skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Reviewed by: Rory Reid
Reviewed on: 28 May 2008
It was only a matter of time before the major laptop manufacturers jumped on the Asus Eee PC's low-price, diminutive bandwagon. We've already seen quite a few rip offs alternatives, but the most interesting to date is the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC. Like the Eee PC, it's small, portable and affordable, but it also has the bonus of being easy to use.
The Windows Vista version is available to buy for around £415, while the Linux version is available for around £360.
Design
The 2133 is undoubtedly the most attractive of all the laptops in its class and has the look and feel of a far more expensive device. The brushed aluminium lid and curvy magnesium alloy chassis make a welcome change from the toy-like Eee PC and its various rivals. Don't be surprised if your colleagues, fellow commuters and potential muggers can't take their eyes -- and fingers -- off it.
It's not all peaches and gravy, though. The 2133 measures 165 by 33 by 255mm, making it slightly wider than an Eee PC. It's also approximately 300g heavier at 1.3kg. While it's far from cumbersome, it's definitely eaten a few more pies than its Asus rival.
By making the 2133 bigger, HP has been able to incorporate a relatively large, spill-proof keyboard. This stretches all the way to the left and right edges of the chassis, allowing the keys to be significantly larger than those on the Eee PC. HP says the keyboard is 92 per cent of the size of a 'standard' laptop keyboard, but we'd say many of the keys are actually larger, and more comfortable than what you get on some bigger laptops.
Although HP gets it right with the keyboard, it doesn't follow suit with the mouse. The trackpad is extremely shallow, which means you'll need more vertical finger strokes than you would on a standard trackpad. The selector buttons are also a pain -- and they're in the wrong place. Instead of sitting below it, they're located on the left and right of the trackpad. This arrangement takes some time getting used to and we can't help but thinking HP should have also provided a nipple-style mouse as seen on many IBM laptops.
The 2133's display measures 8.9 inches diagonally, so it's the same size as the Eee PC 900. Still, it takes the upper hand by running at a native resolution of 1,280x768 pixels. Unfortunately, the bezel, which houses the integrated speakers, is quite large, meaning the 2133's screen appears smaller than it is. In fact, the smallness of the screen and the largeness of the keyboard make the whole thing look out of proportion -- like it's made up of two halves of different laptops.
Connectivity is adequate. On the left, there's a D-Sub VGA port, a USB port and mic and headphone jacks. The right side is home to Ethernet, a second USB port and ExpressCard and SD card readers. At the front, you'll find sliding switches for the power and wireless adaptors. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are standard equipment.
Features
You'll find two main versions of the 2133 on sale: one that uses SuSE Linux, and one that uses Windows Vista Business edition. It's also possible to find versions of the 2133 with Windows XP on sale at selected retailers.
The Vista and Linux versions have similar specifications. They both use a CPU that's the computing equivalent of a lame horse -- a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M. The Vista model gets 2GB of RAM -- 128MB of which is allocated to the graphics card, while the Linux model uses 1GB. It's worth noting that, alongside the 1.2GHz chip, American customers get to choose from a 1GHz C7-M, or the slightly faster 1.6GHz C7-M, which leads us to believe HP has something against the British.
UK buyers don't get much choice in terms of storage, either. While the Americans can choose between 120GB or 160GB 1.8-inch drives, or a 4GB solid-state drive, us Brits are only permitted the 120GB mechanical disk. These provide ample storage but they aren't as sturdy as their solid-state counterparts in the event of a fall. This particular feature makes the 2133 a less desirable machine for children and the chronically clumsy.
We've mentioned the 2133 comes with 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, which is great. It lacks any sort of integrated 3G/HSDPA Web access, however, so you need to be within spitting distance of an open Wi-Fi hotspot in order to access the Internet. If carefree Web access is an important factor, you'll be better off buying an Eee PC in one of its 'Surf' variants.
