Photo: melissabain / Flickr

Specialists are warning that working with a laptop resting on your legs could damage your skin permanently. A medical report has named the condition ‘toasted skin syndrome’, and it occurs as a result of long-term exposure to heat. The condition, which leads to a mottled appearance in skin, is generally harmless – but the darkening of the skin caused by long hours working (or playing) at a laptop on your lap could be long lasting.

Skin cancer risk

Toasted skin syndrome, which can also be caused by heating pads and other sources of heat not hot enough to cause burns, is generally harmless, but in some rare cases it can cause damage that leads to skin cancer. In general, prolonged skin inflammation – like that in toasted skin syndrome – can increase the risk of developing squamous cell skin cancer, which is more aggressive than common skin cancer.

Laptops in the medical journals

In the past six years, 10 cases relating to laptops have found their way into the medical journals. In 2007 an American law student saw Dr Kimberley Salkey for treatment of the mottled discolouration on her leg. Dr Salkey was reportedly stumped until she learnt that the student spent around six hours a day working with her laptop resting on her lap. The temperature generated by the laptop was a whopping 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a more recent case, a 12-year-old boy developed discoloration on his left thigh after gaming on his laptop for a few hours every day over several months. Swiss researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics that the boy ‘recognised that the laptop got hot on the left side; however, regardless of that, he did not change its position.’

The manufacturers know this

This isn’t news to manufacturers of laptops, though. Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard and others warn in user manuals that users shouldn’t place laptops on laps or exposed skin for long periods of time because of the risk for burns.

If you must work with your laptop on your lap, experts advise placing your laptop bag or another heat shield under your laptop.

Photo: Toshiba

The Toshiba is mostly black, with a liberal spread of scarlet red. It looks like a high-performance Toshiba gaming laptop, which may be attractive to some but off-putting to others. If red isn’t your thing, steer clear. If it is, and you prefer your machine look like it can put in the heavy legs, short of putting aerodynamic slits on their machine, the Toshiba Qosmio X500-128 looks the part.

Display

The glossy display, at 18.4-inches is enormous. Really, it is huge, making this laptop less and less like a laptop, to be fair. The display’s aspect ratio is the contemporary 16:9 but with an unusual resolution of 1680×945. And, at 18.4 inches, its an absolute energy sapper. Added to that it weighs in at a hefty 4.6kg, so this desktop replacement notebook isn’t meant to be used on your lap, so to speak. It’s meant for a desk where power is not a concern.

With regards to the screen’s actual performance, we were disappointed relative to our expectations. Naturally, gloss makes outdoor use a no-no – but given the heftiness of it all, you aren’t planning on doing that are you? Additionally, the viewing angle is respectable along the horizontal plane. Where it is not so impressive is on the vertical plane, with colour and brightness being lost with the slightest movement.

Input devices

The keyboard on the Toshiba Qosmio X500-128 is fantastic. Given the unreal proportions of this desktop replacement notebook, you’d expect the keys to be well spaced, which they are. An isolated number pad is also included, which is always a plus.

On the other side of the coin, the touchpad on the Toshiba Qosmio X500 is atrocious. Inputs on the buttons are hit and miss, with frequent unresponsiveness being the order of the day. The actual touchpad has difficulty tracking mouse movements, leading to an overly jerky and laggy experience. How Toshiba, who have among the best input devices in all of computing, could let this ship in this condition is beyond us.

Performance

The one area we expected not to be disappointed in is in performance, with the Toshiba Qosmio X500 obliging. Our two biggest concerns were how competent a media player it was, since the massive screen plus built-in Blu-ray ROM leant itself to this. Our second concern was how it performed in gaming stakes, especially considering that bizarre resolution.

With regards to Blu-ray playback, there’s nothing to report here but the good. The omission of 1920×1080p is disappointing, but hi-definition content slightly scaled down still looks great, and most users will be hard pressed to see a difference.

On a gaming front, we ran the gamut of resource hogs, with Crysis, and Modern Warfare II, and Dirt 2 to put it through its paces. With Modern Warfare II and Dirt 2, the game ran over the minimum 30fps one expects on full resolution with settings on high and anti-aliasing at 4x. Crysis, as is normal with Crysis, was not at all agreeable with that, so with setting scaled down to 1024×768 resolution and medium, it stabilised over 30fps. Clearly the Nvidia GeForce GTS360M and the Intel Core i7 720QM matched with the high RAM count makes this a very capable gaming laptop, though getting an external mouse is a must.

