Laptops Arena

Nowadays our lives are more and more hectic thanks to the continuous ongoing work activities. However, most of our work activities are strictly dependent on the laptop or notebook use mostly because no one needs a desktop computer to restrain their possible multitasking within an office. Laptop manufacturers know every possible need of potential customers.

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Therefore, we can find today their portfolio even more filled up will all sorts of laptops with different functionality, design, specs, and various combinations of these elements. With the largest everyday line of laptops, Toshiba is one of the most important laptop manufacturers on the market. With the Satellite family, Toshiba successfully added new customers as clients. Therefore, the Satellite M500 merges both fun multimedia word and work world thanks to the compact design and light weight which allows excellent portability.

This laptop successfully balances portability and workspace, also including multimedia features and a good battery life. Therefore, the Satellite M500 offers everyday features for any activity you might have. With a height varying from front to rear 1.32 inches to 1.54 inches, wide of 13.5 inches, deep of 9.14 inches, the Satellite M500 weights about 5.16 lbs depending on the configuration chosen. By doing so, Toshiba successfully created a portable laptop. Not only portability is present within the external aspect of the M500, but also the excellent design, as a matter of fact Fusion Finish with Aero Pattern in Gold Onyx.

Probably, it won't say too much until you see the laptop itself. The M500 really looks good. The materials used are great combined. The overall design sports a darker color on the laptop's body in contrast with all the silver finishes, such as logo, or frames around the keyboard, or frames around the stereo speakers.


The quality materials used, keeps away the fingerprints and small scratches. Even more the quality build is exceptional and offers almost the same feeling like the Satellite U500. In contrast with the U500, the M500's body case will last longer since this laptop was created for a more outdoor experience. Even so, this doesn't mean that the Satellite M500 isn't a great desktop replacement, because the M500 can be whatever you need it to be. Because the M500 resemblance the U500, the LCD cover works just like a hinge when opened, making it impossible to sport any ports on the rear side. Even so, Toshiba correctly included all the other ports to the left side, right side, and even on the front side.


On the front side you can find the five system indicator lights, the Wireless WAN indicator Light, the Wireless indicator lights, the switch for the wireless antenna on and off, and the Bridge Media Adapter (compatible with several memory cards such as xD picture card, Memory Stick memory card, Memory Stick PRO memory card, Secure Digital, and Secure Digital High Capacity. On the left side, Toshiba included beside the cooling vent, the HDMI port, microphone jack and headphone jack, one USB port, one eSATA / USB combo port with sleep and charge function, the 34 mm Express Card slot, the 54 mm Express Card slot, and RGB monitor port.

On the right side you can find the modem port, the RJ 45 LAN port, two USB 2.0 ports, the AC input jack, the security Lock slot, and the Super Multi DVD drive with up to 11 compatible formats (DVD - RAM, DVD + RW, DVD + R single layer, DVD + R double layer, DVD - R single layer, DVD - R double layer, CD - ROM, CD - R, DVD - ROM, and others). Overall, the Satellite M500 sports not only an ergonomic surrounding of all ports, but also a solid build. This laptop successfully balanced design and ports. Once you open the LCD cover you will find the keyboard, which is basically the same one found on the U500.


Nice quality keys, good sizing, and excellent feedback. Nothing new here, but this is not a bad thing, because the U500 sports an excellent keyboard. Above the keyboard you can find beside the power on and off button, another media control buttons with mute function, media function, eco utility button, CD / DVD control buttons, and volume up and volume down. Another excellent feature of this keyboard is the backlighting of all keys, making the typing even more comfortable in any environment conditions. Below the keyboard is located the touch pad with multi touch controls (finally). By integrating this technology, Toshiba is one step closer to Apple quality products. Even so, don't expect of all the functionality found on the Apple touch pads to be integrated in this M500 touch pad.


The main reason of this small enhanced touch functions is the operating system which is quite limited. Even so, the Windows 7 might just do the trick and offer more integrated functions for all the laptop manufacturers. The touch pad is made out of a matte pattern material, making the usability higher. Under the touch pad you get two buttons, which are the only buttons within the M500 that are a little slippery. Overall, Toshiba did a wonderful job with both keyboard and touch pad found on the M500. Basically, everything works precise with enough feedback to satisfy even the most exigent customers.

