Laptops Life – Laptop and Tech Review Blog

Computer-maker Samsung has announced that it is launching its first 1TB hard drive for laptops. The 2.5-inch hard drive, which is part of the Spinpoint-series, is being called the Spinpoint MT2 and it uses a 12.5mm form factor, as well as 333GB platters. If you need lots of storage space, this hard drive is your dream come true!

According to Samsung, the new hard drive works at 20% increased performance and uses about 4% less power than other similar hard drives currently on the market. However, reviewers say that the hard drive isn’t very fast. It spins at just 5,400 RPM and features a last-generation 3.0Gb/s interface.

Even so, Samsung’s vice president of storage marketing, I.C. Park, says the hard drive offers, “the largest capacity in what has previously been offered as an option for portable digital devices.”

Generally, any hard drive that is part of the Spintpoint series features SilentSeek and NoiseGuard, which are used to drop noise levels during use. They also feature shock resistance of up to 400G while operating and 800G while not in use. You should expect these features in the new hard drive, along with Samsung’s balancing technology, which, according to the company, offers “enhanced stability and reliability.”

Unfortunately, with a thickness 12.5 mm, the hard drive is likely to present another problem: it won’t fit into every laptop, so there may be a lot of disappointed people out there.

In the world of laptops a few brands have always been the most popular: Sony, Toshiba, HP and Dell. A few years ago, Acer and ASUS jumped on the scene, producing moderately priced, quality laptops. Those smaller brands started inching their way towards the top. Now it appears worldwide consumers are trending away from paying high dollar for the brand name. Especially when the technology is advancing faster than you can pay your credit card bill.

According to Gartner, which tracks worldwide shipments of laptops and analyzes trends, Acer is gaining ground on the worlds most popular laptop brand, HP. During the 2nd quarter of 2010, HP had about 17% of the market share, while Acer had 13%. That’s not very stunning until you compare the same two companies’ market share from the 2nd quarter of 2009, HP had 18% and Acer had 12%. (It should be noted, at this time last year, Acer was trailing Dell, 12.6% M.S. in worldwide sales.) To round out the top 5, after Dell is Lenovo, followed by ASUS, which bumped Toshiba out of the top 5 in worldwide sales.

When you look at the US sales statistics, you notice that US sales don’t necessarily mimic the worldwide trends. HP still sits atop the list with 25.7% of the market, followed by Dell, 23.7%, Acer, 11.3%, Apple 9.8%, and Toshiba rounding out the top 5 with 8.7%.

In EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) sales are vastly different. Acer takes the the number 1 spot away from HP, with 21.3% of the market. That’s up from 18.9% last year. HP is in 2nd place with 19.7%, down from 20.8%. But then there’s a dramatic drop off between 2nd and 3rd, Dell sits with only 9.2% of the market in the region, while ASUS, 8.5%, and Toshiba, 5.7% place 4th and 5th, respectively.

Gateway has just released a 17 inch laptop with the new core i3 processor inside. The laptop comes with everything standard today in a mid range laptop including a light weight of 7.4 pounds, 6 cell battery, 16×9 aspect ratio, 500GB 5400RPM hard drive, integrated graphics, but the real new feature to talk about is the 2.13Ghz core i3 processor. All of this comes in at just the low price of $580 at Best Buy.

The new core i3 processor is part of Intel’s new top of the line 32 nanometer processor lineup with the likes of the Intel core i5 and i7. Even though the core i3 has a clock speed of only 2.13ghz, the core i3’s new architecture makes it able to keep up with similar processors with much higher clock speeds like the Intel core 2 DUO T9500 with a clock speed of 2.66GHz.

If you are looking to buy a new laptop soon for a good price then you might want to consider the Gateway NV7915u. It is currently one of the cheapest laptops that offers a core i3 processor and it has received high marks from websites such as CNET who gave it their “Editors Choice Award.” The Gateway NV7915u is an impressive desktop replacement that comes with all the features you expect from a high end laptop, but at a budget price.

