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Laptops manufacturers, it seems, are finally trying to provide what people really want instead of just going ahead and building powerful laptops. All this while we have seen laptops that were able to deliver either good performance, but at the cost of continuous power supply, like the Dell Monster 'XPS M1730' or like the usual laptops, sacrifice performance for lower power consumption.
Today we have a laptop - Samsung NP-X360 - that bridges this gap and promises to do much more by providing a good performance and battery life.
The Samsung NP-X360 is part of the newer generation of laptops like the Sony Vaio TZ38GN that we recently reviewed. Unfortunately, unlike Samsung, Sony chose to dump their older generation of laptops - the TZ Series - here in India instead of providing us the latest the world of laptop technology has to offer in the TT Series
19:03
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At last Sony has succumbed to the temptation and launched its first version of the Vaio W Netbook. The Vaio P was a great toy to flaunt but didn't offer any practical value as it lacked performance. The Vaio W on the other hand offers style as well as substance and is a lot more practical as it's a proper Netbook. Specifications shouldn't be of any surprise but what is different is the build quality, which is definitely a notch above the rest. Even though it's not as slim as the Asus Seashell Netbook, it's incredibly lightweight, thanks to the materials used to build the body.
Another striking feature of this Netbook is that, for the first time we have 1366x768 resolution on a 10.1" screen. This makes text and images appear a lot sharper, while the LED backlit screen makes it more vivid as well.
The Vaio W definitely makes its presence felt but can it win the battle of the best battery life when compared to veterans like Asus? Let's find out.
Bundle
The reviewer's bundle only came with a charger in a mysterious black box. But on checking the website, that's all you get even in the retail package. Oddly, no driver disk seems to be present in the bundle.
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If you remember, Sony announced a couple new notebooks with quite aggressive price tags just a few of weeks back. Along with the super sexy 'X' series, we also have the mainstream CW series which is what we've got for review today. Until now, if you wanted a solid performing multimedia notebook that was reasonably priced, we had just two major options, either a Dell or an HP. Now, Sony is all set to enter this space and compete with the bigwigs in this category.
The VPCCW16FG/P that we got for review comes packed with plenty of brute force. For starters, we have an Intel Core2Duo P8700 running at 2.5GHz in the heart of the notebook. We have Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit for proper utilization of the 4GB DDR3 memory. The best bit is the graphics card which is Nvidia's latest GT 230M which comes with 512MB of GDDR3 RAM. If this is anything like the GT220, which is the desktop variant, we can easily expect some good gaming performance. To view all this goodness, we have a 14-inch LED backlit display.
Apart from the good specifications, being a Sony, the build quality of the notebook is very good with strong plastics used for the chassis. You get multiple colors to choose from and following the tradition, Sony sends us a pink notebook for review.
Bundle
There wasn't much of a bundle provided other than the charger since this was a review piece but checking the site, the retail piece as well will come with just a charger and battery as standard with other optional accessories available.
We're finally beginning to see netbooks fall under the Rs. 20,000 barrier where they really belong. This kind of pricing also helps manufacturers distinguish these devices from regular laptops in the sub-30k range.
The eMachines EM250 netbook that we are reviewing today is a typical run-of-the-mill model with an attractive price tag. Let's quickly run through what it's got and see whether it can stand tall with new generation models?
Design and Build
The eMachines EM250 looks quite similar to the Acer Aspire One D150 model we reviewed a while back. While the design is almost exactly the same, this netbook has managed to shave off almost 10 mm of its thickness, thus making it fairly thin. The build quality is decent. The black and metallic-grey color combination gives the EM250 a corporate-friendly appeal. But it isn't a stunner in terms of looks, especially owing to its flat protruding battery at the back. But on the positive side, the flat surface of the battery isn't as obtrusive while using this netbook on the lap. At almost 1.3 kilos, it's fairly light for a netbook with a 6-cell battery.
On the inside we have a regular 10-inch 1024 x 600 pixel screen. The quality is standard-fare and brightness is sufficient. Despite several attempts, we weren't able to get the webcam working, thus we can't comment on its quality. The size of the keyboard would have been called adequate if we would have seen the EM250 two years ago. But with netbooks these days having wider key designs (for e.g. the HP Mini 110 or the Eee PC 1005HA), the one on the EM250 feels somewhat tiny. They offer fair tactility, but not everybody will be happy using it.
We had a similar skeptical feeling after seeing the tiny square-shaped touchpad at first, but were gladly surprised to find its touch response quite accurate. The surface is also quite smooth and it supports multi-touch gestures like two finger scrolling. How clever, since putting a traditional side-scrolling strip would have eaten away precious real estate of the touch-area. At the sides we have the usual array of ports: 3 USB, 1 VGA, 1 headphone, 1 mic, 1 LAN and 1 card reader. There's a switch at the front edge to toggle the wi-fi on or off. The stereo speakers at the base of the laptop offer average audio quality and moderate volume. We wouldn't prefer hearing anything other than the dings and dongs of the Windows OS from them.
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What happens when you take an (unnecessarily) expensive laptop, strip it of some of its premium components (like an SSD) and bring the price down to less than half of the original? Case in point, the Dell Adamo. When it was released almost a year ago, Dell proudly claimed it to be the world's 'thinnest laptop' -- a domain initially (and maybe still) reigned by the Macbook Air. Other than a well-sized 128GB SSD, the Adamo's internals didn't really pull off any marvelous feat that any Rs. 50k laptop couldn't. But its asking price of over a lakh rupees did not justify on many counts. Even the newly-launched Adamo XPS, although being an awing laptop, was also way too overpriced.
Dell maybe realized that if they dabble with the original Adamo , they could come up with a new product that would appeal to a much wider audience. Enter the Vostro V13. Its design is inspired from the original Adamo, but fortunately not its price tag. Is this the perfect portable computer for business professionals? Let's find out.
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The Eee PC 1008P is the latest generation "premium" netbook from Asus. The company took help from famous designer Karim Rashid to add some of sort of uniqueness to its design. Along with the updated laundry list of internal components, the Eee PC 1008P is "Year 2010-ready". It's got almost everything right for a netbook; it's thin, lightweight, has a comfortable keyboard/touch-pad and decent battery life - thanks to the extra battery pack. The main gripe we had with the 1008P is the low screen brightness. Also, just two USB ports could be too less for some people.
Priced at Rs. 27,000, it's slightly expensive but this was expected since this is a premium range product. It's close to Rs. 10,000 more than any decent netbook from last year (like the HP Mini 110 or Asus's own Eee PC 1005HA). If you don't mind burning your moolah, then the Eee PC 1008P Karim Rashid is a chic netbook to go for. However, if you're a penny saver, then look away. An Eee PC 1005HA (or the upcoming revised 1005P/PE models) will do almost everything that this one does, for much lesser.
In comparison, the Sony Vaio W (VPCW216AG/P) has almost similar specifications. It is equally cool-looking and has a brighter, higher-resolution screen, which is good for watching 720p movies. But the low-capacity battery won't give you a long run-time.
We're living in an age where touchscreen devices are gaining more and more mass appeal, especially in portable computers. Now that the iPad is out, people have embraced this gadget as a revolutionary change in the world of computing. Some are even seen typing long documents on its virtual keyboard. But what about people who not only want the frills of a touchscreen but also need a PC to perform simple tasks like copy-pasting a file to a flash drive? The concept of a touchscreen netbook was introduced by Asus some time back, though without as much success as its other Eee PCs. Today we see Lenovo try their hand at the same concept, with the Ideapad S10-3t. Let's see if the touchscreen is actually of any practical use.
