Unfortunately, while computers are indeed great, they can also be the most frustrating thing on earth, when the computer become very slow or when it developed one problem or the other. We all know what its takes, you know what you want to do with your computer, but will it play ball? There is lots of place you can go to get computer help online. You can get lots of helps, tips and guides to help you resolve your computer problems and make it to run as if you just bought the system.

One of the major problem PC use to have is when it is very slow, angling and lots of other problems, but you can get lots of help online to speed up your slow PC or fixed other problem without spending any unbudgeted money on the computer. You can get lots of PC tips, help, guide online and also suggestions on how to maintenance your PC on a regular basis.

Many broadband providers are catering to those who have been hit hard by the recession, offering free service and electronics to customers with exclusive package deals.

Need a new laptop, but don’t have £700 to shell out? Well, you may be in luck. As unbelievable as it seems, there are many broadband providers who work together with electronics suppliers to offer free laptops to customers. For example, PC World is currently offering a wide variety of laptops that are free with mobile broadband packages with up to 15GB of usage from Vodaphone. These deals range from £30 to £40 per month, so all you’re really paying for is a broadband connection.

But, suppose you have a laptop already and are just looking for a free broadband connection – there’s a solution for that situation, as well. Many public locations like coffee shops and libraries offer free wireless broadband to customers on their premises.

For home bodies, however, there is another option. Many broadband providers offer their customers package deals, which charge one low monthly price for broadband, television and phone service. With packages like these, you can reduce your utility costs by over $25 per month, the average monthly price of broadband service, thereby essentially providing you with free broadband!

The Panasonic Toughbook F8, which possesses a 14.1-inch display, weighs just 3.7 pounds, has an internal optical drive, has a handle for easy carrying and is 3G-ready. Other specs include an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 4GB of RAM and a 160GB shock-mounted hard drive. It’s seriously portable and offers serious flexibility for those that are a little rougher on their computers than most.

The rest of the 8-Series received an update as well, with the W8 and T8 models getting embedded Gobi 3G technology, making for the ultimate in connectivity with mobile broadband (WWAN) from Qualcomm. The 8-Series Panasonic Toughbook notebooks will be available starting in November. The W8 and T8 are expected to cost $2,900 and the F8 is slightly pricier at $2,499.

“The growing trend of portability in computers–lighter weight, longer battery life, advanced wireless capabilities–needs to be balanced by true durability,” said Daniel Longfield, industry analyst, mobile and wireless, Frost & Sullivan. “Highly mobile government, enterprise and small business users need reliable connectivity to drive continued productivity. Panasonic’s proven business-rugged notebooks enabled with Gobi address this requirement.”

Dell has recently released two brand new Vostro laptops, and another one is on the way. Both new laptops, with the imaginative names 1310 and 1510, seem to offer a lot of bang for your buck, but the 13″ Vostro 1310 is undoubtedly the most interesting model.

Vostros Dell recently announced its revamped Vostro line of cost-efficient “small-business” laptops. The Vostro 1310 and the Vostro 1510 is a pair of 13.3″ and 15.4″ laptops respectively that are thinner, lighter, and slightly less ugly compared to their predecessors. The new models are also a bit more powerful thanks to new 45nm Intel Penryn processors.

Dell has re-branded its home and small business computer lines. The previous division was for home portables to be labeled Inspiron, and home desktop computers Dimension. Now, all home line computers, desktop or portable, are branded with the Inspiron label.
Dell created its Vostro line to address the needs of small business users and has succeeded at that by simplifying the purchasing and setup process. A Vostro laptop is basically an Inspiron minus the bright colors, the “bloatware,” and the enterprise-level jargon. The 1310 adds design sense and portability—it’s a lightweight 13-inch laptop that comes with a wealth of configuration options and appeals to regular Joes as much as to the newest dot-com start-up.

If price, performance and portability are equally important, the Vostro 1310 could definitely be worth considering.
DELL VOSTRO 1310
- Ultra-portable at just 4.6lbs
- Up to Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processors
- Up to 4GB memory

The Dell Vostro 1310 is available with a range of Intel processors (from the 1.86GHz Celeron M M540 up to the T9500 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo). There are two 13.3″ screen offerings, a 1280×800 WXGA with matte anti-glare coating and 1280×800 WXGA “TrueLife” glossy display. The notebook can take up to 4GB of RAM and Dell offers 32-bit versions of Microsoft Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Professional. The system is priced starting at $749 with integrated Intel X3100 graphics at the time of this writing, but is also available with nVidia 8400M GS dedicated graphics.

