Gateway NV5207u Review

Cheap Slow Processor

The Gateway NV5207u is low-end @479.99 laptop from Gateway. With an 15.6 inches screen and a DVD drive, it's absolutely a notebook, not a netbook.

NV5207u had 2.1GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 QL-65 Dual Core processor. It should be more powerful than Celeron based laptops on its price range, but the result is disappointing. With 4GB of memory it's slower than single-core Intel Celeron-based laptop with 2GB of memory.


The memory is 4GB 667MHz DDR2. While the other competitors on the price range usually has 1GB or 2GB memory. The dimension is 14.6x9.8 inches with 1.0-1.5 inches.

It has integrated ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics with VGA-out and HDMI.

The Hard Drive is 320GB 5,400 rpm. It's very large for this price class. Average laptops in this price range only have 160GB or 250GB of hard drive. With this price you will get a Windows 7 Home Premium. What a price!

The keyboard is wide and flat with full number pad on the right side. The left palm rest is tiny, but the right one is large. The keys are touch-sensitive. There are programmable launch key for opening file, folder, Web site, or application, and backing up files.

The 15.6-inch screen is comfortably large for both work and entertainment. It has a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. The picture was very good.

The Gateway NV5207u has four USB 2.0, a multiformat card reader. It doesn't has expansion slots , but it has modem, Ethernet and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi.

The battery is disappointing too. The six-cell battery only ran for two hours with video playback. This laptop is only for simple word processing and Internet browsing tasks.


Gateway NV5207u Pictures

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Acer Aspire 5738PG Multi-Touch Review

The Acer Aspire 5738 Multi-touch is another Windows 7 Notebook from Acer. The price is $799. Not too expensive, but not too cheap too.
It has 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 processor. Fast enough for this class of notebook. With 4GB of RAM, it's fast enough to run Windows 7 smoothly.

With the low price, Acer give you 320GB hard drive and an DVD±RW drive. With the price, it's surprisingly that this Acer combines a touch-capable LCD screen with built-in 3D techonology. The 15.6 inches LCD screen has 1,366x768 native resolution. The graphics card is a 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570. The integrated TriDef 3D technology gives you new viewing experience. You can view 3D without glasses, but Acer give you a glasses.

With plastic case, Acer Aspire 5738 Multi-touch feel cheap. The palm rest is cool during use. There's a fingerprint reader in the center of the mouse button.

The peripherals is complete. There are Ethernet jacks, HDMI and VGA-out ports, four USB ports, microphone, headphone, S/PDIF jacks, a modem jack, and five-format memory-card slot. This Acer Aspire has 1.3-megapixel Webcam with fair quality. There's also Wi-Fi if you're looking for it.

The battery life is poor. It only last for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

The Aspire 5738PG comes preloaded with Adobe, Acer and Google utilities. They also give you trial version of McAfee Internet Security, Microsoft Office 2007 and NTI Media Maker (OEM).

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Gateway NV5807u All-Purpose Laptop

By Patrick Miller
August 19, 2009 07:01 PM ET
Comments

PC World - The biggest selling point of the Gateway NV5807u all-purpose laptop is its LED-backlit, 15.6-inch, HD panel with a 1366-by-768-pixel native resolution. As with all glossy LCD screens, the glare becomes extraordinarily annoying in brightly lit environments, but you can offset that by blasting the LED backlighting (and burning the laptop's battery life). Also make sure to keep your head precisely positioned: At about 20 degrees from center, the display starts to dim, and at 45 degrees it's unreadable even at the brightest setting possible. If you're watching a movie on it with someone else, the two of you might end up cheek to cheek. (Bug or feature?)

Once you've found a good place to put the display, the video quality is excellent. I thought the vivid yet accurate colors--and the seamless, lag-free transitions--were striking. Like any laptop offering integrated Intel GMA 4500 MHD graphics, however, this machine can't play many conventional games. It will yield decent video via the VGA and HDMI-out ports, though it might take a little fiddling; when I tested it with a ViewSonic HD display, the recommended resolution cut off a significant chunk of the edge of the desktop.

Bolstering the NV5807u's appeal as an entertainment PC are its speakers, which I found to be surprisingly good. Though they're no replacement for a decent pair of external speakers (particularly on bass output and overall volume), their sound quality and clarity were impressive for laptop speakers. I thought that they rivaled some desktop-replacement laptop speakers. It's kind of a shame that the NV5807u lacks a discrete graphics card--if it had dedicated graphics, that plus the gorgeous screen and the speakers would make this laptop a solid portable gaming machine indeed.

