HP Pavilion tx2000 Entertainment Notebook PC series- Overview

Overview : For the power of an entertainment notebook PC, the versatility of a tablet PC and the convenience of a touchscreen, the tx2000 has everything you are looking for - all wrapped in an attractive, sleek package

Features : • Featuring genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic or Premium for superior digital entertainment and advanced features • Featuring a 12.1 inch diagonal widescreen high-definition touchscreen display and a built-in digitiser for handwriting with a battery-less rechargeable eraser pen, you can use the tx2000 as a notebook PC or a handwriting tablet • AMD dual core processors and NVIDIA® GeForce® Go graphics provide the speed you need when you are on the move. • With three operational modes - PC mode for notebook computing, display mode for watching TV or movies and tablet mode for handwriting or gaming, the tx2000 is truly versatile • Weighing-in at just under two kilograms, the tx2000 is wrapped in a stunning new Echo HP Imprint design, a circular pattern that reverberates with energy as each ring spreads and connects with the others

Review of Apple MacBook (Core 2 Duo 2.16GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, SuperDrive, black)

The good: Upgraded CPU for the same price; same great design; built-in Webcam and remote control; adds 802.11n support. The bad: Cutting-edge features are absent, including Intel's new Santa Rosa platform and LED-backlit displays. The bottom line: Apple's rightfully popular 13-inch MacBook gets a decent incremental upgrade, but we're still looking forward to the next version.

Price range: $1,497.48 - $1,799.89

Review of Alienware Area-51 m17x

The good: Highest-end components; imposing design; fantastic performance. The bad: Starting configurations are overpriced; touch controls are a bit wonky. The bottom line: If you're looking to drop some major change on a show-off gaming laptop, it's hard to do better than the Alienware Area-51 m17x, a mean-looking, high-performance black slab.

Product Review : Dell Inspiron Mini 9

The good: More configurable than other Netbooks; good battery life; XP and Linux OS options. The bad: Some awkward keyboard compromises; no SSD options larger than 16GB. The bottom line: Dell's entry into the Netbook market means it's time to take these low-cost, low-power PCs seriously. The Inspiron Mini 9 is an excellent example of the form, if not radically different from the competition. Specifications: Processor: Intel ATOM (1.6 GHz); RAM installed: 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM; Display: 8.9; Storage: 4GB ; Graphics Processor / Vendor: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 950 ; OS Provided : Ubuntu Linux version 8.04.1 ; Price range: $349.00

Product summary : Acer Aspire 5735-4624

The good: Bargain-basement price; decent performance; 16:9 display will appeal to movie lovers; does Draft N Wi-Fi. The bad: Flimsy, plastic chassis; clacky mouse buttons; somewhat low screen resolution; keyboard feels a bit cramped because it must make room for separate number pad. The bottom line: A mainstream laptop at a Netbook price, the Acer Aspire 5735 provides the basics plus a movie-friendly 16:9 aspect display.

Laptop Advice

What constitutes the best laptop is different for everybody. Some people want a simple laptop that will handle the basics: word processing, email and Internet access, and other productivity tasks. Others are interested in a multimedia machine that can handle all the video, music, and movies they can throw at it. We’ve made an effort to find the best laptops for every kind of user, no matter what you want to do with it. Laptops are so versatile and varied, that there’s a model for all types of consumers, it can just be difficult wading through them all to find that needle in the haystack. We’ve done the wading, and we’ve found the needles. Just look below and see which of these best laptops suits you the best. The Mobile User: Asus Eee PC If you’re always on the go or just don’t want a big laptop cluttering up your desk, you should be looking for a mobile laptop. A number of brands offer laptops that are geared for mobility, and these lightweight, easily portable notebooks are capable of much more than their size may let on. Asus has been leading the charge with their Eee laptops, which is available in a number of models with screen sizes between 7 and 10 inches. They are ultraportable, and especially useful for business travelers. If that’s too small, then something like the 13-inch Apple MacBook might be more appropriate. The Student: Apple MacBook Pro Right now, the premier laptop for students would have to be the Apple MacBook Pro, available in 15 and 17-inch display models. Blending a stylish design with the easy-to-use Mac operating system, the Apple MacBook Pro has been a huge hit with a new generation of computer users. It can handle both productivity tasks like doing homework or surfing the web, and multimedia tasks like listening to music or watching video. The ‘Just the Basics’ User: Dell Inspiron Notebooks If you’re looking for a laptop that just works and doesn’t distract you with all sorts of irritating, useless gadgetry, you may be interested in a Dell Inspiron notebook. These affordable laptops are perfect for simple computing, but they are also capable of doing more if you wish. They are good computers to grow into. Available with screen sizes between 15 and 17-inches, they are excellent mainstream computers with lots of potential. The Multimedia User: Toshiba Qosmio Notebooks Toshiba’s Qosmio line is tailor made for consumers who want something a little more from their computers, who want to be able to store lots of music and video, and bring their computing into the 21st century. Qosmio computers can be connected to a television and used as a digital video recorder, they can be outfitted with Blu-Ray disc players for high-definition video playback, and they have top-of-the-line specifications that makes gaming a high-intensity experience.

