Review Toshiba Qosmio F755-3D150

Thursday 7 June 2012 | 0 comments




CNET Editors' Rating

3.5 stars Very good
$1,149.99 to $1,276.14
Review Date:

Average User Rating

1.0 stars 1 user review
The good: The updated Toshiba Qosmio F755 improves the original's glasses-free autostereoscopic 3D.
The bad: The 3D effect still works best for a single viewer, and can be finicky at times. While 3D games are supported, the underpowered GPU makes most unplayable.
The bottom line: The glasses-free 15-inch 3D display on the Toshiba Qosmio F755 falls just short of being really impressive. The software support and stability are better than for previous models, but low-end hardware needlessly hobbles this laptop.

MSRP: $1,299.99 Low Price: $1,149.99
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In the half-year since we reviewed the first version of the Toshiba Qosmio F755, I have seen a grand total of zero new autostereoscopic laptops (3D displays that can be viewed without special glasses). Toshiba has not given up, however, and an updated version for 2012 shows some notable improvement over the original, which was a cool prototype, but not quite ready for prime time.
The Qosmio F755-3D150 is $1,299, about $400 less than the 2011 version I reviewed, but still uses the same special eye-tracking software to track the viewer's head movement and adjust the stereoscopic image accordingly, via the built-in Webcam.
Like the Nintendo 3DS, it's a bit of a novelty, but Blu-ray playback felt smoother and the 3D seemed more stable on this new model, even though the viewing angles are very narrow -- watching over someone's shoulder is tricky. Discs of 3D movies such as "Avatar" and "Tron: Legacy" present themselves well, although you have to use Toshiba's proprietary media player to view them in 3D.
The biggest knock against the original was that the 3D support only extended to Blu-ray movies and some types of video files, leaving out video games and streaming video. Thanks to new Nvidia drivers, games now work in 3D, to a point.
While nearly every PC game we tried worked in 3D (at least as well as it would using Nvidia's 3D Vision platform with active shutter glasses), the low-end Nvidia GeForce 540 GPU prevented every current game I tried from being playable in 3D, although many played fine with the 3D effect turned off.
That's a real shame, as an autostereoscopic 3D gaming laptop could be a fun splurge for gamers, and the F755 is a perfectly fine midrange-to-high-end Qosmio otherwise. As it is, unless you have a burning need for glasses-free 3D Blu-ray, we'd wait for better graphics hardware.

Price as reviewed $1,299
Processor 2.5GHz Intel Core i5-2450M
Memory 6GB, 1,333MHz DDR3
Hard drive 750GB 5,400rpm
Chipset Intel HM65
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GT 540M
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD) 15.3x10.5 inches
Height 1.5 inches
Screen size (diagonal) 15.6 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter 7.1 pounds/8.1 pounds
Category Midsize
Physically, this Qosmio F755 is identical to the version we reviewed in mid-2011, and many of our observations still stand. This is a fairly standard-looking Qosmio laptop, based on a slightly older design than the most recent non-3D Qosmios we've seen. The outer shell is a textured bright red, with a glossy black interior.
The keyboard has tightly packed keys, while other Toshiba laptops in general seem to be moving toward a universal island-style keyboard. It's usable, but something of a dated look, although there's plenty of room for a full-size number pad and standalone Page Up/Page Down keys. There is a row of touch-sensitive control buttons right above the keyboard, including volume controls and a button to turn the 3D view off and on.
The smallish touch pad has a lighted strip above it that indicates the pad is active. Press a tiny, flush button above it to turn off both the touch pad and the light. I've never been a fan of the Toshiba style of mouse buttons seen here, with their convex shape and glossy plastic.
The original F755 3D laptop felt like more like a proof-of-concept piece than a practical consumer product. The 3D Blu-ray media player was sluggish, and the 3D effect would work sporadically. When everything lined up perfectly, it was a fun, watchable experience, but more trouble than it was worth.
I'm pleased to say this updated version feels much snappier. The Blu-ray playback software still took a bit too long to load, but the 3D effect kicked in automatically, and stayed in focus as long as I kept my head within a reasonable movie-watching zone. Moving more than a few inches in either direction started to degrade the image quickly.
The 3D effect still isn't as crisp as you may be used to from a 3D movie theater or 3D TV with active-shutter glasses. There is a subtle screen-door effect, which gets more obvious the closer you get to the screen, because while the display is a 1,920x1,080-pixel panel, the 3D effect cuts the resolution to 1,366x768 pixels in order to pump out twice as many frames of visual data.