The other big selling point of this laptop, though, really has to be the $599 (as of 8/7/09) price. The NV5807u's spec sheet shows that you get a decent deal for your dollar. Between the Intel 2.1GHz T6500 Core 2 Duo processor and the 4GB of memory, the laptop should be more than powerful enough for any basic home, business, or entertainment needs. In WorldBench 6 it notched a score of 77, fairly low for an all-purpose laptop but about right for the price point. However, the NV5807u's closest competitor, the Lenovo G530, managed to stay roughly on a par with this machine in most of our benchmarks (including earning a slightly higher WorldBench mark) despite being $100 cheaper.

In battery-life tests, Gateway's laptop survived 4 hours, 22 minutes. Though that isn't nearly a match for the marathon-ready performance of something like the Lenovo T400, the result is slightly longer than the average we've seen in our tests.

The 320GB SATA hard drive and the 8X dual-layer Super Multi optical drive will give you plenty of storage space, and the standard array of ports (two USB ports on each side of the laptop and a multiformat card reader) and connectivity options (56-kbps modem, gigabit ethernet, and 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi) will give you plenty of ways to fill that hard drive up. Note that the NV5807 doesn't have FireWire, so if you have a video camera that requires it, look elsewhere. The laptop does have a (rather unremarkable) Webcam and mic for voice and video chat, and the provided driver software lets you access the feature when you move the mouse to the spot right under the camera, which can be sort of neat (and is easily disabled, in case it gets annoying).

I found the keyboard mildly irritating. Kudos to the NV5807u's designers for managing to cram in not only a keyboard and trackpad but also a keypad, which number crunchers everywhere will appreciate. The problem is, the number pad and keyboard are just about jammed up on top of each other. My right hand frequently ended up over the number pad when I actually wanted to press Enter or Delete.

Atop the keyboard are touch-sensitive buttons that allow you to access the volume controls and power-saving functions (most useful), open up the Gateway MyBackup software (sometimes useful), and turn off the trackpad.

On more than one occasion I was tempted to use that last toggle, as the mouse button bar is horribly awkward to use. This landing strip for a gnat supposedly doubles for left and right mouse clicks, but my oversized hands ached to find the right angle to tap. The middle of the button is a dead zone that won't register any input. Instead of resting my wrists on the laptop and leaving my thumb on the button, I had to hold my hand in the air and press down, practically at a 90-degree angle. You'll probably want to bring your own mouse for this one. The machine is also pretty heavy, at 5.8 pounds--it's fine if you're driving from home to office to café, but if you're walking or taking the bus, it's a little much.

Gateway's NV5807u has an attractive display, above-average speakers, and enough power under the hood to serve as a general-use PC for quite some time. The trade-off you make is in portability: 5.8 pounds of computer is an awful lot to be carting around between classes or around the city, and a 15.6-inch display looks great on a desk but eats up most of an airplane tray table (not to mention your battery life). If you're a student who would rather use a computer to watch movies in your dorm than take notes in class, or if you're a professional who needs the screen space and doesn't mind the weight, then the NV5807u is a solid buy for $599 compared with similarly priced models from other manufacturers, such as the Acer Aspire Timeline, the Lenovo Ideapad Y450, or even Lenovo's business-centric G530, which sells for even less ($499).

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Dell s1440-022B Review

CNET editors' review

* Reviewed by:
Matthew Elliott
* Edited by:
Dan Ackerman
* Reviewed on: 07/31/2009
* Released on: 07/01/2009

Editors' note: This review is part of our Back-to-school 2009 Retail Laptop Roundup, covering specific new configurations of popular laptops that can be found in retail stores.

The $749 Dell Studio S1440-022B is trim, forward-looking mainstream laptop. Rarely does a 14-inch laptop limbo under the 5-pound mark, but the Studio S1440 checks in at an impressive 4.7 pounds. It's able to hit this number in large part by jettisoning the optical drive, a bold move not seen on the majority of mainstream laptops, despite the growing popularity of accessing your media from the Web instead of from a DVD or a CD. Other forward-looking features include a DisplayPort connection, an HDMI port, and a 16:9 aspect ratio display.

