November 30, 2015

HP HSTNN-OB77 Battery

Before this turns into a flame-fest, let me say this: The iPad Pro is shockingly fast, as Macworld’s review drives home, and Apple has again worked its mastery of hardware, software and virtually unlimited resources to build an amazingly fast chip for the iPad Pro. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. My battery of tests shows that in some things, it ain’t that fast.

How we got here
What started the "Intel and its CPUs are doomed” talk were benchmarks showing the A9X SoC in the iPad Pro overpowering Intel’s older Haswell chips and even its newest Skylake CPUs.

Many of those conclusions were based on performance results from the popular multi-platform Geek Bench 3 benchmark, as well as browser-based benchmarks such as Mozilla’s Kraken and Google’s Octane 2.0. This limited data set had the faithful buzzing that the end was nigh for x86.

If you like to test hardware, you know the weakness of the last two tests: A browser test isn’t a test of the CPU/SoC, it’s a test of the chip plus the browser and OS optimizations underneath it. On the iPad Pro the browsers are pretty much the same, as Apple makes all use its highly optimized rendering engine. On the PC, your browser pick matters. Browser-based benchmarks are hardly the best tools on the PC either.

Geek Bench 3 is different. The creators of Geek Bench 3 have stated their goals are to create a cross-platform test that isolates the CPU as much as possible, using algorithms that it believes are valid for chip performance. If you peep at the chart below, you can see what got people in a tizzy.

ipad pro geek bench single core overall
Fan boys have used Geek Bench 3’s performance results to write screeds that the x86-based PC (and Mac) are officially goners.
Yes: Whoa. That iPad Pro in single-core performance (which is a good metric to use to judge across platforms where some chips have more cores) is every bit as fast as the CPU in the newest mid-range Core i5 Surface Pro 4 in Geek Bench 3. It’s uncomfortably close to that Core i7-6600U in the far pricier top-end Surface Book, too.

For the record: Almost all of the tests in this section were run within the last few days, with the latest OSes and updates applied. The only OS that was out of date was my corporate-issue Windows 8.1 box with its 3.4GHz Core i7-2600, which I threw in for kicks.

Although I think it matters less, I’ll hit you with the results from Geek Bench 3 for multi-core too. The iPad in multi-core performance is on a par with the older Haswell-based Surface Pro 3, but it loses to the newer Skylake-based Surface Pro 4. Why? I’m not sure, but the Intel chips’ Hyper-Threading resource management could be a factor. That’s why I think the single-core performance is more meaningful.

ipad pro geek bench multi core ovearll
The iPad Pro loses a little ground in the multi-core Geek Bench 3 result, but zowie!
Goodbye, Intel
So how do all the devices stack up in other benchmarks? First up is BAPCo’s TabletMark V3. While Geek Bench 3 attempts to create what its makers think is an accurate measure of CPU performance using seconds-long "real world” algorithms, BAPCo’s approach is actually more "real world.” BAPCo’s consortium of mostly hardware makers set out to create workloads across all the different platforms that would simulate what a person does, such as actually editing a photo with HDR, browsing the web, or sending email.

Because there’s no universal app that runs in Windows, Windows RT, Android and iOS, BAPCO set out and custom-created apps that did the same thing with the same interface across all platforms. Indeed, when you watch it run on the platforms, it looks like someone is using an application on all three doing the same task on all three.

A white paper on the benchmark discloses the approach as well as the libraries, compilers and APIs used in the test. The test runs in real time, which can take a few hours on some devices. Here’s how the iPad Pro fares.

ipad pro tabletmarkv3 overall
BAPCO’s TabletMarket V3 doesn’t look quite as dire as Geek Bench 3.
TabletMark disagrees
In TabletMark V3, the iPad Pro doesn’t look quite as threatening, does it? Even the Intel Haswell Core i5-4300u in the two-year old Surface Pro 3 easily outpaces the A9X here. It isn’t even far ahead of the tablet pack. The worst performer for x86 is the budget Surface 3 with its Atom X7-z8700. For shame, Atom, for shame.

The benchmark has two performance modules, which give you an idea of how fast the device would be in web browsing and email. The result for iPad Pro is tepid, with performance just beating the Nexus 9 and its Tegra K1.

ipad pro tabletmarkv3 email web
TabletMark’s V3 score indicates the iPad Pro doesn’t compete with Intel’s Broadwell or even older Haswell CPUs.
TabletMark V3 also measures photo and video performance, which gives the iPad Pro a healthy lead over the ARM competitors and the Atom X7-Z8700. But the A9X doesn’t come close to the Core i5 or Core i7 devices above it in the chart, or even the Core M.

The puzzler is the performance of the Surface Pro 3 and the Dell Venue 11 Pro, which use older chips. I expected this to be in the bag for the Skylake parts, but the Broadwell-based Core M and the even older Haswell Core i5 are hanging right there.

"3DMark is designed to benchmark real world gaming performance. The Physics test uses an open source physics library that is used in Grand Theft Auto V, Trials HD and many other best-selling games for PC, console and mobile. Higher scores in 3DMark Ice Storm Physics test directly translate into improved performance in games that use the Bullet Physics Library and are a good indicator of improved performance in other games.”

You can save £70 on this iPad Air - it's now available for £249. It features the new A7 chip and 16GB of capacity, along with the fingerprint-proof retina display.
GoPro Hero 3+ Silver Action Camera
This deal comes with a free battery pack and will save you £140 on the original price of £290. The built-in Wi-Fi allows you to use the GoPro App to control the device remotely, preview shots and share your favourites.
These headphones are now available for less than half price - slashed from £99.99 to £29.99. You can also save £140 on the GoPro Hero 3+ Camera and additional battery pack - now available for £149.99.

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HP HSTNN-OB17 Battery

Other ports include a microSD card slot for expandable storage, a microSIM slot for use with Verizon's 4G LTE network and a combo headphone/mic jack. The USB C ports also double as video out, as long as you have the right adapter, with either one capable of outputting video at up to 1920 x 1080 pixels.

One problem is that both removable card slots require the user to insert a small pin or needle in order to pop out the removable tray, which is fine for a SIM that doesn't get replaced very often, but potentially a pretty big hassle for those who frequently transfer data between their smartphone or camera and their PC.

Three Cameras
The Spectre x2 features a total of three cameras: a single 5-megapixel option in front and a traditional 8-MP cam paired with an Intel RealSense 3D Camera. Surprisingly, the 5-MP front cam is the best of the bunch. In a selfie at the Laptop Mag office, the front cam nailed exposure while also capturing good details in my hair and face, as well as on the wall and TV in the background. In other shots around our office, the 8-MP rear cam often produced underexposed photos with significantly more grain than what I saw from pictures taken with the front cam.

The Intel RealSense 3D cam uses depth-sensing tech to create 3D scans of various objects, but with its superlimited app library, there's not much to do with them. The one app that is available is itSeez3D, which uses the RealSense camera to scan a face or entire body. The program is quite finicky, demands a fair bit of trial and error, and also doesn't play nice with reflective objects like glasses or certain types of jewelry.

But in the end, I got some moderately impressive scans of different faces around the office. The scan I got from Associate Reviews Editor Alex came back with a buggy extra polygon in front of her chin, but scans of Associate Editor Mike and Senior Writer Sherri were both met with surprised satisfaction by their real-life counterparts.

Performance
Featuring an Intel Core M7-6Y75 CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, the Spectre x2 sacrifices a little performance to achieve a more palatable price. But fear not, because the difference in power isn't something that will prevent you from getting work done. Even when I had 10 tabs open in Chrome while streaming a 1080p video from YouTube, there wasn't a hint of lag or slowdown.

For both form factors, the presence of a touchscreen display, sometimes coupled with a stylus or a pen, allows for an even wider range of tasks.Vendors are also increasingly incorporating better connectivity options for 2-in-1 laptops as chipset integration now allow for the latter to adopt features like 4G/LTE or NFC which were, hitherto, limited either to tablets or smartphones.And because they often share the same DNA as their tablet counterparts, a lot of them to have excellent battery life despite an ultra-thin profile with several boosting more than 10 hours powered on.

5 business PC laptops that could rock your world
Hybrids have driven innovation in the mobile computing area; products like the Surface Book from Microsoft have managed to integrate a dedicated graphics card in an incredibly thin enclosure and will almost certainly encourage other vendors to follow suit.

Our review unit came with Windows 8.1 and not Windows 10 out of the box. HP Envy 17 is readily upgradable to Windows 10 and the store listing claims the device to be shipping with Windows 10, I found Windows 8.1 off putting.
While desktop replacements are not meant to be portable; HP Envy 17 is too heavy at over 3.3 Kgs. Had HP trimmed the size to make it lighter at under 3Kgs; this one would have appealed to more buyers. That 0.3kgs extra weight is not something you would notice anyway. Also that steep 1 Lakh price tag could make this a slow mover.
Like most other desktop replacement notebooks, HP Envy 17 also has a battery that is close to being rated worse than good. But it is definitely not worth complaining considering the segment the laptop belongs to.

Should you buy?
HP has really put in lot of thoughts behind this one. From the display to design, audio to performance, everything is near perfect here. Though it does have some quirks, one may not really notice them. Yes, you should really buy this if price is not an issue. There is no other Windows laptop that can do the job of desktop replacement as well as this one.
These days, laptop prices can go well into the thousands, from new Microsoft gizmos to the latest Apple Mac, but if you're after a speedy device to get your university coursework in on deadline, or for surfing the web, you don't have to splash out to find gold.

Don't be surprised if, within the next few years, convertibles become the norm both in the consumer and the business markets, leaving traditional laptops, just as the latter did to their desktop counterparts, to niche markets like gaming or at the very bottom end of the entry level.

(Photo : Andrew Burton/Getty Images) Microsoft's Surface Book has received mostly favorable reviews, but Apple's Tim Cook isn't impressed. He believes the competitor's product tries too hard to be a laptop and a tablet. Instead, he prefers his company's iPad Pro. Both products are available now.
Microsoft's Surface Book has garnered a reasonably favorable critical response, but Apple CEO Tim Cook doesn't have much faith in it. He says that the new product tries to be both a tablet and a laptop, but it succeeds at neither.

The lead comes to Design & Trend via Irish Independent. During a gathering at Trinity College, Cook offered his thoughts on Redmond's answer to the MacBook Pro.In Cook's own words, he referred to the Surface Book as "diluted." "It's a product that tries too hard to do too much. It's trying to be a tablet and a notebook, and it really succeeds at neither" That being said, the tech visionary wanted to ensure that no love is lost amongst friendly foes. In his mind, his company's relationship with Microsoft is "really good." After all, when introducing the iPad Pro, Microsoft Office representatives took to the stage to present a tablet-sized demo.

In that shocking turn of events, Tim quipped that he invited the opposing hardware maker to his product reveal because "these guys know productivity."Speaking of the iPad Pro, Cook also admitted that Apple's new 12.9-inch tablet has drastically changed his lifestyle. Now, instead of traveling with a laptop, the accomplished businessman just brings his Pro and the iPhone in his pocket while in transit. With its high-end specs and detachable keyboard, there are plenty of uses for it in the outside world.

We'd be remiss if we didn't admit that even the iPad Pro is an obvious capitalization on the success of Microsoft's Surface Pro tablet line. In that sense, while Cook doesn't see the need for another notebook like the Surface Book, he still notices the value in the competitor's slate technology.

In general, both the Surface Book and iPad Pro are being praised by industry insiders. The former suffers from short tablet battery life, while the latter remains stunted by a mobile operating system that isn't super conducive to laptop-quality productivity.

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November 29, 2015

Compaq Presario A900 Battery

Last year's Yoga 3 Pro lacked a Fn key row above the number keys, and we're pleased to see it return in the Yoga 900. These keys also house a range of shortcuts, including volume and screen brightness controls, switching to external displays and popping into flight mode, and it's great to see them back as easy, single-keypress actions.Various versions of the Windows 10-based Yoga 900 are available, based around 6th-generation Intel Core i7-6500U or Core i5-6200U processors. Models on sale in the UK as we write come with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, although our review sample had a 16GB and a 512GB SSD alongside the Core i7 processor.

Lenovo has boosted the battery capacity considerably from 44WHr in the Yoga 3 Pro, claiming up to 9 hours' life from the Yoga 900's 66WHr battery. Our real-world testing suggests that's a tad optimistic, although many less demanding users will stand a good chance of all-day computing from a full battery.

Lenovo uses a metal-alloy fan, with cooling vents built into the hinge. These explain why the hinge feels slightly warm to the touch even when the Yoga 900 is idle. The warmth is not a problem, just an interesting approach to heat dissipation.

Performance is on par with other laptops in this category, meaning it will work fast and smoothly for normal day-to-day tasks but may struggle with more hardware intensive stuff like gaming. Since we last looked at it, Dell updated the XPS 13 with Skylake processors. The base model starts at $800 and comes with an Intel Core i5 6200U chip, but we recommend springing an extra $300 for double the RAM and storage at 8GB and 256GB, respectively.

Apple’s MacBook Air has been at the top of our recommendation list for years and it’s commonly credited with revolutionizing lightweight yet dependable laptops. The Air's design has remained almost unchanged since 2010 but even by today's standards its aluminum unibody construction doesn’t feel dated at all. The 2015 MacBook Air is a very good upgrade over last year's model. You get slightly better performance with new Intel Broadwell processors, improved graphics, Thunderbolt 2 connectivity, faster storage and better battery life (around 13 hours).
One area where we do feel the MacBook Air has fallen behind the times is display resolution. Although it’s not a poor quality display, it has less accurate color reproduction than some of its direct competition -- the Dell XPS 13, for example. Also the 1440 x 900 resolution feels lacking, especially when compared to the MacBook Pro range or the newer (and underpowered) 12-inch MacBook. It doesn't help that most tablets and smartphones also have high DPI displays that look way sharper than this.

On the potential for a computer — inside your body — being hacked

It's not implantable, it's not there forever. So while it's true that hackers can hack computers, you'd only have to worry about it for a couple of days. In fact, I don't think you'd have to worry about it very much, even for those few days, because that information that you're sending out in the current device we have is pretty simple.

On the future of ingestible technology

As electronics get smaller and smaller, more capabilities can be put onto one of these devices. Right now, we essentially have a microphone, but you can imagine having a real time camera, that is, say, able to stream through the body, or able to take samples of fluids in your body to tell you things like more subtle markers for cancer, for heart disease.

Being able to travel in the bloodstream or affect the nervous system, I think, is the next great frontier of medicine.

