Lenovo ThinkPad Z60t First Look
I am personally a big fan of the IBM ThinkPads and since Lenovo took over they have kept the quality up on the old IBM brands, but they have also kept up the heft price tags. PCWorld looks at the ThinkPad Z60t, and has a few things to say, and they are not as impressed as you would expect from a notebook with the ThinkPad branding on it.
The Lenovo Z60t presents an odd compromise for notebook buyers looking at wide-screen models. This 14-inch wide-screen unit has a smaller display, lower resolution, and weaker graphics compared with its larger, heavier sibling, the 15.4-inch Z60m–yet at $1999, it’s safe to say that the 14-inch model costs a few hundred dollars more than a comparable 15.4-inch model. True, many notebooks cost more the smaller they get, but not when the difference is this minimal.
In the end it earns a 74 out of 100 on their rating scale, which is not horrible, but now what you would expect from IBM’s legacy.
Toshiba World Cup Laptop
In my opinion the World Cup branded Toshiba Dynabook looks rediculous, but I am sure there are World Cup fans that will want one just because it says World Cup on it.
They launched the machine on May 26th with a limited run of 600 units. The gold painted machine includes a 15.4 inch screen with a 1.6GHz Core Duo, 512MB of Ram, and an 80GB SATA hard drive.
On the exterior of the notebook, there is a list of all the dates of previous World Cups since 1930, as well as the winners of each one. Next to these names is a sketch of the World Cup trophy as well as the Adidas footballs used in the tournaments.
For more information jump over to Dynabook.com. (not an english site)
Fujitsu-Siemens LifeBook E8210 Review
TrustedReviews reviewed the 3G enabled LifeBook E8210 from Fujitsu, and jumped right into talking about its 3G capabilities.
In the past couple of months a lot of notebook manufacturers have announced models with integrated 3G capability. Dell, Acer and Lenovo have all shown off new notebook ranges with integrated 3G, but it’s Fujitsu-Siemens that has managed to get a working sample into the TrustedReviews lab first. The LifeBook E8210 represents the top of Fujitsu-Siemens’ notebook range, and it’s easy to see why. It’s been almost two years since we’ve had a LifeBook E series notebook in the TrustedReviews lab, but back then the LifeBook E8010 did walk away with a Recommended award, so the new E8210 has something to live up to.
Thankfully, it’s not just the 3G that makes the LifeBook E8210 a great laptop, but it is also said to have a great feature set, but it is expensive in comparison to many other manufacturers, but even still it earns a nine out of ten as a final rating and is stamped with a recommended stamp.
Apple MacBook Pro 17″ Model
Apple has launched a 17 inch edition of its now popular MacBook Pro series, which includes a 2.15GHz Intel Core Duo processor. The new 17 inch MacBook Pro also includes a 36 percent brighter display and an ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 PCI Express graphics with 256MB of dedicated GDDR3 graphics memory.
Like the 15 inch MacBook Pro, there is a built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing, and making your own video podcast, and that cool Front Row media experience with Apple Remote is also included.
The 2.16 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,799 (US), includes:
- 17-inch widescreen 1680 x 1050 LCD display with 300 cd/m2 brightness;
- 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo processor;
- 1GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM, expandable to 2GB;
- 120GB Serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion Sensor;
- a slot-load 8x SuperDrive™ with double-layer support (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
- PCI Express-based ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 256MB GDDR3 memory;
- DVI-out port for external display (VGA-out adapter included, Composite/S-Video out adapter sold separately);
- built-in Dual Link support for driving Apple 30-inch Cinema HD Display;
- built-in iSight video camera;
- Gigabit Ethernet port;
- built-in AirPort Extreme wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR;
- ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
- three USB 2.0 ports, one Firewire 800 port, and one FireWire 400 port;
- one audio line in and one audio line out port, each supporting both optical digital and analog;
- Scrolling TrackPad and illuminated keyboard with ambient light sensor;
- the infrared Apple Remote;
- 68 watt hour lithium polymer battery; and
- 85 watt Apple MagSafe Power Adapter.
While I personally am not interested in lugging around a 17 inch notebook, I am sure the new version will be very popular to many, as the screen real estate and the inclusion of a FireWire port will make many people happy.
Falcon Northwest FragBook TL-2 Review
Laptop Magazine reviews the FragBook TL-2 from Falcon Northwest.
At first glance, your eyes go directly to the distinctive falcon’s head logo on the front cover. Beyond that, it’s a basic box design. At 6.5 pounds and 15.5 x 11.8 x 2 inches, the FragBook TL-2 is completely manageable for occasional travel. The silver touchpad is wide and curves down at the bottom on each side, giving the system a sleek look. The buttons, on the other hand, are not sensitive enough; you have to press pretty hard to get a response. Furthermore, the paint job nearly obscures the icons that tell you what the buttons actually do. The same goes for the five blue indicator lights on the bottom front right. They seem to say, “something’s running, but we’re not going to tell you what.”