Toshiba included in the Satellite M500 a 14 inches diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display with a 1366 x 768 pixels resolution. This display also sports the LED backlight technology. Toshiba added a display with sufficient brightness level in any environmental conditions thanks to the LED backlight. The 14 inches display offers vibrant colors under wide viewing angles, making the images easy to see from almost any position.


The connectivity is ensured by the Intel Wi-Fi Link 5100 AGN with 802.11 a/g/n profile, 10 / 100 (/ 1000 depending on the configuration) Ethernet, modem, Express Card Slot with 34 mm, Express Card Slot with 54 mm, memory card reader, the HDMI port, the RGB monitor output port, two 2.0 USB ports, and one eSATA / USB combo port with Sleep and Charge. Toshiba offers for the M500 model five basic configurations, the M505D S4930, the best seller M505 S4940, the M500 ST5401, the M505 S4945, and the M505 S4947. Even more, Toshiba enable the possibility of building your very own Satellite M500 for a starting price of $706.50. Basically every configuration of M500 differs from the others.

The only common feature is the operating system included, Windows Vista Home Premium with Service Pack 1 (the 64 bit version). The best seller configuration, the M505D S4940 is offered for a starting price of $759.99 and offers the Mobile Intel GL 40 Express Chipset, the Intel Pentium processor T4200 with 2.0 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB, 4 GB DDR2 at 800 MHz, a 320 GB hard drive with 5400 rotations per minute, and an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M with 128 MB and 1759 MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory.


This configuration also sports a unique design compared with the others, fusion finish with aero pattern in gold onyx. Also included into the S4940 is a six cell 4800 mAh Lithium Ion battery. The cheapest version, the M505 S4930 is offered at an asking price of $699, and includes the AMD M780V Chipset, the AMD Turion X2 Dual Core Mobile Processor RM 74 with 2.2 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 4 GB DDR2 800 MHz, 320 GB hard drive with 5400 rotations per minute, and the ATI Radeon 3100 Graphics with 256 MB and 1919 MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory.

The included battery is still 6 cell but with 3700 mAh Lithium Ion. The next configuration offered for this laptop is M500 ST5401 offered for $799 and including a Mobile Intel GM 45 Express Chipset, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T6500 with 2.1 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB, 4 GB DDR2 800 MHz, Intel Graphics Media Accelerator with 4500 MHD with 128 MB and a 4800 mAh six cell Lithium Ion battery which should provide almost three and a half hours autonomy.


The last two configurations are the most expensive ones to. The M505 S4945 spots the same chipset and processor like the M500 ST5401. However, this model sports 3 GB DDR2 800 MHz (with possibility to expand it to 8 GB, while the other configurations allowed a maximum capacity of 4 GB), the 160 GB hard drive with 5400 rotations per minute, and the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD with 128 MB. The same battery found on the previous configurations was included in M505 S4945. The M505 S4945 is offered for $823.99 price tag.

The last available configuration, the M505 S4947 is offered for a $899.99 price tag and includes the Mobile Intel GM 45 Express Chipset, the Intel Core 2 Duo processor P7350 with 2.0 GHz, 3 MB L2 cache, 1066 MHz FSB, 4 GB DDR2 800 MHz (up to 8 GB maximum expandable memory), 400 GB hard drive with 5400 rotations per minute, and the same Intel Graphic Media Accelerator MHD with 128 MB. However, an important feature is the 12 cell Lithium Ion battery with 8500 mAh.


All these configuration are shipped with pre-installed software, some Toshiba branded and some third party application, such as Toshiba recovery disc creator, Toshiba Config Free, Toshiba power saving eco utility, Toshiba face recognition (and other Toshiba branded software), Microsoft Windows Media player 9, Sun Java 2 Runtime Environment, Adobe Acrobat Reader (and other third party applications). Also included are the Norton Internet Security 2009 trial version software, and the Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 Edition (with a 60 day trial version).

Overall, the Satellite M500 offers plenty of sufficient features. It successfully merges the multimedia applications, with portability for work and a nice design. Also, you can easily choose one of the five configurations available, or just build your own M500, because as you know customization is the new device trend.

The average laptop consumer is always in search for that perfect laptop that provides the best union of business features with multimedia features all included into one conservative but modern design. Of course, you might say that the market provides with such laptops, but then again at what cost? Is not about finding this laptop, but is also about affording it. As you may recall the more average business laptop line in Toshiba's portfolio is the Satellite Pro. This line is appreciated by the customers just like the Satellite line. Both these lines provide excellent features with plenty of designs and configurations from which you can choose.

