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The Toshiba Satellite L745D-S4220 is a simplified and affordable 14-inch notebook designed for limited back-to-school budgets. The laptop is small enough to travel for students, on-the-go small business owners.
Toshiba Satellite L745D-S4220 Specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
1.6 GHz AMD E-350 dual-core processor (1 MB cache)
14-inch widescreen HD TruBrite LED-backlit display
ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 6310
4 GB of installed DDR3 RAM (1066 MHz; expandable to 8 GB)
500 GB Serial ATA hard disk drive (5400 RPM)
8x SuperMulti DVD drive
Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g/n)
Built-in stereo speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio
Up to 5.5 hours of battery life (6-cell battery)
5.0 pounds; 13.3 x 9.1 x 1.5 inches (WxDxH)
Toshiba Satellite L745D-S4220 Review
The display's 1366x768 resolution is a standard resolution for mainstream notebooks. The full-sized keyboard is a hybrid between a traditional and island-style keyboard. It uses a hybrid of a traditional layout with flat individual keys similar to what you'll find on Chiclet-style keyboards. The laptop has three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet and a memory card slot in addition to the DVD drive. Windows 7 Home Premium makes it easy to create a home network and share all of your favorite photos, videos, and music.
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Part of the Lenovo G-Series line, the Lenovo G570 is a budget-priced 15.6-inch laptop made for consumer general use. The Lenovo G570is a 15-inch notebook that has a little more flair than its ThinkPad cousins, featuring a glossy lid and a metal palm rest.
Lenovo G570 43344JU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)
Lenovo G570 Specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel Core i5-2410M dual-core processor
4GB 1333MHz DDR3 dual-channel RAM (2x2GB)
500GB hard drive
15.6 inches (1,366x768 native resolution)
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000
Weight: 5.4 lbs
Lenovo G570 Review
The Lenovo G570’s design is refreshingly simple and straightforward, with one much-appreciated wrinkle under the lid. Even though it is made almost entirely of plastic material, the overall build quality feels very good and considerably solid. Measuring 14.8 x 9.8 x .6 - 1.3 inches and weighing 5.4 pounds, the G570 is easy to move around the home or office and was light enough for an hour and a half of a standing-room-only subway trip.
The notebook has a 15.6-inch 720p (1366x768 resolution) display with HD glare and LED backlighting. The LED-backlit display makes good on its promise to reduce glare, but off-axis viewing is less than ideal. Colours were largely accurate and contrast was excellent on the maximum brightness setting. Viewing angles are reasonable, and the screen has plenty of tilt adjustment to help you find an angle that suits you.
The G570 has a full-sized keyboard with discrete, island-style keys that have slightly rounded bottoms. The keys are flat, square and spaced out a bit to aid with typing, as opposed to the keys being together, curved and moreso raised. Similar to the ThinkPad Edge line, the large AccuType "smile-shaped" keys are generously spaced and provided nice, firm feedback. The 3.5 x 1.7-inch touchpad has slightly raised dots, creating a pleasant texture for our fingers to glide on. The touch action is very responsive, too, and the pad has a vertical scroll area along its right edge, as well as support for multi-touch gestures such as two-finger scrolling.
Powered by a 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-2410M CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB, 5,400-rpm hard drive, the G570 has the guts to handle nearly any task. The 4GB of RAM certainly helps with multitasking, as everything felt responsive even when we had multiple programs running at once. The Lenovo G570 has a 6-cell Lithium-ion battery (10.8V, 48Wh).
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The Alienware M11x R3 is undoubtedly one of the best ultraportable gaming notebooks.It has been a big seller for Alienware, and rightly so because it combines class leading performance in a thin and light, custom chassis design. If you want a compact, 11-inch laptop that can still play virtually any game on the market there is no other choice than the Alienware M11x R3.
Alienware AM11X-2894CSB 11.6-Inch Laptop (Cosmic Black)Laptop Computers)
Alienware M11x R3 Specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
1.4GHz Intel Core i5-2537M
4GB RAM
500GB hard drive
11.6 inches (1,366x768 native resolution)
Integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 and Nvidia GeForce GT 540M (1GB), switched via Optimus
4.4 pounds Weight
1.3x11.3x9.2 inches
Alienware M11x R3 Review
The lid is supported by a heavy-duty hinge mechanism that gives the M11x R3 a solid feel. But the 4.4-pound chassis is heavier than most ultraportables. Build quality is quite good thanks to a magnesium alloy construction combined with matte black plastics and the previously mentioned "soft touch finish" which helps make the notebook scratch resistant. Due to the weight of just about two kilograms, and a size of 286 x 233 x 33 mm, the 11 inch subnotebook can be transported easily.
