Dell Inspiron 15R (N5110) latest Reviews, specs, prices

Dell Inspiron 15R (N5110) latest Reviews, specs, prices:

The Dell Inspiron 15R N5110 features a number of design changes compared to last year's Inspiron 15R. The overall look is essentially unchanged with a clean and sleek exterior, but at its core the 15R remains a budget laptop with a mostly plastic construction. The new 15R uses a hinge-forward LCD lid design that Dell first used in the premium Adamo series. I'm sure Dell designers will say it's a way of reducing the size of the screen bezel with a 16:9 ratio widescreen display. However, as far as most people are concerned, it just means the back of the notebook sticks out more behind the screen.

Build quality is generally pretty strong for a mostly plastic notebook, but you'll notice some minor flexing in the plastics if you firmly squeeze the notebook in your hands or press hard on the keyboard while typing. The main chassis, while reasonably strong, has a "hollow" feeling which makes you think there is some unused space inside this black box. Speaking of black, that's the standard color for the Inspiron 15R.When it comes to budget 15-inch laptops, Dell has a history of packing their notebooks with enough inputs and outputs to keep any tech enthusiast happy. The new N5110 is no exception. This Inspiron 15R features two USB 2.0 ports (one of which is an eSATA/USB combo port), two "Super Speed" USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and VGA-out, audio jacks, and Ethernet. It also featured a SDHC-card reader and a CD/DVD optical drive.

Dell Inspiron 15R (N5110) specs:
Intel Core i5-2410M processor (2.3GHz, 3MB cache, 2.9GHz Turbo Boost)
15.6-inch 1366x768 display with LED backlighting
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
6GB DDR3 memory (1333MHz)
500GB 5400rpm HDD
Intel HD integrated graphics
8X Tray Load CD/DVD Burner
10/100 Ethernet, 802.11n wireless, and Bluetooth
6-cell Li-ion 48WHr battery and 9-cell 90WHr battery
Dimensions: 14.7 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches
Weight: 5.84lbs

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Acer Aspire One D250 latest Reviews, specs, prices

Acer Aspire One D250 latest Reviews, specs, prices:

The Acer Aspire One D250-1165 is a low-cost version of the new D250 series netbooks and features a smaller battery and no Bluetooth in order to drop the retail price below $300. One very interesting item of note is that the D250 is actually slightly thinner than the original Acer Aspire One 150 series which used a smaller 8.9-inch screen. Like the original Aspire One, the D250 uses glossy plastics on the top of the screen cover as well as around the entire LCD. At times the reflective boarder does get on your nerves if you are in a brightly lit room with many sources of glare.One nice design feature in the D250 is easy access for upgrades. Compared to the original Acer Aspire One, the D250 is extremely easy to upgrade. Flip the netbook over and you'll find three access panels for the hard drive, RAM, and the mini-PCIe card slot. The mini-PCIe card slot is obviously open for built-in broadband wireless access, so you should be able to buy this netbook directly from wireless carriers depending on the carriers and data plans in your area.

The glossy screen looks identical to what we're seeing in most netbooks: the glossy screen offers good color and contrast, but glare and reflections indoors under strong lights or outdoors under direct sunlight can be a problem. Again, although the 1024x600 resolution is pretty standard for a netbook these days, I'd much rather see a 1366x768 screen in the next Aspire one.

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HP Pavilion g6 latest Notebook reviews, specs, prices:

HP Pavilion g6 latest Notebook reviews, specs, prices:

The HP Pavilion g6 has a generic-looking exterior of black and gray. Nearly all visible surfaces of the notebook are made of glossy plastic, which isunfortunate since it smudges up easily and is not as durable as matte plastic over time. Strangely enough the screen bezel is matte plastic.The g6 is rather sturdy for a budget notebook. The chassis is stiff and takes effort to twist. Additionally, the palm rest and surrounding areas don't flex or bend when pushed down upon. The display panel (and more specifically the screen lid) is the only part that needs improvement; it is flimsy and twists easily; ripples also show up on the screen when pushed in on from behind. I was impressed however by the display hinges, which are metal and very securely anchored

to the chassis.There is an average selection of ports with nothing special or unexpected.

