Samsung Series 9 15in: first-look review

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

A few months ago Engadget posted a blog about what people would like to improve about their Series 9. If the official line is to be believed, the 15in version was a very specific reaction to this.

(more…)

Samsung Series 9 13.3in: first-look review

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

There are some times when photos of laptops can fool you: they look beautiful when blessed with stunning lighting and clever angles of photography, but when you actually see them in the flesh it’s like going on a blind date with a “slim, athletic and handsome man” and ending up with Danny de Vito (sorry Danny).

(more…)

Asus Zenbooks review: first look

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011

With last night’s launch of its Zenbook range, Asus has unveiled its long-awaited take on Intel’s Ultrabook concept. One thing’s for sure – the Taiwanese giant clearly isn’t pulling any punches. With both its new models, the 11.6in UX21 and the 13.3in UX31,  positively oozing slimline sex appeal, Asus is deadly serious about taking the thin-and-light fight to Apple’s MacBook Air.

(more…)

Windows 8 on a laptop: first look

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

All the talk so far has centred around the wonderful new Metro UI, and how it could well be the nicest touch interface yet – but what of the vast majority of PCs and laptops that don’t have a touchscreen? Does Windows 8 relegate them to an afterthought, or can you carry on with mouse and keyboard as if touch never existed? To find out, I installed the developer preview on a 15in Core i5 laptop and plugged in a mouse.

(more…)

Toshiba Portege Z830 review: first look

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

With several manufacturers at IFA unveiling their vision of Intel’s Ultrabook concept, Toshiba’s 13.3in Portege Z830 takes the thin and light formula even further than ever before.

(more…)

SD cards: the cheap way to boost laptop storage

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

An increasing number of laptops these days boast SSDs, but capacities are rising quite slowly. For some people, 128GB as your main drive might be enough, but if you want more, is it worth shelling out the huge fees charged by manufacturers to upgrade to a higher capacity SSD, or can you make do with alternative storage?

To find out, we ran our standard file transfer tests – first between a RAM disk and the SSD of a brand new laptop, then between a RAM disk and a variety of external storage devices. (more…)

The Apple Store: doing things… differently

Thursday, August 18th, 2011

Confession time: last night I bought a MacBook Air.

I know many PC owners react to new Mac products with an ire usually reserved for a looter on benefits, but I’ve been without a laptop for nearly a year now, and this Sandy Bridge generation of Air has finally won me over.

The merits and otherwise of buying Apple kit are not the point of this blog though. This blog is about the Apple Store — or, more specifically, how utterly terrifying it is. (more…)

Sony VAIO Z Series (2011) review: first look

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

***We’ve now published our comprehensive review of Sony’s VAIO Z Series, so click here for the full lowdown *** Sony’s VAIO Z Series is one of the finest ultraportables to ever travel the Earth, but now, several years after its 2009 debut, Sony has ripped up the rulebook and started afresh. At a launch event in London, we caught our first up-close look at the all-new Z Series.

(more…)

HP Pavilion dv6 and Pavilion dv7 review: first look

Monday, May 16th, 2011

It’s not often we get too excited about mid-range laptops, but HP’s makeover of its Pavilion dv6 and dv7 series laptops has just made our hearts skip a beat. With its all-new brushed aluminium chassis and a selection of Sandy Bridge processors, the Pavilion takes more than a little inspiration from HP’s Envy series.

(more…)

Apple MacBook Pro 13in: where’s the Turbo Boost?

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

The Apple MacBook Pro 13in is a glorious laptop. It’s thin and light, gorgeous both to look at and to use, and it packs no small amount of power in its tiny chassis. Yet our tests have uncovered a performance issue that will affect every user.

We ran our new Real World Benchmarks on the top-end model, with a dual-core 2.7GHz Intel Core i7-2620M processor, 4GB of DDR3 and a 500GB hard disk. It’s a very fast laptop for its size, as a final score of 0.70 shows – that’s only around 20% slower than the top-end quad-core 17in model. Yet it’s not quite as fast as it should be. (more…)