The HP Pavilion dm3t is a solid, full-featured productivity laptop with good battery life and responsive performance at a very reasonable price. It is a 13.3-inch screen portable notebook targeted towards students and other consumers. The laptop has been on the market for a while now, but it has quickly become HP's most popular 13-inch laptop competing against more expensive laptops like the 13-inch Apple MacBook.

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HP Pavilion dm3t Specs:
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Intel Core i3-380UM Processor
3GB DDR3 memory
320GB, 7200 rpm HDD
13.3-inch diagonal HD HP BrightView (glossy) LED Display (1366 x 768)
6-cell Li-ion battery (62 Wh) and 65W power adapter
Weight: 4.1 pounds

 HP Pavilion dm3t Review
The dm3t is on the small side for a budget 13.3-inch laptop, measuring 1.3x12.8x9.2 inches and weighing in at 4 pounds, hovering on the border between the ultraportable and thin-and-light laptop categories. Thin design and an attractive outer finish make all the difference when buying a laptop, and the Pavilion dm3t hits the mark on this.

The Intel Core i3 with Intel HD graphics chipset offered enough horsepower to play the latest games and stream HD content with ease. The 320GB, 7200 rpm hard drive is fast enough to quickly load most basic applications like Microsoft Office or open file folders without significant lag. Battery life was pretty terrific -- Intel's CULV chips sip juice, and we got a fairly consistent nine hours or so of general usage on a charge.

The HP Pavilion dm3t has a glossy 13-inch LED display with a standard resolution of 1,366x768 pixels. The screen was fairly bright and crisp when surfing the Web, viewing photos, watching House on Hulu, and writing this review in WordPad. The speakers are mounted above the keyboard and offer rich, clear sound for a notebook in this class. Audio sounded very good until we cranked the volume to its highest level; it got a bit muddy at that point.

The dm3t has one of the better keyboards in its class, with a well-spaced and thoughtfully designed chicklet-style layout. The keyboard is chiclet style, the same type you’ll see in MacBooks and is becoming more and more common in PC laptops. The keyboard is comfortable for typing with the perfect amount of key feedback and quiet, cushioned clicks. The keys are well spaced and have just the right amount of vertical travel for comfortable typing.

With the laotop you will get two standard USB 2.0 ports, one combo eSATA/USB 2.0 port, HDMI-out, VGA, Gigabit LAN (hidden behind a rubber door), a SDHC-card slot , and two audio jacks for headphones and a microphone.

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The 14-inch HP Pavilion dv4t is consumer laptop offering a wide range of multimedia features at a cheap price. The laptop is aimed at the student crowd. It is a great laptop with a comfortable keyboard and can deliver good performance and battery life.

HP Pavilion dv4t Review

The design of the HP dv4 has the same heavily chromed accents just like the dv5 and new HDX models. It's covered in mostly glossy plastics, and the chassis is hardened to protect against flexing. Measuring 13.2 x 9.5 x 1.6 inches and weighing 5.2 pounds, the dv4t is slightly thicker and about half a pound heavier than competing 14-inch laptops.  

 

The glossy LED-backlit WXGA (1280x800) panel is bright and vibrant, with excellent colors for viewing images or movies. The dv4t’s viewing angles were extremely tight: the glossy display kicked back heavy reflection as we moved left or right of center.

 

The dv4t has a good, comfortable-to-the-touch Chiclet-style keyboard.  The full-size keyboard is comfortable to type on, with only light pressure required to fully press each key.  The key travel and smoothness is very nice and there is no spongy feeling or flex to the keyboard. Above the keyboard are touch-sensitive multimedia keys, and a Wi-Fi on/off switch that reacted swiftly to our finger inputs. The touchpad is an ALPS made model and feels very responsive with little lag. At 3.0 x 1.4 inches, the dv4t’s touchpad is wide.

 

The HP Pavilion dv4t features 3 USB2.0 ports, 5-in-1 multi-card reader, Two audio out ports, microphone port , One eSATA/USB port, ExpressCard slot, Gigabit Ethernet, VGA monitor out, HDMI out and Kensington lock slot. The notebook has three battery options: a regular 6-cell, high capacity 6-cell and 12-cell battery. 

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The HP Envy 15 is a high end laptop that's a part of HP's unique Envy line. It is an extremely stylish notebook that successfully marries excellent performance with usability and portability. With a fast CPU, excellent video and audio, slick design, and a price that's low for a Core i7 laptop, it is a great laptop.