Aside from that the MacBook Air is a pretty sweet deal. The backlit keyboard is sturdy and comfortable, Apple’s glass trackpads are on a league of their own, and performance is on par or above its similarly priced peers. The integrated Intel HD Graphics 6000 is fairly powerful, too. It’s definitely not a gaming machine but if you are willing to turn down some settings, casual gaming is well within the MacBook Air's reach. As for connectivity, unlike the 12-inch MacBook, which has just one USB-C port, the 13-inch Air has a Thunderbolt 2 (optional adapters for HDMI or DVI available), two USB 3.0 ports and an SD card slot in addition to 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0.
The 13-inch model starts at $999 but we recommend the step up model for $1,199, which gets you an extremely fast 256GB PCIe SSD. If you can throw in an extra $100 we would also recommend doubling the RAM to 8GB.

Confused readers should rest assured that this is not a cheap tablet designed to send along with Tyler on his first day at Wesleyan. It’s designed with the graphic arts in mind—hence the name "Canvas.” Vaio says the target market is primarily people working with still images—PhotoShop, Illustrator, and the like—but the company also wants to hit writers, musicians, and a smattering of video folks. The thinking goes that if, for whatever reason, those people aren’t interested in a Mac but want extreme mobility, then they should of course buy the Canvas. ("Apple does not dominate,” reads a Canvas reviewers’ guide, in classic Sonyese.)

And hey, maybe they should. The Canvas is a solid tablet; pound for pound probably the best Windows tablet so far. The Canvas post benchmark scores in line with some high-end laptops I reviewed last year, at least on general productivity applications. When it comes to heavy graphics, the Canvas has power to spare even though it has an integrated GPU. It outpaces any laptop or tablet I’ve tested in recent memory that didn’t have a discrete graphics chip. Even on heavy graphics tests, the Vaio holds its own. You can even credibly game on this system. It isn’t until you get to heavy 3D work that things begin bogging down. Put simply, if you’re comfortable working in PhotoShop on a PC, you’ll be comfortable working on the Canvas (particularly at full resolution, 2560 x 1704 pixels).

Of course, as any Chicago mayor can tell you, great power often carries a great price. People complain that the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is expensive, with a typical configuration running $1,299 and a top-end config that hits $2,699. Ha! The Vaio Z Canvas starts at $2,199, and the top configuration punches a cool $3,099 (for roughly the same configuration as the Pro 4).

The other major failure is battery life. With a Core i7 CPU, I knew it wouldn’t be great. I didn’t think it would be less than two hours, though. That is not enough to keep you running on a puddle-jumper from SFO to SEA. I’d complain that the screen is a bit dim, but boosting the lumens would drain that battery even faster.Can Vaio work the kinks out of this product and have the accountants take another look at that price tag? We’ll see come 2016, but for now, if you desire great power and are willing to accept great responsibility, bust out your checkbook and dive right in.

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HP EliteBook 8440p Battery

Who knew a desert could be beautiful? At least it is in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain's interpretation. The sepia-toned earth was a perfect foil for the clear blue sky and hazy white sun above. Vegetables brave enough to grow in the unforgiving heat showed their rebellion in dark green petals and hardy purple plants. When I used my binoculars, the details were so sharp that I could see the heat waves rising off the scorched horizon before me.

The Alienware 13 R2 hit 106.4 percent on the sRGB gamut test (measures color reproduction), which corroborated my initial findings. It's slightly above the minimum 100 percent and the 79 percent ultraportable average. It's slightly better than the Plus v3's 106.3 percent and the Blade's 102 percent.

On the color accuracy test, the Alienware 13 R2 hit 3 on the Delta-E scale (0 is perfect), which is better than the 5.8 average, but not as close to perfect 0 as I'd like. Still, it was much better than the X3 Plus v3, which notched 10.7, but no match for the Blade's 1.2.

The Alienware 13 R2's future is bright, at least according to our brightness test, where it averaged 317 nits, topping the 254 nits average. It's not as bright as the Blade's 337 nits, but it's enough to outshine the Plus v3's dismal 203 nits.

Audio
How Alienware managed to squeeze a pair of high-quality, Klipsch speakers into the Alienware 13 R2's tiny frame is beyond me. Paired with Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi MB3 software, the side-firing speakers filled my medium-size testing area with clear, buoyant audio.

Drake's pleading monotone sailed across a bed made from light synth and gentle bongos with just a dash of brushed cymbal. Out of the three available software settings (Music, Movie and Gaming) I found that Music was indeed the best option for listening to songs no matter the genre.

Making my way toward an enemy base in MSG V, I could hear my body scraping across the barren rock as I crawled toward an unsuspecting guard. A hawk screeched in the background as I slowly rose to my feet and crept closer. A campfire crackled cheerfully to my left as I moved closer, finally grabbing my enemy. A few quick taps and a sickening, yet satisfying crack signaled that the hostile's neck was broken, and I could move on to the next objective.

Say hello to supercomfortable typing. The Alienware 13 R2's full-size traditional TACTX keyboard delivers cushy feedback. I hit 62 words per minute on the 10 Fast Fingers Typing Test, which is slightly above my usual 60 wpm.

The 4.25 x 2.75-inch touchpad offers plenty of real estate to two-finger scroll, pinch-zoom and three-finger swipe. Performing gestures on the large surface was nice and responsive.

Alien Command Center
What's an Alienware without a massive dose of showmanship? In order to elicit the optimal amount of oohs and ahhs, the Alienware 13 R2 comes preloaded with the Alien Command Center control panel, which lets gamers tweak the lighting, power configurations and create shortcuts.

When it ships, the Alienware 13 R2 is covered by a 1-year premium support warranty, which includes 24/7 tech support and at-home repairs.I reviewed the $1,699 model of the Alienware 13 R2, which has a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-6500U processor with 16GB of RAM, a 256GB PCIe SSD, an Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M GPU with 2GB of VRAM and 3200 x 1800 touch screen.

The $949 base model offers a 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-6200U CPU, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB 5,400-rpm hard drive, Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU, an Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M GPU with 2GB of VRAM and a 1366 x 768 display.

Bottom Line
Just because it's the smallest, that doesn't mean that the Alienware 13 R2 can't play with the big boys. It's the perfect size to curl up with on the couch or stow in a book bag for a long trip. The lovely superhigh-res display and powerful speakers make the 13 R2 a veritable multimedia powerhouse. Thanks to its Core i7 CPU and Nvidia GPU, you'll have no problems laying waste to wyverns in Witcher 3 or enemy soldiers in Metal Gear Solid V. And at $1,699, it's a cheaper entry point into legitimately mobile gaming laptops that typically start at $2,000.

Still, I wish Alienware would consider offering an Nvidia GeForce 970M configuration, as the 960M doesn't provide some extra graphical oomph. Yes, you can definitely purchase the graphics amp, however, that's strictly a desktop solution. The short battery life is a cause for concern, because the 13 is meant to be used on the road, and the warm temperatures make this a device you won't want on your lap.

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November 27, 2015

Compaq Presario CQ42 Battery

Those with an eye for flair will appreciate the included AlienFX application, which allows you to create your own custom color profiles for the allotted eight zones on the laptop. The software offers 20 colors and three effects to help your laptop stand out from the crowd.

The Alien Fusion feature lets you create custom power profiles for the laptop while Adrenaline assists in creating a set of conditions to run for each game. This is also where you can monitor your laptop's performance or access settings for the optional Graphics Amplifier.

It's not a DSLR, but the Alienware 13 R2's integrated camera will do when you want to video chat or broadcast your latest gaming glory. Despite the copious visual noise, the 2-megapixel camera did a great job of accurately capturing my skin tone and my bright blue dress. I could also make out some of the many rubber bands holding my hair in place.

Heat
Whether you're gaming or watching video, the Alienware 13 R2 can get hot under pressure. It started out well enough, with the touchpad measuring 87 degrees Fahrenheit after 15 minutes of streaming full-screen videos from Hulu. The space between the G and H keys hit 93 degrees, which is 2 degrees below the 95 degree Laptop Mag Comfort Threshold. The bottom vent was the warmest at a balmy 109 degrees.

I spent 15 minutes infiltrating a Russian base in the middle of the dry, arid Afghanistan desert. At the end of my session, the Alienware 13 R2's touchpad measured 88 degrees. However, the space between the G and H keys rose to 100 degrees, while the middle vent underneath the laptop jumped to a blazing 133 degrees. It's lucky I play with a little space between my legs -- otherwise things might have gotten crispy. In other words, don't put this laptop directly on your lap.

Gaming and Graphics
You can expect some solid frame rates with the Alienware 13 R2's midlevel, Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M GPU with 2GB -- particularly on games played at 1080p. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain ran at a steady 32 frames per second (30 fps is playable) at 1080p with every setting pushed to high. It made my time skulking amongst the surprisingly dense foliage of the Afghanistan desert a lot more pleasurable, such as discovering a few tarragon plants, with their hardy yellow petals growing defiantly against the bleak backdrop.

When we ran the Bioshock Infinite benchmark, the Alienware 13 R2 produced 36 fps at 1080p on high, just missing the 38 fps average. The Razer Blade and the Aorus X3 Plus v3 with their Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M GPUs were neck and neck at 71 and 72 fps, respectively.

During the Metro: Last Light test, the Alienware 13 R2 hit 57 fps on low settings at 1080p, smashing the 15-fps average. The Plus v3 and Blade delivered 29 and 28 fps for a distant second and third.

Graphic Amplifier
The Alienware 13 R2's 960M GPU is nice, but sometimes you want to crank things up to 11. On those occasions, you pull out the graphics amp. The $299 device is an external enclosure that houses a desktop graphics card that adds a noticeable performance boost, depending on the GPU. The device can support both AMD and Nvidia GPUs, including those powerful enough to support 4K gaming and multiple displays.

When connected to the Alienware 13 R2, the amp will bypass the laptop's 960M GPU and use the desktop graphics card instead. Depending on the card inhabiting the enclosure, your frame rates should get a sizeable increase.

Keep in mind that the graphics amp is a bring-your-own-GPU kind of deal, which means you'll have to find some extra dough to get a card. Alienware offers several chips, including the GeForce 970 card ($329), the 980 ($599) or the Titan X ($1,000). The company also has a few AMD cards, such as the Radeon HD R9 290 GPU ($529) or the Radeon HD R9 290X ($599).

Performance
Say hello to Skylake. The Alienware 13 R2 is one of the company's first laptops to ship with Intel's 6th Generation Core Series CPUs (aka Skylake). Intel claims that Skylake CPUs will deliver longer battery life, quicker performance and the ability to overclock the processor. That should come in handy for gamers who want to squeeze every bit of performance from their systems.

In my real-world stress test, I ran MGS V in one window, while I streamed an episode of The Awesomes on Hulu with eight open tabs in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge. The Alienware 13 R2 and its 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-6500U CPU with 16GB of RAM shrugged it off, keeping everything running without a stutter or hiccup.

The laptop continued to hold its own on our synthetic benchmarks, scoring 6,864 on the Geekbench 3 test, easily topping the 4,340 ultraportable average. However, both the Aorus X3 Plus v3 (2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU) and the Razer Blade (2.6-GHZ Intel Core i7-4720HQ CPU) beat the Alienware 13 with scores of 12,863 and 10,915.

The Alienware 13 R2's 256GB PCIe SSD completed our File Transfer Test in 28 seconds, for a transfer rate of 181.7MBps, passing the 152.7MBps average. The Blade, which has a 256GB SSD (SATA m.2) did marginally better at 182MBps, while the Plus v3's dual 256BG SSD stole the show with 299MBps.

During the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro Test, the Alienware 13 R2 matched 20,000 names and addresses in 4 minutes and 20 seconds. That's much faster than the 8:32 average, but not as fast as the Plus v3 or the Blade, which clocked in at 3:52 and 3:46, respectively.

Battery Test
The Alienware 13 R2 is light enough to take anywhere, but you'll need to carry the power brick with you. The notebook lasted 3 hours and 16 minutes on the Laptop Battery Test, which involves continuous streaming over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness. The Razer Blade and the Aorus X3 Plus v3 had significantly better times of 5:52 and 5:38 on the same test. However, if all you're doing is streaming video, the system will last longer: It endured for 5 hours and 10 minutes when we played Netflix on it.

Software
Similar to most gaming laptops, the Alienware 13 R2 is blissfully free of bloatware. Outside of Flipboard and Microsoft's standard Windows 10 apps (Calendar, Mail, Cortana and Groove Music), the notebook is a blank slate, waiting to hold your library of games.

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HP Pavilion dv3500 Battery

Logitech’s bluetooth multi-device keyboard K480 works with all major computers, mobile devices, and operating systems.
The K480 is portable enough to fit in any bag that can carry a laptop or tablet, but big enough that your fingers feel comfortable and uncramped. Running the length of the keyboard above the function keys is a rubberized tray where you slot your smartphone or tablet (up to 10 inches). Once your mobile multi-tasker gets a taste of this QWERTY keyboard’s excellent travel and tactile feedback, they’ll wonder how they ever typed a text without it.

As its name suggests—Bobine is French for "coil”—this $35 gooseneck sync cable coils into all kinds of configurations to prop up your iPhone. Whether you need a tripod to shoot a selfie, want to watch a video hands-free, or just like your phone one-touch accessible while you’re working on your laptop, the Bobine is just a few twists away from being your ideal dock.

newbobinecomputer iso straight wide FUSECHICKEN
The Bobine iPhone Dock helps position your phone for productivity.
Made from military-grade, nickel-plated steel, the flexible arm holds the weight of the iPhone well in both upright and horizontal positions, even when plugged into the USB port of a laptop. The only caveat is the user will almost certainly have to remove whatever case houses their device, as the Bobine website advises, to get it to dock securely. Currently available for iPhone 5, 5s, 5c, 6, and 6 Plus, the Bobine puts the "fun” in functional, no matter how you use it.

JBL Clip
The problem with most portable Bluetooth speakers is that the reduction in size comes with a sacrifice in sound. No so with the $35 JBL Clip. This puck-sized speaker delivers ample loudness and bass—with little distortion except at the upper volume limit—while still fitting in the palm of your hand.

clip front ouvert shadows black dvhamaster JBL
The Clip lives up to JBL’s reputation for exceptional sound.
The Clip can be used wirelessly or connected via its 3.5mm audio cable, which can be snapped securely underneath the speaker when not in use. There’s also a built-in microphone, so you can answer calls without having to disconnecting the speaker. The carabiner hook at the top lets you easily fasten the Clip to belts, backpacks, and other items. The clip comes in five colors: black, blue, grey, red, or purple.

