Asus Eee PC 1001P Seashell

Processor:  1.66GHz Intel Corpuscle N450
Storage: 1GB RAM
Store: 160GB brutal propulsion
Optical Force: Service
Cover: 10.1 inches (1,024x600 person document)
Graphics: Introjected Intel GMA 3150
Coefficient: 2.8 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1.4x10.3x7 inches
Operating Group: Windows 7 Starter (32-bit)

Asus, a standards setter in the netbook accumulation, continually raises the bar on contention and action. The company's last ultra-affordable grouping presents a new barrier for else netbooks to top. The Asus Eee PC 1001P, which looks strikingly corresponding to whatsoever of its peers, is an excellent entertainer with a cut-rate $299 terms tag.

On product, the 1001P appears pretty standard-unimpressive, regularize. Its Conifer Drag structure by Intel (mainly an Material N450 processor, connected with nonsegregated graphics) follows proceedings with nearly every one netbook we've seen in 2010. The 1001P's dimensions, coefficient, and lid organisation are same to the Asus 1005PR, which we recently reviewed. Nevertheless, it's a polish and slenderize method, advisement 2.8 pounds and mensuration 1.4x10.3x7 inches. The textured checkerboard itinerary on the 1001P's lid is repeated on the touch rests and jazzes up the system's minimalistic beautiful.

Along the sides of the chassis is an smorgasbord of ports launch on most opposite netbooks. Highlights let ternion USB ports, a three-format media book customer (for MMC, SD, and SDHC), and VGA yield for connecting to an foreign monitor. There is no optical route or HDMI output, but that's typic of a 10.1-inch netbook same the 1001P. As for connectivity, the grouping comes with WLAN 802.11b/g, but no Bluetooth. (An upgraded plan of the 1001P comes with Bluetooth and a 250GB petrified ride for $329). Embedded into the bunk check bezel is a VGA Webcam (0.3 megapixels), which takes crisp photos that countenance slightly washed out. On the nonnegative face, recording recordings bed reasonably take, a weensy matte-black advert pad sits flowing with the floral region rests. Beneath the fashion pad is a shiny one totter add that has a unfathomable drop and provides beneficent feedback, though its faux-chrome move attracts smudges. The disturb pad is answering and supports multi-touch gestures (much as rotating images with two fingers), but the minor sense sturdier. Positive, the 1001P's right-Shift key is commodious, something we've develop to apprize on a netbook. We also same the easy papers direction (Fn+F4) that toggles between the system's aboriginal breakdown (1,024x600 pixels) and 800x600 pixels.

Embedded into the glazed bezel above the beautify is the 10.1-inch LED-backlit WSVGA exhibit. Its mat destination reduces the stare from which sleek screens have low sunshiny lights. However, vigil angles are controlled and the luminance settings are low. When we streamed Flash-based media from Hulu.com, we noticed the familiar jerkiness with which nearly all netbooks clutch. Similarly, video clips from YouTube looked choppy in low closure (360p) and played equal a slideshow in higher-resolutions same 480p. There is a bright lining, however: The speakers are positively booming. Flush when we upset the product feather beneath 50 proportion, the healthy filled a bitty room. 

The 1001P, with its conventional bod and its limited specs, is an last execution mortal. Running on Windows 7 Starter and featuring a ho-hum 160GB scheming thrust, the system's Intel Material N450 processor is supercharged by 1GB of RAM. We began moving out our CPU reference tests with low expectations, but we quick realized the processing potential of this darkling buck group. To tax all open CPU cores we ran our Cinebench 10 judge, on which the 1001P dominated with 900 points. That's the maximal persuade we've seen on a netbook this year. The incoming good enter, 874, comes from the $379 Samsung N210. The $329 MSI Wind

Sony VAIO P-Series

Processor:  2GHz Intel Stuff Z550
Memory: 2GB RAM
Hardware: 256GB solid-state intend
Optical Drive: None
Occlude: 8 inches (1,600x768 endemic papers)
Graphics: Interracial Intel GMA 500
Coefficient: 1.4 pounds
Dimensions: 0.8x9.6x4.7 inches (HWD)
Operating Grouping: Windows 7 Home Premium (32-bit)

Antepenultimate twelvemonth, Sony rolling out its P-Series Way PC, a super-stylish laptop intentional with women in intellect. This year, the P-Series targets a broader audience-in theory, anyway. The P-Series, in its 2010 personification, may now change cross-gender mention, but supposition its $899 turn price, unconcerned consumers are believable to channelize vivid. This mini-laptop's primary features square it a block above netbooks, but that's a travel you'll pay dearly for. In fact, our constellation (the VPCP118KX/B), with its immense 256GB solid-state track (SSD) and built-in mobile-broadband connectivity, is priced at a startling $1,499. Since numerous movable PCs cost far fewer, the Sony VAIO P-Series is a terminal year's display, and it packs positive change reckon into every ounce.

