The 15.4-inch screen, diagonally measured, offers ample size for long periods of usage without undue eye fatigue. The anti-glare finish that is incorporated into the display makes it very usable under varying lighting conditions and, for the most part, eliminates the glare that is common to most laptop computers under bright lights.

There’s an Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor at the heart of the computer running at 2.40 GHz clock speed with a 3MB L2 cache and 1066 MHz front side bus speed. While that’s likely adequate for most business users, there are four upgrades available up to an Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 running at 2.80 GHz, a 6 MB L2 cache and the same 1066 MHz front side bus speed. Though most users will be best served by maximizing processor speed, there are also a couple of downgrades available that still offer pretty snappy performance for most needs while saving some money.

Going hand in hand with the processor to define the computer’s performance is the memory. The 6730b comes standard with 2 GB of DDR2 RAM which is upgradeable to 8 MB. A 320 GB hard drive is included in the package price. That can be increased to 500 GB for a reasonable price or reduced to 160 GB for those who prefer to economize a bit.

We mentioned earlier that connectivity is among the HP Compaq 6730b’s strong points. Here are some details. The computer comes ready for wireless networking with built in Wi-Fi supporting the 802.11a/b/g and draft-n standards. Additionally, wireless broadband can be included from AT&T, Sprint or Verizon Wireless. This is, of course, and option and the preferred carrier must be specified at the time of ordering. Use of this service requires activation of wireless broadband service from the selected carrier. For additional information about the carriers, take a look at our side-by-side comparison of Mobile Broadband services. Recognizing that wireless internet connections aren’t always available, this computer is outfitted with a 56K dial-up modem for yet another means of staying in touch.

Sensitive business information can be protected by a couple of options for relatively low cost. A fingerprint reader can be added to the device as can a smart card reader. The HP Compaq 6730b comes equipped with a CD/DVD reader/burner including LightScribe disc labeling which allows you to burn labels onto the created discs. A second 250 GB hard drive can be substituted for the CD/DVD drive. Also optional is an integrated VGA webcam.

Connectivity to Bluetooth wireless devices is available with the HP Compaq 6730b but there’s a rather odd relationship between this option and the available warranty. If you want Bluetooth, you have to opt for the three year warranty. Without Bluetooth, only the one year warranty is available. We fail to see the connection but suspect that marketing has more to do with it than technical necessity.

Up to about six hours of battery life can be expected from the 6-cell, 55WHr battery but that depends in great measure what’s being done with the computer. As always, using features like Bluetooth and wireless broadband will quickly reduce the time that you can operate without plugging into an AC outlet. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional is the standard operating system for this computer. For those who prefer, it can be downgraded to Windows XP or Windows Vista, though we can’t quite imagine why anyone would want to do that, especially regarding Vista.

Design and Durability
While the Portege R600 sported a silver aluminum body that felt somewhat flimsy, the R700 trades flash for a sturdier-feeling black magnesium cover. The chrome hinges are plastic, as are the darker gray touchpad buttons. The overall look is somewhat subdued but handsome. Those looking for more flair should opt for the Best Buy-exclusive model, which has a dark blue lid. Weighing 3.2 pounds, the Portege R700 is one of the lightest laptops you’ll find with both a roomy 13-inch display and a built-in optical drive. The pricier 13-inch Sony VAIO Z weighs an even 3 pounds, but the R700 is still easy to take anywhere, measuring a compact 12.4 x 9 x 0.6–1 inches. The R700′s durability extends beyond its magnesium finish. Toshiba used a honeycomb rib structure for the base and palm rest for extra resilience. You also get hard drive protection and a spill-resistant keyboard.

Keyboard
The keyboard uses flat, widely spaced island-style keys. While perfectly usable, the keys are noticeably more rectangular than most, as if they were shortened to save space. Typing is also a little on the clacky side, but not so much as to be a dealbreaker. We do appreciate the large dedicated Page-up, page-down, Home, and End keys along the right side–they’re usually relegated to alternate function keys on most laptops. Our biggest complaint is that the keyboard is not backlit. We’ve seen that feature on other Toshiba laptops in this price range, and it’s always an appreciated extra.

Display and Audio
The R700′s LED-backlit 13.3-inch display (1366 x 768 pixels) is fairly bright and looks less washed out than the 12-inch panel on the R600 series. When we watched a 720p episode of Glee on Fox.com, colors really popped, and we could easily make out wrinkles in Mr. Schuster’s forehead. We noticed just a little bit of visual noise, and viewing angles were narrow. When we streamed Phoenix on Pandora, the twin speakers above the keyboard were loud enough to fill a small room. Still, we wouldn’t go past 75 percent volume; The Killers’ “When You Were Young” sounded harsh when we really cranked it.

Port
The inclusion of a combo eSATA/USB port, HDMI and an SD card slot gives the Portege R700 a big advantage over the MacBook in terms of ports and connections. Even though in some countries the system has an Intel Wireless Display transmitter, it’s a shame the R700 does not come bundled with the Netgear adapter required to wirelessly beam video to your television. The first round of Wireless Display laptops from earlier in 2010 all included the adapter.

Performance
The R700 is in a different league than its predecessor when it comes to performance. That’s because this ultraportable packs a 2.4-GHz Core i5 processor, compared to a relatively wimpy 1.4-GHz Core 2 Duo CPU on the R600 we reviewed in April 2009. The R700 scored a whopping 6,657 in PCMark Vantage, nearly triple the R600. That showing is also more than double the ultraportable notebook average, and it beats the HP EliteBook 2540p (6,002), Fujitsu LifeBook S760 (5,890), and Lenovo ThinkPad X201s (6,106). The only ultraportables we’ve tested recently that surpass the R700 are the ThinkPad X201 (7,050), which has a slightly faster 2.53-GHz Core i5 CPU, and the blazing but much pricier Sony VAIO Z (9,936), which sports dual SSDs and Nvidia graphics.

No hard feelings, tx2, but there was always something just a little “behind the curve” about your design and feature set, and we’re kind of glad HP decided to go all-new with its TouchSmart tm2 followup. The 12.1-inch laptop is powered by new Intel Core 2 Duo procs and even discrete ATI Mobility Radeon graphics if you’re man enough, and claims 9 hours of battery life off its standard 6-cell. Most importantly, the capacitive multitouch screen is finger and pen friendly. The physical design takes some cues from HP’s new Envy laptops, including the controversial unibutton touchpad and lovable aluminum build, and seems decently thinner, lighter and stronger than the tx2. The laptop should be out on January 17th with a starting price of $949.

Design
The TouchSmart tm2 certainly catches your eye with its aluminum lid and deck decorated with a wave-like, laser-engraved illustration. (HP calls it Riptide.) This treatment isn’t as in-your-face as what you’ll find on the Envy line, which we appreciate; it’s only on the right part of the lid and to the right of the large touchpad. The bright and glossy 12.1-inch display (1200 x 800 pixels) has a thick black bezel surrounding it, which houses two loud but tinny Altec Lansing speakers along the bottom. The chiclet-style keyboard and touchpad are also black. Weighing 4.4 pounds, the tm2t is considerably lighter than its chunky plastic predecessor, the 5-pound tx2z. That’s partially because this notebook omits an optical drive. The tm2t also has a thinner profile, tapering from 1 inch in the front to 1.5 inches in the back to accommodate the beefy battery. (The tx2z measured 1.2 inches at its thinnest point.) This slope on the bottom of the machine actually makes it easier to hold in tablet mode. The tm2’s sturdy hinge creates a bulge on the back, but it allows users to rotate the screen in either direction. Overall, this convertible feels solid, but we noticed that the touch display makes the system somewhat top heavy. If we tilted the display more than 20 degrees backward the whole notebook would start to topple while on a desk or in our lap.

