Photo: Sony

The Sony Vaio F Series of laptops is Sony’s flagship range. These are commendably well engineered, exceptionally powerful and eye-wateringly expensive. Are they good enough to justify the usually painful sticker price? Let’s find out.

The price of beauty

Starting at $999 (about £650), the Sony Vaio F Series scales all the way up to a mind-boggling $2299 (£1,430). Ouch. But the core guts are undeniable.

All the F Series laptop configurations ship with a 16.4-inch full HD LCD screen. Minimum RAM out of the box is 4GB, scalable up to 8GB and the hard drive capacity starts at 500GB. All of the Sony Vaio F Series laptops ship with Intel Core i7 chipsets (740Q and 840QM variations) which means from a processing perspective, you won’t be left wanting and the graphics are provided by the very capable nVidia GeForce GT330M. An added bonus is that for media lovers, especially those who still carry physical discs, all the Vaio F Series laptops ship with a Blu-ray player/writer for high def viewing.

In short, work-wise, this laptop puts in the hours and the legs. What about how it looks?

Aesthetics

Photo: Sony

What’s odd about the Sony Vaio F Series – and all of Sony’s recent Vaio laptops, to be honest – is it lacks the design flair (or is that eccentricity?) Sony once had when it came to their laptops. The clean lines make for an aesthetically attractive laptop, but it doesn’t stand out the way Sony laptops from yesteryear did. The lid is matte – which is an awesome change from the gloss we’ve become accustomed to – with a bold Vaio logo on it. The fact that they ship in almost militaristic all-black further cements the seriousness with which Sony treats this range, and not being a fan of the two-tone designs in contemporary laptops, I appreciate that.

Verdict

In short, the same conundrum that’s always existed with Sony’s laptops exists now. They look great – even if not as out there as they used to – and they work hard, but they’re not cheap. If price is not a concern, jump in.

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: Nvidia

Graphics powerhouse Nvidia has unveiled its latest card aimed at midrange consumers, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 460, claiming that it is ‘DX11 done right’.

For the gamer on a budget

The card is aimed at price sensitive gamers looking for a very solid card without having to break the bank. So, in this respect, it’s very much a midrange card.

Nvidia goes one further than us in terms of saying who it is aimed at, with the company claiming it is a whole new price segment (definitely hyperbole). Nvidia says ‘The GTX 460 brings the ultimate next-generation DX11 gaming experience to a new price segment, enabling more gamers than ever to experience incredibly detailed characters, terrain and game environments with blazing fast performance and awesome visuals.’
3D Vision punted, too

Nvidia also took the opportunity to reaffirm its commitment to its Nvidia 3D Vision system in saying the Nvidia GTX 460 supports it. The company said ‘…the GeForce GTX 460 provides the graphics horsepower and video bandwidth needed to experience games and high definition Blu-ray movies in eye-popping stereoscopic 3D.’

Gulf could close

Unfortunately, there has always been something of a gulf between the capabilities of top-of-the-range cards and their mid-to-low priced alternatives. Thankfully, recent times have seen this gulf closing considerably. While we would be loathe to say the Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 will compete with the likes of the ATI Radeon HD5850 or even the GeForce GTX 295, it does sound like it should be able to perform respectable pixel pushing.

Pricing and availability

The Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 is available already, with the slow rollout occurring now and various manufacturers likely to flood the market with their own variations soon. Coming in two flavours, the 768mb 460 will set you back $199 (about £135) and the 1GB version will set you back $229 (about £150).

We’ll let you know just how much bang for your buck you get once we put this card through its paces.

Photo: Dino PC

The latest engine to come from Dino PC is the Fermiodon, a sleekly designed product that packs a powerful punch. It’s covered in a black case with an electric red colour coming out from the side to give a classic look that’s modern and downright cool. The Dino PC Fermiodon is perfect for gaming and has enough space in the engine for a graphics card that’ll add to the overall performance. One of the main features of the Fermiodon is the Intel Core i5 that has been upped from 2.66GHz to 4GHz, bringing you faster computing and application installations.

Not-so-Jurassic features

The Dino PC Fermiodon has Intel Turbo Boost Technology to add some extra speed and endurance to the engine. With the newer version 3.0 USB port the machine is able to transfer data at a fast 4.8 Gbps, and the Serial ATA storage interface brings a whopping 6.0 Gbps of downloading speed, making games and day-to-day computing a pleasure. The engine has an internal storage of only 500GB which isn’t very high, especially with the hefty price tag attached, but an additional disk can be added for extra data storage if needed.

Gaming specs

Experience some out of this world gaming with the Dino PC Fermiodon. With 3D gaming supported in both visual and audio, the engine is a powerful console that can keep up with fast action games. The Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 brings lifelike special effects to your computer, along with the Inno3D GTX 480 graphics card that has a storage capacity of 1536MB, which will add to your internal memory. The Fermiodon has combined three powerful gaming technologies to produce cinematic quality – the DirectX 11, Cuda and Nvidia PhysX bring amazing graphics to any game.

