Laptops Arena

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What can i say? It’s amazing how far display technologies designed for laptop computers have been evolving since 1976, when the first notebook was prototyped. The one who invented the laptop had to start with a monochrome screen with a very low resolution, but today we have plenty of sizes and features we can choose from.
When I talk about the size I am referring at the screen resolution and diagonal, which make the difference between a classic screen and a wide one, but it also specifies the details level of the image produced.

First we’ll see which are the laptop screen resolutions and then two categories of display technologies used today by the most popular manufacturers.

The abbreviation letters are a shortcut for No. of Pixels on Horizontal x No. of Pixels on Vertical, and all resolutions are derived from the Extended Graphics Array standard, known as XGA, which was introduced back in 1990 by http://www.ibm.com IBM, representing 1024 x 768 pixels.

Super eXtended Graphics Array display standard, or SXGA, has either 1280 x 960 pixels or 1280 x 1024 pixels, the latter displaying a 5:4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect_ratio aspect ratio.

Ultra eXtended Graphics Array, also called UXGA, is the shortcut for 1600 x 1200 pixels. It is used in 15-inch 4:3 laptop screens and some 14-inch models.

The highest resolution for a laptop monitor is Quad eXtended Graphics Array, in short QXGA, which has 2048 x 1536 pixels at 4:3 aspect ratio. It is 4 times the XGA and there exists a 15-inch panel for laptops, produced by IDTech, but it isn’t provided yet as a standard option.

Other laptop display resolutions are: WXGA (1280 x 800 pixels), WXGA+ (1440 x 900 pixels), WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050 pixels), WUXGA (1920 x 1200 pixels), all widescreens and all the most popular.



WXGA refers at Wide XGA, 1280 × 800 pixel resolution with an aspect ratio of 16:10.
Acer introduced recently the 2 unconventional laptop displays integrated in the Acer Gemstone Blue models, featuring High Definition 1920 x 1080 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio.

These days you can choose from various sizes. The first Eee PC model features a 7-inch display, the classic dimensions is of 15 inches, but if you are a professional you need a 17-inch widescreen.

As you’ve probably already noticed, all these LCD monitors are not perfect. As CRTs produce eye fatigue after an hour of working at the computer, the image on an LCD is never perfect. For this reason the top screen manufacturers and designers come up with new advanced display technologies to enhance the brightness in low light conditions, or to produce natural and vivid colors.

There are 2 display technology categories i want to tell you about: one describing what the display is made of, while the other names the technology used to enhance the image display.
Most of the laptop screens on the market are TFT LCDs, which comes from thin film transistor liquid crystal display.
This type is an active matrix liquid crystal display using thin film transistor technology. Another one is the Transreflective Liquid Crystal Display that reflects the sunlight, increasing or decreasing this way the screen’s light. This is better than the already common TFT LCDs because you won’t need to adjust brightness manually. When there is a near light source it doesn’t matter how strong it is, the backlight coming from the side or back of the display compensating for this automatically.

OLED display technology referrs at organic light-emitting diode and consists of a light-emitting diode with the emissive electroluminescent layer formed by a film of organic compounds. OLED consumes less power than the other existent displays and doesn’t need backlight. One negative aspect is the short life time, due to the fast degradation of the compounding materials.

Samsung has a laptop prototype with an AMOLED display. This active-matrix OLED uses a thin film transistor backplane for switching individual pixels on or off, leading to higher resolution and larger display sizes.
Samsung’s AMOLED has a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels and 20% better contrast ratio compared to LCDs.
Flexible displays are a cool concept and they could be implemented in laptop computers as folding displays.

The other category is larger and includes all the display technologies used by various manufacturers to enhance the viewing experience.
Just to enumerate a few we can remember Acer’s CineCrystal, Asus’ Color Shine display, Averatec AveraBrite, Benq’s UltraVivid Technology with Display Brilliance Enhancement Film, Compaq BrightView technology, Dell DirectVue display, Fujitsu-Siemens Crystal View LED wide display, Gigabyte Anti-Glare technology, HP mercury-free Illumi-Lite LED displays, Lenovo VibrantView, Sony XBRITE-HiColor technology, MSI Amazing Crystal Vision TFT LCD display, Zepto Zero Bright Dot display technology, and Zepto UltraCrisp screen technology.



