Reviews Of Laptops And 2-In-1 PCs
Laptop PCs and 2-in-1 convertible tablet/laptop devices are the cornerstone personal computing systems for getting both work and play done on the road. From the big gun firepower of gaming laptops and desktop replacement machines, to ultra-lights and hybrids, we've got you covered here for what's hot in mobile computing.
In terms of brand recognition, Lenovo's ThinkPad probably has some of the best "brand equity" of just about any notebook line in the history of Windows PCs. A favorite among IT managers for their rugged reliability, especially in business environments, Lenovo's ThinkPad brand, previously acquired from IBM, helped propel the company towards...
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The Dell Latitude E7440 is not quite as sexy as some of the sleek ultrabooks out there, but it’s also not as square as most business notebooks we've been subjected to over the years. The Dell Latitude E7440 thus continues a trend we’ve been noticing lately of companies gussying up their business-class laptops, while maintaining...
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It’s a ThinkPad. No, it’s a Yoga! No, it’s...a ThinkPad Yoga. Lenovo has melded two of its popular laptop design approaches together to create a sort of hybrid ultrabook, bringing together elements of its workhorse ThinkPad lineup and multi-mode capable Yoga notebooks. It has the work-friendly keyboard design of the new generation...
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Dell's XPS line of laptops have always been about foregoing compromise in the pursuit of a premium mobile experience. The company's latest lineup of XPS 15 touch-enabled systems carry that tradition into a new era of computing, driven by Microsoft's Windows 8.1 operating system. These machines are anything but cookie cutter, and even...
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If you’ve ever worked in a professional environment for an extended period of time, chances are you’ve used an IBM-come-Lenovo ThinkPad at some point. Their simple black rectangle designs with the little red dot on the keyboard are downright iconic, but although Lenovo has made smaller refinements on the exterior design of some...
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Intel's 4th generation Core processors, based on the company's Haswell microarchitecture, have done good things for ultrabooks this year. Thanks to Haswell, Ultrabooks have moved much closer to Intel’s original vision of thin, light, low-power (but still powerful) systems that eschew outdated components and usher in new...
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When Lenovo introduced the original Yoga 13 convertible ultrabook last year, consumers snatched it up in droves, making it one of the top selling Windows 8 convertibles on the market. Fast-forward a year, and Lenovo is at it again, this time with the new Yoga 2 Pro. Like its predecessor, the Yoga 2 Pro features the same well-liked multimode...
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Let’s just be honest right off the bat: You’re probably not reading our review of this product so much to check out benchmarks and other performance indicators as you are to see if we’ll clarify whether or not Google's strange, new browser-based Chrome OS operating system is really worth investing in. Chrome OS is indeed...
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The Asus Transformer Book T100 packs an impressive list of features into a diminutive chassis and companion keyboard dock. After working with system, it's clear that Asus is hoping to capture lightning in a bottle, for the second time in a row. It's been six years since Asus launched the first Eee PC and kicked off a miniature revolution in...
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Despite some fierce competition, Samsung has experienced an impressive level of success in the mobile space and has managed to nurture the Galaxy brand into a household name. Part of that success was due to the company unifying its ultra mobile products (phones, tablets, phablets, etc.) under the Galaxy brand, and thus, Samsung decided...
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Dell has updated its Alienware series of gaming notebooks with the refreshed Alienware 18, and what an update it is. In addition to a new generation of hardware, with both Intel's Haswell and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 780M rumbling under the hood, Alienware has completely redesigned the look of the chassis, keyboard, and touchpad, all of which...
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Earlier this year, Google did something almost ground-breaking when it introduced the Chromebook Pixel. Sure, the Chromebook line as a whole has existed for a few years, but the entire premise of such a range of notebooks revolved around only a couple of design goals. One of those was accessibility, and almost by default, the other was affordability....
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While many full-size gaming rigs are built to elicit oohs and ahs with their stunning looks and high performance, gaming notebooks can sometimes be a little bland. CyberPowerPC has had its share of solid yet non-distinct looking gaming notebooks, but the Fangbook series is a different animal. Built with plenty of alluring hardware...
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Technology marches to the beat of its own drum and the hard part is keeping in step with the rhythm. You may recall, for example, that we already reviewed Dell's XPS 13 Ultrabook a year ago, singing high praise for its edge-to-edge display, stellar battery life, and overall performance, which at the time was the best we'd seen from an Ultrabook....
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Ultrabooks are, in a word, cool. They’re slim, flashy, and lightweight, yet they’re rather powerful and offer users a laptop that can do it all in a form factor that begs to be touched and carried around (especially if it’s a convertible ultrabook, in which case the unit can double as a high-powered tablet). Business-class...
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Business-class laptops don’t get much love these days, due to all the buzz surrounding ultrabooks and tablets. But there are still plenty of jobs that demand the processing power, storage, and general flexibility of a true business-class machine. If you still use optical media like CDs or DVDs in your day-to-day computing,...
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The expression "better late than never" fits like a glove when talking about the recent trend towards 15.6-inch Ultrabooks. We fully appreciate that Intel and its hardware partners made a concerted effort to slim down the notebook without sacrificing performance (unlike the once popular netbook form factor), but limiting the segment to 14-inch...
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Calling the Alienware M18x R2 a laptop is like referring to a Harley Davidson as a bicycle. Both have handlebars and ride on two wheels, but when the rubber hits the road, the Harley's going to leave a Schwinn in the rear-view mirror. So it goes with the Alienware system we abducted from Dell. Technically, it's a gaming laptop, but more...
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Given all the frenzy around ultrabooks, Microsoft's Surface, and the low power potential of future chips like Haswell, you might think that desktop replacement-class laptops had fallen out of favor with modern laptop manufacturers. iBuyPower's CZ-17 "Valkyrie" is proof that they haven't -- and while its size and weight won't appeal to road...
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For all the performance being packed into today’s super-slim ultrabooks, gaming and multimedia are often the weakest links. Most ultrabooks have Intel integrated graphics that aren’t designed to take on graphics-intensive games. Storage space, graphics processing, and display quality can be key areas in many ultrabooks that leave...
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The recent rise and fall of the netbook as a computer category made one thing clear: consumers are willing to sacrifice some screen size and power in the name of portability, but not as much as a netbook requires. On the other hand, many shoppers are willing to pay a premium for a thinner, lighter notebook, and that's where the ultrabook comes...
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There was a time, not too terribly long ago, when a machine was immediately glossed over by average consumers as soon as the "business" label was placed on it. If you've worked in the corporate world within the past 10 to 15 years, you know exactly what we mean. Those dreaded "work laptops" were never ones to be proud of, and while they somehow...
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