Display
The tm2′s 12.1-inch, 1280 x 800-pixel resolution screen is quite crisp, but the main adjective that comes to mind when describing it is glossy. We know we mention the need for more matte displays almost weekly, but in this case we were really beside ourselves – it seriously could double as a mirror. Viewing angles of the screen are also less than stellar; when we flipped the screen around and tilted it back to about 45 degrees, colors just faded, and we simply couldn’t make out images. Speaking of flipping the screen around – the unit’s bi-directional 360-degree hinge feels solid, and matching grooves along the edge of the keyboard and lid keep it locked in place when converted into slate mode. While we do have those major issues with the gloss of the screen, the capacitive touchscreen layer was extremely responsive to finger and stylus input. Dragging a finger down the screen to scroll was very responsive, and light taps on icons / within menus was all it took to navigate Windows 7 Home Premium. Windows 7′s touchpack comes preloaded, and we had a ball zooming in on the earth in Surface Globe. While we do love the Garden Pond screen saver, which lets you put multiple fingers on virtual water, HP’s own DigiFish Dolphin application let us “swim” with the creatures and zoom in and out. Yes, if you’re like us, it will keep you amused for at least… oh, five minutes.

Keyboard & Touchpad
The pad was way too sensitive during our testing; just brushing up against it ever so slightly while typing caused the cursor to jump up a few lines. On other occasions the tm2t would select a few lines of text when we didn’t want it to and we would accidentally delete sentences or entire paragraphs. The TouchSmart tm2t sports a spacious layout, and we like that it has dedicated action keys above the numbers. You can do anything from adjust the brightness to turn Wi-Fi on and off quickly and easily. Although we like the soft touch finish on the keys, which prevents slippage, the keys felt a bit chintzy and hollow as we typed, especially toward the edges of the keyboard. We also don’t like how HP unnecessarily shrunk the up and down arrow keys, to which we had to adjust. Selecting text (when we intended to) and even clicking on web links also proved more of a challenge on this notebook than most others we’ve tested. That’s because the cursor would often move just as we were about to press down on the left touch button. There’s more: the overactive pinch to zoom gesture would sometimes enlarge or shrink a web page when we just wanted to move around.

Software

In addition to its TouchSmart software, the tm2 comes preloaded with HP’s usual programs. Just like we mentioned in the dm4 review, a lot of stuff should go straight to the Recycle Bin – including the preloaded eBay and Shutterfly shortcut on the desktop. However, the HP dock that’s mounted to the top of the desktop is a nice addition once you customize it with applications you’d actually use. HP’s QuickWeb is also there, but we’ve never really ended up hanging in the pre-boot OS much.

Performance and Graphics
While this system’s no speed demon, the 1.2-GHz Core i3-U330 processor and 3GB of RAM inside the tm2t combine to offer fairly snappy performance—when you’re not fighting the touchpad. While its PCMark Vantage score of 3,806 is below the category average (4,033), the notebook barely flinched when we had several tabs open in Google Chrome while streaming Hulu in HP’s TouchSmart software in a smaller window.  Using its discrete graphics, the tm2t outclasses most other notebooks in its weight class; it turned in a 3DMark06 score of 2,882, considerably higher than the 2,127 average. The machine also notched very good frame rates in World of Warcraft, reaching 109 fps at 1024 x 768 and 35 fps at native resolution. The tm2t also managed 37 fps at the lower pixel count, though it dropped to an unplayable 17 fps at 1280 x 800.

Design
The first thing anyone notices about the Adamo XPS is its profile. It measures 13.39 inches wide by 10.78 inches long. With the lid closed, it measures 0.41 inches at the thickest part of the chassis (the back) and slopes down to 0.38 inches at the front. Compare that with the original Adamo, which measured 0.65 inches thin all around. The Adamo XPS weighs 3.2 pounds with the standard 4-cell battery. Despite the light weight (no doubt partly attributable to its aluminum chassis) the Adamo XPS felt solid in my hands.

There is a colorless, capacitive touch strip at the front edge of the Adamo XPS’s lid. Simply run your finger across the strip, and the lid opens with an almost inaudible click. It’s this kind of unexpected touch (no pun intended) that I think will distinguish the Adamo XPS from others in the luxury ultraportable category.

Keyboard & Touchpad
When fully opened, the keyboard sits at about a 20-degree angle. It’s an unusual setup, but one that provides a better raised typing experience than the average flat laptop keyboard (although some readers have told us they dislike angled keyboards). We also liked the solid-feeling metal keys and the reasonably large touch pad. The right Shift key is smaller than the left one, but not horribly so, but the row of Function keys is both small and set flush to the keyboard tray surface, making them hard to hit. Still, the overall typing experience is good, and we quickly adapted to the layout and its flat, widely spaced keys. Measuring 3 x 1.7 inches, the touchpad on the Adamo XPS is decently sized, and offered little resistance while sliding our finger across. Multitouch gestures are enabled, and we found it easy to pinch to zoom in on photos and documents. Two discrete mouse buttons below were a touch soft, but were otherwise fine.

Ports and Webcam
adamo-webcamAt the base of the notebook by the battery are two USB ports, one on each side, and a DisplayPort on the left. On the right is a headphone and mic port. Helping make up for this paucity of ports is a dongle that comes with the unit, and allows users to connect Ethernet and DVI. An optional VGA and HDMI dongle costs extra. The 2-megapixel webcam offered fairly good visuals while chatting with a friend over Skype, but he noted that the image froze every now and then; however, this was most likely due to our Internet connection.

Display & Audio
The 13.4-inch wide-screen LED display offers a 1,366×768-pixel native resolution, which is standard for an upscale 13-inch system. Screen images were bight and clear, although the overly glossy screen coating picked up plenty of glare. The stereo speakers, mounted on the bottom surface (which would be raised off the ground when the laptop lid is open) are tinny and underpowered; we suggest headphones for almost all audio use.

Performance

The 1.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 and 4GB of RAM powered the Adamo XPS to a PCMark Vantage score of 3964, 1200 points above the ultraportable average. The only other system with similar specs—the Samsung X360, which had the same processor and a 128GB SSD—scored 3,184. Still, the Sony Vaio Z, which costs $100 more, but has a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i5-520M processor and two SSDs, scored two and a half times higher: 9936. The Adamo XPS’ Samsung 128GB SSD (PB22 JS3) was quite zippy, booting the 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium operating system in just 33 seconds. The drive duplicated a 4.97GB folder of multimedia files in 1 minute and 54 seconds, a rate of 44.6 MBps. While that’s more than twice the ultraportable average (21.6 MBps), it pales in comparison to the Vaio Z’s transfer rate of 127 MBps (which has twin SSDs). Transcoding a 114MB MPEG-4 to AVI using Oxelon Media Encoder took 1 minute and 46 seconds, 12 seconds faster than the ultraportable average, but about a minute longer than the Vaio Z.

