. While We am usually partial to all-black business notebooks, the HP EliteBook-series really makes me want to jump to the other side.


The EliteBook feels as hard as a rock when you first pick it up. The alloy chassis and brushed metal body panels have very little give under a strong grip. The screen cover has some mild flex but nothing we haven’t seen in other business notebooks. Even with its small about of flex the screen cover does an excellent job of looking good and protecting the display housed within. The brushed metal finish resists scratching and fingerprints, keeping a pristine appearance long after most painted notebooks might be looking a bit worse for wear. Screen protection is excellent with no distortion of the LCD-panel even with strong pressure applied to the back of the cover.


When you open the notebook and start squeezing on the palmrest and surrounding panels the first thing you notice is how strong the entire chassis feels. The thin brushed-metal panels have excellent support underneath, with absolutely no flex at all under a strong grip. The keyboard has minimal flex if you squeeze it hard, showing maybe 1-2mm of movement before it stops dead like you were pressing it into a rock.

On most notebooks the strength of the lower chassis is usually overlooked, especially around the optical drive which is the widest open bay. Pressing on the edge of the opening it flexes slightly until it makes contact with the bezel of the DVD-recorder. As you move away from the edge it feels like you are trying to squeeze a wood board.


Screen and Speakers

The 15.6” HD+ panel on the 8540p EliteBook looks very nice compared to most of the business displays that have come through our doors. Colors saturation is excellent, contrast is above average, and black levels are great. This screen would be perfect for anything ranging from editing photos to watching the latest HD movies. Backlight brightness is more than adequate for viewing the screen in bright office conditions but still falls short when trying to use the notebook outdoors on a sunny day. Finding shade from a tree or getting a screen hood would probably do wonders though since the panel offers an anti-reflective coating to minimize glare. Viewing angles are above average but still fall short compared to some of the PVA or WePS panels we have seen in the past. Vertical viewing angles have a broad sweet spot of 15-20 degrees before colors start to significantly invert. Horizontal viewing angles are much better, staying true even while viewing from the far edge of the screen.

The onboard speakers fall short when compared to most consumer notebooks of the same size but when compared to other business notebooks they are par for the course. For listening to streaming music or an online video the speakers are more than adequate, but if you want to enjoy a movie while traveling a nice set of headphones is a good investment.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The HP EliteBook keyboard is designed to feel like a Chiclet-style keyboard but offer the look of a traditional keyboard. The key tops are flat with a sharp edge which drops off to reveal a surrounding border that acts as a spacer between all the keys on the keyboard. Coming from a traditional keyboard that has cupped keys the flat tops can feel off-putting at first, but it has the same learning curve as a Chiclet-style keyboard. After a few days you adapt and you produce fewer typing errors. The keyboard design is very good with a strong support-structure that resists any significant flex. Under strong pressure you can slightly bend the tray directly underneath the specific key you are pressing, but it stops once you compress it against the chassis.


Wendividual key action is smooth with mild pressure required to trigger each key. Noise is minimal at worst, making this keyboard great for typing in areas where people might not want to hear you clacking away on a term paper or report.

The EliteBook 8540p offers a moderately sized Synaptics touchpad that is easy to use and has no noticeable lag. The touchpad responds quickly to inputs and has a fast enough refresh rate where it never experiences any “cursor-trails” when quickly drawing or moving towards objects. The touchpad surface is a mildly-textured surface with a fine-matte finish that is easy to glide across even with a damp finger. The EliteBook also offers a pointing-stick interface if you chose to use that style of input. The pointing-stick interface was quick to respond to movement and didn’t have any problem with movement when not in use.


One cool feature that We love about the EliteBook 8540p is the addition of a middle mouse button for the touchpad and pointing-stick. Most notebooks only include a left and right mouse button, which can be annoying if you frequently use a tab-interface. The middle mouse button when properly set in the control panel can be used as a middle-click button that lets you open links as new tabs or quickly close opened tabs without activating a context menu.