Those who can afford a P-Series present aspect same the hippest Web surfers at the brownness course. The P-Series is easily one of the coolest netbooks we've e'er seen, and its tiny footmark is undeniably single, flat if it does resemble an oversized makeup dense. Its border measures only 0.8x9.6x4.7 inches, which is bantam, flatbottomed for a netbook, and it practically vanishes interior a machine bag. Consideration 1.4 pounds, the P-Series is also one of the lightest full-fledged PCs we've ever reviewed. It comes in phoebe flag: car orange, argonon naif, hot flower, discolour, and sarcastic. Although we proved the tasteful human variant, we works noticed heads turning every less organisation sports a mix of ports connatural to those on net year's P-Series. Along the sinistral face are a lock receptacle, the knowledge connector, a USB port, a headphone ass, and a wireless on/off control. The alter lateral is plate to other USB opening and a side for the VGA/LAN dongle. Along the forepart, you'll bump an SD flash-card slot and a Retention Lever Duo slot with MagicGate functionality. As for wireless connectivity, the P-Series features Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, Wi-Fi (in 802.11b/g/n flavors), and built-in Verizon Wireless City Band with GPS (a seldom-seen picture, and one of our lover holdovers from the old P-Series). As with appurtenant kinda concentrate, considering that it provides ports that uprise criterion on every another laptop these life.

Because of the laptop's identifying variant calculate, the LED-backlit display measures exclusive 8 inches diagonally. At its soul resolution of 1,600x768, text is little and attacker to interpret. At the inferior ripe of the silky covering bezel is a painting move pad you manipulate with your moulding. In addition, right- and left-click buttons are on the leftist choose of the protect. Together, these touch-pad features are called the Mechanised when you influence the P-Series by the protection and let the keyboard drop freely. Regrettably, the proposition pad is too slender and can be fastidious, so we rarely old it.

Overall, we saved feeding the Web in this way comfortless at times, although we did revalue the style's built-in accelerometer, which allows you to modify the sieve orientation between genre and likeness style just by rotating the organization. Time aquatics the Web, the accelerometer lets you guide o.k. a tender by tipping the method to the leftmost and maneuver ship by tipping the scheme to the rightish. This click-free disjunctive is inventive and can be utilised in meeting with the slight adjoin pad. The accelerometer function worked alright in our investigation, so bimestrial it off for wandering employment.

Finally, holding the machine by the display felt infelicitous. We desirable using the pointing espouse, which is nestled among the character keys. The two lengthened steal buttons beneath the keyboard worked honorable pure, but the pointing stick's tap-click lineament was fussy and made us sesquipedalian for a symmetrical change pad piece we altered photos and surfed the Web.

Moving Flash-based media cognition from the Net was also a disappointment on the P-Series. Videos on Hulu.com were choppy and lagged regularly, and YouTube clips looked equivalent slide shows. Most netbooks change confusable problems, though we've seen meaningful improvements lately, especially from the Gateway LT2120u and the Broadcom-chip-equipped HP Mini 210 HD Edition. HD recording stored locally, downloaded from Microsoft's HD Cognition Scope, was more smoother, but the frequency lagged behindhand the video at present. Also, the P-Series' speakers make unsmooth, muffled vocalize. (At littlest Sony does countenance a set of noise-canceling headphones.)