The g6 lacks USB 3.0, eSATA, DisplayPort, and an ExpressCard slot. We would have liked to see USB 3.0 for quicker transfers of large files like high-res photos and HD movies, but you can only expect so much from a budget laptop. All picture descriptions shown below are listed from left to right.There are two stereo speakers located below the palm rest with Altec Lansing branding. Despite HP's history of using good Altec Lansing and Beats Audio speakers, these are some of the worst I’ve heard on any laptop, netbooks
 included. The sound is muffled and bass notes clip the sound.The Pavilion g6 has a full-size keyboard but no separate numeric keypad. The square flat-topped keys have a chiseled base to create extra space between them. The keyboard feels and sounds cheap; the keys make a slight rattling sound when pressed. Tactile feedback is substandard; it doesn't exactly encourage typing. Surprisingly the keyboard has solid base with no flex. The matte texture of the keys will most definitely wear shiny over time; I saw it happening on our review unit over the span of a week. Overall the keyboard gets a passing grade but that's all; the keyboard on higher-priced HP Pavilion notebooks is much better.

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Toshiba Portege Z835 latest Notebook reviews, specs:

Toshiba Portege Z835 latest Notebook reviews, specs:

The Z835 has a professional-looking design with normal straight lines and squared-off edges; Toshiba’s Portege line of notebooks has typically beenbusiness oriented so this makes sense. The Z835 will most certainly draw wandering eyes despite its utilitarian appearance due to the sheer thinness it really is that thin at only 0.63 inches high. The chassis is constructed entirely of magnesium alloy, a lightweight yet strong material.

As a result the Z835 feels like almost nothing at 2.4 pounds.If the chassis allowed flex, the internal circuit boards could bend and increase the likeliness of failure due to stress cracks over time. The fit and finish is good; all areas of the notebook seem to have received about the same attentionto detail.The corners of the chassis are a bit sharp as is the cut-out for the Ethernet port on the back of the notebook.

The entire bottom of the chassisneeds to be removed to get at any of the internals. An additional impediment to upgradeability is the non-standard SSD; you can’t simply put a normal SSDor hard drive in this notebook as the chassis is not thick enough to accommodate them.The thinness of Ultrabooks prevents them from packing much beyond the bare essentials. Fortunately the Z835 makes what space is available count; it has full-size HDMI and VGA-out ports as well as a single USB 3.0 port. The Z835 lacks ExpressCard and DisplayPort. All picture descriptions are left to right.The Z835 has a Synaptics touchpad appropriately-sized for the 13.3-inch display. It has an excellent matte surface that is easy to track on. The two
 touchpad buttons below it offer good feedback and quiet clicks, which is certainly appreciated. The dedicated touchpad on/off button is also appreciated

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HP 3115m latest Notebook Reviews, specs:

HP 3115m latest Notebook Reviews, specs:

HP 3115m notebook this morning, which takes the dm1 and dresses it up ever so slightly for the business section of the market. The 3115m is most interesting for its Beats Audio branding, showing that HP is starting to push their 'premium audio' solution outside of the consumer space.The audio isn't the only consumer twist on a laptop that will be targeted straight at the small and home office segment of the market; the new machine comes with HP's soft-touch Imprint finish, which looks chic while helping to hide fingerprints. I spent some time tapping around on the 3115m at a recent HP press event, and the look is a nice respite from many business laptop offerings.