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The first model of Satellite Pro with looked at, S300M, boasted a 14.1 inches display, over average processor, excellent memory (both read only, and random access), and an average graphic chipset. Its main feature was the medium asking price. The main disadvantage is the old design. To compensate any disadvantages, which some customers might find in S300M, Toshiba launched the L300.

This family provides something about five different configurations. Toshiba markets this line as providing the business essentials. I believe that, although L300 is cheaper (depending upon configuration) than S300M, the L300 is definitely a better choice.

Toshiba L300 provides the straight forward business features, merged with excellent connectivity all delivered in an attractive design. Esthetically, L300 is more attractive than S300M will ever be. With the titanium silver LCD cover, L300 provides an excellent impression keeping away the fingerprints and scratches, and also providing a visual impact because of the silvery Toshiba logo over the titanium lid. When you look on the outside and inside you will understand that L300 is a business model. It sports the same titanium look, only around the keyboard. The rest of the body is made out a matte black plastic.

The overall impression made by L300 is quite impressive. This laptop not only looks great, and keeping the design conservative, but also you can feel ensured that its build quality is flawless. No flex of lid, no weird noises, everything works as planned, offering a nice user experience.

On the left side, L300 sports the Super Multi DVD (+ / - R double layer) with 11 formats support (DVD - RAM, 5x, CD - ROM, 24x, DVD - R single layer, 8x, DVD - R double layer, 6x, DVD - ROM, 8x, DVD + R single layer, 8x, DVD + R double layer, 8x, CD - RW, 24x, and others). On this side you can also find one 2.0 USB port, and the power input jack. On the right side you can find beside the cooling vent, the RGB monitor output port, one 2.0 USB port, and one eSATA / USB combo port with sleep and charge.


Also on the right side, you can find the Ethernet port and the Express card slot with both Express Card 54 and Express Card 34. Although the LCD cover doesn't act like a hinge when opened, the back side of the L300 lacks any ports. However, the front side sports the microphone input port, headphone output port, the sound volume control dial, and the Bridge Media Adapter with several memory card compatible, such as Multi Media Card, Memory Stuck, Memory Stick Pro, and Secure Digital. Once opened, the L300 will reveal its common Toshiba keyboard. However, this keyboard looks much nicer than the rest of Toshiba keyboards.

Maybe because of the extreme dark keys, or the silvery finish under the keyboard, any way this keyboard has something more in matters of design. You have to expect excellent build quality. Toshiba know how to build keyboards and this is obvious since every laptop made by them lacks any flex from keys and provide excellent feedback.  Above the keyboard you can find two stereo built in speakers. The sound provided by these speakers is average. It is loud but plain, lacking serious bass power. Under the keyboard you get the touch pad, which also provides good feedback. A little slippery are the two buttons under the keyboard. Even so the functionality is not affected.

Toshiba included in L300 a 15.4 inches diagonal widescreen TruBrite TFT LCD display with a WXGA resolution (also known as 1280 x 800 pixels). This display is truly stunning, offering excellent clarity and vibrant colors. Also, a significant plus is the viewing angle which allows you not to stay right in front of the L300's display in order to see what it shows. The connectivity is well ensured by the integrated Wi-Fi compliant wireless LAN (Wi-Fi Link 5100 AGN with 802.11 a/g/n), 10 / 100 Ethernet, Express Card, RGB monitor output, three 2.0 USB ports. Toshiba offers five configurations for the L300.


All these configurations have a few common features, such as the Mobile Intel GM 45 Express Chipset, and the Mobile Intel Graphic Media Accelerator 4500 MHD (with up to 1024 MB dynamically allocated). The first L300, EZ1521 is offered for an asking price of $499. It sports an Intel Pentium Processor T4200 with 2.0 GHz 1 MB L2 and 800 MHz FSB, 2 GB PC2 6400 DDR2 SDRAM (configured as 2 GB x 1), and a hard drive with 160 GB (5400 rotations per minute). This configuration is shipped with Windows Vista Home Basic Service Pack 1, 32 bit version.

