Laptops Arena

When laptops first appeared on the market there was this big WOW and most people wondered if they could ever afford such a useful gadget. Well, prices have gone down quite a lot and a good laptop which was worth $1800 dollars last year can now be bought for half the price. So, it won't be very difficult to find some laptops under 400 dollars for this article. Some of you may not be pleased with these models as you are looking for something much more powerful. Well, you must know that really good and powerful laptops are expensive (by expensive I mean over $850) so unless you are willing to spend a little more money than the laptops in this article may be a good choice for you as well.
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The Toshiba L505-S5984 laptop has good specs considering its $399 price. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 processor which is quite unexpected for a cheap laptop. It has a 16 inch display which makes this laptop a good desktop replacement. Because it's bigger, it also has a numerical pad which is ideal for most users, especially for people that work with numbers and spreadsheets (may be useful when playing some games as well). 3 GB of RAM will allow you to run multiple tasks without any kind of trouble. We highly suggest you run Windows Vista or Windows 7 in order to get the best out of all you RAM as Windows XP might run a bit slow and the applications will take longer to launch. You can upgrade from your 3 GB of RAM to a maximum 8 GB but we don't think this is necessary because this is not a gaming notebook.

The graphics card is rather weak so you can't play any top of the line games on this laptop. Some old ones will do though. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD is no excellent video performer so no 3D applications for you either. The built in webcam is not that great but you can still get some good images in a properly lit environment and especially if you use the Skype application which is one of the best video chat programs available. You will probably get your unit with Windows 7 and other preinstalled software, like anti-virus trial programs and the Microsoft Office suite. Just in case the 250 GB of free disk space are not enough to store all your files, documents, games music, pictures, and applications, you can always use the dual-layer DVD drive to make DVD copies of all your files and then clear up some disk space. This is probably one of the best laptops under 400 dollars that money can buy.



The Sony VAIO VGN NW235F/W may also be considered a wise choice for people that are looking for a 15 inch laptop which is beautiful, powerful and cheap. You can imagine that is it elegant because good looks are a common feature for all Sony VAIO laptops. Be careful because the white chassis will become dirty in no time if your hands are not properly washed when you use it (not to mention that is also attracts fingerprints even if your hands are clean). The unit comes with a 2.10GHz Intel Pentium T4300 processor plus 4 GB of RAM which means you can run Windows 7 Home Premium without any problems. The graphics card is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD. You have 320 GB of disk storage. Other cool features of this laptop are the motion eye webcam and the microphone which have a face tracking technology. You also get a DVD burner. The battery will keep your laptop up and running for about 4 hours on a full charge so there should be problem with laptop shutting down when you most need it.



For $350 you can buy the refurbished Dell Latitude D610. It has 1 GB of RAM, another 40 GB of HDD and the ATI Mobility Radeon X300 PCI Express x16 with 64 MB. This laptop is not as powerful as the ones we presented above but if you are not looking for a power horse, just a laptop that can help you get your basic computer need done, than this model may be the right thing for you. It has 4 USB ports, S-Video out and even the Infrared function. The display is 14.1 inches long so you will have no trouble with reading large documents or big web pages. It's ideal for office work and you can buy it for home usage is you are not going to run any demanding programs or games. Due to the strong chassis, this laptop is very durable and the weight is somewhere around 5.4 lbs so if you need to carry this laptop around with you, it shouldn't be a big problem.



The Lenovo ThinkPad R60 refurbished laptop costs a bit less than $400 and it comes with a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo T2400 processor which is ok considering the small amount of money you spend. This laptop has 1 GB of RAM, 60 GB of available disk space and an Intel GMA 950 graphics card. As you may have already noticed, the components are not top of the line material but the price you pay for such laptops is not exactly a premium one as well. This 14.1 inch laptop also comes with 4 USB ports, one VGA out, one Ethernet port, one docking/port replicator, you regular headphones out and microphone in jacks plus a FireWire port.



Remember that the usual warranty period you get for refurbished laptops is 6 months. Refurbished laptops are a good choice if warranty is really important to you. In fact, it's a much better choice rather than buying a used laptop from someone and not knowing of they are just selling it because they don't need it any more or because there is something wrong with the laptop. Anyway, remember that if you are willing to spend some extra hundreds of dollars, there are really cool laptops waiting out there for you to buy, buy, buy.

