The Holiday Guide to

Laptop
Computers

an Personal Technology eBook

contents
[ ]
Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers

This content was adapted from Internet.com's Hardware Central, and SmallBusinessComputing Web sites.
Contributors: Eric Grevstad and Jamie Bsales.

3 Acer Aspire One:

No. 1 in Value
Eric Grevstad

6 Lenovo IdeaPad U110:

An Attractive Idea
3 Eric Grevstad

8 Lenovo ThinkPad X200:

A Three-Pound Hatchling
Ready to Fly
Jamie Bsales

6 8 10 Gateway M-1626:
64 But Not Hardcore
Eric Grevstad

14 Lenovo ThinkPad X300:

You Know You Want It
Eric Grevstad

10 14 17 HP 2133 Mini-Note:
Eee-clipse?
Eric Grevstad

20 HP EliteBook 6930p:
Keep Your Data and
Hardware Secure
17 20 Jamie Bsales

Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.

1
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers ]

The
Holiday Guide
to Laptop
Computers

Internet.com's editors review dozens of gadgets from

M
aybe you've got a laptop user on your holiday
shopping list, or maybe you want to take desktop computers to mobile accessories throughout
advantage of holiday deals to update your the year. Here's a look at some of the laptops they
existing system. Either way, we created this guide for tested in 2008. Use them to educate yourself before
Internet.com members researching mobile computers you start buying. Good luck and happy holidays!
that keep them in touch wherever they go.

“
…we created this guide for Internet.com members researching
mobile computers that keep them in touch wherever they go.