Philips Shoqbox Mini
For the outdoorsy music lover, consider a more rugged wireless speaker like the $50 Shoqbox Mini. This seven-ounce speaker is tough enough to hold its own off-road. It’s IPX6 rated for water resistance, so it’s safe even if your hiking or biking expedition encounters a rain shower. It even floats.

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Philips Shoqbox Mini is a rugged wireless speaker for outdoor lovers.
The Shoqbox Mini streams music wirelessly via Bluetooth or you can wire it your device via its auxillary port. No matter whether it’s playing rock, jazz, hip-hop, or classical, the speaker delivers clear, balanced sound even at extreme volumes, thanks to an anti-clipping feature that prevents distortion. With a rechargeable battery that lasts about five hours, it can keep up for the duration of most outdoor adventures.

SanDisk UltraFit USB 3.0 Flash Drive
Admittedly, giving someone a USB drive is bit like giving them socks or a necktie, but hear us out. SanDisk’s $25 Ultrafit USB 3.0 Flash Drive packs 64GB into a USB 3.0 flash drive. Both the size—the Ultrafit protrudes only about 8mm when plugged in—and the speed make this drive ideal for connecting to TVs and car stereo systems. It also comes with SanDisk SecureAccess, which protects files with 128-bit AES encryption. A great gift for the music or movie buff in your life, it can be made more personal by preloading it with their favorite media.

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SanDisk’s 64GB UltraFit USB 3.0 flash drive is a great option for the movie or music lover on your list.
Chromecast
It’s hard to imagine Google could have improved on the original Chromecast streaming device, but it did—and it still costs just $35. The most significant upgrade is practical: The new version’s design, a flat disc on a flexible HDMI cable, makes it a lot easier to squeeze into tight TV setups than the previous USB-stick style. Dual-band (2.4GHz/5GHz) Wi-Fi support and a tri-antenna system makes for noticeably stronger connections and faster speeds. Finally, a revamped Chromecast app makes it a lot easier to find things to watch.

The new and improved Chromecast is a perfect gift for streaming newbies.
But Chromecast’s strongest selling points remain: You can set it up in minutes, and it costs a fraction of set-top streamers like Roku and Apple TV.

The UpMove has many of the same features as Jawbone’s higher-end activity trackers.
This entry-level tracker offers most of the same features as Jawbone’s upper-tier models, tracking steps, sleep, calories burned, and dietary data. About the size of a quarter, it snaps into a silicone clip that fastens securely on your belt or pocket. You switch between activity and sleep modes by pushing the device face—actually a big button. Jawbone’s excellent Up app syncs the users’ inputs to their mobile device and analyzes them to guide them toward their fitness, nutrition, and recovery goals. Unlike most other trackers, which need to be recharged every few days, the UpMove runs on one coin-cell battery that promises months-long life.

With its balance of cost and performance, the UpMove is a good call for any fitness-minded friend or family member.

Things change in the rapidly advancing tech space faster than most places, but even here, where progression and innovation are the name of the game, some things stay the same. Chief amongst them? Old rivalries. Those things die hard. Microsoft and Apple are two of the tech space's old guard and the rivalry between them is long standing, it's a bit like Ridley Scott's The Duellists, the two go off and do their own thing for a bit, but then come back and have a scrap every now and then.

Microsoft and Apple have been at each other's throats for a long time, but way back when it was the PC vs the Mac (and more recently, actually, remember the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" ads?). But it's fair to say that for a long time Apple has had Microsoft well and truly on the backfoot when it comes to mobile devices - for Apple, this war was being fought against Google's Android. This situation is turning now though, with the advent of Windows 10, Microsoft is re-entering the arena under new leadership, and with a few new tricks up its sleeve.

It’s the 1980s all over again. But this time Microsoft and Apple are battling it out on a new device front – the prosumer tablet niche. Each has released its respective powerhouse tablets in recent weeks. For Apple, this is the iPad Pro and for Microsoft, the Surface Pro 4. But more than being JUST a tablet, each device also purports to be the only device users need – that’s right, each claims to kill the need for an additional laptop or desktop.

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November 25, 2015

Lenovo IdeaPad V460 Battery

Similar software also limits the use of cellphones, cameras, electric tools, cars and other products. It’s digital rights management gone mad, applied to products far beyond the original targets of protection, such as the content on CDs and DVDs. Under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), equipment owners are often prohibited from making repairs to devices with copyrighted software, forced instead to take their equipment to an authorized dealer. Bypassing built-in security voids most warranties and violates the DMCA, which could result in penalties of up to $500,000 in fines and five years in prison.

Both consumers and corporations should be concerned by the repair restrictions placed on digitally controlled products. Consumers, particularly those in the growing maker movement, like to modify equipment and use it in novel ways. But manufacturers have no incentive to accommodate that. In the name of protecting the integrity of their brands, they limit repair options to authorized dealers. That drives independent repair companies out of business, resulting in higher repair costs. For example, Apple charges $70 to install a new iPhone 4 battery although a new battery with DIY instructions is available for $20 on the Web.

Support proposed "right to repair” laws. The fight to repair cell phones, tablets, gaming consoles and other digital equipment is ongoing. The Digital Right to Repair Coalition is working on legislation in Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York that would give consumers and organizations the right to repair devices that they own. In addition, it would ensure that service information, replacement parts and security updates are available to owners and independent repair organizations.

Equipment manufacturers will resist the proposed laws. John Deere recently told the Copyright Office that, because computer code is used throughout modern tractors, farmers don’t really own the tractors they buy. Rather they get "an implied license for the life of the vehicle to operate the vehicle.” If this attitude prevails, it will change the definition of a purchase and limit an owner’s ability to resell products that contain computer code.

This is not the first such fight. As automobiles incorporated more electronics, manufacturers attempted to limit the ability of enthusiasts to work on their own cars — a stance that rankled the enthusiasts, independent garages and chains like Jiffy Lube considerably. That coalition eventually prevailed. In 2014, automakers agreed to standardize on Massachusetts law and share the same repair information with independent shops that they make available to dealers.

Buy products that were designed to be maintained. In 2010, a team of students from Stanford and Aalto University in Finland designed the Bloom, an easy-to-maintain, green laptop. It can be disassembled in 10 steps without tools, using only graphical instructions. By contrast, in a test by the students, it took 45 minutes for a team of three engineers, using three tools, to disassemble a MacBook.
Although the Bloom has never been built commercially, its easy-disassembly design provides three benefits. First, repair costs are lowered, since it is easy to diagnose problems. Second, the Bloom’s lifetime is longer than the normal laptop, because individual components can be upgraded easily. Finally, the laptop was designed to be recycled. The all-aluminum case needs no intermediate processing. Internal components are color-coded as plastic, metal and circuitry for easy separation and recycling.

Don't bother with Microsoft Windows 10 until you read this
Push manufacturers to make equipment manuals available. Dell, Lenovo, Fairphone and other companies make their repair manuals available online. By contrast, Apple, Samsung, Toshiba and some other suppliers allow only authorized technicians to acquire repair manuals, tools and replacement parts. These manufacturers make it as difficult as possible for customers or independent repair organizations to repair their own equipment. Nikon, Toshiba and other companies have even threatened lawsuits against websites that post products manuals.
Over the last few years, a number of organizations dedicated to helping owners repair their own equipment have emerged. These organizations share product manuals, arrange information forums, and host events to share information about digital products. Examples include:

The rugged individual who solves problems is part of the American ethos. Owners of malfunctioning products should not be forced to rely on lengthy manufacturer repairs, at prices so inflated that many consumers will simply buy a replacement. DIY repairs, and those done by independently owned businesses, help lengthen the life of electronically controlled products and ultimately reduce electronic waste. It is time to update the DMCA and allow product owners to select the repair mode that best meets their needs.

In my capacity as a writer, whether it’s my blog, my job or my third unfinished novel, I very rarely push anything besides my computer’s battery life and my capacity to stare at the screen to the limit.

It might be the result of all the moments my laptop has taken me by surprise with a low-battery warning, but when I was asked to test-drive the 2016 Chevrolet Volt, I decided to work my magic and drive until every single one of its lithium ions were completely tapped.

Now this isn’t as easy as it sounds, especially with this Next Generation Volt. It not only has a super-smart computer that conserves every ounce of energy possible, but it also has what Chevrolet calls REGEN ON-DEMAND, which is the ability to regenerate power when you are using the car. A driver activates this feature simply by pushing a button on the steering column; it uses the electric motors to slow down the vehicle and puts power back into the battery pack at the same time. Seriously? Come on! That’s like a special power reserved for the best bosses in really classic video games!

I picked up the car and made sure it was absolutely, completely charged. I unplugged it from the dealer’s 240-volt plug and was at once serenaded with an overture of blue-green silent beauty on start-up. I noted that the battery was full and ready to go to work.

On my way home — the long way home — I got a little concerned with how the heck I was going to charge the Volt. I don’t have a 240-volt, professionally installed charging station outside of my house. And neither do you, I assume. Nobody I know has this, except maybe those "super hip" friends who live in fancy new condos. But Chevrolet has this covered; my Volt came with a regular — though it might sound cooler if I called it "vintage" or "classic" — 120-volt plug. Either way, I left it unplugged for the night.

I had planned to spend my Sunday moving my child car seat from our "regular" car into the Volt. I expected this would take all day; it didn’t. I got it secured in the Volt on the first try. Maybe it’s because Chevrolet makes it easy to install child car seats, but I like to chalk it up to my awesomeness as a father (parenting is about the little wins).

With my Sunday free, we took the Volt out to my parents' farm. The drive was great: My wife relaxed in the seat next to me while our three-year-old son, Lincoln, sat in the back, DJ-ing his way through the trip on my iPad, which I synced to the Volt easily using the standard OnStar 4G LTE with in-car WiFi hotspot.

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Lenovo L10L6Y01 Battery

Apple is in an odd place when it comes to ultrabooks right now and thus we’re not too confident next year’s Air will get an upgraded display. Instead, it may remain as the company’s entry level machine while the new 12-inch Retina MacBook becomes its premium thin and light model. The latter looks promising but for now in its underpowered first-gen form we aren’t convinced to recommend it as our ultraportable pick for Mac users.

The Asus G751JY combines capable gaming hardware with a bright and vivid G-Sync ready 17.3-inch display, full-size backlit keyboard and better build quality than competitors such as the Clevo P157SM-A and MSI GT60 Dominator Pro. Powered by an Intel Core i7 4710HQ, Nvidia GeForce GTX 980M GPU and 24GB of RAM, the G751JY will play most modern graphics-intensive games on high settings, while support for G-Sync results in a smoother gameplay experience than the Alienware 17. Best of all it’s currently a very good value at ~$1,900, down from its original price of $2,500.

The G751JY’s display is only 1920 x 1080, but you shouldn’t be too worried about that as current graphics hardware isn’t quite there yet for 4K gaming. The keyboard is outstanding, offering great tactile feedback and gamer friendly features such as mappable keys, macro support and customisable backlighting. Its trackpad doesn’t receive as much praise but its large and serviceable -- most gamers will hook up a mouse anyway.

Another notable highlight is that the G751JY scores well when it comes to cooling. For a laptop with such powerful hardware inside, Asus has done a great job keeping heat under control, all in a well designed and relatively portable package that’s more understated than most (only Razer laptops look considerably better) -- as opposed to overdoing the tacky gamer-y accents. It’s still 8.4 pounds heavy and 0.9” at its thickest point, while battery life is a little below the category average at around three and a half hours.

Our recommended configuration comes with a fast 256GB SSD plus a 1TB hard drive for storage. Connectivity-wise you get the full gamut of ports -- four USB 3.0, HDMI, Thunderbolt, Ethernet, VGA, SD card reader -- as well as 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. All in all you’re getting plenty gaming power and features at a better value than the competition.
The Asus Zenbook UX305 is a budget laptop that punches above its weight. For $650 you get a modest, passively cooled 800MHz Intel Core M 5Y10 (Broadwell) with HD Graphics 5300, but you don’t need to compromise on other features as you often do for laptops in this category. The matte-finish IPS display is a full 1920 x 1080 -- with an option to upgrade to QHD -- and it looks great. Not the same color accuracy as displays on more expensive laptops, but great nonetheless with decent outdoors performance.

The keyboard is comfortable to type on with enough space between keys and good tactile feedback, though it’s not backlit. It’s no powerhouse but it can handle office/school work without issues. It’s also paired with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD -- two key features that make it very competitive at this price range.
The Asus Zenbook UX305 looks very similar to the MacBook Air, featuring an all-aluminum body that’s under a half-inch thick and weighs only 2.6 pounds. Battery life test results from TechRadar, TrustedReviews and DigitalTrends vary a bit but you should get somewhere around 7 to 9 hours depending on use.

Whereas many ultrabooks have only two USB ports, the UX305 has three, and they’re all USB 3.0. There’s also a full-size SD card reader, microHDMI, and an included USB Ethernet adapter in addition to 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Overall, this is a stylish and well-built ultraportable that packs a lot of bang for the buck if you are willing to compromise a bit on performance.
Chromebooks have been quietly carving out a piece of the market for themselves the past few years. They are inexpensive, lightweight and if your normal usage is basically limited to the browser window then it might be all you need -- or could be good as a barebones secondary machine. Plus, they're basically zero maintenance since there's no need to stay on top of OS, driver or antivirus updates.

The $300 Toshiba Chromebook 2 strikes the best balance between performance and features among its peers. It has 13.3-inch full HD display offering great contrast and color reproduction, and it’s powered by a 1.7-GHz Intel Celeron 3215U processor with 4GB of RAM. It’s fast enough to stream video or music and handle a reasonable number of tabs without experiencing any lag.
It has a 16GB solid state drive and Google adds 100 GB of free Google Drive storage for two years with your purchase. That will come in handy as you’ll be doing most things online, although it’s worth pointing out that there are now offline options for Gmail, Drive, and Play Movies, plus a variety of offline apps available through the Chrome Web Store.

Connectivity-wise you get dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, one USB 3.0 port, one USB 2.0 port, an HDMI output, and an SD Card slot. As far as battery is concerned, the Toshiba Chromebook 2 should last up to 8 hours or so -- that’s a little lower than what the Acer Chromebook 13 and Asus C200 can claim, but still enough to get you through the day.
Build quality is good enough for a laptop in this price range. It actually looks and feels more expensive than it is and its silver-with-black-trim body is easy on the eyes. It also has a good keyboard and trackpad and weighs just 2.97 pounds, about the same as a 13-inch MacBook Air, but a bit thicker at 0.76 inches.