What to expect

The Dino PC Fermiodon is a stylish PC system, but that’s all you get. You can either use your own mouse and monitor or buy some new ones to go with the modern engine. The machine tends to be rather noisy despite a CPU fan that should bring the noise levels down, but the Fermiodon produces outstanding graphics from cutting edge technology. The speedy processors and automatic application updates are pretty awesome, especially with the new 3.0 USB port. The gaming graphics will blow you away with their realism and 3D effects, which will even make daily computing exciting. The Fermiodon is a bit expensive at £1,145.00, but if you love gaming then this one’s for you.

If you are looking for a notebook that can meet your every-day computing needs smoothly and efficiently, go get your hand on the HP Compaq Presario CQ60-420SA (VA163EAABU). It has an Athlon X2 Dual-Core QL-65 processor that allows it to run the pre-installed Microsoft’s Windows Vista® Home Premium operating system without any problem. Loads of storage options are provided by the 250 GB hard drive, 5-in-one memory card reader and DVD±RW drive. The Hewlett Packard Compaq Presario CQ60-420SA consists of three USB 2.0 ports and a headphone and a microphone port.

Thanks to its 15.6 inch LCD widescreen display which has an HD resolution of 1366 X768, Compaq Presario CQ60-420SA Laptop is a real entertainer. This is further complemented by its aspect ratio that is 16:9, which is considered ideal for movie-watching since it displays the movies in their native resolution. For hard-core gamers and also for casual gamers, the HP Compaq Presario CQ60-420SA is provided with the nVidia GeForce 8200M graphics card that adds a new dimension to video games and films. The software packages that have been included in this notepad provide you with a wide range of functionalities. Some of the names being Microsoft Works and Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Windows Mail, Adobe Reader, Windows Media Player , Windows Photo Gallery ,DVD Play and a lot more. The 10/100 Mbps Fast Ethernet connectivity and the built-in webcam makes it an ideal piece for both home and office use. Its connectivity features also include 802.11b/g Wi-Fi that allows you to browse the web, email and chat from any corner of the world.

One of the most significant features of any laptop is the size of its screen. A too small screen like 9 inch may be good for mobile business executives and too large like 18 inch may be ideal for families watching movies but for everyday use neither fits the bill. In fact laptop with a medium sized screen is always the better option as it is comparatively easier to carry, has average weight, performs well and comes at an affordable price too.

In case you are looking for a 14 inch laptop then some of the best laptops that you can explore include the following:

The Sony Vaio VGN-CS21Z/Q running on Intel Core 2 Duo T6400, having 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS graphics card is definitely a great choice for a 14 inch laptop. Its glare-type TFT display has a resolution of WXGA (1280×800) which makes working with it an enjoyable experience.

If you like HP products then HP Pavilion dv2820ea (KQ080EA#ABU) is one option you can explore. It works on Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 processor along with 3 GB RAM and 250 GB storage space. With NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS graphics card, DVD writer and latest connectivity options this laptop is a worth buy in every aspect.

ASUS F8P-4P057C is another good 14 inch laptop that can be explored. A combination of Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 processor, 2 GB of RAM, 160 GB hard drive, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 graphics card and the name that ASUS carries make sure that if you buy this laptop you would not be disappointed.

There are many other 14 inch laptops that are really good including eMachine D620-261 (LX.N230Y.003), Toshiba Tecra M10-15A (PTMB1E-01T003EN), Acer Extensa 4630Z-422G16Mn (LX.EBR0Z.006), etc and can be considered for buying.

Tags for this article: laptop, best laptop, amd

If you are looking for a laptop that has everything in it, right from high performance to large storage space, big and impressive screen, best connectivity, good webcam and the like, then HP HDX X16-1315EA is precisely what you should explore. Add to it the reliability and longer life of Hewlett Packard’s notebooks and you have got yourself a winner.

The notebook features Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor with clock speed of 2,000 MHz which can give you amazing performance. The HP HDX X16-1315EA laptop has 4GB of RAM which in itself is good enough and with the expandable option (up to 8GB) it comes across as a total surprise. It not only makes it one of the best machines in the market today but prepares it to take future challenges head-on too.

HP HDX X16-1315EA is a great option for those who are looking for an entertainment laptop. It has a storage space of 400 GB which is so huge that most of your favourite movies and songs can stay with you all the time. Its 16 inch Full HD screen makes watching movies as well playing games more enjoyable. Not just that, with its NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M graphics chipset you will end up enjoying your movies and games more. Where it scores heavily over other systems is the fact that in addition to the usual DVD±RW optical drive it has the latest Blu-ray too.

Through LAN, WLAN and Bluetooth you can stay connected all the time wherever you are. Additionally, it also features HDMI, 4 USBs, 5in1 card reader, and 1.3 megapixel webcam. Overall, a good buy.

