“Display/Monitor”. This thing have an important role as the window of application. Earlier, PDA use monochromatic monitor, and now PDA with advanced technology possess ability to show more than 65.000 colors. With such colorful screen it can support many kinds of features in PDA, like games, camera and video. The more resolution amount the better image will be displayed. But this is also equal to more expensive of the price.

“Memory”. Numbers of PDA save data and operate application in RAM, which is memory built-in in the product because PDA doesn’t have a hard drive. If you choose operating system Pocket PC this means the PDA needs more memory, because the application in Pocket PC is more than application in Palm OS. The bigger the RAM the more application can be installed. Today, PDA has at least 16 MB for its RAM and for Pocket PC it has at least 32 MB. In case for saving more data each PDA provide different choices, like memory flash or memory stick.

“Upgrade”. Before you decided to buy PDA, think of what purpose do you have in using that PDA. Since, for adding extra components is not as easy as the computer. But there is other way to add feature, which is using removable memory cards. This feature allows features to add like MP3 and digital camera.

“Connectivity”. The era of internet and multimedia that happens everywhere also reach the PDA. Wireless networking that applied and linked to internet is 802.11b (WiFi- Wireless Fidelity) and 3G. This feature makes PDA easy to send and receive data within the area of telecommunication transition. Multimedia feature that highly demanded in PDA is MP3 player and digital camera.

Other things that you should carefully as the seller is about the guarantee of PDA, whether one day you need the service for repairmen from the manufacturer. How long does the manufacturer provide for the guarantee.

So, those are tips to purchase PDA and don’t forget to make research before you buy. Read reviews and comments from people that already have the experience using PDA.

Other type of tablet is that convertible tablet, which appears similar to notebook. Convertible type has the keyboard attached on it. Its screen is able to be rotate in 180 degrees. The screen can be fold and become flat. Slate type is lighter than convertible tablet PC. But on the other hand, the screen owned by convertible is wider compare to slate type. Many people today prefer to use this convertible type. Several professions would need to use convertible type of tablet PC are like lecturers, managers, engineer, lawyers, consultant and others. This type is more flexible to use and wider professions are suitable to use this convertible type.

The third type is hybrid type of tablet PC. This type is the combination of slate and convertible types. There is a removable keyboard that will function as the convertible type if it is put together.  Even though, this type is estimated will be more well-liked but today is still rare to be produced and remain low of demand.

Acer Aspire One D250 resembles the D150: It has the same keyboard, the same glossy black bezel surrounding a glossy 10.1-inch screen, and it’s even a similar shade of blue on the lid and the keyboard deck. It doesn’t have the metallic flecks of the D150, and the blue is more purple in tone, just enough for a noticeable difference. This netbook will also be available in black, white, and red.

At 10.2 x 7.2 x 1 inches and 2.2 pounds, it’s 0.8 inches narrower, 0.3 inches thinner, and more than half a pound lighter than the D150. In fact, with its charger, the AOD250 weighs just 2.8 pounds, the same as the D150 alone. Remarkably, it’s almost identical in thickness and weight to the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA, but, because it doesn’t have tapered sides, it looks larger at first glance.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The D250’s keyboard, unchanged from the D150, is firm and easy to type on; we had no problems typing this review in Microsoft Word. But there’s still a quarter inch of chassis on either side of the keyboard; a missed opportunity for Acer to install a larger, edge-to-edge keyboard, along the lines of the HP Mini 110 or Eee PC 1008HA.

The touchpad is comfortable to use, and offers very little friction, but at 2.0 x 1.5 inches, could be a little wider. The mouse button below is a single bar, lacking a divot to separate the two sides.

Performance

Like every other netbook with a 1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, the D250 provided fairly decent performance. Its PCMark05 score of 1,492 is about 100 points higher than the netbook average, but not quite as robust as the ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1,584), which has the slightly zippier 1.66-GHz Intel Atom N280 processor. Similarly, when we transcoded a 114MB video file from MPG4 to AVI using Handbrake, the D250 took 28:51 to complete the task, which is about 30 seconds faster than the netbook average and on a par with the HP Mini 110, but about 90 seconds slower than the Eee PC 1008HA.

