Alienware Area-51 m5550 Review
Laptop Magazine has a review up on the Alienware Area-51 m5550, a powerful laptop made for gaming, not portability.
If you’re looking for top-notch performance, higher-end A/V connections, and futuristic design, the Alienware Area-51 m5550 delivers. However, if its terrible battery life, incomplete set of multimedia features, and high price sour the deal for you, keep on looking.
With its silver coloring, black accents, and glowing alien-head ornament, the m5550 looks way cooler than your typical mainstream notebook.
Laptop Magazine gives the Area-51 m5550 a rating of three out of five.
Some of the things that they liked about the m5550 included its high quality 15.4 inch widescreen display, top of the line processor and excellent graphics performance. The negatives are well known, as Alienware demands a high price for its machines, they don’t have good battery life and there is very little included software.
Check out Digital Advisor’s Laptop Reviews.
Proper Touchpad Use
How do you use your touchpad? do you glide and click using the same hand? Do you use your thumb to click, or your forefinger? Or maybe you glide with the right hand and then click with the left forefinger?
When you buy HP or Compaq laptops, a small sticker on the chassis will prominently greet you, asking you to visit their site on ergonomics and proper computer use. In the case of my Compaq V2000, it says go visit http://compaq.com/ergo.
Here’s what the Compaq guide says about touchpad use.
The illustration just says just make sure you’re relaxed. The illustration, though, shows the user gliding with the right forefinger and clicking with the left forefinger. I found this a comfortable position when using my Compaq V2000, which had small, rubbery clickers.
But with my Mac, I just use the same hand for gliding and clicking (forefinger for gliding, thumb for clicking), since the mac had a very large, curved clicker (only one, of course). With my old Thinkpad, I found the trackpoint quite comfortable to use, with just the proper distance for the forefinger and thumb.
I found it comfortable either way. However, It’s certainly more efficient to use only one hand (so the other would be free for other stuff, say, reaching for my cofffee mug).
What about you? What are your touchpad habits?
The MockBook from Sony?
Sony has just issued a press release for their latest N-10 series VAIO notebooks, and guess what. It looks just like Apple’s MacBooks. Or at least that’s what MacDailyNews thinks (and we know how the Mac cult is just so passionate about Apple). Indeed, at a first glance, you would notice some elemenets, umm, borrowed, from the MacBook. Do particularly check out the chicklet keyboard and the latch-less design (which has also been adopted by several models from other manufacturers, such as the Compaq V3000).
First of all, yes, we did a genuine “Grade A” double-take when we first saw the press release images. Right down to the chiclet keyboard, no less! When companies do this, it really draws attention to their lack of original ideas and their inability to innovate. See Microsoft’s Windows Vista, for example: It’s Windows XP dressed up to fool the general public that it’s “just like Apple’s Mac OS X.” Now poor Sony with this OS-limited, can’t-run-Mac OS X-but-obviously-wishes-it-could, knock-off spawn of a MacBook Pro and a MacBook.
I haven’t personally owned any VAIO laptops, but judging from what I’ve seen from VAIOs and other Sony products, I think Sony values its designs highly. And they’re not likely to just rip off design elements from yet-another-company-with-cool-designs. Perhaps gadget designs do really take cues from what’s succesful and usable. Remember that once, laptop hinges were not on the laptop chassis’ edge, but closer to the middle, with some part of the lid extending to the back of laptops? Well, we rarely–if ever–see this design anymore. And remember that the iBook once started the trend of trick hinges–the ones mounted on the back of the chassis instead of on the top. I really liked this design, because it lowered the screen’s profile, making it, for instance, easier to see what’s behind the laptop, which is great when doing presentations on a podium, or when in a boardroom (or cafe table) meeting. Even my other non-Apple laptop (the Compaq V2000) has this feature.
Sure, at first glance, the N-10 looks like a MacBook. But look a little longer, and the similarities start to fade away.
Sony vs. Apple
Do take note I’m not putting down the MacBook. I’m actually a MacHead, myself. But I think the ripoff accusation may just be too much.
Check out Apple MacBooks and Sony VAIOs here.
Ten Rules for Buying Apple Products
iLounge has an article up called “Ten Rules for Buying Apple Products”, where it talks about the right time to buy Apple products. As their laptops shift from one technology to another, it can feel hard to keep up, but there are things you need to know.
Expect Constant Improvements. Apple is one of the world’s most innovative computer and consumer electronics companies, and tries to keep its products at or ahead of each industry’s trends. In the computer industry, this most often means frequently updating internal components, while in the consumer electronics (read: iPod) industry, this more frequently requires both external and internal changes.
Big Changes (Typically) Come in Six-Plus Month Cycles. When it comes to computers and consumer electronics, the reality is that there will always be something newer and better coming out, available 6 or 12 months after you make your purchase, no matter what major brand you buy. Apple in particular has never apologized for continuing to update its products, even when its pacing was lampooned by Saturday Night Live: new iPods announced at the start of the parody were discontinued only minutes later. As seen in the September 2005 introduction of the iPod nano at a separate event from the October 2005 fifth-generation iPod, it is entirely possible that a totally new model will emerge only shortly after another one, though it’s highly unlikely that this will happen with a direct replacement - the 5G iPod replaced the 4G iPod, while the iPod nano replaced the iPod mini. For better or worse, Apple typically introduces a product and keeps it around for a while at a similar price.