Inside, Dell outfits the Studio S1440-022B with a well-rounded set of components, including a midrange Core 2 Duo processor, low-end Nvidia GeForce graphics, and an eight-cell battery that manages to sit flush with the system. Thanks to Best Buy's Next Class program, it comes not with software trials, but full versions of useful applications. If you can get past the lack of a DVD burner, there's much to like about this thin, light, long-running laptop. Though for only $50 more, the slightly heavier and somewhat boxy Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602 offers a DVD burner plus more memory and larger hard drive.

Price	$749
Processor	2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500
Memory	3GB DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
Hard drive	320GB at 5,400rpm
Chipset	Nvidia MCP79
Graphics	256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M
Operating System	Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WDH)	13.3x9.0x1.2 inches
Screen size (diagonal)	14.1 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter	4.7 / 5.4 pounds
Category	Mainstream

The Dell Studio S1440 is part of Best Buy's Next Class program, which is a collection of custom-made configurations for the retailer, based on feedback from students on their preferred features. (Best Buy has a similar thrust with its Blue Label program, which surveys general consumers, not just students.)

Not surprisingly, students wanted something that fit meager budgets, included useful software out of the box, struck a balance between portability and decent screen size, and delivered great battery life. The Studio S1440 hits on all of these marks. It weighs less than 5 pounds and includes a wide 14-inch screen. It includes a full copy of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 and 15 months of virus protection by way of Norton Internet Security 2009. And its eight-cell battery topped the four-hour mark on our demanding battery drain test.

The current fashion in laptops is putting a glossy, fingerprint-attracting finish on all surfaces inside and out. Dell bucks this trend by outfitting the Studio S1440 with a satin finish on the lid (in this case, red), and the plastic chassis has a brushed aluminum look. The only glossy surfaces to be found are the thin, black bezel framing the display and the area between the top of the keyboard and bottom of the screen. Oddly, despite its entertainment appeal with the 16:9 aspect ratio display, the Studio S1440 does not offer any media control keys. Instead, the F keys perform volume, mute, play/pause, fast forward, and rewind functions. In a smart reversal, you don't need to hit the Function key to perform these various tasks; instead, you hit the Function key to perform the functions mapped to F1, F2, and so on (we also saw this on the recent HP Mini 5101 Netbook).

The roomy keyboard runs edge to edge, and the wrist rest is only 2.5 inches wide. (Most wrist rests on laptops of this size measure at least 3 inches wide.) It still provides a large enough perch for a comfortable computing experience. The touch pad also leaves no unused space; its top edge is right up next to the space bar while the two mouse buttons are very close to the front edge of the laptop. The keys are wide and offer just the right amount of travel. They're also very quiet--about as far from clacky as you can get. Likewise, the two mouse buttons have a soft, supple feel, though they offer a bit too much travel to the point where they feel a bit "squishy." One final note about the keyboard: Dell offers a backlit keyboard option on comparable 14-inch models on its Web site, but this retail unit does not.

The display measures 14.1 inches and features an extra-wide 16:9 aspect ratio that matches that of movies and HD video. With 1,366x768-pixel native resolution, the Studio S1440 can display 720p video. It feels a bit squat, however, when scrolling down long Web pages or Word documents. The screen features a glossy coating, which strikes a fine balance between enhancing the appearance of movies and games and keeping glare and reflections to a minimum. More impressive is the audio output. We don't expect greatness from small, integrated laptop speakers, but the Studio S1440's speakers offered booming sound, relatively speaking. Output at max volume was loud enough and still clear to enjoy a movie without needing headphones.

	Dell Studio S1440-022B	Average for category [mainstream]
Video	HDMI, DisplayPort	VGA-out, HDMI
Audio	Stereo speakers, two headphone jacks, microphone jack	Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data	3 USB 2.0, Mini-FireWire, eSATA, mulitformat memory card reader	4 USB 2.0, SD card reader
Expansion	ExpressCard/34	ExpressCard/54
Networking	Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi	Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional WWAN
Optical drive	None	DVD burner

The Dell Studio S1440-022B offers a wide-ranging collection of ports and connections, perhaps in an effort to make up for the lack of an optical drive. HDMI is becoming more common on laptops, but those offering a DisplayPort connection are still in the minority. The S1440 also offers not one but two headphone jacks, should you want to share tunes or movie dialog with a travel companion. FireWire is slowly fading from popularity, but a four-pin FireWire port shows up here, along with an eSATA port (which doubles as the third USB 2.0 port) for faster data transfer times to an external drives, and a Webcam.