Apple branching out in 2009?

Familiar Apple rumors are making the rounds again this week as Macworld looms in the distance, one month away. Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research put out a research note Monday morning spotted by D: All Things Digital saying that Apple plans to release something from "a completely new device category" next year. He fails to explain exactly what such a product might encompass, but speculates that it will be based around a processor designed by the former P.A. Semi engineering team. As a result, the usual rumors (Mac tablet, iPhone Nano, iKindle) are under discussion within the Mac universe. Chowdhry believes that Apple patent filings will be released early in 2009 that will make everything clear, and also notes that P.A. Semi should have an iPhone chip out around that time that improves performance and battery life. Earlier this year CEO Steve Jobs implied Apple was watching small-device categories like tablets and Netbooks to see if they actually take off as a mega-trend, but in the meantime the company had other priorities. Mac tablet rumors stretch back for years, and in the past Jobs has quickly shot down talk of an Apple-produced competitor to Amazon's Kindle, which has been interpreted as a sign Apple was doing just that.

Google chat afflicted by spotty service

Google's instant-messaging service suffered intermittent outages Monday, behaving inconsistently for several hours. The issue began about 10:30 a.m. PST and affected a subset of users of both the Web page-based Gmail Chat and the installed Google Talk software, spokesman Andrew Kovacs said. Because of the problem, sometimes when people sent a message they'd get an error message it wasn't sent and the recipient didn't receive it, but often resending the message worked, he said. "This issue has been resolved for most users, and we expect a resolution for all users within the next couple of hours," Kovacs said about three hours after the problem began. Google's core business is in search and advertising, but it's trying to expand to be a fuller-featured Internet destination with Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs, which collectively are offered to paying customers as Google Apps subscriptions. Google offers a service level agreement to those customers.

Google gives Gmail users a to-do list

Google has added a to-do list to Gmail to help users be more productive. When the new Tasks feature is enabled, a box shows up on top of the Gmail window. In it, users can add, reorder, and delete tasks. It's also possible to assign a due date to each action and even convert e-mails into tasks. The feature--announced Monday on a company blog--will also run outside of the e-mail program. Adding items is as simple as clicking on a vacant part of the box and typing. This may sound like a rehash of the many Post-It Note-like programs popular in the mid-'90s, but because most of us have morphed into e-mail junkies, this list is constantly in our face, reminding of things we wanted to get done. Since e-mail is where and how many of us get things done, both in our personal and professional life, why not add a list of things that we may not be able to get done via e-mail, such as a reminder to make dinner reservations? To enable Tasks, go to Settings in the upper right of the Gmail window and click the Labs tab. Click Enable next to the Tasks selection, click Save Changes. After refreshing Gmail, a Tasks link will appear under the Contacts link. Just click that Tasks link and you are ready to be productive.

Second Firefox 3.1 beta brings significant changes

Usually not much happens to a software product from one point release to the next, much less one beta version to the next. But Mozilla has made quite a few changes with the second beta of Firefox 3.1, released Monday. In the new version are support for video and audio built into Web pages, a built-in service for telling Web sites a user's location if users permit it, private browsing, Web worker support for more powerful Web-based programs, and my favorite feature, the TraceMonkey engine for running the JavaScript programs used to build sophisticated Web sites. TraceMonkey was released before, but now it's switched on by default.

The official announcement has more details for users, and programmers can check the developer site.

The finished 3.1 version, code-named Shiretoko, is expected to arrive in early 2009 after a third beta, Mozilla has said. It arrives during a period of hot activity for browsers. Apple is promoting its Safari browser for Windows as well as Mac OS X. Microsoft, the leader of the market, plans to release Internet Explorer 8 in 2009. And of course the biggest change is the arrival of Google Chrome, an open-source project that, like Safari, uses uses a project called WebKit for interpreting and displaying the basic HTML code used to describe Web pages. (Updated 10:05 p.m. PST to clarify that Chrome, not Firefox, uses WebKit.) Mozilla Chairman Mitchell Baker is unfazed by the competition, though. Largely because of search-ad-related revenue from Google, the organization behind Firefox, the Mozilla Foundation, pulled in $75 million in 2007.