The most recent articles from Personal Computer World

Review: Dell Studio 17 NR73502 notebook PC

Simon Crisp — 2008-08-29T16:27:00.000Z

Simon Crisp, Personal Computer World, Friday 29 August 2008 at 16:27:00

Well built with a speedy processor, but not a laptop for gamers

There has always been a gap between Dell’s popular mainstream Inspiron notebook series and its higher end XPS models.

Now it has bridged this gap with the Studio family, incorporating features found in both product lines.

The Studio line-up features 15in and, as on this Studio 17 sample, 17in versions.

These days, choosing a notebook finish is almost as complicated as choosing the paint scheme and interior finish of a new car.

The Studio family comes with a choice of eight colours, including the Graphite Grey of our review model; you also get a choice of four trim colour options.

Depending on your point of view, the pattern on the chassis either looks like a series of water stains or the contour lines on a map.

Still, the finish is impressive, but whether you’ll want to carry it around showing it off to people is another matter, as it weighs a hefty 4.1kg with the power supply.

As with all Dells, you can customise the specification to suit your needs. Our sample came with an Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 processor (there are two other options both with 6MB of L2 cache, namely the 2.5GHz T9300 at £79.99 extra and the 2.6GHz T9500 at a whopping £270 extra).

The T8300 is clocked at 2.4GHz and, with an 800MHz front-side bus (FSB) and 3MB of L2 cache backed by 4GB of 667MHz DDR2 memory, it has plenty of power to do all the everyday tasks you’ll ask of it, as confirmed by its PCmark05 score of 6,014. It also scored a respectable 3,546 in the more demanding PCmark Vantage.

A single 320GB 5,400rpm Western Digital Scorpio hard disk is fitted along with an eight-speed slot-loading DVD burner. Powering the graphics is ATI’s Mobilty Radeon HD3650 with 256MB of dedicated GDDR2 memory clocked at 500MHz, which provides a modicum of games performance.

When tested using the built-in benchmark in World in Conflict at the screen’s native resolution (1,440x900), it only gave a maximum frame rate of 16fps (fr ames per second); this was tested with all the details turned on or set to high. Turning some of these off and dropping the resolution will give better frame rates, but it’s no gaming system.

The 17in screen features Dell’s Truelife coating and is very impressive, and to output to other screens there are VGA and HDMI ports. Although it comes with an Intel CPU and chipset, this isn’t a Centrino notebook as the wireless networking isn’t an Intel product – instead, it’s one of Dell’s own 802.11n 1510 mini cards; the Bluetooth module is also a Dell product.

The keyboard feels sturdy, with hardly any flex to the key bed, while the keys themselves are good and responsive. It also has a dedicated numeric typepad. Compared to the keyboard, the touchpad seems undersized, but again it has just the right amount of sensitivity. Above the keyboard is a row of touch-sensitive controls and a Media Center remote control.

A notebook of this size isn’t going to be carried about too much, so we weren’t expecting wonders in our battery tests. But when tested with Mobilemark 2007, the standard six-cell battery lasted 125 minutes for the DVD test, 158 minutes for the Productivity test and 178 minutes for the Reader test.

Microsoft Works 9 is included along with Vista Home Premium, and a one-year RTB warranty is provided as standard.

It’s not much good for gaming and its weight will put some people off, but the Studio 17 is well built and benefits from a decent processor.

Review: Samsung Q210 notebook PC

Simon Crisp — 2008-08-29T15:11:00.000Z

Simon Crisp, Personal Computer World, Friday 29 August 2008 at 15:11:00

Intel’s Centrino 2 processor in a chassis that divides opinion

Intel’s latest mobile platform, Centrino 2 (codenamed Montevina), brings a whole new line-up of processors, a completely new chipset providing improved graphics, better Wifi handling and enhanced power management.

The first notebook to land on our lab bench using the new technology is Samsung’s replacement for the Q45, namely the Q210.

From the outside the Q210 looks like any other Samsung with its glossy black finish, but opening the lid tends to divide opinion.

The Q210 has a touch of red along the front edge of the chassis although this makes it stand out from the crowd, the jury is very much out on whether it improves its looks.

Arguments about finish aside, the Q210 has excellent build quality, which belies its 2.25kg (with power adapter) weight.

Powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo T8400, one of the new CPUs that are part of the Centrino 2 platform, the T8400 has a clock speed of 2.26GHz, a 1,066MHz front-side bus, 3MB of L2 cache and a TDP (Thermal Design Power) of just 25W.

Backing up the processor is the new Intel PM45 Express chipset and 3GB of PC2-5300 667MHz DDR2 memory. This gives the Q210 a reasonable overall PCmark05 score of 5,462, while the more intensive PCmark Vantage returned an overall score of 3,474.