The Dell Studio S1440 features the 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T6500 processor, which can be found on other laptops on store shelves, including Dell's own Studio XPS 1340-024B along with HP's Pavilion dv3-2155mx and Pavilion dv4-1465dx. It offers 3GB of DDR3 SDRAM, while its competitors in this price range serve up 4GB of DDR2. The result is a wash, as the Studio S1440 finished among the pack on CNET Labs' application benchmarks. Lastly, the S1440 serves up a 320GB hard drive, while others in this price range trump that capacity with a 500GB drive.

The Studio S1440 features a low-end 256MB GeForce 9400M graphics card, which won't take on all comers but is capable of providing some modest 3D entertainment. We were able to hit a consistent 50-to-60 frames per second at its native resolution playing World of Warcraft.

Dell Studio S1440	Average watts per hour
Off (60 percent)	0.65
Sleep (10 percent)	0.72
Idle (25 percent)	11.98
Load (5 percent)	41.93
Raw kWh	48.65
Annual energy cost	$5.52

Annual power consumption cost

HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx

$4.83

HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx

$4.85

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602

$5.23

Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B

$5.27

Sony Vaio NW125 J/T

$5.50

Dell Studio 1440-022B

$5.52

Asus UX50V-RX05

$5.80

HP Touchsmart tx2-1275dx

$7.44

On CNET's demanding battery drain test, the Dell Studio S1440 ran for an impressive 4 hours, 26 minutes, thanks to its eight-cell battery. You can expect more than five hours of running time under typical use. The HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx ran for a little over an hour longer on our battery drain test, but it uses a huge, heavy 12-cell battery that protrudes from the bottom of the laptop. The Studio S1440 is more than a pound lighter than the Pavilion dv4-1465dx, and its battery sits flush.

Dell backs the Studio S1440-022B with a standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty. Calls to tech support are toll-free and available 24-7. Dell's support pages contain an extensive knowledge base, user manuals, and driver downloads.

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B

909

HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx

932

HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx

943

Dell Studio 1440-022B

947

Sony Vaio NW125 J/T

962

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602

971

HP Touchsmart tx2-1275dx

1,240

Asus UX50V-RX05

4,203

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Sony Vaio NW125 J/T

151

HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx

154

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602

156

HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx

162

Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B

170

Dell Studio 1440-022B

174

HP Touchsmart tx2-1275dx

259

Asus UX50V-RX05

300

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B

167

Sony Vaio NW125 J/T

176

Dell Studio 1440-022B

176

HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx

179

HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx

183

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602

185

HP Touchsmart tx2-1275dx

227

Asus UX50V-RX05

340

Video playback battery drain test (in minutes)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx

331

HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx

268

Dell Studio 1440-022B

266

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602

246

Sony Vaio NW125 J/T

169

Asus UX50V-RX05

158

HP Touchsmart tx2-1275dx

141

Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B

141

System configurations:
Asus UX50V-RX05
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo U3500; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce G105M; 500GB Seagate 7200rpm.

Dell Studio S1440-022B
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500; 3,072MB DDR3 SDRAM 1,066MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M G; 320GB Toshiba 5,400rpm.

Dell Studio XPS 1340-024B
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 9400M G; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm.

HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD; 320GB Toshiba 5400rpm.

HP Pavilion dv3-2155mx
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD; 500GB Seagate 5,400rpm.

HP TouchSmart tx2-1275dx
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.19GHz AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core RM-74; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 320MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200; 320GB Seagate 5,400rpm.

Sony Vaio NW125 J/T
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD; 320GB Hitachi 5400rpm.

Toshiba Satellite E105-S1602
Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (64-bit); 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7350; 4,096MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 128MB (Shared) Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD; 500GB Toshiba 5,400rpm.

Product summary

The good: Compact, lightweight design; great battery life; full version of Microsoft Office and 15 months of Norton Internet Security; wonderfully roomy keyboard; GeForce graphics provide some 3D power; shockingly decent audio output from integrated speakers; useful selection of ports.

The bad: No optical drive.

The bottom line: If you can forgo a DVD burner on your laptop, the Dell Studio S1440-022B offers a ton of features and a slick design that should make it a frontrunner for any student doing their back-to-school shopping.

