Acer Aspire 7740 Laptop Review

Acer Aspire 7740-5142 Specifications:

17.3-inch HD+ LED-backlit display (1600 x 900, glossy finish)

Windows 7 Home Premium

Intel Core i3-330M (2.13GHz, 3MB Cache)

4GB DDR3 Memory (2GB x 2GB)

Intel GMA HD Integrated Graphics

6-cell 48Wh battery, 65W 19V AC adapter

Dimensions: 16.2" x 10.8" x 1.6-1.8"

Weight: 6lbs 14.3oz

The Acer Aspire 7740 is a 17.3-inch multimedia notebook designed for people who want a lot of features for not a lot of money. This notebook costs $749 while still offering an Intel Core i3-330M processor, Intel GMA HD graphics, Blu-ray drive, and a HD+ LED-backlight display. In this review, we take an in-depth look at its performance and see how well it stacks up against the competition.

Build and Design

For a 17.3-inch notebook, the Acer Aspire 7740 does a good job of hiding its size with a slim profile. From the side, it appears shorter than expected with the lower chassis standing not much higher than the VGA-port's height. The design tapers off at the front giving the palmrest a nice sharp edge. The color scheme is well thought-out with a glossy, dark-blue screen-cover, metallic blue palmrest and keyboard trim, and black keyboard. The only visible branding is a moderately sized Acer logo displayed front and center. One aspect that concerned us was the amount of space left open around the keyboard that could have been used for multimedia keys or other functions.

Build quality of the Aspire 7740 is above average with a solid body that doesn't have much flex. The screen cover provides decent impact protection for the LCD and doesn't allow the screen to be distorted unless firmly pressed from the back side. The glossy paint on the screen lid resists light scratches and seems to hold up under normal daily abuse from carrying it around. The palmrest and keyboard trim resist smudging and managed to stay clean throughout most of the review period.

Inside, the palmrest and keyboard show little or no flex under pressure. The palmrest doesn't compress one millimeter when squeezed with extreme force. The rigid chassis does a good job of holding up the body panels  attached to it and doesn't squeak or creak under normal use. The screen hinges feel strong and hold the screen tightly closed. Overall, the body feels solid enough to survive a typical notebook's lifespan.

Users looking to upgrade the Acer Aspire 7740 will find it easy to get to components through a single cover on the back of the notebook. Taking off the panel gives you access to the wireless card, hard drive, and system memory.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Aspire 7740 uses a floating island-style keyboard that is comfortable to type on but causes a few hang-ups when trying to type quickly. Since this keyboard doesn't have an internal bezel structure or solid key design, it is easy to hit the top of another key when you finger is fully pressing a neighboring key and trying to slide over at the same time. I got used to it after a few hours and learned to lift my finger fully off the key before sliding to the next key in my typing motion. The keyboard layout takes advantage of the chassis and offers a four-key wide number pad with room to spare on each side.

One thing missing from the keyboard layout is quick-access media keys. It was surprising that a notebook designed entirely around multimedia use with a Blu-ray drive didn't offer touch-sensitive buttons for volume control or media playback. Instead this notebook has quick-access buttons for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, backup software, and a customizable program launch.

The touchpad on this notebook is an ALPS design model with a spacious layout and multitouch gesture support. The touchpad is quick to respond, but we did notice just a hair of lag in fast gestures. Refresh times are great which helps prevent a choppy mouse movement when moving around. Sensitivity out of the box was good but not perfect, and no adjustment for sensitivity was found in the ALPS control menu. For users who don't want to accidentally move the cursor while typing, there's a button located to the right of the touchpad to  disable the touch surface.

source: notebookreview.com

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Acer Aspire 1830T Timeline X Laptop Review

Acer Aspire 1830T-68U118  specifications:

Intel Core i7 680UM processor (1.46GHz, 4MB L3 cache)