So my advice to anyone looking at getting a laptop from Apple is the same as my advice to someone looking for advice on buying any laptop: buy what you need now, and think about what you will need six months from now. Honestly, if you wait for the next big thing from any company, you will find yourself always waiting, always annoyed at the price drops and the changes in technology. Just get what you need, and what you think you will need over the next while, and enjoy it.
Check out Apple Laptops on Digital Advisor.
Alienware Aurora m9700 Review
Over on Pocket-lint, they have a review of the Alienware Aurora m9700, a gaming laptop that gets much in the way of praise for its gaming power over in North America, but what would Europe have to say about the beast of a machine?
the newly updated Alienware Aurora m9700 now not only available in three crazy colours; green, blue or silver, but also with the added bonus of being the first 17-inch laptop to feature 1GB of graphics memory across two 512MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS graphics cards.
The machine, which in size dwarfs over the office’s 15-inch G4 Powerbook, looks every bit the Green Goblin, Incredible Hulk or any other menacing comic book hero you can think of and in keeping with the Alienware laptops the notebook sports a glowing alien head on the top of the model just like apple laptops with its logo.
In the end they give it an 8 out of 10, they love the dual graphics cards and the glossy screen, but don’t like how large the powerpack is as well as the plastic feeling scroll pad. I’d say go for the Dell XPS believe it or not. Check it out at Digital Advisor.
Xbox 360 Laptop Mod
Are you up for some gaming while on-the-go? Benheck.com will rebuild an Xbox 360 into a laptop for you.
This isn’t your run-of-the-mill laptop, since you can only get one specially modified, for quite a steep price (parts alone cost $1,200). Either that or you can go D-I-Y, building the mod from a stock Xbox 360. Come to think of it, it’s not actually a “mod” per se, because the system had been practically rebuilt altogether.
I guess I would say I don’t “mod” systems so much as completely rebuild them. This is a perfect example as everything in the Xbox 360 has been taken apart and reassembled, with LCD screen, in laptop form inside a custom case.
Aside from the Xbox 360 innards, the system includes the following:
- 17-inch progressive scan LCD monitor at 1280×720 resolution
- Water-cooling system with custom built radiator
- Built-in keyboard
- Built-in WiFi
- USB hub, allowing for 3 USB ports
- Mostly aluminum casing
- Single power supply for Xbox 360 and screen
- Ports for connecting component TV, VGA monitor, sound system and composite video
And the size? It’s 16.75″ x 10.75″ x 2.8″ and weighs 14 pounds. Hey, that’s lighter than the 18-pound Dell XPS 2010!
Then again, these aren’t your regular laptops that can be used for the usual productivity applications. That’s unless you consider gaming to be productive, or if you play games for a living, like some lucky people I know.
Toshiba Recalls 340,000 Batteries
Looks like Apple, Dell and Panasonic are not alone as now Toshiba is starting up a recall thanks to some wonderfully faulty Sony batteries.
Around 340,000 units of Toshiba Satellite and Dynabook machines might have the faulty batteries, and so they are going to need to be sent in for a replacement. So far no one has been hurt from a Toshiba machine, but this whole thing must be a public relations nightmare for all those involved.
Hopefully, we will have the exact models, dates and identification numbers soon, but at this time, if you have a Toshiba, just be aware that there is this problem, and watch for more information on the recall.
Core 2 Duo MacBooks
Just buy a MacBook? Was it Core 2 Duo? Probably not yet as Apple has not launched their Core 2 Duo MacBooks yet. In a world where even Lenovo’s lower end machines are now fitted with Core 2 Duo processors, can Apple let themselves fall behind in the market?
Don’t be surprised if you see the MacBook you just bought get an upgrade you wish you had.
Source: Engadget
Acer Aspire 5602WLMi Review
Over at Pocket-lint there is a review up on the Acer Aspire 5602WLMi, an inexpensive Core Duo machine, with a 15.4 inch screen.
Take the Acer Aspire 5602WLMi for instance; it’s £699 (inc. VAT) and powered by Intel’s latest and greatest Intel Core Duo processor. It may be the T2300 version, which runs at 1.66GHz, but it’s more than powerful for most people and whether you’re watching a DVD, editing a document or simply surfing the net, it’ll let you do them all at the same time. It’s because you have two cores in one chip, which allowing for multi-tasking. We found this a really powerful notebook to use. It’s not only the processor that helps but the addition of 1024MB of memory, it means things never really slow down. The hard drive is 120GB in size, so you can store plenty of files and is larger than we expected at this price point.
If you can ignore poor battery life, which I can’t, you will be reasonably happy with this machine, and so Pocket-lint gave it a 7 out of 10. Check out other 15″ Core Duo laptops on Digital Advisor.
Everex StepNote LM7WE Review
Over at Laptop Magazine, they review a machine with a brand I don’t recognize.
If a tight budget has you thinking you’ll need to muddle through another six months before you can spring for a new laptop with a large widescreen display, meet the Everex StepNote LM7WE. For less than $600, you get a decent machine featuring a bright 15.4-inch screen and a processor good enough for everyday tasks like Web surfing and e-mail. There aren’t a lot of frills, but for the price you’ll hear no complaints from us. Well, maybe a few.
Some of the things they liked about the Everex StepNote LM7WE included its low price, 15.4 inch widescreen, and the included DVD burner. Some things that they were not as impressed with is the fact that the battery life is low with its standard batteries, some shrunken keys on a keyboard, and the lack of a FireWire port. In the end the sub-$600 machine comes in at three out of five. For a good comparision, check out the Dell E1505 on Digital Advisor.
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