HP G42-230us is the latest notebook from HP that features  AMD Turion II Dual-Core P520 – an entry level decent dual core processor works at the speed of 2.3 GHz speed. The processor comes with  with 2MB l2 cache. The performance of the  Turion II P520 is similar to the Intel core 2 processors locked about 2.2 GHz.

HP G42-230US has been reviewed at several places with generally positive ratings.

The  HP G42-230US comes with  ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 an  onboard graphics  with 1917MB total graphics memory. It is possible to  play powerful games if you keep it a at low setting and moderate resolutions.  The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 is able to decode HD videos. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 graphics does  supports Microsoft DirectX 10.

The HP HP G42-230US comes with 4GB DDR3 memory installed  in two slots. You can add  up to 8GB of RAM.

Display is  14” LED backlit and  comes with 1366*768 mp resolution. The hard disk is 320GB SATA  with 7,200 revolution per minutes.

The connectivity in the the HP G42-230US include 3 USB 2.0 ports,single VGA and HDMI port,  DVD writer. It also has 5-1 one card reader supporting SD, MMC, MS, XD, MS pro.

Networking for wired as wireless connection is supported with 10/100BaseT Ethernet  for wired and  802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi for wireless.

The notebook comes with with 6 cell lithium ion battery.  The greatest benefit of this notebook is the availability of the HDMI port which lets you play movies on your favorite LCD TV or the projector. On the down side HP G42-230US  does not contain bluetooth.

At the time of writing HP G42-230US  is available at $616 on amazon.

According to one customer review – “At 4.85 pounds , I feel like I can carry it with me everywhere”. The light weight of the notebook is being appreciated everywhere.

You should be looking for deals on this computer and you may be lucky to get it under $600 which is a good price for this notebook.

With all the hype over netbooks in recent years, it is no wonder that netbook sales have risen over the past couple of years.  In contrast, PC shipments have seen declining growth and lower sales revenues. According to research firms Gartner and IDC, both of which recording these findings, the surprise was not that PC shipments had fallen, but that the numbers were better than they had predicted. Obviously the effects of the times, the trend has shown that focus had shifted to cheaper computer offered to consumers in the forms of netbooks and low-powered desptops known as “nettops”, aided by chip makers pushing low-powered processors such as Intel’s Atom to the market

The Toshiba satellite L650 is a “notebook” by virtue of the Intel Core i5-430M CPU sitting within its small hollow shell. It has a fairly appealing design with the front face featuring bevels and rounded corners. The rest of the side cabinet is a generic, corporate grey, bland box, but it seems solid in appearance and is quite compact for a notebook. There is a DVD R/RW at the right bottom. Next to the DVD drive includes 3 USB ports and microphone and headphone jacks.

As far as raw performance goes,  Toshiba satellite L650 netbook users are going to see one in all. With the Intel Core i5-430M and 4GB of RAM, this system is going to rock any operating system. Operating systems test report showed that the best choices by far are Windows 7 and Ubuntu. While in Windows 7, windows aero function was running great with great graphical artifact and fast-ups were noticeable. Watching HD movies which are 720 or 1080 were purely possible and file compression time and ratio were great, and encoding times were satisfactory. Moreover, Windows 7 Home Premium Edition  in Toshiba satellite L650 was pre-installed and came as a surprise, including many Toshiba software’s like Reeltime. Reeltime is basically a spreadsheet processor and seemed pointless, when seeing it pre-installed.

The ATI mobility Radeon HD 5145 graphic card was the best thing fitted in this sleek and stylish Toshiba satellite L650 laptop. Performance gaming was noted while playing many First-person and 3 dimensional games. Other specifications in  toshiba satellite L650 included are Wi-Fi b/g/n, speakers and just about anything which are present in a normal or low-level laptop or notebook. The large and bright 15.6 LED screen was perfect for browsing and business purposes. However, the sound quality of the built in speakers were of the lowest quality. This freaky gadget holds just 2.5kg in weight, which is a far heavier than normal notebooks in this line. The battery time  of Toshiba satellite L650 was unsatisfactory and a normal battery backup was just about 2hours and so.

Staying true to the product line’s advertised versatility, we saw fair performance, responsiveness and stability while running multimedia transcoding tasks, general office productivity tasks, virtual machine environments, and digital graphics creation and manipulation tools. Geekbench tests placed the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 performance at an average score of 5244 points. PCMark Vantage rated the machine’s overall performance (CPU, memory, GPU and multimedia) at 6825 marks. To a fair extent, the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 performed close to the level of a early 2010 13-inch MacBook Pro in all of their synthetic benchmarks. Audio performance was fair – in fact, unexpectedly good – but the Altec Lansing speakers were just about loud enough for a medium-sized room. The SRS Labs technology behind the audio processing proved more than effective, as was observed from the balanced highs and lows and warm bass and overall sound. The speakers can make audio sould tinny, but only under certain strained conditions.