They give the $2,749 USD FragBook TL-2 a three and a half out of five thanks to its performance, paint job, and no dead pixel guarantee.
Gateway E-100M
A new laptop from Gateway in the E-100M, a 12.1″ widescreen notebook with an Intel Solo Ultra Low Voltage processor powering it. The E-100M starts at $1,399 USD, and is available now.
Weighing approximately three pounds and less than one inch thick the machine includes upwards of eight hours of battery power, if you buy the biggest battery, black magnesium casing, two USB 2.0 ports, a six-in-one media card reader, integrated Gigabit Ethernet, integrated 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and integrated Bluetooth.
“The new Gateway E-100M delivers the ideal blend of mobility and performance,” said William Diehl, vice president, product management, in a statement. “The new Intel Core Solo Ultra Low Voltage processors complement the system’s advanced capabilities, such as its extended battery life and wireless connectivity. With the Gateway E-100M, customers get all the performance features they need in a sleek and lightweight, yet very durable, form factor.”
For more details hit up Gateway’s Website.
HP Recalls 15,700 Laptop Batteries
For the second time in six months Hewlett Packard (HP) has issued a worldwide recall on Thursday for 15,700 laptop China-made batteries which can pose potential fire hazard because of overheating. The recall is for lithium ion rechargeable batteries manufactured in China in early January 2005 and used with various HP and Compaq computers. The affected batteries have a bar code label starting with L3.
HP has received 20 reports of batteries overheating, including two in the U.S., with one report of a minor burn injury, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The recall is for lithium ion rechargeable batteries manufactured in early January 2005 and used with various HP and Compaq computers. The affected batteries have a bar code label starting with L3, the agency said.
The batteries were manufactured in China, and the computers were sold in the U.S. at retail and online stores from January 2005 to December 2005 for between 1,000 dollars and 3,000 dollars.
According to HP, the problems are limited to just the batteries and users can still use their notebooks on AC power until their replacement batteries arrive. However, the second recall in such a short space of time must throw open to question HP’s quality control and supply chain procedures.
In October 2005, HP issued a similar recall for over 130,000 batteries used in similar model laptops.
HP, a company originally known for its high quality engineering, now sells a range of personal computers, partially inherited from its acquisition of Compaq, most of which are manufactured at low cost locations around the world using low cost parts.
Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 Review
Laptop Magazine reviews the Toshiba Satellite A105-S361 and said:
The A105’s Mist Gray lid gives way to a subtle curve toward the front of the notebook, as does the silver wrist rest on the inside, giving the system a nice tapered look.
Powered by Intel’s 2-GHz Pentium M processor 760 and 1GB of DDR2 SDRAM, the A105 scored an impressive 234 on our MobileMark 2005 performance tests, but its battery life of 2 hours and 12 minutes fell short of our expectations. You’re not going to take the A105 on the road very often, but we wish the system lasted a little longer unplugged for in-home use.
The final result is a laptop that got three and a half out of five on their review scale thanks to a good display, good speakers, and some decent multimedia features, while the thing that hindered it the most was its battery life.
Dell Inspiron 630m Review
Pocket-lint reviews the new Inspiron 630m, a small entry-level notebook with a 14.1 inch widescreen display.
At the heart of the machine is an Intel Pentium M 750 processor, which runs at 1.86GHz. While this isn’t the fastest chip in the range it’s more than fast enough for most tasks and coupled with 512MB of DDR2 SDRAM, we found it handled editing video and transferring it to DVD comfortably. To help things along, there’s a built-in DVD rewriter. While it’s not dual-layer it is dual-format, so you don’t need to worry which media to use. The drive will come in handy as the 60GB hard drive may well quickly grow full if your using the notebook for storing video and music files.
It’s not just at home you’ll find this machine of use, as we managed to get close to 5 hours of battery life from it, which is certainly surprising for a budget notebook.
In the end the machine earns itself a nine out of ten from the reviewer. The small screen and hard drive complaints they have don’t bother me one bit, as this machine has nearly everything I would need except for a dedicated video card.
Dell XPS M1710 Gaming Laptop
Running a nVidia GeForce Go 7900 laptop GPU, the new gaming rig from Dell is the XPS M1710, and BIOS has all the details on its specifications.
Mobile gamers now can bring the firepower of dual-core processors and 512MB graphics to their next tournament thanks to Dell’s fastest consumer laptop - the XPS M1710.
For serious gamers looking for an edge on their next opponent, the XPS M1710 laptop offers blazing performance to match its bold looks. With Intel Core Duo processors, nVidia 512MB GeForce Go 7900 GTX graphics technology and up to 4GB of memory, the XPS M1710 can deliver up to 35 per cent better performance than its predecessor.
Looks like a desktop replacement gaming machine. Who is going to use that as a daily or even weekly portable?
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