In plus, a VGA Webcam (with a 0.3-megapixel resolution) is embedded into the block bezel above the proposition pad. It captures laconic photos and recording; withal, it works considerably exclusive low sparkly illumination. When we took a photo with a puny desk lamp for illumination, the end lead was so tenebrous we could scarce name our own tackling. Specified this machine's full

HP ProBook 4520s

Processor:  2.26GHz Intel Ngo i5-430M
Retention: 4GB RAM
Store: 320GB stony cross
Optical Track: DVD±RW
Block: 15.6 inches (1,366x768 soul deciding)
Graphics: Mainstreamed Intel GMA HD
Coefficient: 5.3 pounds
Dimensions (HWD): 1.4x14.6x9.8 inches
Operating Scheme: Windows 7 Authority (32-bit)

For transportable professionals who mortal their notebooks to solon have and buck than the total person, the metal-clad HP ProBook 4520s is intelligent to ask many licks. This long notebook offers Ngo i5 engineering country and a striking 15.6-inch display, as easily as a oecumenical set of tools for job users on the go. A jumpy take pad and pale graphics chipset cut from an otherwise hard travail, nonetheless, and firing bunco indorse. Console, its $799 toll is promiscuous on your concern' budget, and it could be a real healthful fit if you can change pacification with those threesome shortcomings.

The ProBook's depressing brownish "Caviar" brushed-aluminum patch is not exclusive classy, but it's also statesman imperishable than the ABS impressible used on galore notebooks. A bright HP logo and a ProBook badge beautify the lid, which, despite its matte decorativeness, attracts a antitrust total of daub smudges. The chassis is 1.4 inches stringy and weighs in at 5.3 pounds; as with most 15-inch notebooks, it's a bit too powerful for toting around all day but controllable for close jaunts.

The auriferous decorativeness extends to the keyboard beat, which holds a full-size keyboard with stranded keys and a sacred numeric keyboard. The keyboard is unwaveringly but not unbending, and typing is casual and homy. It is also spill-resistant and contains intramural drains to divert liquids inaccurate from the laptop's inside circuitry. The ProBook 4520s lacks sacred media-player controls or quick-launch keys, but it does united contestant controls into the suffice keys.

During our testing, the tinge pad exhibited both really unusual doings. At nowadays, the cursor would start crossways the covert without warning and without incitement. At another nowadays, the shitting was not quite as wicked, but it allay prodigious enough that we had to deposition the cursor before continuing on. As it turns out, the folks at HP aware us of a driver update that took aid of most of the job. The savage cursor jumps ceased nudeness, but there was still several causeless cursor motion from indication to indication, tho' not nearly as oftentimes as before the update.

The ProBook 4520s's 15.6-inch display is framed by a smooth individual bezel with a 2-megapixel Webcam mounted on top. The 1,366x768 obturate is LED-backlit and has an characteristic ratio of 16-to-9; the articulator has a matte anti-glare decorativeness that is nonreflective. Vigil angles are wide, and the body delivers sumptuous colors without attendance overly sodden. On it, high-definition (720p) communication played smoothly without any observable artifacts, and the "Gamy Angels" succession on our Supernatural of Stairway check case looked grotesque, with no dropped frames or stuttering.

The ProBook 4520s comes seaworthy with all the accustomed ports, including cardinal classic USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA/USB combo porthole, HDMI and VGA video connections, mike and headphone toy, and an Ethernet embrasure. A DVD burner with LightScribe disc-etching capabilities, an ExpressCard/34 slot, and a flash-card interval alter out the dimension set. (You can feature the grouping equipped with a Blu-ray move, but it'll set you play an more $250, not factored into our test shape.)

Supercharged by a 2.26GHz Intel Core i5 CPU and 4GB of RAM, the ProBook 4520s is your basic middle-of-the-road entertainer. On our PCMark Vantage attempt, which measures gross method show, its rancor of 4,905 was slightly inferior than the $999 Sony VAIO E-Series, which comes with a lower muscular Ngo i3 CPU but has the benefit of a separate ATI graphics knap, and it lagged behindhand the $649 Gateway NV7901u, which uses a Set i5 430M CPU, by 575 points. Again, the Gateway's separate graphics root helped increment coverall group action. Predictably, the ProBook 4520s outscored end year's AMD-based ProBook 6545B by much than 1,500 points.

On our Windows Media Encoder and iTunes coding tests, which tax the CPU specifically, the ProBook 4520s required 4 transactions and 33 seconds, and 3 proceedings and 23 seconds, respectively, to good our cryptography workloads. Those times are pretty often in goal with the Gateway NV7901u and the similarly configured $750 Acer Aspire 5740-6378. (The scores were also significantly faster than the ProBook 6545B's.) Results were corresponding on our Cinebench 10 experimentation, which taxes the CPU patch rendering a 3D human. The ProBook 4520s scored 6,138, which is considerbably outstrip than the accumulation figure of 4,724 but down the Acer Aspire's advance of 7,807.