The Toshiba Chromebook 2 is affordable and while it’s not the cheapest Chromebook out there, it has the best display on a budget laptop while doing most other things good enough. This is the best Chromebook you can buy today without paying an unreasonable amount for a Chromebook Pixel.
There is no hybrid choice above and that's because we already made our pick earlier this month with the Best Tablets of 2015. Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 is the best 'true' hybrid by far, although we consider that device to be tablet first and laptop second.

If you simply want a laptop with a touchscreen, both the Dell XPS 13 and the ZenBook UX305 have variants with a touchscreen. Also, Microsoft's recently released Surface Book is a laptop to consider if you are serious about convertibles, however it's very expensive and while good for a first generation product, it's not necessarily better than our picks above.
FIRST OFF, DON’T call it a Sony. You may have forgotten, but Sony isn’t making laptops (or Windows tablets) any more, having divested the Vaio brand to Japan Industrial Partners last year. JIP is keeping Vaio alive, and the Vaio Z Canvas is aimed squarely at not just the Surface Pro and other high-end tablets but at the Apple MacBook line as well.

The Canvas is a Windows tablet unlike any we’ve seen before. Wedged into this 12.3-inch, 2.6-pound chassis are a Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of solid state storage—specs in line with the highest high-end laptops. The included keyboard is detachable (it charges via two small contacts on the tablet and the keyboard), adds an extra 12.8 ounces, and doubles as a magnetically-affixed cover. The fun doesn’t stop there, though. Just check out these ports: two full-size USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort, HDMI, and a full-size (fold-out) Ethernet jack. Ethernet! On a tablet! If you can’t smell the legacy of Sony overambition all over this thing, it’s official name—the Vaio Z Canvas VJZ12AX0211S—surely seals the deal.

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November 24, 2015

Lenovo ThinkPad T520i Battery

　This is because, despite the more powerful processor, Toshiba outfitted this device with the exact same battery as before, so there’s a direct a tradeoff: better performance for worse battery life. It’s worth noting this is some of the worst battery life we’ve seen in recent Chromebooks. This cannot be an all-day laptop without a power supply, but it’s still got enough juice for a few extended coffee shop work sessions, or an evening on the couch.

You shouldn’t have any trouble fitting this Chromebook into a messenger bag or backpack. It weighs less than three pounds, so you won’t notice it in your bag as you travel. And the textured case means it’s easy to get a grip on it while you’re pulling it out of your bag.
Quiet and cool computing
This is not a loud laptop. During the Peacekeeper benchmark, for example, we only occasionally heard the fan running. You can consistently get the fan running by opening a dozen heavy tabs, but it’s never loud enough to hear over any music you might be listening to, and usually quiets down quickly once everything loads.
This Chromebook comes with a one-year standard limited warranty. You can add accidental damage service and another year of coverage for $68, and a total of three years for $100, but in either case the battery is only covered for one year.

Conclusion
If you’ve tried Chromebooks before, and thought they were too weak to use, this latest Toshiba Chromebook 2 is what you’ve been looking for. With the best Peacekeeper benchmark we’ve ever seen on a Chromebook, and rare slowdowns in our day-to-day usage tests, it’s more than good. It’s great! It feels like you’re using Chrome on a much more expensive laptop.
However, the fast performance harms battery life. Toshiba is also asking $380 for this notebook, which is toward the high end of pricing. The hardware is worth the price, but anyone turning to Chrome OS for its bargain pricing will be surprised.
Toshiba’s Core-powered Chromebook 2 shows what Chrome OS can do when it isn’t built on a tight budget. If Chrome OS is what you want, and you don’t feel like compromising (except on battery life), it’s a great choice.

　Last year ZDNet judged Lenovo's Yoga 3 Pro convertible to be 'very good'. The new 13.3-inch Yoga 900 advances the ball by a considerable margin: the characteristic 360-degree 'watchband' hinge mechanism remains, as does the sleek, lightweight ultrabook design. But with a serious uplift in processor power this premium device could be the new benchmark for other high-end ultrabook convertibles.

Convertible ultrabooks are no longer a new idea, and there are several takes on what 'convertible' actually means. On some devices -- also known as 'detachables' - the screen and keyboard separate completely, while others sport various 360-degree hinge mechanisms that allow the screen to lay flat against the keyboard, facing outwards in 'tablet' mode.

Lenovo has come up with one of the most complex (and with 813 individual components, arguably the most over-engineered) 360-degree mechanisms in the shape of the Watchband Hinge. It's very visible, and is coloured orange, gold or silver depending on the device's lid and base colour.

Whatever you think of the aesthetics, the watchband hinge is smooth, reliable and flexible. It also clamps the lid and base sections firmly together in a feature Lenovo calls Auto Lock. In the old days some laptops had physical locks to keep the clamshell safely closed when in transit. Auto Lock does a good job in this respect - although when Lenovo says it's easy to open the laptop one-handed, we disagree: Auto Lock makes a pretty tight closure, and two hands are needed to prise the lid and base apart.

　
The hinge is tight enough to hold the screen in any orientation. Lenovo suggests four modes: laptop (conventional clamshell); tablet (with the screen rotated 360 degrees and the keyboard facing outwards); stand (a sort of reverse laptop mode with the keyboard facing down and the screen facing outwards) and tent (resting on its two long edges with the screen and keyboard facing outwards).

The Yoga 900 is one of the many convertibles whose keyboard does not lock when you use these clamshell-alternative modes. It doesn't register key presses, but the keys still physically depress, which could be an issue when you're working in tablet mode with the keyboard facing outwards. Although the Yoga 900 is an ultrabook and therefore relatively lightweight at 1.29kg, there's still a fair bit of weight to hold in one or two hands. The pressure on keys when doing this is not insubstantial, and certainly greater than when typing. We're always concerned about mid- to long-term keyboard issues with such devices.

Thin and light is the name of the game here, and at 1.49cm thick the Yoga 900 slips easily into a bag. The metal base and lid are not especially scratch resistant, but they certainly make for a rigid laptop that should travel well without a protective case.
The Yoga 900's desktop footprint of 32.4cm wide by 22.5cm deep is not unreasonable for a 13.3-inch laptop that requires a fair sized bezel to cater for tablet mode. That said, when working in laptop mode the hefty near-30mm bottom bezel housing the Windows button is particularly noticeable.

The screen itself is wonderful. The 3,200-by-1,800 pixel IPS panel is bright and sharp with very vibrant colours. It's the same 276 pixel-per-inch (ppi) resolution as its Yoga 3 Pro predecessor, but we're more than happy with the quality it delivers. Viewing angles are very good, and the only downside that it's quite reflective.

There's a button on the right side of the chassis that toggles the screen rotation lock. Inexplicably, using this caused a couple of problems with our review sample, which failed to resume autorotation unless restarted. These glitches coincided with a greyed-out on-screen rotation control, so maybe there's a software issue for Lenovo to iron out here.

Wi-fi (dual-band 802.11ac) and Bluetooth (4.0) are supported, as you'd expect, but there's no NFC or mobile broadband. Connections comprise a single USB-C port that supports video out, two USB 3.0 ports and a USB 2.0 port which doubles as the power connector. There's also a flash card reader and a headset jack. It's a minimal set for those who hanker for the likes of HDMI or DisplayPort, but it is functional.

Following last year's Superfish adware debacle, the Yoga 900 has an admirably lightweight software bundle. McAfee LiveSafe is here, along with a few Lenovo apps including Lenovo Photo Master and Lenovo Companion, which is a route to device support and optimisation.

Conclusions
This is an excellent ultrabook featuring high-end processors, a great screen, good audio and exemplary build quality. The watchband hinge may be quirky but it works well, and there's even a 512GB SSD option for those who need it. Just be a little wary of the 9-hour battery life claim.

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Lenovo IdeaPad U350 Battery

Dhdfdh: ”t's sad that many sites don't look at their own using Lynx, or other text-only browsers. My company does and it is indeed glorious cause you can still easily do everything from the keyboard. Such sites are fast and easy to navigate. However, most sites are created, nowadays, by people who only look at the pretty pictures and never heard of lynx, much less be able to open it.”

Donrhummy: ”Why does everyone think JavaScript is evil? JavaScript is just like everything else - it's perfectly fine until someone tries to use it in an evil manner. There are a lot of great uses for it.”

Defaultsource: ”It runs arbitrary code downloaded from the internet, with the ability to use local storage, make new internet connections, log keystrokes and mouse events, render full 3d accelerated web ads, and bugs in the interpreter can potentially compromise the host, what's not to hate about javascript?”

Bumblebeaver: ”I turned off JavaScript for a whole 5 minutes and it was glorious, but then I had to turn it on again to be able to comment on Reddit.”

If you're racking your brain to find a gift for a fellow small business owner -- or looking for gifts to put on your own list to Santa -- here's a great place to start. Here, I share my annual Holiday Gift Guide for small business owners.

1. HP OfficeJet 4650
HP Officejet 4650 is ideal for small business owners who mainly work from a home office. This wireless All-in-One printer features easy printing from most computers, smartphones and tablets. HP has also rolled out its instant ink program, which can save you up to 50% on ink and make sure that you never run out. There are different plans; for example, a 300-page plan is only $9.99 a month, so your ink won't break your budget and your won't run out of ink when your trying to get a critical document out the door. Best part of all, the cost of the printer is just $99.99.

2. First Data Clover Mini
If you're looking for a payment system that stands up to your small business needs, the Clover Mini is small, powerful and sleek payment system for your small business. You can take all kinds of payments, from magnetic stripe, EMV chip, standard credit and debit cards to virtual payments, without additional equipment or software. The functionality and design of this tablet system allows you to track sales, implement a loyalty program, and free up counter space in your retail store. It also has the ability to scale up to full point-of-sale (POS) functionality. You can customize your experience with specialized apps from the Clover App Market.

She said: "The Kettle Kup is an on-the-go kind of gadget, which means it’s going to be wireless. Charge it up and take it to festivals or long days on campus, or travelling. It’ll have a rechargeable battery that can also be connected to a USB charger, so you can just connect it up to your laptop on the go if you run out of power to charge it up, like you would a phone.

"Hit the switch and let it boil – then it’s countless coffees or never-ending noodles; anything you want to add to the water and drink or eat straight from the Kettle Kup."This multi-tasking kettle and cup is especially one for the students who eat out of saucepans to save time on washing up.”

London Spy sucked us into even more sordid espionage territory this week, with Ben Whishaw's character Danny discovering he has been deliberately infected with HIV.
It's a frighteningly gripping scene, matched only by a gruelling visit to Mark Gatiss's drug dealer cum pimp 'Rich'.
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It all ends with James Fox, the British Establishment made flesh, telling Jim Broadbent's Scottie a terrible – and terrifying – 'joke', before Danny receives a call from another mystery man or woman.
Three out of five episodes down, there are still many more questions than answers when it comes to Danny's desperate search for what really happened to his boyfriend Alex (Edward Holcroft). Here are some of the most pressing conundrums.

3. Battery Back-up Systems from APC by Schneider Electric
Losing power to your office or your phone on the run is no fun. APC by Schneider Electric has a suite of three products to make sure to keep you connected and powered at all times. The Back-UPS Pro BR1500G is designed to provide abundant battery backup power to PCs, TVs, POS equipment and all other external hardware, enabling continued productivity and safety for your devices during a power interruption. The Back-UPS Connect BGE50ML backs up and protects your network, including routers and VOIP phones, powering connectivity for hours after a power disruption and keeping you online and on task even when the power is out. As a bonus, the BGE50ML comes equipped with a removable mobile power pack. Simply eject from the device and carry with you for portable power throughout the day. The best thing is that extra power packs are included, so that you can keep one protecting your network and another on you at all times. All of these products are between $79.99 and $239.99.

4. Microsoft Surface Book
If you're in the market for a new laptop, the Microsoft Surface Book all-in-one tablet and laptop is ideal. Its touch screen technology is the perfect solution for on-the-go small business owners. If you are looking for a machine that gives you more options and a touch screen, or can't decide between a tablet or a laptop, the Surface Book is well worth considering. The design is more solid than most of the hybrids. There is a premium in the price, starting at about $1,499, but the components, design and construction, and flexibility for many user modes help justify the cost.

5. Local Search Ads from YP.com
Search Engine Marketing is a breeze with ypSearchfrom yp.com. Local businesses can run custom online and mobile campaigns based on their specific business goals and budgets. ypSearch turns local searches into leads by promoting businesses across the many devices and platforms that consumers use to find businesses, including Google, YP, Yahoo! and Bing. With 24/7 online and mobile reporting access, campaign monitoring and optimization from a team of YP professionals, ypSearch is the way to get discovered. And investment of $300.00 a month can make a big difference in your business.

6. Nextiva Office Pro Plus
Nextiva Office Pro Plus keeps you connected to your business from anywhere with its unified phone solution. It's an all-inclusive hosted VoIP service, that enables your business to increase revenue, minimize management headaches, and improve your customer experience. Nextiva provides standard hosted VoIP functions, plus fully integrated enhanced services. Setup and configuration are easily managed through the NextOS web portal. The plan starts at $22.95 a month.

7. Norton Small Business
Protect up to up to 5 devices with cyber protection that Fortune 500 companies use: Norton Small Business. The software provides the same security trusted by major companies to your small business devices. The software allows you to protect data across devices - desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. It's an easy cloud-based setup and device management system and they provide 24x7 tech support. The best part is they offer a 100% guarantee. They'll keep your devices virus-free or they'll give you a refund.

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November 21, 2015

Dell D951T Battery

The HP Chromebook 11 G4 comes with a one-year warranty on parts and labor, one year of chat support and 90 days of phone support.For $69.99, you can purchase another year of phone support and remote problem diagnosis, as well as off-site support and free pickup and returns. See how HP fared in our Best and Worst Brands report and Tech Support Showdown.

Although some will be disappointed by the presence of a Broadwell processor rather than a Skylake one, we don’t think this is a significant drawback since most of Skylake’s improvements are aimed at laptop users with alleged benefits such as lengthier battery life and support for WiGig docking stations.

It is a shame there isn’t a dedicated graphics chip, but the integrated Iris Pro 6200 is more than sufficient for a lot of tasks. You’ll only really miss a dedicated graphics card if you frequently run 3D modelling and CADCAM programs or heavily GPU-accelerated applications.

While you can swap out the Core i5 chip for a 3.3GHz quad core Core i7 when ordering at a cost of £160, there’s no corresponding option for a dedicated graphics chip. This may be due to the thermal limitations of the compact metal casing. If you want a compact all-in-one Mac with dedicated graphics, then you’ll have to trade up to one of the larger and costlier 27in models.