2 ”
Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
Acer Aspire One: No. 1 in Value
By Eric Grevstad
W
e have a winner, if not in the sales competition at
least in the nomenclature contest: The low-priced,
lightweight laptops inspired by last fall's Asus Eee
PC and since described as everything from mini-notebooks
to kneetops to Microsoft's catchy acronym ULCPCs (ultra-
low-cost PCs) are now universally called netbooks, after their
primary purpose of simple Web and e-mail access.
They're also selling like mad to students
and traveling professionals who don't
want to carry a heavy full-sized laptop
just for going online or doing some word
processing or presentation work -- and
who don't want to pay big bucks for an
upscale ultralight such as Apple's
MacBook Air or Lenovo's ThinkPad
X301. That's why Asus has been joined
by HP, Acer, MSI, and (soon) Dell
and Lenovo, all trying to find the
sweet spot of reduced-but-
not-too-reduced features
and performance ver-
sus price.
Trouble is, the plunging prices of full-
fledged notebooks are screwing with the sweet
spot. HP offers a bare-bones, Linux-based configuration
of its 2133 Mini-Note for $499, but the top-of-the-line
Windows Vista Business model is a hefty $829.
And while the original 7-inch-screened Eee flew off the
shelves at $400, Asus' current 10-inch Eee PC 1000
costs $700. That's not even mentioning the online buzz
about an Asus presentation this summer that outlined a
confusing crop of more than 20 Eee-branded PCs at
prices up to $900. Can you say "losing sight of simple
and affordable"?
That's why we're impressed with Acer's entry in the net-
3 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
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book wars, the Aspire One. True, "impressed" doesn't
mean "enraptured"; Intel's new Atom processor's per-
formance is underwhelming, and our test unit delivered
disappointingly brief battery life.
But the Acer is a handsome and classy ultraportable
with a high-quality 8.9-inch display, a remarkably usable
keyboard, and the familiar environment of Windows XP
Home Edition with an ample 120GB hard disk for
installing applications and storing data,
music, and image files.
Considering that it cost the
same $399 as the 7-inch, key-
board- and storage-cramped
Eee PC 4G we cheered last
November, we decided fairly
quickly to give it a thumbs up.
And that was before Acer low-
ered the price to $349.
Go Get Your
Own, Kid
Actually, Acer has introduced what it
calls back-to-school savings on two
Aspire One models. Our review system,
model AOA150-1570, combines Windows XP
with 1GB of memory and the abovementioned 120GB
hard disk.
For $329, the Aspire One AOA110-1722 stays closer to
the first Eee recipe with the Linpus Linux Lite operating
system, 512MB of RAM, and an 8GB solid-state drive
(SSD) instead of a hard disk. Like the Eee 4G's variation
on Xandros Linux, the Linpus platform hides the open-
source OS' complexity behind point-and-click icons in
categories such as Connect (browser, instant messen-
ger, e-mail), Fun (media player, photo manager), and
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
Work (the OpenOffice.org word processor, spread-
sheet, and so on).
Both of the above Aspires come with a three-cell bat-
tery pack that fits flush with the back of the case. Acer
has assigned the $399 price point to a new Win XP
configuration (AOA150-1447) with a 160GB hard drive
and six-cell battery.
We'd like to get our hands on the six-pack, because we
rarely got the One to run for more than two hours
unplugged -- maybe two hours and ten minutes doing
light productivity work with the Wi-Fi radio turned off,
but that proved the best-case scenario. Two hours is all
right for a luggable desktop replacement, but a toss-it-
into-your-briefcase-or-backpack netbook should last
much longer.
At least Acer's advertised lifespan for the three-cell
pack -- a maximum two and a half hours with the hard
disk, three hours with SSD -- is less exaggerated than
most notebook vendors' battery claims. So when the
company estimates six hours for the six-cell, we can
hope for an honest five.
Am I Blue?
The Aspire One measures 6.7 x 9.8 x 1.1 inches and
weighs 2.3 pounds -- an even three pounds with its AC
adapter.
It's also available in white, but we vote for the Aspire in
our test unit's deep blue, which manages to be both
one of the best-looking and best fingerprint- and
smudge-collecting shades we've seen. There's no pol-
ishing cloth in the box for buffing the netbook's lid and
palm rest, but there's a soft, snug-fitting carrying
pouch.
A tiny slider switch on the Acer's front edge turns the
802.11b/g wireless on and off. Microphone and head-
phone jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, and an
SD/MMC/xD/Memory Stick flash-card slot are on the
system's right side, with a third USB port, VGA and
Ethernet ports, and an additional SD card slot along
the left.
On the Linux model, this slot performs the nifty trick of
merging a memory card with the SSD as seamless main
storage, rather than appearing as an additional drive.
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]
Like all netbooks, the Acer's keyboard reflects some
downsizing -- the A through apostrophe keys span 7.25
inches, compared to 8 inches for a desktop keyboard
and 7.5 inches for the category-leading HP 2133.
But it's considerably more comfortable than the 6.5
inches of the original Eee PC 4G, with a sturdy, first-
class typing feel that encourages almost-full-speed
touch typing after just an hour or so of practice or con-
sciously precise fingerwork.
Considering that we could come up with only one
minor gripe about the layout -- the lack of dedicated
PgUp and PgDn keys (they're Fn-key combinations with
the Home and End keys) -- you're left with a keyboard
that ranks near the top of the netbook category.
Unfortunately, we can't say the same for the cursor-con-
trol touchpad below the space bar -- it's awfully small,
with stiff and noisy mouse buttons mounted on either
side rather than beneath the pad's perimeter.
Tinkering with the controls enables handy features such
as virtual scrolling (moving your finger either up and
down along the right edge of the pad, or in counter- or
clockwise circles next to the edge), but these reduce
the already cramped room to maneuver. Overall, the
touchpad is tolerable, but a notebook mouse would
make a good holiday gift for an Aspire One owner.
Mini-Hyper-Threading
Speaking of scrolling, the Acer's screen's 1,024 x 600
resolution will oblige you to do a bit more vertical
scrolling than you're used to, but at least spare you the
chore of having to move horizontally to see a whole
Web page as the 7-inch Eee's 800 x 680-pixel panel
did.
The 8.9-inch Aspire One display is crisp and bright, at
least with the LED backlight on the top three or four of
its ten brightness settings. Colors looked great, albeit
sensitive to nudging the screen tilt a few degrees for-
ward or back, with less of the shaving-mirror effect
we've seen with other glossy LCDs. If you do want to
look at your reflection, there's a bare-bones 640 x 480
webcam above the screen.
Under the hood, you'll find 1GB of DDR2/667 memory
and a 120GB, 5,400 rpm Hitachi SATA hard drive, as
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
well as Intel's Atom N270 -- a single-core, 1.6GHz
processor with 512K of Level 2 cache and a 533MHz
front-side bus.
The watt-saving CPU revives the Hyper-Threading
Technology that Intel touted before it had true dual-
core processors, giving at least a modest boost for mul-
tithreaded applications or multitasking -- the Acer ren-
dered Cinebench 10's sample scene in a bit over 27
minutes without Hyper-Threading, but less than 18 min-
utes with the feature enabled.
To be sure, 18 minutes for Cinebench 10 -- or 1 minute
and 15 seconds to boot XP and load the preinstalled
utilities and taskbar icons, or four seconds' wait after
right-clicking the desktop and clicking Properties to see
the Display Properties dialog box -- is not dazzling per-
formance. Overall, the Aspire One is clearly faster than
the VIA C7-based HP 2133, and perfectly adequate for
everyday applications, but occasionally feels a bit slug-
gish.
Plugged into an external monitor for the sake of our
benchmark tests' XGA resolution -- the system can
either clone its LCD display on an attached monitor or
work at higher resolution with the LCD switched off --
the Acer posted a PCMark05 score of 1,501 (CPU
1,478; memory 2,350; hard disk 3,872; graphics 549).
And we cry "Oh noooo!" like Mr. Bill whenever we dis-
cover that a PC has the old Intel 945GME chipset's
GMA 950 integrated graphics. The Acer upheld the
video platform's molasses reputation by meandering to
3DMark06 and 3DMark05 scores of 109 and 248,
respectively, and stumbling through the DirectX 9.0
game simulation AquaMark3 at 4 frames per second.
5 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
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A Real Deal
While the netbook has 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, neither
Bluetooth nor 3G wireless broadband are included.
Plugging in a USB dongle can get you the former; Acer
has mentioned an internal upgrade for the latter, but
there's no hard news as of yet. It's 3G we're thinking of
when we say we wish the Aspire One had an
ExpressCard slot like Lenovo's IdeaPad S10.
Acer's software bundle is modest. Sixty-day trial ver-
sions of Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student and
McAfee Security Center are preinstalled, as are
Microsoft Works, Yahoo Toolbar, and InterVideo
WinDVD, presumably for users who'll buy a USB exter-
nal DVD drive. The day we registered our McAfee trial,
we were amused to get an e-mail offering the full ver-
sion of the security suite for 29 percent off the list price,
followed a few hours later by an offer for 36 percent
off. We figure if we wait another day or two we'll get a
better offer.
By contrast, we doubt that netbook shoppers will see a
better offer than the Win XP Aspire One for $349
(though we're equally tempted by the six-cell model for
$399). Right now, the Acer saves you at least $100 and
in some cases over $200 compared to competitors
from HP, Asus, and MSI. It also seems likely to undercut
the latecomers from Lenovo and Dell, unless those ven-
dors come in significantly below their announced or
anticipated prices.
Along the way, it turns the "Since a netbook nowadays
costs the same or more, why not get a real notebook?"
argument upside down: If you can settle for a plug-in
optical drive and slightly subpar touchpad, why should
you spend more than $400 or carry more than three
pounds? This may be the year's best PC value. I
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
Lenovo IdeaPad U110: An Attractive Idea
By Eric Grevstad
D
o you change clothes when you come home from
work? You probably trade your conservative duds for
something more colorful and comfortable (unless
you're Superman, who dresses more colorfully when going
to work).
Lenovo does the same thing: When it supplemented its
ThinkPad business laptop line with a series of consumer
notebooks dubbed IdeaPad, the company gave the
ultralight IdeaPad U110 not a matte black but a
vivid red case lid, garnished with an ornate tex-
tured paisley pattern that's even echoed on the
underside with artfully cut cooling vents.
But there's more to the U110 than flash and splash.
Once you admit that it's a splurge at $1,899, the 11.1-
inch-screened compact is an appealing civilian alterna-
tive to the super-elite $3,000 ThinkPad X300 slimline
we love.
Extreme Portability
While the X300 is remarkably
light for a notebook that
includes an onboard opti-
cal drive, the U110 is
lighter still, because (spoiler
ahead) it doesn't. Instead, the IdeaPad comes with a
13-ounce external DVD±RW drive that plugs into the