On mild usage, the laptop’s six-cell Lithium-ion battery gave just under four hours of productivity on a single charge. A full charge takes about two hours and 20 minutes plugged into an AC power socket. The battery usage can be stressed up to four hours and above 15 minutes with a very conservative usage pattern and profile. On the other hand, under heavy work strain, the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 gave us just about two hours and five minutes before shutting down. As mentioned before, heat dissipation is not a problem and the laptop is light enough to use, placed on one’s lap for a few hours.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 is positioned as a medium-level mainstream, portable computing machine, and with its versatile and capable performance, it gives users excellent value at its price range, even at the higher spectrum. As for cons, the laptop lacks its lackluster design and could have done with an HDMI interface. Though the processor and other components are a new generation technology, as far as capabilities and the value it brings to the table, the system is just at its prime and has a few more years worth of value for users – as long as function, and not the latest technology, is one’s primary protable computing device.

The AMD Athlon II P320 processor comes under the category of entry level dual core processor. The performance level of these processors have been found to be similar to the Intel’s dual core celeron processor – a good representative example will be the Celeton T3100 at 1.9 GHz.

The Athlon II P320 has integrated DDR3 memory controller. The integrated memory controller is able to offset some of the shortcomings that creep into the processor due to the lack of the Level 3 Cache. This makes the processor fairly good when pitted against the dual core and core 2 processors from the intel. Note that the dual core and the core 2 duo processors from the intel do not have the integrated memory controller. The IO bus ( the bus with which the processor communicates with the chips) is HyperTransport bus. The frequency of the HyperTransport bus is 1800 MHz. Since the HyperTransport bus work on rising as well as the falling edge of the clock, this is equivalent to 3.6 GT/s.

The Turion II processors have better performance than the Athlon II processors. The Turion II processors have 128 bit Floating point Unit as compared to the 64 bit Floating point Unit in the Athlon II processors. You may therefore like to consider the Turion II processors – for example, Turion II P520 if you wish to have higher performance level.

The TDP or the power consumption of the AMD Athlon II P320 Processor is just 25 Watts, which makes it great for the low power and good battery life.

Benchmarking
Some benchmarking results are available for the AMD Athlon II P320. The Super pi 2M takes 84 seconds for AMD Athlon II P320. By comparison the 2 core celeron T3100 ( 1.9 GHz), takes 70 seconds The 3DMark 06 score is 1680 for the AMD Athlon II P320 while it is 1687 score for the Celeron T3100 processor.

I you wish higher processing power you may like to consider the Phenm II quad core and six core processors from AMD or the core i3, core i5 processors from Intel

AMD’s Phenom II triple core processor P820 has been able to resist the competition from from the Intel Core i7 processor. The best part is the AMD’s top of the line processors are not as expensive as the Intel’s top of the line. However, performance wise, the AMD processor slightly lag the Intel’s processor.

The AMD Phenom II X3 P820 processor is intended for laptops and have 3 cores. The clock frequency of each of the cores is .8 GHz.  The Phenom II processors do not have Level 3 Cache.

The AMD Phenom II X3 P820 processors have integrated DDR3 memory controller. The integrated memory controller makes the memory transfers much more fast.

The low power consumption of the AMD Phenom II X3 P820 processors make it ideally suited for the notebooks that need high battery life and less heat.

Some recent notebooks, for example, Toshiba Satellite L645D-S4036  have the  AMD’s AMD Phenom II X3 P820 processors . We have noticed, great price advantage on the AMD processor based laptops over the equivalent Intel based notebooks.

If you want less expensive Intel based notebooks you may like to consider those equipped with Intel’s Core 2 Duo T6600 processors.  The intel’s i3 and i5 processors also have decent performance level.

As far as the benchmark is concerned the average 3DMark 06  score for the AMD Phenom II X3 P8203 has been reported as 2050. Cmparitively the Intel’s Core 2 Duo T6600 has 3DMark 06 score of 1942.  The 3DMark06 score for the intel core i5-450 is 2794.

The AMD Phneom II P820 is more suitable if you expect multiple processes to run in parallel. The three cores in the Phenom II helps here. In single threaded applications, intel processors perform better.