A display enhancement technology such as the Acer’s CineCrystal delivers high definition imaging, 16:9 aspect ratio, and 14% larger viewing area compared to the other 15.4-inch screens.
Asus has the Color Shine, Colour Shine and Crystal Shine technologies used in notebooks with high-gloss anti-reflexive screens. A thin film layer laminated is the polarizer placed on the outermost layer of the glass, and its function is to filter light waves produced by the screen, to generate an image. Asus’ polarizer has a smooth chemically-treated surface that reduces ambient light reflection by absorbing most of the external light instead of diffusing it at different angles. Other notebooks have a matte surface polarizer with anti-glare properties, diffusing the light at different angles, reducing this way the intensity of the light reflected to the user’s eye. This causes distorted images, lower contrast ratio and less vivid colors among other things. Asus’s technology produces crisper images, brilliant colors, sharp contrast, wider viewing angles, reducing eye fatigue.

AveraBrite from Averatec is described as a glossy screen coating that should provide great imaging in any light conditions but it seems that it’is not that effective as it is not overly reflective.
Benq’s UltraVivid technology with Display Brilliance Enhancement Film enables 200 nits brightness for the screen coated with a low-reflectivity layer.
Dell’s DirectVue raises brightness level even more, reaching 500 nits, thanks to the backlight technology.
HP mercury-free Illumi-Lite LED displays are optional and feature lighter weight and energy efficiency.
The company plans to remove mercury from its displays until 2010.

Sony XBRITE-HiColor technology is characterized by deeper blacks and brighter whites. It features vivid colors, sharper images, a glare filter and anti-reflective coating.

These are some examples to give you a bigger picture of what the top companies are trying to do, and we can’t finish our story without discussing about how to take care of these LCD displays, which the more sophisticated are becoming, the more sensitive they are, requiring special attention during cleaning.
Cleaning LCD monitors is simple if you respect some basic rules. In any store you have to look for those sets containing a microfiber cloth and a gel spray specially designed for cleaning laptop computer screens.



Clean the LCD for about 1 minute, until the gel gets dry, and if the surface is larger, than remember to clean only with the dry cloth surface, never use the dirty and wet parts. You could check the user’s manual for the recommended cleaning method in case your LCD model is let’s say, more special.
One specific characteristic of these cleaning kits is that they don’t contain ammonia or alcohol while the cloth has anti static properties, so they don’t leave tiny pieces of material behind and do not attract the dust in the air while touching the surface.

(Sources ScreenTek;
Wikipedia)

Laptop definition: Also called notebooks, laptops are portable computers with integrated monitors, powered by rechargeable batteries. You will say “But that’s not all! They are lightweight, small and you have to close the lid to be able to carry it.” Sorry to disappoint you, but as you will see in a few moments, laptops weren’t always like that; the small dimension and light weight were not actually standards.

Laptop Computer Parts

Inside, most laptop computers integrate a motherboard, memory chip, the graphics chip, a hard disk, sound chip, optical drive, the processor, CPU heat sink, a cooling fan, network chip, the battery, and an ExpressCard expansion bay for Firewire, external disk drives, SSD drives, wireless modules, TV tuners, additional memory, and card readers, while being encased in a metal-alloy material that houses also the display in the lid, keyboard and touchpad.
Laptop processors, also called mobile processors, are designed specifically for these small, portable computers, and feature lower power consumption compared to those powering desktop computers. Also, mobile hard disk drives are smaller and have a spinning speed of 5400 rpm and up to 7200 rpm in premium models. The graphics chips are usually integrated on the motherboard using part of the system memory, but the high-end models come with dedicated video memory for improved performance. Touchpads replacing computer mice, measure about 20 cm2 and work based on capacitive sensing technology feeling the pressure of your finger and moving the cursor on the screen.
All laptop computer parts are developed in smaller and smaller dimensions as the manufacturing companies tend to design lighter weight models reduced in size.