two USB 2.0 ports on the system's left side. (One port
isn't enough to power the AC-adapter-less drive.)
Setting aside the DVD burner and the system's AC
adapter (11 ounces), the Lenovo measures 7.7 x 10.8 x
0.9 inches and tips the scales at 2.4 pounds with the
provided four-cell battery pack, which fits flush with the
notebook for a sleek and trim appearance. As is com-
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mon with ultralights, there's a larger, longer-lived alter-
native battery -- a seven-cell pack that protrudes slight-
ly at the rear and below and hikes system weight to 2.9
pounds.
If you winced when you read the U110's price, you
should take into account that both batteries, like the
USB optical drive and a soft carrying pouch,
come with the system instead of hiding as
options or asterisks on a lower advertised
price. Also, though the IdeaPad has a
smidgen less sex appeal, it costs the
same as an Apple MacBook Air with
no optical drive or swappable bat-
tery.
On the minus side, while
Lenovo estimates that the lit-
tle and big batteries can last
as long as two and six hours,
respectively, our U110 fell far
short of such endurance. The
four-cell lasted barely an hour and
a quarter in our real-world work ses-
sions. The seven-cell averaged about
three hours in mixed-use stints without
the DVD±RW attached and two hours
when using the drive to watch a DVD.
Besides the two USB ports, the notebook's left side
offers a VGA monitor connector and an exhaust-fan
vent that can get pretty warm. A third USB port,
FireWire and Ethernet connectors, microphone and
headphone jacks, a six-format memory-card reader slot,
and an ExpressCard slot are at the right. Bluetooth is
standard, along with 802.11a/g Wi-Fi.
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
The small laptop makes room for a full-sized keyboard
(8 inches from A through apostrophe), except for half-
sized function, Delete, and cursor-control keys. The
only layout quirk that takes a little adjusting to is that,
while there are dedicated PgUp and PgDn keys instead
of the common and clumsy Fn-key-plus-cursor-arrow
combinations, there aren't dedicated Home and End
keys -- those are the Fn key plus PgUp and PgDn.
(Pressing the Fn key along with the cursor arrows dials
the LCD backlight and audio volume up or down.)
We had to adjust to something else during our first
hour or two with the U110 -- the keys, like the palm rest
below them, are a glossy black that becomes smoth-
ered with smudgy fingerprints after about five minutes.
They actually felt a bit slippery at first, like walking on
freshly waxed floor tiles, but our fingers quickly adjust-
ed. Call the result a medium-good but not exceptional
typing feel.
The IdeaPad breaks from Lenovo's ThinkPads in not
having a center-of-keyboard nub or pointing stick for
mouse control, just a smallish touchpad with good-
sized mouse buttons below it. It worked smoothly and
nearly silently in our tests.
At the risk of getting spoiled, we're rapidly losing our
affection for laptop LCDs without the latest LED back-
light technology. The notebook's 11.1-inch, LED-backlit
display is crisp and clear, at least at the top two or
three of its brightness settings -- when we first read the
system specs we feared that squeezing 1,366 x 768 res-
olution into the relatively small widescreen panel would
make text and icons too tiny for tired eyes, but the dis-
play proved first-class, superbly sharp with colors that
pop. It also fits flush with the surrounding black border
instead of having a traditional bezel -- Lenovo calls it
"frameless" -- for an even cooler appearance.
It's not just in size and style that the IdeaPad U110
stands comparison with the ThinkPad X300. Thanks to
a faster CPU -- Intel's 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo L7500, with
an 800MHz front-side bus and 4MB of Level 2 cache --
the consumer compact beat the professional model in
many of our benchmark tests.
Fitted with 2GB of DDR2/667 memory (one 1GB module
on the motherboard and one in the system's sole memo-
ry slot), the IdeaPad posted a PCMark05 score of 3,476
(CPU 4,007; memory 3,737; graphics 1,628; hard drive
7 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
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2,891) -- decent numbers except for the last, reflecting
the leisurely 4,200-rpm Toshiba 120GB hard disk.
The slimline scored 3.5 on its Windows Vista Home
Premium (Service Pack 2) operating system's 5.9-point
Experience Index scale. It rendered Cinebench 10's
sample image in 4 minutes and 36 seconds with both
CPU cores active.
The U110's integrated Graphics Media Accelerator
X3100 (Intel GM965 chipset) graphics do disqualify it
for all but the most casual gaming -- 10 and 23 frames
per second in the old, low-octane AquaMark3 and
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, respectively, with a
3DMark06 score of 593 (1,280 x 768 resolution with no
antialiasing).
Take a Look at Me Now
Most of the IdeaPad's software bundle is what you'd
expect -- trial versions of Norton AntiVirus and
Microsoft Office; CyberLink's Power2Go for burning
music, video, and photo DVDs and CDs; a handy
EasyCapture utility for taking snapshots with the 1.3-
megapixel webcam above the screen. Shuttle Center II
is an eye-candy alternative to Windows Media Center
for perusing and using your MP3s, images, and other
multimedia files.
We were disappointed, however, by one of Lenovo's
touted features -- VeriFace, a software solution that
uses the webcam to identify your face and automate
your Windows login and Web site passwords, as many
notebooks' fingerprint readers do.
It turns out we have a forgettable face. Sometimes
VeriFace recognized us and proceeded to Windows
after just one or two passes of its on-screen scanner
(which puts creepy circles over your eyes as part of its
face mapping), but sometimes we spent a frustrating
five minutes trying different positions, angles, and gen-
erally playing peek-a-boo with a scanner determined,
Mission Impossible-style, to disavow any knowledge of
our actions. We switched the feature off after a couple
of days.
Still, the IdeaPad U110 has plenty of attractive features
for someone seeking an ultralight with more pizzazz
than your average ThinkPad or Portege. And if red's
not your color, it also comes in black. I
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
Lenovo ThinkPad X200: A Three-Pound
Hatchling Ready to Fly
By Jamie Bsales
I
f you've been schlepping around a too-heavy, too-slow
notebook for too long, Intel and Lenovo have given you
even more reasons to buy a better laptop. The new
ThinkPad X200 is Lenovo's latest ultraportable notebook, a
three-pound hatchling that's ready to fly thanks to Intel's new
Centrino 2 mobile-PC platform.
The X200 replaces the ThinkPad X61, slotting below
the rave-reviewed but hyper-pricey ThinkPad
X300 in Lenovo's lineup. Instead of the latter's
13.3-inch display, the X200 is built around a
12.1-inch screen that gives the system a foot-
print about the size of a sheet of paper.
Its slim profile tapers from less than an inch
to 1.4 inches thick, and its light weight
makes it easy to tote to meetings
or slip in your bag. The
exterior is the familiar
ThinkPad matte black;
it won't turn heads, but does
give an appropriately professional
impression.
Beauty on the Inside
While the X200's exterior is buttoned-down, its sex
appeal lurks on the inside. Intel's Centrino 2 platform
marries the latest generation of speedy Core 2 Duo
processors to a faster front-side bus (1066MHz, up
from 800MHz in previous Centrino solutions), which
helps eliminate performance bottlenecks at the
system level.
Centrino 2 also delivers an improved Wi-Fi wireless
chip including 802.11-DraftN support, as well as
embedded Gigabit Ethernet networking and improved
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]
integrated graphics via a faster Graphics Media
Accelerator X4500HD chip with hardware-based high-
definition video decoding. Intel boasts that Centrino 2
both improves notebook performance and extends
battery life.
Indeed, in our informal testing, the Core 2 Duo
P8400-powered (a 2.26GHz
processor with 3MB of Level 2
cache) Lenovo generally out-
performed other ultraportables
in the three-pound weight
range, launching and running
applications at speeds tradition-
ally reserved for larger laptops. A
2.4GHz Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU is
an option.
If you spend a lot of time away from
an electrical outlet, you'll also
appreciate the X200's battery life,
which Lenovo estimates at 3.2 hours
with the standard four-cell battery and more
than nine hours with a nine-cell battery that
hikes system weight to 3.6 pounds.
Business-Friendly Features
The ThinkPad has other features a business pro would
crave. Unlike other ultraportables, which make you
suffer with an undersized keyboard, the X200's key-
board is full-sized, with the famous feel and respon-
siveness long a hallmark of ThinkPad portables.
Lenovo also provides dedicated volume and mute
buttons (no more fumbling with a Fn-key combo) as
well as the handy ThinkLight, a white LED above the
screen that gives off just enough light to illuminate
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
the keyboard in a dark room.
The 12.1-inch, 1,200 x 800-resolution screen is bright
and exceedingly sharp. Compared to its X61 prede-
cessor's 1,024 x 768-pixel panel, the widescreen
aspect ratio keeps the height of the panel fairly squat,
which makes the X200 ideal for use on an airline tray
table. You can equip the X200 with an 80GB, 160GB,
or 320GB hard drive; a 200GB, 7,200-rpm drive with
Full Disk Encryption; or a 64GB solid-state drive (SSD)
that uses indestructible flash memory instead of spin-
ning platters. If you've ever had a traditional hard
drive die on you, the allure of an SSD is obvious.
With the exception of FireWire, the X200 has all the
ports you're likely to need, including three USB 2.0
ports; a VGA connector for hooking up a projector or
monitor; modem and Ethernet jacks; and a PC Card
slot. Options include a fingerprint reader for added
login security, a Webcam for videoconferencing, and a
five-format memory-card reader.
Lenovo also offers optional wireless broadband, which
lets you connect via cellular carriers' high-speed net-
works; the WWAN option has a handy option of its own
in GPS navigation. If you often find yourself paying for
wireless access at airports, hotels, and other W-fi hot
spots -- or find yourself someplace without Wi-Fi alto-
gether -- this feature can pay for itself quickly.
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]
The Tradeoffs
While the X200 has a lot going for it, it does necessi-
tate a few tradeoffs typical of the ultraportable class.
First and foremost, unlike the pricier X300, the note-
book doesn't have a built-in optical drive. You'll have to
invest in a USB-based external drive or opt for Lenovo's
snap-on UltraBase accessory, which adds a modular bay
for a CD-RW/DVD-ROM, DVD±RW, or Blu-ray drive or
a second battery second hard disk.
The small size of the X200 also means there was only
room for the familiar ThinkPad TrackPoint pointing stick,
not the touchpad most portable users have grown
accustomed to. And while the notebook's built-in
speaker is fine for personal use, you'll want to rely on
your projector's speakers if you're given a presentation
in any but the smallest conference room.
But these compromises can be said of most every
three-pound PC, and the X200 does away with two of
the biggest shortcomings of previous examples: so-so
performance and a cramped, substandard keyboard.
Even better, the base configuration starts at a reason-
able $1,199. Considering its cutting-edge features and
horsepower, that price makes the ThinkPad X200 a bar-
gain to boot. I
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers ]