Predictably, graphics scores from the integrated Intel GMA4500MHD GPU were pretty low. The Adamo XPS scored just 701 on 3DMark06, about 150 points below the category average, and other recent 13-inch systems, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 (908), and the Sony Vaio Y (906). The Sony Vaio Z’s integrated graphics also proved far superior, notching 1,900 on the same test.

When playing World of Warcraft at 1024 x 768 and with graphics set to default, we eked out just 23 frames per second. Still, the machine was powerful enough to make for a smooth experience when flying around New York City in Google Earth.

Design
The MSI X350 has a distinct appearance, thanks to its ultra-thin form factor. People will instantly get attracted to its slimness and lightweight. The X350 is easy to carry around and won’t weigh your backpack down. It comes in black and silver color options, while most of its body has a diamond cluster design pattern. This texture feels nice, especially the palm rest area. However, the top half is covered by a glossy material that attracts fingerprints. Earlier, we’d complained about the X340′s flimsy build quality, but we’re happy to report that things have improved in the X350. Although it isn’t built like a tank (in other words, like the Macbook Air), the build quality’s quite decent. A feeling of sturdiness is delivered due to the metallic lining covering the bottom half. The screen hinge offers fair resistance as well. On the inside, we have a 13-inch display bearing an ideal 1366 x 768 pixel resolution. The display portrays good clarity for text and visuals. The brightness was upto the mark as well, and it was a good experience to watch HD movies on it. The webcam is pretty decent too.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The MSI X350’s large island-style keyboard is one of the most comfortable and responsive we’ve tested. After just a few minutes of using the notebook, we managed to get a score of 92 words per minute on the Ten Thumbs Typing Tutor test, 12 wpm above our typical 80-wpm score and a new personal best for this reviewer. We found the 4-inch-long palm rest a comfortable place to put our big wrists, but those with particularly short arms and fingers may find themselves stretching a little to get to the keys. Our only gripe is that some keys are undersized, including the right Shift, Enter, and Backspace keys.

The large, 3.5 x 2-inch touchpad on the X350 has a comfortable black surface that gave us plenty of room to navigate around the desktop with accuracy. It also supports multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom; the Sentelic driver software that comes pre-installed gave us very fine control over the pad’s sensitivity and various multitouch gestures. Because the touchpad is so large and does not have palm rejection capabilities, we initially had a problem with moving the pointer while we were typing. However, after we turned on the touchpad’s typing detection, our problems were solved. While we always prefer discrete mouse pad buttons to a single bar, the X350’s single bar offered decent tactile feedback and was not too stiff.

Ports
Moving on, to the left we have a VGA, LAN, HDMI port and SD/MMC card slot. To the right, there are two closely packed USB ports. Thus, if you have a slightly wide peripheral like some of the wireless data cards, it will cover a part of the other port, thus rendering it useless. Also, just two USB ports could prove insufficient for some. These are followed by a headphone/microphone jack and the power port. We like the fact that thin and light models like the X350 come with petite power adapters like the ones bundled with netbooks, which are easier to carry.

Performance
The MSI X350’s 1.3-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU, integrated Intel GMA 4500 graphics, and 5,400-rpm hard drive won’t set any speed records, but they offer more than adequate performance for everyday tasks, from watching high-def videos to surfing the web, transcoding video, and navigating the globe in Google Earth. However, several larger and heavier 13-inch notebooks in the same price range carry more powerful processors that turned in stronger results.

On PCMark Vantage, a synthetic benchmark that measures overall performance, the X350 scored 2,631, which is nearly 1,000 points better than last year’s single-core MSI X340, but 600 points below the ultraportable category average. The 4.8-pound ASUS U30Jc-1A ($879), which costs $20 less than the X350 and sports a 2.26-GHz Intel Core i3 CPU, scored a massive 5,334. And the 4.8-pound Apple MacBook ($999) managed an impressive 4,259 as well.

The MSI X350’s 5,400-rpm, 500GB Toshiba hard drive booted into Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit) in a mediocre 64 seconds, 5 seconds slower than the category average. Perhaps part of the problem is the 14 seconds of BIOS POST time that takes place before Windows even starts loading.

The X350’s hard drive took 3 minutes and 58 seconds to complete the LAPTOP Transfer Test, in which we copy 4.97GB of mixed media files. That’s a rate of 21.4 MBps, which is a little slower than the category average of 25.3 MBps, but still faster than some of its competitors. The U30Jc-1A managed only 20.9 MBps and, when running Windows 7 via Boot Camp, the MacBook was even slower at 19.6 MBps.

The X350 took 1 minute and 52 seconds to transcode a 114MB MPEG-4 video to AVI format using Oxelon Media Encoder. That’s 15 seconds faster than the category average of 2 minutes and 7 seconds. However, the U30Jc-1A finished in only 1 minute and 12 seconds, while the MacBook took only 1 minute and 7 seconds.

Design
The Elitebook 6930P is exactly what they intended it to be – a sturdy, rugged and portable business notebook. At dimensions of 13.0 x 9.6 x 1.2 inches, it is much more compact than other notebooks of its class, however it is a bit bigger than the Dell Latitude E6400, its main opponent. It weighs about 5.2 pounds which makes it very light and portable compared to others. It features a brushed metal design which is both tough and elegant and exudes a rugged feel. It has a anodized aluminium lid with a magnesium alloy chassis which provide a very strong shell to the notebook. It can easily survive some drops and bumps and emerge unscathed.

Keyboard
One handy little extra is a keyboard light which pops up above the display should you want to type, say, on board a darkened ‘plane. Above the keyboard is a series of touch-sensitive controls for Information, WiFi, Presentation, Mute and a Volume slider, while to the right of the TouchPad is a fingerprint scanner for extra security. f you need a robust, hard working notebook with a decent sized keyboard, multiple WiFi options, several specifically useful business and security options plus easy to use controls, then it may be worth joining the Elite.

Display and Sound
The 14.1-inch, 1280 x 800-pixel display indeed looked bright when we watched an episode of Mad Men. The matte screen offered versatile viewing angles; we could comfortably watch when we pushed the screen forward, which is good for presenters and frequent flyers, and even at a near 180-degree angle from the sides. The speakers, located on the front underbelly of the notebook, delivered surprisingly loud sound.

Performance :
The HP Elitebook 6930P is powered by a Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 2.40 GHz processor with 3 MB L2 cache at 1066 MHZ FSB. It is one of the best mobile processors available today and provides a potent mix of power and power efficiency. It comes with 2 GB DDR2 RAM clocked at 800 MHZ which is enough to run most applications and games. If need be, the RAM can be upgraded to 4 GB. It comes with a 160 GB SATA HDD at 5,400 RPM by default, which can be switched with a 7,200 RPM for increased speed performance. You also have a 8X DVD +/- RW bundled with the notebook. Finally, the base 6930P comes with the Intel GMA X4500 onboard graphics solution which can be substituted with a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 256 MB for increased performance for a nominal cost to obtain much better gaming and graphics performance.

It comes loaded with the Microsoft Windows Vista Business operating system. It boots up in about 1.2 minutes. To instantly access your emails, calendar, tasks and contacts, you can use HP’s Quick Look 2 software before the system boots. In Vista, the performance is great and fluid, with no signs of lags or sluggishness at all. The Elitebook 6930P comes loaded with nifty little utilities by HP like QuickLook 2, SpareKey, HP Privacy Manager and HP File Sanitizer which improve the functionality of the notebook greatly.