Don’t expect the graphics to power anything more than casual gaming, though, as the Nvidia Geforce 9200M GS with 256MB of dedicated memory isn’t about to set the world alight. This is something amply proved by its 3Dmark06 score of just 2,368 if that doesn’t convince you, the average frame rate score of just 4fps (frames per second) in World in Conflict should.

However, the screen is very good. With a native resolution of 1,280x800, the 12.1in display comes with a glossy, high-contrast coating which doesn’t reflect office lighting as badly as some others we’ve seen.

The keyboard exhibits the same build quality as the rest of the notebook with no discernible flex during use; this results in a strange key response feeling when you type, but we soon got used to it.

All the ports are labelled on the top edge of the chassis and, unlike many of the competition’s systems, the labels are positioned above the appropriate port. The left-hand side of the chassis holds VGA and HDMI ports, a single USB port and two audio ports.

The eight-speed DVD burner sits on the right-hand side, together with two more USB ports, an SD card slot and a 34mm Express Card slot. Samsung has provided the Q210 with a 320GB 5,400rpm Sata drive for storage, which should be more than adequate for day-to-day use.

The Q210 is well equipped for keeping in touch with the office or surfing the web. There is Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n Wifi; along with a 56K modem. Last but not least is Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR to get you connected to devices such as mobile phones.

When it comes to battery life, the Q210 offers some pretty decent results with its six-cell 5,200mAh battery. In Mobilemark 2007 it lasted for just a shade over three-and-a-half hours in the Productivity test, while the DVD test yielded a life of just over two-and-a-half hours. By using the power-saving features, you could boost this even further.

Its design might not suit all tastes, but Samsung has done a good job of implementing Intel’s latest mobile chipset. And if games aren’t your bag, it’s a great workhorse laptop.

Review: NEC Versa S9100 notebook PC

Emil Larsen — 2008-07-29T10:00:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 29 July 2008 at 10:00:00

A lightweight marvel with solid business credentials, but little glamour

Ultraportable notebooks have been given a kick up the innovation backside with the arrival of the Macbook Air.

NEC proudly boasts that, despite it including an optical drive (something the Air doesn’t), its Versa S9100 weighs 110g less than the Air; on our scales, we measured it in at 1.27kg.

That’s not a particularly fair comparison though, since the Air has a 13.3in screen while the S9100 has a 12in display.

Its main features include a lightweight magnesium alloy chassis, an LED backlit display to prolong battery life and “self-repairing” paint.

This paint is made from numerous glossy layers, which means a new layer of paint will come to the fore if the surface is scratched.

In practice, the piano-black coating is a nice touch but it’s on the LCD cover only and scratches and smudges are still visible. The rest of the laptop has to make do with a standard matt-black finish.

The Versa S9100 has a Core 2 Duo U7600 1.2GHz processor, a Santa Rosa chipset, 2GB DDR2 Ram and Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics.

It also includes 1GB Turbo Memory and a 160GB Seagate hard disk with “G-Force protection”; this means the hard drive has a smaller and lighter head as well as increased clearance between the head and disk so it can withstand heavier bumps and bruises without failing.

It scored a reasonable 2,874 in PCmark05, with a respectable 4,532 in the hard drive section. Vista Business comes pre-installed, and it ran very smoothly.

Battery life, courtesy of a mighty 7,800mAh battery and the miserly CPU, was very good, lasting over three hours in our DVD rundown test.

With the arrival of the cheap and frugal Atom processor, it’s interesting to see how Intel’s premium low-voltage Core 2 Duo U7600 stacks up against it.

The U7600 used here has a 10W TDP (thermal design point), compared to the 2.5W TDP of the 1.6GHz Atom appearing in Acer, Asus and MSI miniature notebooks, but is derived from the more expensive Core 2 architecture. The U7600 is also twice as fast as a 1.6GHz Atom in PCmark05’s CPU test.

While in intensive single-threaded multimedia applications, which our Cinebench 9.5 single-CPU test exploits, the NEC S9100 managed to score 208 – dwarfing the 90 achieved by the Atom 1.6GHz processor. And when you take into account the Core 2 Duo has two cores while the Atom has only one, the S9100 is two to four times faster across the board.

As such we’re comfortable recommending U7600-based systems for users who will be running more than one or two applications at once, while those wanting to surf the net and do basic office tasks will be fine with a low-cost Atom notebook.

The touchpad on the Versa S9100 is good and the keyboard spacious, although we found the function key sits where the left control key should – something you’ll eventually get used to, but it’s an irritation.

Ultimately, the S9100 looks rather ordinary alongside its closest competitors, namely the Toshiba Portege R500 and Panasonic Toughbook CF-W7.