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HP Envy 15 Specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

1.6GHz Intel Core i7 720QM

6GB, 1,066MHz DDR3

500GB 7,200rpm Hard Drive

15.6 inches display

1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4830

HP Envy 15 Review

The HP Envy 15’s design is essentially the same as the Envy 13, majoring on solid construction from a multitouch button-less trackpad, a magnesium alloy chassis, and detachable long-life baseplate battery packs.  Its lid has an attractive etched pattern that looks like the skin of a robotic rattlesnake. ike the MacBook Pro 15-inch, it's completely surrounded in aluminum metals and measures only an inch thick (15 by 9.75 by 1 inches, HWD). 

The 15.6-inch widescreen is a boon for video and photo editors, rich in colors and enshrined with a 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. The screen wasn't excessively glossy, and both games and video looked great. The VGA Webcam even includes an infrared LED to make it work better in dark environments.  Its extraordinary 300-nit brightness level allows for great viewing angles even at a full 90 degrees. The screen also has a light sensor that adjusts the brightness based on surrounding light.

While the comfortable Chiclet keyboard lacks backlighting, it does offer an extra vertical row of quick-launch keys along the left edge, as well as function keys that double as media controls. The large keys travel a satisfying distance and prove intuitive to use. In our hands-on test the keyboard quickly proves that it is ready for typing long texts.  Alike its competitor from California, the Envy 15 offers a multi-gesture touchpad without separate touchpad buttons. The touchpad is large, and supports multi-gesture technology, meaning you can use your fingers to zoom in and out of photos and scroll through documents.

The Envy 15 features HDMI, two USB ports, an eSATA/USB combo jack, a combined 3.5mm audio in/out port, Ethernet, and a Kensington lock slot; all are on the right side of the system.  The only area where the HP Envy 15 disappoints is in its battery life, which isn't surprising given its Mobile Core i7 processor and large, bright screen.  The laptop ran for 1 hour and 57 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the standard six-cell battery.

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HP's Envy is the company's range topping brand, looking to take on Dell's Adamo, Apple's MacBook Pro and Sony's high-end VAIO models.  The HP Envy 13 looks a lot like a MacBook Pro. In both looks and performance, this system meets or exceeds all of its Windows competitors. If you’re looking for a stylish, fairly powerful laptop with enough horses to run Win7, this is one of the better models out there.

HP Envy 13 Specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SL9600

3GB DDR3 SDRAM 

250GB 5400RPM SATA hard drive

13.3-inch Widescreen Display (1366x768) 

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330

Dimensions: 12.59"(W) x 8.46"(D) x 0.8"(H)

Weight: 3.75 pounds (not including weight of AC adapter).

4-cell 41Wh battery

 HP Envy 13 Review

The 13.3-inch "HP Radiance" display is roughly twice as bright as other notebook displays of the same size – 410 nit brightness. With a 1366x768 resolution, the display was stunning while viewing photos and movies during our tests.  It's also very sharp, with more than enough space to multitask. That said, the glossy coating is too reflective to use in direct sunlight.  Audio was also excellent, with special bass-boosting software provided by Beats Audio, and sounded especially good through headphones.

The full-size island-style or "Chiclet" keyboard is a welcome change from HP's previous keyboards and provides excellent key spacing and support. Its plastic black keys are smooth and comfortable to the touch, and snap back responsively when pressed. Well-spaced Chiclet-style keys rise up from the metal backplane, and the laser etching on the palm rest lends some visual and tactile interest.  The touchpad is one of the largest we have seen on a laptop and makes it very easy to navigate the operating system. The integrated mouse buttons lie beneath the one-piece surface of the pad; the setup works very well, as the buttons are responsive and provide just the right tactile and audible feedback.

Battery life with the 41Wh Li-Ion battery and the L9600 processor is good for a 13-inch notebook running on integrated graphics. The laptop's standard 4-cell lithium-ion battery was able to run for three hours, 23 minutes with the power setting set to Power Saver during our video rundown benchmark. 


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The ultrabook is Intel's initiative to bring super-light and slim but powerful ultraportable laptops with good battery life to market. The Asus Zenbook UX31 is one of the first notebooks to conform to Intel's Ultrabook specification.