Many people are enjoying the fact that they can utilize their iPad as an e-book reader. It can be really convenient and sometimes easier to tote around than a book. Now, Kiwa Media has created their QBook interactive series of e-books that is specifically designed for kids. This series gives kids more than just something to read. It makes the whole experience more engaging for even small children since each story now becomes an interactive adventure.

You can purchase stories by QBook at Apple’s App Store. The latest release for Kiwa Media’s new series is a story called That’s not JUNK. It is a story that is all about recycling, and it teaches kids the value of recycling. As mentioned before, the stories are interactive. That’s not JUNK features Swipe-to-Read, this allows kids to read at their own pace; Touch-to-Hear, which lets kids touch than hear the words on the “pages;” and Touch-to-Spell, that helps kids improve their early language skills. Kids can decide whether or not they want to use Auto Play or My Narration when they read with QBook. Auto Play reads the story to your child, while My Narration allows your child to record themselves reading the story out loud.

With QBooks, children can see each page of the story in full color, or they can choose to use Paint mode which allows kids to color the pages of the story themselves with a variety of different colors and brush widths. Each page of the story also includes animation and different games that children can play. Basically, one single story has plenty of features to keep your child entertained for hours.

There are several different QBooks that are available from the Apps Store. They are available for iPad or iPhone. That’s not JUNK is available now for $4.99. There is also a demo version of Sally Sloth Saves the Day that has just recently been released. Now the demo version only includes 5 pages, so if you get this demo for your kids, they may want to know what happens next in the story.

If you’re looking for something to keep your kids occupied, QBooks from Kiwa Media are a great idea. They are fun, interactive, and even educational. For about $4.99 a story, you can keep your kids entertained for plenty of time. It’s a great solution to keep the kids occupied on the go.

3D is all the rage these days and now it’s coming to your laptop. The IdeaPad Y560d, from Lenovo, is the company’s first 3D notebook, and it’s shipping now. The new laptop has a 15.6-inch screen, 16:9 high definition, a Core i7 processor running at 1.60 GHz, 4GB of RAM, and a 500 GB HDD.

A different configuration will be available at a later date. It will include an i7 at 1.86 GHz, a Blue-ray drive, and a “RapidDrive,” a hybrid 64GB SSD and 750GB HDD for quicker booting.

The laptop uses TriDef 3D technology (TriDef Media Player) software that turns the standard movie into a 3D movie, using the TriDef Photo Transformer. The same can be done to standard photos, however it does not work on Blu-ray or HD-DVD content.
The laptop will also come with a 3D screen and 3D glasses.

It’s currently selling for $1500.

I recently have been having some problems with the Compaq laptop that I purchased when I started my freshman year in college about two years ago. It’s ridiculously slow and has been driving me absolutely insane. I’ve run multiple virus scans, but they couldn’t seem to find anything significant.

I finally decided that the best thing to do would be to purchase an external hard drive to dump all of my important documents and my crazy amount of music and pictures on, and then I figured I would wipe everything on the laptop and give it a new start. When I formulated this plan though, I realized that I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of external hard drive I wanted. So after doing some research, I’ve decided to share what I think are the important things to consider when you’re looking for your hard drive.

First off it’s important to know that for under $100 you can get an external hard drive that can hold over 750,000 music downloads or photos. You can add about a terabyte (1024 GB) of space to your laptop or desktop computer. Every single computer available has the ability to have at least one external hard drive added to it. Some computers even have the multiple ports that allow for the use of more than one external hard drive. You are given the capacity to back up anything you could possibly want or need with an external hard drive.

Okay so if your considering purchasing an external hard drive, the first thing that you want to pay attention to is the type of hard drive that you want. There are two different types of hard drives that you’ll be looking at. There are desktop-style drives and notebook-class styles hard drives. Desktop-style drives are obviously for desktop computers. They require a power adapter, and therefore need to be able to stay in one place for the most part. Right now, you can find desktop-style drives with up to 2 TB (terabytes) of extra space on them.

The notebook-class drives are designed to be portable like you’re laptop. They are powered through the connector cable and do not need to be plugged in like the desktop-style. Most of the Notebook-style hard drives are small enough to easily fir into your pants pocket, which is quite convenient. They come with as much as 1 TB of extra space, but it is more common to find them with 500GB or 640GB which is plenty of room.

