computer-reviews.net

Toshiba Satellite T135-S1307 13.3-Inch Ultrathin Laptop Review

Thursday, December 17th, 2009 | Laptop and Notebook Computer Reviews | View Comments

For a pretty small chunk of change you get a relatively light and pretty fast laptop computer with a very long battery life. Combined with a 13.3 inch monitor this makes the perfect travel companion for those that need full a full-sized laptop computer for working on the move. The extra size gives the feeling of spaciousness in the system, but without sacrificing the long battery life that makes netbooks so attractive.

Here are the main features:

• 13.3 inch wide screen monitor
• 1.3GHz ultra-low voltage dual-core processor
• 500GB hard drive
• 3GB memory
• Draft-N Wifi
• Bluetooth

The new range of ultra-low voltage Intel processors are really pushing the boundaries of low power and performance. The benefit of this is that the processors are much more efficient, allowing much longer battery times, while still allowing bigger monitors and more processing power. This means the power to use faster programs when needed, while not sacrificing usage time when on the move.

The screen is clearly smaller than 15 inch and bigger laptops, and bigger than the 10 inch netbook screens. This middle ground is actually pretty perfect and picks up where the smaller sizes leave off and takes the best of what the larger sizes have to offer.

Smaller netbook monitors are a little cramped, with the low resolution often necessitating scrolling from left to right in many applications. Larger monitors offer better resolutions, which allow normal viewing, but don’t actually offer enough extra to start fitting more than one window on the screen at one time. The 13.3 inch has enough resolution to comfortably view a webpage without sideways scrolling, and it big enough for easy viewing.

Not much to say about the 500GB hard drive. I’m always leaning towards online storage for important data. This hard drive is big enough for whatever you have, but remember that computer hard drives are one of the weakest links in the system. Although reliability is pretty awesome, please backup when necessary.

Talking of backups, there is no optical drive on this computer, so an external DVD burner will be needed for writing and reading DVDs and CDs.

3GB of RAM is plenty. The optional upgrade to 8GB is not worthwhile and there will be negligible, if any, performance difference. Put that money into an external DVD writer.

Networking includes both wireless and traditional wired options. The wireless supports up to 802.11n, but is backwards compatible with b/g. Draft-N allows up to 300Mb/s connectivity and wider range than the older standards, and the RJ-45 port is a good backup just in case. Bluetooth is also included and supports microphones and stereo speakers.

Other bits and pieces include built-in microphone, built-in webcam, three USB ports (one is dual eSATA/USB), normal laptop keyboard without numeric keypad, VGA port and HDMI video port.

Overall this laptop hits that magic sweet spot between a netbook and a full-sized desktop replacement laptop.

Pros:

• Long battery life
• “Just-right” sized monitor
• Multiple networking options
• VGA & HDMI video output

Cons:

• No DVD drive

Tags: Laptop and Notebook Computer Reviews, laptop computer reviews, mid-sized, portable, ultra-low-voltage, ultrathin, windows 7

ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14-Inch Laptop

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 | Laptop and Notebook Computer Reviews | View Comments

The ASUS UL80Vt-A1 is one of a newer bread of laptops with a ultra low voltage processors. The ultra low voltages give the computer extended battery life because of reduced power consumption and at the same time allow much thinner and lighter designs.

The ASUS features a 1.3GHz dual-core processor and comes with Windows 7 as standard. It also comes with a wide 14 inch screen with 720p resolution.

Here are some of the main features

• 1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU
• 4GB of DDR3 memory
• 1366 x 768 screen resolution
• HDMI graphics port
• Wifi
• DVD burner
• Media card reader

The SU7300 is an ultra low power processor, which is why the design is so slim, and why the claimed battery life is over 10 hours. In reality that 10 hours might be a bit of an exaggeration, but at least a few solid hours will be possible while using Wifi, surfing the Internet and bashing out some documents.

The included 4GB of memory is a welcome addition to the setup. Only recently, after increasing my online activity did I realize just how much I needed more memory for my computer. With only 1GB on my work computer I sometime run out of memory when running Tweetdeck for using Twitter, Digsby for chat, Firefox for browsing the web (with about 10-15 tabs open) and Microsoft Word for doing some documents. 2GB would probably be enough, but memory is not expensive and the extra will save one trip to the computer guy in the future.

The hard drive is 320GB which is just fine for storing just about anything. I have never needed more than that, and with an every-increasing amount of information, photos and videos being stored online, a large hard drive is not extremely necessary. This one is more than enough anyway.

The system comes with Windows 7, which is the replacement for Windows Vista. Vista was marred with problems and 7 seems to have things together, which should mean less headaches on the whole.

The wide screen is pretty common on most laptop computers and allows windows to be placed side-by-side, although the width is not great enough for two full windows. Perhaps a chat client and a web browser next to each other is possible, but still a little cramped. Video output is handled by a VGA port and the more useful HDMI port. The HDMI is a digital video port, so it will connect to any screen that accepts digital input. The VGA port is a great legacy port though and will connect to pretty much anything.

Networking consists of a Gigabit Ethernet port, great for anyone running a super-fast home network, and high speed Wifi. The Gigabit Ethernet port will run at slower speeds if necessary, but allows the faster connectivity when connected to a network that support 1000Mb/s speeds. Wifi supports b/g/n standards which offer up to 300Mb/s speeds. The seeming lack of Bluetooth is very disappointing for a laptop though.

Three USB ports are available, audio output, line input, microphone input and built-in microphone and webcam are amongst the other extras.

Pros:

• Long battery life
• Lightweight
• Lots of memory

Cons:

• Bluetooth???

Tags: low-voltage, notebook, slim, ultra-low-voltage