Laptop wars are at all time high in the market and it is really hard to choose amongst the tons of notebooks out there. I, as a tech reviewer, too find it pretty hard to recommend laptops for you guys because I have to look at the performance, features, and the price too should do justice to it. I have had a lot of laptops which are blazing fast but are priced at a very high price tag. On the other side, there are products which really inexpensive but absolutely useless because of the slow hardware inside! It all depends on what kind of user you are. There are high end gamers who don’t hesitate to spend big on a laptop having the latest hardware inside. There are also the business users who need a simple compact laptop for carrying it around with them where ever they go. I am compiling a list of the five best laptops I have ever tested to date in my labs. I’d like to reiterate that it was really hard to choose from a sea of notebooks out there. It took a lot of time  [...]

When I first saw this laptop, the high end looks made a great first impression but after going through the laptop in detail, I realized that it was just an average product. The display is 15.6 inches wide and it offers a 1,366x768 pixels resolution which is quite standard for this screen size. Movies looked good on the display, the screen was bright enough and icons and text too were readable. Just like most laptops screens, this one has a sweet spot for the best contrast and color combo but the off angle viewing is mediocre. The notebook is equipped with Dolby Advanced Audio processing technology but the audio quality was not really impressive from the Altec Lansing-branded stereo speakers. The speakers are front firing and they sound thin. They are just ok for casual listening but if you want this laptop as an entertainment system, I would recommend you to buy external speakers. Finally, the microphone and Webcam is located above the display. I made a few Skype video tests and they lived  [...]

The Netbook world is getting smaller everyday because all of them are pretty much same. Netbooks come with a predefined set of hardware components and most manufacturers adhere to this set. Writing reviews on Netbooks is a getting a bit tough now because of the hardware similarities. They just differ in looks and brand name. Everything else remains same. Standard price for Netbooks is about $300 but there are some which cost higher than this. For instance, there are premium Netbooks which have high end looks. Better hardware is another factor which causes a rise in price. Asus Eee PC 1015PEM-PU17 that I got in my labs for reviewing has a dual core processor inside and this increases the price by $20 as compared to standard Netbooks. The a 1.5 GHz Atom N550 processor is made for people who multitask a lot. You won’t get drastic increase in speeds but it is still a bit faster than your average Netbook. Asus Eee PC 1015PEM-PU17 costs $369 and it is a bit  [...]

Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T-68U118 is a 11.6 inch travel friendly ultra portable laptop which might look like a Netbook to you but it is totally different. We have had a lot of premium Netbooks for this year and it is because the demand for them is increasing steadily. The small size factor of this product makes it look like a Netbook but inside, you have standard laptop hardware. Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T-68U118 has a Core i7 processor, 500 GB hard drive, four GB DDR3 RAM and 11.6 inch display. On the sides, you have an HDMI port for connecting this laptop to a large HDTV. You won’t find an optical drive here and the company has dumped it in order to keep the body of this laptop slim. No optical drive makes this laptop much lighter than standard laptops. I was also pretty impressed with the tech specs of this laptop. There aren’t a lot of 11.6 inch notebooks in the market having a Core i7 CPU. Acer Aspire TimelineX 1830T-68U118 is a premium Netbook though and  [...]

Asus U35JC-A1 is the successor to UL30A which the manufacturer gave out last year. The looks are largely the same and not a lot has changed in terms of design. The lid has a lot of brushed metal which makes the laptop look very attractive. It has an angular look and overall, the design reminds me of those older laptops. For playing games, the Asus U35JC-A1 has Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics card which is not the fastest one out there but still fine for playing games at reduced settings. In fact, it is an entry level card. Maybe the manufacturer put in an entry level card to preserve the thin chassis. Also, it doesn’t make much sense to have a high end graphic card in a 13.3 inch laptop. The small screen would ruin the gaming experience. If you are a hard core gamer, I would recommend you to take a look at the Alienware series. In my lab tests, this graphic card could take games with all the settings lowered. At maximum settings, the Asus U35JC-A1 will quickly come  [...]