The next thing you need to consider is something I never even thought about. You need to decide what kind of input you want to utilize to connect your computer and the external hard drive. There are tons of different hard drives that connect in a variety of different ways. Some connect through USB 2.0 ports, FireWire (400 and 800), eSATA, Wireless USB, USB 3.0, or iSCSI. The USB 2.0 port is the most common way to connect the devices, but its not exactly the fastest. FireWIre is less common, but is much faster. Even faster than FireWire is a hard drive that uses an eSATA connection. If you’re not concerned about transferring all your data quickly, then I think that a hard drive that uses a USB 2.0 port is your best bet, and it will also be cheaper.

The last challenge that you will be faced with when selecting your external hard drive is drive speed. Unless you’re connecting you’re hard drive internally to your PC through the motherboard or with an eSATA cable, there is no need to worry about the drive speed. USB 2.0 and FireWire ports can’t handle a fast drive speed and therefore all that is necessary for your external hard drive is the basic drive speed.

There are always things like color and design to consider when you’re considering external hard drives, but I don’t feel like those are too important. You also can look into warranties, because if you’re really hard on your hard drive it can fail you. Those things are all up to you though. Hopefully now when you’re looking for an external hard drive you will now know what to look for. It’s not as hard as it may sound, ad it is definitely something that can really be a good thing for your laptop or desktop. For a very small amount of cash and a little bit of time, you can create a ton more space or possibly even save your slowly failing computer.

As I sat here tonight, watching the Super Bowl while trying to get a little work done on my laptop, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be cool if there was a laptop that you could see through. Turns out, there is. Or there will be soon if Samsung has anything to do with it. The transparent laptop the company introduced last month at the Consumer Electronics Show is set to be released within about a year, the company has announced.

However, before the laptop with the transparent AMOLED display comes out, a media player, the IceTouch MP3 player, which plays radio, video, and displays photos, will be released. Not a lot is known about the media player, aside from the fact that you’ll be able to see through the small two-inch display and it should sell for about $300.

The laptop is said to feature a 14-inch screen with the transparent AMOLED technology. Red Sullivan, the Vice President of Samsung’s American audio and digital imaging marketing said he imagines all Samsung’s audio-visual products will sooner feature the technology. “We want to be the first in this market.”

There’s no word on why Samsung is so fascinated by this AMOLED technology. Sure, it looks cool, but as far as the media player is concerned, I can see it being slightly useful when I’m out for a walk or jog and am in danger of tripping over something when engrossed in selecting a song or playlist, but the laptop? Unless I find myself working while trying to watch the Super Bowl again next year, it just seems like it’d be distracting and it wouldn’t leave a lot of room for privacy.

Probably Dell’s best looking machines, the Adamo Admire, has just received a significant price cut that could be the turning point in how many people buy the machine or pass it up and it from the looks of things I would bet a lot of people will find it hard to resist.

The Admire sports some pretty nice specs but not some good enough for it’s original price tag. Inside this thing you will find a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino technology, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 2GB 800MHz DDR3 dual channel memory and 128GB solid state drive. In addition to that there is a super-thin 13.4-inch 16:9 (high definition; 720p) WLED display, full QWERTY keyboard with backlighting, integrated 1.3 megapixel camera with integrated digital microphone, 1 display port, 3 USB 2.0 ports, audio out, Gigabit LOM, Bluetooth 2.1 802.11n (3×3) with an integrated RJ-45 port and a battery flaunting up to 5+ hours of life.

All of that packed under a price tag of $999 is enough to get you drooling all over your desk right about now. But if those specs are a little low key for your superior computer tastes, then you might want to check out the Dell Adamo Desire, which has also received a price cut from Dell.

The Desire sports a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino technology, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, 4GB 800MHz dual-channel memory, 256GB solid state drive and mobile broadband. Add that to the 13.4-inch 16:9 (high definition; 720p) WLED display, full QWERTY keyboard with backlighting, integrated 1.3 megapixel camera with integrated digital microphone, 1 display port, 3 USB 2.0 ports, audio out, Gigabit LOM, Bluetooth 2.1 802.11n (3×3) and an integrated RJ-45 with a battery suspected of 5+ hours of life. The Desire is slightly more expensive than the $999 Admire coming in at $1,799 though that is still $500 less than the $2,299 price tag it had in October.