The Versa S9100 is heavier than the Portege R500, but sturdier too. It’s cheaper than the Toughbook, but it doesn’t have the same tough-guy credentials or water resistance. The Versa S9100’s lack of webcam, pathetic mono speaker and slightly smaller screen makes it less desirable than a Macbook Air.

The TMP 1.2 chip and fingerprint reader will endear itself to business users, but otherwise the Versa S9100 doesn’t stand out in any way.

Review: Advent 4211 notebook PC

Emil Larsen — 2008-07-18T13:21:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Friday 18 July 2008 at 13:21:00

A rebranded MSI Wind with a great price and excellent usability

This is the MSI Wind. Well, not exactly, but the Advent 4211 is identical in terms of hardware.

In a nutshell, MSI has sold its design to PC World, where it gets a different paint job, no case, and a one-year, rather than two-year, warranty.

By stripping out the case and warranty, the Advent 4211 is £50 cheaper than the MSI Wind's suggested retail price and £60-£95 cheaper than the price the Wind is actually selling for due to short supply.

The Advent comes with a matt black and grey finish, which doesn't look as classy as the MSI Wind's glossy white finish.

Both the Wind and Advent 4211 sport Intel's new Atom N270 processor, running at 1.6GHz with 512KB L2 cache. It has low energy requirements and produces little heat so the Advent 4211 is an exceptionally quiet laptop.

This is our first opportunity to benchmark the Atom in depth, since the Atom-based Acer Aspire One and Asus Eee PC 901 we reviewed last month didn't have Windows-compatible drivers.

It's a single core CPU with the first outing of hyperthreading since the Pentium 4. It produced a PCmark05 CPU score of 1,499 and Cinebench 9.5 scores of 135 with hyperthreading enabled and 90 without hyperthreading.

On the Pentium 4, hyperthreading boosted performance by around 10 per cent in a handful of applications, but the Atom result shows Intel has made huge strides with its virtual multithreading technology and it we're rather excited about the promised return of hyperthreading in Intel's next desktop CPU, Nehalem.

But despite the impressive hyperthreading increase, the 1.6GHz Atom is just two per cent quicker than the 900MHz Celeron M 353 in PCmark05 and 25 per cent slower in non-hyperthreaded applications like our single-CPU Cinebench test.

The other components include 1GB of DDR2 Ram, an 80GB 5,400rpm hard drive and Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics. Its 10in screen is pleasant to use, with a decent 1,024x600 resolution that only kicks up a fuss when used with programs requiring 768 horizontal lines. That said, HP's Mininote 2133 is the only small laptop with a higher resolution.

It may be worth skipping the Advent 4211 and MSI Wind altogether if you're planning on plugging it into a projector or external screen (for presentations and the like) because they simply wouldn't output some 4:3 aspect ratio resolutions, including 1,024x768.

MSI let us preview an upcoming Bios update that fixes the issue, but upgrading the Bios is an ugly affair because there's no Windows or in-built Bios tool.

Both the MSI Wind and Advent 4211 come with an eco utility installed, which limits the CPU to its speed-stepped clock of 700MHz and reduces screen brightness when running on batteries.

With the screen brightness set to full and Wifi turned off, both the MSI Wind and Advent 4211 lasted two hours 10 minutes in our reader test, which is 40 minutes less than the Eee PC 900 and around two and a half hours less than the Eee PC 901.

The cause is the small 2,200mAh battery – to propel this laptop to more acceptable battery life, MSI's extended 5,200mAh battery (available to buy end of August for £69) is an essential purchase.

We've done a lot of nitpicking on both the MSI Wind and Advent 4211 but, with the exception of battery life, both are much nicer to use than the Asus Eee PC and Acer Aspire One. The keyboard is much larger and more comfortable, in particular the impressive double-height return key.

But we can only recommend the Advent 4211 since it's cheap enough for you to buy a second battery, and decent battery life is something all Atom-based laptops deserve.

You can read a full review of the MSI Wind in the next issue of PCW (on sale 7th July)

Review: Asus Eee 901 notebook PC

Tom Royal — 2008-07-02T12:50:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 2 July 2008 at 12:50:00

The best Eee yet – but can it stand up to the competition?

This is the third notebook we’ve seen from Asus’ Eee range, but in many respects it’s version two of the Eee.

The 900, released only a few months ago, simply added a larger screen and Windows XP to the original design, but the 901 has a new case, better networking and, crucially, a new processor inside.

The Eee’s system tool coyly describes its CPU as an “Intel Mobile Processor” but we understand that it’s Intel’s brand-new Atom N270, running at 1.6GHz – the same as used in Acer’s Aspire One.