Specifications: Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo (2.1 GHz) ; RAM installed: 3 GB DDR2 SDRAM ; Weight: 5.3 lbs ;

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Toshiba Satellite U505-S2930

Computer Shopper

Editors'Rating
8.2

Pros
Very affordable; interesting design; light weight; decent performance

Cons
A bit chunky; mediocre keyboard; short battery life; Webcam struggles in low light; weak speakers

Editors' Take
The Satellite U505-S2930 distinguishes itself among the many 13.3-inch laptops on the market with a pleasingly subtle design and decent performance. A few details expose that it’s a budget entry, but you certainly get a lot for the money.

Key Specs
Processor: 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500
Memory: 4GB RAM
Storage: 320GB hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD±RW
Screen: 13.3 inches (1,280x800 native resolution)
Graphics: Integrated Intel GMA 4500M
Weight: 4.7 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1.4x12.4x9 inches
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)

Review
Reviewed by: Jamie Bsales
Review Date: July 2009



Toshiba has launched the all-new Satellite U505-S2930 into the teeth of one of the most competitive laptop segments. This 13.3-inch thin-and-light is up against the likes of the Apple MacBook Pro, Dell Studio XPS 13, and HP Pavilion dv3z. The U505-S2930 manages to deliver a unique look, welcome features, and appropriate performance, all in a package that’s easy to carry. Some design and component details betray that this is a budget-conscious entry, but the $799.99 price helps make it worthy of your short list.
Toshiba Satellite U505-S2930


Unlike the glossy finishes popular in competing models, the Satellite U505 features a subtly textured skin that resists fingerprints.

The U505 family replaces the Satellite U405 in Toshiba’s laptop line. The understated design is appealing, and not only because it stands in stark contrast to the glossy shells worn by most other consumer laptops these days. The lid and the area surrounding the keyboard are covered in a textured finish (Toshiba calls the pattern "Matrix") that looks and feels good. The chassis comes in dark brown (so dark it looks black), white, and pink, and unlike the competition, the case is blissfully impervious to fingerprints and smudges. At 4.7 pounds, the U505-S2930 is certainly light enough to carry as a near-constant companion, though we found its thickness—1.25 inches at the front and 1.5 inches at the rear—noticeably chunkier than the 1-inch-thick MacBook Pro and Studio XPS 13.

The U505-S2930 is surprisingly well-equipped for an $800 thin-and-light. This model includes a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 CPU, 4GB of RAM, a generous 320GB hard drive with active protection, a tray-loading multiformat DVD burner with LabelFlash technology, 802.11a/g/n Wi-Fi, a 1.2-megapixel Webcam, an HDMI display output with full HD (1080p) support, USB Sleep-and-Charge ports (to charge mobile devices even when the machine is off), an eSATA port, and ExpressCard/54 and memory-card slots. Granted, moving up the price ladder in the U505 family nets you such goodies as an LED-backlit screen with edge-to-edge glass, a backlit keyboard, and a slot-loading DVD burner—but none of those is essential, especially if budget is your primary concern.


The keyboard features full-size, flat-top letter keys but exhibits a bit too much flex, and the touch pad is small. We do like the backlit
multimedia control buttons.



If the U505-S2930 has a weak link, it’s the keyboard. Toshiba has moved to the flat-top-style keys to keep the notebook au courant, but we noticed a bit too much flex and a bit too little plunge, giving the keyboard a somewhat cheap feel. Also, as with most touch pads in this class (with the notable exception of the MacBook's), the pad on the U505-S2930 is too small—a real shame considering the pad supports gestures for scrolling, zooming, rotating, and so on. But the Feathertouch multimedia controls, with their slick white backlighting, are a success: The handy controls are responsive and make adjusting the volume or skipping tracks a snap.

The 13.3-inch screen on the U505-S2930 features a traditional backlight, but the 1,280x800 panel was exceedingly bright nonetheless. Text is sharp, and the LCD did a good job with DVD playback, exhibiting natural colors, little motion blur, and good shadow detail. We could do without the U505-S2930’s speakers, however: While they’re fine for Web audio and okay for movie playback, music sounded strident and tinny, with noticeable distortion at top volume.

The Webcam, too, is inferior to those on other laptops. On the plus side: We like the included Toshiba Web Camera App, which docks offscreen and has 12 handy presets for a range of lighting conditions, such as Living Room, Study, Office, and Night. Selecting one from the Settings drop-down list automatically adjusts brightness, contrast, hue, saturation, and other image attributes, but the camera exhibits poor low-light performance. For example, we got a barely usable image when the subject was lit by a table lamp (like you might find in a typical hotel room) and the camera set to Study mode. With some cameras, we get a usable image even when the subject is lit only by the light from the laptop’s screen.