The second configuration, EZ1522, has an asking price of $579, and provides an Intel Pentium Processor T4200 with 2.0 GHz 1 MB L2, 800 MHz FSB, 2 GB PC2 6400 DDR2 SDRAM (2 GB x 1), and 250 GB serial ATA hard disk with 5400 rotations per minute. The best seller of this family, the L300 EZ1523, provides an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5870 with 2.0 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB, the same random access memory as EZ1522, and 250 GB serial ATA with 5400 rotations per minute.

The last two configurations, EZ1524 and EZ1525 sport the same processor and RAM memory but differ in the storage department. Therefore, both models come with the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T6670  with 2.2 GHz 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB, and the 3 GB PC2 6400 DDR2 SDRAM (configured as: 2 GB plus 1 GB).  The EZ1524 sports for $679 a 250 GB hard drive with 5400 rotations per minute, while the EZ1525 includes a 320 GB hard drive with 5400 rotations per minute at an asking price of $729. All these configurations have a height of 1.3 inches to 1.5 inches (from front to rear), wide of 14.2 inches, deep of 10.5 inches; L300 weights about 5.49 lbs depending on the configuration.

Toshiba included in the L300 a six cell Lithium Ion battery with 4000 mAh that will not provide more than 3 hours autonomy. This line of laptops doesn't include the famous Toshiba Safe Guard. Even so, Toshiba ships these laptops with both branded software and 3^rd party applications, such as Toshiba Configure, Toshiba Disc Creator, Sun Java Runtime Environment, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Google Desktop, Google Picasa, and Google Toolbar. The most expensive models also come with Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (the 32 bit version), and the trial version of Microsoft Office Professional 2007 and Norton Internet Suite.

Overall, Toshiba L300 has to offer enough features in software and hardware department to make you wonder what configuration suits you. Even so, do take into notice that all these configurations are opened for further customizations depending on each and every one of us, potential customers. My educated guess is that on the long run L300 with get an update and will probably replace in the near future the S300M and even the S300.

Norton Online Backup of 25GB is a security and utility system aimed toward online data backup business. Its key technologies are reflected by an automatic online backup for documents, photos, videos, music to one secured location, web-based restore & access for your files which you can later retrieve online, by managing a remote backup setting, by the ability to archive files that have been deleted by mistake, by narrowing a bandwidth. It can also perform a high-level both for encryption and data compression.
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The system operates under Windows Vista (Home Premium, Home Basic, Ultimate, Business) with 32 and 64 bit, Windows XP (Professional, Media Center, Home) with 32 Bit and for the Internet Browser with Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 6.0 and higher), Firefox (starting with version 2.0) and it needs a screen resolution of 800 x 480 minimum. It presents also an additional storage available in increments of 10, 25, 50 or 100 GB.

The interface of Norton Online Backup enables a simplified process when it comes to configuring the backup actions and what seems to be more important is the feature of a user account; namely everything that is related to the product has to be run through a user account (connected in its turn to an annual subscription), and not through an individual address of the PC or IP. After installing the system you face a set of account details to be in this authentificated. Being logged in you are asked to add a PC to the backup action, thus the installation of the local backup agent is done.

You have to perform this operation for each computer (that displays a list to be configured for the files you choose to backup) meant to be protected with Norton Online Backup system. The option to narrow the bandwidth appears also in the process of online backup.

Norton Online Backup is a novelty to the Symantec’s offerings for home usage, but still due to its easiness in use and ready to accommodate plenty of computers, it fits very convenient into the usage situations occurred in the home computers. The price of this system shows to be competitive in the conditions of a competitive market. For home users it proves to be a one-size-fits-most system and for the small businesses that do not have servers it seems to be also appropriate, though it could present points where it stops the moment one introduces the first server operating system.

The Norton and Symantec team provides good results in systems protection for the computing utilized at home, offering reliability and a high degree of satisfaction in regard to product support. The main pros of this system are that it integrates with Norton 360, delivers optional secondary local backup and performs a 256-bit encryptions on the transfer processes.

The NewTechInfosystem has released its Advanced Edition of a system backup utility called NTI Backup Now 5 that allows users to backup and restore files, partitions, or the entire hard drives. The thing is that it comes with few extra features, such as creating an emergency boot disk (allows users to restore files from outside the OS in case of a dying hard drive), a backup compression and encryption. The NTI Backup Now 5 encompasses also features that exist in NTI Shadow 4, so paying for one Backup Now 5 you get two products instead of one.
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The installation is done through standard Windows installer, proceeding not before accepting the given EULA. At the beginning of the installation it is requires a company name to go on with the process, so you’d better come up with something, as the installer will not know the difference. In order to be able to handle all the program options, it is a good thing to choose when asked, the “custom” installation.