Toshiba Qosmio F755 Average for category [Midsize]
Video VGA plus HDMI VGA plus HDMI or DisplayPort
Audio Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data 3 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, SD card reader 2 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0, SD card reader, eSATA
Networking Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional mobile broadband
Optical drive Blu-ray ROM/DVD burner DVD burner
The dual-core Intel Core i5-2450M CPU is a step down from the quad-core Core i7-2630QM in last year's F755. That, plus trading the original Blu-ray Disc-burning drive for a Blu-ray ROM/DVD burner, helps account for the $400 price drop.
It's still more than fine for just about any task, and still sufficient for the intensive work required for glasses-free 3D video playback. The later half of the year may see an update to Intel's third-generation Core i-series CPUs (also known as Ivy Bridge), but then again, it may not.
I called the Nvidia GeForce 540M graphics midlevel (somewhat charitably) last time. The graphics chip is unchanged in this new version and it's the single biggest problem with the F755. It can certainly handle Blu-ray playback, even in 3D, but gaming is another story.
With the 3D effect turned off, games played fine, especially with detail levels set to medium and the screen resolution knocked back from 1,920x1,080 pixels. With the 3D effect turned on, it was a different story altogether. First, the games all needed to be set to full 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution for the 3D effect to kick in (even though that would lower the effective resolution to 1,366x768). Then, nearly every game I tried was simply too choppy to play, even with details set to absolute minimums.
Skyrim was very playable in 2D, too choppy to play in 3D. The same went for Battlefield 3. In the older game Mafia 2, the system ran at 20.3 frames per second in 2D mode, and only 10.3fps in 3D mode -- both at the required full 1080p resolution. Batman: Arkham City was a bit better, just a step below playable in 3D, with every detail option turned to the lowest settings. In our relatively easy Street Fighter IV test, the F755 ran in 2D mode, at 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution, at 44.3fps, and 21.6fps in 3D mode. Portal, a game that nearly any laptop can play, worked fine in 3D, even at 1,920x1,080.
Posted by Unknown at 16:34
Location: England, UK

Review Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

Wednesday 6 June 2012 | 0 comments




CNET Editors' Rating

3.5 stars Very good
$849.00
Review Date:

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The good: The Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 offers desktop-replacement power in a midsize laptop, with a discrete GPU and Intel's new quad-core third-generation Core processors.
The bad: All this power is paired with a lower-resolution screen, killing the high-end vibe.
The bottom line: The IdeaPad Y480 gets you Lenovo's excellent construction quality and ergonomic design without having a "business" laptop, but some more configuration flexibility would be appreciated.

Low Price: $849.00
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The name Lenovo may conjure up images of basic black ThinkPad laptops lined up in offices and cubicles around the world. But the company also has a very creative and inventive side, usually found only in its lesser-known consumer IdeaPad line of products.
Most IdeaPad laptops are cool-looking and reasonably priced (although the basic aesthetic could use a little updating), and the new IdeaPad Y480 includes some of the newest components available, namely an Intel Core i7-3610QM quad-core processor (from the new Ivy Bridge line), and Nvida GeForce 640M graphics.
At $1,079 for this configuration, I'd call that a good deal for a tricked-out 14-inch gaming/multimedia machine with Intel's third-generation Core i-series CPUs. But, there's one huge caveat -- the display only has a 1,366x768-pixel native resolution. For a $1,000-plus laptop with a quad-core CPU and high-end GPU to have such a low screen res is ludicrous, like connecting a Blu-ray player to an old 19-inch tube TV.
Looking over the different configurations of the Y480 available from Lenovo, from $999-$1,200, all are stuck with the same display. If that doesn't bother you, this is the least expensive Ivy Bridge quad-core laptop to date, and has Lenovo's excellent build quality and keyboard, but that resolution will be a deal-killer for many.

Price as reviewed / starting price $1,079 / $999
Processor 2.3GHz Intel Core i7-3610QM
Memory 8GB, 1,600MHz DDR3
Hard drive 750GB 5,400rpm
Chipset Intel HM77
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GT 640M / Intel HD4000
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD) 13.6x9.4 inches
Height 1.3 inches
Screen size (diagonal) 14 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter 4.5 pounds / 5.6 pounds
Category Midsize
Like the Y500 Series laptops we've reviewed previously, the 14-inch Y-480 is sedate, and more upscale-looking, but funkier than a matte black ThinkPad. The lid has a simple black brushed-metal cover that would fit in at the office, coffee shop, or nearly anywhere in between.
The keyboard is similar to the ones we've seen on other Lenovo consumer systems, with its signature variation on the flat-topped island key style. The key faces curve out a tiny bit at the bottom, which I assume makes them easier to catch with an errant fingertip when you're typing quickly. The type of keyboard on IdeaPad laptops is a longtime favorite, and I seem to make few typing mistakes when using it. The keys on this particular model, however, are a bit clacky and noisy.
The touch pad is large, with a matte surface that provides just the right amount of finger resistance. The awful single rocker bar from last year's Y Series has been replaced with buttons built right into the pad itself, as on a MacBook. The usual array of multitouch gestures work on the pad, such as the two-finger scroll, which was pleasantly responsive (it can frequently lag on Windows laptops).
The 14-inch display has a native resolution of 1,366x768 pixels, which is standard for 13-inch and smaller laptops, and fine on less-expensive 14- and 15-inch ones. But, this is a high-end system, selling for over $1,000, and with the latest Intel processor and Nvidia graphics. A 1,600x900-pixel display would be much more appropriate.
No one who wants to play games with the GeForce 640M GPU will want to keep the resolution that low, and the screen can't play 1080p full-HD video at its native resolution. The display makes the Y480 look and feel like a much less expensive laptop. The JBL-branded speakers were above average, however, and a good choice for a smaller system.


Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 Average for category [midsize]
Video VGA plus HDMI VGA plus HDMI or DisplayPort
Audio Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data 2 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0, SD card reader 2 USB 2.0, 2 USB 3.0, SD card reader, eSATA
Networking Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional mobile broadband
Optical drive n/a DVD burner
We've seen 15-inch IdeaPad Y Series laptops with combo USB/eSATA ports. That's missing here, but you do get two USB 3.0 ports as well as two USB 2.0 ports.
There are six different preconfigured versions of this system on Lenovo's Web site. They run from $999 to $1,199, but the differences are slight, all having to do with hard-drive capacity and optional Blu-ray drives.
Posted by Unknown at 16:32
Location: England, UK

Review DiRT Showdown

Tuesday 5 June 2012 | 0 comments


Review DiRT Showdown

4.0 stars Excellent
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The good: Varied deformation models make for satisfying destruction
Sharp presentation and smooth visuals
Wide range of event types
Online racing is masses of fun
Easy-to-master arcade handling
The bad: Single-player campaign lacks a proper career to nurture or narrative to follow
Cheesy commentary wears thin quickly
The bottom line: Dirt Showdown is a satisfying mix of driving tricks and destruction wrapped up in the slickest of presentations.

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UK REVIEW: There's a spectacle to Dirt Showdown that flies in the face of racing tradition: the jumps, the drifts, the squealing doughnuts, and the blinding flash of fireworks. With each crumpled bumper and shattered windscreen, a vast arena crowd roars, eager to be wowed not with the shaving of valuable seconds from a lap time, but with pyrotechnic-laden displays of driving that are as much about showmanship and destruction as they are about skilful precision. It's an intoxicating mix that forgoes the difficulty of simulation for a thrilling and beautifully presented arcade ride.

DiRT Showdownscreenshot
There's fireworks aplenty in Dirt Showdown.
The biggest difference between Showdown and its predecessors is that the handling is surprisingly forgiving. You can whip your car around the tightest of corners without ever easing off the accelerator, while even the most dramatic twirls of the steering wheel don't send you hurtling headfirst towards a barrier like they used to. But there's still a balance to be found. The skill lies in the timing of your turns and the judicious tapping of your hand brake and boost to perform impressive drifts and show-stopping doughnut rings. It's a dramatically different feel, but one that lends itself beautifully to the events at hand.
Some, like the Hoonigan events, are all about precision and showmanship in licensed cars. The destructible blocks of Smash Hunter are intricately arranged to reward delicate turns and tight drifts, while a timer for high scores keeps the pressure on, and your speed up. There's more challenge to be had in Trick Rush events, where drifts, doughnuts, and jumps are scattered throughout cleverly designed environments. With each trick your multiplier climbs ever higher, resulting in a mad dash to rack up points before the timer runs down.
Most challenging are the head to head Gymkhana events, where you take on the mighty Ken Block in a trick-filled arena course. The turns are tighter, the jumps larger, and the pyrotechnics even wilder. But while the bright, neon fireworks and explosive confetti cannons certainly add excitement to the proceedings, it's the process of improving bit by bit, drawing ever closer to success and perfection that makes such events so entertaining and incredibly addictive.
But there's another side to Dirt Showdown, one that sheds the skill for mindless and supremely satisfying displays of destruction: Demolition events. The licensed cars are ditched in favour of made-up machines that are turned into crumpled heaps of scrap as you're launched into the centre of an arena to ram, slam, and boost your way into opponents, doing everything you can to whittle down their health bars and to score points. Enclosed arenas give you barriers to ram them against, while open arenas mean mistimed boosts send you spiralling out of control onto the surrounding sandy ground.

DiRT Showdownscreenshot
T-Bone: apparently not just a delicious steak.
Posted by Unknown at 15:50
Location: England, UK