Gateway M-1626: 64 But Not Hardcore

By Eric Grevstad

Nearly Compatible
P
C prices have come way down? A thousand bucks will
buy you a first-class desktop? Even less will buy you a
Technically speaking, we're tickled to see mainstream
capable notebook? This is incredible! What's that you
consumers board the 64-bit computing bandwagon.
say? Why yes, my name is Van Winkle. How did you know?
Practically speaking, we're not sure it's worth it: The
number of 64-bit x86 programs is still exceptionally
Obviously it's no longer news that even non-tech-
small and still skewed toward specialized and/or enter-
savvy, non-wealthy consumers are buying PCs at
prise applications. Heck, there are still disappointingly
which even experienced power users can't sneer (well,
few multithreaded applications that take full advantage
can sneer only at their lack of gonzo gaming
of multicore processors.
graphics or ponderous
power supplies). The shelves
Until that changes, the main benefit of 64-bit
of Staples or Best Buy or
Windows for M-1626 owners will be better mul-
Wal-Mart or [insert retailer
titasking for their 32-bit wares, and -- in some-
here] are full of such
thing likely to puzzle retail consumers more
machines.
than it will power users -- they'll give up a
small but significant amount of driver and
Nor is it a shocker to find ven-
application support to get it. Indeed,
dors better known for direct
the laptop comes with a DVD
online and phone sales, such as
with both 32- and 64-bit fla-
Dell and Gateway, at your nearest
vors of Vista Home Premium,
superstore, often selling slightly
along with documentation say-
different, prepackaged configura-
ing, "The powerful, preinstalled
tions of the systems you see on their
Windows Vista 64-bit edition is not for every-
Web sites. The Gateway M-1626 is one
one" and giving drive-reformatting instructions for
such machine -- a version of the company's M-
those who "prefer to install 32-bit Windows Vista for
Series 15.4-inch laptop with a sober black instead of
comprehensive hardware and software compatibility."
some models' snazzy red or blue case, available for
$850 at Office Depot.
And as far as megatasking is concerned, the supplied
4GB of system RAM is the Gateway's hardware ceiling.
It's still a bit out of the ordinary, however, to find a 64-
That will disappoint geeks who might dream about the
bit operating system between the toner-cartridge and
operating system's support for up to 16GB.
ballpoint-pen aisles. The AMD Turion 64 X2-powered
Gateway comes with 4GB of dual-channel DDR-2/667
So, 64-bit Vista aside, what does the M-1626 have to
memory, a chunk more than 32-bit Windows Vista can
offer? Basically, bread and butter: a capable, full-sized
use but a good amount for the preinstalled Vista
notebook with nice features and decent performance
Home Premium 64-bit edition.
for any productivity (as opposed to gaming or video-

