2011年5月31日星期二

Acer Aspire 7745-5632: An Affordable Desktop Replacement, but Not for Power Users

When the most important factors of a desktop alternative laptop in your case are a significant display screen as well as a great keyboard, Acer's cost-effective Aspire 7745-5632 could be the machine you might be looking for. Its 17.3-inch display is straightforward on the eyes and its full-size keyboard is nice to kind on. Even the power button on this darkly handsome unit is big. But at its price--$600 to $700 at the time of this review--something had to give, and that some thing was overall performance.

The Aspire 7745-5632 can easily take care of each day computing chores, but its score of 56 on our WorldBench 6 checks and its integrated Intel graphics mean that you just should not throw intensive computing duties at it, and that you shouldn't anticipate it to support high-quality gaming. Frame costs had been in the mid-teens (in frames per second), that's unplayable by any common. Numbers aside, the Aspire 7745 felt reasonably snappy in the course of hands-on use.

Video clip playback was really good, however I detected indications the integrated Intel Hd Graphics was straining a bit to drive the 1600 by 900 display. One particular high-bit-rate h.264 video clip stuttered ever so somewhat I plugged the system in, and the stuttering grew to become much more pronounced once the unit ran on battery ability. Or else, even though, all test files and DVD movies played perfectly. The Webcam offers approximately 1280 by 1024 resolution, however the image was sluggish at nearly anything higher than 640 by 480. The 7745's speakers delivered disappointing sound--slightly muddy and really midrange heavy, though the VirtualSurround did give the sound an appealingly spacious quality.

The essential Aspire 7745-5632 elements include an Intel Core i3 350M running at 2.27GHz, 4GB of DDR3 memory working at 533MHz, Intel Hd graphics using main memory, along with a 500GB Hitachi difficult drive spinning at 5400 rpm. The laptop comes with 4 USB ports, plus HDMI, ethernet, VGA, and audio in/out ports, as well as a five-in-one memory card reader. Connectivity is top-flight, with the two gigabit ethernet and wireless-N on board. Beefier configurations in the 7745 are available that include more-powerful discrete GPUs for better gaming, and more rapidly CPUs for better basic functionality.

The Aspire 7745 has the latest black-and-gray Acer styling, and it doesn't compromise in comfort or ergonomics. The full-size keyboard feels somewhat soft, but establishing a typing rhythm on it is easy. The only shortcomings will be the smallish Delete crucial along with the proximity of that crucial and also the left arrow important to the numeric keypad and navigation buttons, which puts your fingers at some risk of overextending and hitting the Residence or Insert key by error. Such as the keyboard, the touchpad is full-size and responsive.

If you acquire a desktop substitute, you do not anticipate it for being easy to lug around, and also the 7745 design weighs in at just about seven pounds. For the size--16.1 by eleven.3 by 1.6 inches--that's not negative, but it's still a little bit of a load. That stated, this model's battery life of 3 hours, 56 minutes will see you the majority of the best way via a cross-country flight.

This Acer ships having a healthy load of software; and almost all of it--such as Norton On the web Backup, NTI Backup 5, and Microsoft Works--is actually valuable. Regardless of which apps you choose to maintain around, it really is nicely well worth your whilst to invest a few minutes using msconfig.exe and the management panel to trim the body fat.

Should you are not a performance hound, you may discover the Acer Aspire 7745-5632 to become a classy-looking desktop alternative laptop using a serviceable blue-collar configuration. The numeric keypad may be better delineated from the rest from the keyboard, but that is a minor issue on an otherwise reliable and fairly inexpensive solution.

2011年5月30日星期一

Toshiba Satellite L555-S7916 Laptop PC

If you are looking for an cheap laptop which has a big display to park from the kitchen area or use like a home-office Laptop, Toshiba's Satellite L555-S7916 is really worth a search. The expansive keyboard, which includes a devoted numeric keypad, raises the comfort level for word processing, Web page navigation, and spreadsheet editing chores--and which is about it. But you would be hard pressed to locate a desktop-replacement-size all-purpose laptop for significantly less than the $699 asking price (as of August 28, 2009) of our check unit--aside through the odd fire sale at Walmart.