Review Men in Black

Monday 4 June 2012 | 0 comments


Review Men in Black

1.0 stars Terrible
$56.02 to $72.02
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The bad old days of movie tie-in games are back. MIB: Alien Crisis is an on-rails third-person shooter that is boring to play and ugly to look at. The musty dialogue fails to reproduce any of the charm of the movie franchise, and you can see everything the game has to offer in the span of an afternoon. This creaky relic of the past retails for full price in the present, making it one of the most shamelessly exploitative games in recent memory.
6379813NoneShooting aliens and performing psych evaluations.
You play as a disgraced archaeologist turned art thief turned man in black, Agent P, who joins the agency after stealing an alien artifact for the villain, the improbably named Emilio Chauncy. Agent P's sardonic attitude is clearly modeled after Agent J (played by Will Smith in the movies), but his attempts at witty irreverence fall flat. The by-the-book female agent you pair up with is a bland foil for jokes about authority and increasingly flirtatious banter, but the hackneyed writing utterly fails to capture the humorous juxtaposition of nonchalance in the face of the bizarre that serves the movies so well.
With the hope of humor dashed, you are left to rely on spectacle and gameplay. Alas, Alien Crisis is an unattractive game that would have looked dated years ago. Homely character models waggle their mouth holes during cutscenes, and the barren backgrounds offer precious little distraction. Action sequences are a visual mess of bright, blurry projectiles and explosions, and your clumsy-looking alien enemies are covered in a milky sheen.
There's nary an echo of the slick visual style of the movies, and so you are left with the gameplay. As in most light-gun shooters, you progress automatically to the next point in the level when you defeat all the enemies at your current point. At any given location you can jog between two or three cover positions or just hang out in the open and fire away. Moving is a good way to avoid grenades and get a better angle on some enemies, but you can usually clear most foes from a stationary position.

Men in Black: Alien Crisisscreenshot
Glowing yellow weak spots and still this size? Explain that, Darwin!
Using the analog stick or the Top Shot Elite, you slide your reticle around the screen to target your weak alien enemies (Note: There is no in-game way to invert your aim, but it will honor your Xbox profile preferences). Your small arsenal consists of a few unremarkable guns (the iconic noisy cricket being an explosive exception), as well as a few attachments that add a bit of variety. You can freeze an enemy and shatter him, use an antigravity grenade to lift a group of foes into the air, or slow down time temporarily. The most versatile attachment lets you encase enemies or innocent bystanders in a bubble that you can then shoot it to make it bounce around the area and kill foes.
Posted by Unknown at 15:49
Location: England, UK

Review Dragon's Lair

Sunday 3 June 2012 | 0 comments

Review Dragon's Lair

2.0 stars Mediocre
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The good: A heavy dose of nostalgia
Attractive animation holds up even today
The bad: Frustrating cooperative play
Kinect mode often unresponsive
Memorization more important than skill
Too short
The bottom line: This new port of Dragon's Lair brings Kinect support and leaderboards to the classic game, but its gameplay hasn't aged well.

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Considering that the Xbox 360 has been around for over six years, it's a little surprising that we haven't seen a port of the 1983 classic Dragon's Lair until now. Not only is it one of only three games accorded permanent exhibition status at the Smithsonian Institution (along with Pac-Man and Pong), but it has also managed to worm its way onto everything from the Commodore 64 and NES to the iPhone in the intervening 29 years. Most of these were uninspired rehashes that brought almost nothing new to the experience, but this latest incarnation's leaderboards and Kinect support at least mark a step toward variety. Unfortunately, that's still not enough to make it worth your time.

Dragon's Lairscreenshot
Get used to seeing this shot. A lot.
Dragon's Lair was a colossal hit back in the days when visuals in video games were first evolving from wads of pixels to recognizable and iconic sprites such as Mario. Its appeal lay in its novelty. Harnessing the talents of celebrated animator Don Bluth, Dragon's Lair marked an ambitious attempt to jump over 10 years into the future, chucking the standard digital conventions of the day and being based entirely on animation.
At the time, it worked. In an age when Mario still wasn't "super," arcade goers could laugh at the antics of the goofy knight named Dirk the Daring on his quest to rescue the sultry Princess Daphne from the clutches of the dragon Singe. Instead of deaths that just knocked the hero offscreen, you saw poor Dirk subjected to snake strangulations and rib-cracking impacts. And instead of saving some generic princess, you won the hand of Princess Daphne, whose Playboy-inspired model turns heads as easily now as it did back then.
Even so, its animated focus demands simple gameplay even by the standards of its era. Indeed, little more than an interactive movie at heart, it's best understood in modern terms as the direct ancestor of the quick-time events (or QTEs) sprinkled throughout countless modern action games. Then as now, the entire game revolves around knowing when to press one of the four directions on a D-pad to move Dirk out of the way of danger, and using a button to slash your sword. Miss one of the lightning-fast prompts, and you find that death comes easy and often in Singe's domain. Unfortunately, such a setup means that success relies far more on memorization than true skill. The resulting trail and error is even more disappointing upon the realization that some of Dragon's Lair's 29 scenes repeat throughout Dirk's brief journey.

Dragon's Lairscreenshot
This sequence is anything but better with Kinect.
Posted by Unknown at 15:48

REview Battleship

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REview Battleship

1.5 stars Poor
$39.99 to $72.02
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The good: Interesting blend of strategy and FPS shooting
The bad: Clumsy shooting mechanics
Boring sea battles
Missions lack variety
Nondescript environments
The bottom line: Bland presentation and sloppy mechanics sink Battleship more effectively than a torpedo ever could.

Low Price: $39.99
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Battleship has the unique distinction of being a video game based on a movie based on a board game, but that's probably the most interesting thing the game has going for it. Developed by Double Helix Games, the studio perhaps best known for and (more relevantly) for turning Square's beloved Front Mission strategy franchise into a , Battleship is a disappointing first-person shooter/strategy hybrid destined for a watery grave.