The verdict

In all, the Toshiba Qosmio X500 is a fantastic gaming laptop. It isn’t at the absolute bleeding edge of what desktop replacement notebooks or gaming laptops can achieve, but it’s pretty close. With the Intel Core i7 720QM and the Nvidia GeForce GTS360M doing the heavy lifting, this Toshiba gaming laptop wins on all counts. Buy this. It’s great value for money. But don’t forget to get a mouse to go along with that because the trackpad really is that bad.

Photo: Asus

Tread lightly. The Asus G73JH is not cheap. Not by a long mile. But it is an extremely well engineered laptop that can appease the desires of most hardcore PC gamers. Still here? Alright then, dive right in with us.

Specs

Considering the amount of money you’re paying, you definitely want the specs to justify the shillings. Asus works hard at doing this for you. The Asus G73JH has an Intel Core i7-720QM processor. It ships with 8GB RAM right out the box and a beefy 1,000 GB hard drive (yes, that’s right, a terabyte in the case). What of that promise for gamers? No need to fret, how does an ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 sound? Thought so. Add to that a Blu-ray ROM built in (still something of a rarity on laptops) and HDMI, VGA output with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, you start to see how the costs of this Asus G73JH just escalated and escalated.

Display

The display is a generous 17-inches in full HD (1920×1080p) with an aspect ratio of 16:9. You’re not going to want to take it outside, since the reflections from the glossy screen are unbearable. Viewing angle is surprisingly forgiving, allowing for slight movement vertically and horizontally relative to the screen’s positioning, but dodging the reflections is the big problem. And this bright, generous display also adds to the battery life problems.

Input

There’s little to say about the input. Both the keyboard and trackpad are above standard fare, presenting a pleasant user input experience. The keyboard is backlit, too – which always excites us more than it should – which is another major plus.

Performance

Photo: Asus

Which brings us to the big one – performance. With a battery that hits three hours at the beginning of its life cycle and continually depletes thereafter, one may feel the pinch with the Asus G73JH. The truth is, this considered, perhaps performance is not as good as the price might suggest. Let me reiterate, the Intel Core i7 and ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 ensure it works like a charm, but the misgivings start to stack. We tested the machine with the most popular first-person shooter on PCs at the moment, Modern Warfare 2, and at a full 1920×1080 p resolution with 4x anti aliasing turned on and textures extra turned on, it averaged a very respectable 48fps. It’s not quite the COD optimum 60fps, but this is a notebook, after all.

Naturally with applications, this theme carried through as well. It runs really well. Really, really well, actually. And you’ll be hard pressed to find many desktops with equivalent specs or graphics capabilities. But it costs over £1,600, which makes us take a pause. Is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 really worth that? What of the Intel Core i7 processor? It’s just, you sort of feel like it’s overpriced by £200. Sure, we realise at 8GB worth of RAM, with a fantastic processor and a remarkable graphics card, add to that a full HD display and Blu-ray drive, how much did we expect to pay, right? Still, though, it hangs in our minds.

So, in effect, if you’re looking for a superb gaming laptop and price is not a sticky point for you, get the Asus G73JH now. If price is a sticky point, you may dance around the issue a little bit, as we have been.

If you are among one of those people who believes in having the best of everything and is looking for a laptop that takes you far ahead of others in terms of laptop technology, then the Sony Vaio VGN-AW41MF/H is the most perfect option for you. The AW series laptop is powered by the Core 2 Duo P7450 processor that offers you a breakneck speed in all the tasks that you do. Additionally, the huge 4GB RAM of the Sony Vaio VGN-AW41MF/H provides you an unmatched performance while running multiple applications or opening multiple web pages.

The operating system pre-installed into the Sony Vaio VGN-AW41MF/H is the brand new Windows 7 that makes you stride ahead of everyone else. It has a massive 18.4 inch HD widescreen that offers you a high quality viewing experience while watching a movie or playing video games. The XBRITE_ECO LCD technology used in the display maximizes LCD space while reducing the chassis size.