This new chip is paired with 1GB of Ram and a large SSD for storage: 20GB for this Linux version or 12GB if you choose Windows XP.

The Atom runs at a significantly higher speed than the Celeron chip used in older Eee models and the 901 certainly feels responsive when clicking around the Linux operating system. There’s a cooling fan inside the case, but this is very quiet.

Perhaps more importantly, the combination of the Atom processor and a new and improved 6,600mAh battery pack gives the 901 an outstanding lifespan when away from mains power. With wireless networking disabled but the screen on, it ran for nearly six and a half hours in our test.

One thing about the Eee 901 remains depressingly similar to previous models: the keyboard. Although barely an inch narrower than that of the Aspire One, it’s too small to type on comfortably, so writing anything longer than an email soon becomes a chore and even web addresses are easy to mistype. On the other hand, the touchpad is superb.

Although the case looks different from older models, with rounder corners and the Asus brand name relegated to the bottom plate, the sockets around its edges are nothing new: there’s a VGA output, three USB sockets, headphone and microphone jacks and an SD memory card slot for expansion.

Above the screen there’s a 1.3-megapixel webcam, though, and there are two microphones below the screen. New additions inside the case include Bluetooth and a faster 802.11n-compatible wireless network adapter.

The 8.9in 1,024x600 display is fine for surfing the web or working on documents and, although it has the same resolution as that on Acer’s Aspire One, the neater font smoothing used by the Eee makes text look clearer and sharper.

The menu-based Linux operating system also shows the benefits of Asus’ experience with the earlier Eee 701. It uses the same tab system, with each tab offering a different choice of large, clear program links.

The taskbar across the bottom of the screen includes useful information about USB devices and performance settings as well as the usual power and network indicators. Staroffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and the instant messaging client Pidgin are installed as standard. One new and unusual bonus is the Internet Storage icon – click this and you can connect to the 20GB of online storage that’s provided free with each Eee 901.

All things considered, there’s no doubt that the 901 is the best Eee notebook yet. It takes the great screen from the Eee 900 and the 701’s clever Linux operating system, and adds a superb battery and better networking. On the other hand, it faces strong competition from the likes of Acer’s Aspire One, its keyboard is as frustrating as ever and at £319 it’s fairly expensive.

It is without doubt a great second computer if you have another PC to type on, but work and home users should consider the cheaper Aspire One – with an extra battery if needed – instead.

Review: Acer Aspire One notebook computer

Tom Royal — 2008-07-02T11:17:00.000Z

Tom Royal, Personal Computer World, Wednesday 2 July 2008 at 11:17:00

An 8.9in ultraportable notebook for just £220

You could say that it’s just typical: after waiting more than a decade for an affordable, portable notebook computer, three turn up at once.

Acer’s Aspire One is launching alongside the Asus Eee 901 but even in an increasingly crowded market it stands out thanks to its low price.

The Aspire One looks smart, is available in white or black, and features a shiny black bezel around the 1,024x600 pixel display. The screen isn’t very bright but its resolution is good enough for web surfing and office work. Acer has employed some slightly over-zealous font smoothing, though, so text appears less pin-sharp than it does on the Eee 901.

All the usual sockets are located on the two sides: three USB sockets, Ethernet, VGA, headphone, microphone and two multiformat card readers. The card reader on the right-hand side works as usual, but the one on the left is designed for more permanent storage expansion; stick a memory card into it and its capacity is seamlessly added to that of the main SSD.

The One’s slim standard battery has a capacity of just 2,200mAh, so despite some useful power-saving tricks, such as throttling the processor down to half its top speed when possible, it’s not particularly long lived. With the screen illuminated but wireless networking disabled, the One gave a low-battery warning after one hour, 45 minutes, then expired after two and a quarter hours. It pales in comparison to the stamina of the Eee 901 and anyone who travels regularly will need to consider the £80, six-cell battery option.

If the battery is a little disappointing, though, the One’s keyboard is something to celebrate. Whereas the Eee 701, 900 and 901 share a keyboard that’s too small to make prolonged typing comfortable, the One has a well-designed keyboard with larger keys that we quickly adjusted to. This is surprising, as at roughly 25x17x3cm the One isn’t much bigger than the Eee 901, but the extra two and a half centimetres of keyboard width make a real difference. Underneath, the touchpad has buttons on either side, rather like the HP Mininote, but a function key can disable the touchpad entirely if it gets in the way when typing.

Inside the One you’ll find a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, 512MB of Ram and an 8GB SSD. The spec is high enough to run a few browser windows and a word processor happily at the same time, or to play a DivX video file. A small fan cools the system but it’s quiet enough.