This is no multimedia marvel: You won't want to check out videos or pay attention to new music with out exterior speakers linked. The Intel T6500 cruises along at two.1GHz, however the notebook's limited (2MB) L2 cache hobbles functionality. Nonetheless, the Satellite L555-S7916 chugged its method to a WorldBench 6 functionality benchmark score of 81, only a couple of points behind themark from the Asus N90SV-A2, which sports activities a two.66GHz CPU and fees two-and-a-half occasions as considerably because the Toshiba.

Even though the 17-inch-diagonal display delivers 1600-by-900-pixel resolution, the display's total image quality--particularly when enjoying back again DVD movies--was very poor. We popped in our check Serenity and Return with the King DVDs only to get greeted by blotchy shades, bad response instances, and an extremely narrow assortment of tolerable viewing angles. The Toshiba fared somewhat greater in image editing: Colors had been vivid and saturated, even though the viewing-angle range remained quite constrained.

Not like most laptops within the desktop replacement class, this Satellite relies on Intel integrated graphics; consequently, it can be not well suited for significant 3D video games, although it may very well be very good to get a casual Web-based round of Bejeweled. To start with, we thought the built-in Intel Wi-Fi Hyperlink 5100 A/G/N would provide excellent networking performance, but even which has a robust 802.11g signal, the L555-S7916 took ten minutes to duplicate a 40MB file from a server.

Around the good side, the L555-S7916 ships with a astonishingly valuable computer software bundle. Highlights consist of Microsoft Performs, Picassa two, Corel DVD MovieFactory, Toshiba's personal DVD playback application, Adobe Acrobat Reader, and Symantec Norton Web Safety. It can be a wide-ranging bundle for light-duty workplace work and casual video clip or photo editing. The 320GB hard generate delivers lots of storage and seemed reasonably responsive for a 5400-rpm drive.

The Toshiba also includes a DVD-R drive and 3GB of RAM. Ports are situated about the left and correct sides in the scenario, with none about the hard-to-reach back again. The left side incorporates VGA, ethernet, audio, as well as a combination eSATA/USB 2.0 port, some thing we're viewing much more often in current units. The right facet includes two far more USB two.0 ports, a modem port, along with the requisite Kensington lock slot. The dual-duty SD Card/Memory Stick slot is inside the front, next to an analog volume management knob. Chat about old-school!

Hard-copy documentation is constrained to a resource information along with a setup poster. The user manual--a PDF file around the system--is quite very good, but you are going to must go through it on-screen or print out a duplicate.

Despite the enormous screen, the laptop weighs a surprisingly light six.6 lbs, thanks in no small portion to your relatively wimpy guts. Still, at 16.4 by ten.seven by 1.seven inches, the L555-S7916 feels a little cumbersome and awkward to tote about town. Battery lifestyle was rather impressive within our exams, at three hours, 32 minutes (the common for 17-inch electrical power laptops is in the neighborhood of two hrs, thirty minutes). Nevertheless, we'd trade inside the battery lifestyle benefit for greater functionality, any day with the week.

The Satellite L555-S7916 alternately impresses and disappoints. It can be works good for phrase processing, Internet surfing, spreadsheet operate, and light photo editing. But the laptop's disappointing Wi-Fi throughput, lackluster performance, and mediocre show high quality would make us hesitate prior to whipping out our credit score cards.

2011年5月29日星期日

Eurocom D900C Phantom-X

Billed because the world's initial notebook Laptop with 4 processing cores--double that of latest portables--the Eurocom D900C Phantom-X delivers scorching pace. In our assessments it absolutely was almost thirty % quicker than the regular currently examined desktop alternative. The design and style is good, along with the laptop runs remarkably silently and coolly for a portable having a desktop chip within. Around the downside, our critique configuration price $5158 (as of 10/9/07), its battery lifestyle was nearly nonexistent, and its display screen was just too dim.