Design
The MacBook Air maintains one of the sveltest profiles in mobile computing. When closed, its profile is unbelievably thin, measuring just 0.7 inches at its meatiest point. As with the previous MacBook Air, the new model keeps the same minimalist look by housing the lone USB port, headphone, and Mini-DisplayPort connections behind a small door built into the right, rear corner of the chassis. On the opposite side of the notebook you’ll find the MagSafe power jack, which represents the only other port on the entire system.

Still, you get a full-size keyboard with Chiclet-styled keys that are the staple of Apple notebooks. The individual keys delivered good tactile feedback as we keyed in URLs and crafted e-mails. The backlight-ready keyboard project a cool, white illumination in low-light situations (you can adjust brightness with the F5 and F6 keys). The multitouch trackpad allowed us to scroll through Web pages in Safari effortlessly by swiping three fingers across its surface, and zoom in and out of photos using pinch gestures.

The 13.3-inch (1280 x 800-pixel resolution) LED display remains one of the best in the ultraportable space. Colors were brilliant and blacks were rich when we viewed downloaded Flickr images and movie trailers at Apple.com. The high-gloss screen kicks back reflections (especially when viewing a Web page with a dark color scheme), but viewing angles were quite good.

Display
he screen on the MacBook is very nice, with vibrant colors and intense backlight. Black levels are nice and even with very little backlight bleed showing through even on very dark scenes in movies or games. Comfortable viewing brightness during my review was around 15-20%, matching 80% on my Thinkpad. 100% on the MacBook Air is close to the brightness levels that my desktop LCD can reach. Viewing angles of the LCD were above average.

Horizontal viewing range was perfect up until the screen was blocked by metal backing, but vertical viewing range was limited if you went 10 to 15 degrees up or down from straight on.

No screen defects were present on our online purchased model; this included stuck and dead pixels as well as backlight bleed.

Keyboard
Apple’s full Keyboard and LCD Screen give the Air a footprint larger than that of the competition. Counterintuitive, but it works. That nagging feeling you get when you have to tuck into a few hours of work into a subnote’s tiny interfaces are gone, so I’d have no hesitation using the Air for 8 hours a day. The keyboard is backlit, and black, perhaps as a homage to the titanium notebooks from Apple a few generations back. (And will be useful in keeping the keys from looking disgusting after a few months.) The spacing is the same as that on the standard MacBook, which I like, it has arrows and the updated dashboard, expose, and spaces buttons on top. The keyboard is also backlit, and uses the ambient light sensor to change its brightness.

Performance
The 1.86-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (an upgrade from the previous model’s 1.6-GHz CPU) and 2GB of non-expandable DDR3 RAM may not be breathtaking specs, but they were more than capable of delivering a very smooth Mac OS X Leopard experience. Applications loaded quickly, and we didn’t encounter many instances of the dreaded “pinwheel” that appears when the system hangs even while videochatting with friends in iChat, streaming audio from Slacker Internet Radio, and working within Google Docs. The smooth performance even held up when we converted a 2-minute-and-16-second video clip (720 x 480-pixel resolution) from MP4 to AVI in just 65 seconds.

Using Geekbench (which evaluates CPU and RAM performance), the MacBook Air notched a score of 2,526, which was lower than the aluminum MacBook  (3,512) and the 15-inch MacBook Pro (3,672), which feature 2.4-GHz and 2.53-GHz processors, respectively. The OS booted in a quick 31 seconds, approximately half the time of typical Vista-powered notebooks.

Battery and Power
Apple claimed five hours of battery life with wireless enabled, and from my testing I think that would be possible … under the right situation. With screen brightness at 25%, Bluetooth off, and WiFi on, the MacBook Air got 4 hours and 20 minutes of battery life with above average web activity. Half of this time was spent in Mac OS, with the other half in Vista. If you had very light internet traffic, or even had wireless disabled and were just typing on the notebook you should get five hours or more productivity from the battery.

One huge complaint this notebook gets in my opinion is the integrated battery. Not only can you not swap the battery if it dies while traveling, but to make matters worse the charging speed is abysmal. Our MacBook Air from a dead state would only reach 25-30% after charging for one hour with the notebook turned off. On most notebooks, in this period of time the battery would be well above 50% if not much higher.

Spec

• CPU 1.86-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Operating SystemOS X 10.5 Leopard
• RAM 2GB
• RAM Upgradable to 2GB
• Hard Drive Size 128GB
• Hard Drive Type SSD Drive
• Display Size 13.3
• Native Resolution 1280×800
• Graphics Card Nvidia GeForce 9400M
• Video Memory 256MB
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• Ports (excluding USB) Headphone; Mini DisplayPort USB Ports
• Warranty/SupportOne-year limited/90-day toll-free phone Size12.8 x 8.9 x 0.7 inches Weight3.0 pounds

Design
The 15-inch MacBook Pro sports the same carved-from-a-single-chunk-of-metal unibody design as its brethren, with a sturdy aluminum chassis and rounded edges. The overall look is classy and modern, though it makes upgrading individual components (like the RAM and hard drive) more difficult, as the entire bottom must be unscrewed.

The MacBook Pro has the same dimensions as before (14.4 x 9.8 x 1.0 inches), but weighs a slightly heavier 5.6 pounds. While we definitely felt it carrying the machine home, it did fit in our messenger bag, which is more than we can say about most 15-inch notebooks. The only system that comes close is the HP Envy 15, which has an equally slim and stylish profile (15.0 x 9.6 x 1.0 inches) and weighs a lighter 5.2 pounds. Regardless, this notebook will take up your entire tray table if you take it on a flight.

Keyboard & Touchpad
The full-size keyboard is a departure from the original one used in the 15-inch (Penryn). The new MacBook Pro adopts the non-interconnecting, groove-less keys from the MacBook Air and the new MacBook 13-inch (Aluminum). Typing is an absolute pleasure, not a chore, and the illuminated keyboard is a great asset in darkly lit areas. Competitors like the HDX16t and the Studio 15 use more traditional keyboards.

Evidently, the thought never occurred to anyone that a touchpad and mouse button can be combined into a single entity, thereby creating a larger surface to scroll, click and navigate. Aside from Apple, anyway. The touchpad slopes downward allowing you to click at the bottom, left and right hand sides of it, but not at the top. Apple even figured out the right sensitivity levels to use for the mouse click button. Clicking the entire touchpad seemed awkward at first, but it didn’t take long for me to get used to it. And then there’s the elusive right click mouse button that in the past could only be triggered with the help of the Control key. In Leopard’s System Preferences, you can designate the touchpad to right-click simply by applying two fingers or a single finger to the right and left bottom corners.

The new MacBook Pros come with gesture capabilities as well. In addition to pinching, rotating, and enlarging with two fingers, you can swipe four fingers to the right or left to switch between applications. Swiping upwards with four fingers will trigger the Expose application, while swiping four fingers downwards will bring up the dashboard. Applying three fingers to it will let you peruse through photos in the iPhoto application. This is very cool stuff.