Be aware that surfing outdoors isn't all that easy with a 2133. The 8.9-inch, 1,280x768-pixel screen uses HP's atrociously reflective BrightView coating, which makes it almost impossible to see anything if you're using it outside. It's actually pretty difficult to see what's going on if you're indoors, no matter how much you crank up the brightness. It's a world away from the matte coating on the Eee PC 900, which allows far more freedom in terms of where you use the machine.
Performance
The Mini-Note's performance abilities can be summed up in one word: 'lame'. But that's to be expected, really -- it use the slowest CPU we've encountered in recent times, plus the most bloated operating system on the market. It's no wonder it takes the machine about a minute and a half to boot up, and even less of a surprise that it scored only 538 in PCMark 2005 -- the lowest we've ever seen. Ever. The Asus Eee PC 900 Win managed 1,133 -- more than twice as much.
Battery life wasn't particularly impressive either. Using the standard 3-cell battery, the 2133 lasted 1 hour 33 minutes in our DivX movie playback test. We expect this will last an extra 15-20 minutes if you're willing to reduce the screen brightness and deactivate the wireless adaptor. In our BatteryEater test, it lasted 1 hour 52 minutes, although that was with the LCD brightness set at about 50 per cent.
Conclusion
There are plenty of reasons to love the HP 2133. It's affordable, it's impossibly attractive and it's more comfortable to use than any of its immediate competitors. Its performance is disappointing, however, and we don't like the fact it doesn't include a built-in 3G datacard. We'd recommend it to people who aren't concerned about the performance issue, but for the rest of us, the Eee PC is the mini-laptop machine of choice.
Edited by Shannon Doubleday - Article courtsey of cnet.co.uk
(32GB solid state)
Reviewed by: Patrick Wignall
Reviewed on: 17 June 2008
How many dead cows does it take to make a laptop? In the case of the Asus U2E deluxe edition, it's at least one: it comes with a leather finish on the lid. It does also have some interesting stuff going on inside, thanks to its solid-state hard drive, which distinguishes it from the U2E we reviewed earlier this year. If you're tempted, it'll set you back the not inconsiderable sum of £1,300.
Strengths
The first thing you notice about the U2E is its quirky styling. Instead of the shiny black chassis we've come to expect from pricey ultraportables, this one is decked out in brown leather. The leather is used not only on the lid, but also inside surrounding the keyboard and trackpad. The finish may not be to everyone's taste, but one thing you can say for it over more glossy designs is that at least it doesn't show fingerprints.
Thankfully, it's not just the styling that's interesting. Asus has also gone to a lot of effort to make sure that this machine is a marathon runner rather than a sprinter when it comes to battery life. Not only has it decided to use LEDs for the screen's backlight in an attempt to save power, but it's also fitted the laptop with a solid-state hard drive.
This does mean that you only get 32GB of storage space for your files, but because the drive has no moving parts, it should draw less power than a traditional hard drive. On top of all this, Asus also supplies the machine with two batteries. The smallest 3-cell battery fits flush with the chassis, while the larger 6-cell battery obviously stores more juice, but does protrude from the rear of the case by about a centimetre.
In our BatteryEater test, the 6-cell battery unsurprisingly put in a very impressive performance. It managed to keep running for a whopping 5 hours 49 minutes. Considering the U2E we reviewed in March only clocked about one hour with the smaller battery, this is a seriously impressive improvement.
There's plenty more to like, too. Perhaps surprisingly for a laptop with such petite dimension, Asus has managed to cram a DVD rewriter into the chassis. The screen is also very good. It might be small at 11.1 inches, but it's bright and text and graphics look crisp and sharp thanks to the 1,366x768-pixel resolution.
The keyboard also feels very comfortable to type on and there's a surprising number of ports dotted around the machine's small frame, including a micro-DVI port for connecting it to an external display, three USB ports and an Express Card slot and a memory card along with network and modem ports.
Weaknesses
The U2E is certainly not without its downsides. Perhaps the most obvious is the lack of storage space available on the solid-state drive. Next to traditional laptop drives that typically offer well over 100GB of storage space, the 32GB available here may leave you feeling a little cramped for space.