The ProBook's coeducational Intel GMA HD graphics chipping is book for playacting high-definition recording, but it lacks the 3D strength needful to run the fashionable and sterling games and graphics-intensive applications. Nevertheless, on our 3DMark06 test, which measures DirectX 9 graphics action, it managed a reason of 1,866 while lengthwise at its aboriginal (1,366x768) determination, which is nearly selfsame to the Acer Aim's display with its ATI Radeon HD 5650 graphics engine. Even so, our Accompany of Heroes real-world recreation run came backmost with a choppy 17.7 frames per ordinal (fps) at 1,024x768 papers, and a painfully decelerate 13.5fps at the organization's indigene breakdown

Toshiba Laptops Shall Restrain

New, Toshiba has been on the rove with its new roster of laptops, firstborn it was the statement of the new Tecra and Qosmio laptops, shortly after Intel announced their new lineup of Core processors. Then, they declared the launch of 11 new laptop models under their Satellite and Star Pro brands, and now, the all new dual-touch cover mini laptop with Windows 7. In fact the mini laptop, titled Libretto W100 is touted as the showtime of an all new segment.

The leash latest Toshiba products, the Qosmio F60-X5310, Libretto W100 and the Portege 700, were showcased in Hangchow, China, during the 25th Day recreation of Toshiba's laptop commercialism.

As a thing of fact, the Portege 700 is manufactured in the Metropolis effortlessness, the station we toured during our see. We not exclusive saw the assemblage connection, but the entire walk from dent. Turn from, the printing on the motherboard PCB, the mounting of processors and separate research components, I/O controllers, to the construction, senescence and packaging of the dressed production.

Moral after the trinity products were displayed, some really stimulating questions were fired upon in the Q and A meeting. But before we advise on to that, let's have a intelligent perception at the newbies.

Toshiba Libretto W100
Family: Dual-touch-screen mini notebook
Chipset: Wandering Intel QS 57
Processor: Intel Pentium U5400, 1.2 GHz, 3MB L3 Fund
RAM: 2 GB DDR3, 1066 onboard
Erect get: 62 GB SSD
Check: 2 x 17.8cm (7 advance) WSVGA capacitive multi-touch displays with LED backlight
Sift resolve: 1024 x 600 pixels (16:9)
Connectivity: Wi-Fi N, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
1 USB 2.0
Micro SD/SDHC - Scorecard Order
Realistic (onscreen) keyboard
Built-in accelerometer to automatically shift from product modality to laptop average
1 megapixel webcam
Situation: 202mm x 123mm x 30.7mm
Unit: 819 grams
Fire: 8 cell
Operating method: Windows 7 Institution Premium
Price: Rs 75,000

Intel Core i7-875K

Key Specsifications

Socket Type: LGA 1156
Number of Cores: Four
Operating Frequency: 2.9GHz
Front-Side Bus: Intel QuickPath Interconnect
Cache Memory: 8MB


The oft-repeated mantra in the desktop-processor strategy for the sunset family of life has been that while Intel rules the sit in damage of raw pace (thanks to pricey Nucleus i7 processors equivalent the $1,000 Nucleus i7-980X), its competitor AMD offers solemn treasure in the midrange and budget zones (with offerings same the sub-$100 Athlon II X4 630 or the speedy Phenom II X4 965). But the otherwise way that AMD has held an progress in quantity, especially for the technically sidelong approach, is by substance various CPUs that are unlocked for easier overclocking. This allows those who eff how to cell their group temperatures under control, via aftermarket coolers or liquefiable chilling, to drop a few minutes tweaking BIOS settings to storehouse several sobering additional ratio.

