Reviews of the latest notebook and tablet computers.
I tested last week computing performance and battery life under Windows 8 Beta (Consumer Preview) versus Windows 7 on a laptop PC. The notebook used for this purpose is a 15.6″ HP 630 with the Intel Pentium B950 CPU, Intel’s HD integrated graphics, 4GB RAM, a 320GB 5,400rpm hard drive, and 6-cell battery. It’s a typical full-size notebook with widely used processor and GPU.
This is the Dell Inspiron 17R N7110.
The Dell Inspiron 17R N7110 we reviewed last week is a 17.3″ inch laptop which belongs to the popular and affordable Inspiron R series. The model we tested had a Core i3-2330M processor, the Nvidia GeForce GT 525M dedicated graphics combined with the on-CPU Intel HD, 4GB RAM, a 500GB hard drive, DVD burner, and 1600×900 display resolution.
We have finished a couple of benchmarks on a Dell Inspiron 17R laptop with the Nvidia GeForce GT 525M dedicated video card and Intel’s Core i3-2330M processor.
The notebook has both the 128-bit GT 525M 1GB GPU for more intensive graphics tasks and the Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics on the CPU for better power efficiency, so it’s pretty handy for comparison of these two. 3D Mark Vantage, PC Mark Vantage, and Crysis benchmarks we did on the system can help you decide if the Nvidia GeForce GT 525M is worth extra money when choosing between a more expensive laptop configuration with the 525M and a cheaper one with integrated Intel HD only.
It this test, we did a performance benchmark of the most popular web browsers. We did the comparison on one of lower-end processors used in laptops, the AMD E-450.
On higher-end notebooks, the difference between web surfing speed using different browsers is much less noticeable than on the slower ones, especially netbooks. So, we conducted this test to show you how web browser selection can help you do web surfing more smooth on a lower-performance machine, such as those cheap AMD E-series based Black Friday laptops.
The AMD E-450 is a refresh of the E-350 Fusion Accelerated Processing Unit, both aimed at cheap full-size notebooks, netbooks, and small form factor desktop computers.
Asus K53U Laptop
Since recently, the 15.6-inch Asus K53U series laptop is available with the AMD E-450 dual-core Accelerated Processing Unit, successor of the E-350. In this review, we will present our view of the laptop regarding its design, build quality, cooling, and computing and battery life performance.
Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot”, the latest version of the most popular Linux distribution among laptop PC users, is now available.
There are many improvements in the new version, including changes in Ubuntu’s Unity interface and various bug fixes. The 11.10 includes new themes and login screen, new features such as Deja Dup backup application, ability to sync installed apps across multiple computers via OneConf feature, and newer kernel version. The default browser is Firefox 7. When it comes to email, Mozilla Thunderbird replaces Evolution client.
The Samsung Series 4 400B2B (model NP-400B2B-A01-US) has just become available in the United States, so we put together this small review of the ultraportable business laptop, trying to help you find out if it’s a good buy.
Acer Corp. today launched their first ultrabook laptop – the Acer Aspire S3, also known as the Aspire 3951 or S3-951.
The Intel Atom N550 is the company’s first dual-core processor for netbook computers.
Besides the dual core N550, the netbook-class Atom N series lineup includes the single core N450, N455, N470 and N475, as well as older N270 and N280. The N550, as same as the N455 and N475, are designed for use with DDR3 memory, instead of old DDR2. The processor runs at 1.5GHz, whereas the single core chips have clock speeds of 1.60, 1.66, or 1.83GHz. However, it doesn’t mean that the N550 is slower in computing tasks.
The iPad, Apple’s long-awaited tablet device that is now available, has been reviewed by several websites.
The iPad is advertised as “a magical and revolutionary product”. This 1.5-pound half inch thin tablet features a 9.7″ 1024-by-768-pixel multi-touch screen, a 1GHz Apple A4 custom-designed processor, 16, 32, or 64GB of flash drive storage, WiFi, Bluetooth, and a claimed battery life of “up to 10 hours”. Models with 3G mobile broadband connectivity are expected to hit the market later this month.
Several websites have reviewed an Asus Eee PC netbook with Intel’s recently released Atom N450 Pine Trail M platform.
The conclusion is that the new platform with the Intel Atom N450 main processor, the GMA 3150 graphics, and the memory controller on a single die delivers a better power efficiency and has minor performance benchmark differences when compared to the previous Atom netbooks with the N270/N280 CPUs and the GMA 950 graphics.
The MacBook Air, Apple’s latest ultraportable notebook which gained a lot of interest, has been reviewed recently by several websites.
This laptop, advertised as “the world’s thinnest notebook“, features a 13.3-inch LED backlight display, a modified Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a spacious trackpad with multi-touch gesture support, 2GB of memory, an 80GB 1.8-inch hard drive or an optional 64GB solid state drive, 802.11n wireless connection, Bluetooth 2.1 technology, the Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics, a micro-DVI port, and only one USB port. Ethernet LAN port and modem are provided via external USB adapters. The MacBook Air has no built-in optical drive. The system weighs three pounds and starts at $1,799.
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