10 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
editing) job.
Our biggest complaint is that, though the Gateway is
more portable than some of its 15.4-inch peers, it has
the poor battery life of a larger desktop replacement --
an hour and a half in our disk- and multimedia-intensive
sessions, peaking at an hour and three-quarters for
undemanding word processing and spreadsheet work.
We were also bemused to see Windows' low-battery
warning pop up every time we booted the laptop on
battery power, even if the battery was actually full.
Basic Black
Clad in matte black with a grippable if slightly smudge-
prone textured lid, the Gateway measures 10 x 14 x 1.5
inches and tips the scale at 5.9 pounds -- just under our
this-is-too-much-to-carry threshold -- with the AC
adapter bringing total travel weight to 6.7 pounds.
Fancy styling touches are limited to a flush-fitting strip
of Windows Media Center and multimedia control keys
above the keyboard.
You'll find microphone and headphone jacks on the
front edge of the system, with the Optiarc dual-layer
DVD±RW drive -- with LabelFlash technology to etch
labels onto special CDs, as with the LightScribe drives
in many HP computers -- joined by a USB 2.0 port on
the right. VGA and modem ports are at the rear.
On the M-1626's left side are two more USB ports; an
Ethernet connector; a flash-card slot for SD, MMC, xD,
and MS/Pro storage formats; and an ExpressCard/54
expansion slot. The left side also offers a not-yet-com-
mon feature -- an HDMI port for connecting the
Gateway to many HDTV sets. Unfortunately, the ATI
Radeon 1270 integrated graphics hit the wall at the
screen's native 1,280 x 800 resolution instead of sup-
porting any 720- or 1080-line HDTV modes.
It's not one of AMD's new Turion X2 Ultras, but the
Gateway's Turion 64 X2 TL-60 processor is a
respectable 65-nanometer-process, 2.0GHz CPU with
512K of Level 2 cache for each of its two cores. It's
paired with an ATI RS690T chipset, which is paired with
128MB of dedicated memory (and can borrow more
from system memory) for its Radeon X1270 integrated
graphics.
The latter is an old and humble DirectX 9.0 graphics
11 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
Microsoft Wireless
Laser Mouse 6000 2.0
I
By Eric Grevstad
t's hardly a radical
idea, but you wonder
why no one thought of
it before. Microsoft, like
its rival Logitech, makes
numerous mice designed
for use with notebook
PCs -- scaled-down devices that don't take much
space in a traveler's briefcase, usually with a niche
or cubbyhole on the underside to hold the cordless
mouse's USB receiver so the latter is less likely to
get lost in said briefcase.
However, according to Microsoft, more than a third
of consumers prefer to buy full-sized desktop mice
to use with their laptops, to avoid having to adjust
from a hand rest to a fingertip grip when leaving
the office or home. Presto, the Wireless Laser
Mouse 6000 -- a full-sized, $50 mouse with a USB
adapter that snaps into a bottom slot just like its
miniature siblings.
To forestall any confusion among mouse model
memorizers, we should note that the new mouse
takes the name of the model it replaces in
Microsoft's crowded lineup, the Wireless Laser
Mouse 6000. The label on the mouse's bottom adds a
v2.0 suffix, but it's safe to assume nobody will expe-
rience déjà vu upon seeing the 6000 in a store.
A Slippery Slope
Measuring a conventional 2.8 x 4.9 inches, the 6000
follows recent Redmond rodents in offering a right-
hand-only ergonomic design that slopes downward
from left to right as you look at the mouse from
behind, so your index finger is at the summit and
your pinky fingertip brushes your mouse pad or
desk or airline tray table.
There's a trough or scoop on the right that feels like
it's supposed to support your ring finger, though it's
too shallow to hold the latter in place; it's all too
easy to let that fingertip slip downward so that it,
too, brushes the desktop. On the other hand, or
rather the other side, there's a roomy, concave rub-
berized grip for your thumb.
continued
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
solution, which put on a slide show (6 frames per sec-
ond) in our DX9 benchmark test Gun Metal 2 at XGA
resolution. It improved to 9 fps in the OpenGL test
Lightsmark 2007 at 1,200 x 800 resolution.
Other results weren't quite as rock-bottom, with a
3DMark06 score of 311 at full-screen resolution with no
antialiasing. The Gateway rendered Cinebench 10's
sample scene in 4 minutes and 20 seconds with both
CPU cores firing.
As for overall performance, our usual SysMark 2007
application benchmark doesn't run under 64-bit
Windows, but the Gateway gets a Windows Experience
rating of 3.0 on Vista's 5.9-point scale. The notebook's
suitability for gaming graphics is the low point, but it
earns relatively high ratings for both system memory
and the 250GB, 5,400-rpm Western Digital hard drive.
Image and Input
Speaking of graphics, the M-1626's widescreen display
is reasonably bright (at its top two or three backlight
brightness settings) and colorful, if not particularly vivid
despite its glossy coating. None of our test unit's 1,280
x 800 pixels were bad, and Gateway's wise/thrifty deci-
sion to forgo any higher resolution for its 15.4 diagonal
inches made easy reading of even small icon and menu
text, even in dimly lit rooms.
The laptop's keyboard is spacious and holds no layout
surprises -- all right, the Ctrl key is second from left
instead of far left in the bottom row, as we inevitably
grouse about, but Delete is in the top right corner
where it belongs, and there are real Home, End, PgUp,
and PgDn keys instead of Fn-plus-cursor-arrow impos-
tors.
We wound up disabling horizontal scrolling, which
seemed to pop into play whenever we wanted simple
horizontal cursor movement, but both the touchpad
and twin mouse buttons below it are amply sized and
comfortably smooth to use.
In addition to Vista Home Premium 64-Bit, the Gateway
comes with 60-day trial versions of Symantec's Norton
Security 2008 and Microsoft's Office Home and Student
2007 plus Works and Money Essentials. The Wild
Tangent game service and Napster music player are
also standard, as is Gateway's consumer-friendly BigFix
12 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
Apart from the ring-finger quibble, we found the
mouse perfectly comfortable even through long
days of working overtime. Sliver-sized Forward and
Back buttons (more like one long button bisected;
programmable for other functions via Microsoft's
software driver) ride just above your thumb atop the
mouse's left edge.
As with most side-mounted Forward and Back duos
we try, clicking Forward involves a much more natu-
ral flick of the thumb than the tiny but awkward up-
and-back motion required to get your thumb on the
Back button. In fact, when we flexed our thumb, it
often hit the strip dead center and pressed both but-
tons, so we assigned Back to both buttons in our
browser.
The 6000's scroll wheel has a smooth, seamless feel
that will disappoint users accustomed to slight
clicks or detents during scrolling, but with a little
practice we were elevatoring up and down through
our e-mail inbox with no under- or overshooting a
target.
The wheel also tilts left and right for horizontal
scrolling through spreadsheets or zoom views of
images or Web pages, though (as we've grumbled in
many another review) Microsoft's driver doesn't let
you reprogram left and right tilts to other functions
as Logitech's does. The latter's quick sideways flicks
remain our favorite Back and Forward.
The IntelliPoint 6.2 driver does let you reassign all
five buttons, counting a click of the scroll wheel, to
other functions ranging from the usual undo, cut,
copy, paste, or zoom to Flip 3D -- Windows Vista
Aero's pretty shuffle-stack of active windows -- or
Instant Viewer -- a tamer Win XP version of the same
that arranges current program windows on the
screen like a geeky art gallery.
More options include launching a specified applica-
tion or creating and running a macro combination
of keystrokes. And Microsoft didn't forget the con-
venience of program-specific settings, so the same
button that's Back in your browser can be Undo in
your word processor.
A Magnifier function opens a zoom window that you
can drag around the screen for a zoom view of the
pixels beneath. A slightly awkward process of hold-
ing the assigned button while moving the mouse or
scrolling the wheel lets you resize the magnifying
lens or switch among several levels of magnification.
continued
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
upgrade notice utility. A nice pull-out sidebar at one
side of the screen controls the 1.3-megapixel webcam
centered above it.
Frankly, mainstream 15.4-inch notebooks are getting
squeezed between 14- and 13-inch and smaller light-
weight travelers and 17-inch deluxe desktop replace-
ments. That said, the M-1626 (or another Gateway M
Series model, some with Intel and some with AMD
power), is a solid, workmanlike choice for its $850 price,
especially for anyone shopping for 64- rather than 32-
bit Windows. The trouble is, we don't think there'll be
swarms of such shoppers at Office Depot. I
13 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
Set loose on a crowded desk, the 6000 turned in a
fine performance. Its 1,000 dpi resolution -- what
Microsoft calls High Definition Laser Technology --
gives sufficient room to move even with just two and
a half or three inches of free space next to a note-
book. After a few minutes' practice, we were maneu-
vering as precisely as a Smart car in city traffic.
It worked smoothly on every surface we tried except
that nemesis of optical mice, a mirror, while its
interference-resistant 2.4GHz radio connection kept
the mouse and PC in contact even from the next
room with a wall in between.
Travelin' On
A light on top of the mouse glows when its two AA
alkalines are growing weak, which we didn't have
time to observe -- Microsoft claims some users will
see up to six months between battery replacements
(or refills if you're doing the green thing and using
rechargeable NiMH cells). Such users probably get
in the habit of unplugging the mouse's flash-drive-
sized USB transceiver from the PC or laptop and
snapping it into its niche on the 6000's underside,
which automatically turns the mouse off.
Basically, the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 breaks a
decade of silence in exposing the secret shame of
so-called notebook mice: It's not that much harder to
find room in your briefcase or laptop case for a
mouse that's two inches larger. As such, the 6000 is
a first-class candidate to be your only mouse -- to use
both when you're at your desk and when you're
mobile. I
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers ]

Lenovo ThinkPad X300:

You Know You Want It
By Eric Grevstad

cially when coupled with what Lenovo calls glass- and

W
e can't keep it. Our eval loan has run out and we
have to return this Lenovo ThinkPad X300 review
unit next week. But that's all right. We'll find a way.
We can follow it back to Lenovo's address in North Carolina.
We can stalk it. Someday it'll be in our arms again and we
can tell it how we feel. We'll say those three little words we
thought we'd never say, words no level-headed PC reviewer
should swoon and say:
Best notebook ever.
If You Have To Ask ...
They say love is blind, and
we were struck blind by our
first look at the X300's price
tag: At retail, our test config-
uration (model 6478-1VU)
costs as much as four ade-
quately equipped, full-sized
laptops -- $3,000 equipped
with 2GB of DDR-2/667
memory, Bluetooth, webcam, fingerprint reader, and a
Verizon mobile broadband module with GPS.
When we configured a matching model on Lenovo's
Web site, it came to $3,400. The best discount we
found was from Datavision, offering the X300 for
$2,800.
Part of the system's high tariff is that it features a 64GB
solid-state disk (SSD or flash-memory drive). That's
much less storage capacity than most notebooks' con-
ventional hard disks, but it gives the Lenovo a fast start-
up time (about 30 seconds) and extra reliability, espe-
carbon-fiber "roll cage" construction and a
ThinkVantage Active Protection System that automati-
cally turns off the drive when the X300 is jolted or
dropped. The latter feature isn't nearly as necessary for
an SSD as for a mechanical drive, but it has a cute real-
time display window in which you can watch an animat-
ed image of the ThinkPad jiggle and jump as you mis-
treat it.
But the real reason the X300 inspires devotion is that
it's the PC market's closest thing to Apple's celebrated,
skinny status symbol, the
MacBook Air. At 9.1 x 12.5 x
1 inches, it isn't quite as
svelte as the Apple, but has
essential features the Air
lacks -- a DVD±RW drive,
for example, along with an
Ethernet port and a user-
removable battery.
The Lenovo is also light enough to make briefcase-lug-
ging a pleasure: Our test unit tipped the scale at 3.4
pounds (an even 4 pounds with the AC adapter). You
can add a few ounces by replacing the optical drive
with a second battery pack for, Lenovo says, up to 10
hours of battery life.
And, to return to the MacBook Air, the ThinkPad's
$3,000 price may be daunting but is $98 less than
Apple charges for its slimline with the same size solid-
state drive but no optical drive. And while both have
13.3-inch displays, the X300 offers higher resolution
(1,440 x 900 pixels versus 1,200 x 800).

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 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
A DVD Drive Hardly Thicker
Than a DVD
On the notebook's left side are two USB 2.0 ports and
microphone and headphone jacks. At the rear are a
third USB port and Ethernet and VGA monitor ports.
We were disappointed not to find a flash-memory card
reader or an ExpressCard slot, though Lenovo would
likely say there's no urgent need for the latter since
what's under the hood already includes mobile broad-
band; a GPS chip; and support for WiMax, should
Intel's chosen long-range wireless standard overcome
the apparently long odds against it ever being
deployed.
One of the ThinkPad's most remarkable features is on
its right side -- a super-duper-slim, swappable
DVD±RW burner. The dual-layer Matsushita drive is just
7mm (a quarter of an inch) thick; we found ourselves
wishing it would pull out just a fraction further but it
proved easy enough to slip a disc into the tray inside-
edge first.
The latest thing in skinny screens is LED backlighting,
which helps make the X300's 13.3-inch display crisp
and vivid for black text and color images alike. On the
other hand, to be frank, the 1,440 x 900-pixel panel
didn't seem super-bright or show whiter whites under
office fluorescent lighting, unless we left the backlight
on its highest setting.
Working at home, with just one or two lamps at oppo-
site sides of the living room, made things look better.
Under such less-than-sunny conditions, or on a dark-
ened airplane beside a snoring seatmate, you can press
a Fn-key combination to activate the cutest little night
light you ever saw, tucked into the top bezel beside the
1.3-megapixel webcam and shining down on the key-
board.
The keyboard lives up to the high standard of other
ThinkPads, stretching back well before 2005 when
Lenovo acquired the matte-black brand from IBM. It's
virtually full-sized (spanning 8 inches from A through
apostrophe, just like our desktop keyboard) and deliv-
ers a smooth, yielding-just-enough typing feel. There
are dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys
instead of shifted cursor arrows, as well, though it takes
15 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
some practice to adjust to their location in the key-
board's top right corner.
Lenovo also offers travelers a choice of IBM's famous
original or today's most common mouse alternatives --
a textured TrackPoint micro-joystick stub embedded at
the intersection of G, H, and B, plus a touchpad in the
palm rest with vertical and horizontal scrolling zones
along its right and bottom edges.
Both the TrackPoint and touchpad have their own left
and right mouse buttons below. We found that, when
using the X300 in our lap, the latter's mouse buttons
were often too close or pressed against our belly to
use, so we happily relied on the joystick's buttons just
above the touchpad.
Let's Go Green
Lenovo boasts that the X300 is the most environmen-
tally friendly ThinkPad to date, consuming 25 percent
less energy than older X Series models and meeting
both Energy Star 4.0 and EPEAT Gold standards for low
power consumption and minimal impact on Mother
Earth. Along with the LED backlit display and no-mov-
ing-parts SSD, one of the key contributors to this status
is Intel's Core 2 Duo SL7100, a 1.2GHz processor with
an 800MHz front-side bus, 4MB of Level 2 cache, and a
thrifty TDP (thermal design power) of 12 watts.
The CPU specs should clue you in that nobody's going
to use the X300 for hardcore gaming or video encod-
ing, but the notebook's performance is perfectly fine
for office applications. It scored 3,305 on PCMark05
(CPU 3,279; memory 3,262; graphics 1,042; hard drive -
- wildly skewed by solid-state -- 15,787), and rendered
Cinebench 10's test scene in six and a quarter minutes.
Intel's GMA X3100 integrated graphics handled our
benchmarks about as well as you'd expect, managing
70 frames per second in our nostalgic Quake III Arena
test and 10 fps in the more demanding AquaMark3; its
3DMark06 score at native 1,440 x 900 resolution with
no antialiasing or other eye candy was 362.
A View Without Vista
Lenovo's array of models with just slightly different ID
codes (6478-1VU versus -1TU, for instance) can make it
hard to spot the exact configuration you'd like, but we
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
must confess that one thing we liked about our test
unit was that it came with the simpler, quicker Windows
XP Professional instead of Windows Vista.
A page on Lenovo's Web site (under the banner head-
line "It's hard to say goodbye") says that systems with
XP preloaded were available for purchase only through
May 20, 2008, but that customers will be able to buy a
downgrade DVD that wipes out the newer and installs
the older operating system. One of the company's tech
support pages adds that the downgrade kit will be
available (though "fees may vary") until January 31,
2009.
The rest of our ThinkPad's preinstalled software ranged
from the predictable (trial versions of Norton Internet
Security and Microsoft Office) to the Picasa2 image
organizer, Diskeeper Lite defragment utility, InterVideo
WinDVD, and an impressive stack of utilities and con-
trol settings arrayed under the ThinkVantage label.
A pop-up ThinkVantage Productivity Center offers
maintenance, wireless (including location profiles for
16 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
different networks and logons), hardware configuration,
and security options presented so as not to frighten
even the technophobiest.
Finally, the X300's light weight doesn't indicate a
wimpy battery pack as with some slimlines. The sup-
plied six-cell battery lasted a good four hours during a
multimedia-heavy DVD-viewing and music-playing ses-
sion, while a less demanding word processing
marathon stretched to five hours.
So what do we mean by best notebook ever? Simply
the best-engineered, most desirable, thin-and-light-
without-compromises laptop we've seen in many long
years of testing, reviewing, and not infrequently buying.
Out of all the PCs that have occupied the Labs,
Weather, & Sports Desk, the ThinkPad X300 is the one
we most hate to send away.
Ah, well. If you love something set it free. I
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers ]

HP 2133 Mini-Note: Eee-clipse?