Whichever laptop you decide to get you are going to be satisfied. The specs are good and the device itself looks very nice. Add all that to the significant price cut and you have a recipe that is aimed at success. Both laptops are available now through Dell’s website

If you visit any tech websites regularly, you probably know Apple is getting ready to unveil its new iTablet computer. Rumors and speculation about the computer’s details have been going on for weeks, especially lately. Most people are anxiously awaiting to get their hands on the device. After all, it is Apple and everything that comes from the company is darn near perfect, right? Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you know how Apple fans are.

Turns out not everyone is excited about tablet. ABC reporter David Francois has come up with a list of reasons as to why you shouldn’t rush right out and get one when the time comes. For starters, the iTablet will have a short battery life. If you have an iPhone or a current slim MacBook, you know exactly what to expect when it comes to the battery. This means keeping the device that is supposed to be ultra-portable plugged in more often than not.

If you can get past the battery life, you may not be able to get past the lack of comfort. You can’t hold it in your hand like an iPhone and you can’t rest it in your lap like a laptop. You can’t adjust the screen – it IS the screen – and it doesn’t have a rubberized back. Also, tablets have surprisingly been around for about 20 years but as you might have noticed, they haven’t exactly caught on. Sure, the technology is better this year than it was in say, 1995, but you dont hear people talking about how much they want to run out and get a tablet.

So, you don’t care about comfort, battery life, or popularity? Fine, but why do you even need the device? You’ve already got your laptop, netbook, and cell phone. The tablet won’t do anything those things don’t already do. Maybe it will end up with some tablet-specific apps but in the long-run, unless you’re just a gadget-freak, what purpose will it serve to have one? Make that a gadget-freak with a big budget. Rumor has it the tablet is going to have a 3G data connection that’s definitely going to cost you.

Personally, I’d say wait until the device comes out before you decide whether or not to buy one. Apple didn’t get where they are by making brainless moves and who knows what they have in store, but so far, the tablet isn’t winning me over.

Acer is one of the top netbook manufacturers on the market and has held onto a steady lead in terms of sales in the past year. The companies angle was simple, basic netbooks at lower prices would sell like hotcakes and they were right. Well the Taiwanese company’s newest netbook, the Aspire One 532h, holds true to the very formula that has boosted the company’s sales.

The design of the 532h is nearly identical to its predecessor, the Aspire One 751h. The main difference you will notice is the multi-colored, metallic-blue and black lid. The device itself is quite portable weighing about 2.4lbs and measuring only .99″ thick which makes it thinner than its competition, the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE and the MSI Wind U135 and the all-plastic chassis feels like the right fit for the price tag.

The 532h utilizes a chiclet style keyboard but it doesn’t feel like it was implemented good enough. The keyboard is spacious and has two full shift keys, the key spacing feels to close and the keys feel too flat which seems to make touch typing somewhat difficult. The touchpad is of the kind that “flows” along with the rest of the palm rest. By this I mean that the only way you can tell where the palm rest stops and the touchpad begins is by the feel of the grid of rubber dots that makes up the touchpad. The pad feels nice on your fingers but it can feel too grippy sometimes.

The 10.1″ screen has a native resolution of 1024×600 pixels which is typical for its class. However, the screen is surrounded by a very thick black bezel which, in my opinion, looks pretty bad and the horizontal viewing angels aren’t all that great. The 532h comes with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive that also comes with Windows 7 Starter Edition for a price tag of $349.99. There is a $299.99 version that comes with 160GB of storage as well. The standard 6-cell battery has a solid 6.5 hour battery life which is pretty good for a netbook.

The specs on this machine aren’t going to be the main reason it sells a lot of units. While good, the specs are not that good. What really is going to get people is the price. The price difference is between $30 and $80 depending on which model you get and that is going to be a deciding factor for many people. If you are looking for a great on-the-go netbook that is truly a netbook then the Aspire One 532h is something you should definitely consider.