Starting on Tuesday, Dec. 11, gamers will be able to purchase a premium edition of the Dell XPS M1730 that is emblazoned with custom World of Warcraft artwork and includes a variety of extras.

Customers who buy this special-edition laptop will receive a special “Quest Envelope” that contains access to items such as a “Golden Ticket” from FigurePrints, a company that creates custom figurines of players’ individual World of Warcraft players.

Other unique features include original art by Blizzard artists on the back of the LCD display, World of Warcraft itself and The Burning Crusade expansion pack pre-loaded on the system, original desktop background artwork and screensavers and a World of Warcraft-themed backpack that includes a strategy guide and other expansion packs.

The XPS M1730 is one of Dell’s premier gaming notebooks. It’s a 17-inch HD system with dual Nvidia SLI graphics (that is, 2 graphics cards running in tandem) and a special AEGEIA PhsyX accelerator chip. The WoW-themed edition will retail for $4,500, about an $1,800 premium over the base M1730.
Source: infosyncworld.com

Neither Asus nor the exclusive retailer, Myer, will say how many units were sold, but an Asus spokeswoman said more stock would be shipped to Myer at the end of this week.

The Eee PC, Australia’s cheapest laptop, went on sale in Myer stores nationwide on Sunday and by close of business on Monday all the capital city stores were sold out. The Asus spokeswoman said other metro stores might have a small amount of stock left.

“The number of units has not yet been determined for the next shipment to Australia as there is a high demand for the product worldwide,” she said.

“Asus in Australia is trying to get as much allocation as possible from its headquarters.”

Neil Merola, Myer’s national business manager for electrical products, said the retail chain had sold “thousands” of Eee PCs, but he would not be more specific than that.

“We’ve had customers coming in buying two or three units for the family – the mix of customer has been probably novices more than the tech types,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of schools coming in making multiple purchases.”

In the US, Asus said it sold out of 10,000 units within two weeks and planned to sell 350,000 by the end of the year.

Originally pitched as a basic, low-cost machine for children, the Eee PC appears to have generated mainstream appeal.

Typically, ultra-portable laptops offering similar dimensions to the Eee PC – 225 x 165 x 35mm and a weight of 920 grams – have sold for far more, but tend to also be significantly more powerful.

Pre-installed on the laptop is the geek operating system darling, Linux, but it is compatible with Windows as well.

With 4GB of storage space, wireless and wired home networking support, a built-in webcam and integrated microphone, the Eee PC has found a new niche as a viable secondary computer.

Merola said the Eee PC’s combination of a low price and basic system specifications could spark an entirely new computer category.

“What we’ve also found in the first five days is it hasn’t impacted at all on our Apple or Toshiba or Hewlett-Packard sales, [which are] at far higher price points.”

Herald technology reviewer David Flynn found the Eee PC was powerful enough to perform most day-to-day tasks such as web browsing, email, playing music and videos, online chat and word processing, but its small size and seven-inch screen took some getting used to.

Even technology enthusiasts, who would typically shy away from such a low-powered computer, have jumped on the Eee PC bandwagon. A community site, eeeuser.com, has been created and users are already trading tips on how to tweak the laptop for optimal performance.

“Certainly with the Labor Government and the means-tested rebate for PCs, we’re seeing that the whole category is going to further ignite as that rolls out,” Merola said.
Source: smh.com.au

The story of the breed of laptops known as sub-notebooks is a tale of divergent evolution. If you sent David Attenborough poking around the branches of the laptop’s family tree, he’d tell of how portable PCs split from their desktop cousins at the dawn of the 1980s and over the years grew smaller and lighter – but only to a point.

Having developed into the essentially modern form of the laptop in the early 1990s, they started adapting to fill an array of clearly defined niche needs. Some laptops remained true to their name and became the super-sized 43cm slabs favoured by gamers and multimedia professionals. Others shed bulk and features to become lightweight ultra-portables with a 30cm screen, from which descended the latest mutation of “ultra-mobiles” with screens no larger than 20cm across.