11.6-inch 1366x768 HD display with LED backlighting

4GB DDR3 memory

500GB 5400rpm HDD

Intel HD integrated graphics

Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n wireless

Bluetooth 3.0 (Foxconn BCM92046)

6-cell Li-ion battery

Dimensions: 11.22 (w) x 8.03 (d) x1.01-1.10 (h) inches

Weight: 3.09 pounds

Build and Design

The Acer Aspire Timeline X series is the latest generation of thin and light notebooks from Acer designed to offer solid performance and long battery life in a surprisingly lightweight package. At first glance it's easy to mistake the Aspire 1830T for one of the dozens of Acer netbooks that have shown up over the last few years. Looks, however, can be deceiving.

Build quality is quite good despite the diminutive size of this laptop. The combination of relatively thick matte plastics and black brushed aluminum palmrests leave the notebook feeling solid and showing almost no signs of flex. The screen stays firmly shut with a good amount of tension from the screen hinges when closed. Protection from the screen cover is only adequate; the cover flexes quite easily and distortions appeared on the display when we applied pressure to the back of the cover. Opening up the screen you can tell the hinges should hold up for a long time with strong tension that prevents the screen from flopping around once opened. The body of the notebook seems to be well designed with minimal chassis flex and no obvious creaks from the plastics.

One area of the design that impressed me was the bottom of the notebook. The expansion bay provides access to the hard drive, the WLAN and optional WWAN card slots as well as two RAM sockets. The single cover panel is held in place by five screws (my only complaint), so you'll have a spend a minute or two loosing all of those screws before you can swap out the hard drive or add more RAM. That said, I'm always happy to see when manufacturers make it easy for owners to upgrade their notebooks.

Ports and Features

Port selection on the Aspire 1830T is fairly standard for a modern netbook or 11-inch ultraportable notebook. Acer gives you three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-out, VGA, LAN, and audio jacks. It also features a SDHC-card slot for expanding internal storage or just loading images off your camera while traveling. Since we're starting to see USB 3.0 on more consumer notebooks and there are many USB 3.0 external hard drives on the market we really wish Acer had found a way to put at least one USB 3.0 port on this $900 notebook.

Source: notebookreview.com

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Samsung N150 Laptop Review

Samsung N150 Specification:

Intel Atom N450

LED Backlit

10.1" Screen Size  Graphics  128MB Shared

Intel GMA3150 (Internal) Graphic Processor

1 GB DDR2 System Memory

160 GB Hard Drive Capacity

0.3 Megapixel Integrated Camera

802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN

I/O Ports : Headphone, Mic-in, 3-in-1 (SD, SDHC, MMC) Multi-Card Slot, 3 USB 2.0 VGA

83-Key Keyboard

Touch Pad

Power  : 40 W Typical Power Usage

6-Cell Lithium Ion

Dimensions  : 10.4 x 0.97 ~ 1.37" x7.4"

Weight  : 2.73 lbs With Standard Battery

The Samsung N150 netbook is a 10-inch netbook available via standard retail sores and also offered from Verizon Wireless with a built-in Verizon wireless card for broadband access to the internet anywhere the Verizon network has coverage.

The N150 features a 10-inch LED-backlit display with 1024x600 resolution, an Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of system memory and a 160GB hard drive for storing your important business files or your personal music library.

The Samsung N150 is a low-performance netbook with an extremely low price from Verizon.

Pros

Good battery life

Low cost with Verizon 3G service

Cons

Difficult to upgrade

Weak performance

Low-resolution screen

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Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q890 Laptop Review

Toshiba Qosmio X505-Q890 Specs:

Intel® Core™ i7-740QM processor

NVIDIA® GeForce® GTS 360M 2298MB total: 1GB GDDR5 discrete memory + up to 1274MB shared memory w/NVIDIA® TurboCache™ technology

6GB DDR3 1066MHz memory

564GB: 64GB SSD (Serial ATA) + 500GB (7200rpm, Serial ATA)