By Eric Grevstad
glossy 8.9-inch display with 1,280 x 768 resolution and

T
alk to HP executives, and they'll tell you that the HP
2133 Mini-Note PC targets the educational market.
Ask about its place in the mainstream laptop segment,
and they'll tie you to a chair and tell you it's meant for
instructional use. Comment on its VIA processor or choice of
operating systems, and they'll wrestle you to the ground and
tell you it's designed with K-12 classrooms in mind.
They're not fooling anybody.
a scratch-resistant coating.
Asus' second-generation Eee has a larger screen, too,
but won't come close to what HP boasts is a 92-per-
cent-full-sized keyboard: The A through apostrophe
keys on the 2133's home row span a bit over seven
and a half inches, versus our desktop's eight inches and
the Eee's six and a half.

While it does compete with The Mini-Note's Ctrl and

Intel's Classmate PC (and, to Delete keys are in their prop-
a much lesser extent, the er bottom left and top right
$200 One Laptop Per Child corners, respectively, instead
notebook), the 2133 is unmis- of being relocated on some
takably HP’s response to the designer's whim. And while
two-pound, $400 Asus Eee the Insert, Delete, and func-
that's been winning over busi- tion keys and the cursor
ness travelers -- and putting arrows are half-sized, the
“Sold Out" signs in retail alphanumeric keys seem as
stores -- since its debut. big as floor tiles at first
glance, as well as styled to
Like the Eee, the HP handles match the 2133's aluminum
daily productivity tasks such case.
as spreadsheeting, e-mailing, and Wi-Fi Web browsing
instead of trying to be a multimedia or gaming And Four To Go
machine; it relies on a humble, single-core CPU and
At rollout HP offered the system in four configurations,
lacks a built-in optical drive; and it's priced far below
with custom tailoring presumably available at the
the thinnest and lightest notebooks from the likes of
hpshopping.com Web site.
Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Dell, or Apple. The base model
is $499, with our loaded, top-of-the-line test unit slated
The $499 model is the most Eee-like: It runs Novell
to cost $749.
Suse Linux instead of Windows and has a 4GB solid-
state drive instead of a hard disk. Its modest 512MB of
If that's a couple of hundred bucks above the various
memory and 1.0GHz VIA C7-M processor ensure its
Eee models, it's because the Mini-Note gives you more
entry-level status, although budget buyers enjoy the
PC, beginning with a considerably more stylish and
same spacious keyboard and screen as their deeper-
solid-feeling aluminum instead of plastic case. It sur-
pocketed peers.
passes the Eee's 7-inch, 800 x 640-pixel screen with a

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 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
Next up are a pair of twins -- two Mini-Notes with a
1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 120GB (5,400-rpm)
hard drive, as well as the 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and three-
cell lithium-ion battery pack seen in the $499 config.
The difference is that the $549 model comes with Suse
Linux, the $599 unit with Vista Home Basic.
For $749, the fourth and fanciest version offers a swifter
1.6GHz version of the VIA processor; Bluetooth as well
as Wi-Fi; the system maximum 2GB of DDR-2 memory;
Windows Vista Business; and a larger six-cell battery
pack that, instead of fitting flush, props the HP's rear an
inch or so off your desk to form a fair typing angle.
Our preproduction version had a 160GB Hitachi hard
disk (and an "HP Compaq 2133" label instead of the
correct, Compaq-free moniker), but company spec
sheets list the $749 Mini-Note as having the same
120GB hard drive as the middle two models. Options
will include a 160GB, 5,400-rpm drive and faster 7,200-
rpm drives in the same sizes (120GB and 160GB).
With the 4GB flash drive installed, HP says, the 2133
tips the scales at 2.63 pounds. Since our system had a
hard drive instead, it weighed in at 2.88 pounds with
the smaller or 3.25 pounds with the larger battery pack.
That's heavier than the 2.06-pound Eee, but not
enough to notice the difference when lifting your brief-
case; the Mini-Note is as much a pleasure to travel with
as are far more costly featherweights like Lenovo's
ThinkPad X300. At about 6.5 x 10.3 x 1 inches, the HP
is almost as easy to fit into that briefcase as the Eee,
though its AC adapter is bulkier and heavier (14
ounces).
Power and wireless on/off switches are handily located
on the laptop's front edge. On the left side are head-
phone and microphone jacks, a VGA monitor connec-
tor, and a powered USB 2.0 port for an external storage
device.
A second USB port is on the right, as is an Ethernet
connector (what's that you say, Apple MacBook Air
owners? You don't have these things?). You'll also find a
slot for an SD flash-memory card and an
ExpressCard/54 slot -- suitable for the 3G broadband
wireless adapter the HP definitely needs.
As we've already noted, the Mini's keyboard is down-
18 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
right luxurious for a subnotebook -- its practically full-
sized span makes up for a good-but-not-great (slightly
flat and soft) typing feel. The touchpad is wider than
you'd expect, too, with large, rubbery mouse buttons
on either side. Except for a finger repeatedly straying
into the vertical scrolling zone at the right of the pad, it
worked fine.
Take a Long Look
Your first sight of the 2133's screen will be a dim one --
every time the system restarts or awakes from hiberna-
tion, it's turned the backlight brightness off rather than
retain the level you set earlier for the sake of babying
the battery. And we were happy with the LCD's bright-
ness only at the highest or second highest of the set-
tings available.
Once it's brightened up, however, the display is clear
and colorful, if a bit prone to doubling as a makeup
mirror. We're torn between cheering and complaining
about its impressively high 1,280 x 768-pixel resolution
-- images and fonts look ultra-sharp, but small pull-
down-menu text (and the cursor, until we resized it) was
almost too tiny for our middle-aged eyes. Yes, we wear
bifocals, but we'd never found ourselves sliding them
up and down our nose and bobbing our head like a sit-
com geezer before.
Speaking of the battery, the 6-cell, 55-watt-hour battery
is an option that should be standard. The flush-fitting 3-
cell, 28-watt-hour pack averaged just an hour and a half
in our real-world work sessions, while the protruding
battery/keyboard prop lasted for a solid three hours,
stretching to three and a quarter in non-heavy-duty
word processing and Web surfing sessions.
Of course, we always wish for longer battery life, but
that isn't our greatest wish for the Mini-Note. Our
greatest wish would be more horsepower under the
hood.
To be sure, the 2133 doesn't pretend to be a high-end
gaming or video-editing platform, and it feels ade-
quately responsive while you're typing documents or
putting together presentations -- the 2GB of system
memory sufficient to bear the ponderous weight of
Windows Vista, although we're dismayed that the HP
can't be upgraded above 2GB.
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
But our test system took a lazy two minutes to boot up
in the morning, with even its audio stuttering or skip-
ping a note in Vista's startup tune, and barely limped
through a small subset of our usual benchmark tests.
Given the oldest and easiest game in our toybox,
Quake III Arena at 1,024 x 768 resolution, the Mini
managed 26 frames per second. PCMark05 refused to
issue an overall score, but the HP's processor and
memory subtotals of 908 and 1,408 trail even the
Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC with 800MHz Intel A110
processor that we tested last summer.
The 1.6GHz C7-M and Chrome9 chipset graphics car-
ried the subnotebook to a ground-floor 3DMark05
score of 175, while Cinebench 10's scene-rendering
test -- handled in one to two minutes by even the
entry-level laptops we've sampled lately -- took 36 min-
utes.
Just for kicks, we compared the 2133's numbers to
those of the revved-up, quad-core Gateway gaming
tower we reviewed a couple of weeks ago. PC Wizard
2008's global performance score showed that the feisty
underdog was, well, more than one percent as power-
ful as the Gateway.
The bottom line? Seems those HP execs weren't entire-
ly kidding about selling to the educational market:
They could have waited until summer or fall to ship a
19 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
Mini-Note with VIA's faster "Isaiah" replacement for the
current C7-M "Esther" CPU, or -- even more likely --
with one of Intel's elegant new Atom (nee
"Silverthorne") ultraportable processors. But that would
have missed school districts' budgeting and buying for
this September.
Size, Price, and Style
So should you buy an HP Mini now, or wait for a proba-
bly improved version? That depends. The Eee still has
its picture in the dictionary under cute, but the 2133
should be listed under style or glamour. You won't see
a more chic handheld this year.
Against that, when Asus unveiled the Eee at $400, the
conventional notebooks available at that price were
easy to shun -- or to rationalize, "Yes, I know I could
have more screen, keyboard, speed, and storage, but
I'll trade that for the convenience and portability of the
Eee." Today, the fully loaded HP faces some pretty
darn nice conventional notebooks available at $750.
But show us a configuration with a faster CPU,
Windows XP instead of Vista, broadband wireless, and
even a smaller (80GB?) hard disk if necessary to stay
under $600, and we are so there. I
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers ]