Our assessment product came which has a two.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6700 like a 1066-MHz frontside bus, 4GB of RAM, along with a 512MB nVidia GeForce Go7950 card. It earned a record-setting WorldBench six Beta 2 score of 97 (as of 10/25/2007), a mark 29 % higher compared to average score of 75 earned by 17 not long ago examined desktop replacements. It blew through workplace applications such as Phrase and Photoshop, and was particularly quickly at burning discs in comparison with other dual-core notebooks. By way of example, in disc burning it had been twice as rapidly being a top-performing 2-GHz Core 2 Duo-equipped laptop, a Dell Inspiron 1720. The Inspiron 1720 required fifteen minutes to finish the job, although the D900C Phantom-X needed only seven.5 minutes. In gaming, the Eurocom's velocity enhancements have been less remarkable but nonetheless good for a desktop alternative, because the D900C Phantom-X averaged frame prices of 137 and 114 for Doom 3 and Far Cry, respectively. The price of all this velocity, nevertheless: a meager battery existence of one hour, 17 minutes.

Except for some cheesy rubber port addresses that can rapidly get lost, the D900C Phantom-X is thoughtfully crafted. It weighs a hefty 11.3 pounds (minimum) and measures two.5 inches tall together with the lid closed. To put it differently, it really is massive, despite the fact that the polished metal situation tones make it appear slimmer. Rear vents retain the notebook operating cool. I heard no fan noise whatsoever from this remarkably quiet transportable.

Along with many processors, the device has space inside for 3 bodily tough drives should you swap out the battery--adding as much as 750GB, a fresh complete for any notebook (our test unit arrived with two 160GB standard hard drives, even so). One more option is always to include as much as 96GB of solid-state storage--three 32GB challenging drives that make use of the new flash memory storage method--for crash-proof portable computing.

The keyboard is first-rate. It's an unusually deep and very at ease palm relaxation that measures above five inches through the previous row of keys to your front from the notebook. Along with a user-programmable application-launch button on the top rated, two macro buttons on the left facet (G1 and G2) are simple to plan with regular gaming maneuvers. The notebook's audio is just not the most beneficial we've heard--that honor goes to your Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV680 with its top-of-the-line Harman/Kardon speakers--but it sounds pretty loud and robust.

Even so, our unit's 1920-by-1200-pixel 17-inch display was disappointing. It had been sharp enough but markedly dimmer and more difficult to read than other notebook screens, even using the brightness dialed each of the way up.

You might constantly hook up a first-rate exterior keep an eye on through the notebook's VGA, DVI, or S-Video ports, but for $5158, you might get two or three laptops with great built-in displays for that cost of 1 D900C Phantom-X. They would not possess the Phantom's velocity, however.

2011年5月25日星期三

Lenovo's IdeaPad U260: Unexpected Style

Even with generations of sober-looking, utilitarian forebears as well as a identify that conjures up reminiscences of the poor Matthew McConaughey WWII submarine movie, Lenovo's IdeaPad U260 ($1199 as of January 21, 2011) goes someplace the company's laptops by no means went before--into the queue for this year's type and layout awards.

Not simply will be the U260 is elegant for the Lenovo laptop computer, nonetheless it presents Apple and Sony one thing to think about. When closed and viewed from the back, with its dark copper shell (Lenovo calls the colour "mocha brown") protruding actually so somewhat beyond the black primary entire body, this 0.75-inch-thick ultraportable laptop computer resembles an extravagantly bound guide or pad-holder.

When opened, the IdeaPad U260 presents you with an all-black, minimally populated keyboard deck consisting of a smallish ability button, an ambient light sensor the laptop uses to modify show brightness instantly, a tiny OneKey technique recovery button (available only by way of a pointy object), the best Chiclet-style keyboard I've ever typed on, and an equally sophisticated touchpad with wonderfully smooth-operating buttons. In a main break with tradition, Lenovo doesn't consist of an eraserhead or nubbin pointing system.

Its striking design aside, the U260 earned combined ends in our PCWorld Labs' exams. Strengths of the configuration we looked at incorporated an Intel Core i5 470UM CPU, 4GB of DDR3 technique memory, plus a twelve.5-inch shade show with 1388 by 766 resolution. However, the 320GB challenging generate spins at just 5400 rpm, which without doubt played a significant restraining position inside the U260's pedestrian WorldBench six score of seventy five. If Lenovo provides an update later this spring when Intel ships its dual-core and ultra-low-voltage Sandy Bridge CPUs, the laptop's overall performance ought to obtain a great boost.