Also, it's not exactly a speed demon. In our PCMark test, it managed to rack up a relatively low score of 3,189, although it's nearly three times better than the original U2E. Its 3DMark result is also higher at 473, but it still means you won't be using it to play the latest games.
While the ultra low voltage U7600 1.2GHz processor is perfectly usable for day-to-day tasks like picking up email and working on Office documents, if you chuck loads of multitasking at it, it's going to start to feel the pressure. Another issue is that the when you're really taxing the machine, the laptop's fan kicks up a racket and quickly become quite irritating.
Conclusion
The U2E is a great little laptop that packs lots of features into its small chassis. Still, there's plenty of competition out there and our main concern is that although it's expensive, it doesn't quite have the wow factor of the Apple MacBook Air or Sony's power house VGN-TZ21WN.
Edited by Shannon Doubleday - Article courtsey of cnet.co.uk
Reviewed by: Rory Reid
Reviewed on: 15 July 2008
With tiny, cheap netbooks the new flavour of the month, it's difficult to see much of a future for ultraportables. They tend to be slightly bigger, marginally better equipped and far more expensive. That isn't stopping Fujitsu Siemens, though. It's forging ahead with its ultraportable P series, the latest of which is the £1,495 LifeBook P8010.
It's designed for anyone who wants a lightweight, easy-to-use machine with a business focus. As such, it comes with a fingerprint reader, data protection features and an optional docking station.
Design
The LifeBook P8010 is relatively compact. Not in an Eee PC sort of way, but in a "you can carry it without snapping a wrist" way. It weighs slightly more than 1.3kg, which is MacBook Air territory, and measures a relatively svelt 274 by 29 by 210mm.
In terms of actual looks, the LifeBook P8010 is inoffensive. It uses an attractive, if rather generic black, glossy lid, with a contrasting blue-grey interior section, which should please the majority of people. It's no supermodel, but at least it's not ugly.
Fujitsu Siemens has used the space well on the P8010, in most respects. Just above the keyboard is a glossy strip of buttons, lights and speakers. All the status LEDs live here, along with shortcut keys for one-touch locking of the PC, launching of the Windows Mobility Center (which lets you adjust various settings like screen brightness, volume, etc), a power saving mode, and one-touch automatic file backup. The strip is also home to the power button, an illuminated 'LifeBook' logo and a set of speakers.
Below the keyboard -- which is cramped, but not so cramped it's uncomfortable -- there's a large mouse trackpad. This lacks gesture-sensitive areas, which is a shame, but between the mouse selector buttons, there's a fingerprint reader. This should come in handy if you work for the government and are prone to losing laptops. Be warned, though: the glossy lid collects fingerprints. Sophisticated thieves won't find these hard to lift and use to log in without your permission.
Just beyond the mouse, towards the front of the laptop, there's an SD card reader and a switch to enable or disable the wireless features. Round the left side, there's a D-Sub video output port, Ethernet port, two USB ports, a 4-pin FireWire port, and audio ports for a mic and headphones. The left is home to one more USB port and an optical drive, although the P8010 is also available without this.
The P8010 has an optional port replicator -- sometimes called a docking station -- which provides a further four USB ports, plus a DVI port for anyone demanding digital video output.
Features
Being an ultraportable laptop, the P8010 was never going to excite anyone with its specs. Like most machines of this ilk, it uses an ultra-low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo SL7100, clocked at 1.2GHz, 2GB of DDR2 667MHz memory and the Intel GS965 chipset.
Storage comes courtesy of a 160GB hard drive. This is a good amount of storage for an ultraportable -- MacBook Air owners have to tolerate a paltry 80GB in their machines. What's more, the P8010 packs an DVD rewriter drive -- something you could never cram into the Air or a netbook.