HP EliteBook 6930p: Keep Your

Data and Hardware Secure

By Jamie Bsales

heads from impacting the drive surface, avoiding

F
or mobile pros, skimping on a laptop purchase could
certainly prove penny wise and pound-foolish. Budget potential data loss.
notebook PCs are fine if you only occasionally tote the
machine in a padded bag, but they lack the durable con- Add in a spill-resistant keyboard that can help the
struction and security features offered by a higher-end machine withstand a few ounces of errant liquid, and
model aimed at road warriors. That could spell disaster if you have a machine that is as tough as it is handsome.
your machine takes a hit — or takes a walk — when you’re In fact, HP notes that the EliteBook 6930p meets
traveling. Military Standard 810F for drops from 30 inches,
vibration, dust, high and low tem-
So if you spend most of the time out of the perature and humidity.
office, you need a notebook like the HP
EliteBook 6930p. This business-rugged Peace of Mind
machine has features to keep its components
The EliteBook 6930p also has the
safe from knocks, as well as hardware and
latest security features to keep your
software security measures to keep your data
data safe. You can set the machine
secure.
so that it requires a password, a
swipe of your fingerprint, or both
Sleek, Handsome before it will boot or resume to
Design Windows. You can also use the
included Privacy Manager utility to
The first thing you’ll notice about the
automatically encrypt e-mail and instant
EliteBook 6930p is its anodized aluminum skin.
messages.
The brushed metal looks tasteful, gives the 4.7-pound
machine a solid feel, and it conveys a professional, pol-
HP has also included its File Sanitizer applet to let you
ished air to clients. Vanity aside, the aluminum cladding
be sure that deleted files are truly and completely
also protects the notebook’s 14.1-inch screen better
deleted. When you delete a file in Windows, its name
than the typical plastic lid. The aqua LEDs used spar-
is removed from the hard drive directory and its space
ingly around the unit add to the machine’s modern feel.
is made available for new files. But until a new file is
actually written in that space—and with today’s large
For added strength, HP employs lightweight magne-
hard drives, that could be a while — the deleted file
sium alloy for the chassis, which makes the notebook
continues to reside on the hard drive and can be recov-
less prone to bending and thus better protects interior
ered. File Sanitizer overwrites a deleted file up to seven
components. The hard drive's accelerometer senses if
times with random data, permanently expunging the
the machine falls or bounces (as during turbulence on a
file.
flight) and parks the hard drive heads. This keeps the

20 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
 [ Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers
Helpful Software
Beyond the security utilities, HP has included other
thoughtful software that makes your life a little easier,
especially if you don’t have a dedicated IT department.
Press the “i” icon above the keyboard to launch the HP
Info Center. Here you’ll find links to a host of useful
applets, including the
• HP Connection Manager and HP Wireless Assistant
for easily setting up network connections
• HP ProtectTools Security Manager to help you set
backup and recovery options, fingerprint authentica-
tion, data encryption, passwords and more
• Presto BizCard electronic Rolodex
Another button above the keyboard launches the
Presentation Settings utility to help you quickly set the
machine for use with a projector or other external dis-
play. In addition to the components that come with the
computer’s Windows Vista Business operating system
(you can also opt for Windows XP), HP includes
• Roxio Creator Business for creating CDs and DVDs
• InterVideo WinDVD for plying DVDs
• PDF Complete for creating documents in that for-
mat
A Pleasure to Use
In our hands-on evaluation, the EliteBook 6930p
proved a pleasure to use. Its full-size keyboard has a
crisp feel ideal for long bouts of typing, and HP has
included both a pointing stick nestled in the keyboard
and a touchpad below. Because of the two sets of
mouse buttons, the touchpad is a tad smaller than
usual on a machine this size, but it’s still usable. Above
the keyboard you’ll find a touch-sensitive strip for con-
trolling the volume for the notebook's stereo speakers.
The EliteBook 6930p uses a 14.1-inch widescreen LCD,
and the high-resolution (1440 x 900 pixels) panel is
bright and exceedingly crisp. You can even read tiny
on-screen text, although the high resolution means
default text sizes on some Web sites and in Windows’
menus (like the All Programs list) can be pretty small.
The LCD delivered vibrant colors in Windows apps, as
well as good motion reproduction for video.
Above the screen you’ll find an integrated Webcam,
ideal for video chat, video e-mail and videoconferenc-
21 Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.
]
ing applications. HP’s easy-to-use utility lets you set the
camera’s resolution to eight different levels ranging
from 160 x 120 (good for grabbing a tiny snapshot of
yourself to append to your e-mail signature line) all the
way up to 1600 x 1200 (for taking a photo as good as a
2-megapixel camera might). At the default 640 x 480
resolution, the camera showed good color accuracy,
though lots of motion resulted in lots of blur. Icons at
the bottom of the utility let you take a still picture, cap-
ture video or capture audio only.
Choose Your Hardware
The EliteBook 6930p has all the requisite ports and
connectors, including three USB ports, a memory card
reader, a FireWire connector, LAN and modem jacks
and an ExpressCard/54 slot. It includes 802.11a/b/g/n
Wi-Fi, and the platform supports the addition of an
integrated wireless broadband module to let you con-
nect to the leading high-speed 3G cellular data net-
works.
Starting at $1,199, the base configuration includes an
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor (running at 2.26-
GHz), 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Mobile Intel
GMA 4500MHD graphics chip and a multi-format DVD
burner. Those components have more than enough
power to run even demanding business applications
without breaking a sweat. If you need even more
speed, the top EliteBook 6930p configuration comes
with a 2.4GHz processor and dedicated ATI Mobility
Radeon HD 3450 graphics.
HP backs the EliteBook 6930p with a generous three-
year warranty on parts and labor and toll-free 24/7 tech
support. That alone goes a long way to making the few
hundred extra dollars you’ll spend on an EliteBook
worth it compared to a budget laptop. Figure in the
powerful components, extra security and durability fea-
tures plus the great looks, and the machine begs to be
on your short list. I