The 160GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive booted Windows XP Home in a decent 49 seconds, almost the same time as the D150. On the LAPTOP Transfer Test (duplicating a 4.97GB folder of mixed media), however, the drive was marginally slower, taking 5 minutes 9 seconds to complete, at a rate of 16.5 MBps. That’s about 2 MBps faster than the netbook average, but about 1 MBps slower than the AOD150.

The D250 was capable when it came to our graphics benchmarks, however. The Intel GMA 945 GPU notched a score of 741 in 3DMark03, more than 100 points above average, and its score of 123 in 3DMark06 was about 30 points above average. We had no problems streaming videos and playing movies off the hard drive. While it took a few seconds to render the Grand Canyon in Google Earth, we were able to fly around the southwest U.S. fairly smoothly. Still, zooming in and out of lower Manhattan with 3D buildings enabled proved choppy.

Software

The Acer Aspire One D250 comes preloaded with a fair amount of software, including a 30-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Works (which seems a bit redundant), Acer GameZone, Google Desktop, Carbonite Online Backup, and a 60-day trial of McAfee Security Center. It also comes with the Acer eRecovery Management application.

Battery Life

The 3-cell battery achieved a runtime of 3 hours and 4 minutes, which is about 15 minutes longer than the average 3-cell netbook battery. Acer will also offer a 6-cell battery which, if the battery on the D150’s past performance is any indication, should provide about 6 hours of battery life. Unlike the 6-cell battery on the D150 (4400 mAh), the 6-cell battery being offered with the AOD250 will be a 5200-mAh, which should provide even more runtime.

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
At 13.3 x 9 x 1.4 inches and 5 pounds, the Toshiba Satellite M645 is light enough to carry in your bag. Given its short battery life (see below), however, plan on carrying its 0.7-pound power brick anywhere and everywhere you take it. The black chassis has a classy, understated aesthetic. The lid and deck are covered in Toshiba’s Fusion X2, a textured matte finish which looks up close like a tiny series of chains and doesn’t pick up fingerprints at all. The grain felt comfortable under our wrists as we typed and made a pleasant record-scratching sound when we ran our nails across it. The light-gray Fusion X2 finish on the touchpad, island-style keyboard, and touch-sensitive control bar all contribute to the handsome look.

Keyboard & Touchpad
The full-size keyboard with LED backlighting on the M645 features Chiclet-style keys that are responsive and provide a little extra spacing to prevent typos. The keys are large and flat and have a glossy texture that shows smudges from your skin oils over time. There is no noticeable flex unless you apply significant pressure to the keys in the middle of the board. A individual key presses are quiet with virtually no “click-clack” noise while typing; making it an excellent choice for taking notes in a classroom or office meeting room. The keyboard also features dedicated multimedia keys above the keyboard and dedicated home, end, page up and page down keys.

The Synaptics touchpad is a fairly nice with a matte texture that provides smooth cursor movement. The touchpad drivers provide excellent accuracy and minimal lag with a range of options. This is a multi-touch touchpad with customizable gestures and overall this touchpad works exactly like you want a touchpad to work. However, the touchpad buttons have very shallow feedback with moderately loud clicks when you press the buttons.

Port
The standard notebook assembly of m645 includes a DVD- drive, which can be updated to Blu-ray. We note the presence of wiFi module, gigabit ethernet port and possibility of wiMAX installation. The cost of base configuration will be $730.

Display and Sound
The Satellite M645′s 14-inch, 1366×768 display provided sharp images and bright colors when viewed head on. However, because its surface is so glossy, images washed out significantly at even 30 degrees to the right or left of center. And if you’re not using full brightness, there’s a good chance you’ll see your own face or the room behind you reflected in the panel.

That said, the Satellite M645 provided smooth, sharp, and noise-free playback of every video we threw at it, from a 1080p WMV file from Microsoft’s HD Showcase to a 720p episode of Fringe we streamed from Fox.com to a DVD of Dark City we played in Toshiba’s upscaling DVD software. In all cases, even dark areas that frequently show pixilation were smooth and colors were bright without looking oversaturated.

With its Harmon / Kardon speakers (powered by Dolby Advanced Audio) prominently mounted above the keyboard, the Satellite M645 produced the best audio we’ve ever heard from a mainstream notebook. When listening to a live version of the Jimi Hendrix classic “Machine Gun,” we could hear a clear separation between the drums coming from one speaker and the guitar from the other, giving us the illusion that we were sitting in the front row of a concert. This sound separation was even more apparent when we listened to the jazz standard “Morning Dance” by Spyro Gyra, which includes many more instruments. At maximum volume, the sound wasn’t overpowering but was loud enough to fill a medium-size room. Best of all, there was not even a hint of the distortion or tininess we normally experience on notebook speakers.