Blu-ray Disc™ ROM and DVD SuperMulti drive with Labelflash®*

18.4" widescreen FHD TruBrite® TFT LCD Display 16:9 aspect ratio, Supports 1080p content*, 1920x1080

Built-in microphone, Headphone jack (stereo), harman/kardon® stereo speakers, Microphone jack (mono), S/P DIF output port (shared with headphone port)

Webcam

Wi-Fi® Wireless networking (802.11b/g/n)

Bluetooth® V2.1 + EDR

10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN

AC Adapter 180W (19V x 9.5A) Auto-sensing,100-240V AC Adapter

Battery High Capacity Li-Ion (87Wh, 12-cell)

Battery LifeUp to 3.77 hours

Weight  Starting at 9.70 lbs.

Display and Sound

Though it's designed for gaming, the Qosmio X505-Q890 makes an excellent multimedia system. The gorgeous 18.4-inch, 1920 x 1080-pixel screen is the real star of the show, offering plenty of screen real estate with beautiful, sharp images. When watching videos, such as a Blu-ray of Iron Man, the high-definition video was sharp, smooth, and colorful. Of course, when we watched a streaming 720p video of Fringe we noticed some blockiness because the screen was at a higher resolution than the video.

The Harmon Kardon speakers are good enough to turn the X505-Q890 into a stereo substitute. When streaming "Stuck on Repeat" by Little Boots, the sound was accurate if not overly rich and loud enough to fill a large living room.

Ports and Webcam

For such a large system, the Qosmio X505-Q890 has a pretty standard array of ports. On its right side are two USB ports, audio in/out, and VGA out. Its left side is adorned with Ethernet, HDMI, a Firewire 400 port, ExpressCard/54 reader, and a USB/eSATA port for a total of three USB ports overall. The front lip houses a 5-in-1 memory card reader and a Wi-Fi on/off switch. The only port we wish the X505-Q890 had is USB 3.0.

The X505-Q890's 1.3-megapixel webcam produced impressively sharp and bright images even in our dimly lit cubical. When talking on Skype, our image was colorful and the video smooth.

Performance

Just from its specs, we could predict that the Qosmio X505-Q890 would provide epic performance. The notebook's 1.73-GHz Intel Core i7 Q740 CPU has four high-speed cores that can run a whopping eight threads at once, improving your multitasking or boosting the performance of multithreaded apps. Its Nvidia GeForce GTS 360M discrete graphics card is loaded with 1GB of graphics memory, and it has two storage drives: a speedy 64GB SSD boot drive and a 7,200-rpm, 500GB hard drive.

On PCMark Vantage, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall system prowess, the Qosmio X505 scored a whopping 10,392, which is nearly double the category average for desktop replacements (5,308) and 80 percent better than the ASUS G73Jh (6,460). In fact, that's the third highest score we've ever seen, behind only the more expensive and boutique-oriented $3,966 Malibal Satori (13,187) and the $5,952 Origin EON18 (11,039), both of which use desktop components.

The 64GB SSD booted Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) in a speedy 52 seconds, 11 seconds faster than the category average and 15 seconds faster than the ASUS G73Jh, but about 4 seconds slower than the original X505.

We conducted our LAPTOP File Transfer Test, in which we copy 4.97GB of files on the 7,200-rpm hard drive, and saw it complete in a mere 2 minutes and 51 seconds for a rate of 37.1 MBps, comfortably faster than the 32.6 MBps category average and the 31.2 MBps turned in by the ASUS G73Jh. When it came to transcoding video, the X505-Q890 also converted a 114MB MPEG-4 in just 57 seconds, 6 seconds faster than the category average of 1:03.