Battleshipscreenshot
Word on the street is that aliens are weak against belly button shots.
You play as EOD 1st Class Cole Mathis, and your job as the game opens is to dispose of explosives. That role evolves in the very first level when a strange object falls from the sky and interrupts a training exercise. In an instant, the Hawaiian archipelago finds itself cut off from the outside world and facing off against aliens who are launching an invasion from the sea. Your new task is to run around on land, shooting humanoid aliens and periodically ducking behind cover to give coordinates to ships that would be lost without your guidance.
Despite the mostly welcome and entirely appropriate presence of some strategy sequences, much of Battleship is devoted to clunky segments that play out on land. An onscreen indicator points you in the general direction you're supposed to move and lets you know how many yards you are away from that destination. You are left to fumble through dull landscapes that do a horrible job of making Hawaii look like a place worth saving. Generally, you head to one military compound or another, disable an alien barrier that is scrambling radio signals, and then repeat the process in the next level.
Besides being thoroughly uninventive (unless you count crates stacked in grassy fields and along ravines as creative), the game's environments are also designed inconsistently. Sometimes you can drop from ledges and scavenge for ammo along grassy slopes, but other times you smack into an invisible barrier that prevents you from descending toward shelter as gunmen pelt you with shots. There's a main path you need to follow through each stage, and you shouldn't stray from it...except when you are actually supposed to wander to find one of four useless peg collectibles hidden in each stage.
One of the game's more persistent issues is its awkward combat. While the controls feel like they were lifted directly from the Call of Duty series, something went wrong with the copy-paste job. Your weapons rarely hit their apparent target unless you get up close and personal, which is difficult when your enemies are so good at moving around and firing at you from unlikely vantage points. When you fire automatic weapons, your target reticle starts with a wide spread that only grows narrow enough to be helpful about the time you finally run out of bullets. Then you have to wait through some ridiculously long reload animations and hope that no enemies decide to rush you while you're defenseless (switching to a secondary weapon doesn't work nearly fast enough to be helpful in such cases, unfortunately).

Battleshipscreenshot
This is as beautiful as the island gets.
Posted by Unknown at 15:48

Review : HP Folio 13

Saturday 2 June 2012 | 0 comments

hop


Jan 12

CNET Editors' Rating

4.0 stars Excellent
$849.99 to $1,000.00
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3.5 stars 11 user reviews
The good: The HP Folio 13 has everything that matters most in an ultrabook: very good battery life, an excellent backlit keyboard, all the requisite ports for mobile use, and a very comfortable feel, along with a competitive entry-level price.
The bad: The Folio 13 is no looker compared with other ultrabooks, and is a bit thicker and heavier than thin laptops such as the MacBook Air. The clickpad's just a bit too finicky for our tastes, too.
The bottom line: When it comes to Windows ultrabooks, the HP Folio 13 is the best of the bunch in terms of performance, price, and ergonomics, provided you can live with a less-than-razor-thin design. This laptop is targeted at small businesses but it's really for anyone who wants a reliable ultrabook that isn't a MacBook Air.

MSRP: $899.99 Low Price: $849.99
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As ultrabooks become a major part of the laptop landscape this year, the key to finding a good one won't be specs--since so many have identical innards--so much as look, feel, and bang for the buck. The HP Folio 13 is a small business-targeted ultrabook that should be equally at home in the hands of a mainstream consumer. Aside from TPM support, the "business" differentiation is cosmetic and arbitrary: the HP Folio 13's hardware--a Core i5 low-voltage CPU, 128GB SSD storage, 4GB of RAM--befits any laptop in the 13-inch ultrabook universe circa 2012.
The Folio 13 is a thicker laptop, and a heavier one, too, than the MacBook Air and any of last year's ultrabooks, but not by much. It's a little over 3 pounds, and still thinner than any standard laptop. It's just not wafer-thin. However, the HP Folio 13 only costs $899, which undercuts a lot of the ultrabook competition by at least $100. And consider the battery life: in our tests, the HP Folio 13 had the longest battery life among Windows ultrabooks thus far. I'd give up a bit of thinness to gain more battery life any day, and at 0.7 inch thick, the Folio 13 is still plenty svelte enough for compact travel.
Are there sexier ultrabooks, and even laptops, than the HP Folio 13? Certainly. I'd be hard-pressed, however, to find one as practical, affordable, and solidly performing as the Folio 13. And, if I were currently picking an ultrabook out of a lineup to go to war with, the HP Folio 13 is the one I'd take in my backpack.