Performance
The Toshiba Satellite M640/M645 offers solid overall performance thanks to the combination of its Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and Nvidia graphics. The Intel Core i5 450Mprocessor is one of the nicer Core i5 processors currently on the market and provides a nice little boost over other 14-inch laptops equipped with slower Core i3 and i5 processors. Honestly, the Toshiba Satellite M645 is one of the best performing 14-inch notebooks we’ve reviewed.

The Nvidia GeForce 330M graphics are similar to the discrete graphics found in the popular Alienware M11x, so the Satellite M645 is a perfectly capable gaming machine. Well, with a few minor annoyances. First, the slow hard drive that I previously mentioned adds several lengthy delays during level and map load times in games. Second, in-game frame rates were sometimes a little slower when playing games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins … but the difference was only a few frames per second. Since the Toshiba has a faster CPU, I can only assume that the marginally worse gaming performance is due to the slow drive and the lack of gaming optimization found in Alienware notebooks.

Regardless, the Satellite M645 can still handle most modern games at the native 1366×768 screen resolution and thanks to Nvidia Optimus technology this notebook automatically switches between the Intel integrated graphics (for extended battery life) and the Nvidia dedicated graphics (for better video and gaming performance). You don’t have to worry about pressing any extra buttons to get the best out of this laptop.

Design

The N150 Plus (N150-11) makes a good first impression with its glossy lid. It’s an attractive deep red and black with a subtle dot pattern, though it picks up fingerprints in a hurry. (The N150 is also available in multiple colors for less cash, including Bermuda Blue, Gloss Black, Flamingo Pink, Matte Blue, and white). A dark red strip wraps around the sides and front of the machine, reminiscent of the chrome strip on the original NC10.

Under the lid we found a matte deck, bezel, and display instead of a glossy red/black deck. This looks a little dull but eliminates the annoyance of fingerprints. The battery raises the N150 Plus’ chassis about a quarter of an inch in the back, making for a comfortable typing angle. Small speaker grills sit just under the front lip of the system. The N150 Plus doesn’t have a power button in the hinge like older Samsung netbooks; instead, you’ll find a flip switch on the front. Unlike the rounded hinge design of the past, the N150 Plus has a turned-up, oblong flair that mitigates the slight bulk of the six-cell battery in the back.

Keyboard & Touchpad

Samsung keyboards have always been one of our favorites among netbooks that have been reviewed. It’s never a hardship to get used to it and you can immediately reach your normal typing speed. It’s got responsive and well-sized keys. The touchpad feels a bit cramped though that needs a little getting used to.

Display & Audio

The N150 Plus’ 10.1-inch, 1024 x 600-pixel LED-backlit matte display offered bright colors and deep blacks despite the lack of a glossy finish. We used the netbook in the sun and didn’t notice any glare. We’re also glad that there were no distracting reflections when watching dark scenes in movies or TV shows. Unfortunately, viewing angles weren’t very wide. Netbooks are not known for their good speakers. Most of them make tinny sounds or cracks audio at 100% volume. But the speakers on the Samsung N150 Plus was loud and clear, even at 70%, and audio didn’t distort at full volume.

Ports & Webcam

Along the edges of the Samsung N150 you get three USB 2.0 ports, a VGA port, microphone and headphone ports, 10/100 Ethernet and an SD card slot. That’s all standard fare for a netbook. However, one of the USB ports is of the ChargeableUSB type, which means that you can charge USB-based devices such as phones and MP3 players while the netbook is not even switched on. It’s not as good as Toshiba’s Sleep-and-charge USB ports, which can also recharge an iPhone, but it’s perfect for when you’re on-the-go and need to top-up any other types of USB-based devices — in our tests it worked well with our Creative Zen. ChargeableUSB can either be enabled from the Windows-based application or from the BIOS. You also get a webcam, Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi. We don’t like the location of the SD card slot on the front of the chassis; it can get in the way when you use the netbook on your lap, as the card sticks halfway out of the slot. Plus it’s not a springloaded slot.