If you have some money to spend, but the market has so much to offer so it's rather difficult for you to decide what to buy, we are going to show you the top ten notebooks that money can buy (or, at least that is our opinion). Some of these models are cheap, other are expensive, but they each offer fair enough specs which are in good balance with their price. In short, the more you pay, the more you get.
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Our number one notebook is without a doubt, the 13 inch Apple MacBook Pro. Not is only is this laptop powerful, it is also very good looking in comparison with many other models on the market. Since it's made from aluminum, this silver beauty looks like it's a giant diamond. The glossy display does not seem to bother us like most glossy displays do because it's all part of a higher purpose: that of creating an elegant notebook. The processor is the powerful Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 which operates at a speed of 2.4 GHz and the graphics card is none other than the nVidia GeForce 9400M with 256M of dedicated video memory. This laptop is for the people that want to stand out and be the proud owner of an Apple laptop.

It may not have the best specs in the world, but it is certainly one of the best ultra portables in the world. The Acer Timeline 1410 has a 11 inch display which doesn't make text that difficult to read and it also offers good performance considering its small size. Instead of the Intel Atom processors which are regularly chosen for this kind of small and portable notebooks, Acer as decided that an Intel Celeron SU2300 is much better for the Timeline 1410. You also get 4 GB or RAM in comparison with the 1 or 2 GB you usually get from the similarly sized notebooks (or should we call them netbooks?). This means that the Timeline 1410 will easily support Windows 7 Home Premium and you can run multiple applications much faster that you could on a 1 GB of RAM notebook. And for $400 you also get over 6 hours of battery life. This is excellent information for those that are looking for a notebook to use when they are travelling. Students can also use it in class when they want to take notes.



The Acer Aspire 8930G is probably one of the best multimedia notebook which you can possibly find. It is huge (and by huge I mean it has a 18.4 inch display plus some 9.2 pounds in weight) so you will probably want to use it a desktop replacement. Just put it on the table or desk and make sure it stays there because it isn't something you want to carry around on your shoulders. The Intel Core i7-720QM processor is one of the most powerful CPU's you'll find in a laptop. You have 4 GB of DDR3 RAM and you can upgrade to a maximum of 8 GB. The graphics card in an nVidia GeForce GTS 250M and if 500 GB of free disk space are not enough to store you files, there is always the optical drive to help you make DVD copies so you can free up some space. You have 5.1 surround speakers which means the sound quality is something amazing. Is $1300 worth it? We think it is.



If you are looking for something more unique, extravagant and business like, then the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 may just the be the best tablet PC for you. What makes this notebook so fancy and distinguishes it from the rest of the tablet PCs is the multi touch screen which is optional so you have to specify that you want it. Your operating system will surely be Windows 7 to get the best out of the speed and performance possibilities. The price is a bit spicy however ($1800) but it's ok considering that the main target is the premium one.



If you are looking, however, for a business notebook which is small, we recommend the HP ProBook 5310m. It is a black notebook that suggests elegance from the moment you first lay eyes on it. The 13.3 notebook has an 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 processor, 2 GB of RAM which are upgradeable to a maximum 4, the graphics card is an Intel GMA 4500MHD with 64MB of dedicated video memory and you have 320 GB of available disk space. You have an integrated Bluetooth which should make file transfers easier from you notebook to your phone (or between two notebooks as long as they both have Bluetooth). You can get all that for a mere $900. Come to think of it, some folks may want to buy this business notebook for home use. Why shouldn't they? It offers good specs at a low price.

For people that don't have a lot of money, we recommend the Gateway NV which is a budget notebook priced at $600. We were surprised to find that you get good specs for this price; normally lower prices mean weaker laptops. The processor is a 2.1-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 which comes with 4 GB of RAM included, an Intel GMA X4500HD graphics card plus some 320 GB of free disk space. At the opposite pole, we have a laptop which has the best specs around and also the biggest price. The Alienware M17x is the $4600 gaming laptop that offers a 2.53-GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad QX9300 processor and a nVidia's GeForce GTX 280M graphics card.