Starting price / price as reviewed $899 / $1,049
Processor 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M
Memory 4GB, 1,333MHz DDR3
Hard drive 128GB SSD
Chipset Intel UM67
Graphics Intel HD 3000
Operating system Windows 7 Professional (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD) 12.5x8.7 inches
Height 0.7 inch
Screen size (diagonal) 13.3 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter 3.3 pounds / 4.1 pounds
Category ultrabook
On a whole, the sense of deja vu I felt when using the HP Folio 13 is justified: it comes across as an evolved sibling of the HP Pavilion dm4, a laptop I loved just a year or so ago. To lovers of superslim laptops such as the Samsung Series 9, the HP Folio 13 may seem thick and less responsive. To mainstream laptop owners, the HP Folio 13 will feel sleek, fast, and very portable. It's all a matter of perspective.
In fact, I'd say that the whole laptop looks a little bit like a Hewlett-Packard throwback. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, especially since I've liked the feel of HP's recent designs. It's not likely to grab the eye on a table at Starbucks--its brushed-aluminum back lid and palm rest and black keyboard will probably blend right in amid a jungle of laptops and venti lattes--but to those who don't want to treat their laptops like Ferraris, that might be a good thing.
Brushed aluminum gracing the back lid gives the Folio 13 a "professional" air, while the smoothly opening lid and rigid construction makes it feel safe to wedge in a backpack--the Folio 13 has barely any flex in its chassis.
A rubberized bottom surface feels smooth to the touch, and has excellent grip on a desk surface. Heat vents along the bottom might get uncomfortable during lengthy use on a lap, but I never noticed a problem in my week or so of lap and desk typing. That, combined with the smooth palm rests and comfy keyboard, make this a laptop to love working on. No, it doesn't feel like an ultrabook...but credit HP with the decision to stay with its own design philosophy and not bend over backward to make its own version of the MacBook Air.
A single, small power button above the keyboard boots up Windows 7, and if I have one complaint about this laptop's ergonomics it's that this small button is nearly thin enough to require using a fingernail.
The wide, raised backlit keyboard is excellent, beating shallower keyboards on other ultrabooks. This keyboard feels more generous in terms of its key space than the ones on the MacBook Air and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, which are already excellent. The design is reminiscent of HP's ProBook laptops, with keys that are soft to the touch, but respond crisply when depressed. They feel like they have more travel. I'm a keyboard fetishist, and the Folio 13's surprised me with its quality. The top media-control function keys are function-reversed, so hitting volume up doesn't mean fumbling for the Fn key. All laptops should have this, and yet they still don't.
The touch pad, or rather clickpad, beneath is comfortable and easy to use in tap-to-click mode--my preferred way of working--but it's still not as good as the pad on a MacBook Air. I found myself making fewer errors than on other Windows laptops, but the pad was still prone to occasional sensitivity quirks that can slow down a highlight-cut-and-paste process. The touch pad has marked-off zones on the lower third for left- and right-clicking, which adds useful surface area to the pad, although I found locating and clicking by feel was more difficult than engaging tap-to-click. The responsiveness of two-finger scrolling is passable, but hardly what would be considered great.
The glossy, bright 13-inch display has a 1,366x768-pixel resolution and looks very good head-on. At side angles, the image deteriorates as on the average screen on the average mainstream laptop. For the price, the screen is more than adequate, although it's not a stunner.
Now, a word on laptop screen resolution: some might drool over 1,600x900-pixel, 13-inch displays, but 1,366x768-pixel resolution is standard for any mainstream laptop, and I've never wished for a better resolution. A larger resolution at this screen size would sacrifice text size for virtual desktop space, a compromise I don't need. I wish my iPad had a finer resolution for displaying full pages of text, but on a laptop, that isn't a concern at the viewing distance you're likely to be at from the screen.
A built-in Dolby Advanced Audio-branded stereo speaker bar above the keyboard is louder than I expected, and more than suitable for video playback or Web chat in noisy rooms. An HD Webcam offers better-than-average video quality (1,280x1,204-pixel capture).


 HP Folio 13 Average for category [13-inch]
Video HDMI VGA plus HDMI or DisplayPort
Audio Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone combo jack Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data 1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, SD card reader 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB 3.0, SD card reader
Networking Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, optional mobile broadband
Optical drive None DVD burner
The other aspect of the HP Folio 13 I appreciated was its ample selection of ports: a single USB 3.0 port, plus one USB 2.0, HDMI, an Ethernet jack (a rarity among ultrabooks), and an SD card slot. Bluetooth is also included--maybe not surprising in a $900 laptop, but it's a feature often inexplicably absent in many mainstream machines.
There are no upgrades available on HP's Web site per se--you can have any HP Folio 13 you want, as long as it has an 128GB solid-state drive, 4GB of RAM, and a 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M CPU. There are no graphics options other than the included integrated Intel HD 3000 graphics, which are fine for most basic needs, photo editing, and even video editing and some casual gaming. As an ultrabook, the HP Folio 13 doesn't have a DVD drive. For $150 extra, you could always upgrade to Windows 7 Professional instead of the included Windows 7 Home Premium OS, but the typical consumer won't need to.
The HP Folio 13 feels fast in everyday use, and especially in terms of startup and wake-from-sleep time. A cold boot launched in about 20 seconds, and a lifting-the-lid wake from sleep took only 4 seconds. It felt just as fast as a MacBook Air, but wasn't as silent; I heard a gentle operating whine from the Folio 13 most of the time, although it's possible that toying with the HP CoolSense controls might have helped.
Posted by Unknown at 15:34
Location: England, UK

Review Samsung RF511 15.6 inch Laptop - Black (Intel Core i5 2450M 2.5GHz, RAM 8GB, HDD 1TB, DVD-SM DL, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit)

| 0 comments


Samsung RF511 15.6 inch Laptop - Black (Intel Core i5 2450M 2.5GHz, RAM 8GB, HDD 1TB, DVD-SM DL, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit) (Personal Computers) Bought this Laptop for the good i5 processor speed, massive 8Gb RAM, and storage capacity (1 TB HDD).