Performance

The 1.66-GHz Intel Atom N450 processor and 1GB of RAM earned the Samsung N150 Plus a score of 1,300 on PCMark05. This is 133 marks below the netbook average (1,433) and also a bit below scores earned by other systems with this chip, including the ASUS Eee PC 1001P (1,384), MSI Wind U160 (1,406) and Samsung N210 (1,362). We also noticed that the machine betrayed a little sluggishness when we had more than six tabs open in Google Chrome while also running other programs (OpenOffice Writer, Windows Media Player, and Skype).

Design
The 1201PN looks identical to the 1201N, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Despite its graphics horsepower, the 1201PN remains very easy to carry, weighing just 3.2 pounds and measuring 1.06 inches to 1.3 inches at its thickest point. We still like the black glossy exterior, but the chassis picks up fingerprint smudges. The system also has a few chrome accents, including the power button, touchpad on/off button, and the mouse bar beneath the dimpled touchpad (more on that below). The left side of the 1201PN houses a VGA port, tiny AC adapter jack, HDMI output, and a USB port. You’ll find two more USB ports, an SD Card slot, headphone and mic jacks, an Ethernet port, and a Kensington Lock slot on the right. We like that both edges of the netbook have grooved horizontal lines, a nice touch.

Keyboard & Touchpad
Inside, more shiny black plastic frames an edge-to-edge raised Chiclet-style keyboard. The double hinge on the lid straddles either side of a battery that has minimal bulge on the 1201PN’s bottom and fits right into the back. The keyboard’s easy to type on and comfortable to work at on a desk or perched in one’s lap. The dimpled multitouch touchpad below is flush with the rest of the keyboard deck but responds well to finger gestures. A thin chromed-plastic rocker bar for button-pressing could have been a little more ergonomic. The dimpled black touchpad remains as accurate and responsive as ever, and we like how easy it is to find by feel. Multitouch gestures like pinch to zoom also worked well. However, we really dislike the narrow and stiff touchpad button. We especially found it annoying when trying to select text or crop a photo. In fact, we tried to avoid this button after a day of testing.

Display
The glossy 12.1-inch, LED-backlit display is about as roomy as netbook displays get. The generous 1,366×768 native resolution has a 16-to-9 aspect ratio; it’s a treat compared with the limited 1,024×600 resolution offered by the majority of Pine Trail entrants. And thanks to the Ion 2 graphics, streaming video looks much better on the Eee PC 1201pn than it does on most other netbooks. (Nvidia recommends downloading Adobe Flash 10.1 and browsing in Mozilla Firefox for the highest-quality experience.) Videos on Hulu.com played much more smoothly than on typical netbooks and only seldom stuttered. The HD version of the Avatar trailer (via YouTube) was smooth and completely stutter-free in 720p, although the color and crispness weren’t quite on a par with true HD. (When we watched the same video on the Dell Mini 10, we witnessed the choppy slide-show effect that is common among netbooks without Ion graphics.) Even locally stored HD video, downloaded from Microsoft’s WMV HD Content Showcase, played like a dream in 720p. Overall, we were thrilled by our media experience on the Eee PC 1201pn and prefer it to more affordable netbooks equipped with a Broadcom Crystal HD video decoder, such as the HP Mini 210 HD Edition.

Battery
The Eee PC 1201pn held its own on our battery-life test, given its graphics. Our strenuous battery-rundown trial consists of streaming video wirelessly (with volume and display brightness set to 50 percent) until the battery dies. It’s a test that energy-efficient Pine Trails should excel at. However, high-end graphics always take a toll on battery life, and the 1201pn is no exception. The six-cell battery lasted only 3 hours and 17 minutes, half the time that the Asus Eee PC 1005pe logged (6:34). We expect about five hours from the average netbook; the 1201pn came up considerably short, though it should eke out closer to five or six hours when performing light tasks such as word processing.