Windows XP Home will be available on more expensive Aspire One models but this £220 model uses a version of Linux. Like the Eee, it uses a simplified program launcher rather than a full desktop, with a selection of useful programs installed. We liked the ability to start Firefox and Openoffice Writer from the front screen, and the email and instant messaging programs can cleverly connect to several services, but generally the Eee’s menus, and taskbar in particular, feel a little more polished. The Linux system takes about 20 seconds to start up and 15 to shut down.

All in all, the Aspire One is hard to criticise. It has a few faults (its software could be better and the battery won’t suit travellers), but the combination of a good keyboard and Openoffice makes it a viable tool for work as well as for sofa surfers. And, although the Asus Eee 901 betters it in a few areas, at just £220 the One is the best-value mini notebook out there.

Review: HP Mininote 2133 notebook computer

Emil Larsen — 2008-07-01T19:15:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 1 July 2008 at 19:15:00

The corporate heavyweight wades in with an 8.9in laptop

The success of the Asus Eee PC isn’t in doubt and, with some businesses hoping to kit out their entire workforce with 1kg wonders, HP’s entry into this market is a promising step.

The Mininote 2133 looks very attractive and the build quality is good.

The biggest problem with ultraportable notebooks is invariably the keyboard, but HP has done an impressive job with the 2133, again strengthening its appeal to businesses.

The keyboard stretches entirely to the left and right edges and is, according to HP, 92 per cent of the size of a regular notebook’s keyboard. It’s very easy to type on and we’d even go so far as to say it can challenge much bigger notebooks for ease of use. There are mouse buttons to the left and right of the touchpad, rather than below, which saves space.

An excellent lock button sits between the touchpad and keyboard, which toggles the trackpad on and off so you don’t accidentally move the cursor when typing. Another neat touch is the Wifi on/off switch and, unlike many small notebooks, an Express Card slot is included for future upgrades.

Two speaker bars sandwich the screen, pumping out impressively loud sound for a portable device, while the 8.9in screen has a bright (153.3cd/m2) backlight and detailed 1,280x768 resolution. This is the highest resolution you’ll get on a small and cheap notebook - the rest rely on a 1,024x600 resolution, which can pose problems for poorly designed programs.

The screen’s glossy coating is thick, making it very prone to reflections. Corporate laptops tend not to use reflective coatings, as they are less suitable for bright working environments. On the other hand, glossy coatings do improve perceived contrast, which is preferable for movie watching, but firing up video on the 2133 reveals its dark side. Full-screen video, be it a standard-definition MPEG-4 clip or even Youtube, becomes unwatchable because it drops so many frames.

Such poor performance is quantified by a rock-bottom result of 671 in PCmark05, with the CPU result of 655 less than half that of an Eee PC 900, which achieved 1,462. A Via C7-M 1.2GHz CPU is the culprit and even 2GB of Ram and a 120GB hard drive doesn’t do enough to raise the scores.

The PC’s low-end Via Chrome9 graphics means it doesn’t meet Microsoft’s standards for running Windows Vista Business, which comes installed. In fact, it only qualifies for a Vista Basic sticker. That said, Vista performance wasn’t too bad, booting up in one minute and 10 seconds. A Linux version is also available (£350) with a smaller battery.

The Vista version has a large 55Wh battery, which pushes the weight and centre of gravity uncomfortably to the rear of the machine, but it did last three hours and 44 minutes in our reader test, an hour longer than the Eee PC 900.

At £452, this isn’t a particularly cheap sub-notebook. And at 1.45kg, excluding power adapter (1.9kg including), it’s not especially light for something with no optical drive. The HP Mininote 2133 is one of the most mixed bags we’ve seen in a long time.

Its keyboard, screen resolution, speakers and build quality are superb, but the awful performance, relatively heavy weight and glossy screen make it incredibly frustrating to use. It’s fine for word processing, but Atom-based devices from MSI, Acer and Asus are cheaper and better all-round notebooks.

Review: Alienware Area-51 m15x notebook PC

Emil Larsen — 2008-06-17T15:32:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Tuesday 17 June 2008 at 15:32:00

A compact, speedy gaming laptop with a great lighting system

The battle between desktops and notebooks has shifted to gaming laptops too, with the majority of Alienware’s sales coming from the latter.

So you’d expect the company to have put a lot of effort into its latest notebook, the Area-51 m15x.

It’s a modest affair on paper, containing one, rather than two, 8800M GTX graphics cards and a 15.4in screen; most gaming laptops use bigger displays.

With these components, Alienware has kept the weight down to 3.6kg, excluding the power adapter.