Laptop feels sturdy but light weight with a great keyboard and touch pad. Battery life is good and is definately an upgrade from my old Toshiba laptop.

The spec on the Amazon website is exact except for under the product description, which appears to be copied from the Samusung website and lists there is a Nvidia GeForce 540M dedicated graphics card. This is not the case for this model number (NP-RF511-A01UK). Graphics is handled by the onboard Intel HD Graphics 3000. But this is still more than enough for playing DVD's and doing eveyday computer use without slowing the computer down. If you want to play high end games you might need to look elsewhere.

Overall this is a great laptop and would recommend it to others.
More info.....
Samsung RF511 15.6 inch Laptop - Black (Intel Core i5 2450M 2.5GHz, RAM 8GB, HDD 1TB, DVD-SM DL, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit)
Posted by Unknown at 15:20
Location: England, UK

Review : Origin EON17-S

Friday 1 June 2012 | 0 comments




CNET Editors' Rating

4.0 stars Excellent
$3,499.00
Review Date:

Average User Rating

The good: The Origin EON17-S is one of the first laptops to offer Intel's third-gen Core i7 CPUs. It's a powerful, highly customizable gaming laptop that can get expensive, but can also include overclocked components.
The bad: Customizing can drive up the price very quickly, and even with a new back panel, it's still very generic-looking.
The bottom line: First out of the gate with the latest quad-core Intel CPUs, Origin is one of the few high-end boutique gaming PC makers that really pays attention to laptops.
MSRP: $3,499.00 Low Price: $3,499.00
Set price alert
The third generation of Intel Core i-series CPUs from Intel are following the same general path as the second-generation chips. First to be released are the high-end quad-core Core i7 processors, followed a month or so later by the everyday dual-core versions found in most mainstream laptops.
What this means is that to be the first on the block with one of the new CPUs (formerly code-named Ivy Bridge), you'll have to get a high-end PC, typically the type aimed at serious gamers. Origin, a boutique PC maker founded by former Alienware employees, is one of the first companies to offer the new CPUs, in a refreshed version of its EON17-S gaming laptop.
New CPU aside, this $3,499 EON17-S is very similar to the previous model, which we reviewed in 2011. It's still based on a customized version of a Clevo 17-inch laptop chassis (Clevo is a Taiwanese manufacturer that makes generic laptops that other computer companies tweak and rebrand as their own). This Ivy Bridge version will also add a new custom panel on the back of the lid, but otherwise the chassis and interior are identical.
Note that the new lid panel wasn't ready in time for this review, so it's not reflected in the photographs or video here, but you can see it here, and the system can be ordered with either the old or new lid design. We saw the new lid design at CES 2012, and it has an angular, finned look that's clearly Alienware-inspired.
With Origin, you get first crack at the latest hardware, although the benefits of Intel's new Ivy Bridge CPUs are largely focused on the HD 4000 integrated graphics performance. With the powerful (and also new) Nvidia GeForce 675M graphics card included here, you probably won't get much of a chance to appreciate that.
Companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Dell offer more inventive proprietary industrial designs, but their systems lack the hand-assembled and tested boutique feel. The starting price for the EON17-S is a reasonable $1,592, but if you're looking for a dual-core Core i5 CPU, a mere 4GB of RAM, and other midlevel components, this is not the laptop for you. Anyone building an EON17-S from Origin's extensive list of customizations is probably looking for serious components.