We are disappointed to see that this iMac only comes with a 1TB hard drive as standard when Apple has been aggressively pushing SSDs across its various MacBook laptops. Even a basic Fusion Drive, which is Apple’s name for a hybrid drive where a hard drive is paired with a small SSD for caching, doesn’t come as standard costing an extra £80.

The 1TB hard drive hardly cripples performance, but there is a noticeable lag in in operations such as launching programs. On a Late 2012 iMac with a Fusion Drive where a 1TB hard drive is joined together with a 120GB SSD, programs open in a second or two. The same operation on the 4K iMac takes ten to 15 seconds.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the performance of current Fusion Drives might be slower than older ones as they now use smaller SSDs. The basic 1TB Fusion Drive that costs £80 extra, for example, now only has a 24GB SSD. We can’t say for certain until we’ve tested one, but we’d be surprised if there wasn’t some effect on responsiveness.

Input devices
People tend to either love or hate the keyboards and mice bundled with iMacs and Apple’s latest input devices are no less divisive. As before, a wireless keyboard and mouse are included by default but they’ve been redesigned.

Rechargeable, built-in lithium ion batteries take the place of the replaceable AA batteries of yesteryear. Both the keyboard and mouse are recharged through a USB port using an included Lightning cable. Cleverly, the Lightning cable also quickly pairs the Bluetooth-based input devices with the iMac obviating the need for the usual fiddly onscreen pairing keys.

Oddly, the Magic Mouse 2’s Lightning port is located on the underside of the mouse so you can’t use it while it’s charging as you can with the Magic Keyboard. Recharging is so quick that this isn’t a significant flaw, but it’s nonetheless surprisingly inelegant for an Apple product.The power switch and Lightning port are located on the rear of both the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad 2

Like the Surface Pro 4, the Surface Book ships with a pen for quick scribbles or serious Photoshop work, whatever takes your fancy.
I continue to be impressed with Windows Hello, the built-in infrared camera that lets you unlock the Surface Book just by looking at it. Try as I might, I just couldn't get Hello to fail to recognise me, no matter how bad the lighting, or the faces I pulled.

　On the software side, Windows 10 is Windows 10 — a well designed, mature and reliable OS in the traditional desktop setting. I ran into a few Surface Book specific bugs out of the box, but all were resolved with last Thursday's Windows 10 update. The lack of tablet friendly Windows 10 apps is still an issue, but not as noticeable in this laptop-first device.
In the laptop configuration, I easily got a full work day's use from the battery. The bulk of the battery lives in the keyboard, so when you're using just the screen in tablet mode, battery life drops to just three to four hours. That sounds pretty bad if you're hoping to use the tablet to watch movies on a plane, but remember you can flip the keyboard backwards and use it as a stand for the screen.

The question remains, is it better to have the one device that can do it all, or would owning both a lightweight laptop and tablet serve you better? The gorgeous Dell XPS 13 and Galaxy Tab S2 have a combined weight that's less than the Surface Book, and swapping between them can be just as easy with the help of cloud services like Dropbox, Office 365, or Google Docs.
I can see arguments for both — there are definite advantages to having just one device to charge, pack, and look after, but on the other hand, you can get better battery life and more flexibility splitting the products.

Either way, if you're as dedicated to the all-in-one idea as Microsoft is, this is simply the best tablet-laptop hybrid available. And even if you're not that keen on the idea, this is probably the best Windows laptop I've ever used.
The Surface Book is Microsoft's most compelling argument for an all-in-one laptop and tablet machine. By making it a laptop first with the option to be an occasional tablet, Microsoft have designed hardware that plays to the strengths of Windows, and strikes a better balance for most users.

　It’s wearing off, the dual shock of Microsoft building its own laptop and then the realization that it was not exactly a laptop. Now we’re left with the product of that surprise and minor deception: The Microsoft Surface Book. Put simply, it’s a very good premium laptop that is an occasionally unnerving mix of brilliance and pre-production hiccups.

I should back up a bit. Not everyone knows that Microsoft delivered its first-ever laptop and that it's actually a tablet with a detachable keyboard — and even that doesn’t explain it fully. Like its Surface Pro 3 cousin before it, Surface Book may sometimes look and work like a tablet, but it’s designed to live as an above-average-power laptop that also happens to have an ultra-high-res touchscreen and works with a dedicated Bluetooth pen.

No one is saying Microsoft invented a new category. It’s more accurate to say the Surface Book is an evolutionary product in the convergence of tablet and ultra-portable design innovation. And much of the work Microsoft put into the design is a reflection of that effort. Easily the most notable element is Surface Book’s cutting edge Dynamic Fulcrum Hinge.

Surface Book is almost two devices in one. The screen portion is a full-blown Intel 6th-generation Core (Skylake) touchscreen PC, while the base houses the full-size keyboard and trackpad, and is also home to most of the laptop’s battery power and, in some models, a more powerful discrete Nvidia graphics processor.Microsoft built the screen like a tablet and, for the most part, the keyboard like a laptop keyboard. The marriage of the two shouldn't work, and yet it does, which is mostly due to the thoroughly unique and intensely clever dynamic hinge.

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Dell Studio 1737 Battery

All in all, I guess the Radius 12 4K might be good for photo and video enthusiasts, or anyone who wants a brilliant screen in a light laptop, or who just wants to be ready for 4K everywhere. But I can’t recommend it, because Toshiba didn’t build a machine with the battery power to support its ambitions.

Ctrl-Walt-Delete is a new show from The Verge featuring legendary tech reviewer Walt Mossberg and Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel. In each episode, Walt and Nilay will dive into the modern tech landscape using Walt’s extraordinary depth and experience to tell stories in entirely new ways. There will also be jokes. Listen to new episodes every week by subscribing on iTunes or following on Soundcloud
AFTER USING CLOSE to a dozen different models, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as the perfect Chromebook. There is always something missing, always something that could be better. Even when there isn’t, as in the case of Dell’s new 13-inch Chromebook, you’ll pay as much as you would for a low-end PC laptop that’s capable of a lot more.

　
Perfection is not something you’ll find in a Chromebook; buying the one that’s right for you consists of finding the right set of compromises. That said, if money is no object, the Dell Chromebook 13 is pretty close to perfect.
Billed as "business class,” the Dell Chromebook 13 comes in a wide variety of configurations ranging from low end Celeron models (like the one I tested), to higher end models with up to 8GB of RAM, an Intel i5 processor, and a touchscreen. Prices range accordingly, from $400 all the way up to $900. Yes, Dell has joined Google in making it easy to drop nearly as much on a Chromebook as a low end ultrabook.

"It's going to take a couple of years for that to become a volume market. It's not 10 years away, but within a couple of years," said Eskilsson.Hans Otterling at third-biggest shareholder Northzone said Tobii was "totally capable" of carrying on by itself, without being swallowed by a bigger company. He said its value lay in the range of areas where eye-tracking may be applied.

"Imagine a surgeon, his hands free, able to steer things with his eyes. There is really just your imagination setting the limits," he said.　European Union regulators are investigating companies which make batteries for laptops and mobile phones on suspicion of taking part in a cartel, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

The move by the EU competition authority came two years after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) fined two companies for fixing prices of cylindrical lithium ion battery cells."The Commission is currently investigating alleged anti-competitive behaviour in the rechargeable batteries sector," spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an email. He did not provide details.

In March Sony said in a regulatory filing that the US antitrust authorities had closed their investigation whereas the EU regulator continued its probe.In 2013 the DoJ fined Panasonic subsidiary Sanyo Electric Co $10.7 million (roughly Rs. 70 crores) and LG Chem $1.1 million (roughly Rs. 7 crores).

Last week, Europe's second highest court reduced fines imposed on consumer electronics groups Panasonic and Toshiba for their part in a cartel of cathode ray tube producers, while upholding them for four other companies.

In 2012 the European Commission fined seven companies EUR 1.47 billion (roughly Rs. 10,851 crores), the EU's largest ever cartel penalty, for two decades of fixing prices, allocating customers and restricting output for CRTs for televisions and for computer screens.

The Luxembourg-based General Court upheld the fines imposed on Samsung, Philips, LG Electronics and Technicolor. Chungwa was exempted from a fine because it was the first to alert the Commission to the existence of two CRT cartels.

However, the court ruled that the Commission had miscalculated the appropriate fines for Panasonic and MTPD, a joint venture between Panasonic and Toshiba, and that it had not proven that Toshiba was involved in the television CRT cartel at all.

For all those who are really fed up with their laptop battery backup’s by next year they would be getting an extended battery life device which is expected to offer about 5 times or even more battery life for their Pc’s as compared to the current batter life which has been offered by the lithium-ion batteries.

While the reports related with this matter have also highlighted the fact that the new battery power banks which have been named as 3D solid-state battery structure have been developed by a startup business venture Prieto Battery, who have claimed that the 3 D batteries that have been developed by them will certainly emerge out as a very efficient and powerful device which has been designed to offer more power and extended battery life as compared to the current lithium.


In an official statement, the company officials further added that these as compared to the current lithium batteries, the new 3D batteries are certainly less flammable in nature and with this they are also designed to offer the best suitable designs which can be easily adjusted to the users laptop system.

The investigators begun with magnesium as the battery’s secure, reasonably priced and high-power thickness anode material and paired it with pyrite, which is produced from iron and sulphur, as the cathode.The electric vehicle startup Faraday Future will be investing $1 billion into the creation of a US manufacturing plant, according to recent reports.

As far as where this manufacturing facility will be located, that has yet to be definitively revealed. Reportedly, the company is mulling possible locations in Georgia, California, Nevada, and Louisiana. A final decision on location is supposed to be reached within only a few weeks.

The funding "is going to come from a different number of sources,” Sampson told the Wall Street Journal, which said Faraday has started to order components already. Sampson was the "lead chassis engineer” for Tesla’s Model S before leaving in early 2012, according to the Journal. ”We are keeping our partners confidential,” he said. There are other recruits from Tesla as well as BMW and General Motors.

Interesting news. The more, the merrier, as far as I’m concerned. If nothing else, I suppose that perhaps we’ll stop getting so many complaints about covering Tesla-based news now that there’s a solid-looking competitor emerging. Here’s to hoping that they are as open with their plans and inner workings as Tesla is (then we can cover them as much as Tesla).

Windows 10 has a lot of benefits over previous editions of the OS, but battery life probably isn’t one of the main ones that you’d think about. However, Microsoft has done a lot of work with its battery-saving tech, making your laptop more efficient and last longer. The main setting, Battery Saver, is enabled by default, so you don’t have to do anything, but in this article I’ll show you how to change Windows’ battery options and how upgrading to Windows 10 affected battery life on our test laptops.

The first place to start is with Battery Saver, which is a new option in System settings. It’s designed to lower screen brightness, reduce background activity and stop push notifications when your battery hits a certain point (20% by default), reducing the load on the battery. While the defaults are good enough for most people, you can control the settings in more detail.

To access it click the Start Menu, type Battery Saver and choose the option. You’ll now be on the Battery Saver dialog box, which gives you an overview of your laptop’s battery life, including remaining percentage and estimated time remaining.

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November 20, 2015

Dell Latitude L400 Battery

Scoring 0.81 on the Delta-E test for color accuracy (closer to 0 is better), the Switch 11 has a much more accurate display than the average ultraportable laptop (5.1 , Inspiron 11 (1.55) and Satellite Radius 11 (8.82). The Transformer Book (0.3) and Pavilion x360 (0.2) have even more precise color.

Our colorimeter says that the Switch 11 V's 11.6-inch touch screen renders only 74.1 percent of the sRGB spectrum, which is a narrower range than the average ultraportable (80.6 percent) and the Inspiron 11 (81.4 percent). The Transformer Book (69 percent) and the Radius 11 (63.4 percent) cannot reproduce as much color.
The Switch 11 V features Acer's LumiFlex technology, which automatically adjusts color saturation for enhanced readability after gauging ambient brightness. When we tested this feature outside on our roof on a bright, sunny morning, text was clear and legible with or without LumiFlex enabled.

If you want to reduce the amount of blue light that shines in your eyes -- some blame this light for eyestrain or sleep troubles -- the Switch 11 V's Bluelight shield feature will do exactly that. The option is right next to the LumiFlex toggle, and you can enable it to take out a low, medium or high amount of the blue light coming out of the display. There is an even stronger filter, called Long Hour Mode, available for extended viewing.

Interestingly, the $1 billion figure has been referred to as a "phase one” investment, so presumably there’s a lot more to come… Considering that the new startup (launched only a year and a half ago) is already home to 400 employees, including some ex-Tesla, ex-BMW, ex-GM, ex-Ford, etc, talent, the plans do seem to be quite solid. Worth noting here is that Richard Kim — partly responsible for the design of the BMW i8 and i3 — is apparently working for the company now. As well as Pontus Fontaeus — who previously worked for Ferrari, Land Rover, and Volvo.

"This is the job I’ve been training for my whole life,” Fontaeus commented on the subject. "There are some designers who need a brief, a foothold. And then there are designers like these who have a pioneer spirit and don’t need a safety net. We’re actually better when we can create from nothing.”

"We are very excited to make our $1 billion investment in US manufacturing — and this is just phase one… Producing our forward-looking and fully-connected electric vehicles not only requires the latest technology, but the right community partner,” said Nick Sampson, senior vice president of Faraday Future, in a statement. Faraday reiterated that it expects to bring its first vehicle to market in 2017 and will explore "other aspects of the automotive and technology industries including unique ownership and usage models, in-vehicle content and autonomous driving,” the company said.

As a tablet, the Switch 11 V's screen was responsive to my touches while I tapped, pinched, zoomed and scrolled. While I prefer typing on laptop keyboards to tapping on-screen, the display's speedy reactions to my gestures had me undecided about which mode I preferred.

Keyboard and Touchpad
While testing the Aspire Switch 11 V's keyboard with the 10FastFingers typing test, I hit a fairly brisk pace of 70 words per minute with 96 percent accuracy. That's faster, but less accurate than, my average (69 wpm, 98 percent). I reached this rate thanks to the keys' good amount of feedback, requiring 61 grams of force for actuation and having 1.6 millimeters of travel. That's well within the 1.5- to 2-mm range we'd expect from a typical laptop but don't always get from ultraportables.Who does not love Customizations?
I have been playing around with the Apple Watch and I love customizations that it offers. In fact, I have now started to expect the same kind of customizations on every smartwatch that I try going forward.