The Sony Vaio VGN-AW41MF/H comes with a huge 1TB hard drive that provides enough space for storing more than 150,000 sound tracks and a number of other files. The optical drives included in the brand new Sony Vaio VGN-AW41MF/H laptop are DVD±RW (±R DL), DVD-RAM and BD-ROM so you also play those blu-ray discs and have an amazing HD movie watching experience. Another important feature of the Sony Vaio VGN-AW41MF/H include the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT that provides a dedicated graphics memory of 512 MB, so that you can have an amazing 3D gaming experience and run smoothly those graphics hungry applications on your laptop.

If you are looking for a laptop that can run the most demanding applications, play games and movies smoothly, the Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion DV6-2060EA (VJ689EAABU) would be the perfect choice for you. The massive 15.6 inch HD LED screen of the laptop makes everything look stunning and lets you enjoy an amazing visual treat. The Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion DV6-2060EA (VJ689EAABU) has an Intel Core processor and a hard drive capacity of 500 GB for running multiple applications at an amazingly fast speed. A huge memory space is added by the 4 GB RAM which is expandable up to 8 GB. Thus, you are provided with more than sufficient space for storing your movies, music tracks and important files.

With the Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit operating system included in the HP laptop, it stands out among the laptop crowd. It comes with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 230M graphics card that takes your gaming experience to a whole new level. To keep you connected with the world everywhere, the computer comes packed with amazing features like integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet, LAN 802.11 b/g/n. Moreover, the Hewlett-Packard HP Pavilion DV6-2060EA (VJ689EAABU) also includes Bluetooth wireless networking, 1 ExpressCard/54 Slot and an integrated webcam. You can also hook your HP notebook to your TV owing to the HDMI port provided in the laptop.

Apart from the amazing features, the overall designing of the Hewlett Packard notebook is also quite impressive. It has a sleek and metalized surface design; the mesh imprint finish and the new ‘magical chrome’ media runway add an extra edge to the overall look and feel of the notebook.

Custom laptop basically means that you can choose the configuration as per the requirement. Many companies all around are offering a wide range of custom laptops. Dell and Hewlett Packard are some of the biggest companies offering a wide range of customised laptops. These companies are world leaders in manufacturing a wide range of laptops for the last many years so you can totally rely on the product. Additionally these companies also provide warranty on these laptops which makes it even more reliable.

You can order a customised gaming laptop that will support all sorts of PC games. These are manufactured by highly qualified professionals who understand your exact requirements and work accordingly. The gaming laptop computer will be fitted with a high resolution graphic and quad core processor so that it can support the most high resolution games. Customised laptops offer the best gaming experience that will keep you glued to the computer screen. The best thing about these laptop computer models is that you can build as per the requirement and budget. You can add various features such as a webcam or the fingerprint scanner. These laptops are rapidly gaining interest of laptop users. Additionally you can also customise the hard disk memory and RAM of the device.

Some companies also provide a money back guarantee on these customised laptops. You can buy customised laptops at competitive rates form various companies, like from the Dell Design Studio. These can be customised for gaming, office use and compact laptops. Before buying you must carefully check if the company is providing guarantee.

The iPower GX-M-900 is the latest addition to the family of Packard Bell notebooks. It has a 17’’ TFT display that supports a resolution of WUXGA 1920 X 1200. iPower GX-M-900 is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo Processor and its RAM has a memory of up to 4 GB. The running speed of the RAM is 2,130 MHz.

Styled very similar to many of the rivals, the notepad has a hard drive of 320 GB. The notepad comes equipped with a 1.3 megapixel webcam that is located at the screen bezel. Although, the Packard Bell ipower GX-M-900 is considered to be a high-end laptop, it does not possess the quad core processor like its powerful sibling Packard Bell iXtreme X667. Apart from this, its other specifications are of top quality. Adding to its attractive features is its 90 Key QWERTY keyboard and a Synaptics Touchpad for a pointing device.

This 4.2 kg Packard Bell notepad is Wi-Fi enabled but lacks a modem. Its audio features are provided by its integrated PCI slot and sound compatible Soundblaster. Its NVIDIA 9800 GTX graphics card enhance your gaming experience. Three 2.0 USB ports have been included in this laptop that allow you to connect more peripheral devices. For CD/DVD burning it has the Suite Roxio Creator 9 and the Internet plug-ins include Google Toolbar, Shockwave, Adobe Reader and Flash Player. Internet Explorer 7.0, Mozilla Firefox and Google Picasa are some of the other software that this notepad comes with. Packard Bell ipower GX-M-900 comes with a standard one year guarantee period.