Price as reviewed / starting price $3,499 / $1,592
Processor 2.9GHz Intel Core i7-3920XM
Memory 16GB, 1,333MHz DDR3
Hard drive 240GB SSD (2x120GB) / 1.0TB 5,400rpm
Chipset Intel HM77
Graphics Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M / Intel HD 4000
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Dimensions (WD) 16.2x10.9 inches
Height 1.8 inches
Screen size (diagonal) 17.3 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter 8.6 pounds / 11.1 pounds
Category Desktop replacement
Even apart from our previous EON17-S review, the basic black design of the chassis might look familiar. That's because the system is build around a Clevo laptop chassis, which is par for the course from smaller PC makers who can't design and fabricate their own custom laptop shells (as Apple, Dell, HP, and others do). Instead, companies such as Origin take an off-the-shelf body and customize it, adding value by hand-assembling and testing the systems, overclocking parts, and making minor cosmetic changes.
Origin always included a custom back panel on the laptop's lid. The previous default is a black brushed metal design with an Origin logo stamped on it. That's the design on this Ivy Bridge laptop, but from now on, the previously mentioned finned design will be offered (although you can also choose this older lid design, and custom colors and art are available at an additional cost).
The nearly feature-free interior is the same as in the 2011 version of this laptop. It has an older keyboard style you don't see very often anymore, with keys that touch at the base, but taper up to a separated flat surface on top. You might call it semi-island-style. The keyboard is serviceable but clacky, and thankfully backlit, which makes a big difference when trying to activate any of the alternate function keys (for example hitting Fn+F3 to mute the speakers). Similar to on Alienware laptops, the keyboard backlight color can be adjusted, and split into three different zones, but the options are not nearly as detailed as what Alienware offers.
The touch pad is basic, with a fingerprint reader nestled between the left and right mouse buttons. Other desktop replacement laptops have larger click-pad surfaces, but for gamers it may not be a deal breaker -- you'll probably be using a mouse or game pad most of the time anyway. But for casual Web surfing or times when you're not using a mouse, it's merely adequate.
The 17.3-inch display has a native resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, which is what one should expect from even a midpriced 17-inch laptop. The display is crisp and bright, and it's great that Origin offers its No Dead Pixel Guarantee. Customers have 45 days to return any system with a dead pixel, a type of coverage more mainstream vendors do not offer. Audio was above average, thanks to THX support and Onkyo speakers, but you'll still want headphones or external speakers for serious gaming or movie watching.


Origin EON17-S Average for category [desktop replacement]
Video HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort VGA plus HDMI or DisplayPort
Audio 5.1 speakers with subwoofer, headphone, mic, line-out, optical line-out Stereo speakers with subwoofer, headphone/microphone jacks
Data 2 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, 1 USB/eSATA, SD card reader, mini-FireWire 4 USB 2.0, SD card reader, eSATA
Expansion None ExpressCard/54
Networking Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Optical drive External Blu-ray drive DVD burner, optional Blu-ray player
While other laptop makers are slowly dropping legacy ports to save a few bucks, Origin gives the EON17-S a few that we rarely see any longer, including a DVI port and FireWire, and that's in addition to the more common HDMI, DisplayPort, and eSATA connections. You'll see USB 3.0 become more common as the Ivy Bridge HM77 chipset adds native support.
Extreme customization remains the biggest reason to pick Origin, and there's a huge number of possible component combinations. There are 23 separate hard-drive options, which can be spread across three drive bays (if you knock out the optical drive), including solid-state drives (SSDs) of up to 512GB -- which are an expensive option, at more than $900.
GPU options include the Nvidia GeForce 675 used in our system, as well as GeForce 660M and 670M cards and a couple of pro-level Quadro choices. At the time this review was written, the older second-gen Intel Core i7 CPUs were still listed on Origin's Web site, but starting April 29, those should be replaced with third-generation models. Many Origin laptops offer overclocked parts, and the Intel Core i7-3920Xm we tested was overclocked to 4.5GHz. Overclocking can lead to overheating and stability issues if not done properly; we ran this system through extensive tests, including gaming, video encoding, and battery rundowns, and never had a problem.
For one of the very first PCs with Intel's new Ivy Bridge chips, one would expect the performance numbers to be impressive. Even though Ivy Bridge is not expected to offer a huge performance boost in general over Sandy Bridge CPUs, the combination of the new top-of-the-line CPU, plus the overclocking, 16GB of RAM, SSD drives, and so on led to some fantastically high scores on our standard benchmark tests. The closest competitor was an Asus N-series laptop set up by Intel with another of the high-end Ivy Bridge Core i7 CPUs. Of course, for nearly $3,500, we'd expect unprecedented scores, even if your everyday use will never really be able to take advantage of all that horsepower.
The real Ivy Bridge improvement comes from the Intel HD 4000 graphics. A high-end gaming laptop such as this is in some ways a terrible example, as it includes a top-of-the-line Nvidia discrete GPU, and you'll never use just the integrated graphics for gaming. However, we ran several tests with both the Nvidia and Intel HD 4000 graphics to see how much of an improvement Intel has managed to make.
In our very challenging Metro 2033 test, the system ran at full 1080p resolution at 20.3 frames per second with the Nvidia GPU, and 8.8fps with the Intel HD 4000 graphics. It's a backbreaker of a test, so these are actually good scores. In Street Fighter IV at a mainstream-friendly 1,366x768-pixel resolution, the Nvidia GeForce 675M ran at 216fps, while the Intel HD 4000 ran at a very playable 31.7fps. Further examples are available in our gaming benchmark charts below.
All this is to say that the HD 4000 integrated graphics are definitely better than the HD 3000 Sandy Bridge version, but this still isn't going to replace a dedicated GPU. The extremely powerful Core i7 processor also throws off the curve -- we'll have to wait a month or so to see what kind of performance HD 4000 offers with mainstream Core i5 CPUs.
Posted by Unknown at 15:33
Location: England, UK
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