Another wise choice for approximately $800 is the Asus UL30A-A1. You have a 1.3GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor and 4 GB of RAM plus another 500 GB of free disk space and the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics card. This means you have average power at an average price. Like I said, what you pay for is what you get. Of course, we couldn't have a Dell missing from this top ten notebook list so we present the Dell Studio 14z. This $750 laptop has a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6500, 3 GB of RAM, 320 GB of disk space and the nVidia GeForce 9400M graphics card which is pretty powerful for such a cheap laptop. Last, but not least, we bring you the Lenovo ThinkPad T400s which we believe to be one of the best business notebooks ever and out statement may be confirmed by the $2300 price. This fancy notebook has a 2.53-GHz Core 2 Duo SP9600 processor, 2 GB of RAM, 128 GB of disk storage and the Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics card. And there are many more good notebooks out there. In fact there are so many that it's becoming more and more difficult to tell which would be the wisest choice.

Lenovo notebooks were a real mystery to us when we first saw them. "Who needs two displays?" I though. "Why would anyone buy such an expensive notebook?" Now, everything has become clear, Lenovo notebooks are for professionals!
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Today we are going to see some facts about the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 notebook. First of all, you should know that this notebook comes is two versions, there is a 14 inch and a 15 inch display. Each one of them comes with different benefits. The 14 inch notebook is lighter and easier to carry around and it also has an extended battery life. The 15 inch notebook, on the other hand, has better components and is more powerful which mean the batteries probably won't last that long. The unit reviewed in this article is the 15 inch notebook with the Intel T2500 2.0GHz Core Duo processor with 1 GB of RAM, an ATI X1400 128MB graphics card, 100 GB of hard drive and a Intel Calistoga i945GM/PM motherboard chipset. This notebook was designed for the premium segment as the cost is somewhere around $2700. By taking your first look at this notebook you can tell it's durable. It is made by a very strong plastic which does not bend.

The lid has been reinforced with magnesium and this helps protect the screen. The display is also protected by the thick metal hinges that keep it steady in place. The keyboard has two drain holes just in case you spill some drops of coffee or orange juice. These drains keep the liquid away from the sensitive components. Even if it does not look like a very friendly notebook, it is solid and very practically built. Lenovo uses the FlexView technology so you can see the display's images from wide angles and this is a very good feature and very uncommon for notebooks. If you gather a group of people around this notebook to watch a movie or show them some of your Photoshop work, they should all be able to see clearly what is on the screen.  The brightness of the LCD is also very pleasing and even if it isn't the best we've seen, it's still enough to get your business done.



At the bottom area of the notebook you will find the speakers which produce quality sound without having to attach headphones. The sound gets a bit worse when turn up the volume but you probably won't need to play very loud sound with this notebook. During a presentation where you need sound, we recommend some external speakers. The Intel T2500 2.0GHz Core Duo processor is something new for the Lenovo ThinkPad and this is excellent because running multiple tasks is now easier and much faster. The ATI X1400 128MB graphics card should come in handy for some game playing even if you won't actually be able to play the latest games on the market. This is not a gaming notebook but for recreational purposes, it's definitely a good choice. However, you can play Doom 3 with medium setting and really be able to enjoy it. We thought this kind of monster-machine would really heat up with all those powerful components inside and all the multi tasks you can run. Amazingly, the notebook stays quite cool from what you would normally expect and this is very good news to use. The fan is also very quiet and if you use it in the office where you are bound to have some background noise, then you won't be able to hear it at all. This is mostly due to the fact the Lenovo has added an extra vent in the back of the notebook so it's double the ventilation we've had with previous models.