The M11x's glossy 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 display provides bright colors and sharp images, but mediocre viewing angles cause images to wash out at even 45 degrees. A resolution of 1366 x 768 is exactly right for this display size, although a relatively large amount of scrolling will be required in practice, and the handling of several windows can become a bit tedious. It's bright and clear, and works well for both games and video.
The Alienware M11x's colorfully backlit keyboard offers strong tactile feedback with no flex and good key placement. The keyboard itself has soft and responsive keys that feel good to hit, but the downside is that they are a little too small. The layout of the keyboard is quite cramp as the keys are all placed very close to each other. Frequent typists and fast writers won't necessarily ever become completely happy since frequent office tasks call for a keyboard with bigger or free standing keys (chiclet design). The touchpad is a good size (80x43mm) considering the small dimensions of the unit. Apart from the multi-touch control with various gestures (scrolling, zooming & turning), the touchpad also supports a horizontal and vertical scroll area.
For an 11.6-inch notebook, the Alienware M11x R3 has its fair share of interesting ports. The laptop includes two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, FireWire, Gigabit Ethernet, a 3-in-1 media card slot, all of the standard audio jacks, and the previously mentioned HDMI and DisplayPort connections.
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Dell's Inspiron range is made up of the company's entry-level consumer notebooks. Dell's Inspiron 15R N5010 is a 15in notebook with an appealing design and a well rounded configuration. With a large 15.6-inch screen and a second generation Core i5 processor - and wireless display - it promises much, at a budget price.
Dell Inspiron 15R (N5110)
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Intel Core i5-2410M processor (2.3GHz, 3MB cache, 2.9GHz Turbo Boost)
6GB DDR3 memory (1333MHz)
500GB 5400rpm HDD
15.6-inch 1366x768 display with LED backlighting
10/100 Ethernet, 802.11n wireless, and Bluetooth
6-cell Li-ion 48WHr battery and 9-cell 90WHr battery
Weight: 5.84lbs
The new Inspiron 15R is built around Intel's Core i5 processors, with a handful of upgrades available for hard drives and basic discrete graphics. It's powerful enough to handle most demanding tasks for some time to come. The integrated HD graphics supports GPU acceleration, so you'll get good performance with Internet Explorer 9 and the latest generation of tools like Photoshop.The new 15R (N5010) uses a hinge-forward LCD lid design that Dell first used in the premium Adamo series. The chassis has a slightly tapered design that makes it a bit thinner on the front lip, but fairly chunky at the rear.
Dell uses a 15.6 inch sized display with LED backlight in the Inspiron 15R. The display has a resolution of 1366x768 pixels and includes a glossy surface. It sits about two centimetres in from the spine, which gives the notebook good balance and a slightly different look to the norm. It's good for video and for gaming, and with 720p resolution makes an excellent platform for editing HD video content.
At first glance, the Dell Inspiron 15R's keyboard looks good with its single key layout (chiclet style). The keys are of the flat-topped, closely packed variety, and the wider 15.6-inch body allows for a number pad to sit to the right of the keyboard. The keyboard features healthy-size keys, including a huge right Shift key, but the four arrow keys are a bit on the small side. The Function keys are reversed and this allows you to change brightness, volume and other tasks without having to first press the Fn button. A large touchpad allows you to perform various gestures with two fingers: it supports two-finger scrolling, pinching and rotating.
Although the Inspiron's weight of 2.6kg means it's unlikely to be taken on the road regularly, its battery lasted just under three and a half hours. The Inspiron 15R N5010 has a 48 Watt-hour battery installed on its spine and it lasted 2hr 20min in our video rundown test.
The Inspiron 15R is a well-rounded laptop, thanks to its great performance and features for a reasonable price. For the money, the Dell Inspiron 15R is a great laptop.
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The ENVY 14 bears a close resemblance to the Apple MacBook, which isn't a bad thing though does not leave a whole lot of room for originality. At 5.6 pounds, the Envy is on the chunkier side compared to the 13-inch MacBook Pro (4.6 pounds) and the waifish Sony VAIO S (3.8 pounds). The robust build quality and all that metal make the Envy 14 quite heavy for a mid-range laptop, but also far more durable. While the 215-minute battery life is bettered by both the Asus and Toshiba here, you can work for nearly four hours while away from mains power.
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