This series from Acer is relatively new, the first laptop from this company came out last year and the AS3820T-5246 is the second installment. These notebooks became famous really quickly back then because of the slim chassis, fast hardware inside. The battery life of the laptop too was good. This combination was rare last year but now there are a lot of manufacturers offering similar notebooks and hence it is difficult to say if thae AS3820T-5246 will too enjoy the same success as its predecessor. That said, this notebook will certainly lock horns with other 13 inch thin and light products in the market. Acer Aspire TimelineX AS3820T-5246 has a 13 inch display along with Intel Core i3 chip. The performance is similar to that of other mainstream laptops in this size range. Acer keyboards have always been one of the best ones in the market. The buttons have island layout  [...]

Toshiba Satellite T215D-S1140RD is a premium Netbook and which has faster processor and hence gives a slightly better performance than a standard Netbook. The audio quality from the speakers of this Netbook is not that good though. If you wish to listen a lot of music, I would recommend you to invest in a separate set of speakers or headphones. The screen is 11.6 inches big and above it, you have the Webcam. The picture quality is awful; it is unusable for anything other than basic Web chatting. I tried making a call through Skype and found that the streaming was very choppy but this might be attributed to the single core processor inside. Toshiba Satellite T215D-S1140RD is small Netbook and yet you get all the ports which are there on the 13.3-incher T235D and this is really impressive. It has a combo USB2.0/eSATA port, which features Tobhiba’s unique sleep and charge technology. You can charge your gadgets through USB even when the Netbook is switched off or asleep. You can also  [...]

Alienware laptops are made for gamers. I have tested a few of them in my labs and the quality that they have to offer is really impressive. I got the 17, 15 and 11 inch version previously in my labs and Dell has sent me another version of the 11 inch screen size. The previous model was based on Core 2 Duo processor whereas this model has a zippy Core i7 processor with Nvidia Optimus technology. In case you don't know, Nvidia Opimus is a graphic card feature which autmatically turns on/off the graphic card according to the requirements. So if you are in a game the card will switch itself on and when you come out of it, the card will be turned off automatically. The graphic card consumes a significant amount of power as it has to provide all the graphics. So if the card is switched off when not required, you save a lot of power. This version of the Alienware M11x too has an 11 inch screen. It also has high end graphics for giving great eye candy for the games. But the most important diffrence,  [...]

When it comes to entertainment notebooks, these three features are really important – HDMI, Intel Wireless Display and Blu-ray. The latter was just limited to step up laptops some time ago but now it is good to see it on the less expensive laptops as well. Amongst the three, my favorite is the Wireless Display technology as it lets you outsource the video to a large HDTV. This technology is quite new and it is not surprising to see it getting really popular in such short time. This is also quite underrated feature in most laptops. Sometimes, the manufacturers don’t mention it at all. As compared to this, laptops with Blu-ray drives are heavily plastered with stickers. I have compiled this list from the various notebooks that I have got in my labs for reviewing. The ones that I haven’t tested are not included simply because I don’t know anything about that laptop. You can still rely on this list because all major manufacturers send me their products in my labs. Here are my five bits  [...]

We have reviewed quite a lot of HP laptops in the past and we have liked the stylish look of its multimedia centric notebooks. This too looks stylish and the feature set is also good. The design might make you think that this is a high end laptop but it is really a down to earth computer. Our review model costs $979; if you are looking for alternatives, there is the Lenovo IdeaPad Y460 which comes at $1,050. It has the same specs but comes with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 graphic card as well. HP system can be customized for a graphic card but it will take the price up by $200. On the bright side, dm4 has a 7,200 rpm hard drive where as Lenovo’s hard disk has 5,400 rpm speed. If you are looking for best value for money deal, check out the 15-inch Samsung R580 which comes at a price of $829 and has both Blu-ray drive and graphic card. However, if looks matter a lot to you, stick with the dm4 as it is the sexiest amongst the three. HP Pavilion dm4’s keyboard is the same as that  [...]