Over the years, Taiwan-based ASUSTek Computer Inc has gained a prestigious global reputation for manufacturing some of the most reliable and innovative product ranges in the computer hardware industry. While the vendor’s graphics cards and motherboards are some of the most coveted among gamers and hardware enthusiasts, their laptops tend to be overlooked by consumers, especially in second world countries. The Asus EEE series of laptops that includes ASUS Eee PC 1001PX is targeted at versatile home and professional usage, plain and simple. The vendor even peddles the machine as a “no-frills computing experience” on their site’s product page.

ASUS Eee PC 1001PX is a dark chocolate-colored machine with a glossy lid and palm rest supported by a matte-black plastic belly. Despite the obviously plastic façade, the construction is sturdy and shows very little flexing. The glossy, anti-glare 10.1 TFT screen is an active matrix, which means energy saving and lower power bills for users. The left side contains the optical disc drive and two USB ports while the right side sports the remaining USB ports as well as the VGA, audio and RJ45 LAN interfaces. The webcam in the ASUS Eee PC 1001PX  is affixed at the top centre of the inside lid, above the TFT screen. The 0.3 megapixel webcam offers nonstandard picture capturing quality and is nothing to write home about. The built in microphone pick is quite receptive. The glossy surface of the palm rest flows fluently into the touchpad, differentiated only by the smooth dimpled texture on the surface of the Eee PC 1001PX’s touch-sensitive area. On the front edge just below the touchpad surface, is the multi-memory card reader. The laptop’s keyboard is set low in the base, is wide and spacious and has a column of independent page navigation keys. The keyboard is resilient and did not have the bounce and flex that some laptop keyboards show when the keys are pounded. The keys are flat and comfortably sized for rapid touch-typing.

Other noticeable specifications of the Asus Eee PC 1001PX were an Intel Atom N450 energy saving processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 160GB of hard drive with an RPM of 5400, an Intel GMA 3150 graphic card, HD Audio and probably the most innovative experience, the ASUS hybrid engine. This lustrous seashell is just 2.4 lbs in weight and includes Windows XP Home Edition as its default operating system. Battery time in the Eee PC 1001PX was quite great with an up time of 4 hours and 30 minutes in a single charge. Overall, ASUS Eee PC 1001PX  is a must for a daily browsing maniac.

Canon’s recently introduced EOS 60D digital SLR camera is a  vast improvements over its predecessor, the canon 50D.  The Canon EOS 60D is a  mid level digital SLR that also has pop-up flash. With  18 megapixel resolution, the canon EOS 60D DSLR produces high quality images that can be used even by professional photographers.

Canon EOS 60D  allows photographers to capture picture of any difficult angle. Even though it is slightly big and heavy ( with size of 145 x 106 x 79 mm weighing around 755 gm) it can be easily used  on a tripod stand.

Built using polycarbonate Canon EOS 60D  has a unique live view finder that offers ample space to capture scenes. The best part is the quality of the  video clips in low light.The  EOS 60D camera has a 3-inch LCD view finder. The TruBlack Technology  offering  full exposure  enables continuous shooting even in low light conditions.  The sharpness of the picture is still retained even  in the low and dull light condition.

Canon has been historically using the Digiv processor. The Digic 4 processor in the EOS 60D has the capacity to generate  5 frames per second.  The most remarkable feature of the EOS 60D is the  movie videos can be captured even at low brightness  level. The  iFCL metering system with 63 point and a view finder  in the 60D facilitates coverage of  upto 96 percent.

The with 9 point autofocus system Canon EOS 60D  DSLR  camera enables the capture of  each moment with s fast focusing. You also have the choice of EF and EF-S lenses. The auto focus and the image stabilizer produces sharp images.  The camera can take  three types of memory card slots – SD, SDHC and SDXC.

The  HD video shoots with the resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixel are possible at 30 frames per second. You may also  60 frames per second video  at 720p resolution. The ISO sensitivity in the range of 100:6400 is possible and can be further extended to  12800. This lets you shoot even in very low light conditions.

The video crop technology in  EOS 60D has video crop  enables the user to crop the picture  to standard resolution 640 X 480 pixel to reduce the storage size of the video clips. This helps faster upload to youtube or for emailing.

The basic Canon 60D with EF lens comes at a  price tag of $1099.   The  EOS 60D with  EF-S lens comes for $1399.

[ A note on the Amazon prices - at the time of writing the Canon EOS 60D with body only is showing at $1099 - a bit expensive - by worth taking for professional photographers]

Canon EOS 60D comes under the category of  a mid-range camera. It is easy to use and recommended for anyone who wish to produce high quality photographs. The Canon EOS 60D  serves the need of entry level amateur photographers as well as seasoned professional photographers.