Display and Audio
As usual, we loved the bright and crisp 15.6-inch display on the MacBook Pro. Its resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels is adequate, though we suspect many photographers and other creative pros will opt for the 1680 x 1050-pixel option. While reflections from the glossy display weren’t overwhelming, it’s also nice to know there’s an antiglare option–though only for the higher resolution display. Still, colors were bright, blacks were deep and dark, and viewing angles were excellent both vertically and horizontally.

Speakers on either side of the keyboard provided very good audio. At full volume, the Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feelin” filled a small room; higher tones were crisp without sounding distorted, and lower notes, such as the bass line in the song, had enough presence without being overwhelming.

Ports
Unfortunately, its feature set is the one place where the new MacBook Pro couldn’t deliver. Built-in media card readers are found in almost every laptop on the market—except those with the Apple logo. With the proliferation of digital cameras, you’d think that Apple would at least include an SD slot. The MacBook Pro, however, did manage to carry forward the ExpressCard slot, for expansion devices like mobile broadband. According to Steve Jobs, Apple’s reluctance to support Blu-Ray drives revolves around licensing and cost issues. If you run down the HDX16t’s features list, you can find things like Blu-Ray drives, a media card reader, E-SATA and HDMI ports—those are features that MacBook Pro users will miss.

At least for current MacBook Pro owners, the features didn’t get any worse. There are 2 USB ports, a Firewire 800 port, Ethernet, optical out and a headphone jack. The slot-loading DVD burner works the same way as older generation drives. The one significant change is cutting off DVI-out in favor of DisplayPort. Apple and Lenovo believe that DisplayPort is the video port of the future, while every other laptop manufacturer is betting on HDMI. Either technology, though, can drive both audio and video to an external display; DVI-Out carries video only. There are minor storage enhancements as well, such as the addition of a 320GB hard drive (5,400rpm and 7,200rpm versions), and an insanely expensive 128GB SSD option ($500). And of course, the MagSafe magnetic adapter, the iSight webcam, and the Apple remote can also be found on the new MacBook Pro.

Performance
Like other systems we’ve tested with the Intel Core i7-620M processor, the MacBook Pro returned superb results, especially considering it was paired with 4GB of RAM. After installing Windows 7, we ran PCMark Vantage in Boot Camp, and saw a score of 6699; that’s nearly double the mainstream average of 3,885, not to mention the previous 15-inch MacBook Pro’s score of 3,285 (which used a 2.66-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4GB of RAM). The HP Envy 15, which uses a 1.6-GHz Intel Core i7-720QM processor and 6GB of RAM, came in about 500 points lower, at 6,173. However, the Sony Vaio Z, which had a 2.4-GHz Core i5-520M processor, scored a much 9936 (though that system had dual SSDs).

Samsung’s R580 has an heir. The gaming suitable 15.6 incher of mid 2009 combined good graphic performance with an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4650 and a feasible processor performance with an Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 (2.0 GHz) together in an affordable notebook. The R522 was priced around 650 euro in the summer of 2009.

Intel’s new mobile processor generation, Core i3, i5 and i7, found their way onto the wish lists of notebook buyers at the turn of the year 2009/2010. Numerous tests quickly revealed that a mobile Core i5 has the best value for money ratio. The Core i7s are more expensive for OEM manufacturers in procurement and ultimately don’t provide private customers with significantly more performance. Additionally, the quad-core i7′s battery life is considerably shorter than the one of the dual-core i5.

The mobile Core i5, in combination with a middle class graphic card, should exactly meet the wishes of many notebook buyers: An efficient system for multimedia requirements on which many current games run smoothly. All of this should cost a lot less than 1000 euro. Samsung has chosen the Core i5-520M beside Nvidia’s GeForce GT 330M and places them in a red case for a bit more than 800 euro. Does the manufacturer manage to hit the bullseye with the R580 Hawk?

Design

Shiny laminates featuring geometric patterns or floral designs on laptops are nothing new. While others, like HP, Gateway, and Toshiba, went with a single color, the R580 uses two: A deep cherry red stain in the center that fades into a thick black border. Embedded in the cherry/black glaze is a ripple pattern, which, altogether, Samsung is calling its Crystal Wave design. Though the material used is as plasticky as the HP Pavilion dv6-2150us and Gateway NV7915u, the R580 stands out from the crowd. Even so, metal frames, like those found in the Asus UL50VF-A1 and the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch, are more appealing from a design standpoint. At 5.5 pounds, it’s lighter than the Dell Studio 1555-4285MBU (5.9 lbs) and the Acer Aspire AS5740-6378 (5.7 lbs).

The 15.6-inch widescreen provides plenty of viewing space. Its price, though, limits the R580 to a 1,366-by-768 resolution, which is good enough for a 720p HD experience. Media centers like the Acer Aspire AS8940-6865 bump the resolution up to 1,920-by-1,080 for full (1080p) HD, while pricier systems like the HP Envy 15 ($1,800 direct, ) give you the option to upgrade to a full HD resolution. The island-style keyboard is nearly identical to the Asus UL50VF-A1, right down to the adjacent numeric keypad. It doesn’t have a backlit keyboard like the Apple MacBook Pros, but there are LED lights on the corner of the touchpad. The mouse buttons are easy to click, though they aren’t as soft as the ones found on the Dell 1555-4285MBU.

The Blu-ray drive (BD-Rom) is the showpiece of the R580′s feature set. I’ve scoured the Web for the 15-inch systems that have Blu-ray drives, and almost all of them cost more than $1,000. Fact is, Blu-ray titles are coming down in price and you can rent them for as low as $6 a month on Netflix. And if a 15.6-inch screen isn’t big enough, you can use the included HDMI port and take the experience to a bigger display. The 500GB hard drive is also impressive, given that the Asus UL50VF-A1, Acer AS5740, and HP dv6-2150us come with 320GB drives. And basic amenities like 4 USB port (one of which doubles as an E-SATA connection), ExpressCard, an SD slot, and VGA are all present.

Keyboard & Touchpad

As in the R522 predecessor, Samsung applies a chiclet keyboard. The keys are connected by crosspieces. The key gaps have been increased, as Samsung has selected an alternative without a key base. The keys bid the typist a pleasant, distinct pressure point, a long stroke length, and a firm stroke. The keyboard is embedded firmly on almost the entire surface; merely the numerical block yields slightly. The large gaps and the well-executed layout simplify the frequent typist’s work. The numerical block makes it easy to input columns of figures.

We don’t like the squeezed in, too small arrow keys, though. In computer games, as well as Excel, it often results in fingers hitting the “one” or the shift key. If you’re controlling a car race game, you’ll quickly get annoyed.

The mouse substitute is worked into the wrist-rest. A nonslip, transparent coating marks the sensitive surface. Four small blue LEDs light up as soon as we touch the pad so that it can’t be missed in dim surroundings. If you like, you can imagine these to be the lights of a runway. The surface has a vertical and horizontal scroll bar, even if it’s not been made optically visible. It is a multi-touch pad that recognizes two finger gestures. For example, the user can zoom by spreading two fingers on it. The keys click quietly but somewhat clattery and therefore make a low-end impression.

Performance

Samsung R580 The Blu-ray drive is just part of the R580′s appeal. Offering it at this price with the latest Intel Core i5 processor is a feat few can pull off. The 2.27 GHz Core i5-430M processors and 4GB of memory are a solid combination, matching that of the Acer AS5740. According to video encoding (49 seconds) and Cinebench R10 (7,824) tests, the R580 blew away the Core i3 processors found in the HP dv6-2150us and Dell Inspiron i1464-4382OBK ($749.98 list, ). Its PCMark Vantage score (5,779) took top honors, while Photoshop CS4 scores indicate that this is a perfect machine for advanced photo editing.