Windows 10 was made to be used on both tablets and laptops, and Acer's Aspire Switch 11 V gives you both for $500. Powered by an Intel Core M processor, this 2-in-1 has a solid, responsive keyboard for your work life, and a bright, full-HD, 11.6-inch tablet display that's great for watching movies, TV and more. The hybrid's mighty magnetic hinge makes it easy to move between desktop and tablet modes, and allows you to use the Switch 11 V in a variety of positions. Competing devices offer longer battery life, and we wish the touchpad were less stiff, but overall, the Switch 11 V is a good value.

Windows 10 was made to be used on both tablets and laptops, and Acer's Aspire Switch 11 V gives you both for $500. Powered by an Intel Core M processor, this 2-in-1 has a solid, responsive keyboard for your work life, and a bright, full-HD, 11.6-inch tablet display that's great for watching movies, TV and more. The hybrid's mighty magnetic hinge makes it easy to move between desktop and tablet modes, and allows you to use the Switch 11 V in a variety of positions. Competing devices offer longer battery life, and we wish the touchpad were less stiff, but overall, the Switch 11 V is a good value.

Measuring 0.8 inches thick and weighing 3.2 pounds with its keyboard attached, the Switch 11 is thicker and heavier than the Asus Transformer Book Flip TP200 (0.73 inches, 2.61 pounds), the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 (0.75 inches, 3.07 pounds) and the Toshiba Satellite Radius 11 (0.65 inches, 2.9 pounds). The HP Pavilion x360 11 (0.89 inches, 3.2 pounds) is just as heavy but slightly thicker. But unlike those other four hybrids, the Switch 11's 1.7-pound display can be detached, giving the user a lighter tablet experience.

On the left edge of the Switch 11's tablet display, Acer placed the power, micro-USB 2.0 and mini-HDMI ports, as well as a microSD card reader and a headphone/mic jack. The power, volume and Windows buttons live on the right edge of the display. The set of docking ports for connecting to the keyboard sit on the bottom edge of the tablet. The right edge of the keyboard contains a single USB 3.0 port.Swim ready
With a fitness device, we basically want something that we can strap on and forget. Most smartwatches and fitness trackers in the market today are splash resistant and not water resistant, which means they are good to absorb an accidental splash but you can't wear them and have a bath.In future, we would want that too changes and it'd even better having the tracker actually track your swim laps and ability to count calories you managed to burn in the process.

More comprehensive tracking
Most people that have a smartwatchare using the same to make sure that they are following some form of a fitness regime. Most people that I have interacted with like passive heart rate reading, step counts and sleep tracking etc. While I would want these to get better over the time, I would also like if in the future, the fitness bands/smartwatches could measure and record things like Blood pressure and sugar levels.

Instead of a Start menu, though, the emphasis is on search. The search menu looks through your Google Drive files, anything in internal storage and your programs.Google Now is also baked into Chrome OS, providing maps, sports scores and breaking news.

Perhaps the best part of Chrome OS is that it doesn't come with bloatware.The majority of the software you can get consists of extensions for Google Chrome. Though there are a few native programs that run outside the browser, most of the titles in the Chrome Web Store are Web apps that run in the browser. Both Spotify's music streaming and TweetDeck open in tabs. So do Google Docs and games like Cut the Rope.

Ideally, you will have an Internet connection when using a Chromebook. Most of the apps are made to be used online. If you have to go off the grid, don't fret; many are prepared for offline use. You can edit Google Docs offline, draft email with the Gmail Offline app and play games like 2048 and Cut the Rope. Some apps, including Google Docs, require you to change settings to allow this, so be sure to check your options.

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Dell XPS M1530 Battery

The Magic Mouse 2 is otherwise very similar to its predecessor. The multitouch surface of its single physical button is very accurate at detecting gestures such as swiping back and forth in web browsers. Its small surface area makes it less than ideal for using such gestures though.

The very low-slung shape of the mouse made it uncomfortable for a lot of the hands in the IT Pro offices though. We much prefer the new Magic Trackpad 2 which brings the excellent MacBook touchpad to the desktop. It now has the Force Touch pressure sensitivity feature first introduced in the 13in 2015 MacBook Pro Retina, but there’s still little compelling use for it in MacOS X. Still, it’s worth the extra £44 when ordering - especially as it otherwise costs a steep £109.

Often when smaller companies try to do something a bit ambitious, or just specific, you end up wondering "what were they thinking”, but the Wileyfox Storm succeeds in most of its little design projects. It’s even a unibody-style design, with a tray that takes a micro SIM (not a nano one) and a memory card slot. A reminder: the OnePlus 2 still uses a pull-off back cover.

Other little bits worth noting include that the Storm has a mammoth (for £200) 32GB storage, comes with a factory-placed screen protector and doesn’t have NFC. Frankly I could have done a much better job applying the protector, which had more bubbles than a share-size Aero, but you can always take the thing off.

Unlike sister company Kazam, Wileyfox doesn’t offer screen replacement cover as standard, but you can snag that for £10 a year. That’s not a bad deal at all, if your phones have a history of pavement-kissing.

　I’m more optimistic about the iPad as a laptop stand-in than I was a few days ago after more hands-on time with the 12.9-inch tablet over the weekend. I’ve found the virtual keyboard (which I already use heavily on my iPad Air 2) a lot better on the bigger screen. Maybe more importantly, the optional Apple Smart Keyboard ($169) gets better and better the more you use it.

Doing work: With iOS 9, the on-screen (virtual) keyboard now has a cursor that works a lot like a hardware pointing device. With that and other improvements, writing and editing in Microsoft Word on the Pro’s bigger screen isn't radically different than using Word on a laptop. Cursor placement, text highlighting, and cut-and-paste functions work well enough that it's not jarring to jump from my HP laptop (or my MacBook) to the iPad Pro.

That gets even better with Apple’s Smart Keyboard. Hold down the keyboard's Command key in Word and a host of common editing commands pop up that allow you to keep your hands on the keyboard most of the time. Granted, the Smart Keyboard won't match the one on your laptop but it's more than good enough to get work done.

The point is, if you're someone who’s mobile/traveling most of the time and you don’t need constant access to demanding, resource-intensive applications, the iPad Pro could be a better solution than a laptop. Particularly if you opt for the 128GB cellular model ($1,079), which frees you from constantly hunting for a Wi-Fi hotspot, and throw in the Smart Keyboard. Another upside: battery life – one of the most important requisites – will likely be better on the iPad Pro than your laptop.

(Note that I will not be covering the Apple Pencil in this first-look review.)

Play: Though I didn't have a lot of time to test the Pro in passive "play" mode (for example, watching movies), it is clear that the bigger screen combined with four excellent speakers handily outclasses the smaller iPad Air. The speakers get loud without distorting, which can mean a richer experience when watching movies (even the relatively rare 4K variety, which the Pro can handle without a hitch).

What it's not: Needless to say, the iPad Pro isn't going to replace that Intel Core i5-based laptop at your office. An office PC or Mac will beat the Pro any day of the week because the keyboard-trackpad experience is something almost all users have mastered and is therefore more efficient.

This iPad brings with it two new Apple accessories. The Smart Keyboard is a $169 magnetic cover that integrates a full set of keys inside a folding cover. In my experience it worked well, and I was especially thankful not to have to recharge it. Apple powers it through a new port built into the side of the iPad. I’ve never been bothered by keyboards that don’t have a lot of travel (i.e. keys that don’t press down very far) so I found it comfortable to use. Your mileage may vary.

Apple
More interesting is the Apple Pencil. This device—don’t call it a stylus—works in tandem with the display technology in the iPad Pro to allow you to write or draw on the screen without much latency. This works and became surprisingly natural, surprisingly quickly. I used it mostly to take notes and to doodle. But when I let some of TIME’s graphic designers play with the device, they were impressed. Apple is pitching this new iPad as a potential game-changer for creatives and, the small sample size notwithstanding, the creatives I work with seem to concur.

The iPad Pro is not perfect. Many apps have yet to be optimized for the larger display and, as a consequence, either look ugly or bizarrely spartan. Some games inexplicably wouldn’t run for me. These are likely temporary conditions that will be addressed as developers update their apps. More distressing are a series of small but annoying inefficiencies in iOS 9 that are a drag on the overall experience. Scrolling through webpages on a desktop Mac, to take just one example, is well calibrated—pages move to give you a small overlap in what you were reading. iOS 9, by contrast, doesn’t handle this very well. Sometimes the on-screen keyboard—which is full-size on the iPad Pro—came up despite having the external keyboard plugged in and then later disappeared inexplicably. Some ways of selecting text are counter-intuitive when you have Split View enabled. None of these are major flaws, but I hope Apple addresses them in future software updates.

Apple’s tablets are a pleasure to use for two reasons: the software frequently obscures the unnecessary and touch provides an immediacy normal laptops—even so-called convertibles—don’t have. I found this to be the case with the new iPad. But I also found I could do a lot more with it than versions past, namely work on it. I found I prefer the proximity and intimacy of a touchscreen paired with a keyboard, than a regular MacBook. (Because there is no trackpad, the iPad Pro ends up sitting three or four inches closer to you.) And, for my needs at least, I concluded that the iPad Pro is powerful and versatile enough to replace my laptop.

With the Surface, Microsoft designed a tablet that could moonlight as fully fledged desktop machine. The Surface Book flips that emphasis; this is a laptop that can convert to a tablet, but that small change makes for a completely new experience.
The size of the Surface Book is a little daunting. After watching the slick Microsoft promotional videos, I was expecting a product as thin and light as my Macbook Air. But there is far more power in the Surface Book, and that means a bigger, heavier laptop — the Surface Book is identical in weight to the 13" Macbook Pro, though it's a little thicker overall.
That's not to say the Surface Book feels bulky, the design of the machine is absolutely gorgeous. The keyboard is a pleasure to type on, and the sleek magnesium casing is stunning. The display is sharper than the Retina Macbook Pro, sporting two million more pixels and a wider colour gamut than Apple's laptop.
Though not as thin as some laptops, the Surface Book is light enough and feels great.

Though not as thin as some laptops, the Surface Book is light enough and feels great. Photo: Norman MA / Twitter @darkhorse166
And thanks to the dynamic fulcrum hinge, there to evenly distribute the weight of the screen, the machine just feels perfectly well balanced at any angle — be it on a desk, lap, or as I write this, balanced on my chest while I lay on the couch. Try doing that with a Surface Pro.

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November 19, 2015

ASUS ZenBook UX31A Battery

The base model of the Chromebook 11 comes with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, and costs $199 from HP. We tested a fully upgraded laptop with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The best word to describe the HP Chromebook 11 G4 is "adequate." If you need to do some light browsing, document editing and video streaming, this machine can handle it. It has a good keyboard and trackpad combo and loud speakers but falls behind competing Chromebooks with a screen that doesn't get particularly bright, a webcam that takes dark images and below-average battery life.

If you want the performance gains of the more expensive configuration, you can pay an extra $30 for the Dell Chromebook 11 with Core i3 and get a much better processor and battery life. If you want the basics and stronger battery life on the cheap, the less-expensive Lenovo 100S Chromebook is a better buy.

4K screens of varying quality have been slowly making their way into laptops, but they’ve been surprisingly absent from all-in-one desktop computers. The new 21.5in Apple iMac is the first that we know of to come with a 4K monitor which isn’t a surprise given Apple’s history of squeezing high resolution, high quality screens into its devices both big and small.

While cheaper 1080p versions of the 21.5in iMac are available, the 4K model on review here isn’t that much more expensive than its lower resolution counterparts. At £1199 inc VAT, it’s £300 more expensive than the cheapest 1920x1080 iMac available which is a reasonable markup.

Cramming 4096x2304 pixels into a 21.5in screen sounds like a recipe for small, hard-to-read text but Apple has avoided the need for any such squinting. By default, the screen only shows the equivalent of 2048x1152 pixels in most apps. All the other pixels are instead used to make text look incredibly sharp.

The exception is in programs that have redesigned to take advantage of the extra pixels, such as Adobe Photoshop CC or Apple’s own Final Cut Pro. In these cases, images with a high enough resolution and 4K video are displayed in their full, native resolution while text in menus and toolbars etc are still rendered sharply at a readable size.

As Apple has been making MacBooks with similarly high resolution displays for several years now, the selection of OS X programs that take advantage of them are more numerous than they are on Windows. As a result we almost never saw the fuzzy text, tiny inscrutable interface elements or odd, inconsistent scaling issues that still affect Windows and Windows programs on very high resolution screens.

But after using it consistently for work and play, I’m convinced it’s one thing in particular: The iPad Pro is the best computer Apple has ever made. Not the fastest. Not the most portable. And certainly not right for everyone. But, considered as a whole, this version of the iPad achieves the best balance between traditional computing and the places mobile devices like smartphones and tablets seem to be inevitably taking us in the future. It’s a remarkable piece of technology anybody considering buying either a tablet or laptop computer should consider seriously.

The iPad Pro comes in several version starting at $799 for a model with 32GB of internal storage and Wifi connectivity, rising to $1,079 for a model with 128GB as well as Wifi and Cellular connectivity. That’s expensive and, once you factor in the cost of accessories, you can get just above the price of an entry-level MacBook.

This iPad is big, almost ludicrously so at first encounter. The device is built around a 12.9-inch, high-resolution touchscreen that provides a viewing area the size of two "normal” size iPads side by side. It’s thin (0.27-inches) and weighs a little over a pound and a half. You get used to it pretty quickly: after a day or two, my iPad Air 2 started to look too small in contrast. But the dimensions can make it awkward to hold with one hand, especially in portrait orientation. With an iPad Air, portrait feels like the natural way to hold the device, while the iPad Pro felt most comfortable to me in landscape.

All of this would be for naught if the screen didn’t have good image quality, but the Retina screen didn’t disappoint. Compared to the 1080p screen on the Late 2012 21.5in iMac, the 4K screen was noticeably brighter with purer whites and modestly better contrast. The difference in colour accuracy was far less noticeable than the difference in sharpness and increased resolution, but everyone will appreciate the extra brightness.

Oddly, the 4K iMac doesn’t support Thunderbolt Display Mode so another device, such as a MacBook Pro, can use the iMac’s screen as a second display. This should be well within the capabilities of the iMac’s Thunderbolt 2 ports so this omission is puzzling. In any case, you can use the two Thunderbolt 2 ports to connect two additional 4K monitors to the iMac. Multi-Stream Transport and most Single-Stream 4K monitors work at a refresh rate of 60Hz when connected to the iMac.

One potential annoyance in offices with overhead lighting, such as fluorescent strips, is the screen’s glossy finish. This can potentially reflect such overhead lighting resulting in distracting reflections and glare. However, in the IT Pro office, which has plenty of overhead fluorescent lighting, we had to deliberately position the screen at an awkward angle to cause enough noticeable glare or reflections.