Gaming frame rates on our test machine had been from the teenagers (or even worse), owing to Intel's integrated graphics. Alternatively, each video clip we threw on the system played smoothly, even at 1080p, so you can count on pleasant movie viewing with this product. Sound is so-so, and relatively tranquil through the speaker.

The U260's array of ports is made of two USB 2.0, VGA and HDMI video clip outputs, an AC jack, a gigabit ethernet port, plus a solitary combination microphone/headphone jack. This previous spec signifies that you'll have to rely around the laptop's integrated Bluetooth if you would like to work with a headset with it, but you can use the mic constructed to the 640-by-480-pixel Webcam in lieu of an add-in microphone. There's no internal optical drive, and also the wireless is 802.11n.

You can get the U260 having a lesser Core i3-380UM processor for $1099 and in "Clementine orange" for $1249. All designs had been on sale at $200 off listing cost at the time of this writing--a discount.

Although the U260 is thin, it really is not specially light for an ultraportable. It weighs 3 pounds with out AC adapter or external optical generate.Additionally, it has an unusually solid experience for a laptop computer of its class.

Lenovo consists of 64-bit Windows 7 House Top quality because the operating technique and throws in a very pair of nice utilities but no productivity computer software. The VeriFace facial recognition computer software is fairly awesome, as could be the shock sensor and the Cyberlink Webcam utility.

The U260 combines Lenovo's standard strengths using a new-found sensation of design. It really is an common performer for all round, but its lack of distinction in that respect is more than compensated for by top-of-the-line ergonomics. My primary disappointment is the fact that Lenovo doesn't provide a choice to get a more rapidly hard-disk generate or solid-state generate, which would do significantly to improve functionality. Or else, this ultraportable just feels right to me. I recommend which you set the IdeaPad U260 for the test before purchasing some thing else.

2011年5月7日星期六

Lenovo IdeaPad Y510 Laptop Review

Lenovo's ThinkPad line is synonymous with company class, but the company's newer IdeaPad sequence tries to fly coach. In fact, Lenovo's sub-$1000 IdeaPad Y510 vaults in to the upper reaches of our most modern all-purpose laptops chart, largely within the strength of its style smarts.

The Y510's firm, responsive keyboard does not bow to fingertip pressure--this is a good point, given that you don't want your keyboard to dip when you sort. The well-designed situation has thick hinges that permit you to position the display on the finest viewing angle. The laptop's rock-solid construction extends to a difficult carbon-textured exhibit cover. It feels durable like its greater brother, the ThinkPad.

Lenovo piled a lot of extras into this $900 notebook: A able Internet cam sits atop the display and works well using the integrated facial recognition software. The Dolby speakers provide good large and midrange tones, and an integrated subwoofer blows powerful bass from below the unit.

A host of touch-sensitive shortcut buttons line the vast keyboard, and a helpful Novo button serves being a one-touch power management instrument. The Novo button isn't really really as handy as being the ThinkVantage button/software suite used in models such because the Lenovo ThinkPad X300, but it's not negative. The unit's roomy 250GB difficult generate is one more as well as.

Even now, the laptop's one.66-GHz Core two Duo T5450 Intel CPU delivered only middling efficiency, earning a score of 70 on WorldBench 6. The Y510 will manage basic computing duties, but it really is no speed demon.

The Y510 also posted an typical mark for battery daily life, surviving for three several hours, 42 minutes on the single cost. Curiously, this Lenovo matches the Acer Aspire 5920-6954 practically step-for-step, in spite of costing about $100 less.

The Y510's 1200-by-800-pixel resolution exhibit is marred by a screen that is a lot more mirror than keep an eye on. Even after I cranked the display's brightness setting to its greatest, my reflection remained visible because of the glare.

In spite of the exhibit problem, this model represents a solid hard work by Lenovo to court a much more consumer-centric audience. The Y510 delivers a nice array of multimedia features to get a very good value.