Data protection is always a primary concern for users with sensitive information and Fujitsu Siemens hasn't forgotten about this. The P8010 features a hard drive shock sensor, which temporarily parks the drive heads in the event of a bump or shake in order to ensure the drive isn't damaged. Also, the keyboard is spill proof, so any accidental splashes won't spell disaster.
The P8010's strongest point is arguably its wireless capabilities. It uses the Intel Wireless WiFi Link 4965AGN adaptor, which lets it connect to virtually any form of wireless network: a/b/g or high-speed n.
In addition, there's an integrated 3G adaptor that gives you HSDPA access to the Internet at up to 7.2Mbps, whether you're in a Wi-Fi hotspot or not. You also get Bluetooth, which is good news for anyone who wants to use a wireless Bluetooth mouse or synchronise their mobile phones without cables.
Bizarrely, the P8010 has a glossy screen. It might look good in the shops and appeal to the magpie in all of us, but it renders the laptop virtually useless outdoors or anywhere where the lighting isn't perfectly diffuse. All you'll see is your own reflection. It's not particularly great indoors either, thanks to the rather limited horizontal and vertical viewing angles.
Performance
The LifeBook P8010 isn't going to win any awards for its performance, but don't let this put you off. Its CPU is optimised for good battery life and the 2GB of RAM ensures applications open without too much of a delay. It failed to return a score in our PCMark 2005 test, but we can tell from anecdotal testing that it's perfectly capable of performing basic everyday tasks without struggling.
Though it uses an ultra-low voltage CPU and a massive 8,700mAh battery, the P8010's battery life wasn't as impressive as we'd hoped. Fujitsu Siemens claims a maximum battery life of up to 6 hours, but in our BatteryEater Classic test, which stresses the laptop to the limit, it lasted a mere 2 hours 16 minutes. If you aren't pushing the CPU too hard, it'll last considerably longer. It stayed alive for 5 hours 18 minutes in our anecdotal light use tests.
Conclusion
It's difficult to recommend the LifeBook P8010. It ticks most of the boxes required to make a good ultraportable, but it's simply too expensive in comparison to things like the MacBook Air. Business users might find some of its features useful, but for the rest of us, something like the Eee PC 1000 will do just fine.
Edited by Shannon Doubleday - Article courtsey of cnet.co.uk
Reviewed by: Patrick Wignall
Reviewed on: 31 July 2008
We've been rather taken with some of Acer's recent laptops, especially the Blu-ray toting 6920G, so when we were offered the chance to preview its latest machine -- based on Intel's brand-spanking-new Centrino 2 platform -- we jumped at it. While the spec of our unit differs slightly from the final version that will hit the shelves in a couple of weeks, it still gives us a good idea of what to expect from the latest Centrino 2 machines.
Upsides
The Acer Aspire 2930 is a relatively compact laptop and is obviously designed for life on the road. Acer says the inspiration for the design has come from its recent Gemstone range (which includes the 6920G) and the glossy lid and stylish interior section is certainly reminiscent of those attractive models.
The design isn't the most exciting aspect of the 2930. No, it's the fact that it's based on the new Centrino 2 platform. Centrino has been a massive hit for Intel and in many ways was responsible for making Wi-Fi a mandatory feature on every laptop on the market today. There have been plenty of updates to Centrino over the years, but this is the first time Intel has decided to add the magic number 2 to the end of the brand name. For a laptop to qualify as a Centrino 2 machine it needs to use a particular kind of processor and chipset.
In the case of our sample, the new chip is the Core 2 Duo T9400, which runs at 2.53GHz. Acer tells us that the final version of this laptop will use a T8400 processor ticking over at 2.64GHz, however.
There are three different chipsets in the Centrino 2 range, but for this one, Acer has gone with GM45. This has a speedy 1,066MHz front side bus, which is used for transferring data between the memory and the processor. Although the chipset supports DDR3 -- the first Centrino model to do so -- our model had DDR2 memory clocked at 667Mhz. The 2930 also uses a new Intel integrated graphics chip, although it's the 533MHz version rather than 640MHz.