Casing and upgradeability
Externally the 4K iMac looks almost identical to its predecessors from the past couple of years with the same aluminium and glass casing. It’s very slim for an all-in-one with a stand that, while not height-adjustable, can easily be tilted and swivelled single-handed - a seemingly simple feat few other all-in-one desktops can manage.

This slimline build does have its drawbacks though. All of the ports are on the rear which makes them inconvenient to reach unless you have enough room on your desk to completely swivel the iMac around. This isn’t necessarily a given since all-in-ones are often deployed in tight spaces. We’d happily settle for a slightly thicker casing if it meant a USB port and SD card reader mounted on the side or some other easy to reach location.

The sealed iMac is also not designed to be upgradeable or serviceable by anyone other than Apple-certified technicians. This means you’ll almost certainly want an onsite service contract, such as Apple’s own AppleCare for Enterprise, if you’re deploying any significant number of iMacs.

Even if you’re happy with such service contracts, the sealed casing means you’ll need to give some thought to how much memory you’ll need over the lifetime of the iMac as more can’t be added later. The model reviewed here comes with 8GB which can be increased to 16GB when ordering for an extra £160 which is a little steep. The 16GB limit itself is also a little disappointing given that the Core i5 processor present can support up to 32GB.

Performance and options
Apple doesn’t state which specific Core i5 is used in the iMac, but we think it’s a dual-core fifth generation Broadwell Core i5 5350H, or a variation of it. It runs at a base frequency of 3.3GHz and can Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz when needed. It made short work of our benchmarks. The iMac was whisper quiet, but with the metal casing becoming hot to the touch as it’s used for passive cooling.

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Asus K53TA Battery

The keyboard is slimmer than before and has keys somewhat similar to those found on the 12in Retina MacBook. They give plenty of feedback when pressed, but have less travel than most other desktop keyboards with laptop-style key switches. While the travel isn’t as short as it on the Retina MacBook, it still won’t suit a lot of people. We found it easy to get used to though and could touch type quickly and accurately. The only undersized keys here were the Up and Down cursor keys – thankfully, the Function keys are now full-size.

Oddly, you can't buy an Apple wireless keyboard with a numeric keypad and navigation keys.For existing Mac users interested in Apple’s new ‘Magic’ peripherals, it’s worth bearing in mind that Cupertino only officially supports their use on Macs running Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. Although some people online have had some luck getting them to work with older OS versions, we couldn’t get our Magic input devices to work with either a MacBook Pro running Yosemite or an iMac running Mountain Lion.

Operating systems
As its name suggests, Mac OS X El Capitan is a relatively modest update over its predecessor Yosemite. One of the biggest new productivity features is the ability to use two programs side-by-side in full-screen mode - a feature that will be instantly familiar to Windows 8 and 10 users.

Although using two programs side-by-side in full-screen sounds odd, it’s very useful for certain tasks such as reading a lengthy PDF and taking notes in Word without any other distractions.

We also like the ability to quickly jiggle the mouse to show a briefly enlarged cursor helping you find it amidst everything else onscreen.The Spotlight system-wide search feature has been beefed up with natural language search functions. So typing ‘images I downloaded two days ago’ brings back exactly the search results you’d expect.

Many of the built-in apps have been redesigned to closely match and work with their iOS counterparts such as Maps. A more useful example is Notes. Although it won’t appeal if you’re already a die-hard OneNote, SimpleNote or Evernote user, the ability to sync notes filled with images, checklists, links and attachments between multiple El Capitan and iOS 9 devices is still a useful one.

If you still need to run Windows applications and don’t want to use virtualisation for whatever reason, there is Boot Camp - the ability to dual boot between Windows and Mac OS X. The Boot Camp utility can now install Windows from an ISO file without the need for a USB drive or DVD. Officially, Boot Camp now only supports Windows 8 and 10 for new installations, but we were still able to get Windows 7 to install. Even so, you’re better off sticking with what’s officially supported unless you have an absolutely critical reason to dual boot Windows 7 on a 4K iMac.

Size matters, in this case, for what it allows you to do. First and foremost, the additional screen real estate—it’s 2732-by-2048 pixels—lets the device take advantage of productivity improvements Apple built into iOS 9, the company’s mobile operating system. Features called Slide Over and Split View allow you to run multiple applications at once, dividing the screen according to your needs. I found this worked particularly well when writing or editing a document in a main window while keeping track of conversations in Slack or Messages to the side.

There are other advantages. Movies streamed from iTunes and HBO Now, for example, as well as the variety of games I tried looked fantastic on the bigger display. The higher resolution means webpages frequently render in their entirety. Apps like iMove, Apple’s film editing software, shine in particular because they become much more useful. The preview window in iMovie, for instance, only takes up a small portion of the screen but is still displaying in 1080p.

A lot of this is made possible by the iPad Pro’s internal components. Apple says the A9X processor inside the device is "desktop class,” a.k.a. as or more powerful than many traditional computers, but also power efficient, providing 10 hours of battery life. Benchmarks have shown the A9X is indeed both, and day-to-day use confirmed as much for me. Battery life was excellent as well, just shy of Apple’s estimates when used for web browsing and watching video.


Although it’s not perfect from an enterprise perspective, the 4K iMac is still nonetheless remarkable for combining a high quality Ultra HD screen with a fast and quiet computer in a compact, stylish package at a reasonable price. It’s not quite as good value if you need to add various extras - a Magic Trackpad 2, more memory, a faster quad core processor and a SSD or Fusion Drive or any combination therefore can quickly drive the price up to new heights. Still, with careful consideration and cost control the new 4K iMac certainly has a place in many workplaces.

　How do you outdo a renegade? That’s the Wileyfox Storm conundrum. It’s eerily similar to the OnePlus 2 in some respects, but costs as much as £90 less and, with any luck, shouldn’t be as much of a ‘throw mouse through your laptop screen’ frustration to get hold of.

Let’s not keep you in suspense too long. The Wileyfox Storm isn’t as good as the OnePlus 2. It feels a lot cheaper and the battery life is disappointing for a fairly large phone. However, it’s not a million miles off either.

If you’re short on cash and want a big-screen phone, this is one you should definitely swipe right for, if not propose to on the first date.
Let’s deal with the most controversial element of the Wileyfox Storm. It looks a bit like the OnePlus 2. The whole Wileyfox launch had a whiff of OnePlus about it, actually: a new name comes out of nowhere and seems to trample over the competition at the price. Compelling stuff.

The Storm ultimately feels like a fairly cheap phone, though. It comes down to price, how much did you expect for £200?

Granted, the Huawei Ascend G7 is part-metal, but that doesn’t feel like a truly expensive phone either. The Wileyfox Storm just makes it that bit worse by tricking your eyes into thinking its sides are metal. They’re not.

This is an all-plastic phone, bar the screen glass and the metal volume/power buttons. When I first wrapped my digits around it, I’ll admit I was a tiny bit disappointed. I was expecting something a bit higher-end than the Wileyfox Swift, but really these two phones are on the same quality level, and just have different looks. The Storm is nowhere near as flashy as the £199 OnePlus X, for example.

That disappointment faded after about 12 hours, though. It really feels fine, and the Storm’s rear plastic is textured to avoid the very recognisable feel of basic plastic. Wileyfox calls it a sandstone finish, once again reminding me of the OnePlus 2. This finish is an awful lot smoother, though. It’s nowhere near as contentious as the OnePlus' sandpaper-like booty.

What about the look? The logo on the back has sledgehammer subtlety, but there are some nice touches. Like the light-up soft keys. They’re all-but-invisible when not in use, but the middle Home one doubles as a notification alert LED. This style also makes the most of the Storm’s ability to switch between software and hardware soft keys. The physical ones don’t end up hanging around like vestigial nipples on your forehead if you don’t use them.

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November 16, 2015

ASUS Eee PC 1001 Battery

At about half the size of a pizza box, it’s a 1080p slab of touchscreen entertainment that’s primarily delivered through a single screen app for navigating compatible Galaxy View apps. (They’re really just Android tablet apps—more on that in a second.) There are also dual four-watt speakers that hide behind a silly hinge thing with a handle for toting it anywhere you want. It costs $600 (£380, exact UK price TBA) for the wifi-only version.

Why Does It Matter?
I’m not sure it does, and I don’t even care. I love it.

Is it a new category of devices? I guess? I’ve certainly never typed the words "TV-tablet hybrid” before. There’s nothing else like it, and the quirky concept feels like a bit of a gamble for Samsung. Will it replace your TV or tablet? I hope not. Is it still loads of fun? A thousand times yes.

Design
The Samsung Galaxy View tab is a big fella. At about 20-inches diagonally, it’ll still fit in a decent-sized backpack, but the hinged standle (stand-plus-handle) won’t let the gadget lie completely flat.

The business end of the device looks and feels like any tablet, though you have to imagine something probably twice the size of anything you’ve used before. The back side is slim at the edges but bulges a couple inches in the middle to accommodate extra batteries and TV-quality speakers. This is also where the standle connects, offering just two settings: Open for standing or closed for lying tiled on a flat surface.

Samsung Galaxy View Review: I Love This Magical Slab of Content The whole thing feels very sturdy, and at 2.6 kilos, it’s definitely not something you want to drop on your foot.It’s rare for a gadget blogger to encounter a gadget and woefully wonder: What the shit am I supposed to do with this thing. It’s happened to me before. But never with such exciting conclusions as the Galaxy View offered.In brief, everyone will use the Galaxy View in their own unique way. I can’t count the ways that it might be fun to have a portable TV that will also let you search the web on massive canvas. I propped it up next to the sink while washing dishes. I plopped it on the coffee table. I even awkwardly cradled it in bed. You’ll have to figure out how the device fits into your life, but I don’t think you’ll ever miss your life without the Galaxy View. For the purposes of this review, I’ll walk you through a few of my own experiences with it.

Internally, the Spin specifically comes sporting a 2.5GHz Intel i7-6500U processor with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. It's all standard fare for a 13-inch convertible laptop in every regard except for price, and this little beauty will ring you up for $1,399 (about £919, AU$1,95 when it releases later this month.

That's running a bit high even for an Ultrabook, but it's still cheaper than getting a comparably outfitted 13-inch MacBook Air for $1,449 (£1,209, AU$A$2,249) or the Dell XPS 13 for $1,649 (£1,149, AU$2,499).

Unfortunately, Samsung hasn't announced any lower-end configurations, so if you like the Book 9 Spin's design you'll have to pay top dollar to get it.
Windows 10 is designed to run on a wide variety of mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets, which primarily run on batteries. To help you to manage and conserve battery power on these devices, Windows 10 comes with a new tool called Battery Saver. Once your battery charge falls below a certain percentage, Battery Saver automatically kicks in and throttles back various mechanisms that draw power, thus extending the battery life. The most noticeable thing Battery Saver does when it kicks in is to immediately dim the screen's brightness, but it also cuts down operating system and app background activity and prevents push notifications from apps that contain live tiles. If you need to get more out of your battery, you can adjust Battery Saver's settings. Let's take a closer look.

Using Battery Saver
To access Battery Saver, select Settings from the Start Menu/Screen. When the Settings screen appears, select the Battery Saver tab, shown in Figure A. In the Overview section, you'll see the current state of battery life expressed as a percentage and as an amount of time. As you can see, on my example system, the battery life is at 74% and the estimated time remaining is 1 hour and 34 minutes.

In the Battery Saver section, you can see that Battery Saver is currently off. That's because my battery life is at 74%. The default setting is for Battery Saver to automatically turn on when the battery life falls below 20%. However, you can manually turn Battery Saver on any time from the Settings screen by clicking the toggle switch. In addition, there are two other—more convenient—places where you can turn Battery Saver on and off. If you simply click on the battery icon, you'll see a battery notification screen and can just click the Battery Saver tile, as shown in Figure B. You can also access the Action Center and click the Battery Saver tile, as shown in Figure C.

From the Battery Saver tab in Settings you can configure how Battery Saver works. Start by clicking Battery Saver settings. When the Change Battery Saver Settings screen appears (Figure G), you'll see some of the ways that you can configure how Battery Saver works.

Making sure you have enough power for your gadgets when you are on the move is a constant headache. As the number of devices we all carry has expanded, so has our consumption of power. Britons alone throw away 600 million batteries every year, but batteries are no longer the only way to carry the power you need to keep your devices working all day every day.

When working on the move the importance of a reliable and plentiful supply of power is even more important. However, keeping phones, tablets and your notebook PC charged and working is only the tip of the iceberg. Today it's possible to create a mobile office that doesn't need a mains power socket to deliver truly off-grid working. And the need for power is clear with EE's recent Power Bar giveaway being a runaway success.

Basically, when creating portable power sources you have two choices: you can carry battery packs, or generate the power you need, when you need it. The number of portable battery packs is bewildering. These packs need to be small and compact, yet offer enough juice to make carrying them justified. Not all battery packs are made equal, which is where a bit of battery education can come in handy when choosing the right one for your needs.

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Asus Eee PC 1005P Battery

All batteries have a mAh (milliampere hours) rating, which indicates how much power the battery can deliver for an hour. For instance, a 1000mAh rated battery can deliver that level of power for one hour of use. The practical upshot is that the higher the mAh number, the longer the battery will last. To work out how long a battery lasts for you simply divide the device's power usage by the mAh rating of the battery pack, and that figure is how many hours of power it can give you.

Zendure A8
Zendure's A8 Pro gives you 24000mAh of juice, and it looks cool to boot
In addition you will also see battery packs and chargers rated at 1A or 2A – this shows their capacity in Amps. Most smartphones charge at 1A, with tablets using 2A. If you are going to charge these devices with a third-party charger, it's worth checking the rating to ensure you get the same charging performance as you have experienced with their dedicated chargers.

The selection of battery packs is wide-ranging indeed. However, not all battery packs are the same, so it's important to match your needs to the right battery. When choosing the right battery pack, ask yourself these questions:

Which devices do you need to power?
How long will you be away from mains power?
What kind of recharging connector do they use?
Are the weight and dimensions of the battery pack important?
How much power do you need to carry?
At the heavy-duty end of the battery pack market is the EC Technology 2nd Gen Deluxe 22400mAh, and it offers masses of battery power, but it's heavy at nearly 450 grams (though slim with a thickness of 22mm). Or the Zendure A8 Pro offers 24000mAh in a 4cm enclosure weighing 480 grams.

