Laptops Arena

Christmas is knocking at our door. And each of us is welcoming it in our own way. Some start baking cakes, other buy them from the bakery.  Some make cookies and buy milk for Santa, other believe there is no Santa. Some of us listen to “Rudoph the Red Nose Reindeer”, other listen to “Ring Christmas Bells”. Some buy natural Christmas trees and decorate them in as many colors as possible, others have an artificial tree which they decorate in only two colors. Some people like to gather around the fire and tell Christmas stories while drinking hot chocolate, others like to have fun by browsing though some Facebook applications.

Let’s talk a bit about that last category, the “internaut” that loves Christmas so much, that he wants to celebrate it online and offline as well. “Giftreez” is an application brought by the guys at GreenPixel and it is Facebook’s way of reminding us that one of the joys of Christmas is that of giving and receiving gifts.  When you first launch the application, you get to choose between 6 different Christmas trees. Some are bigger,  some are smaller, and some are even decorated with a red garland. After you have chosen your favorite gift tree, it’s time to start giving. The application will always let know how many gifts you have given and how many you have received.

Underneath your tree there are 3 options. The first one will let you upgrade the tree. You can upgrade to medium or large size, but in order to do that, you have to achieve 750 or 1500 points. How does it work? Well, you get 10 points for every gift that you send to your friends and 5 points for every gift that your receive from others. When someone visits you tree, they can say if they like it or not. For every person that likes your tree, you get 2 points and 1 point for every tree that you like.

The second option allows to customize the produce. In other words, you can redecorate the tree anytime you like by moving the decorations around the tree. This option will not make any sense until you have gathered some Christmas decorations, so you would better start inviting some friends.

The third option lets you view all the gifts you have received. From here you can choose to put  some new decorations in the tree. The main idea is: the more gifts you receive, the better your Christmas tree will look and you can decorate it every day just the way you like without having to worry that you are going to break any tree decorations. It’s time to let your imagine run wild! Go ahead and invite your Facebook friends (careful, only 35 at a time) so you can start the gifting process.

Let’s give a special “Thank you” to the application developers at GreenPixel for letting us feel that Christmas is not only on the streets and under the tree, it is also in our computer.

Finding the best laptop computer has never been easier with a market that is flooded by so many laptop models from really cheap to extremely expensive. If you are wondering how to find the best laptop computer, we are going to give you some tips as to what your laptops needs and where you can buy it from.
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Like I said in a previous article, the best laptop for you depends on what you are going to use it for. If you plan on doing some basic computer tasking, it’s easy to find a cheap laptop. Any model can suit you just fine if you want to surf the internet, write e-mails and work on some documents. If you plan on travelling a lot and you need a laptop that will help you stay in touch using the internet or need to keep up with some office work, a netbook may be a really good choice for you.  Netbooks are a category of subnotebooks that have weaker components. Strong parts have been sacrificed for the sake of size. These thin and light mini laptops are easier to carry around as you can squeeze them into any bag, backpack or purse.  They usually have good battery life (a good netbook should provide about 4 hours of computer usage) and no optical drives for obvious space reasons.

You should be really careful and not waste any money on features you are never going to use. Don’t buy laptop with fancy video cards if you are not a heavy game player and unless you need a business laptop which you are going to use in an office, it’s probably useless to buy a unit with a fingerprint reader.  If you believe that a laptop is worth a fortune, think again. You can even find laptops for $400 which are not cheap junk as most of you may think. Of course, the more you are willing to pay for a laptop, the better specs and performance you will get.



The most delicate category of laptop users are the gamers. Gamers need expensive laptops with dual processors and dual graphics cards if possible. Alienware is a company owned by Dell that produces top of the line gaming laptops which are also very expensive. Other gaming laptops belong to Dell XPS series or the Toshiba Qosmio series. These laptops have short battery life because they are very heavy and they are not meant to be carried around. They are used as desktop replacement and since you mostly use them at home, just keep them connected to a power outlet and battery will not be a concern any more. Good gaming laptops have more than 2 speakers and in some cases there is even an integrated subwoofer to provide excellent sound quality without you needing to attach any external speakers. The usual length of the diagonal is 17 inches so you can see perfectly all the details of shooters like F.E.A.R. or Left 4 Dead.  They have cool features like back lit keyboard and all kinds of LEDs spread around the entire unit to produce cool effects is the dark. These laptops are famous for their powerful and good looking design but they also are the most expensive king of laptop that money can buy. A good gaming laptop can be worth even $4500.