Sub-notebooks slid into the space between those oh-so-small ultra-portables and the massive middle ground occupied by the conventional notebook with its 39cm widescreen display. And while the earliest models cut their size by cutting corners, such as leaving out the CD drive and using low-performance processors, these days there’s nothing sub-par about a sub-notebook.

The CD drives are not just present – they are CD\DVD burners built around slimmer drive mechanisms. The processors can go toe-to-toe with the chips inside many desktops. And, of course, they’ve got wireless networking, fingerprint scanners for security, digital memory card readers, webcams and superbright widescreen displays that typically measure 30-35cm diagonally.

It’s just that sub-notebooks take advantage of all the latest technologies to make themselves smaller, lighter and in some ways more personal than their bigger siblings. They’re a notebook you can slip into almost any bag or backpack, take almost anywhere and do almost anything on, whether it’s a university paper or a business PowerPoint pitch.

That’s why the PC industry these days tags them with the more aptly descriptive “thin and light” moniker. But by any other name, they’ve become the sweet spot with notebook buyers.

That said, sub-notebooks are more expensive than the mainstream models – a side-effect of the afore-mentioned “latest technologies”, which let them cram so much goodness into a slightly smaller package. And not everyone feels comfortable looking at their smaller screens or working away on their more compact keyboards. Put a 33cm and 39cm notebook side by side and you’ll be astounded at how much difference there is. But get the junior model on its own, tote it around and you’ll find it’s easy to love and live with, especially if you’re a frequent traveller.

As always, battery life depends on how you use the notebook, but for just tapping away with MP3s playing and a bit of wireless internet thrown in for good measure, allow three to four hours. If that’s not enough, look for a model with an optional higher-capacity battery (sometimes called a travel battery) which can almost double the life between recharges.

For this comparison, we rounded up four of the latest “thin and light” notebooks. Their typical weight range is 2 to 3kg, with screens from 30cm to 33cm, measured diagonally. Each is built around Intel’s current generation of Core 2 Duo processor – in fact, they use the full Centrino Duo technology, which includes wireless networking and extended battery life. The Acer notebook ships with XP, while the rest run Vista. All models come with 2GB of memory, which is what you need to give XP a full head of steam and get Vista off the starting blocks. All bar the Acer had quick-play software that lets you listen to music or watch a movie without booting into Windows, which saves time and battery power.

HP Pavilion dv2600
$1899

http://www.hp.com.au

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

If a 33cm notebook cramps your style, try the 35.8cm screen and generous keyboard of the Pavilion dv2600. With heady champagne colouring and a scratch-resistant casing, this special Verve edition boasts the elegant design that’s become a HP hallmark. The Verve’s top-mounted Altec Lansing speakers give the best sound of the pack: clean, crisp tones. Ditto the widescreen screen, with a helping hand from Nvidia GeForce graphics.

Toshiba Satellite U300
$2199

http://www.toshiba.com.au

Rating 4 out of 5

Toshiba created what is arguably the world’s first true laptop PC, so it’s fitting that its 2kg 33.7cm widescreen U300 sits high on the evolutionary ladder. Toshiba does itself a favour by licensing Dolby’s Sound Room technology to provide surround-sound enhancements. A shame, then, that it’s the only one here without a front-mounted headphone socket.

Dell XPS M1330
$1899

http://www.dell.com.au

4.5/5

This slim, stylish sub-note punches well above its weight in performance, features and overall value. The sharp design is a welcome change, while the solid build is impressive for a 1.8kg 33.7cm model. Upsides: a sharp 2-megapixel webcam, meaty 2GHz processor and Nvidia GeForce graphics. Downsides: only two USB ports (the rest have three) and the touchpad is a bit small.

Acer TravelMate 6292
$2299

http://www.acer.com.au

3.5/5

Acer’s only sub-note comes from its business line rather than its consumer series and it shows. Forget splashy colours and it weighs as much as HP’s 39cm Pavilion model. Inside is the fastest processor in the pack – a full-throttle 2.2GHz chip – and an outrageous 500GB of storage, due to the pair of 250GB hard drives, while the rest in this bunch settled for 160GB. The TravelMate ticks just about every box.