Of course making sure you have enough power for your phone, laptop or tablet is your priority, but there are a number of peripherals that can also be powered without access to a mains supply.When you need to print on the move Canon offers the Pixma iP100, a compact inkjet printer that runs completely off battery power. The HP Officejet H470b is a compact printer that can run from mains, battery or USB.The discovery, published in the journal Nature Communications, addresses a key factor in degrading the performance of lithium-ion batteries, the fact that their electrodes expand and shrink during each charging cycle, a process that consumes lithium.

The researchers said they have developed an electrode made of nanoparticles with a solid shell and a "yolk” inside that’s isolated in such a way that it can expand and contract without affecting the shell. The technique can greatly improve cycle life, as well as boosting capacity and power.

The electrode’s nanoparticles contain an aluminium yolk and a titanium dioxide shell, resulting in a component whose "skin”, or solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) layer, is more stable, meaning it doesn’t consume lithium in the way that current batteries do, the researchers said."We made a titanium oxide shell that separates the aluminium from the liquid electrolyte” between the battery’s two electrodes, MIT professor Ju Li said in a statement.

Li, who worked with three others from MIT and three researchers from Tsinghua, said the method was a "chance discovery”.In laboratory tests, the electrode gave more than three times the capacity of stadard batteries using graphite anodes at a normal charging rate, according to Li. The lab tests found that the battery retained a high charge capacity after hundreds of recharging cycles, he said.Aluminium is a low-cost material and the team’s method could be easily scaled for industrial-level manufacturing, Li said. The team said it has successfully tested fuel cells using an aluminium-titania (ATO) anode, or negative electrode, with a lithium iron phosphate cathode, or positive electrode.

Dell and Toshiba both offer varying levels of processing power with their new Chromebooks. I'll make that part of the decision easy for you: The only models you really need to consider are the base-level models I mentioned at the start of this review -- the $429 Dell Chromebook 13, which has an Intel Celeron 3205U processor and 4GB of RAM, and the $330 Toshiba Chromebook 2, which has an Intel Celeron 3215U processor and 4GB of RAM.

(On the Toshiba, the specific model you want is the CB35-C3300. Since last year's device is also called the Chromebook 2 -- and appears almost identical in outward appearance -- it's worth double-checking to make sure you're looking at the current model and not the older version.)

Those almost-identical setups are more than capable of handling even the most demanding needs -- like my own anything-but-average style of working, which tends to include frequent switching between as many as 15 to 20 simultaneously open tabs. I've used both systems from morning to night in that manner and things have been consistently smooth and snappy, without a single slowdown or sign of lag on either device. Both laptops are fairly quiet during use, too, and neither gets especially hot.

(Technically, Toshiba's processor is a slight step ahead of Dell's, as it has a higher operating frequency, but don't read too much into those sorts of spec-sheet details. In terms of real-word performance, the laptops are essentially the same -- even with a direct side-by-side comparison.)

For the vast majority of people, upgrading to a model with a more powerful chip or additional RAM isn't going to make enough of a noticeable difference to be worth the extra cost. If you want to spend more money -- especially in the range of $600 to $900, as Dell's higher-level configurations climb -- you'd be better off bumping up to the high-end Pixel and gaining the top-of-the-line hardware, design and display it provides (all of which will be far more meaningful than the added processing power alone in day-to-day use).

In the configurations I'm reviewing, both laptops have 16GB of internal storage space along with a slot for external storage (regular, mini or micro SD on the Toshiba and -- somewhat strangely -- micro SD-only on the Dell). They both also include 100GB of Google Drive cloud storage for two years, which would cost about $48 if you paid for it outright.

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November 15, 2015

ASUS G71Gx Battery

Scanning on the move is also now possible with a number of battery operated units available including the Doxie that have built-in memory and Wi-Fi allowing connection to any device. VuPoint Solutions also have a range of 'wand' scanners if you want a unit that is ultraportable.Charging a battery pack is a road warrior's first instinct, but what if you could generate your own power and really go off-grid? Renewable power in our context means solar.

Today there are a number of products that can offer a level of power security if you will be away from mains power for lengthy periods of time. Or if you want to do your bit to protect the environment, solar charging is the way to go.There are also a number of solar charging cases for your phone. Good examples include Juse, WakaWaka, and XD Design has a number of models to choose from including a compact unit that sticks to a window.

Folding solar panels have also been available for some years. SunJack is a good example, as is Powermonkey from Powertraveller. But if you want to get serious about generating your own power, the Expedition from Powertraveller is the ultimate in self-generating power sources, but it'll cost you about £450 (around $700, or AU$880).

Tylt Energi
With a built-in battery pack, this backpack from Tylt is ideal if you need to carry a load of power-hungry gadgets
When you need to carry a load of stuff and keep it all charged, the TyIt Energi backpack is ideal. Voltaic Systems have also been supplying backpacks with built-in solar panels for years.

In addition to the usual suspects, there are also a number of more exotic ways to generate power when on the move – the hydrogen fuel cell has been promised as a power source pretty much since the arrival of portable devices. But today this promise has been largely realised. The myFC is an ultraportable fuel cell that is designed to be as convenient as your smartphone. The MiniPak is also a handy unit. All you do to generate power is insert a Hydrostik hydrogen cartridge into the main unit to charge using USB.
There are two types of people in this world. The type that finds cloud computing good enough, and the kind that needs a whole lot more storage, connectivity, and power than the cloud can offer. The first type doesn’t need to bother much with docking stations. The second type rarely finds their laptop to be sufficient, and requires something extra.
Docking stations are designed to turn laptops into more viable desktop replacements – especially today’s smaller laptops that suffer from a dearth of storage space and ports. But these Ironman suits for your ultrabooks come in many varieties and styles: We’re here to help you find the best.

A replicator is not an unstoppable nanobot, but rather a port expander used for ultrabooks and more limited laptops. Essentially, a replicator copies the more popular ports from a desktop and grants them to laptops, too. This lets you always have a port for your mouse, keyboard, external hard drive, etc.
However, that’s all it does. There’s no boost to specs or other features, and connectivity options are limited. You may also run into performance constraints — for example, plugging a bunch of external hard drives in at once may lower the bandwidth available to each, since they’ll likely be sharing a connection to a single port. They may be cheaper, but they don’t have much functionality, especially in the days of Bluetooth.

Desk docking station
A full docking station is more likely to include battery charging, extra storage, and more port options (particularly when it comes to video options like HDMI or Ethernet connections). They are also more likely to have a literal dock where you insert your laptop. Think of it like a replicator, but with a lot more features that you would actually use.

Portable station
A portable station is a slimmed-down docking station design to be portable instead of just sitting at your desk. These are primarily designed for the more serious class of business traveler who really needs extra computing power and versatility at their destination. A portable station probably isn’t necessary unless you find yourself spending a long time working on projects away from your own desktop – but regular stations are becoming slimmer and more travel-friendly, so there’s some overlap here.

Display stand
A display stand provides the same features as a replicator or a docking station, but with extra physical support features. The stand typically includes an elevated platform for your laptop and perhaps a shelf for your keyboard as well. The goal is to make your station feel like a desktop while you are working on it. Some users will find this to be more ergonomic.
The market is filled with docking stations you can buy – some new, some old, some pricey, some discounted. What should you look for? Here are a few features that may make your search easier if you want the very support and options.

This Plugable model comes with support for Windows 10 and any other Windows system you may be using, a boon for professionals. It also has 6 USB connections, including both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. An HDMI port is present with support for resolutions up to 2560 x 1440. It’s also on the small side, with a vertical design that means it cannot act as a cradle for your laptop, but it can function as a travel-sized dock if necessary. This is a good choice if you care about connectivity but don’t need a dock that acts as a stand.
These recommendations are by necessity laptop-agnostic. They’ll work with almost anything. But a lot of companies offer first-party docks built for specific laptops. These often fit better with the laptop’s style and design, and offer a wider variety of extra features. On the downside, they tend to be more expensive — expect to pay between $100 and $300. Lenovo, HP, and Microsoft are well known for building docks that compliment their devices.

Researchers at MIT and China’s technology-focused Tsinghua University have developed aluminium-based nanoparticles that could triple the capacity of lithium-ion batteries – the most common type of rechargeable battery, and one commonly used in consumer electronics such as laptop computers.

We've got one more significant point of differentiation to cover and that's stamina: The Toshiba Chromebook 2 does admirably well, with a quoted 8.5 hours of battery life per charge and real-world results generally ranging between 6.5 to 7 hours for me. The Dell Chromebook 13, meanwhile, is outstanding: It's listed for a whopping 12 hours of use per charge, and I've been clocking in somewhere between 10 and 12 hours total on most days.

Remember, too, that my usage tends to be unusually resource-intensive and heavy on multitasking, so if you're more prone to keeping just one or two tabs open at a time -- the way most people use a Chromebook -- you'll probably be able to stretch things out even longer. Even with demanding use, though, both systems provide respectable battery life, with the Dell taking the clear lead in terms of true all-day computing.

I should also mention that each laptop uses its own proprietary charger, which may be a bummer to anyone hoping to move toward the up-and-coming universal USB Type-C standard. Thus far, the 2015 Pixel is the only Chromebook to feature such a connection.

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ASUS K75VJ Battery

Two of this fall's new Chromebooks, however, definitely stand out from the pack. One is Toshiba's 2015 Chromebook 2, an updated version of the device that's been my go-to Chromebook recommendation for the past year. The other is Dell's Chromebook 13, a new laptop that brings a touch of luxury to the midrange Chromebook realm.

The systems have a lot in common, but they also have some important differences. First is their price: Toshiba's Chromebook starts at $330, while Dell's starts at $429. (Dell has been promoting a lower-level $399 version of its device, which, as of this writing, was due to ship at the end of November.)

So between the $330 and the $429 Chromebooks, what does that extra hundred bucks get you -- and is it worth your while? After spending the past several weeks using both the Toshiba Chromebook 2 and the Dell Chromebook 13, the answer is quite clear.

Toshiba's new Chromebook 2 looks and feels almost identical to its predecessor, with a plastic body and a textured plastic lid. The build quality is slightly better than most systems in its price range, but it's nothing to write home about. The same can be said for the device's design, which is okay but unexceptional.

Dell's Chromebook 13 is a different story. The laptop has a carbon-fiber cover and an aluminum-magnesium body that work together to make the system stylish and approachable, as well as exceptionally sturdy. It's by no means at the level of build quality or design of a high-end system like Google's $1,000 Chromebook Pixel, but it's a really nice laptop -- and a meaningful step above every other system in the sub-$500 class.

Dell's laptop is the larger of the two devices, at 12.9 x 9.0 x 0.72 in. compared to the Toshiba's 12.6 x 8.4 x 0.76 in. frame. It's also heavier, at 3.23 lbs. vs. Toshiba's 2.97 lbs. In real-world terms, those differences are pretty subtle: The Dell device does feel a bit bulkier -- as you'd expect, given its materials -- but neither system is especially svelte.

While these devices may not win any awards for thinness, they fall into a good middle-ground size when it comes to most typical use. They're big enough to give you ample room to work, which isn't always the case with the more common 11-in. Chromebook models -- but at the same time, they're small enough to remain easily portable and fit effortlessly into a bag, which is something you sacrifice once you start getting into larger desktop-replacement-style devices.

Both Chromebooks are also comfortable to use on your lap or on a table. In either position, everything about the Dell's construction feels noticeably more premium than the Toshiba's -- from the strength and stability of its large hinge, which opens with ease and keeps the screen completely still during use, to the base area around its keyboard, which has a surprisingly soft texture that feels smooth and pleasant under your hands.

The Toshiba Chromebook is certainly fine in those regards -- just more "okay for the cost" as opposed to "spectacular." Its screen can get a little shaky as a result of its two-piece hinge, and the plastic surface of its base is serviceable but nothing special.

Once you get past the surface, things start to look much more similar between the Dell and Toshiba Chromebooks. Both laptops have excellent 13.3-in. 1080p IPS displays, for instance -- a distinction that goes a long way in setting them apart from most affordable Chrome OS systems. The screens are crisp, clear and richly colored. Once your eyes get used to their level of quality, you won't be able to tolerate the dull and grainy TN-based displays on the majority of inexpensive laptops.

The displays on the Dell and Toshiba Chromebooks are really quite comparable, with one noteworthy exception: The Dell's screen has a matte finish, while the Toshiba's display is glossy and reflective. I wouldn't call either approach inherently better; image quality and viewing angles on the two are similarly superb, and there's little to complain about with either panel. It's mainly just a matter of personal preference (if you even have a strong leaning either way; most people probably won't give it an ounce of thought).

Both systems have a fair amount of plastic bezel surrounding their displays, with an HD Webcam in the center of the top portion. The devices' keyboards are in the same general league, too: plasticky but satisfying to type on and backlit for optimal evening use. The backlighting on the Dell looks a bit better, but either setup will get the job done (and you can actually adjust the lighting level on either device by holding the Alt key and pressing the brightness up or down key in the function row). The Toshiba keyboard has slightly larger keys with a softer-feeling finish, but like the quality of the backlighting, it really isn't a make-or-break factor.

Far more significant is the difference in the devices' trackpads. The Dell Chromebook's is made of glass and feels just incredible under your fingers. You may never have considered a trackpad to be a highlight of a laptop, but after using this Chromebook, you will. The Toshiba device's is ordinary in comparison -- made of plastic and about on par with what you see on most lower-end Chromebooks. It's accurate and easy to use but in a very different class from Dell's.

Last but not least, the Dell and Toshiba Chromebooks share the same set of ports and connectors: one USB 2.0 port, one USB 3.0 port, a dedicated HDMI-out port, a headphone jack and a security lock slot.

If you're looking for the best all-around Chromebook you can buy short of $1,000 right now, Dell's Chromebook 13 is, without a doubt, it. The laptop redefines what a midrange Chromebook can be, with a combination of solid performance, a high-quality display and elevated build quality. If you have $429 to spend, it's the one you want to get.

Toshiba's Chromebook 2 offers the same level of performance and the same caliber of display in a less premium package. You're getting a device that's just as capable -- only not as nice to use (and with less outstanding, though still generally quite sufficient, stamina). By accepting that tradeoff, you're keeping an extra $100 in your wallet.

All considered, I'd say this: The Toshiba Chromebook is certainly good enough for most casual computing purposes, and if cost is a concern, I wouldn't hesitate to get it. If you can justify the extra $100, though, the Dell Chromebook will give you a meaningfully better overall experience. Things like premium materials and a top-of-the-line trackpad make a laptop significantly more pleasant to use -- and given the choice, that's undoubtedly what you want.

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