Asus Zenbook UX31 Review

The Asus Zenbook UX31 looks great and feels incredibly rigid and robust. The UX31 is all about design -- and it is truly stunning. The chassis has almost zero flex and the lid is just as strong.  It measures 0.66 by 12.79 by 8.78 inches (HWD), and is roughly the same size as the Apple MacBook Air and Acer Aspire S3. With a 13.3-inch screen tucked inside, the chassis is small enough to carry around without too much trouble.  The Asus Zenbook UX31 features a USB 2.0 port, a USB 3.0 port, a micro HDMI and mini VGA ports, a mic in/headphones out jack and an SD card reader.

The Asus Zenbook UX31 runs on a ULV second gen Sandy Bridge Core i5 CPU, and there's a Core i7 option. The i5-2557M runs at 1.7GHz and the Core i7-2677M runs at 1.8GHz (both support Turbo Boost). You'll get 4GB or RAM with all 13-inch models, as well as a 128 or 256GB solid state drive (SSD).  The Zenbooks use Intel HD 300 integrated graphics.

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The display is one of the highlights of this notebook. Not only is the display bright and colorful; it has a very welcome high resolution of 1600x900 pixels. It's a 450 nit brightness panel that's viewable outdoors, and it's glossy. Image quality is excellent, with accurate colours and ample contrast.  The Zenbook UX31 also has wider viewing angles than the Acer S3, making it better suited to sharing the screen with another person.

The laptop has a chiclet-style keyboard that shares the square tile layout of the MacBook Air 13-inch, but adds a new luxurious element with metal keys. The arrow keys are smaller than what you'll find on the 13-inch Air, but they were pretty easy to find by feel. Despite having very little travel, each key felt springy and responsive, so we could type at full speed right away. Measuring 4.1 x 2.75 inches, the UX31's Sentelic-powered touchpad is almost as large as the MacBook Air's (4.1 x 3 inches) and includes integrated buttons. The oversized touchpad has a smooth surface. This is a clickpad; press down anywhere to produce a click. 

The fantastic design, sturdy build quality and excellent performance make the UX31 an incredibly desirable machine. The ASUS Zenbook UX31ffers a wafer-thin aluminum chassis, fast performance, instant resume, and good battery life--and adds even better audio and a higher-resolution display.  It's incredibly slim, lightweight and sturdy enough to be chucked in a bag and carted off around town.  

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Business users looking for a svelte, stylish laptop with strong performance should check out the Dell Vostro V131. The laptop is designed primarily for business users, but its price and features are compelling enough that some casual users will want to check it out.

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Dell Vostro V131($799) Specs:

Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 2410M

4GB, 1,333 MHz DDR3

500GB HDD, 7,200rpm

Intel HD 3000 (integrated)

13.3 inches

4.1 / 4.7 pounds

Dell Vostro V131 Review

The 2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M CPU is a monstrous leap in speed, and along with 4GB of memory, the V131 easily trumped its predecessor in all of our speed tests. The V131's 500GB, 7,200-rpm hard drive booted the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Professional in 52 seconds. The laptop has no discrete graphics options; Intel HD 3000 graphics is all that's available. They're adequate for most people, and can even handle some basic gaming. The Vostro V131's least expensive entry-level config is $499, but only comes with a Celeron processor, along with 2GB of RAM and a 7,200rpm, 320GB hard drive.

The Dell Vostro V131 features a 13.3-inch LED backlit HD matte display with 1366 x 768p resolution.  Its backlighting is somewhat off; it's about 20 nits brighter in the center than in the bottom-right corner of the screen. The contrast rating ended up being a very low 126:1. The overall color of the display will appear very washed out.  The unit's 1080p video playback was smooth, and audio was better than average through the speakers.

The chiclet-style backlit keyboard on the V131 is large and spacious, spanning nearly the whole of the keyboard dock, save for a quarter inch on each side. The keys are flat and rounded off at the corners and feel smooth and soft to the touch while providing a comfortable typing experience. The chiclet keys are even easier to differentiate, and fewer accidental keys are pressed. The laptop’s touchpad has a smooth surface that works very well even with moisture on the fingers, and is big enough that even people with large hands should have enough room to use it comfortably.

The Dell Vostro V131 features two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0, HDMI, an 8-in-1 card reader, VGA, Stereo speakers, headphone/mic, combo jack Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and optional mobile broadband/WiMax. 

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