Source: laptopmag.com

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Toshiba Satellite A665-S6067 Laptop Review

Toshiba Satellite A665-S6067 Specification:

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor

NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M 2782MB total: 1GB GDDR3 discrete memory + up to 1758MB shared memory w/NVIDIA® TurboCache™ technology

4GB DDR3 memory

500GB HDD (5400rpm)

DVD-SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) with Labelflash™ drive

Display Size 16.0" widescreen

Display Type HD TruBrite® LED Backlit display

Display Resolution Supports 720p content, 16:9 aspect ratio, 1366x768 (HD)

harman/kardon® stereo speakers, Headphone jack (stereo), Microphone jack (mono), Built-in microphone

Webcam

Wi-Fi® Wireless networking (802.11b/g/n)

10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN

Power AC Adapter 90W (19V x 4.74A) 100-240V AC Adapter

Battery Li-Ion (48Wh, 6-Cell)

Battery Life Up to 3.16 hours

Toshiba Satellite A665-S6067 is a 16-inch laptop versed with a 1.6GHz Intel® Core™ i7-720QM processor, 4GB DDR3 memory, and 500GB HDD (5400rpm). It sports a 16″ HD TruBrite® LED Backlit display, NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 330M graphics, Built-in webcam and microphone, HDMI port, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, DVD-SuperMulti, and 6-cell Li-Ion battery. The laptop runs on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit handling system. Needless to say, such a pattern is good sufficient for the every day use, people have been really confident with it.

As a well-configured 16″ laptop, the Toshiba Satellite A665-S6067 could be an preferred desktop replacement, so if you’ve been sleepy of your desktop PC, it’s right time to reinstate it with this one. The laptop is good for examination movies and personification games, you’ll suffer shining knowledge with it.

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Toshiba Satellite C650-154 Laptop Review

Toshiba Satellite C650-154 Specification:

Intel® Core™ i3-350M Processor

RAM 4,096 (2,048 + 2,048) MB, DDR3

HD 320 GB

DVD Super Multi (Double Layer) drive

Display : 39.6cm (15.6”)  Toshiba TruBrite® HD TFT High Brightness display with 16 : 9 aspect ratio and LED backlighting, internal resolution : 1,366 x 768

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD memory : up to 1,696 MB shared memory

Never mind the ultra slim, ultra portable and ultra stylish laptops, many people just want a reasonable laptop at an affordable price. Step forward the Toshiba Satellite C650-15X, a great laptop for everyday use that won't break the bank.

The Satellite C650 has sober-looking and practical flushed through the design. However, Toshiba has given it a nice plain black matte finish which feels beautifully robust and there’s no flex in the hardware. Toshiba has also made sure the components and features are competitive.

The Toshiba Satellite C650 is simple to use thanks to an end-to-end keyboard on the 15.6-inch frame, complete with a numerical keypad – great for creating presentations and typing for long periods.

Connections are average with only one VGA and two USBs, but there’s no HDMI for High-Def fun. Toshiba also left out a Blu-ray drive option– opting for an integrated DVD instead, although it’s not really a surprise looking at the competitive price.

Toshiba Satellite C650: Performance

Our model had an ageing 2.3GHz dual core processor, but it does have 4GB of DDR3 – the fastest memory money can buy. Combined with the 64-bit flavour of Windows Home Premium and roomy 500GB hard drive, the Satellite C650 has respectable specs, ably handing day to day tasks, but you won’t be playing games via the Intel GMA 4500M graphics card.

Toshiba claims 270 minutes battery life and we came very close at 254 minutes, but this is reduced to 145 on maximum performance mode with all bells and whistles turned on.

Toshiba Satellite C650: Display

At 1366x768 the Satellite C650’s 15.6 inch screen has a low resolution for a mid-sized laptop. We tried opening two documents simultaneously but found you really need a higher resolution to make it viable. On the positive side, the LED Backlit display isn’t too glossy and has a wide viewing angle so it’s easy for more than one person to see the screen.

Toshiba’s included some useful software from Nero and McAffee - programs you’ll actually use. This makes the Satellite C650 good to go out of the box. We also love the inclusion of face recognition software for the integrated web-cam, which can be used as a security feature.