In the flesh, the m15x is special. Alienware’s new AlienFX customised lighting pumps out a selection of 11 colours from the three Alienware logos, the blue-lit bezel, touch-sensitive controls, the touchpad and through the keyboard. You can set the lighting to transition from one colour to the next, or simply set colours to strobe.

There’s no laptop quite like it and there’s certainly no confusing it for a business notebook.

The screen has a top-notch 1,920x1,200 resolution and the brightest backlight we’ve seen, coming in at 156.6cd/m2. It has a similar black level to the Acer Aspire 8920G, but because it lacks a glossy finish, contrast feels subjectively poorer. On the upside, you don’t see your reflection in its screen.

Intel’s Core 2 Extreme X9000 graces the m15x with its 2.8GHz clock speed and 44W thermal design point (TDP) - 9W higher than regular Core 2 Duos, so energy efficiency isn’t its strong point. In fact, the m15x lasted just one hour and 30 minutes in our DVD playback test, despite a capable 5,200mAh battery being fitted.

Other components include 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 Ram, which is a step behind faster 800MHz Ram usually found on gaming laptops, and a speedy 7,200rpm 200GB hard drive.

The 8800M GTX graphics card pushed the m15x to 10,791 in 3Dmark06, while it mustered 19fps (frames per second) in our intense DirectX 10 game benchmark World in Conflict, with high settings enabled at its native resolution. We had to lower the settings to medium to make it playable, where it achieved an excellent 47fps.

You’ll want headphones when you’re playing games since the speakers, placed below the screen, are tinny for a gaming notebook. The keyboard may look good, but it’s sunk too deep into the chassis so the chassis curb becomes an uncomfortable problem. Call us eccentric, but we hate the DVD drive’s lack of an Eject button (you must use the Fn and F8 keystroke combination).

Furthermore, we have some minor grumbles about its construction. For starters, the right and left mouse clicks are made from one piece of plastic, which is uncomfortable the minute your fingers wander too close to the centre of the buttons.

Then there’s the seam between the top and bottom part of the chassis, which is too wide, and the two sides don’t fit together perfectly. A little online investigation revealed that m15x samples in the US have suffered from hairline cracks as a result of heat from the high-end components inside, but Alienware said UK models shouldn’t be affected.

An Alienware baseball cap, mousepad and a personalised metal plate, screwed to the bottom of the laptop with your name inscribed on it, complete the package.

This is a well-balanced and compact gaming machine. Our biggest reservation is whether the m15x’s bells and whistles justify such a big price tag. Dell’s 1710 gaming laptop comes with two 8800M GTX cards but costs a whisper less than the m15x.

If you must have the Alienware’s unique lighting system, though, then it’s not a bad buy.

Review: MSI EX700 notebook computer

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-06-13T17:34:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Personal Computer World, Friday 13 June 2008 at 17:34:00

Games and media pose no problem for this desktop replacement

Although by no means a top performer, the Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 processor and 2GB of DDR2 Ram provide a stable base for this 17in notebook.

And with the Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS graphics card, it’s powerful enough for the demands of both the Aero Glass interface used by the supplied Vista Home Premium and for playing DVDs. But this graphics card isn’t exactly high end and gamers will find it leaves something to be desired, particularly for recent games with high levels of detail.

Our benchmarks highlighted this, with scores of 1,677 in 3Dmark06 and 2,911 in 3Dmark05. The poor graphics performance is a shame because otherwise there’s plenty to enjoy, including an HDMI output and a digital TV tuner, as well as a capacious 250GB hard disk. It features a super-multi DVD writer and a 802.11a/b/g adapter, but if you want the newer and faster Draft N wireless you’ll need an adapter. It also has a Bluetooth receiver and webcam built in. A five-speaker surround-sound system graces the case and provides impressive audio.

Screen quality is fair, and the glossy coating makes DVDs come alive. As ever, the downside of this type of screen coating is that reflections in brightly lit conditions can cause problems. The keyboard is a little on the small side, with the space bar cramped up against the chassis. This configuration means that users will find themselves frequently banging the sides of their thumbs.

Battery life is fair at two hours and there is a two-year collect-and-return warranty.

There’s no doubt the EX700 is powerful enough for most day-to-day tasks, but flaws such as the relatively poor graphics and cramped keyboard design are hard to overlook.

Review: Acer Aspire 8920G notebook computer

Emil Larsen — 2008-06-06T10:37:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Friday 6 June 2008 at 10:37:00

New 16in and 18.4in screens with better colour reproduction and Blu-ray

We’ve been impatiently waiting for Acer’s new Gemstone ‘Blue’ laptop since the original Gemstone won numerous awards for its feature-packed design and affordable price. It won no awards for its looks, though, which were some of the ugliest we’ve seen on a laptop.