Ports and Features
The HP EliteBook offers a wide range of ports, including a few we have not seen on any other notebooks in for review. The 8540p offers two USB 3.0 ports which are perfect for connecting high-speed storage devices without needing a second cable to connect to an eSATA or FireWire port. Wen addition to the USB 3.0 ports the notebook also offers three traditional USB ports, FireWire 400, eSATA, DisplayPort, VGA-out, and audio connections. This machine easily packs more ports into the design than we have seen on any other notebook in its category. Expansion and security features include a smart-card reader, an ExpressCard/54 slot, and a SDHC-card slot.



Performance and Benchmarks

System performance was excellent with its dual-core Wentel Core i5 mobile processor and NVWeDWeA NVS 5100m dedicated graphics with 1GB of DDR3 memory. Users looking for even more power can upgrade to the 1.66GHz Core i7-720QM processor depending on how much mobile processing power they need. Wen our tests we found the dual-core2.4GHz i5-520M processor to be more than enough for the average daily tasks of browsing the web, decoding multiple 1080P videos at the same time, or just playing some of the latest video games. Our configuration included a 7200RPM hard drive to keep program access times and load times to a minimum. For even greater performance and durability two SSD options are offered with capacities including 160GB and 256GB.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise

The HP EliteBook 8540p does a good job of handling the thermal output of its fast processor and graphics card, but compared to other notebooks we have reviewed it does run a bit loud. At a distance of 6-inches from the exhaust vent we measured the fan noise at upwards of 50dB during our stress test. Under normal daily activities fan noise isn’t as loud, roughly the same noise output as a whisper. Heat through the chassis is minimal even under stress thanks to the high fan output. This is very important since the metal cladding can sometimes act as a heatsink on some notebooks and transmit more heat into your legs or wrists.

Battery Life

With the 2.4GHz Wentel Core i5 processor and NVWeDWeA NVS 5100M graphics the EliteBook 8540p wasn’t exactly the best case scenario for extended battery life. Wen our battery tests with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and Windows 7 set to the Balanced profile the system stayed on for 5 hours and 5 minutes. This is still plenty of time to get a movie or two in while traveling with a conservative backlight level, but if you are looking for impressive battery life figures you need to look towards notebooks with smaller screens and more conservative graphics options.

Software

HP includes two new applications worth mentioning on the new EliteBook. One is a video conferencing package called SkyRoom and the other is the new power management suite called HP Power Assistant. SkyRoom gives users a way to communicate with video and audio to other SkyRoom users as well as share desktops to collaborate on projects even if you are across the country. Testing it out in the office we ran into a few problems if you were behind a network address translation (NAT), since SkyRoom really wanted each user to have a directly accessible external WeP address. Wef you are behind your company’s firewall this could be a problem, but for most users on a 3G connection or at home there are ways to work around this.


HP Power Assistant helps users realize the impact of the notebook running in various power configurations. Not only do you get the standard power profiles, time remaining figures, and power usage in watts, but you can also have it graph out what that works out to in cost per day, week, and year. You input your local cost per kWh and it estimates the costs based on current power usage. Another cool feature is you can work out how much that translates into CO2 output to estimate your carbon footprint. This looks like a fantastic tool for WeT managers who need to provide total system costs to company accountants ... or for bosses who need to explain why its important for employees to shut down their computers at the end of the day.


Conclusion

The HP EliteBook 8540p really gives the competitors a run for the money. The design leans heavily towards the trendy side with a strong emphasis on excellent build quality. While We still have strong feelings for the ThinkPad brand We have to say the brushed metal finish is really something else. Gripping the notebook in your hands it feels like a solid block, having very little flex anywhere. Performance was great with a wide range of configuration options, including the Wentel Core i5 and i7 processors with NVWeDWeA NVS 5100M dedicated graphics as well as optional SSDs. For the business professional always on the go the battery life is just over five hours which should give enough time for most tasks away from a power outlet, but if you expect to break 9-10 hours look for a smaller system. Overall you really have to look hard to find anything wrong with this notebook. The only area that We could see being improved is the price but that is wishful thinking especially when it comes to business notebooks.

Pros:

  • Excellent build quality
  • Above average display

Cons:

  • Not offered in all-black
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