Hardware > Earlier Laptops
Sony Vaio SB 13.3in notebook
Review Not everyone wants to lug a 15.6in notebook around - even less a 17-incher - so the 13.3in category has always appealed to folk keen for plenty of performance without the bulk. Sony has long offered 13.3in machines, the latest being its SB series, part of its broader S series.
Sony Vaio SB 13.3in laptop Available with a non- …
Acer Ethos 5951G 15.6in Core i5 notebook
Review The Acer Ethos 5951G laptop, with its matt black casing and blue activity LEDs, looks rather purposeful. I continued to be impressed by the cosmetics as I hefted the 3.3kg slab onto my lap even though a closer look revealed the brushed finish on the lid was nothing more than plastic, rather than the implied aluminium skin. …
Apple MacBook Air 11in Core i5 notebook
Review For years this particular Mac user preferred to carry around an X-Series ThinkPad, despite having a house full of Apple laptops. That's because Apple could offer nothing with comparable size and weight. It was worth putting up with Windows or Ubuntu to gain the convenience of a smaller lighter machine.
Apple MacBook Air 11in …
Dell XPS 15z 15.6in Core i5 notebook
Review When the 15z was announced there was no small amount of fanfare, not least due to Dell’s interesting claim that this was the thinnest 15in laptop in existence. In no time at all, it had been pointed out that the accompanying asterisk needed to be the size of an actual star, since the machine the 15z was aping, the Apple MacBook …
HP Pavilion dv7 17.3in Llano notebook
Review Heave the 3kg HP dv7 from its enormous box and you can’t help but have your hopes raised: this is a notebook that gives the impression of high-end consumer tech promise. The brushed silver back has a refined air to it and Apple stylee, the HP logo lights up using the screen’s LED lamps. Appearances aside, there are tech treats …
Dell Alienware M18x 18.4in gaming notebook
Review Last year, Dell added to its Alienware laptop family and simultaneously expanded the definition of ultra-portables with the tiny-beefcake M11x. This year's new addition, the flagship M18x, now expands the other end of the spectrum.
Dell Alienware M18x Big player: Dell's Alienware M18x
Labelling this colossus a desktop …
Apple MacBook Pro 17in 2011
Review A slap across the face is what I need. It’s the only language I understand. My problem is that I have played with too many Apple MacBooks over the past 18 months. They were starting to look similar, a little standard perhaps, maybe even ordinary.
Apple MacBook Pro 17in Quad core as standard: Apple's 17in MacBook Pro
So I took …
Motorola Atrix Lapdock
Accessory of the Week If you had thought that Motorola’s Android offerings might have ended up as the also-rans in the mêlée of Googlephone handsets, then recent events in the mobile marketplace would suggest it could well be the standard bearer. The Chocolate Factory’s bid for Motorola’s Mobility division – the handset and tablet line – certainly …
Acer Aspire 5755G 15in Core i7 laptop
Review The Aspire 5755G is a fairly winsome system, combining sober, executive-class slate grey with a glossy black lid adding a touch of glamour. When it’s closed it’s a good looking slice of plastic, measuring just 35mm thick.
Acer Aspire 5755G Acer's Aspire 5755G: widescreen but, alas, not quite full HD
The 16:9, 15.6in screen …
HP Envy 17 3D Core i7 laptop
Review After years of computer journalists telling me – erroneously, I hasten to add – that my next desktop PC will be a laptop, it’s pleasing to see manufacturers such as HP trying to make it happen.
HP Envy 17 3D Viewing spectacle: the Envy 17 3D is a big beast but HP has managed to keep it looking clean and stylish
What do I hate …
Apple MacBook Air 13in Core i5 laptop
Review The lightweight, streamlined design of the MacBook Air is undeniably attractive, and still leaves most of its ultraportable PC rivals looking like a chaotic collision metal and plastic. However, that sleek design has always come with something of a premium price – especially given the relatively modest specification of its …
Toshiba Satellite P775 17.3in Core i7 laptop
Review As laptops become ever more identical on the inside, it's the stuff on the outside that now differentiates one from another.
Toshiba Satellite P775 Off to college: the (wealthy) student's laptop?
