Laptops Arena

One of the most important aspect when you buy a laptop should be the life battery, and after you buy it, you should take care of it and try to extend it as much as you can.Here are some tips for extending your laptop's battery life.

First of all, you should defrag your hard drives regularly and pay attention to the fact that the faster your laptop's hard drive works, less demand you are putting on the hard drive and the battery. You should make your hard drives as efficient as possible, and defrag them. It is well known that Mac OSX is built to handle better the fragmentation and it may not be very applicable to computer with Apple OS installed.

You can "cut" the laptop screen to the lowest level of dim, so you can modify the CPU and cooling performances. This is another way you can aqueeze some battery juice, and also you should throw an eye to the programs running on background, because they are all added to the CPU load and they cut battery life. Shut down everything you think it is not crucial when you are on battery.Other aditional devices which should be cut in order to extend the battery life are the external devices, and I think you can quit the coffee warmer, or the mini drum kit when you are on battery. All these USB devices, including the mouse, and the Wi-Fi drain the laptop battery.

To extend your laptop's battery life, you should think about adding some more RAM, whcih will alow your laptop to process more with the mamory it has, than based on the virtual memory. This virtual memory usage means that you take space from the hard disk, and it has a very low eficiency. This is very aplicable to situation when you run programs which require a lot of virtual memory.

Maybe you didn't know this, but even having a CD or a DVD in the drive is draining the battery. They spin, they take power, even when they are not actually used, and the solution would be to use virtual drives or keep the information on your hard disk. From time to time, you should clean the battery metal contacts with rubbing alcohol. This makes the transfer of power from your battery more efficient and it prolongs life battery.

Never leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time, and you should use it at least once every two to three weeks. Do not let a LiIon battery completely discharge. It is always better to leave a computer on the hibernate mode, than on standby mode. The hibernate function will save the PC's state as it is, and it will shut it down, while the standby function keeps it turned on.

A very important aspect is to keep the operating temperature down, and clean out your air fans with a cloth or something smooth, to remove dust and other things in there. You should set up the power optins, and set it up so the power usage to be optimized. Don't multitask, ot the battery will die. It is better to do only one thing, than having an open spreadsheet, reading the email and chatting on messenger in the same time. Organize your activity and take care of your battery!

More and more these days, we find ourselves surrounded by what they are called mini-laptops, mini-notebooks, or mini-notes. They are small, light, thin, and you can carry them everywhere. If you want to purchase one of these trends, some of the features to take into consideration when buying one are the weight, battery, price. Above, you can find some ideas of mini-laptops from which you can choose.


Asus Eee PC 1000HE
This notebook incorporates among other things, a 160GB HDD, a webcam, 4-in-1 card reader, three USB ports and WiFi connectivity. The battery lasts up to 7 hours, which is very long, compared to other mini-laptops. Something that is less convenient about it is the weight, which is 3.2 pounds.



Samsung N110
This notebook also has standard specifications, like 160GB HDD, 1GB RAM, 10.2 inch screen. The advantage of this mini-laptop is the long-lasting battery life (more than 7 hours), and the 2.8 pounds weight.


MSI Wind U100
This notebook weights no more than 2.6 pounds, with a 10 inch screen and a battery that lasts up to 5 hours. It also incorporates an Atom processor.


Acer Aspire One AOD150
Although it has not a very good performance, as the other mini-laptops, this laptop has a quite low price. Apart of this, it has a very slim design, and the battery lasts up to 6 hours. The display measures 8.9 inch, and also contains an Intel Atom processor.


HP Mini 2140
Although it is more expensive, this mini laptop has a battery that lasts more than seven hours, a nice design, and comfortable keyboard.

There are many other models of mini laptops, since they became more and more popular, and people prefer them for their portability, which is much higher than normal laptops', and for the special design.

Laptops are not usually designed to have a very good sound quality, and one can also find that the sound differs from one laptop to another. Apart from this, another problem that you can encounter is the volume itself, which is rather low. But if you want to work this out, there are some methods that you can try.

First of all, to make sure that the problem is due to the too small built in speakers of the laptop, check the settings in the control panel volume. If the volume is at the maximum, and you are still not satisfied with the sound quality, you can try one or more of the following ideas.