While an Intel integrated graphics chipset is the popular standard among affordable laptops, Samsung goes against the grain by including an Nvidia GeForce 310M graphics chip. Not only will this chip optimize Blu-ray and HD playback, but it can also muscle through the latest 3D games. Crysis and World in Conflict scores were indicative of a smooth gaming experience, and 3DMark06 scores overtook those of the UL50VF-A1.

The disadvantage, however, of building a laptop around power is that battery life takes a beating. The R580 comes with a 48WH (6-cell) battery, which is consistent with its rivals. A 3 hour, 42 minute MobileMark 2007 score may not seem like much, but remember, this is a desktop replacement laptop that will probably sit near a power outlet most of the time.

The Samsung R580 is the cheapest desktop replacement I’ve seen that bundles a Core i5 processor and a Blu-ray drive. It’s tailor-made for high definition enthusiasts who aren’t ready to pay over a $1,000 for a fancy media center. Aside from some minor tradeoffs (a low resolution and small battery), they won’t matter as much once you realize how much more you’re paying for these amenities elsewhere.

Design
The Aspire Timeline 4810T has brushed aluminum that not only gives it a sleek look but also contributes to its lightweight nature, coming at only 1.6kg. The Aspire Timeline 3810T is 24mm thick and rising just 5 mm at it’s highest. The machine’s keyboard offers reasonably large keys so regardless of your hand and finger size, using it for long periods of time won’t prove tiring or troublesome. The trackpad complements this offering responsive performance and good feel though we have to say this trackpad doesn’t feel as good under our fingers as the Lenovo T400s (also reviewed on ITP.net) pad. The key tops are very glossy, smooth and flat making for a different feel than I am used to with most keyboards that have a slight concavity to the tops of the keys. Typing feel for the odd keyboard is good with a tactile feel and a decent click when keys are pressed. After a while, you do forget that the keys are flat. The 14-inch screen of the notebook is definitely geared more towards multimedia use than general productivity with its glossy finish. I have said it before; I am not a big fan of highly glossy screens because of the glare you have to deal with. You are in for some grief if you try and use the notebook outdoors. The screen works well, though, and has good color reproduction and no major issues with smearing or tearing when watching video online.

Performance
One of the big claims that Acer makes with the Timeline is all day computing from a single charge. Acer figures that the battery is good for a full eight hours of use per charge. If you read the benchmark section you know that with Battery Eater Pro and the Timeline set to 50% brightness and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off I was able to squeeze over four and a half hours from the battery. That is almost half the runtime that Acer promises, but as I said before, Battery Eater Pro is harder on batteries than most people will be in the real world. The battery life of the little machine is very impressive. Performance was the only area in which the 4810T struggled to impress and this was largely due to a lack of processing firepower. The machine relies on a Core 2 Solo 1.4GHz (single core) processor and while this will run most applications on the market, it won’t win any races. This fact shone through when we ran our PCMark Vantage benchmark as the Aspire scored a rather basic score of 1602 in the overall PCMark Suite test. The T400s by comparison managed a far higher figure of 5248.

Design
There are two aspects to the Alienware that make it stand out when you first see it; its physical size and its design. It’s actually quite compact for a notebook with a 17in screen – I guess black really is slimming. The traditional Alienware ribbed effect is present on the notebook lid along with the Alien head and I was delighted to see the squinty eyes light up blue when the notebook is powered on. I know it’s rather shallow to be impressed by such small things but then it’s the little things that make the difference. If you want your machine to stand out from the crowd at Lan party or when friends come over, this will do the trick. It’s not just the look, but the feel too. The new ‘Stealth Black’ finish is well named, not only looking good but having a slightly weird absorbent, slightly oily feel to it. If Alienware claimed that the m9750 was radar resistant, I’d probably believe it. The laptop’s body is large enough to fit a full-size keyboard and separate number pad, along with a generous touchpad. The wrist-rest area may be the largest we’ve ever seen, but it almost pushes the keyboard too far back–there’s a full 5.5 inches from the front edge of the laptop to the bottom of the keyboard. It took a little getting used to, and some users may find it uncomfortable. A Webcam sits above the screen, and a series of touch-sensitive media control and quick-launch buttons reside above the keyboard, but the volume control is shunted off to a small wheel on the left side of the system–we’d much refer a volume control somewhere on the keyboard-tray surface.

Display
The 1,920 x 1,200 resolution is really something, giving plenty of desktop real estate and making this a real contender as a desktop replacement. A possibly downside is that squeezed into a 17in display text at normal sizes can be quite small, so you may have to zoom up at times. But let’s face it, this is a notebook aimed at entertainment, not shopping lists or boring spreadsheets, though it will of course be pretty good for those as well. In pure quality terms the screen is good. It’s averagely bright but perfectly sharp, and its ‘Clearview’ coating gives it a high gloss sheen, effectively boosting colour and contrast. It also boosts reflections too though, and if you’re working in front of it for extended periods in a brightly lit environment, say the TrustedReviews office, then it could prove distracting. If you’re locked into a dark secluded gaming dungeon however, this screen will be right in its element.

Keyboard
As you might expect, beneath the screen you’ll find the keyboard. In an elegant touch I liked the way the area containing the hinges for the screen curve upwards. Beneath this you’ll find shortcut keys for the usual suspects such as your web browser, your mail program and your media player. There’s also a TV button, which makes sense as there’s an integrated TV tuner to make the most of Vista’s built-in Media Center software. Above these there’s a row of blue backlight indicators for wireless, charging, hard disk activity and if the mouse pad is active, as well as scroll and number lock. Of course the power button of the right of this has a cool blue light too.

Ports
On the left hand edge you’ll find an Express card slot – not PC Card, and a memory card reader. You’ll also find one mini Firewire port, a USB port and a Gigabit Ethernet socket and right in the corner a security hook, should you need to keep it locked down. On the opposite side you’ll find one more USB port, and all the audio sockets, headphone and microphone and line outs for front, centre, surround coming from the integrated Intel High Definition Audio chip to give you 7.1 when hooked up to a compatible speaker set. If you prefer to output digitally to an amplifier, there’s an optical port. There’s also an analogue volume wheel, though I found it was a little insensitive requiring far too much scroll to reach the desired level.

At the rear you’ll find DVI and VGA connectors and a hybrid TV tuner, giving you either analogue or digital, but not both. There’s an S-Video input to accompany this and audio in for connecting up a set-top box. There’s a final USB port, taking the count up to three and even a modem connector. The power input is right in the centre, which is unusual and kind of cool. One aspect that should be noted is that Alienware has made no pretensions at making this a Santa Rosa machine – there’s no Santa Rosa CPU, no Turbo Memory, no Draft-N wireless.