One of the more business-oriented features offered by the 3115m is a Computrace Pro installation, which ships turned off; users or companies can turn it on by picking up a subscription (which lasts anywhere from 1 to 5 years). Other standard accoutrements include 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0, Beats Audio, an integrated mic, an HD webcam and an SD card slot.Ports available on the 3115m include 3x USB2.0 ports, HDMI- and VGA-out ports, and a Gigabit Ethernet jack.The new notebook weighs in at 3.52 pounds and tapers from 1.25 inches thick at the rear to just 0.83 inches thick at the front edge. A 6-cell, 55Whr battery promises users 11.5 hours of use. which will nab you a dual-core AMD E-450 CPU, 2GB of RAM and a 320GB HDD spinning at 5,400 RPM. Graphics are handled by the CPU/APU in the forum of an AMD Radeon HD 6320 GPU. Like the dm1z, the 3115m comes with an 11.6-inch screen, with an acceptable 1366x768 resolution. 

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HP ENVY 15 latest notebook reviews, specs, prices

HP ENVY 15 latest notebook reviews, specs, prices:

HP ENVY 15 has a LED-backlit screens offer superior brightness and contrast ratings to traditional LCDs and many consumers mourned the day HP stopped making them an option on the ENVY lineup.This dial actually sticks out from the plane of the notebook's edge eeeeever so slightly. It's just enough for you to be able to spin the dial without it actually detracting from the elegant designs. While it may bring to mind Toshibas (et al.) of old, which actually used a potentiometer dial to regulate audio levels, this is strictly a software solution - it won't work outside of Windows (or presumably Linux). 

On top of the volume dial is a capactive button that, when tapped, launches the Beats Audio control panel plug-in. We'd like to see HP let repurpose this button to toggle the mute status in future ENVY iterations; chances are you'll use that a heck of a lot more than you would the Beats Audio control panel levels. The keyboard looks much the same as it did in previous generations, but the backlighting setup is new; in an attempt to minimize light bleed, most keys on the keyboad have individual LEDs responsible for their illumination.This prevents light from spilling from in between all of the keys. The trackpad isn't too much changed, and, like most HP notebooks, can be completely disabled with a quick double-tap in the upper-left corner.Speaking of 3D, however, it works, and it works well, or at least as well as you'd expect it might. A pair of active shutter glasses gets tossed in the box of every 3D ENVY notebook, and they're nice, too, like the ones we got with the new HP TouchSmart 620 3D desktop. As part of the AMD graphics that power the 3D effects, HP has leveraged that company's Eyefinity graphics technology to enable multiple screen support - up to three external displays can be hooked up to the new ENVY computers, with the notebook panel itself acting as a fourth. 

ENVY 15 Specifications:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel Core i5-2430M
AMD Radeon graphics
500GB 7200RPM hard drive
Beats Audio with 6 speakers + subwoofer
Slot-loading DVD+/-RW
HP Radiance backlit keyboard + proximity sensor
76 WHr, 1000-cycle battery
6GB DDR3 SDRAM
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi with Bluetooth 4.0 and WI-D

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Asus Zenbook UX31 latest Notebook Reviews, specs:

 Asus Zenbook UX31 latest Notebook Reviews, specs:

Asus Zenbook UX31 adds just enough pizazz so that you'd never mistake it for Apple's wafer-thin lappie, it is the most Air-inspired contender we've seen so far. Mostly, it's that all-metal build, spacious, buttonless trackpad and razor-thin silhouette that whittles down to some seriously sharp edges. In fact, if you have a gander at our comparison gallery down there, you'll see more of a similarity between the Air and UX31 than the S3, which tapers, but in a less pronounced way. Still, while they're both swaddled in aluminum, the 2.9-pound UX31 feels denser than the 2.96-pound Air.The S3 weighs a smidge more, at three pounds, but we couldn't for the life of us tell the difference when we held that in one hand and the UX3 in the other.

Now that we've acknowledged that fruity 800-pound Gorilla in the room, we just have to say... the UX31 is stunning in person. Here at Engadget, we see more products in a week than we have time to review and in general, it behooves us to take a detached, almost clinical approach to handling gadgets, lest we get distracted by the toys piled high on our desks. With the UX31, though, we couldn't help but feel struck by the tremendous craftsmanship.The UX31's keyboard also isn't backlit, which should be a strike against it when people are deciding between this and the MacBook Air.Before we even started playing with the UX31, we received a note from an ASUS rep, asking us to update the touchpad's driver. We can see why. At that time, the trackpad was so jumpy, so imprecise that it had the potential to hamstring the entire laptop. Fortunately, after we removed the driver and installed version 9.1.7.7 in its place, we noticed a huge boost in usability.