First Laptop Created



The history of the laptop sends us back in April 1976, when Xerox PARC developed the first portable computer prototype called Xerox NoteTaker. It never reached mass production but it was the inspiration source for the first commercially available notebook. Xerox NoteTaker was designed by Alan Key, Adele Goldberg, Douglas Fairbairn, and Larry Tesler. It featured a built-in monochrome display monitor, 128K 8-bit memory, 1MHz processing speed, a floppy disk drive, foldable keyboard and a mouse, using the Smalltalk operating system. The weight was of 22 Kg and the production costs were incredibly high, reaching $50,000, at the time of introduction.

One of the most important steps in the history of the laptop is the one taken in 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation that released the world’s first portable computer on the market at a price of $1795. Osborne 1 was called after its designer’s name, Adam Osborne, who created the 24.5-pound laptop powered by a Zilog Z80 processor featuring 4MHz speeds, 64K RAM memory, a 5-inch display with 53 x 24 text resolution, IEEE-488 port configurable as a Parallel printer port, RS-232 compatible 1200 or 300 baud Serial port for use with external modems or serial printers, modem, dual 5-1/4 inches 91K drives for storage, single sided, single density floppy disk drives, and the CP/M operating system.


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The first portable computer could be closed up and was coming with a carrying handle, and optional battery pack. It was capable to display maximum 52 characters per line but the user had the possibility to scroll back and forth using the cursor keys, and read up to 128 characters.
It was also the world’s first computer coming with software bundle, priced at $1500, which included a CP/M utility, SuperCalc spreadsheet, WordStar word processing with MailMerge, Microsoft MBASIC programming language, and Digital Research CBASIC programming language.



(Sources: computerhistory ; About.com ; Ligon GT Magnet Middle School ; howstuffworks)

Laptop vs Desktop Computers

It’s clear that if you use a computer mostly in an office or at home you should stay on the desktop PC and get a notebook only if you have to use the applications while on the go. I am saying this because, as you already know, laptops are not powerful than desktop PCs when we take into account the processing speeds and graphic capabilities. The portability, light weight and the slim keyboard are the laptop benefits, but if we discuss about the disadvantages of laptops, the first problem we meet is the upgradeability level, which is way lower than in the desktops’ case. This is because you can’t upgrade the entire notebook configuration and if you replace just some parts they won’t be compatible with the ones existent anymore.



Motherboards, keyboards and batteries are proprietary in design and only the original manufacturer can replace them. You can interchange the hard drive and the memory.
Other disadvantages include the high costs of the components, poor ergonomics, easiness to be stolen, and the integration of the keyboard on which you could accidentally spill liquids on, damaging this way the motherboard and the display. To change one of these 2 broken parts would cost you as much as a brand new laptop.

In conclusion, laptops provide more convenience for mobile use but have raised maintenance costs.

Black and silver are classic colors. Yes, I know you are bored of your notebook’s grey look and you envy your friends that have personalized designs, so you would like to find a way to make your model stand out from the crowd but you don’t know where to look for and what exactly to apply. Colored laptop computers are fashionable, more and more manufacturers and designers coming out with sophisticated ideas about how to change your laptop completely. As it is not enough to carry it in a stylish laptop sleeve because you’d have to take it out when you’ll need to work on it, I’d suggest you to think about the following solutions.

Laptops in Different Colors



This idea surely won’t grab you out of classic and won’t make you look strange in the others’ eyes. Well, this depends on your tastes and the ability to fit the right colors with your working environment.
One of the top laptop manufacturers that sell colored notebook computers is Dell.
It provides several cool models with different vibrant colors and patterns to choose from, such as the Inspiron 1525 Laptop series, which is also rich in entertainment features and optimized for the work on the go, with built-in web camera, Bluetooth, wireless connectivity, high-definition displays, multimedia controls, and the latest processing technologies.

Another suggestion for colored laptop computers is the Vaio VGN-TZ2000 series of configurable models available in stylish colors and designed for both customers and business sectors. They can come in black, champagne gold or rose.
If you prefer the classic black with just a little bit of color you can check Acer Gemstone Blue notebooks or those from http://www.alienware.com Alienware.