Toshiba's Satellite P775 is a good example. The key points I jotted down while putting it through its paces are not the 2GHz Intel …
Samsung Chromebook: The $499 Google thought experiment
Review The most amazing thing about Google's inaugural Chromebooks is that they come with a file manager. It's not much of a file manager, but it's relatively easy to find, and it gives you relatively quick access to the files you've download, or screenshots you've taken, or documents on a thumb drive you've plugged into the USB port …
Samsung RF711 17.3in Core i7 laptop
Review It’s not unusual for desktop replacements to have a bit of heft, but Samsung’s RF711 positively throws caution to the wind. Tipping the scales at an obese 2.9kg and measuring 416mm across (almost one-and-a-half feet), it’s only a laptop in the sense that the screen folds down to cover the keyboard when you’ve finished using it. …
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E420s 14in Core i5 laptop
Review I have always been a fan of ThinkPads, ever since my father brought home a beaten 560e featuring a 150MHz Pentium which was rejected from the corporate pool due to travel abuse. Even though half of its 1GB disk was bad sectors I ran it well into this century and with all the cheap tat that is flooding the market these days, I've …
Samsung NS310 netbook
Review Will the tablet kill off the netbook? Probably not. Granted the netbook has never quite fulfilled its promise due to a combination of prices that went up with specifications that didn’t. Even so, I’ve yet to find a fondleslab that can truly replace my Windows 7/Ubuntu dual-booting Samsung N140.
Samsung NS310 Lap it up: Samsung' …
Lenovo Thinkpad X220T 12.5in tablet PC
Review A recent business profile of Lenovo in a national newspaper made an interesting assertion. "Anyone you spot on the Tube using a ThinkPad has almost certainly obtained it from their employer," claimed the reporter.
Lenovo ThinkPad X220T Tablet with a twist: Lenovo's ThinkPad X220T
Well, discerning readers know this isn’t true …
Samsung NC110 matte-screen netbook
Review Tight spots don’t come much trickier than the one netbook makers find themselves in. Squeezed from above by prettier, more interesting tablets, netbooks such as Samsung’s £350 N350 are barely appealing alternatives to Apple’s glossy view of the future.
Samsung NC110 Samsung's NC110: more of the same, but with a gloss-less …
Speck TrimSleeve MacBook Air case
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Speck SeeThru MacBook Air cover
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Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E 16in laptop
Review Imagine my joy when asked to try out a 3D entertainment centre built into a Sony Vaio notebook. Imagine my disappointment, then, when I discover that the notebook in question is actually too big to fit in my notebook bag.
Sony Vaio VPCF21Z1E Sony's Vaio VPCF21Z1E: don’t think of it as an overgrown notebook but as a very …
Be.ez Le Reporter Air 11 MacBook Air bag
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Asus N73SV Core i7 Sandy Bridge 17.3in laptop
Review As a multi-media laptop the Asus NX90 is undoubtedly desirable but it's as big as a barge, weighs a ton and costs an arm and a leg. However, now you can get the same Bang & Olufsen sound system, full HD screen and the latest Sandy Bridge i7 processor in the altogether more practical N73.
Asus N73SV Sound prospect: Asus' N73SV …
Dell Inspiron Duo
Review Devices that try to reconcile the essentially irreconcilable often come a cropper. As the Good Book says, “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Trying to combine the best of the netbook with the best of the tablet is what Dell’s new Inspiron Duo is all about, but does it work as …
Apple MacBook Pro 15in
Review The 13in MacBook Pro I reviewed last week is a machine for folk who fancy a carry-around computer but who want a bit more welly than the way more portable 13in MacBook Air can provide. The 15in version, on the other hand, is a desktop replacement for the power hungry.
Sure, it's mobile. It has a decent battery life. But it's not …
Apple MacBook Pro 13in
Review Love or loathe Apple, you can't deny it makes gorgeous-looking computers. Are there cheaper machines? Sure. Better spec'd? Maybe not, now that the new MacBook Pros are here, complete with Intel's very latest mobile processors and an interconnect tech no one else has yet.
Apple MacBook Pro 13in Apple's MacBook Pro 13in: metal- …
Toshiba NB500 budget netbook
Review Few netbooks have been truly cheap - well, few of the decent ones, anyway - but now we're at the third generation of Intel's Atom processor family, an opportunity has arisen for netbook makers to offer less pricey models based on older chippery.
Toshiba NB500 Toshiba's NB500: cheap but not awfully cheerful?
Toshiba's netbook …
Samsung N350 dual-core netbook
Review The debate as to whether netbooks are evolving fast enough rages on. Some say manufacturers are guilty of laziness by continuing to churn out similar models, while others argue that there’s simply no need for netbooks to evolve like standard laptops and that more attention should be put into making them cheaper.