But such details can be forgiven if a machine delivers where it counts, and the U505-S2930 delivered very good productivity performance for an $800 thin-and-light. Its scores of 3,051 on Futuremark’s PCMark Vantage and 4,256 on Cinebench 10 are right around average for the class—even though its price is about $300 below the average of that test group—and about 500 points higher on both tests than the similarly priced Pavilion dv3z we tested ($988). These numbers are significantly lower than those of the Dell Studio XPS 13 and Apple MacBook Pro, but you’d pay $300 to $550 for the difference. The U505-S2930 had a similar showing on our multimedia-encoding benchmark tests: Its times of 7 minutes and 24 seconds on Windows Media Encoder (which tests CPU performance while encoding video) and 4 minutes and 50 seconds on iTunes (which tests CPU performance while converting 11 audio tracks from MP3 to AAC) are in line with more expensive competitors (though still lagging behind the Apple and Dell units), and trounce the numbers posted by the Pavilion dv3z.


Ports along the left edge: VGA, HDMI, eSATA/USB combo, USB with Sleep-and-Charge, ExpressCard/54, headphone, and mic.

As expected from the integrated Intel GMA 4500M graphics engine, the U505-S2930 can handle light 3D chores and not much else. The machine scored only 1,052 on 3DMark06 at 1,024x768 resolution, and, in our gaming tests, mustered just 15 frames per second (fps) on F.E.A.R. and 11.3fps on Company of Heroes at that resolution. More disturbing for a thin-and-light is the U505-S2930’s relatively short battery life: It lasted just 2 hours and 1 minute on our demanding DVD rundown test—about 40 minutes shorter than average for the category, and nearly 3 hours shorter than the MacBook Pro. (The Studio XPS 13 was a more reasonable 2 hours and 27 minutes.) More judicious use and the help of the handy Eco Utility (available via a hotkey alongside the multimedia controls) should net you closer to 3.5 hours of runtime from the U505-S2930's standard six-cell battery, but frequent travelers will want to opt for the available 12-cell extended battery.

As for software, the U505-S2930 comes preloaded with Windows Vista Home Premium and qualifies for a free upgrade to Windows 7 when that OS ships. Toshiba also includes a fairly extensive collection of bundled software. The PowerCinema utility sports a slick Media Center–like interface for accessing photo tools (Google Picasa, to be precise) and video- and DVD-playback applets. You also get the Toshiba Face Recognition utility (for turning the Webcam into a biometric security device), Corel DVD MovieFactory, Microsoft Works 9.0, and Toshiba's PC Health Monitor software. (The last, previously available on the company’s business laptops, warns against potential computer problems.) The U505-S2930 is backed by a one-year parts-and-labor warranty with 24/7 tech support.

The battery life, keyboard, speakers, and Webcam on the U505-S2930 could all stand some improvement, so if money were no object, in this category of laptop we'd prefer the more expensive Apple MacBook Pro or Dell Studio XPS 13 for their superior attention to detail and slimmer designs. But for those of us on a budget, the affordable Satellite U505-S2930’s shortcomings are easy to forgive.
Price (at time of review): $799.99 (list)

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Toshiba Portêgê A600

A lightweight laptop with a five-hour battery life



Toshiba's latest addition to its popular Portége notebook range is the A600 ultraportable that comes in two models, the 120 and our review sample. the 122. 'I he only difference :s the size of the hard disk: 160GB and 25CG6 respectively.

The silver finish of the A600 is only relieved by the matt black screen frame, chromed mouse buttons and Toshiba logo on the lid. The laptop weighs a mere 1.8kg, including the small power brick, so you can carry it around all day without noticing it But the light weight comes at a cost, as the wrist pad has a degree of flex to it and the lid is pretty thin and fragile

The A600 is powered by one of Intel's low-voltage 5U9300 Core 2 Duo processors, clocked at 1.2GHz and backed by 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 memory. It won't set the world alight with its performance (PCmark05 score of 2,842), but the processor does have a Thermal Design Power (TDP) of just 10W and a large 5.800mAh battery, so the battery life is impressive. It lasted six hours, 17 minutes with the latest version of Mobilerrark 07, tested under normal working conditions and managed seven hours, 18 minutes when used as an ebook.