Alienware adopts the Ripley case design featuring the AlienFX tool with which you can customize the lighting themes for the head logo, keyboard, touchpad, controls and power button.



Acer Aspire Gemstone Blue features Holographic 3D cover consisting of starlit backlight shine below the logo for extra elegance, the Acer CineDash touch-sensitive interface with navigation menus, volume adjustment and media control, the DiamondBlack eKey to add a plus to the image of a precious stone, and the NeoWeave palm rest for ergonomics.



And we can’t forget to mention COLORWARE that sells Lenovo ThinkPad notebooks, MacBook Air, Dell Vostro and Dell XPS in cool colors with the possibility to customize the model before purchasing, and change the system, frame, palm rest, bottom, logo and keyboard color. The metallic and solid colors used are glossy, scratch resistant, and don’t fade in time.

Cool Laptop Skins
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You could also apply cool laptop skins, which have the main role of changing your device’s look but work also as protective layers against dirt, scratches and liquid spills. There are many skins providers but you should always research to find which are the best ones that use high-quality materials and adhesives that don’t remain on the laptop after you remove the skin.



I can recommend you several models created by real designers at Gelaskins. These are inspired by various style categories and I’m sure you can find more than one to match your taste.
Also, you can check skins providers that allow you to make custom laptop skins by sending your own pictures to be applied on the notebook. One such store is skinit. It even works together with Hewlett Packard to create new interesting designs so it is surely a trusted resource.
Notebook stickers that apply on the entire exterior surface of a laptop are the most affordable solution for you as prices are around $20 for a skin.

Here is a list of cool websites from where you can choose best laptop skins:
laptopskins
Schtickers
DECALGIRL
skinit
Shalgo
LapJacks
LeftSkins
Gelaskins
aspoke

Sparkling Graphics



Now, if you are rich enough to love diamonds you will like this.
One of the winner of Microsoft’s Fashion PC Award is the Signature PC from Ego Lifestyle, the creator of a luxury notebook collection called Ego Diamond.

It is a limited edition consisting of high-class notebook designs featuring rounded margins, precious diamonds encrusted in white gold and platinum. If you have some ideas you can discuss with specialized designers from Ego to create tailor-made notebooks.
Ego Diamond notebooks sport changeable handmade decorative leather skins, chrome carrying handle, high-quality high gloss piano black interior, high gloss chrome outer frame, 2 sliding doors hiding the connectors, 12 direct access keys, stereo microphone, built-in web camera, bass reflex sound system with 4 integrated speakers, AMD Turion 64 processor technology, Windows Vista Ultimate operating system pre-installed, Bluetooth, 3-hour battery life, voice recognition, and a 12.1-inch wide anti-reflected display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.



They have a starting price of $10,900 and are available in selected markets worldwide.

Cheap Swarovski Crystal



Those of you that don’t afford a $11,000 laptop with diamonds but still want some sparkling stones on your PC should orientate to Swarovski crystals, and one of the online stores providing such a solution is CrystalIcing. Here you would have to spend 5 times less than on an Ego Diamond, about $2,000.

Laser Engraving Services

And now let’s get to a more complicated solution! Laser Engraving was discussed previously in one of our articles, when we mentioned a company called Epilog Laser which sells laser engraving equipment.

This complex design method consists of using lasers to engrave the laptop’s case which is made of materials included in the laser engravable category, such as polymer and novel metal alloys. A laser engraving equipment is a system featuring a laser, a controller and a surface. The laser emits a beam that guides the controller in tracing patterns on the surface, depending on the direction, intensity, speed of movement, and spread of the laser beam.



Other engravable materials include natural woods, plastics, metals, coated metals, stone, glass, jewelery.

Epilog Laser machines engrave in three steps: insert of the notebook into the system, scan the image you want and print it to the laser. Such a system has prices starting at $10,000 for the 18 x 12 inches version called Epilog Mini 18 with 25 Watts power.
This is a permanent design solution for your laptop.