Performance
Moving from a dual-core processor to a single-core 1.6-GHz N450 CPU definitely has an impact on speed. In PCMark Vantage, which measures overall performance in Windows, the 1201PN notched a score of 1,329. That showing is higher than the netbook average (1,211) but lower than the older 1201N (1,488). The GeekBench scrore also saw a drop-off (903 vs. 1,064). Even anecdotally the 1201PN struggled at times; we noticed delays when starting video calls in Skype and when opening the AT&T Connection manager software we installed. Otherwise, the 1201PN performed fairly well. The netbook didn’t get bogged down when we had multiple tabs open in Google Chrome—one of them streaming Pandora—while we switched between the browser, WordPad, and TweetDeck. The 1201PN’s 5,400-rpm 250GB hard drive proved faster than 1201N’s, delivering a transfer rate of 23.5 MBps (up from 17.7 MBps) on the LAPTOP Transfer Test (copying 4.97GB of files). Too bad the boot time increased form 53 seconds to 1:07, which is 6 seconds slower than the average netbook.

Design

The design of the Inspiron 14 looks like an enlarged version of the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 10 netbooks. At first glance you can easily see that Dell designers are trying to establish clearly identifiable designs for all Dell notebooks: all Inspiron laptops look similar, Studio laptops have the same general design as other Studio laptops, and one Studio XPS notebook likewise looks like other Studio XPS notebooks. At this point shoppers should be able to identify Dell’s entry-level products (Inspiron), mid-range products (Studio) and high-end products (Studio XPS) with little more than a glance.

The chassis of the Inspiron is constructed from a combination of exterior plastics and an alloy interior framework for a balance of affordability, durability, and light weight. While the Inspiron 14 doesn’t feel quite as durable as the new Studio 14z, the Inspiron 14 should survive the average use and abuse by college students … although the plastics may start to show some wear and tear after some time inside a book bag.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The full-size keyboard features comfortable, terraced keys that offered good tactile feedback and response. We were able to reach our normal typing speed immediately, and none of the keys were undersized or in weird places, so it was also easy to execute keyboard shortcuts. We appreciated the generous, 3.8 x 2-inch touchpad with discrete left and right mouse buttons. Though it’s multitouch-enabled, the touch surface wasn’t overly sensitive as we’ve seen on some other Dell systems. At first we found the sensitivity too low; two-finger scrolling took more precision than we expected, and it took a few hours to get used to. The Synaptics driver offers settings and tweaks (go to Control Panel > Mouse) for the multitouch gestures and a sensitivity slider to make adjustments.

Display and Audio

14r-1The glossy 14-inch, 1366 x 768-pixel WLED display offered decent color depth, but only within optimal viewing angles. We had to tilt the screen in a narrow 10-degree range to keep washed out or distorted colors at bay. We noticed this regardless of whether we were surfing the web, writing in Microsoft Word, or watching video.

Horizontal angles aren’t that wide, either; two people can comfortably share the screen, but beyond that it’s hard to see clearly. Even at the optimal angles we noticed some slight pixelation when watching a 720p trailer for The Discoverers and a standard definition episode of Lost via Hulu.

The speakers, located just under the front lip of the notebook, pumped out plenty of volume, but their placement compromised the quality. Soft ballads like George Michael’s “One More Try” came through a little muddy at 75 percent volume, and even listening to brash dance tracks like t.A.T.u.’s “Not Gonna Get Us” wasn’t completely satisfactory over just a little background noise. Still, thanks to SRS Premium Sound, bass was acceptably present and we were able to hear a distinct distance between vocals and instruments in high-quality MP3.

Performance and Features

We didn’t have an opportunity to benchmark the pre-production unit of the Inspiron 14, but Dell made it very clear that this notebook is aimed at students who want a good laptop for general use at an affordable price and don’t need all of the features found on the more expensive Studio 14z. For example, the Inspiron 14 lacks FireWire and eSATA and the starting price only includes Intel integrated graphics. On the other hand, the optional 1600 x 900 screen, optional Blu-ray drive, and optional ATI discrete graphics give the Inspiron 14 some impressive bang for the buck.

This is where the $449 starting price of the Inspiron 14 looks extremely impressive compared to the $649 starting price of the Studio 14z. Sure, the starting price of the Studio 14z includes a better processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics and a better selection of ports, but the Inspiron 14 still offers a built-in optical drive and dedicated 7-in-1 media card reader. Bottom line, back-to-school shoppers are going to have two very impressive options from Dell this year.