The 9-cell battery will provide about 4 hours of usage without using the wireless function and with medium brightness on the LCD. You can choose between the Windows XP Home and Pro operation systems (either of them is just as good). Lenovo help you get the best out of this notebook thanks to the system recovery tools and updates, security system, screen utilities and so forth. This laptop also has 3 USB 2.0 ports, Display-out, RJ-11 (Modem), RJ-45 (Ethernet LAN), dock/port replicator, AC adapter port plus the microphone and headphones jack. This notebook also has a pointing stick and some may prefer it over the touchpad. We know that service and support are very important especially when you pay such a huge amount of money for a notebook so we've dug up some useful information. It turns out that the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 has a 3-year warranty if you order the machine directly from their website. I think the "awful tech support" is just of matter of your own luck as opinions are shared with many people. Some have found tech support to be fast and very useful while other just keep complaining about having spent hours on the phone with no happy ending. Overall, Lenovo has done e very good job in shipping your orders in a fair amount of time (you don't have to wait months for it to arrive).



We believe this a laptop most people should buy for their business as it delivers durability, performance and a good set of components. It is not difficult to use and it has a lot of features that can help your business no matter what it is you actually do. You may be annoyed by the fact the you have no SD card slot or S-Video ports and by the fact that they are quite heavy but it's not like you are going to take them home after every day's work. Besides, thinks of all the pros of this notebook. The display is probably one of the best you can get for your money, it is very fast due to the high-quality dual core processor and it also runs quite so there is no chance you will be bashing it against the wall because the noise is too annoying.

The battery life is quite ok even if you probably won't be keeping it too far away from a power outlet for very long but it's good to know that if you suddenly have to make a business trip, your battery won't drop out on you when you most need it. And if you are not happy with the number of ports, you also have the docking station an port replicator so with this notebook it's all about possibilities.

Lenovo is number four in the world when it comes to selling personal computers. They also sell servers, workstations, it management software and storage devices. Lenovo products are available for online purchase, chain retailers and other technology vendors and distributors. Lenovo stands for "new legend" as it is a compound name which comes from the "Le" (legend) and "novo" (which is "new" in Latin). The company was founded in China in 1984.
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In case you never interacted with their products, you are probably wondering what Lenovo laptops are like. Are they any good? Are they expensive? Do they last long? To answer these entire questions, we did some of our own Lenovo laptops research one of their top models (to show you how innovative Lenovo can be) and here is what we've found out.

The Lenovo ThinkPad laptops are business-made gadgets (that doesn't mean you can't buy one for your home).  The Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds is one of those huge desktop replacements, made mostly for business purposes. This laptop comes with 4 GB of RAM, an nVidia Quadro FX 3700M graphics card and 250 GB of available disk space. The difference between this model and the original W700 is the "ds" which stand for "dual screen". Since the price is over $5000 you had to imagine that the W700ds really stand out bringing us something out of the ordinary. You have a secondary screen which is 10.6 inches wide and it just pops-out from inside the bigger one. Being heavy and quite thick, portability is questionable for this 17 inch notebook. Nothing special on the design part, as without that little screen popping out, it just seems like a plain black and very heavy notebook. The primary display is very clear and bright, very good contrast. The secondary display is not as clear as its big brother's but what can you expect? You can fold the small display at about a 45 degree angle so you could get a clear view of the both. This display is very useful when running graphic programs, like Adobe Photoshop. You can move all those annoying toolboxes on the secondary screen to prevent them from constantly getting in the way. It's also good for keeping your chat windows always open while you are running different other applications. The keyboard looks very computer desktop like with full sized keys. Typing is pleasant and smooth, you only have to perform short stokes and there you go. You have the standard speaker control buttons for volume and mute.

And now, we get to the best and most interesting part: the laptop's performance. The 2.53GHz Intel Q9300 quad-core processor is sure to help you get things done. As far as multimedia tasking goes, Lenovo is not that great but you can still use it for average multimedia needs. The speakers aren't that amazing, so if you are into listening music or watching movies most of the time, this is not the laptop for you. However, you might want to consider buying a good set of headphones as they will sound very clear and have plenty of power compared to the speakers. Unlike many other desktop replacements, this Lenovo laptop has 5 USB ports (even my big old computer has only 4) plus other ports for output connections, DVD writer, card reader and many more.