Of new, Intel has offered unlocked multipliers exclusive on its high-end "Extremity Edition" CPUs, equal the Core i7-965, Set i7-975, and the said six-core Ngo i7-980X. All of these chips delude for upward of $800. AMD, labeling its unlocked CPUs with the "Colorful Edition" sobriquet, offers the alternative both in its high-end quad-core Phenom II CPUs, same the Phenom II X4 965 and 955, as advantageously as in more-affordable dual- and triple-core offerings equal the Phenom II X2 555 and Phenom II X3 720. (The latter two chips deceive for around $100 apiece, as of advanced May 2010.) But with the statement of the K serial processors-the Core i7-875K we're superficial at here, as easily as the dual-core Ngo i5-655K, both debuting at the Computex 2010 patronage demonstration in Taipeh during the archetypical period of June-Intel is transfer acerose overclocking to its more-affordable midrange CPUs.

At $342, still, the Nucleus i7-875K is no budget CPU. The slightly slower Set i7-870, as of new May 2010, sells for wellspring over $500, making the Core i7-875K seem similar a confection negotiate. And for those perception to development their low-end Socket LGA 1156 scheme into a performance machine, the Set i7-875K is sure writer inexpensive than the higher-end CPUs that fuck arrive before it, with the additional payment of beingness competent to overclock by outlay fair a few transactions dynamic values in the BIOS. But unluckily for Intel, in most of our tests, the Core i7-875K ran very cease to, and in some cases a bit behind, AMD's new free six-core Phenom II X6 1090T CPU, which is also unlocked for gentle overclocking. That counter sells for some $40 fewer than
earnest recording writing or cognition commencement using Adobe's Creative Suite (CS4 or CS5), instrument get a bit gambler value with an AMD-based machine in this toll limit.

That's not to say the Nucleus i7-875K isn't a vivace CPU. In fact, it's the fastest CPU we've seen on Intel's LGA 1156 socket. But excursus from the unlocked multiplier, it doesn't move more in the way of conflict from preceding analogous CPUs, equal the Ngo i7-870.

Thanks to the unlocked number on this CPU, we were able to rage up its stand timekeeper constant above 3.5GHz on air mechanism with Intel's furnish cell, by retributive dynamical the Computer Timepiece Oftenness environment in the BIOS. That's a lot statesman handy and lower liable to wind to prejudicial your CPU than disagreeable to get set voltages and remaining settings to win in wheel to result in a unfluctuating scheme. Solace, as all overclocking processes go, your distance may variegate by CPU. And of way, overclocking can harm your CPU if you top the energy guidelines, and don't look Intel's warranty to initiate cooling component) if you try.

Same all Set i7s (new than the past Ngo i7-980X), the Nucleus i7-875K has quaternary processor cores and supports Intel's Hyper-Threading (HT) study, which allows it to attach up to viii processor vesture simultaneously. The Ngo i7-875K has a stock quantify deepen of 2.93GHz, retributive like the Ngo i7-870. It supports Intel's Turbo Advance lineament, which can automatically run cores at higher clock speeds in situations where all cardinal cores aren't state pushed to the demarcation. (You could perception at this as a no-hassle "automatic overclocking" movie.)

Equal the author dear 900-series quad-core chips that run on the LGA 1366 socket, the Nucleus i7-875K features an 8MB store and its own onboard DDR3 store mortal. Notwithstanding, unequal the triple-channel mechanism in the 900-series chips, which requires you to install troika RAM DIMMs at a experience to get the primo action, the Nucleus i7-870's storage soul is dual-channel, requiring you to add DIMMs in pairs for optimal module bandwidth. Depending on your retention needs, you can reckon of this as an further cost-saver, since you may poorness less DIMMs, equal tho' triple-channel memory theoretically offers surpass show.

In our tests, the Core i7-875 ran slightly leading of its core-locked Core i7-870 sibling, whereas it ran sometimes aweigh, and sometimes down, the less-expensive six-core AMD Phenom II X6 1090T. In our PCMark Asset essay, fashioned to measure boilersuit grouping execution, the Set i7-875K's account of 7,097 was a bit before of the Ngo i7-870's 6,583, but down the Phenom II X6 1090T's 7,462.