The Samsung R610 FS04UK offers ample storage space for all your documents, files, photos, music and media by way of 320 GB of Hard Disk space. Its DVD Supermulti ensures that the Samsung R610 FS04UK has everything you need. It comes with Windows Vista Home Premium Edition pre-installed as its operating system, which ensures that the user can work comfortably in a familiar working environment. Also, the mid-sized laptop features built-in wireless networking. Ideal for home use, it has a 2GHz CPU Intel Core 2 Duo processor which is fast and efficient. Equipped with NVIDIA GeForce Video Chipset, the laptop supports all graphical applications with ease. It has an impressive 16 inch WXGA TFT display screen with a maximum resolution of 1366×768 that offers bright and realistic images.

The laptop has 3GB RAM and DVD Supermulti as its optical drive. It also has a 3-in-1 card reader and 4 USB ports that enhance the laptop’s connectivity to a great extent. The laptop also has an HDMI Port and an integrated 1.3 mega pixel web camera. It also features Gigabit Internal LAN RJ-45 connector and Wireless LAN 802.11abg up to 54Mbps. Available with a warranty of one year, the Samsung R610 (NP-R610-FS04UK) laptop has dimensions 37.9×26.5×3.8cm. Weighing 2.8kg, the laptop is lightweight and compact. It is extremely portable and easy to carry from one place to another. It has stereo speakers and wireless LAN aerial as its built-in devices. Besides 4 USB 2.0 ports, the Samsung notebook also has one VGA out, RJ-45 (NIC) and S-Video out port.

This Sony CS series laptop is a good balance between performance and style. It offers a host of software like VAIO Music Box, McAfee Internet Security Suite (with a free virus update for 60 days), Windows Media Player 11, SonicStage Mastering Studio 2.4, VAIO Content Importer/Exporter, WinDVD BD 8 for VAIO, Me&MyVAIO, VAIO Movie Story, Picture Motion Browser, VAIO Movie Story, Click to Disc/Editor, Easy Media Creator 10, VAIO Media Plus, Adobe Reader 8.1, Microsoft Office Ready 2007 (free trial 60 days), VAIO Recovery Utility – HDD Recovery (hidden partition) and Google software package. Powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo has Windows Vista Home Premium Edition as its operating system.

Looks-wise, it is an attractive machine with smooth rounded corners, metallic trim and a sleek piano coating. It has an impressive 14.1 inch display screen which makes watching movies and images a visual delight. A good multi-tasker, the Sony Vaio VGN-CS21Z/Q notebook has a large 32oGB hard drive where all your movies, music, photos and files can be easily stored. Bluetooth, Firewire, Network Card, 802.11a/b/g wireless LAN, Intel High Definition Audio and NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS to support graphics are its useful features. A practical and reliable machine, this laptop is protected by Windows Firewall and Defender. Loaded with ample entertainment tools, it allows the user to enjoy multimedia applications and premium games like the classic Chess, Mahjong or Inkball. Weighing a mere 2.6 kg, it is lightweight and extremely portable. Ideal replacement for a desktop computer, it is perfect for small businesses. Running on a Lithium-ion battery, it has a maximum battery time of 2.5 hours and comes with 2 years guarantee.

Offering 320 GB as Hard Disk Drive, the Sony Vaio VGN-CS21S/R has ample storage space for all your media, documents, music and software. The Dual DVD ensures this laptop is fully equipped. It has Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium Edition as its operating system while it also has built-in wireless networking and Bluetooth technology. It has been designed to attract attention with a piano coating finish inside and out. A mid-size laptop, it is a balanced combination between mobility and screen performance. Its 2GHz CPU Intel Core 2 Duo processor is fast and allows multiple tasks to bo completed at once while the Nvidia GeForce Video Chipset is extremely good for graphics applications. An impressive 14.1 inch WXGA display screen has a resolution of 1280×800 pixels which allows sharp and crisp images.

A video chat webcam with the built-in ‘motion-eye’ camera, sensor touch AV controls and light and sound effects add to the multimedia features allow the user to enjoy the laptop to the hilt. One can play and burn CDs and DVDs with the double layer DVD±RW/RAM drive and stay connected even while travelling. Available with a 2 year guarantee, the laptop’s operating system also has Windows Firewall and Defender. This ensures safety of the Sony Vaio VGN-CS21S/R laptop in the best possible manner. Windows DVD Maker or Movie Maker HD are some of the other features that help preserve memories of family and friends while Media Centre offers interesting options in entertainment. Instant Search and Internet Explorer 7 are the software you can use to surf the Internet while Mobility Centre and Tablet support are other helpful features. Weighing 2.6 kg, this laptop is portable and easy to carry around. It has Bluetooth, Wireless LAN, Multiple GPU and an Intel High Definition Audi Sound Card.