The Toshiba Satellite C650 isn’t ultra-mobile and performance is average, but for everyday tasks, including browsing and office tasks it’s a solid choice. If you or a son and daughter are heading off to university any time soon then it’s worth noting that this laptop is available under the National Notebook and Desktop Agreement (NDNA) for students, where it comes with a three-year warranty.

modified from T3.com

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Samsung SF310 Laptop Review

Samsung SF310 Specification:

Intel 2.53GHz Core i5 460M

Intel HD Graphics/nVidia GeForce GT 330M

Memory: 2GB Ram

HD: 320Gb

Screen: 13.3-inch, 1366 x 768

Connections: 3x USB, VGA, HDMI, gigabit ethernet, card reader, N Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0

Optical drive:DVD-RW

Battery tested: 385 mins

Dimensions/Weight: 331x234x27mm/2kg

Samsung produced some great laptops in 2010 and, on the evidence of the SF310, 2011 looks to be another vintage. Providing a successful mix of power, portability and usability the SF310 is also an extremely competitively priced machine, leaving many competitors floundering in its wake.

Ok, the 2kg chassis isn’t quite as light as we would’ve liked and it’s certainly bulkier than the latest Apple MacBook Air but the excellent 384 minute battery life offers over six hours of battery between charges, meaning you can leave the adapter at home on day trips.

Everyday performance is aggressive thanks to the Intel Core i5 460M processor and 4GB of memory. You’ll blitzkrieg through pretty much any consumer applications without issue, and resource intensive multitasking is also an option.

The SF310’s dedicated nVidia GeForce GT 330M graphics card allows quite a bit of play as well as work. We’re not talking high-end gaming, but HD movie editing will run fine. All this for under £800 is excellent value for money.

The 320GB hard drive is about right for the price, allowing plenty of room for your multimedia files, and you also get a DVD-RW chucked in for good measure, allowing you to watch your favourite films on the go as well as regularly back-up crucial data.

The ivory white lid finish and gentle curves of the chassis make this an attractive, as well as functional, laptop. The SF310’s palrmest features a chic brushed aluminium finish and the touchpad reflects light in a swirl pattern, giving the machine a unique look. We like shiny things.

Usability is also top-notch. The bright 13.3-inch screen features a 1366 x 768 720p screen resolution, so technically HD, which makes the best of photos and films. A very shiny screen coating causes distracting reflections in bright light, however, so not great for the garden.

The SF310’s spacious keyboard suffers none of the flexibility issues that plague many other laptops around and the keys are well-spaced and boast a firm, crunchy action which makes typing for long periods of time as much of a pleasure as possible.

A good spread of ports includes three USBs for connecting up peripherals or charging your smartphone, as well as both HDMI and VGA video outs, so hooking up to an external monitor or TV is quick and easy.

Samsung has created a fantastic laptop, the price is exquisitely low for what you get, and great design makes this a very desirable machine also.

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HP ProBook 4425s Laptop Review

HP ProBook 4425s Specifications:

AMD Phenom II P920 Quad Core (up to 1.6GHz, 2MB L2 cache)

14.0-inch LED-backlit anti-glare HD display (1366 x 768)

Integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250

4GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM

500GB 7200RPM HDD

LightScribe DVD+/-RW Optical Drive

Broadcom 4313 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1, 1Gb LAN

6-Cell 47WHr Battery

Limited 1-year standard parts and labor warranty

Dimensions: 13.23 x 9.15 x 1.07-inches

Weight: 5.05lbs with 6-cell battery

Build and Design

The HP ProBook 4425s has a very neat and professional look with brushed metal covers over a plastic body. The panels on this current generation of ProBook are dark copper or bronze in color and can be found on all sizes, including AMD and Intel models. Compared to the first generation models with only plastic showing on the exterior, the newer design looks great and adds strength to the notebook. The brushed metal finish is used throughout the notebook, including the screen cover, palmrest, and speaker grill. To compliment the finish, the surfaces not covered in metal are glossy black plastic, adding another touch of class to this stylish small business notebook.

