Intel Core i7 for laptops: first review

Friday, September 18th, 2009

When it arrived on the desktop scene, Intel’s Core i7 levelled the opposition. With enough power to embarrass Intel’s own Core 2 architecture, not to mention AMD’s efforts, and coming at a cost that would make even a banker weep, Core i7 set the benchmark and set it high. Now, with the new Clarksfield range of processors it’s set to repeat the trick in the laptop market, and we’ve got our hands on a sample boasting the mid-range quad-core 1.73GHz i7-820QM.

The first processors to arrive will be quad-cores based on a 45nm process, with 32nm dual-core models following in early 2010. Intel has kept the quad-core line-up refreshingly simple too, with the 1.73GHz i7-820QM flanked on both sides by the 1.6GHz i7-720QM and the top of the range 2GHz i7-920XM. Unlike their Core 2 Quad predecessors, all four cores boast Hyper-Threading; a move that allows the processors to handle as many as eight separate threads at once.

A perfunctory look at the modest-looking clockspeeds is enough to leave the keen bystander a mite underwhelmed, but those figures don’t take any account of the ace resting up Core i7s sleeve – Turbo Boost.

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Google Maps meets SimCity

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

If you, like certain members of the PC Pro team, wasted many, many hours of your formative years fashioning little cities of your own in Will Wright’s fiendishly addictive Sim City games, then this little gem will soon see you rummaging around your loft for your dusty, once-cherished floppies.

Some bright spark has taken Google Maps’ rendition of Hong Kong and sprinkled it liberally with two-dimensional, isometric goodness. Forget Street View, forget Bing’s Bird’s Eye view – this is better. Much, much better.

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Single-handed entertainment

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

Not too long ago now, I found myself sitting in a wheelchair parked in the corner of an A&E department in Staffordshire. It wasn’t the Saturday afternoon I’d been hoping for.

My bicycle and I had parted ways at a crucial moment in the day’s riding. It had selfishly decided that it didn’t want to accompany me all the way to the bottom of the hill, and its decision saw me hurtle skyward, soar head-first over a sizeable mound of earth, and come to rest abruptly against a tree stump lurking on the other side. 

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The fastest laptop on earth

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

UPDATE: Read the full review of the Asus W90.

Asus might be most famous for its low-cost netbooks, but its latest multimedia powerhouse is the kind of laptop that’ll give your average desktop PC an inferiority complex.

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Panasonic’s Toughbooks get tougher

Tuesday, January 27th, 2009

Panasonic are today launching the latest updates to their Toughbook laptop range. The fully ruggedized CF-30 and CF-19 Tablet models have now reached mk3 status, while the semi-ruggedized CF-52 crashes the party in its newly revamped mk2 guise.

Take a quick glance at the photographs and even the most avid of Toughbook laptop-spotters would have trouble noticing any revolutionary changes, but as Panasonic were keen to stress, the new models show the all the hallmarks of a subtle, careful evolution.

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Lenovo’s W700DS – the twin-headed laptop

Tuesday, January 6th, 2009

Lenovo may have already announced its latest laptop workstation, the hulking W700, but we only just recently caught a high-resolution glimpse of its more esoteric cousin, the W700DS.

Take a look at the pictures above and you can play a thrilling game of spot the difference. Is it the integrated Wacom graphics tablet lurking to the right of the trackpad? No, sorry, they both have one of those, try again. Is it the integrated X-Rite Pantone colour calibration sensor for discerning design professionals? No, you’re getting a teeny bit warmer though.

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How to get the most from your new laptop

Friday, December 26th, 2008

If Santa’s dropped off a pristine new laptop or netbook on his rounds this year, then you’ll want to make sure you get the very best from it. With many manufacturers choosing to add value to their portables by cramming them with useless crapware and enough attention-seeking free trials to paralyse the average supercomputer, it pays to give your new arrival a bit of a TLC. We’ve thought of a few straightforward steps to make your laptop run smoothly from day one.

Firstly, don’t be shy of removing all that crapware. Much as we all love to have our sparkly new laptops pre-filled with junk, it is worth going over the list of installed programs with a fine toothcomb to weed out the useless from the useful. Do you really need that Microsoft Office 60-day trial, or that 30-day demo of Norton AntiVirus? No, you don’t. And don’t forget to look through each icon in the system tray and ask yourself whether it’s ever going to come in useful. Trim the pointless items from your startup folder, or better still uninstall them completely, and your laptop will start faster than ever.

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Just in: Lenovo’s netbook – the IdeaPad S10e

Friday, December 19th, 2008

It’s been a long time coming, but Lenovo’s entry into the netbook fray, the IdeaPad S10e, has finally landed in PC Pro’s labs.

As the name suggests it’s a 10in netbook and – yes, you guessed it – it’s got an Intel Atom N270 inside and 1GB of RAM. So far, so very, very familiar.  

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First look: Panasonic’s 8-series Toughbooks

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Panasonic has today unveiled the latest refresh of its Toughbook range. Three models have been launched – the 12.1in CF-W8 and CF-T8 models and the all-new 14.1in CF-F8.

They don’t just look tough, however. All the Toughbooks boast the usual 76cm drop resistance, and are rated to cope with 100kg of weight bearing down on their lids. Meanwhile, the keyboards and trackpads are designed to withstand accidental water spillages thanks to a neat drainage system which funnels water away from the delicate components.

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First look: Sony’s all-new ultraportable – the TT

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

We caught our first glimpse of Sony’s legendary TZ-series back in 2007. The first moment we clapped eyes on Sony’s VGN-TZ11XN/B was the beginning of a love affair to remember.

Picture the scene – before netbooks were even a distant, cheeky glint in Asus’ eye, Sony furnished us with a ground-breaking business ultraportable that weighed in at a frankly, unbelievable 1.2kg. Its svelte figure was hitherto unmatched by the opposition, and its looks were married with 7+ hour battery life and surprisingly capable performance, courtesy of its low-voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor. 

Since then we’ve seen the incremental TZ21 and TZ31 refreshes come and go, but now Sony has completely revamped the series. The TZ has evolved into the TT.

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