As we imagined, a big laptop such as the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds was sure to have a big battery. And we were right. The 9-cell battery of this laptop will only last about 2 hours if unplugged and a bit more that 1 hour for movie playback. It's OK, especially since it was meant to be put on your desk and to stay there, it's not like you were going to carry all that weight around anyway. The battery life will be shortened by 20% if you also use the small display, even if both screens are only at a middle-level in terms of brightness. Should you use both screen and run simple tasks like web surfing and checking your e-mail (probably playing Solitaire too) you will get an average of 1 hour and 45 minutes of battery life. We imagined that a laptop this big with all that hardware inside would cause some serious heat problems but we were wrong. The fan is not as noisy as we expected either and if you use this laptop in a crowded place, you may not even notice any kind of fan noise.

As a wrap up, we believe it is fair to say that the Lenovo ThinkPad W700ds is your ideal office-work laptop. You can really benefit from that small secondary display and that small digitizer located right beside the touchpad (we find it uncomfortable for people who write with their left hand as this pad is located on the right), which is pretty small if you are used to big gadgets but since it is integrated that you will find it easier to use that one instead of bringing other external devices. One thing is for sure, if you are working in the design business, will not find another laptop better than this one and no one can argue with us on this matter. Although it is pretty expensive, the W700ds may prove to be a very good investment for your office, especially since you get all the right hardware performance you may need. Doing Photoshop work has never been so pleasant now that you have more screen-free space to do your job. The number of disadvantages is quite small and you will surely grow fond of working on this laptop after a while of using it.



The reviews for this laptop are positive (except for the ones that complain about the 11 pounds weight and left-handed users that find it hard to manage with the right-positioned digitizer) and we admire Lenovo for adventuring itself and building such a big laptop with two displays and so expensive that it break all barriers. We can't wait to see what other toys Lenovo can come with and we will surely let you know if it's something worth your time reading about.

At the beginning what was there known to be the mark that defined a netbook was the 7” screen, but nowadays this feature has evolved into a 10” screen one, becoming the current industry standard. The new release of Lenovo’s netbook series, IdeaPad S12 takes the further steps in the next generation of netbooks. The new model’s design fits in the same features with its predecessors, though the presentation seems to be more appealing in that it is larger in size. Having a 11.5 x 9.0 “ footprint and tapering from 1.4 to 1.0” and 6 cell battery, the S12 measures in size almost the one of Acer Aspire One AO751h. Its weight of 3.4 pounds makes it easier to carry while being on the road.
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The keyboard (10.6” x 4.3”) is larger compared to similar sized netbooks, with several of the keys, to include also the left and right Shift keys, presented in larger size than those belonging to Samsung NC20. The touchpad (2.6” x 1.5”) is a little bit smaller than NC20 and larger than the one of Aspire One AO751h offering two mouse buttons instead of a single bar.

The 12.1” display has a 1280 x 800 resolution with good contrast, though the viewing angles aren’t that good. The audio system has the stereo speakers with an impressive quality of the sound rendering a clear bass line and displaying a helpful equalizer when it came to fix the settings in order to create a more enjoyable audition experience. The Quick Star OS based on Linux proved to load quickly indeed enabling an easy usage. These apps comprise Web browser, photo viewer, IM client, music player and flash games portal.

The ports are displayed as it follows: on the left side there are 2 USB ports, a Wi-Fi on/off switch and a 4-in-1 memory card slot, whereas the right side presents a third USB port, VGA, Ethernet, an ExpressCard/34 slot, headphones and microphone ports. It is also present a 1.3 megapixel webcam which colors are somehow washed out while stepping further from it.

As to the performance the S12 is equipped with 1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270 processor scoring 1,389 in PCMark05, almost the same with the average for the netbooks. Its hard drive of 5,400 rpm, 160GB copied a 4.97GB folder at a rate of 17.9 MBps, meaning around 2MBps faster than the netbook average. The graphics is rendered by an Intel GMA 950 chip that scored 707 in 3Dmark03 and 71 in 3Dmark06, these lining up in the same average range. The IdeaPad S12 presents a 802.11b/g wireless radio able to transfer data at a rate of 18.6 and 17.2 Mbps from 15 and 50 feet as well. The system is powered by 6 cell battery that lasted 5 hours and 41 minutes, and it is good considering that the battery is powering a system of 12” screen. As a conclusion Lenovo IdeaPad S12 presents nice ergonomics, performance and endurance at a smaller price than its competitors and it is at the same time a highly portable device.