Build quality is very good and a step up from the older model. The brushed metal lid gives the 4425s some much needed strength and screen protection that the plastic lid on the previous-generation ProBooks lacked. The palmrest and speaker grill show little to no flex under strong pressure, perhaps feeling stronger than the 15-inch or 17-inch siblings. The keyboard tray has some minor flex under pressure which wouldn't be a problem on the more expensive HP EliteBook models. The chassis looks and feels much nicer than the first revision ProBook series, but is just slightly behind business notebooks that use alloy as a primary component.

Users looking to quickly swap out components will be in for a bit of a shock. To access the processor, hard drive, or even the system memory, you need to fully dismantle the ProBook 4425s. On this small and medium business notebook HP opted for centralized support and maintenance, with very little work being done by the end user. In terms of looks this gives the bottom a clean appearance without any access panels, but in terms of difficultly, it adds a lot of work to swap out components. To open the system, you remove four screws underneath the battery, pop off the speaker bezel, remove four additional screws that hold the keyboard in place, slide the keyboard up. This gives you access to the system memory. To get at the hard drive, you remove three more screws that hold the palmrest in place, slide it carefully to the right to release it from its clips. Once that is removed you simply take out three more screws that hold the hard drive in place, and take it out (with four more screws holding it into its cage). To say upgrades on the ProBook are difficult or confusing is putting it lightly.

Ports and Features

Port selection on the ProBook 4425s is very nice for a small and medium business notebook, featuring three USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA/USB combo port, VGA and HDMI-out, LAN, modem, and headphone/mic jacks. The notebook also features a SDHC-card slot and ExpressCard/34 for future expansion.

Source: Noteebookreview.com

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Dell Inspiron 17R Laptop Review

Dell Inspiron 17R (N7010) Specifications:

Intel Core i3 370M processor (2.4GHz, 3MB cache)

17.3-inch 1600x900 display with LED backlighting

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

4GB DDR3 memory

500GB 5400rpm HDD

Intel HD integrated graphics

10/100 Ethernet, 802.11n wireless, and Bluetooth

6-cell Li-ion 48Wh battery

Dimensions: 16.54 x 10.87 x 1.24-1.38-inches

Weight: 6.67lbs

The newly designed Inspiron 17R is the latest 17.3-inch desktop-replacement notebook from Dell. Equipped with the Intel Core i3 and i5 processors with Intel GMA HD graphics, this budget-friendly system is aimed at the masses. In this review we take an in-depth look at this new system and see how it performs.

Build and Design

The newly redesigned Inspiron 17R offers a much cleaner and sleeker look and feel compared to past models. Similar to the Adamo-series, the layout has a hinge-forward design with the screen positioned just slightly in front of the back edge of the chassis. This has the added benefit of moving the screen closer to the keyboard and bringing the action to you. The outside appearance of the new 17R is very stylish, with a faux-brushed metal screen cover. The look gives the appearance of metal, although with an easier to clean painted surface. This look it also shared inside the notebook, with the palmrest and keyboard trim.

Build quality is great with a strong chassis and very durable feeling plastic. Even with its large footprint, the thin chassis resist flex and doesn't creak when you lift it up from the corners. The keyboard and palmrest both have more than adequate support, and don't sag under strong pressure. The screen cover has moderate protection for the LCD, with only strong pressure to the back of the panel causing ripples. The large 17.3-inch screen has no problem staying put with two strong hinges that get the display into position and hold it without any wiggle.

Users looking to upgrade the Inspiron 17R will find it easy through one access panel on the bottom of the notebook. With a few Phillips head screws removed, you gain access to the system memory and hard drive. Components like the wireless card and processor require more disassembly to get at.

Ports and Features

For a budget 17-inch desktop-replacement the Inspiron 17R offers plenty of inputs. We counted three USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA/USB connection, HDMI and VGA-out , audio jacks, and Ethernet. It also featured a SDHC-card reader, but an ExpressCard slot was missing.

modified from: notebookreview.com

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