Tags for this article: packard bell, ipower gx-m-900, gaming laptop

Advent 6651 is one of the most advanced laptops with a 17 inch wide screen. The screen of the laptop has the resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels that provides amazing picture quality. The screen fulfils all the multimedia needs of business as well as home users. Advent 6651 comes in a stylish black colour that gives it a royal look.

The Advent 6651 is equipped with 250 GB hard drive that offers more than enough space for storing data. The laptop is powered by a 2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core processor and has 3,072 MB of RAM. It supports Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium and has a DVD writer installed in it. Additionally, the Advent 6651 comes with an inbuilt webcam, two USB ports and a card reader. The inbuilt webcam has an amazing clarity and enables you to video chat directly through the laptop. The laptop is WiFi enabled and hence it can be connected to any wireless network easily.

The laptop has all these amazing features but it just weighs around 3.4 kg that makes it handy and compact to carry. Advent 6651 has a 2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual Core processor and over 3 GB of RAM that provides swift performance. The Advent 6651 laptop has over 3 GB of RAM hence it supports all the computer games. The 17 inch screen and in built speakers provide a superb gaming experience. In comparison with other latest laptops the Advent 6651 provides better performance and is equipped with all the latest features.

Those who love their laptops because of the games they can play on them as and when they want to, know what they want in their laptops. High performance, big screen, high end graphics card are just some of the factors that would define a good gaming laptop. And there are many laptops that can lay claim to being a desirable gaming laptop but only few which can be counted among the best.

HP Pavilion dv7-2070 (NL862EA#ABU) is one of the most impressive gaming laptops. It features Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor with a clock speed of 2,400 MHz. It has a RAM of 4 GB, hard disk storage of 500GB and uses ATI Mobility Radeon HD4530 graphics card. This 17 inch laptop is one of the best mobile gaming systems around. However, for those who would like a slightly larger screen size, then the Sony Vaio VGN-AW11M/H with its Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor, RAM of 4 GB, hard drive of 320GB, 18.4 inch screen and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics card comes along as an excellent option. And because it is Sony so it has durability and offers complete value for money too.

Another strong contender for the best gaming laptop is MSI Megabook GT725-087UK which uses Intel Core 2 Duo processor and has a storage capacity of 500GB. A 17 inch screen and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4850 make sure that you can have remarkable experience while playing your favourite games on the laptop.

In addition to these three there are some other gaming laptops that make strong claims to be counted as the best gaming laptops of 2009 like Dell Studio 1737, Advent 6552, Apple MacBook Pro (MB604B/A) and a few others. The best thing is you can pick any of these and be sure that you won’t be disappointed.

The OCZ DIY 17” Gaming Notebook (OCZDIY17A2-DM88XT) is designed for consumers to fully harness the benefits of building their very own gaming notebook. It helps consumers to go for ideal configuration to enhance their notebook’s performance. It provides infinite possibilities for the customers and it allows you to select components and features as per your requirements. It is equipped with ATI Radeon high performance graphics, which gives you the advantage of having premium mobile gaming experience of today’s most advanced and graphic-intensive games and applications. With OCZ DIY 17” Gaming Notebook (OCZDIY17A2-DM88XT), you don’t need to replace your entire laptop to swap out the CPU for a faster one, upgrade your RAM, or increase your hard drive storage capacity.

OCZ DIY 17” Gaming Notebook (OCZDIY17A2-DM88XT) has17″ WUXGA 1900×1200 Display with glossy finish. It comes with 24x CD-R/RW, 8xDVD+/-R, 6x DVD+/-R DL Combo DVD Drive. The OCZ DIY 17″ gaming notebook has an Integrated Touchpad with Scroll Bar and comes with Intel PM45 Chipset + ICH9M. OCZ DIY 17” Gaming Notebook (OCZDIY17A2-DM88XT) has high definition surround sound and is fully compatible with Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 (32/64 bit). It has the hard disc of 80GB which could be enhanced up to 500 GB. Intel Core 2 Duo/Extreme/Quad processors are used in it and it has up to 8GB Dual Channel DDR3-1333 @ (1.5-1.8V) with Intel XMP Support. It has got very elegant and sleek look that serves best the customers who care for style. It provides an amazing support for any types of games, which makes it all the more popular.