The 12.1in WXCA screen has a 1,280x800 pixel resolution with LED backlighting. It doesn't have high-gloss coating and the matt finish subdues the colours and contrast a little — but you soon get used to it and it doesn't reflect office lighting.

Although the keybed has a lot of flex, the keys themselves feel good to use, as does the touchpad. A fingerprint reader is also included for added security



One of the three USB ports is a combo eSata/USE and features Sleep-and-Charge which allows any chargeable peripheral to charge when the !aptop is turned off. Simon Crisp

Personal Computer World April 2009

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HP TouchSmart tx2z

Multitouch technology in a stylish tablet




HP HAS EMPLOYED the TouchSmart desktop line's slick touch-screen capabilities for its tx2z tablet. Its MediaSmart multimedia-management applications make brilliant use of the touch screen and the tablet form factor—so much so that the TouchSmart tx2z is a good fit for anyone who wants a multimedia-savvy notebook with a twist, The TouchSmart tx2z is wrapped in a titanium Reaction Imprint finish.

At 4,6 pounds, the machine is heavy for a laptop that has only a 12.1-inch screen, and as a tablet it quickly gets tiresome in your arm. Think of it more as an on-your-lap tablet than a walking-around tablet. The beefy hinge keeps the screen stable as you type in traditional laptop mode, yet it lets you easily swivel and fold the screen flat against the keyboard for use in slate mode.

The power and Wi-Ei switches, fingerprint reader, and buttons for rotating the screen orientation and launching the Windows Mobility Center are all in the screen's bezel. When the tx2z is in tablet mode, you lose access to the dedicated volume/muteS hard keys, which are on the keyboard's deck.


Oddly, HP did not include dedicated multimedia-control keys. That's less of an issue, however, since you can control the system with the touch pad, mouse buttons, the included stylus, and your finger.

The tx2z incorporates HP's multitouch technology: The capacitive touch screen supports simple actions like tapping on a menu or dialog box and two-finger gestures for scrolling, zooming, rotating images, and even launching applications. Getting to the "X" button in the extreme upper corner to close an application may take a couple of jabs, but generally the touch screen is very accurate.

As with other Windows tablet PCs, you also can use the Tablet PC Input Panel for adding handwritten notes to an open document, converting written characters to text, and tapping out URLs and other text via the onscreen keyboard.

Best of all, HP's MediaSmart multimedia utilities make excellent use of the touch screen's abilities. You can launch the MediaSmart suite via a hard key on the screen bezel. The slick, iPhone-esque interface is optimized for the gesture-enabled touch screen, so you can scroll through photos by swiping yow finger or rotate them by spinning two fingers touched to the screen.

Text is sharp, colors are vibrant, and video playback is top-notch. We're also impressed with the Altec Lansing sound system, which puts out impressively good sound for a system this size. Our

TouchSmart tx2z came with a generous 320GB hard drive, an 8x multiformat DVD burner, 802.11a/b/Wn and Bluetooth connectivity, a Webcam, the fingerprint-reader option, an ExpressCard/34 slot, a five-format memory-card reader, and the usual connectors (three USB,VGA, Ethernet, modem, mic, and two headphone jacks).

Power comes from a 2.4GHz AMDIthion X2 Ultra Dual-Core Mobile ZM-86 CPU, 3GB of RAM (up to 8GB is supported), and the 64GB ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics engine.

Overall performance was average. The machine's Cinebench 10 score of 3,571 is fine for a thin-and-light. The system needed 8 minutes and 35 seconds to complete our Windows Media Encoder 9 trial and 5 minutes and 36 seconds for our illines conversion test—results that were neither stellar nor alarming. The ATI GPU has some 3D chops, managing a score of 1,692 on luturemark 3DMark06. We saw only 19.1 frames per second (fps) on Company of Heroes at 1,024x768 and a low 10.6fps at the screen's native 1,280x800 resolution.

The eight-cell battery lasted 2 hours and 35 minutes on our DVD rundown test, which is a little below average for a thin-and-light but not a major shortcoming.

The TouchSmart tx2z starts at about $1,150, and ow- test system topped out at $1,500. That's $250 more than HP's similar Pavilion tx2500z series without the TouchSmart features and about $400 more than a Dell Inspiron 13, which offers no tablet abilities at all.


So if you don't think you'll use the tablet features, this is not the machine for you. But if you like the idea of a tablet and were waiting for someone to make it more compelling, the I IP TouchSmart tx2z may be just what you want. —Jamie Bsales

Computer Shopper March 2009

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