Another special laptop category is the business laptop. I believe there are 2 main manufacturers that own the biggest such market niche: HP and Lenovo. The HP ProBook and EliteBook are 2 series of laptops which have features that are useful for companies. HP has all sorts of security measures like integrated fingerprint readers and all sorts of password recovery programs. These laptops are famous for their durability as their chassis is made of strong plastic and it is reinforced my magnesium or aluminum alloy. This means that these units will be able to resist a couple of shocks if you accidentally drop them on the floor or the bag you are carrying them in happens to hit a couple of furniture pieces. They usually come with preinstalled security software that helps you and your employees recover lost password with the help of some predefined questions. When you configure this features, you give answers to questions like “What was your mother’s maiden name?” and with the help of a set of 3 such questions that only you can answer, you can log on your laptop if you forget the password.



The Lenovo ThinkPad series has a really unique feature which is excellent for people that work in the design business and need to use graphic programs like Adobe Illustrator or Corel Draw. This manufacturer offers a laptop that has a smaller screen which pops out of the big one and it is very useful for storing those annoying toolbars that keep getting in the way. The small window is also used for chat programs and other windows that you need to access but that keep getting in the way.



Now that we eliminated the question “how to buy the best laptop” by showing you that the best laptop for you depends on what you are going to use it for, these is one more mystery to solve. Where do you buy these laptops from? One preferred method is to order them directly from the manufacturer’s web site. For example, HP or Dell have a basic starting price for a laptop model and if you want any additional features or want to add better components like more RAM or faster processor, then you have to pay extra. Another mean for buying laptops online are the authorized dealers like CompUSA or New Egg. They have lots of models you can choose from. You can also visit a store in your city and this is a nice method because you get to see the laptop live before you buy it. On some stores you can even test features like the keyboard or touchpad.  All that being said, I wish you good luck and remember to spend your money wisely.

Compared to the other articles that we have written today, this one is a bit more general and may be of use to those that don’t have much knowledge in the IT field. We are going to tell you how to make the right decision when you want to buy a laptop.
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The first question that you have to ask yourself is what do I need a laptop for? You may even discover that you don’t need a laptop and a desktop computer is way better for you. For the sake of this article, let’s assume you need a laptop. The more basic you computing needs are, the less money you will have to spend for a laptop. For about $500 you can buy a good laptop that will help you complete all your internet surfing and e-mail sending tasks. These laptops are also good for editing documents and word processing so they will cover most basic tasks. Their processors are not very powerful so don’t expect any super speed.

Let me explain the basics of laptops specs. The memory installed is very important. Lots of memory helps run many applications. The nasty part is that if you want to upgrade, laptop components are more expensive that computer ones.  To run applications in our days (demanding ones, I mean), you need to have about 2 GB of RAM.  The processor helps improve the speed of the laptop. The best choices for processor are the Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs. The explanation is simple, dual processors means twice the speed. Another important part is the size of the screen.  At one extreme we have netbooks. Netbooks are actually smaller notebooks which are ultraportable and the size of the screen varies from 8.9 inches to about 12 inches. Since they are smaller, they have weaker components like Intel Atom processors and integrated graphic cards. The bigger the screen of the laptop is, the easier it will be to read big documents and scroll through large web pages. It will also be nice if you watched a good movie on a larger screen because small screens don’t have the same effect.



The size of the hard drive is important in case the laptop you are going to buy will be used as a main computer.  Hard drives with lots of space are meant for people that need to store a lot of files or for gaming computers. It is well known that today’s top of the line games occupy at least 4 GB of hard disk space. In case you buy a laptop with a small disk capacity, you can always use the integrated DVD drive (if any) to make copies of all your files if you want to free some disk space. The most delicate part is the graphics memory. This is what makes the difference between a gaming laptop and other laptops.  There are 2 different types of video cards. There is the dedicated graphics card which is a separate component and integrated cards that are part of the motherboard. The best dedicated video chips are made by nVidia but the ATI graphics cards are also ok. Integrated graphics are usually made by Intel (the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator). For those that need a laptop to play games, you need advanced graphics chips that have at least 512 MB of video memory.



If you want a laptop that you can constantly carry around with you to school, to work or when you are travelling, then battery life is a very important aspect that requires special attention. As a general consideration, we can say that the more cells a battery has the longer life it can provide for your laptop.  But that is not always the case. You have to remember that big batteries also make the laptop heavier.  Operating systems like Windows Vista have different power management profiles that can help you save the battery life. By reducing the brightness of the screen and keeping the wireless switched off, you can increase the life of your battery. The stronger the components inside a laptop are, the less battery life you will get. This is why netbooks provide the best performance in terms of battery life. It’s really important to read online reviews about laptop when you find interest in a certain models. Good reviews will provide details about the battery life which are really accurate.