Design
The A11’s matte black lid is dimpled with a handsome pattern that doesn’t show fingerprints, and it continues on the deck; the bezel is also a matte black plastic, but lacks the fancy design. Overall, this a very understated look that will no doubt appeal to business users, but it lacks the panache of the HP ProBook series, which has a more elegant brushed aluminum lid. Above the keyboard are buttons for launching Toshiba’s Eco utility, outputting the screen to a projector or larger display, and volume controls. These are handy to have, but we think they would be better put to use if they offered quick access to, say, PowerPoint or some other business-centric function. Measuring 14.7 x 9.9 x 1.5 inches and weighing 5.8 pounds, the A11 is a bit too bulky to carry around; those who travel often should look elsewhere. This notebook is certainly portable enough to take to meetings, but you’ll need to keep an eye on that battery meter (more on that below).

Display
We found the Tecra’s main appeal is the large 15.6in display with its 1,366×768 resolution that makes for comfortable viewing of spreadsheets and web pages, while its size also means there is plenty of space to rest your palms while using the keyboard. This resolution is a bit low for a screen of this size, but users can obtain resolutions up to 2,048×1,536 on an external display. In terms of performance, the 2.4GHz Core i5 processor, which looks like four CPUs to the system because of Intel’s Hyperthreading technology, seemed to make little difference in normal use. That was until we tried an action such as opening a graphics-heavy PDF, which the Tecra took in its stride, while another PC we viewed it on struggled to display it, especially when scrolling up and down. The Windows Experience Index in Windows 7 rated the Tecra at just 3.9, but this result is pegged back by the performance of the Intel graphics built into the processor itself, with the processor, memory and disk subsystems all showing high scores of 5.1 and above.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The A11’s deck is large enough to comfortably fit a full keyboard and number pad. The black matte keys are of the traditional variety, had a nice textured surface, and responded well when typing. We were up to our usual speed in no time. The 3 x 1.6-inch touchpad is comfortably large, and its surface let us move around with ease. Below, the two mouse buttons (separated by a fingerprint reader) are made of a shiny metallic plastic, which makes them really stand out on the all-black deck. Despite picking up fingerprints, the buttons were large and responsive.

Battery life
Another point worth noting is the relatively poor battery life of this model. Toshiba quotes a life of four hours and 40 minutes from the 55Wh lithium ion battery, but we found that it lasted no longer than one hour and 23 minutes in our tests using the Battery Eater Pro benchmark. This suggests that, while the Tecra A11 is a good overall workhorse machine, it should be regarded as a portable computer for lugging between sites where there is mains power, rather than to be used much on batteries while travelling.

Software
As with other Toshiba models we have seen, the Tecra A11 has numerous utilities that load when the system boots. We counted no fewer than 15 in the system notification area on the taskbar, including McAfee Security Centre, Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology tool, and Toshiba’s own Tempro performance tuning tool, PC Health Monitor, Eco Utility, HDD Protecton and Fingerprint Utility for log-on. Other software installed includes a 60-day trial copy of Microsoft Office, which now requires a live internet connection to work, Toshiba ReelTime for finding recently accessed files, Toshiba Assist for technical help, and a tool for the built-in webcam, which supports resolutions up to 1,280×800 pixels.

Performance
Powered by a 2.66-GHz Intel Core i7-620M processor and 4GB of RAM (expandable to 8GB), the A11 scored a blazing 7,029 on PCMark Vantage, almost 2,800 points above the mainstream laptop average, and better than the HP EliteBook 8440w (6,975) and Apple MacBook Pro in Boot Camp (6,699), both of which utilizing the same processor and amount of RAM. The A11’s 7,200-rpm, 320GB hard drive was fast, duplicating a 4.97GB folder of multimedia in 3 minutes and 3 seconds, a rate of 27.8 MBps. That’s about 5 MBps faster than the average and just above the HP ProBook 5310m (26.2 MBps), but below the Lenovo Thinkpad SL510 (29.2 MBps). Using Oxelon Media Converter, the A11 transcoded a 114MB MPEG-4 to AVI in a blazing 48 seconds, beating the mainstream average by 16 seconds.

