Dell Latitude D630 Notebook Review

The Latitude D630 is Dell’s latest update to the D620, a light-weight business class machine. It's powered by a Santa Rosa spec Intel Core 2 Duo T7300, which has a clock speed of 2.0GHz with 4MB L2 Cache and a 800MHz Front Side Bus. This is complemented by 2GB 667MHz DRR2 RAM, an 80GB 7200rpm SATA hard drive, a DVD Re-writer and integrated X3100 graphics. This is all very good, and with this spec the D630 will make mincemeat of the usual office activities, providing plenty of scope for multiple applications and more demanding work too. If one were being picky one might want a larger hard drive, but for its usage 80GB should be enough and as ever one could just as easily specify a larger hard drive at point of purchase.

However, there's a great deal more to the D630, especially in regards to connectivity. Gigabit Ethernet and 3945ABG Wi-Fi is more or less standard; the lack of Draft N wireless is a disappointment but given the corporate target market is hardly a great concern. Moreover, it seems that this is the result of lack of availability of Draft N wireless modules than any oversight on Dell’s part

Lenovo ThinkPad R60 Preview

ThinkPad® R Series are affordable and lightweight notebooks with great performance, outstanding battery life and large, bright displays. Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology delivers new levels of mobile performance, reliability, and manageability (select models). The R60 comes in 14 or 15” screen sizes. It is designed to be a more wallet friendly business class notebook, but if you get all the options it can get quite expensive. The R60 lacks the rock star status of the T series ThinkPads even though they share a lot of parts.

Good news to Laptop-crazed peeps out there! Another latest laptop features are out in the market and this entry is purely dedicated to the latest Lenovo's ThinkPad R60 model, which is by the way, an almost identical version of Lenovo's ThinkPad R52 model of 2005 it is an update to the ThinkPad R52. The R60 can be thought of as a budget version of the ThinkPad T60. Many options on the T60 are available on the R60 and sizes are very similar. However, the T60 is thinner and has a more durable casing.

Those differences aside, if your cost sensitive and don't crave the thinner more solid case of the T60 then the still very respectable (and cheaper) R60 might be for you. The R60 does not use the same case construction as the T60 and it is not as wonderfully thin and light. The lid of the R60 is constructed of plastic while the T60 is made of a mag-alloy -- a sturdier more rugged material. The R60 is for the most part plastic casing, not cheap plastic by any means, it's a rugged enough notebook by its own right, but not as rigid and sturdy as the T60.

HP Compaq Presario V3000z Part I

The launch of this laptop also coincided with HP's new marketing initiative of "Making the computer personal again" and with its new design philosophy, HP aims to transform the computer from being just an electronic utility item to more of a personal tool. The HP Compaq Presario V3000 inaugurates a new look and feel for HP’s Presario line of laptops. Departing from the familiar silvery design of previous Presario models, the V3000 is dark gray (and subtly pinstriped), with a high-gloss finish that HP says is particularly scratch resistant. Looks aside, however, the Presario V3000 sticks to the same basic script as previous Presario models (including the V2000 that it will replace): you get a strong set of components and most of the features that a basic home user will want for a competitive price (it starts at $950).

The V3000z is available in custom build to order and also pre-configured versions should be available in retail stores soon. Since I ordered mine custom built from HP, the specifications will vary.

Toshiba Portege M400  Notebook Preview Part I

When the Tablet PC platform was launched back in the Fall of 2002, Toshiba was the only one to offer a notebook convertible with a 12.1-inch display. Acer had gotten all the big attention with its little C100, the device that pioneered the notebook convertible design for Microsoft's current Tablet PC platform (there had been pen-enabled notebook convertibles much earlier, going back to 1993), but the buying public apparently wanted a larger display and flocked to the Toshiba instead. But Toshiba had another (display) ace up its sleeves, and so the Portege 3500 was first complemented and then replaced by the Portege M200. At first sight the new machine was little more than a technologically updated replacement for the milestone 3500 model, but that notion quickly disappeared as soon as one started up the new machine and saw its terrific 1400 x 1050 pixel display. That's almost twice the number of pixels and makes a huge difference for applications that require high resolution or concurrent use of multiple windows on the screen. The M200 also used the newer and much faster Intel M processors and incorporated a number of other improvements.

Unfortunately, by that time Fujitsu, Gateway, Acer, and Averatec began introducing fairly compact Tablet PC convertibles with internal optical drives. In this day and age, a CD or DVD drive is almost mandatory for many applications, and not having one hurt Toshiba which only offered an external drive.

Dell Latitude D620 Review

The Latitude D620 redefines the mainstream corporate notebook with an innovative new wide-screen design, excellent reliability, smart security & extended wireless options. The D620 facilitates increased productivity across the enterprise with the latest technologies available in a reliable but secure platform.

From a design standpoint, the Latitude D620 is a smaller version of the D820. While the D820's display measures 15.4 inches, the D620 has a clear, sufficiently bright 14.1-inch wide-aspect screen with an average 1,280x800 native resolution. The D620's keyboard is wide enough, but its keys are a bit noisy compared to the D820's. Both laptops feature three handy volume buttons, plus a touch pad and a pointing stick with a corresponding set of mouse buttons--though the D820's stick has a flat top that's easier to manipulate than the D620's rounded eraser head. On the D620, the touch pad's standard mouse buttons are of adequate size, but if you add biometric security to your system....