The headline features on the new Gemstone Blue, officially known as the Aspire 8920G, is its 18.4in display (its cheaper sister model, the Aspire 6920G, has a 16in display) with a 16:9, rather than 16:10, aspect ratio. The resolution is ‘full HD’ (1,920x1,080 rather than 1,920x1,200 on 16:10 laptops), which makes it more suitable for films or viewing two documents side by side.

Acer claims that not only are its screens bigger but also brighter, and the 18.4in version is supposed to display 90 per cent of NTSC colour gamut, which means it should be able to show clearer and more accurate colours than other notebooks.

According to Acer, the 18.4in screen is rated at 300cd/m2, but our Spyder3Elite calibrator measured just 154.3cd/m2, which is still an excellent result for a laptop screen. We also calculated that the screen was capable of 93.1 per cent of NTSC gamut, better than Acer’s claims and an outstanding result.

The chassis is a completely new design, with a sturdy dark blue LCD backing, black underside and a textured silver wristrest. Touch-sensitive media controls that light up are to the left of the keyboard and are the most striking inclusion. The keyboard is glossy black and can be a slippery affair when typing on it. One big flaw with its design, which is also present on a handful of other notebooks, is that your thumb consistently hits the chassis curb when you use the spacebar.

Other features include a dual-speed Blu-ray reader, which will also write to DVDs at eight-speed, and six speakers - five tweeters and a subwoofer for surround sound - which are Dolby Home Theatre certified. They sounded a little flat compared with those on Toshiba’s P200 and X200 notebooks, confirming our experience that a Dolby-optimised driver (and Dolby sticker) doesn’t necessarily ensure top sound quality from built-in speakers.

Inside there’s a Penryn-based Core 2 Duo T9300 running at 2.5GHz with 6MB of L2 cache - one of Intel’s fastest mobile dual-cores - two 667MHz Dimms providing 4GB of Ram and two 320GB hard drives.

The 8920G is the first we’ve seen with Nvidia’s Geforce 9650M GS mobile graphics card, the midrange for its new 9000-series. It has 32 stream processors and 512MB of GDDR3 memory, which is enough to cope with games a couple of years old, reflected by a respectable 3Dmark06 score of 5,859. However, our World in Conflict test could only muster 13fps on high settings at its native resolution, so new DirectX 10 games will need you to turn the resolution down.

The 8920G’s 4,800mAh battery limped to one hour, 46 minutes in our DVD playback test. When we enabled hardware MPEG acceleration on the graphics card, which improves playback quality, the battery life dropped to one hour, 22 minutes.

This result, combined with its 4.7kg weight, means the 8920G is truly a desktop replacement. It runs quietly, is great for Blu-ray playback and looks good compared with older Gemstone notebooks. Vista Ultimate completes a good-value package, but the high keyboard curb and average speakers pull it back from a perfect score.

Review: Lenovo X300

Emil Larsen — 2008-05-02T14:28:00.000Z

Emil Larsen, Personal Computer World, Friday 2 May 2008 at 14:28:00

The PC alternative to the Macbook Air

According to Lenovo’s “hot air” advertising campaign, this is the PC answer to the Macbook Air.

At 1.55kg, it weighs nearly 200g more than the Air, but what you lose in flair you gain in functionality, as the X300 has a DVD writer fitted whereas the Mac does not. The X300 also has three USB ports and an Ethernet port; the Macbook Air has just one USB and no Ethernet. The X300’s CPU is a new edition to Intel’s range.

Called the Core 2 Duo SL7100, it marries a 1.2GHz clock speed with 4MB L2 cache and a frugal 12W TDP. This combines with a GM965 chipset (with integrated X3100 graphics), 2GB Ram and a Samsung 64GB solid state drive to produce plenty of grunt for office software.

The solid state drive ensures quick boot-up times (reflected by a notebook-record of 12,461 in PCmark05’s hard disk section) and good battery life. Apart from the function and control keys being in reverse order, the X300’s large keyboard is superb for typing. A track-point and trackpad serve for navigation but the latter is squashed between the mouse buttons.

The rubberised chassis has little flex to it, despite measuring just 27mm at its thickest point. The

matt-finished 13.3in (1,440x900 pixel) screen is also pleasing to work with and the stereo speakers produce a reasonable sound. An HSDPA slot sits just beneath the 4,000mAh battery, which powered the X300 to four hours five minutes in our productivity test – just a little longer than the Macbook Air managed.

The X300 has a similar price to the Macbook Air with a 64GB solid state drive, but with just 44GB left once Lenovo’s tools and Windows are installed, we’d be tempted to wait for a cheaper and more spacious mechanical hard disk version.

