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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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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Samsung Series 9 Review

Releasing hardware meant to rival a specific Apple product is no simple task. It took Microsoft years to come up with a worthy opponent for the iPod in the Zune and by the time they did the Mp3 player had already become ancient history. Here we have Samsung releasing the 13-inch Series 9 meant to compete against the comparable Macbook Air. The Air is no stranger to competition, seeing the Dell Adamo series rise and fall without a wink of worry. At $1649 does the Series 9 stand up to the product it was bred to face? Read on to find out…

Specifications

• 2^nd Generation Intel Core i5-2537M CPU


• 4 GB of DDR3 type RAM


•  Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition


• Intel HD Video Graphics 3000 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0


• Screen Resolution: 1366 x 768


• 128 GB SSD


• 2.9 lbs

Outside

Samsung makes no attempt to conceal its intentions to beat the Air at its own game, which is apparent from the moment you lay eyes on the unopened Series 9. The star of the show is the duralumin that the outer laptop casing is made out of. The metal, which sounds like it comes straight out of a comic book hero’s origin story, was appropriately formerly only used for high altitude jet engine design. The brushed black finish certainly does feel like what I imagine the side of a stealth bomber is like.
As far as texture goes there’s hardly a difference between it and the aluminum unibody of the Macbook Air. Yet considering the Series 9 weights a whopping .12 ounces less than the Air, duralumin does seem to live up to its name and reputation; you can hold the entire unit from the corner with just your thumb and index finger.
Similarly to the Macbook Air, the Series 9 hovers around sixth-tenths of an inch at its thinnest point. While as wispy as the Air – refusing to give into abrupt corners and large rounded edges in favor of tapered teardrop turns – the Series 9 does come short of the razor’s edge latch-side synonymous with the Air’s profile. Instead the Series 9 features a duck-billed look to its lid that is most certainly an attempt to distinctly separate itself from the main competition.
Samsung has cleverly hidden away ports inside dual pop-out cubbies on either side of the Series 9. The left compartment holds a 3.0 USB port, a single Ethernet port, and one mini HDMI port. The right compartment contains one 2.0 USB port, a miniSD card reader, and the standard 3.5mm headphone jack. It’s a nifty saver of space, and personally I always like to see the nooks and crannies of these ports hidden away from the surface. It cuts down on dust and the chance of grit and grime getting wedged into the tight spaces of these ports, which can damage the components.
Samsung has chosen to loop the back edges of the side of the closed Series 9 with a white-silver band to give the unit a futuristic color contrast. This removes any chance for the Series 9 to possess the utilitarian uniformity of Apple notebook design. But I don’t think Samsung was trying to imitate that part of the Air to begin with, opting instead to compete with an alternative design meant to do its own thing. Part of me senses however that the public really digs the homogeneously minimalist style of Apple products. This forces competitors nearing Apple’s perfectionist ideal to have to give their

Inside

Don’t leave the Series 9 at a crime scene because you’re going to coat the upper interior corners with fingerprints every time you open, close, or adjust your Series 9. That’s on account of the fact that unlike the majority-Duralumin exterior the interior sections are constructed with hardened plastic of similar color and feel. The mischievous misrepresentation of a unibody wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for that hefty price tag and the fact that you see no such shenanigans from the cheaper Air.
The big single-piece touchpad is in fact a few millimeters smaller than the one on the Air. Personally I preferred that. It kept my palms from accidentally rubbing against the touchpad and causing the cursor to react wildly as a result. For being a buttonless touchpad manufactured by Samsung I have to say it worked remarkably well and tolerated my habit of failing to lift my non-operating finger off the pad.
The keyboard is island style a ‘la Air and felt solid enough despite once again not meeting my expectations in accordance to the cost of the laptop. It’s virtually identical to the keyboard of the Series 5 Chromebook, which says something considering that model is meant to be a stripped down wireless-reliant device, far from the luxury of the Series 9. With that said it’s backlit with blue LED lights, a laptop luxury that just about makes up for the unremarkable quality of the keys themselves, especially since it’s a feature not included on the Air.
Samsung’s SuperBright Plus technology comes remarkably to life on the Series 9’s 13.3. inch 1366 x 768 and through the Intel HD video graphics that come standard. One seemingly-groovy feature included with the screen’s matte display is an automatic illumination adjustor appropriate for outdoor use. However in practice it didn’t do a great job in telling when decreased exposure was the result of cloud coverage or the shadow of someone walking by’s head. While this could easily help keep the battery alive longer the erratic behavior of the adjustor resulted in it being disabled.

Performance

When it comes to performance the Series 9 doesn’t disappoint in its attempt to qualify as a Macbook competitor. It better not have, since this is where that price tag finally starts to show itself. The second generation i5 CPU makes for a lightening fast central nervous system supplying the Series 9 with impeccable power performance. This is backed up by the efficiency of a 128 gigabyte solid state drive which acts as a sort of a reservoir when the DDR3 is overworked.
Flat-out imitative of the Air is the Series 9’s fast wakeup time. It’s not quite as quick to snap from a slumber as the Air but the difference is nominal; the Series 9 wakes up in 3 seconds and the Air comes to in about 2.6 seconds. Both companies use essentially identical technology to wake their laptops up fast, but Apple did it first.
Games can be played on the Series 9 but more advanced titles will have demands that strain the limitations of the Intel video graphics that come standard. It can handle most moderate gaming but only because it’s a superior machine by design. Nonetheless its relatively modest game play capability manages to still earn it those automatic extra points any game-capable computer gets when being compared to a virtually game-less Mac unit.
Needless to say video play back is virtually flawless on the Series 9. If you were to compare it side-by-side with the Air the result would invariably be a tie whether you were running editors or recording live broadcasts. But if you were to compare components alone, the Air’s GeForce 320M graphics by NVIDIA would win.
The time from full charge to shut down added up to about seven hours and forty-four minutes. Assuming 20 minutes of that is just fresh battery smell bound to wear off within six months of use it still manages to rocket past expectations for its class as well as Samung’s very own seven-hour promise. The Air is marketed as having an identical life, though most reviews indicate that it barely breaks the seven-hour stretch.

Recommendation

Before determining which of the two between the Series 9 and Air is better, the matter of the apparent price discrepancy must be addressed:
The Series 9′s $1649 price tag includes an automatic three-year warranty. The Air’s $1300 price tag only includes one year’s worth of Apple’s elite support service and warranty program. To extend that to three years it’ll cost you roughly $250, putting the final price of both notebooks within $100 of each other.
With the similar bottom line price included, a winner is just about impossible to call. The Series 9 and Macbook Air both perform at nearly the same speed, provide the same amount of functionality, and are built with nearly identical deluxe components within. Someone having one replaced with the other would not be disappointed.
But if you won’t be able to sleep without a true “winner”, then that title would have to ultimately go to the Air. It’s slightly cheaper yet slightly faster, and Apple’s overall reputation for long-term product quality far exceeds Samsung’s sketchy history of hit-or-miss releases.
With that said, if you’re in the market for a lightweight luxury laptop then the Series 9 is probably your perfect fit. There’s just no other non-Apple product that comes close.

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