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Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG latest laptop reviews,specs:

Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG latest laptop reviews,specs:

Acer has changed the type of keyboard to chiclet-style in this iteration of the TimelineX laptops. This is a full size keyboard with a separate Numeric pad. The keys are comfortably spaced and have a good tactile feedback. The direction keys seem to be too small, though it is hardly a negative to be considered. Function keys double as keys to handle special functions using the "Fn" modifier key, which allows them to be used to perform tasks such as switching between displays, togglingwireless on and off, multimedia functions, etc. The main ENTER key is deliberately made larger so that you don't miss this oft used key, while the SPACEBAR is of perfect length. The touchpad supports multi-touch and has a clearly demarcated vertical scroll zone. It is intelligently placed right below the SPACEBAR, thus reducing the chances of the palm from accidentally touching it.A backlit Power button is present just above the keyboard towards the left corner, while the right
corner has two blue LED indicators to conveniently indicate thestatus of CAPS and Numeric lock. There is also the PowerSmart button, which can switch the laptop to operate in a power saving mode to maximise the battery life.

Although in this mode, the screen becomes too dim to work without straining your eyes. A 2.0 speaker system is present behind the perforated metallic strip at the centre.A multi-memory card reader slot has been provided at the front. Various LED indicators for power, hard drive activity, and Wi-Fi are present just besides this.This laptop also has a battery gauge button with an LED at the centre. This button lets you find out the battery charge status by pressing it, even when the laptop is switched off. The LED at the centre of this button glows red if the battery is low and blue when it is charged.The laptop is powered by an Intel Core i5-2410M dual-core hyperthreaded processor running at 2.30 GHz, with 2.90 GHz Turboboost. It comes with 3 GB DDR3 memory anda 500 GB 5,400 RPM hard drive. The graphics subsystem is handled by NVIDIA Optimus technology, which intelligently switches between the Intel onboard and NVIDIA GT540M graphics to manage performance and battery life.

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Acer Aspire One 722 laptop latest reviews, specs, prices:

Acer Aspire One 722 laptop latest reviews, specs, prices:

The keyboard sports a very thin bezel to make better use of the available space. Similar to the previously reviewed Aspire One Happy 2, the keys are relatively bigger than found on most netbooks. Although it gets the job done, an island-type keyboard would have made the experience better.The trackpad sports a matte finish that runs through the entire lower half of the laptop. The touchpad offers good sensitivity and is accompanied by a vertical scrolling line. It supports a few touch gestures too.However, there's no visual separation between the mouse buttons.The black model (also available in white, cyan,and red.we received sports a classic look with a dropletpattern on the lid. The ripple effect is well done andallows the device to look distinct without being gaudy.The AMD C-50 APU is incorporated with AMD Radeon 6250 graphics. The dual-core CPU is clocked at 1 GHz and is coupled with 2 GB of RAM. Other specs include Wi-Fi,Bluetooth 3.0, an HDMI port, webcam, SD memory card reader,and a 320 GB hard drive spinning at 5200 rpm.




 


The device comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Starter and includes a free ad-supported Office Starter 2010, which is good enough for daily tasks. Acer has alsobundled some bloatware, McAfee Internet Security being the mostannoying of the lot.The 722 never has a hard time handling basic tasks, and can also take on intensive image-editing software such as Photoshop.The 722 sports an 11.6" LED backlit display with 1024x600 pixels. Similar to the Happy 2,the screen is relatively brighter than most netbooks. The colours look good,but the screen is reflective, which can be annoying at times.The two tiny speakers at the
bottom are not very loud, but they get the job done. However, while watching movies, it's better to plug in your favourite earphones.

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