Performance
As expected, the Alienware Area-51 m9750 and its dual GeForce Go 7950GTX cards pummeled the competition in our F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 tests, offering up 81.1 frames per second in Quake 4, even at a ridiculously high 1,600×1,200 resolution with anti-aliasing turned on. We looked at the low-end Alienware m5790 earlier this year, and that system’s single ATI Radeon x1900 pumped around half the frames in the same Quake 4 test. The twin video cards in SLI mode are clearly the system’s highlight, as the m9750′s Core 2 Duo T7600 CPU performed on par with other recent systems in more mundane benchmarks, such as CNET Lab’s Multitasking, iTunes encoding, and Photoshop CS2 tests (although the Alienware’s 7,200rpm drives helped it power ahead in the Photoshop test).

The (nongaming) performance differences between this and other high-end laptops, such as the HP Pavilion HDX or the Apple MacBook Pro, are small enough to have little real-world effect, and all these systems are near the upper end of currently available hardware–although Intel is currently prepping a Core 2 Extreme mobile processor and Nvidia has a new DirectX 10 GPU, the GeForce 8700M GT, both of which will no doubt be included in Alienware systems later this year.

The Area-51 m9750 ran for a mere one hour and 12 minutes on our DVD battery drain test, a short lifespan, even for a massive desktop replacement system. Of course, powering a 1,920×1,200 display and two GPUs isn’t easy, and we don’t expect laptop gamers to keep their systems unplugged for any length of time.

Spec
Alienware Area-51 m9750
Windows XP Media Center Edition
2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7600
2048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz
512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 7950GTX
300GB Seagate 7,200rpm

Design
At 15.0 x 9.8 x 1.5 inches and 5.6 pounds, the ThinkPad SL510 is a bit bulky to carry, though it’s lighter than many other 15-inch notebooks. In terms of style, the system has the familiar black plastic ThinkPad design theme. Its black keyboard has a light blue Enter key, as well as the familiar red trackpoint nub in the middle. Status lights and the power button appear to the right of the keyboard, while the volume buttons sit on the left.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard was very comfortable to type on and felt very similar to the keyboards on the T-series ThinkPads. The layout is different, missing the extra row of function keys at the top, but the main area has been left intact. Key action was great, with a soft spring movement, giving off a mild click when pressed. Key spacing is nearly identical to regular ThinkPads, with barely any difference noted switching between my T60 and the SL510. The biggest difference is the newer keyboards are slightly quieter. On the left side of the keyboard are some quick-access buttons, used for muting system volume or the microphone, as well as adjusting volume levels.
The touchpad is an ALPS model that looks and feels identical to the newer textured ones seen on the latest ThinkPad models. It is flush mount to the palmrest, and given a soft texture that is supposed to help with traction under varying conditions. I am personally a fan of the old matte plastic style, but given enough time the newer one might grow on me. In general I found the touchpad to be as responsive as the Synaptics model found on higher-end ThinkPad models. The only weakness I saw was tap to select, where the cursor would sometimes not let go of a selected object without a very deliberate click. This is common with many ALPS touchpads, but can be avoided most of the time.

Display and Audio
The system’s 15.6-inch, LED-backlit screen is available in either glossy VibrantView or Antiglare matte varieties. Our review unit came with the matte screen that produced sharp images, but colors were muted, and viewing angles were poor. Even from 45 degrees, colors washed out significantly. When the screen is tilted down slightly—as you might have to do if you’re looking across a conference table at someone—the color change is even more dramatic. To be fair, the system is probably too large to fit on a tray table in the first place.

Ports and Webcam
The SL510 comes with a standard array of ports, including VGA, HDMI, audio in/out, Ethernet, ExpressCard/34, and four USB ports, one of which that doubles as an eSATA connection. A 7-in-1 memory card reader also allows you to get data from cameras and other devices. The 2.0-megapixel webcam provides workable, but unremarkable image quality. When we used it to make a Skype call from our office, the smooth video was accented with somewhat muted colors.

Performance
The SL510’s 2.53-GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and 3GB of DDR3 RAM allowed the system to achieve 3,493 on PCMark Vantage, a benchmark that measures overall system performance. This score is slightly higher than the mainstream notebook category average of 3,225, and well ahead of the HP ProBook 4510s. However, the original ThinkPad SL400 scored a very similar 3,411, and the ThinkPad T400 notched a higher 3,576. In casual use, the system was smooth and responsive as we navigated the desktop and composed documents in Microsoft Word.

Graphics
The SL510 is available with both discrete and integrated graphics options. Our review unit came with an integrated Intel GMA X4500 graphics chip that returned a weak score of 1,011 in the benchmark 3DMark06, which was about a third of the category average (3,413). However, the HP ProBook 4510s did even worse (831), though the SL400 (2,251) did better—likely due to its discrete graphics chip.

Battery Life and Wi-Fi
On the LAPTOP Battery Test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi, the ThinkPad SL510’s 6-cell battery lasted 3 hours and 56 minutes, which is 20 minutes longer than the category average for mainstream notebooks. However, the HP ProBook 4510s lasted 4 hours and 31 minutes, and the original ThinkPad SL400 lasted 5 hours and 20 minutes

Key Specs
Processor: 2.53GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8700
Memory: 3GB RAM
Storage: 320GB hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD±RW
Screen: 15.6 inches (1,366×768 native resolution)
Graphics: Integrated Intel X4500MHD
Weight: 5.7 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1.4×13.5×9.7 inches
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)

Conclusion
The Lenovo ThinkPad SL510 proved to be a reasonable compromise between price and quality. While it doesn’t offer the nicer touchpad or rugged build quality of the T-series, it retails for almost half the starting price. The SL-series is a good option for users looking for only basic qualities in a notebook like a standard WXGA screen or integrated graphics. It still offers a great keyboard and extended batteries if you plan on typing documents all day without breaking the wallet. Overall if you are looking for a notebook that will be sitting on a desk most of the day and staying out of harm’s way, the SL510 is worth taking a look at.

Dell announced the availability of the Vostro V13, a new addition to its small-business Vostro line of laptops. The big news here is that it’s the company’s first ULV thin-and-light for the business sector, an area that seems to be a big focus factor in a down economy when lots of small business entrepreneurs are looking for affordable portables. We had the chance for a quick up-close hands-on look at one, and it’s definitely an attractive little laptop.

The V13 is a collision of high end—the design, angled and thin, heavily echoing the original Adamo’s silhouette, and build quality, as sturdy as any non-unibody laptop we’ve tried to bend—and low rent—the keyboard is straight off Dell’s budget Inspiron line and well, I already told you what’s inside (there’s other spec sparseness as well, like 2GB RAM, VGA out and 2 USB ports, one of which is a combo eSATA number). The 13.3-inch, LED-backlit, anti-glare display is nice enough though, at a resolution of 1366×768. The 6-cell sealed battery is rated for 4 hours and 42 minutes, according to Dell, but expect less actually using it, obviously.For Windows 7 and a Core 2 Duo ULV, the price rises in the range of mid-to-high $600, which is still really good compared with its closest competitors, the HP Pavilion dm3 and Asus UL30A-A1.The Vostro V13 will support up to 4GB of RAM, and can be optionally upgraded with 3G mobile broadband.

An Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU powers the Dell Vostro V13, and its 1.3GHz clock speed and two CPU cores help move things along swiftly. You can multitask, watch high resolution videos or create media-rich presentations without getting bogged down. Helping the CPU are 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, a 500GB (5400rpm) hard drive and integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics.

In our WorldBench 6 benchmark suite the notebook scored 67. This means that, in terms of overall system performance, the Dell Vostro V13 is over twice as fast as a typical netbook with a 1.66GHz Intel Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM.