/>It is a little odd that the installer requires a company name to continue the installation. (Just like we told your with Shadow 4, feel free to make up a kooky company name if you don't have one; the installer won't know the difference.) The user then is asked which kind of installation is desired on the system. To get a handle on all the program options, we chose to use the 'custom' installation. Four components are present in the installation system: the Backup Now, Label Maker, Test Drive, and Open File, all these lasting about 2 minutes to be run.

The program interface has at the top of the window icons to represent the shortcuts of all major features that are present also in the menu bar, depending on how easier a user find the way to navigation. The main Backup Now controls offer a menu of the interface that has a summary of all the program jobs that have been formerly created.

The backup menu allows users to continue creating backup jobs, file and folders can be made here, as well as drive-based imaging jobs. The system provides encryption (ensured by 128-, 192-, or 256-bit encryption keys) and password protection. On the test that was run for this NTI Backup Now 5 the computer operated with Vista x64 SP2, Office 2007 Enterprise, and the installation system required 40GB of space, but only 12GB out of this is the virtual memory file leaving 28GB for backup. Restoring the backup to the hard drive was somehow problematic since it wasn’t that obvious how to make the selection of the backup file being already in the restoration menu.

The NTI Backup Now 5 is able to create an emergency boot disk by selecting the optical drive on the PC that consists of a writable optical disc, and after that burn it. But to restore a hard drive backup image proved to be a failure, since there was no possibility to restore the main system partition in case an OS became unstable or a hard drive failed. Next to this, NTI includes a program that enables you to read its backup files, be they compresses and/or encrypted.

As a conclusion, while reviewing the NTI Backup Now 5 Advanced Edition, users can see that the core features often fail to work well and the restoration OS renders an impossibility of functioning on PCs that are equipped with modern SATA hard drives, so one can use it, but at one’s own risk.

Due to the arrival of Microsoft’s Windows 7 OS, PC makers consider to get back on the market fully equipped for the upcoming period of back-to-school at the same time raising the price of DRAM computer memory chips. Actually the sales for this holiday period entitle them to do so.
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October 22nd is the date set to launch Windows 7 and because o fthe good reviews it gained it is possible to gather people around it, determining them to give up the ruling Windows XP, that displayed its supremacy for more than 8 years; not to mention that Windows 7 is supposed to come gold plated with new features on PCs, in this way increasing more the sales. Several products, such as laptop computers, netbooks that are basically monitors with computers on board will benefit from the touchscreen technologies available in Windows 7.

The CULV laptops, for instance, equipped with powerful but low voltage processors from Intel have determined in June the raise in laptop computers sales by Taiwanese contract manufacturers. The Compal Electronics which is the second biggest contract notebook maker has reported a raise of 200,000 units compared to the sales in May. IDC, the market researcher, admitted in its quarterly market figures, that it was a considerable rise in PC market, a rise reflected by more PCs purchases, specifically the sales of the portable computers.

These results have caused however PC makers to show interest for certain parts, such as small LCD screens and DDR3 – the Double Data Rate, 3rd generation, DRAM chips. The DRAM prices as per contract for chips surged in July, 1 Gigabit(Gb) DDR3 DRAM chips running at 1066Megahertz contact price rose with 10 percent, according to DRAMeXchange last night’s report. The prices for the chips were on average US$1.34 , and the most used chips of 1GbDDR2 at 800MHz has its price increased by 6.6 percent, reaching an average price of US$1.22.

We have to consider that DDR3 chips utilize 60 percent less power that DDR2 at the same time offering almost two times broader bandwidth, as declared by Samsung Electronics, the world’s biggest DRAM producer. As long as there is a rising demand for the chips, it would follow immediately a lesser price for the product, but because of the global DRAM downturn that began more than two years ago, had lead to dropping the chips prices, in this way companies recording massive losses.

With a background of owing money to creditors and the necessity of renewing factory technology DRAM prices suffered a rise that will facilitate an increase in the production line in order to gain profit. One of the fine biggest DRAM makers from Taiwan has reported a net loss of US$4.87 billion four times more than a net loss recorded in 2007.