The big question is how well did the laptop perform in our tests? Bearing in mind that this is a preproduction unit that has yet to be tweaked for maximum performance, the results weren't too bad. In PC Mark 05 it posted a score of 3,938, which isn't shabby for such a small machine. It wasn't bad on battery life either, managing to keep running for an hour and 59 minutes in our Battery Eater rundown test. We'd expect the final production version of this laptop to perform slightly better than this engineering sample.
Elsewhere there's plenty to like about this machine. The 12.1-inch widescreen display has a CrystalBrite coating and combined with its sharp 1,280x800-pixel resolution makes movies and pictures look great. Despite the small size of the laptop, Acer has done a good job with both the keyboard and track pad. The layout is fine and the keys are large enough to feel comfortable for long periods of typing.
Connectivity is also impressive. The new Intel WiFi Link 5300 chipset seems to do a better job of dealing with weaker Wi-Fi signals, and you also get Bluetooth for transferring files and pictures to and from devices such as mobile phones. On top of this, the 2930 offers up an ExpressCard slot and three USB ports, as well as a standard D-Sub VGA connector for hooking it up to an external monitor.
Downsides
Unfortunately, although the new Intel integrated graphics chip is an improvement on previous offerings, it's still not on a par with dedicated chips from ATI and Nvidia. In 3D Mark 06 it posted a score of 719. That's fast enough to play slightly older games, but means it lacks the grunt to do justice to the latest 3D titles. Intel does have a faster version of this chip available, clocked at 640MHz, but the fact that it's not included on the faster-performing Centrino 2 chipsets tells you the company is aware this version isn't going to trouble the likes of ATI and Nvidia.
The only other real downside with this model is that it's a little thicker than some of the ultraportables we've seen recently from brands such as Fujitsu Siemens. On a very minor note, although it's branded as having Virtual Dolby surround sound, the audio quality is rather tinny and lacking in bass. That's an accusation you could throw at any number of ultraportable machines, mind you.
Outlook
The Aspire 2930 looks like it's shaping up to be a very good option for those who need a powerful portable machine for life on the road. It looks stylish, uses the latest technology and has a good screen and keyboard. We'll reserve judgement as we'd like to see Acer squeeze a little more performance form the final production model -- expect a full review soon.
Edited by Nick Hide - Article Courtsey of cnet.co.uk
Reviewed by: Dan Ackerman
Reviewed on: 6 August 2008
As middle-of-the-road as a laptop gets, Dell's Inspiron 1525 is an excellent choice for basic computing, especially if you take the time to configure a system to your needs via Dell's online configurator. The version we tested, which is not available in the UK, has a low-end 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T2390 CPU. The closest version available here has the 1.73 GHz T2370 and will set you back £389 direct from Dell.
The system may strain under a heavy uni workload of writing essays and encoding MP3s, but its battery life is actually better than more powerful configurations available -- on a par with the 14-inch Dell Inspiron 1420. When you add the 1525's touch-sensitive media control buttons and an HDMI output, you get a not wholly unreasonable package at the lower end of the price scale.
If your planned course of study will not include running demanding graphics or scientific applications, the Inspiron 1525 should get you from fresher's week to graduation.
Design
Dell has managed to shave a little bulk off its previous 15-inch Inspiron model, and this version is even thinner than the 14-inch Inspiron 1420, although its bigger footprint is not as well suited for lugging around campus all day.
The keyboard is the same full-size model found on Dell's other Inspiron laptops, and it feels solid and responsive. Above the keyboard sits a row of media control buttons, which you won't find on some Sony Vaios, a brand more commonly associated with multimedia endeavours than a jack-of-all-trades Inspiron. The media controls are of the touch-sensitive variety we're partial to, and the Inspiron 1525 has helped make these the industry default, even for budget-minded laptops. This version lacks the 2.0-megapixel webcam, but it can be added in the online configurator for £30.