In our iTunes MP3 encoding and Blender 3D rendering tests, which primarily test CPU speed, the Dell Vostro V13 was approximately three times as fast as netbook. The hard drive’s performance was also impressive, recording a speed of 35 megabytes per second in our transfer tests. However, it is a big drive and it will inevitably slow down somewhat once you start to really fill it with files.

The Dell Vostro V13 is one of a number of ultraslim laptops to hit the market in recent times, but its design is a little different to the norm. It actually looks a lot like the Adamo by Dell. The screen is mounted almost 1cm in from the spine of the notebook, so its metal hinges are not located directly on the spine itself.

The spine acts as a handle of sorts. The location of the screen gives the notebook more strength and changes its centre of gravity. It feels beautifully balanced; when the notebook is lying flat on a desk, the screen can be lifted using only one hand (it doesn’t have a latch). The hinges have just the right amount of resistance to allow precise adjustments.

Tailored for discriminating small-business travelers, the Vostro V13 combines robust design and ultra-light mobility at a price that aims to keep you on budget.It may lighten your carrying case, but the Vostro V13 has the productivity-empowering features to keep you working at full capacity. Stay in Touch: With the integrated webcam and microphone, you can use your favorite communication software to make Internet calls, conduct video conferences and remotely exchange files. Always Be Connected: Go wireless with a full range of connectivity options: 802.11g/n wireless LAN, Bluetooth, and WWAN mobile broadband (coming soon).When your business demands time, your technology shouldn’t. The Vostro V13 offers a suite ofcustomizable service and support solutions designed specifically for small business.

Now that Windows 7 is starting to close the gap with Apple’s operating system, it’s only fitting that it runs on systems that come closer to Apple’s vaunted design. One of the first to approach this ideal is the HP Envy 13 (starting at $1,699; $1,899 as configured). In both looks and performance, this system meets or exceeds all of its Windows competitors. However, the Envy 13 costs $500 more than the 13-inch MacBook Pro. For that premium, HP rewards you with faster performance, switchable graphics, a brighter screen, and up to 14 hours of battery life (with the optional slice). However, the Envy 13 has a few flaws that otherwise prevent this system from being the ultimate ultraportable.

Design
HP says that the new notebooks, announced today, are built from the “Voodoo Envy legacy,” but the design appears to borrow a lot from Apple’s unibody MacBook Pro line. Zoom”HP Envy includes the latest in materials and technology inside and out and pushes the technological and performance boundaries of what can be done in sleek, powerful and lightweight notebook PCs,” said Ted Clark, senior vice president and general manager, Notebook Global Business Unit, Personal Systems Group, HP. “Discerning consumers will get a premium experience and performance. Like the MacBook Pros, the Envy 13 and Envy 15 feature metal casing – though HP’s offering uses a combination of both aluminum and magnesium, making it lighter at the expense of losing some rigidity.

Keyboard and Touchpad
As noted above, the Envy 13 has a full-size island-style keyboard. Its plastic black keys are smooth and comfortable to the touch, and snap back responsively when pressed. There are no dedicated multimedia buttons, but the Function key operations have been reversed, so you no longer need to press Fn in order to adjust the volume, change music, and so forth; it’s a welcome change. HP stole another card from the MacBook with its multitouch trackpad, which they are calling the ClickPad. I‘d suggest another and more appropriate name: FrustrationPad. The buttons are built into the touchpad. While it works fine as a normal trackpad—the left and right mouse button work just like a normal one—the frustration arrives when you try the gestures. Unlike the Apple touchpads, you have to activate the gestures by lightly touching two fingers on the pad. (I only learned this from reading the manual.) Once it is cued up, it responds to certain multitouch gestures, like pinching to zoom. Unfortunately, some gestures just seem to confuse the pad and it decides it doesn’t want to respond. Two-finger scrolling is a great example: it took me quite awhile to get the hang of trying to scroll down NYTimes.com, and when I did it was finicky. I missed the MacBook touchpad like a baby misses breast milk. And if you think I am just bad with my fingers, a number of people tried the trackpad and found the same problem. As for the island style keyboard, I love it. If it were only backlit, though, it would be total perfection.

Display and Audio
When powered off the 13.1-inch frameless display looks exactly like that found on the MacBook, complete with the silver frame surrounding the black flush bezel. But that all changes when the system is powered on and the 1600×900 resolution LED Infinity WS display is illuminated. Dubbed the HP Radiance, the 410 nit display has an 82 percent color gamut (versus standard 45-60 percent). Not only are viewing angles good, but colors just pop and are incredibly bright. Compared to the 15-Inch MacBook Pro, the Envy looked crisper and more vivid, though the MacBook looked more natural. While my eyes didn’t hurt after about six hours of consistent use, I was warned that the increased dots per inch could be hard on the eyes over a longer period of time. The Envy 13’s built-in speakers were somewhat underwhelming. When listening to Bruce Spingsteen’s “Hungry Heart” streamed from Pandora, there was a noticeable lack of bass; Clarence Clemons’ sax often became lost among the other instruments. When we plugged in a pair of Bose QuietComfort headphones, the difference was like night and day; sound was full and well represented, from the tinkling of the high notes on the piano to Max Weinberg’s snare drum. That’s because the Envy 13 partnered with Beats by Dr. Dre to custom design the audio subsystem. Likewise, we could clearly hear the driving bass line on Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” without it being overwhelming.

Ports and Webcam
In order to keep its svelte profile, the Envy 13 also shares a disturbing trait with the MacBook Air: a decided lack of ports. On the right side are two USB ports, HDMI, and an audio port. On the right is an SD Card slot and the power port. For Ethernet connectivity, users must attach the USB. If you like to cam with people in the dark, the Envy 15 has a Nightvision VGA LED-assist infrared webcam that is optimized for low-light or zero-light conditions.

Battery Life and Wi-Fi
The Intel WiFi Link 5100AGN delivered throughput of 20.8 Mbps at 15 feet and 16.7 Mbps at 50 feet; that’s in line with the ultraportable category averages (19.4/16.7 Mbps). While integrated mobile broadband is not an option, the Envy 13 does come with Bluetooth 2.1. When you pull the power cord, the Envy 13 automatically switches to integrated graphics mode (although users can easily switch it back to discrete). Using the integrated graphics, on our LAPTOP Battery Test (Web surfing via Wi-Fi), the removable four-cell battery on the Envy 13 lasted 4 hours and 19 minutes, about 40 minutes shy of the ultraportable average; with the slice battery, the system lasted 10:23.

Full Spec
CPU 2.13-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600
Operating System MS Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
The amount of memory our reviewed configuration comes with.
RAM 3GB (Upgradable to 5GB)
Hard Drive Size 250GB
Hard Drive Speed 5,400rpm
Display Size 13.1
Native Resolution 1600×900
Optical Drive External BD-ROM/DVD
Graphics Card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 (discrete); Intel GMA 4500MHD (integrated)
Video Memory 512MB
Wi-Fi 802.11a/g/n
Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.1
Mobile Broadband
Ports (excluding USB) HDMI; Headphone; Microphone
USB Ports 2
Warranty/Support 1-year/24/7 toll-free
Size 12.6 x 8.5 x 0.8 inches
Weight 3.8 pounds (5.2 pounds with slice battery)