Samsung N350 …
Asus NX90Jq 18.4in Core i7 laptop
Review I first encountered Bang & Olufsen in my teens. A friend’s father had a Beocenter music system, which we fledgling audiophiles were, of course, both in awe of and barred from touching. The sleek lines, matt black controls and aluminium panels of that and other early B&O systems instantly sprang to mind when glancing upon the …
Asus Eee PC 1015PEM
Review Will someone please do something interesting with the netbook. Even Asus, the company that created this category of computer, doesn't appear to be able to do anything with it, if it's latest Eee PC, the 1015PEM, is anything to go by.
Asus Eee PC 1015PEM Asus' Eee PC 1015PEM: latest netbook tech on board
That's not to say the …
Apple MacBook Air 11.6in sub-notebook
Review I took a look at the 11.6in MacBook Air for Reg Hardware almost a day after the new line-up of skinny Macs was announced. I've now had a chance to use one in earnest - and benchmark it - to see if my initial thoughts are born out by longer term usage.
Apple MacBook Air 11.6in Apple's MacBook Air 11.6in: smaller and lighter than …
Samsung SF310 13.3in notebook
Review Aimed at the fashion conscious, the Samsung SF310 adopts curves and chrome to attract trendies to this 13.3in notebook. Literally, built along similar lines to the NF210 netbook reviewed recently, if the look and feel isn’t quite enough to have you shopping around and spending about £750 on this Core i5 machine, Samsung is …
Toshiba Portégé R700 13in notebook
Review Toshiba first introduced its then ultra-lightweight Portégé R500 in 2008 just before Apple unwrapped the MacBook Air.
Toshiba Portege R700 Toshiba's Portégé R700: getting more chubby as the series ages
The R500 didn't generate the same media frenzy that the skinny Mac laptop did, but in many ways it was the better machine. It …
Samsung NF210 dual-core netbook
Review Netbooks, irrespective of manufacturer, are based on a very well-defined set of specifications. How, then, do those manufacturers seek to separate their offerings from the herd? If you're Samsung, you come up with a quirky, curvy case design.
Samsung NF210 Samsung's NF210: matte display and latest Atom CPU on board
I'm not …
Apple MacBook Air 13in late 2010
Review When Apple introduced the MacBook Air in January 2008, one of the biggest price hikes in its build to order options was the choice of a 64GB SSD. Those with slightly shallower pockets for this slimline ultraportable wouldn’t hesitate to opt for the 80GB hard drive version instead. Yet if you’re tempted to take the Air today, you …
Apple MacBook Pro 17in Core i7 BTO notebook
Review Apple refreshed the MacBook Pro line earlier this year with Intel's Core i CPUs. While the glossy screens and unibody construction are now a familiar sight, Apple does offer several build-to-order tweaks that aren’t likely to appear on the shop floor. Ram and SSDs upgrades aside, MacBook Pro 15in and 17in users can opt for an …
Toshiba AC100 Android smartbook
Review Toshiba is a quarter-century-old notebook veteran, and of late has been known more for solid reliability than elegance or innovation. The AC100 comes as a surprise: a beautifully designed, ultra-lightweight netbook with a 10.1in screen you would be proud to be seen using.
Toshiba AC100 Toshiba's AC100: smartbook
And here is …
Asus Eee PC 1215N 12in netbook
Review Asus' Eee PC 1215N is an unusual netbook. It has a 12in, 1366 x 768 screen, not a 10in, 1024 x 600 display. It has an HDMI port. It has a dual-core processor, though one developed for desktops rather than laptops. It has USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0.
Asus Eee PC 1215N Asus's Eee PC 1215N: two cores, two GPUs
Heck, it doesn't …
Samsung Q430 14in notebook
Review There was a time when plastic sprayed sliver and moulded with a brushed metal-like texture was cool. The problem for Samsung, which has decked out the interior of the Q430 this way, is that such decor hasn't been hip for more than 30 years.
In fact, all this laptop needs to bring back that ye olde home music centre look is a …
Standivarius Arte notebook stand
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Acer Aspire 5940G 15.6in notebook
Review If you’re after a well-crafted machine, adorned with a range of features from a media controlling touch panel to the old favourites eSATA and ExpressCard/54, then Acer’s Aspire 5940G could well fit the bill. There’s even a fingerprint reader, a 4-pin FireWire 400 port and a whopping sub-woofer.
Aspire 5940G Home entertainer: …
Toshiba Satellite A660 16in laptop
Review Fitting a widescreen display into a laptop is all well and good, but it poses a problem: what do you do with all the empty space around the keyboard, now that the machines are so much bigger from one side to the other?
Toshiba Satellite A660-15T Toshiba's Satellite A660-15T: looks only a mother could love?
The original …