The easier way is to use a speaker system, which can be of various types. You can either connect the system through Bluetooth, or using the headphone jack. Depending on the quality of the system you use, laptop's sound can be considerably improved.
If, on the contrary, you want to listen to music or play a game, with a decent or very increased volume, and in the same time your mother wants to watch her favorite soap opera, you can use a pair of headphones. The only disadvantage (or advantage, for that matter) is that pretty much anything can happen around you, and you will not hear much or any of it. But at least you can happily mind your own business in front of your laptop.

If in the end you are still not happy with either the speaker system, or the headsets, there is another gadget meant to make your wishes come true. I am talking about amplification systems which can double the level of the speakers' volume. This device needs to be hooked into the laptop, than the speaker system or the headsets hooked into this device. If you think this gadget is the perfect solution for you, you can try Boostaroo, or Boostaroo Revolution (which is said to increase the volume by four times).

If none of the ideas above is good enough, you might want to: go to the doctor (you might turn out to be nearly deaf), or turn off the wife (hard, but not impossible).

Toffee is a laptop sleeve producer, which offers a large variety of products, and I think you can find in their offer a product to fit your criteria for a stylish and practical travel accessory for your Macbook. This company is Australian, and they create elegant laptop sleeves, and specifically they design them for notebooks.

Their products fit a wide range of notebooks, including the 13'' Macbook and the 15'' or 17'' Macbook Pro. These sleeves are available in seven colors and they can be shipped worldwide.

It you have tried a lot of bags and cases, or sleeves until now and you didn't find the right product, you should try taking a look at this company's online catalog and maybe you will find something for you. Most of the products on the market are dedicated to carrying a computer, and this means you need an extra bag for the rest of the accessories or the things you want to carry with you.

Toffee has a leather sleeve among the products they manufacture, which is perfect for a notebook, and more over can slip into a backpack or a briefcase. It is great because it protects the laptop from sands, dust, minor impacts, moisture and other external factors which could harm it.

This sleeve's exterior is padded, and it has a smooth soft liner which keeps your notebook protected against scratches. It also has an metallic zip, a sturdy stitching and it doesn't look too solid or bulky. When you use your notebook on your lap, the sleeve creates a good heat shield.

This notebook sleeve is a good product, it is not the cheapest you could find on the market, but it might pe the best for some of you! You should try looking on their website, and if you don't find anything you like, the Internet is all yours and the wide range of notebook sleeves is waiting for people like you, who need a good product for their notebook!

Toshiba Tecra M8 is quite similar to Toshiba Satellite U305, and it is easy to observe that these two products have the same case and many other inside parts are common to both models. M8 is on the border of ultraportable series, and with its thin design, it is the lightest notebook in its class, the 13.3'' notebooks. Toshiba has successfully designed a compact and stylish frame with unique elements. All these aspects make it attractive to both students and business professionals.

The cover comes only in titanium silver, and it looks like painted in gray with metal flakes. This silver paint is also on the palm rests and around the keyboard, and it looks pretty elegant. The color and the pattern are important, because fingerprints are almost invisible on this M8. The rest of the case is made of black plastic, matte. The display has WXGA resolution (1280x800) and the horizontal viewing angles are better than the average notebooks have them. The brightness of the display is great and the colors are vivid. A minor color inversion appears when the screen is viewed from very sharp vertical angles. Built-in camera is good, and the resolution is very good, 1.3 megapixels. Audio performance is average for a 13.3'' notebook. It is far from impressive, but the audio speakers are located in a good position, which directions the sound toward the user.

This laptop comes with a processor in a range between Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 (1.8GHz) and Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz). The Intel X3100 graphic board extends battery life and reduces heat, because it is integrated. This laptop is a business notebook and not a "gaming machine", and the lack of the dedicated graphics card isn't such a big disadvantage.

The touchpad seems durable and it is very responsive. The edges make the touchpad look smaller than it really is, and the buttons are quite hard to press. They seem to show no feedback and they don't seem responsive at all. Toshiba M8 has a six cell battery, and the 9 cell battery is also available. If you set the computer on "High Performance" you will get a battery life of almost 2 hours and 30 minutes.

Toshiba M8 is a solid notebook, good for business, and it offers a lot of features, but few problems in the same time. The glossy display, sizeable hard drive and a good pack of ports make of it an excellent work machine. The impressive backbone for performance is given by the processor and plenty available RAM. The sturdy design and the conveninent fingerprint reader shows us that this machine is made for business.