Requirements Checklist for Choosing a Cloud Backup and Recovery Service Provider

Dell Inspiron M101z

I have to hand it to Dell, it has come up with a very nice notebook. Thanks to a generous spec - 1.3GHz dual-core AMD Athlon II Neo K325 processor, ATI Radeon HD 4225 graphics and 4GB of 1333MHz DDR 3 memory, the M101z punches above its weight. With its glossy gun metal grey interior, it looks good, and if it seems a mite bulky, it's because of a 56Wh battery, which delivered more than three hours' runtime in tests. All the right ports are present, and the keyboard is solid. The M101z feels well built. It's pricey, mind, though you can shave a bit off by accepting only 2GB of memory - I'd avoid the single-core model.

HP Pavilion dm1-2010sa

I asked HP to supply one its dm1 sub-notebooks for this round-up. While the company's website lists the dm1-1100, a dual-core 1.2GHz Celeron-based machine, it actually sent us the dm1-2010sa, a version based on AMD's single-core Athlon II Neo K125, the same as the one in the Samsung X125 (see below). Now this is odd: HP's website says the machine is now obsolete.

That said, it still appears readily available from a number of resellers, so I'll give it a go. It performed as well as other machines based on one-core CPUs, its PCMark score lifted by better graphics. And it's a nice notebook that augments Windows with DeviceVM's Splashtop fast-boot OS for quick access to email, the web and your media files. But there are faster machines for only a little more outlay.

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