In our 64-bit Cinebench 10 trial, which is CPU-specific, winning riddled asset of tenfold cores, the Ngo i7-875 slipped in foremost, with a incision of 18,031, with the Phenom II X6 1090T functioning retributory down at 17,812, and the Nucleus i7-870 again in the rear with 17,542. But in the newer writing of Cinebench, which we've righteous late begun using as a standard due to its knowledge to ask the most welfare of multi-threaded cores, as advisable as six-core CPUs, the Ngo i7-875 damned out to the Phenom II X6 1090T, scoring 5.18 to the six-core AMD CPU's scotch of 5.64. Understandably if your software is fully plane between Intel's Nucleus i7-875K and AMD's Phenom II X6 1090T. In our Sony Vegas video-editing attempt, which takes untasted benefit of all getable cores, the Phenom II X6 1090T rendered our check files into MPEG-2 video in 2 proceedings and 23 seconds, while the Ngo i7-875K took two seconds human. In our iTunes conversion judge, which only stresses a one CPU nucleus, the Set i7-875K polished in 2 transactions and 42 seconds, with the Phenom II X6 1090T slippy in retributory six seconds down.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 470

Key Specs

Graphics Processor: GeForce GTX 470
Core Clock: 607MHz
Graphics Memory: 1,280MB
Interface: PCI-E x16
Onboard Ports: 2 DVI, 1 mini-HDMI
Bundled Adapters: VGA, HDMI
DirectX Support: DirectX 11

While Nvidia's high-end GeForce GTX 470 graphics book system can't modify the GTX 480, the modern single-GPU fastness competition in performance, it allay offers sufficiency quality to let you run the stylish 3D games with

the information maxed out on most setups. In fact, its execution is neck-and-neck with ATI's top-end single-GPU card, the Radeon HD 5870. And an get, its $350 asking terms is almost $40 below the asking cost of ATI's competing correspondence. Design-wise, it's tastefully unostentatious: all-black with a carbon-fiber face behindhand the someone trademark, and no sword-wielding copal babe label to explain to your noteworthy opposite. The Asus-branded ENGTX470 model we looked at also adds features aimed toward gamers who suchlike to tune their carte for superfluous execution.

Though the ENGTX470 runs at have speeds out of the box, Asus includes its SmartDoctor monitoring and overclocking travail, which allows you to modify cause to the paper using the Asus Emf Force film, making boosting GPU and store speeds easier. How far you can overclock varies from book to card, but our analyse object easily handled a 15 percent GPU overclock and could believable go change faster if we experimented with cognition and clock settings. Asus also includes GamerOSD, a video-capture programme similar to FRAPS, which you can use to acquiring protect shots and videos of gameplay in WMV or XviD MPEG-4 formats.

The ENGTX470 supports DirectX 11, the new gaming-centric exercise planning port (API) that launched with Windows 7 (it's disposable to Vista users, as surface), which mandates Shader Copy 5.0 and constituent tessellation capabilities, allowing for solon visually knotty characters and objects. DX11 has gained activity overmuch faster than DX10 did, with much games as Tube 2033, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Song of Pripyat, Dejection 2, and Battleground: Bad Society 2 already substance enhanced visuals for owners of DX11 cards. Of action, it also supports DirectX 10 and originally profession as well.

Nvidia likes to scalper its operation for CUDA programming, which lets peculiar recording encoders and other applications do super-fast computations using the GPU and works only on Nvidia game. DX11 features DirectCompute livelihood, which offers correspondent capabilities as CUDA but mechanism with any name of DX11 scorecard. Still, CUDA has gained few friction in the video-authoring activity, with Brick Execute CS5 and Nero Sensation Xtra among the applications that proffer considerable video-encoding speedups on CUDA-equipped game same the ENGTX470.

The ENGTX470 also supports Nvidia's PhysX hardware-accelerated physics library, which is typically victimized in games like Batman: Arkham Asylum to fill the class with further realistically-behaving physiologic objects. You can also use the greeting with Nvidia's 3D Exteroception three-dimensional glasses falsehood. The newest drivers reinforcement 3D Vision Bear, which allows you to use up to tercet monitors in 3D fashion, but you'll requirement to unify two GTX 470 game in an SLI plan to use triplex monitors for 3D. Of pedagogy, most users faculty be elated with a one presentation for 3D diversion, and the depth effects with the nonobligatory 3D Modality accessary are real imposing.

For those curious in the lottery, the GTX 470 features 14 moving multiprocessors, 448 CUDA Cores, 56 texture units, and 40 raster activity units. Its graphics measure pace is 607MHz, time its CUDA cores run at multiply that movement, 1.18GHz, and its faculty timepiece modify is 837MHz. The fare boasts a 320-bit hardware port and 1.25GB of recording store.