Verdict

This one’s a coin toss between Dell and HP. Heads, you get HP’s slightly larger and lush-looking (but, at 2.5kg, a deal heavier) Pavillion Verve, which is perfect for entertainment on the move. Tails, it’s the XPS M1330 for what’s easily the fastest yet slimmest sub-note we’ve ever seen. Given that both “slim and light” notebooks sell for $1899, you can’t lose either way.

Source: smh.com.au

I’ll have to say upon first look the Xpad doesn’t look like much, but it does allow for better airflow to your notebook. I have never used a USB cooling pad with fans, so I can’t say that this one is better, but I can give you the facts on how the Xpad performs. The Xpad is quoted as being able to keep your laptop up to 30 degrees cooler, I would say it’s more like 15 degrees, but this can depend on the laptop you have.

Of all the electronics in the market, most have an issue with batteries, whether it is the printers we are talking about, or the digital camera. Running a dvd rental heats them up and we are in serious need of a cooling device.

Features

The Xpad has three layers of thermal insulation, with insulative air pockets inside, which protect you from the heat. Its ABS composite structure creates a strong lightweight platform that has no flex. It only weighs about one pound, so it is easy to take with you on trips. It is kind of tricky to get it into your bag though, since it doesn’t fold up like some of the other cooling pads that have fans.

One thing I liked about the Xpad was the soft bottom layer, which also serves as the third layer of heat insulation. It adds a little cushion to your lap when holding your notebook and it keeps the notebook in place. Having a size of 13″x 10.5″ x 0.66″ (WxHxD), the Xpad is made to fit laptops with up to 17 inch screens, so you don’t have to worry about your notebook being too big.

As I mentioned before the Xpad doesn’t use any fans to cool your laptop. Laptops have been engineered so they can cool themselves, although some do this better than others. A laptops cooling system is designed to inhale cool air and exhale hot air through ventilation holes using its own cooling fans. The Xpad provides extra breathing room for your laptop with the ‘X’ pattern ventilation channel, so it doesn’t restrict the natural airflow of your laptop. Therefore the Xpad doesn’t interfere with your laptops cooling system.

The rubber feet on the bottom of your laptop sit on top of the ‘X’ pattern rubber pads on the Xpad. The rubber feet provide clearance between the bottom of the laptop and the ‘X’ pattern rubber pads, so nothing is blocked on the bottom of your computer, which helps keep it cooler.

The laptops rubber feet and ‘X’ pattern rubber pads create a high friction rubber-on-rubber contact to provide a non-slip interface. It actually works quite well, in fact my R1 barely moved while on the Xpad. You just have to be careful if you hold your laptop on your lap because it does slide around then, but on a desk it is sturdy as can be.

Conclusion

The Xpad has no battery draining fans or extra power cords to deal with, which is nice especially when traveling. Overall the Xpad does serve its purpose of keeping your laptop cooler, but it is a little expensive at $24.95. If you buy it in bulk orders though there is a discount. I really don’t know why anyone would buy these in bulk, unless it were a business. However one neat thing is that the Xpad’s EVA padded bottom is customizable, so if you did order in bulk you could have your company’s logo printed on the bottom.

Pros

* The Xpad is lightweight.
* The ‘X’ pattern surface holds your laptop in place and allows for better airflow than standard.
* The Xpad is sturdy and holds laptops up to 17″screen size.

Cons

* The Xpad is expensive.
* The Xpad doesn’t fold up, so it doesn’t fit in all notebook bags.
* The Xpad isn’t available in any other sizes or colors.

The Xpad is available now for $24.95, but if you buy them in bulk there is a discount, which saves you about half depending on how many you order.
Source: notebookreview.com

This Dell XPS M1730 has the following configuration:

* System: Dell XPS M1730 (Smoke Color)
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900 (2.8 GHz)
* Memory: 2GB @ 667MHz – 2 DIMM Slots (2 x 1GB) (Max Ram 4GB)
* Hard Drive: 2×200GB 7200 RPM running RAID 0
* Graphics Card: Dual NVIDIA GeForce Go 8700M GT with 512MB total memory
* Physics Card: AGEIA PhysX 100M
* Screen: 17″ WUXGA Truelife (1920 x 1200)
* Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW/+R) with Dual-Layer
* OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
* Wireless Card: Intel 4965 (802.11b/g/n)
* Battery: 9-cell lithium ion recharegable battery
* Ports / Slots: 5-in-1 Memory Card Reader, DVI-D, S-Video, IEEE 1394 (Firewire), 4 USB 2.0, Express Card slot, Modem, Ethernet/LAN, Microphone in, 2 Headphone out
* Price of this configuration: $4,499 (base model starts at $2,999)
It is usually the verizon cell phones that introduce the first look of any mobile. With samsung phones as well as motorola phones, it was verizon. The cingular cell phones sell more though, even more than t-mobile phones in spite of heavy advertising.