Features
The 15.4-inch wide-screen LCD offers a 1,280x800-pixel native resolution, which is standard for budget-minded mainstream systems, but on a screen this big, text and icons can look rather big and unwieldy -- we generally prefer 1,440x900-pixel resolutions on screens of this size -- that's an option on the configurable version available on the Dell Web site.
There are plenty of USB jacks for all your accessories and even FireWire, which we're seeing less frequently, but no Bluetooth. Adding an HDMI jack is a welcome high-end touch, even if you never use it.
Performance
The 1525 we tested uses a 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T2390, which sits at the low end of Intel's current CPU lineup. The system is no speed demon, and we ran into occasional sluggishness while multitasking -- Web surfing, working on office documents and playing media files -- but it's still adequate for basic academic work.
The Inspiron 1525 ran for 3 hours and 10 minutes on our video playback battery drain test using the included six-cell battery, which is an improvement over more expensive 1525s, which lasted only 2 hours and 15 minutes on the same test -- perhaps because of more powerful CPUs. There's a pretty obvious trade-off to consider -- slower performance and longer battery life versus faster performance and shorter battery life.
Additional editing by Nick Hide - Article courtsey of cnet.co.uk
Reviewed by: Patrick Wignall
Reviewed on: 7 August 2008
Toshiba has a strong reputation for being able to put together budget laptops that have the look and feel of more expensive machines. The L300 has a rock-bottom price tag of just £390, so we were intrigued to see whether Toshiba had managed once again to avoid the usual pitfalls of budget machines, such as flexing cases and poor keyboards.
Positives
It's pretty obvious from the L300's case that this is a budget machine. There's none of the glossy finishes that you'll find on Toshiba's more expensive laptops. Don't let that put you off, however, because the L300's sliver and matte-black colour scheme still manages to look very professional. The chassis feels sturdy, with little of the flexing we'd usually associate with budget machines.
When you pop the lid open, you're greeted by the 15.4-inch widescreen display. It has a glossy X-Black-style finish, so pictures and movies look very impressive, although you'll see reflections if you're in a bright environment. Thanks to the 1,280x800-pixel resolution, it offers up plenty of desktop space when you're working on documents or surfing the Web.
The L300's keyboard is also very good. The layout is sensible and the keys are not only large, but also have good travel. Add to this a roomy trackpad with responsive buttons and you've got a usable combination that's comfortable for both work and fun.
The laptop's powerhouse is an Intel Mobile Dual Core T2370 running at 1.73GHz and backed up by a decent 2GB helping of RAM. Running Windows Vista Home Premium, the machine posted a PCMark 05 result of 3,341, which is not too shabby for such a low-priced offering. In use it certainly feels sprightly enough, even when running multiple applications, and there's plenty of room on the 160GB hard drive for storing music, pictures, videos and documents.
Connectivity is also pretty decent. You get three USB ports, an ExpressCard slot and a D-Sub VGA connector for hooking it up to an external screen. Naturally Wi-Fi is present, but sadly there's no Bluetooth support. You do get a webcam built in to the top of the screen for making video calls over the Internet.
Negatives
Like most budget laptops, the L300 relies on an Intel integrated graphics chip for 3D support, so isn't going to win any prizes when it comes to gaming performance. In our 3DMark 06 test it posted a score of 530. This means that you'll be able to play older games as long as the detail is turned down, but the frame rate in the latest 3D titles will be horribly slow.
Unfortunately battery life wasn't an area that the L300 excelled in either. In our battery run down test it managed to keep going for just an hour and nine minutes before it was crying out to be plugged back into the mains. In real-life situations you're likely to get significantly longer, but it's still more of a sprinter than a long-distance runner. Anyway, we doubt the L300 will appeal to those who are constantly on the road -- at 2.49kg it's a tad on the heavy side.
Conclusion
The L300's weight and short battery life mean it's not suitable for road warriors. But if you're looking for a basic, no-nonsense laptop for use around the home then its sub-£400 price tag and sturdy build quality make it an attractive option.
Edited by Nick Hide - courtsey cnet.co.uk