We recommend you try out the keyboard of the laptop before you buy it. Since the keyboard is very important for a laptop because you probably won’t carry an external one around with you all the time, make sure the keys offer positive response when you type and that there is no flex. Touchpads are ok but you still have to see if the texture does not bother your fingertips after a while of usage. We do recommend an external mouse especially since manufacturers like A-Tech make small mice which are easy to carry around.if you don’t want any cables to bother you, these always are wireless mice which are not expensive and they have this small stick that is attached into a USB port and wirelessly communicates with the mouse.



No matter how low your budget for a laptop is, laptops are becoming cheaper by the minute because new models are constantly appearing on the market. Yesterday’s super cool laptop is tomorrow’s old and worn out one. If you want to buy a laptop but you don’t have enough money to pay for a brand new one, you can find the same model refurbished which is hundreds of dollars cheaper. Refurbished laptops are brand new computer that were sold to a customer which returned them for various reasons. Some of them may not have even been turned on. These laptops are returned to the manufacturer which performs some tests to see if the unit is damaged in any way. After every problem is solved, these laptops are resolved for a cheaper price. They still have warranty certificates which are regularly half the period of the original model. These laptops are a very good choice for people that are on a really low budget.

In order to survive under such strong pressure from the market and in the middle of heavy competition, laptop manufacturers need to come up with new models constantly in order to satisfy consumer needs. So, in this article, we are going to talk about the newest best laptops that have appeared on the market in the year 2009.
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One of our top choices is the HP ProBook 5310m. First of all, it looks appealing thanks to the aluminum deck and lid. There is no optical drive on this laptop, but this should not bother you because you can always download most of the program you need or you can simply buy an external optical drive because they are nit expensive at all and they can be connected to your laptop thought one USB port. The spacing between the keys is very Apple like and you get a positive response every time you type. One inconvenient may be the glossy touchpad that causes a bit of friction when you use it.  The touchpad handles multi-touch gestures which has become a feature quite common to most business laptops. In order to use them, you must install the Synaptics software and after that you have to configure it for use. The 13.3 inch display is pretty ok as well although we have seen better.

If battery like is important to you, know that this ultraportable stayed on for 5 hours and 30 minutes with the wireless function switched on and while surfing on the internet non-stop. In conclusion, if you use the HP ProBook 5310m just for editing or reading documents, your laptop will most likely stay turned on for a full 7 hours. Extreme performance for a 4-cell battery I might add. For $900 you can get your own unit which has the 2.26GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SP9300 processor and 3 GB of RAM. The graphics card is the Intel GMA 4500MHD and you have 320 GB of hard disk space. This ultraportable is extremely ok considering the price tag.



Another laptop we really like is the HP Pavilion dm3. For a price of $840, you can get your own unit with the 1.3-GHz Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor, 2 GB of RAM which are upgradeable to a maximum 8 GB (wonder what anyone could use 8 GB of RAM for on a non gaming laptop). The graphics card is the Intel GMA 4500MHD and 500 GB of disk space should be enough room for file storage. This laptop has been reinforced with aluminum and aluminum alloy on most of its surface. The keyboard is pretty awesome with the chicklet style layout. The 13.3 inch display has a 1366 x 768 resolution and you will be pleased with the level of brightness and the clarity of the images. The speakers also produce decent sound but if you want to turn up the volume to the maximum level you will get sound distortions. The HP Pavilion dm3 webcam is right above the display. If you use it for video chatting using Skype program, you will notice that the images are quite clear and it seems that this camera can also handle dim light.



If you want to know how this laptop handles the heat pressure, know that the bottom left side will get pretty hot under intensive video playback. It could get uncomfortable for your lap so try to be careful. Other than that, there are no problems with heat dispersion and the laptop stays quite cool and quiet.  One thing that really amazed us is this laptop’s battery life. With the wireless switched on and surfing the internet nonstop, this notebook will stay turned on for an impressive 9 hours and 7 minutes. This is way above the category average. This means this laptop will keep you going through a full day’s work (or a full day at school). Overall, it’s safe to say that this is a good laptop especially for those that are looking for a cheap ultraportable. The touchpad action seems a bit delayed so we do recommend and external mouse.



Although we could easily add more HP models to this list, especially since the Envy 15 is one of the greatest laptop we saw this year. But I think it’s fair to give the 11.6 Acer Ferrari One a chance at the title. Acer’s partnership with the Ferrari Formula One team has brought nothing but good things. Just by looking at the lid, you can tell it’s all Ferrari style. The glossy red lid got me thinking about those super cool race cars that burst with speed and power. Not only is this laptop good looking but it also designed to be durable. Even if it’s a small gadget, the keys are big and this makes them easy to use. You may expect the performance of this mini laptop to be the same as a Ferrari Race car but things are a bit different here. Yes, the Acer Ferrari One does have powerful specs considering its small size.



