Poll result: 61% of people listen to music on their laptop’s speakers

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

After being abused and mocked by various colleagues in the PC Pro office, and in particular deputy editor David Fearon, I’m delighted to say that the PC Pro poll has backed up my theory – as detailed in my recent blog, Do you listen to music on your laptop’s speakers?. Turns out the majority of laptop users do precisely that.

To be precise, out of the 303 people who took part in the poll, 72 said they frequently listened, while 112 only listened occasionally.

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Do you listen to music on your laptop’s speakers?

Monday, September 14th, 2009

Surely I can’t be alone in this: when I go abroad, I’ll often listen to music on my laptop’s speakers. Now according to some in the PC Pro office (I’m looking at you Fearon), that makes me a freak of nature of the same sort of scale as Mister Blobby.

Yes, of course, I could listen to any assortment of devices using a pair of earphones, but I prefer not to have things stuck down my ear canals all day. So I open it to all of PC Pro’s readership: one simple question. Do you listen to music on your laptop’s speakers?

Let me know by casting your vote on the PC Pro poll on this very subject (it will take approximately three seconds), which will be live for the rest of this week.

First look: Sony VAIO SR-Series

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

To create a fully featured sub-1.5kg laptop takes a fair dollop of money: the lowest-specced Z-Series costs £1,404 exc VAT. But Sony wanted to have a sub-£1,000 offering that also weighed less than 2kg – which is where the SR-Series fits in.

Two models will be available in the UK, the SR19XN and the SR19VN, and they cost a very reasonable £849 and £999 respectively (more…)

First look: Sony VAIO FW-Series

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

While three out of the four VAIO ranges announced by Sony yesterday are squarely aimed at businesses, the FW-Series has one mission in life: to entertain.

The chief sign of this is its 16.4in screen, with 1,600 x 900 pixels to help make high-definition movies look great (it’s also enough to view two programs side by side with ease).

And, from my brief encounter with the Blu-ray version of Spider-Man 3, they do (more…)

First look: Sony VAIO Z-Series

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

The Z-Series sits near the top of Sony’s VAIO range, aiming to attract executives who want to cut a dash in the boardroom.

And it certainly does make for a fine figure of a laptop. Weighing just under 1.5kg – thanks in part to a carbon fibre chassis – it measures a mere 33mm tall.

The screen is more interesting than most too. (more…)

First look: Sony VAIO BZ-Series

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Aimed at mainstream and, dare we say it, slightly conservative business users, the BZ-Series – which replaces the BX-Series -  doesn’t come with some of the features boasted by the rest of the new VAIO range.

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Things are getting too quiet

Thursday, May 22nd, 2008

After a recent blog comment saying that I was once a Sony fan (but no longer am), I just mysteriously found myself looking at a page on the Sony Style website, admiring the various models in the sexy little TZ range.

One thing struck me – the ‘top of the range’ model comes with a tiny but expensive solid state hard drive. It’s not just Sony – the likes of Dell offer something similar in their ultra-portables. Even the cheap (but not as cheap as it used to be) Eee PC uses a solid state drive.

And what’s wrong with that? They’re mechanically robust, and flash memory is now cleverly produced so that it doesn’t ‘wear out’ as quickly as the 1st generation products did. Plus prices are rapidly tumbling. It’s great, isn’t it?

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Admiring bottoms

Friday, April 25th, 2008

Admission number one: the publisher of PC Pro is also the publisher of MacUser. Admission number two: he uses a MacBook Pro. Admission number three: he likes it.

I was admonishing him about this in our local pub the other night, when he came up with what I at first thought was a ridiculous argument – but I’m now starting to believe he might be right.

“The thing is, Tim,” he took a sip of beer to punctuate his point, “the thing is, the bottom of your laptop is ugly. Horribly, horribly ugly. The bottom of my Mac is a thing of beauty.”

And he’s right. I wrested it off him for long enough to take the photo you see before you, and I can’t deny the smooth, unblemished contours. In contrast, take a look at my (otherwise fantastic) ThinkPad X60’s underneath. No other word for it: ugly.

So what can we conclude? That the future is beautiful-bottomed laptops? I think so, but that’s only part of it. The fact is he won’t be buying another laptop unless it looks good from all angles. And it’s not only PC manufacturers who should take note, it’s every manufacturer.