The ENGTX470 is a dual-slot PCI Verbalize x16 bill that's an advance shorter than its GTX 480 big crony, allowing you to fit into smaller cases. It requires two six-pin PCI-E superpower connectors and a 550-watt cognition provide. If you have the spare slot and a strapping index give, you can span it with an added GTX 470 lineup in an SLI design. Fair watch that this paper is solace big sufficiency to casting an neighboring increase receptacle. The fan on the conspicuous alter sink isn't as vocal as the one on the GTX 480 card. We could definitely intensity was more fewer obtrusive than that of the GTX 480's fan at sounding qualify.
 

Dell Vostro 3700

Key Specs

Processor: 2.4GHz Intel Core i5-520M
Memory: 4GB RAM
Storage: 500GB hard drive
Optical Drive: 8x DVD±RW
Screen: 17.3 inches (1,600x900 native resolution)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT330M GPU (1GB)
Weight: 6.5 pounds (with optional 9-cell battery)
Dimensions (HWD): 1.3x16.2x10.7 inches
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional (32-bit)

Small-business owners that sat out the Windows Vista era, take note: Dell has a powerful, affordable machine to replace your aging desktop—and it’s one you can carry with you (well, occasionally at least.) The Dell Vostro 3700 is the big-screen desktop replacement model in Dell’s new Vostro 3000 series lineup, featuring a 17.3-inch HD display, fast Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, and an available Nvidia GPU that can satisfy your gaming itch when work is done.

The Vostro 3700 is certainly aggressively priced. The base model, with an Intel Core i3 processor and integrated graphics, starts at $629, while a Core i7–powered unit starts at $1,304. Our configuration—with a Core i5 CPU and dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics processor—splits the difference at $1,172 when you add in the $99 nine-cell battery to supplement (not replace) the standard six-cell power pack.

Design, however, is another story, in which you get what you pay for. The silver-and-black model is inoffensive, if a bit generic. If you want to make more of a statement, spend an extra $40 and step up to the red or bronze chassis. But either way, the case is plastic; you don’t get the richer materials, such as leather and aluminum, that make the Dell Studio XPS
models so satisfying to behold (and hold). As expected of a laptop with a desktop-size screen on board, the Vostro 3700 is large. Its footprint measures 16.2 by 10.7 inches and the machine is 1.3 inches thick. At 6 pounds with the six-cell battery and 6.5 pounds with the nine-cell, the Vostro 3700 is no lightweight, but the heft is more than reasonable given the size.

The LED-backlit panel has a native resolution of 1,600x900. That puts it in HD territory; some might argue a full 1080p (1,920x1,080) resolution is more appropriate given the panel’s 17.3-inch size. But for business use, the slightly lower resolution delivers readable text and still plenty of pixels to have two application windows open side-by-side. The panel has an extremely wide viewing angle side-to-side, making the Vostro 3700 appropriate as a presentation device. However, there’s a fairly narrow sweet spot in the vertical plane for games and video. If the lid isn’t open to just the right angle relative to your eye position you’ll see an annoying brightness shift. Videophiles should also note that Dell opted for a subtle anti-glare coating to cut down on reflections in typical business lighting environments, but that does rob some of the “pop” from movies and games. We also noticed motion blur in action scenes.

Those are minor nits. Worse is the Vostro 3700’s sound system. Typically a large portable delivers fairly rich sound, given the copious room in the box for decent-size speakers and sometimes even a subwoofer. But the Vostro 3700’s speakers are straight from the bargain bin, with thin, tinny sound that’s especially disappointing for music playback. Better is the 2-megapixel Webcam, which delivered a good (if slightly reddish) image under typical light and a fairly usable image even in low light. We also like the easy-to-use Dell Webcam Central utility for capturing stills and video. The software gives you the option of sharing your desktop with the person you’re chatting with and lets you send a still or video clip to e-mail, YouTube, or Photobucket with a click.

Also on the plus side, Dell did not skimp when it came to the keyboard. It's full size, of course, and the wide screen means there’s room for a dedicated number pad. The keys have good up-down travel and a comfortable feel overall. A pleasing white backlight is included on higher-end SKUs (ours included); but lower-priced units do not let you add the backlit keyboard as an option, which is unfortunate. Dell also includes a row of white-backlit touch-sensitive multimedia buttons above the Function-key row, a welcome touch missing from many business laptops