The processor is a 1.2 GHz AMD Athlon X2 L310 and you also get 2 GB of RAM. This is really nice for an 11.6 laptop. The graphics card is the integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 and the hard disk capacity is 250 GB. Other nice features are the integrated Bluetooth and webcam. The price is somewhere around $750 which makes it a bit more expensive than other similarly sized laptops. This laptop comes with 3 USB ports, one Ethernet port, a 5-in-1 media card reader, one VGA out and the headphones and microphone jacks. With a weight of 1.44 kg, this is definitely the latest material in power and ultra portability. With features like these, it’s fair to say that the Acer Ferrari One is one of the newest best laptops of 2009.

Other such laptops are the BenQ JoyBook S35, the Samsung X520, the HP Mini 311 (there sure are a lot of HP models on this list, aren’t there?) and other HP’s and Samsung models.

In this article we are going to treat a somewhat delicate subject, that of stolen laptops. Many people tend to panic when they have some important stolen and the truth is one laptop can hold some valuable information about a person or a company. If the laptop is stolen from an office of a company, the risk of producing harm is way bigger because companies have important files that include top secret information which is priceless to the competitors. Stolen laptops can be subject to blackmail. We have read that almost 97% of stolen laptops are never recovered.
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There is a special FBI force that deals with this matter and it is called the FBI Computer Crime & Security Survey division. When your laptop is stolen, you are exposed to identity theft.  As it is always better to avoid than to combat, make sure you don’t leave your laptop in public places or on the back seat of the car where it is visible to all those that pass by. In 2003, more than 600.000 laptops where stolen and this is worrying because they appear to be as easy to steal as a cell phone. One very good way to prevent any possible problem is to buy a lock for the laptop. If you read some of our laptop reviews you have seen that laptops have a Kensington lock slot which is not that useless as you may think. This does not mean that if you lock your laptop you can just leave it anywhere. They are a security measure similar to bicycle locks and if a thief is really determined, they will bypass these lock with ease.

One of the most common places where people leave laptops that are stolen is on the car seat. Other such places are the public wireless hot spots. In a coffee shop in San Francisco, some poor finance manager got stabbed in the chest by a robber who desperately wanted his Apple PowerBook. There are ways in which you can avoid becoming a victim. If you are a person that carries their laptop around a lot make sure your laptop is password protected. This should make it difficult for the robber to access your files unless he is a professional hacker. If you use your laptop as a desktop replacement and keep it at home all the time then such measure are not needed. Of course, you have to keep in mind the robber also break into people’s homes so you could still be a victim and have your laptop stolen. PGP Whole Disk Encryption is a program which you can purchase for $150 and it is a piece of software that can scramble your hard disk.



In the past, the main reason why thieves stole laptops was to resell them on the black market of to take out the part and sell them separately. Now, the main target is the information which is stored on the laptop. You can always choose to encrypt some files and folders which should be of major privacy. There are lots of free programs which are available on the internet and can help you do just that but keep in mind that all the information stored in the browser cache is not that easy to encrypt using those products. It’s a bit of a relief to know that most thieves steal laptops for the hardware but nevertheless, if you think you could be the victim of an identity theft, you should inform the local authorities immediately. Finding a stolen laptop is not difficult if you have proper tracing software installed. What these programs do is to connect periodically to the internet and if a PC is reported stolen, that particular laptop will return details on its location. This information is reported to the competent authorities. The success rate is somewhere at 90%.



There are Absolute tracking packages which are available to business users. These packages have extremely useful option like erasing certain data of the laptop has been reported stolen. Another solution could be to scramble the data yourself. If you want to store secret information on your laptop like back account number and certain ID information, you could come up with a code that only makes sense to you and that way if your laptop is stolen, the information will be useless to anyone else.



We advise you to treat this problem seriously because the number of identity theft cases is constantly growing. You don’t even have to get your laptop stolen to be exposed to identity theft. Hackers try to exploit online money transmission systems, sweepstake contests and even internet auctions. Phishing is also a common way to steal personal information. Hackers make exact replicas of famous bank websites and then they e-mail you telling you to go to the website and re-enter your personal information because they are updating their client database. The fake website link is written somewhere in that e-mail. You should know that bank will never ask you to do something like that. If they need to update the database, they will contact you by phone and ask you to go to the nearest bank and fill in a form. Do not click any links of fake banks in the e-mail and always go to the official website of the bank.



A research was conducted back in 2007 and it pointed out that the American citizens who are greatly exposed to identity theft are those living in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit. The complaints that were registered are different, from bank frauds, credit card frauds but also home utility frauds. Try not to store on your laptop information like your bank account number, social security number or credit card PIN codes. Also try to make constant backups of the files on your laptop because if it gets stolen there is a good change you may never see them again. Also, try not to carry a laptop with you in public places like parks or coffee shops unless it is really necessary.