Design
At 13.3 x 9.2 x 1 inches and only 4.8 pounds, the IdeaPad V460 is relatively light for a 14-inch system, comparing favorably to the 5-pound, 13.5 x 9.2 x 1.3-inch ThinkPad Edge 14. Instead of the plastic found on the ThinkPad Edge, the IdeaPad V460 goes all out with a classy brushed gunmetal gray lid and deck. Sleek tapered edges and an angular hinge design reminiscent of the IdeaPad Y510 complete the high-tech look. The classic keyboard, however, looks a bit out of place.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The IdeaPad V460’s keyboard is another highlight. It doesn’t quite have the crisp action of the classic keyboard on most ThinkPads, but it does deliver a comfortable typing experience. Lenovo has included LED-backlit, touch-sensitive buttons for volume and mute controls, but other common actions, such as multimedia control and Webcam mute, require a Function-key combo to execute. The touch pad sports a pebbled, low-friction surface that makes mousing comfortable, and the mouse buttons are large and easy to press. The pad doesn’t support the same two-finger gesture input as on most other gestured-enabled pads (and the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch), such as pinch/spread fingers for zoom, spin fingers for rotate, and so on. But the driver utility governing the touch pad, Elan Smart-Pad, does support scrolling, drag-and-drop, and customizable two- and three-finger taps that you can assign to actions such as page up/page down, zoom, and close window.

Display and Audio
The 14.1-inch, 1366 x 768 glossy screen offered bright, colorful images. Whether we were streaming a 720p episode of Fringe from Fox.com, watching a DVD of Dark City or playing a 1080p WMV file we downloaded from Microsoft’s HD Showcase, images were sharp and video completely smooth. Unfortunately, colors began to wash out significantly as soon as we moved even a few degrees to the left or right. The V460 can almost be used as a stereo. When we listened to both a heavy metal tune and a jazz standard, the speakers produced sound that was loud enough to fill a living room. Audio was also free from distortion.

Ports
The other peripheral features of this machine mostly hit their marks. Lenovo has included a fingerprint reader for added security and convenience. (Imagine replacing all your login passwords with a finger swipe.) Also, the 1.3-megapixel Webcam is optimized for low-light performance. From it, we got a grainy but usable image in a dim room, and under typical lighting the image looked terrific, with accurate colors, good detail, and spot-on exposure. And the port selection is fairly typical for this class of laptop; it includes VGA and HDMI for connecting external displays, a LAN jack, and three USB ports. You also get a flash-card reader (supporting the SD, MultiMediaCard, and Memory Stick formats) and an ExpressCard/34 slot. Our only port-related quibble: We would have liked to see an eSATA port for connecting external hard drives.

Performance

The IdeaPad V460’s combination of a 2.27-GHz Core i5-430M CPU, 4GB of RAM, and switchable graphics, which uses an Nvidia GeForce 310M chip when in discrete-graphics mode, allowed it to offer strong performance both on synthetic tests and in real-world situations. Whether we were surfing the web, navigating the globe in Google Earth, or playing 3D games, the V460 was more than up to the task.

On PCMark Vantage, a benchmark that measures overall system prowess, the V460 managed a strong score of 4,231, a bit higher than the thin-and-light notebook category average of 4,033 and on a par with the ThinkPad Edge 14’s 4,293. However, the 13-inch Dell Vostro V3300, which has the same processor but a faster hard drive, blew away the V460 with a score of 5,098. The notebook’s 5,400-rpm, 320GB hard drive booted into Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) in a rather slow 97 seconds, way behind the category average of 56 seconds, the 45-second boot time of the Vostro V3300, and the 36-second time of the ThinkPad Edge. Once we removed some crapware, the V460 took about 1:10 to boot, which is still lengthy.

The drive took 3 minutes and 50 seconds to complete the LAPTOP Transfer Test, in which we copy 4.97GB of mixed media files. That’s a rate of 22.1 Mbps, which is a tad slower than the 23.4 Mbps category average and way behind the 31.8 Mbps offered by the Vostro V3300 and its 7,200-rpm hard drive. When it came to transcoding video, the V460 managed to convert a 114MB MPEG-4 to AVI using Oxelon Media Encoder in just 57 seconds. That’s identical to the Dell Vostro V3300, 6 seconds faster than the category average, and 10 seconds faster than the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 14 (1:07).

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.

Computer power-wise, the S10 is technically faster than the S7 with a 1.66GHz Atom rather than a 1.33GHz. But it doesn’t seem faster because it also uses Windows 7 instead of XP. Even with all of Windows 7’s fancy user enhancements turn off, there’s still some noticeable lag opening and closing programs. Things tend to stutter. But that’s a small price to pay for the goodies that come with Windows 7 Touch Pack.