Build and Design

From the moment you slide the notebook out of the box, you realize just how massive this notebook is. Clocking in at over 10lbs for the notebook alone (add on almost 3lbs for the ac adapter), you realize this is more of a portable desktop in terms of weight and gaming power. The body is extremely well built, on par with many rugged business notebooks, in some cases could probably destroy the business notebook in a fight.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/27912.jpg

The display cover is a mix between a glossy painted plastic finish, and a semi-transparent plastic shell that LED’s illuminate to show off the Dell “XPS” logo. The materials used are fairly scratch resistant, and should hold up well with minimal scuffs over time. For a gaming rig the design is pretty tame, and not too flashy, but with the lights going full blaze it will stand out in a classroom. The color for our review model was the “Smoke Grey” design, but Bone White, Crimson Red, and Sapphire Blue are also available.

Screen

The Dell WUXGA screen included on the M1730 is gorgeous. Colors are rich and vibrant, and the backlight is fairly powerful. Black levels are very deep, and backlight bleed is minimal. Unless you are extremely picky you would consider the screen to be perfect. Viewing angles while not perfect are much better than average, meaning colors stay fairly accurate at steeper vertical viewing angles.
Another screen exclusive to the M1730 is the inclusion of a LCD gaming screen, similar to those found on many gaming keyboards. This provides information such as processor and ram usage, media controls, stop watch, timers, and other capabilities.

Speakers

The speakers on the XPS M1730 are exceptional, and what you would expect from a gaming rig. Volume levels are more than adequate for intense gaming, and frequencies from all but the lower range come through clearly. Although no subwoofer was present on this model, bass reproduction seemed to be within the same range as models equipped with them.

Gaming and Performance

So what exactly did you buy a 10lb notebook for anyways? I am betting it was for the insane performance that can usually only be seen with much larger desktop gaming setups. Since this is a first look we won’t go too in depth on its performance, but will give you a few hints.

wPrime is a program that forces the processor to do recursive mathematical calculations, the advantage of this program is that it is multi-threaded and can use both processor cores at once, thereby giving more accurate benchmarking measurements than Super Pi.

Heat and Noise

For a gaming notebook the XPS M1730 is incredibly tame in terms of heat and noise output. Fan noise is less than my Lenovo T60, although the M1730 is pushing more air. Heat output is higher from its vents, but it is also twice the size and 8x as powerful. Keyboard and palmrest temperatures were very low, barely above room temperature even after the notebook had been on for a while. For a notebook that you might spend hours in front of, this was pleasantly surprising.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The XPS M1730 sports a full-size keyboard with 10-key number pad. Key spacing is just about perfect, and key action is excellent. Support beneath the keyboard is good, although some flex can be felt when you press firmly onto the sides of the keyboard.

The touchpad on the XPS M1730 is very nice, with quick and accurate finger tracking. Dell touchpads I have found to be finicky in the past with lag, and this had none of it. Another element to this touchpad is the white XPS logo is illuminated from behind, allowing you to set it to a rainbow of colors.

A full array of media controls are also present on this notebook, located on the front edge of the notebook. They were far enough out of the way that you wouldn’t accidentally hit them by accident, but they were also close enough to easily access.

The power adapter is equally as amusing for a portable device, being as large as some ultra portable notebooks themselves. This of course is needed to feed the power demands that a notebook with dual video cards, dual hard drives, and a super fast processor require.
Not unlike many of the standard consumer Dell notebooks, you still get a ton of added junk fresh out of the box. From antivirus software to various toolbars, you can figure at least 15 to 20 minutes just uninstalling it all to get a clean gaming platform. With all the unneeded bloatware removed, the included Vista Home Premium operating system really speeds up. My only surprise was our review system had Home Premium, and not Ultimate.
Source: notebookreview.com