This Core 2 Duo version of the Lenovo 3000 N100 combines decent performance with the features and connections a small-business user will need, all at a competitive price.

The attractive Lenovo ThinkPad Z61m won’t win any speed races, but this relatively affordable midsize laptop serves up a great set of features and strong battery life in a well-designed case.

The HP Compaq V6000T can be configured as anything from a budget system to a pricey multimedia powerhouse; when it’s well equipped, it makes a great general-purpose laptop.

The Everex StepNote NC1500 comes in under $500–thanks to an off-brand CPU–but its poor performance and meager battery life means you should invest a little more in a traditional Intel or AMD budget laptop.

One of the best ultraportables on the market today, the well-designed Sony VAIO VGN-TXN15P/W provides business users with a thorough feature set and record-breaking battery life.

The new MacBook, updated to Intel’s Core 2 Duo CPU, compares very favorably with Apple’s high-end MacBook Pro line, offering premium performance at a reasonable price.

Combining swift performance, lengthy battery life, and an eye-catching leather exterior, the Asus S6F is a unique–and uniquely powerful–ultraportable.

Attractive, powerful, and reasonably priced, the Sony VAIO C150P/B is a smart choice if you’re in the market for a thin-and-light laptop.

Filed under: Laptops

We’re not really sure why anyone needs a crystal-encrusted LED belt buckle, nor an iced-out Xbox, but Medion clearly thinks that a sparkly (with 300 Swarovski crystals) laptop is the best way to attract female users, despite our skepticism. Looking beyond the exterior, the SIM 2060 laptop packs a 1.73GHz Core Duo chip, a 12.1-inch screen, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 100GB hard drive, WiFi, Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet, a SD/MMC/Memory Stick card reader, an ExpressCard 54 slot, and a dual-layer DVD burner — all of that will set you back £1,000 ($1,900). Not a bad deal considering that a fridge with 7,000 such crystals went for 10 times that price.

[Via Reg Hardware]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

We like almost everything about the Acer Ferrari 5000, except for the price.

If you’ve been holding off on making the leap to a MacBook because of the lack of Core 2 Duo processors, this new update adds the latest Intel CPUs and provides a great overall computing experience, albeit at a premium price.

Inexpensive but not cheap, the Fujitsu LifeBook A6010 offers a gorgeous screen and enough performance for basic home use–just plan on buying an extra battery.

For less than $700, the retail-only Toshiba Satellite M115-S1061 is a perfectly acceptable basic productivity machine, but weak battery life makes it less than roadworthy.

The Toshiba Satellite P105-S9722 will bring you close to top-of-the-line gaming performance at nearly half the cost of hard-core gaming rigs.

Gateway’s M285-E convertible tablet can easily serve double duty as your main PC, but its size and weight makes it hard to use as a full-time tablet.

The HP Compaq nc8430′s design won’t turn any heads, but the laptop does offer business-oriented features and solid performance at a competitive price.

The compact Acer Ferrari 1000 features the great looks and fast speed of the Italian sports car, but it doesn’t have enough gas for the long haul.

Filed under: Laptops

And you thought you could go the whole day without reading a single battery recall-related post; sorry, we’ll try harder tomorrow. So you probably remember yesterday’s scary report which quoted a Consumer Product Safety Commission spokesperson predicting that Sony’s upcoming US battery recall will expand beyond just laptops, and might include portable DVD players and videogame consoles too. Well the same woman who made that statement, Julie Vallese, has now backtracked somewhat by telling CNET that “Any recall that the agency will make will be limited to batteries that power notebook computers. We have no anticipation at this time beyond that.” So, does this mean that those other types of batteries are safe — or that the CPSC knows about problems with them, but since they apparently won’t be part of the recall, there’s no need to worry the public? It’s hard to say at this point, although Vallese’s previous comment was pretty clear — unlike the following response from Sony spokesperson Rick Clancy: “Sony has provided a wealth of technical data to the CPSC involving this tech, and it is omnipresent in a host of portable electronic devices, but as far as we know, from Sony’s perspective, there is no initiative planned at this time that goes beyond what has already been communicated with respect to notebook computers.” Doesn’t sound very reassuring to us. Only time will tell if other kinds of devices are at risk from those little metal particles that tainted many a laptop cell, but if we had to proffer a guess, we’d say it’s pretty unlikely that the QA breakdown which allowed so many batteries to become fire hazards was limited only to the manufacturing processes for notebook power packs. Let’s hope we’re wrong about this one.

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops

We thought that Acer was all done for the time being with announcing its latest Core 2 Duo lappies, and boy are we pleasantly surprised to be wrong — the company has just paraded out two swanky new models for us to enjoy: the TravelMate 6460 and 6410. Sadly, deets on the TravelMates are few for the time being, but we do know that they’ll come with the latest Merom action (no word on what speed), “omnipotent communication” (WiFi, gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, 1.3 megapixel integrated webcam), DVI-D out with HDCP support (on the 6460 only), fingerprint-based login, and a 15.4-inch display. Yo Acer, how about some pricing and availability info to go along with your spec sheets, hrm?

 

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Home users who want their laptop to double as a home entertainment center will love the high-end (and high-def) features on the HP Pavilion dv9000t.

We like the HP Pavilion dv6000′s attractive design and multimedia features, but don’t expect this Core 2 Duo laptop to break any speed records.

If you just want a cheap laptop for basic computing, the Averatec 3360 is a solid choice, but for a few hundred dollars more, you can get better performance with a dual-core processor system.

The Core 2 Duo-based Alienware Area-51 m5550 can perform as well as larger, more expensive gaming systems, but its short battery life means you won’t be very mobile.

Dell’s smallest business laptop, the Latitude D420 manages to combine decent specs with a convenient form factor, even if it’s not all that configurable.

Filed under: Laptops

Somehow those good ol’ boys down in Texas got sneaky on us — while we were busy getting ready for Labor Day, Dell went and updated the Latitude, Inspiron, and XPS series with Core 2 Duo chips. Laptop took the new bumped Dell Latitude D820 for a spin and wasn’t dissappointed. This spiffy new laptop topped the charts on the magazine’s MobileMark 2005 test with an all-time high score of 308. Further tests showed that the Core 2 Duo scored high marks when processing more information at a time, such as running a virus scan while ripping a CD: the Core 2 Duo machine scanned 15,446 items and ripped the CD in 8 minutes 32 seconds while the Core Duo scanned 2,579 items and ripped the same CD in 6 minutes 36 seconds. We’re still waiting to see if Apple will follow Dell’s lead — maybe that’s what’s happening next week in San Francisco?

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