Netbook Reviews – Laptop Reviews

Last year netbooks were so in vogue that we had to creat a new category for them in the rankings list. The winner this year is the Samsung N210.

The spec sheet looks similar to that of the competition, but what makes it the best netbook is its astounding battery life of over 10 hours. With it, the user will never fall short of power.

Specs: 10.1-inch LED display; Intel Atom 1.6 GHz ; 1GB RAM, 160 GB HDD; 3 USB; a VGA, Card Reader; weights 1.25 kg and runs on Windows 7 starter OS.

HP’s Envy 14 is certainly a head-turning laptop. Its clean lines and rounded edges look stunning, with a dimpled bronze finish and an edge-toedge display.

The stylish touchpad is made from a single panel, with areas marked by lines where the buttons should be. The entire panel moves when you press these, and although the action is light and produces a distinct click, the button areas are still sensitive to touch, so the cursor often moves just when you’re about to click. Read more…

The Q530 is another beautifully made laptop from Samsung, with a graphite-effect lid and silver keyboard panel that isn’t cluttered with excess buttons or LED lights.

Its beauty is more than just skin deep, too. Inside is an Intel Core i3 350M processor that provides near-desktop performance, and an NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics chip that’s capable of playing 3D games.

The Q530’s 15.6in display makes up for it’s reduced size with higher quality. It has a bright, even LED backlight and a glossy finish, which between them produce an image with vibrant colours and superb contrast – provided you find the best vertical viewing angle. Read more…

From the outside it’s difficult to notice any differences in this new model. The smart textured lid and silver case remain unchanged, as do the chiclet-style keyboard and large touchpad.  The keyboard is comfortable to use, but minor issues such as the small tab key and relocated backslash are annoying.

The 10.1in screen has a glossy coating but is fine to use in well-lit areas and doesn’t create distracting reflections. Brightness isn’t dazzling and color reproduction is slightly inaccurate.

The 1,024×600 resolution is the standard for this screen size, but images look sharp. Audio is disappointing: the downward facing speakers are quiet and poor quality. Read more…

Acer has made some questionable design choices with the Aspire One range in the past, but the new 533 is possibly its best-looking netbook to date

The glossy black screen bezel detracts slightly from the overall design. However, the keyboard is mostly full-size; only the function and arrow keys have been shrunk to make room for the rest of the chiclet-style keys.

Despite the low 1,024×600 resolution, the 10.1in screen produces sharp images. The screen has fantastic vertical tilt, lying almost flat at its maximum, but usable angles that produce accurate colours are limited. Read more…

Acer’s newest 10.1in netbook may be cheap, but it still looks stunning. At just 24mm high the D260 is slimmer than any netbook we’ve seen recently. The display is excellent too, with consistent and bright LED backlighting.  Colours are vibrant and contrast is good.

Unsurprisingly on such a slender netbook, the keyboard has little travel, but we wouldn’t be put off buying the D260 because of it.

There are the usual three USB ports and a memory card reader, but no HDMI output, with only a VGA connector. A small 160GB hard disk is fitted, with Windows 7 Starter edition installed. Read more…

HP’s Pavilion DV6-2113sa is a chunky laptop with a 15.6in screen, 4GB of memory and a 2.5GHz AMD Turion II M620 processor. Although its screen isn’t particularly large, its weight and bulk make it feel more like a desktop replacement notebook than a typical general purpose laptop.

It has an unassuming but attractive black chassis with reflective silver ring designs both inside and outside the lid. It’s very solidly built and we were pleased to find that the keyboard surround didn’t become warm to the touch at any point during testing. The flat keyboard is traditionally laid out, making it easy to get used to if you’re accustomed to touch-typing on a standard desktop keyboard. A smaller than standard numeric keypad is squeezed in on the right-hand side. Read more…

Acer’s Aspire 5741 is one of the latest generation of inexpensive laptops with Intel’s powerful 2.27GHz Core i5-430M processor. With an overall benchmark score of 86, it rivals the performance of laptops that cost around $800 just a couple of months ago.

The Aspire 5741 has just 3GB of RAM and lacks a powerful graphics processor, but the Core i5‘s built-in graphics chip is a significant improvement over the on-board Intel graphics chipsets found in Core 2 laptops. However, it’s no rival for the latest dedicated ATI mobile graphics chips, and managed 10.2fps in Call of Duty 4 test. Read more…

Toshiba has announced the Libretto W1Q0, a dual-touchscreen tablet PC running Windows 7 that could rival Apple’s iPad.

The W lOO runs on Windows 7 Home Premium and has a laptop-like clamshell design that opens to reveal two 7in touchscreen displays, each with a resolution of 1,024×600 pixels. The bottom display can be used to extend the standard Windows desktop, show the onscreen keyboard or display Toshiba’s own LifeSpace program. This application not only allows you to launch programs and hies but can also display notes and photos on a virtual bulletin board. You can flip between Desktop mode, the LifeSpace program and the keyboard using a dedicated button. Read more…

I would like to introduce you an entertainment laptop from HP:  the 14.5-inch Pavilion dv5t. Let us see what features and specifications include the laptop.

As we mentioned above, the system boasts a 14.5-inch 1366 x 768 HD display. HP Pavilion dv5t is packed with an optional Intel Core i3 or i5 CPU, up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 640GB of HDD, an Intel HD graphics.

The laptop also includes either an optional DVD burner or Blu-ray drive, WiFi, Bluetooth, a HDMI output, a 5-in-1 card reader, a 6- or 9-cell battery pack and runs on Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional 64-bit OS.