Review: Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Si 2636 notebook PC

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-04-11T00:00:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Personal Computer World, Friday 11 April 2008 at 00:00:00

Fast processing power in a small, sleek package

For notebooks with Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, clock speeds below 2GHz have until now been the order of the day, certainly at the cheaper end of the market. Most of the faster processors are in the bulkier desktop replacements above the £800 mark.

Coming in a full £100 below that is the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Si 2636, which contains a T8100 processor (clocked at 2.1GHz) and 2GB of Ram. It also has 1GB of Intel’s Turbo Memory.

In our benchmarks, it achieved 4,423 in PCmark05 and 541 in 3Dmark06 – neither is groundbreaking, but indicates it’s more than capable of most office tasks.

There’s no graphics card, only the onboard Intel GMA X3100, so graphics and games performance isn’t up to much, while the screen measures 13.3in with a resolution of 1,280x800. The small display helps keep the notebook’s weight down to just 2.6kg, while the red metallic strip around the sides really makes the Amilo Si 2636 stand out.

It has only two dedicated USB ports, which might be a problem for some, but there’s an eSata socket (doubling as a third USB port) along with an HDMI port (there’s no VGA or DVI connector, nor is an adapter supplied). There’s a memory card reader and mini-Firewire port along with headphone and microphone connections on the front. It also features Bluetooth, 802.11n and a slot-loading DVD writer.

The only real flaw we found was the circular trackpad and buttons, which take some getting used to. The keyboard is also a little shallow, but the design is otherwise impressive. Battery life was acceptable, but nothing special at two hours, 12 minutes.

Despite some minor flaws, Fujitsu Siemens’ Amilo Si 2636 is a good workhorse notebook with a stylish design and a reasonable price.

Review: Samsung R700 notebook PC

Anthony Dhanendran — 2008-03-06T00:00:00.000Z

Anthony Dhanendran, Personal Computer World, Thursday 6 March 2008 at 00:00:00

An impressive combination of looks and power

Going by its looks, Samsung’s R700 notebook ought to cost more than it does.

While no-one is going to mistake it for a Sony Vaio or a Macbook, its design is better than those of similar computers priced at under £600. The glossy case looks stylish with its rounded design and, while it’s not light at a touch over 3kg, it’s easy to pick the R700 up and move it around the house. As a desktop replacement, albeit a fairly basic one, most people won't take it out of the house too often.

The reason it qualifies as being only a basic desktop replacement is its graphics card. While more heavy-duty workhorse notebooks will include a high-spec card to cope with modern games, this one only uses an Nvidia Geforce 8400M GS with 128MB of Ram.

That’s not bad and it certainly beats the onboard graphics to be found on smaller and cheaper models, but it’s not going to cope with any kind of recent 3D game graphics – not at good detail levels, anyway. The computer’s 3Dmark05 score of 3,188 bears this out.

That said, the other graphical aspect of a home desktop replacement is DVD and video, and in this respect the R700 fares well; it also benefits from the Media Center software included with Vista (Home Premium is installed as standard). The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450, running at 1.66GHz, backed up with 2GB of Ram. The PCmark05 score of 4,257 is reasonable for this kind of computer.

Samsung hasn’t been stingy with the hard drive and ships a 250GB model as standard, so it will have plenty of room for music and video files. The 17in widescreen display is well-suited for movie watching, too, being a high-contrast model, but its glossy coating means screen reflections will be a problem in bright light.

The computer comes with a good-quality keyboard, on which the keys recess well when pressed, making it pleasant to use even after hours of typing. This is something that good-looking notebooks tend to get wrong, so it’s especially good to see here. There are no customisable buttons (for media playback and so on), but that’s no great loss.

The three USB ports are welcome, but the R700 lacks a Firewire socket, which will be a problem for anyone wanting to use it for editing video. It does come with both wired Gigabit Ethernet and modem connections, as well as built-in 802.11g capability. Display-wise, there’s an HDMI port and a VGA connector, as well as standard audio connections.

There’s also an Expresscard slot and a multiple memory card reader (for smaller cards only, so it’s not much use for Compactflash users). The DVD drive is Lightscribe-capable, so you can burn labels directly if you have a supply of Lightscribe discs.

There’s a one-year warranty, which is shorter than can be found on some of the R700’s competitors, but it is valid internationally, something that’s worth a lot should you leave the country with it. That said, the R700’s size and weight tell us this laptop isn’t going to find its way into many travellers’ hand luggage.

A maximum battery life of just over three hours is another bonus, although again this notebook is likely to be plugged in much of the time. The Samsung R700 is a quality desktop replacement notebook housed in an equally impressive chassis. It’s certainly capable of impressive general purpose performance, but those after a portable gaming machine need to look elsewhere.