Probably, this little master is out of the class. The HP Pavilion DV7-4060us is highly advanced laptop with the exception of one feature – it’s Triple Core 2.10GHZ processor that can run more than enough applications side by side. The concept is great for professional media and content producers and designers that can’t live without multi tasking for everyday productivity. The California based Hewlett Packard plans to make this laptop as advanced as possible. Expected to weigh more than the average laptop, this sleek robot weighs more than 8.8 pounds, when unpackaged. The HP Pavilion DV7-4060us is anticipated to carry some expensive, but impressive hardware; including 2.10GHZ Triple Core N830 Mobile processor (based on AMD – Ultimate with AMD Phenomy II), 4GB DDR3 RAM (with a maximum support of up to 8GB), ATI Mobility Radeoný HD 5650 graphic card (with 1GB DDR3 of up to 2714MB entire graphics memory), 7200RPM hard drive with 500GB’s of space and Double Layer DVD R/RW. Other included hardware and features are triple X bass sub woofers with Beat audio sound, 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN card, 802.11g/b/n Wi-Fi.

Besides its quality features and impressive hardware, this revealing technology consists of 17.3inch HD display integrated with HP BrightView LED diagonal display. The laptop is made up of complete Aluminum with a great design and advanced buttons. The HP Pavilion DV7-4060us comes with 1year International warranty (hardware and software). The downside of its warranty and support is, the claim is limited to certain regions and districts. However, their toll free hardware support Toll-Free numbers are always available for a loose talk. This 9cell Lithium Battery doohickey has a running time of not more than 3 hours and this might be the biggest downside of this heavy laptop. Moreover, this latest gadget uses Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium Edition (64Bit) as its default operating system. The new feature introduced in the laptop’s compact keyboard is the fingerprint reader with the exclusive HP SimplePass software. Now you can easily save your laptop’s access from thieves or your family members. The top center of the LED Display comprises of a brilliant 2Megapixel webcam with an integrated digital microphone.

All in all, the HP Pavilion DV7-4060us is a super gaming laptop and worth your money. The major rival of this HP Pavilion DV7-4060us is the ASUS K72DR-A1, which has almost the same top features, but Altec Lansing speakers and a Blu-Ray Combo Drive. Other than the Blu-Ray support, the HP Pavilion DV7-4060us is a great value for performance, if you want a cost-effective system around for the next two to three years.

The Acer Travelmate 8172T Notebook is equipped with an Intel core i3-330UM processor. The 8172T is packaged with Windows 7 operating system. The operating system is pre-installed, for having a quick start. The 8172T is high portable device in that it is light-weight and offers a considerable amount of usage time on backup power. The high-powered 1.20GHZ Intel Core i3 and Intel on-board graphic card combination means that the 8172T would be able to handle 3D graphics, gaming, or high-definition video. Moreover, other specification includes 2GB DDR3 RAM (upgradable to up to 4GB), 5400rpm HDD carrying 250GB memory, 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN, Wi-Fi 802.11 g/b/n and an integrated microphone. The biggest outcome of this business perceptive Notebook is that it doesn’t include a webcam, which is a failure on the Acer’s side.
Despite the limitations, this machine is quite capable of managing almost every task needed by an average user. Multitasking between web browsing, video encoding, photo editing and MS Office can be a snap with this notebook. Noise and overheating on this system is negligible. Even after four to five hours of continuous usage, the processor doesn’t get warm and one could easily keep it on the lap and work comfortably. For the businessperson on the go, this is the ultimate mobile machine. Retailing at between $400 and $500, Acer Travelmate 8172T Notebook definitely suits the business and mobile needs of the user. The HS playback and performance degradation in resource-heavy games and tasks do not matter much when all you need is longer usage times for greater mobility – this is the notebook to get your hands on.

The ASUS Eee PC 1018p has been one of the most successful netbook launches in the recent past. Asus netbooks may not have seen much innovation in the past year, but ASUS hasn’t laid it to pasture. Seeing two incremental revisions this year a major redesign this quarter, the ASUS Eee PC is back now, with all the features ( and that includes USB 3.0) that ASUS netbook lovers wanted for the past many years. If you skipped the first two ASUS netbook releases earlier this year, then ASUS Eee PC 1018p is the one to grab. At amazon, it is showing a price of $429, but at other places ( including ebay) you may be able to find it at  $380 retail and $360 direct. The upper mid 2010 model ASUS Eee PC 1018p includes features that were envy of all polycarbonate owners. First off, ASUS – without so much as a warning – tossed in a metal chassis design and its multi-touch chiclet designed keyboard/keypad. Appeasing ASUS fanboys with this upgrade, it then bumped up processor and memory speeds, gave it two hours of battery life, made it thinner and threw in the new 32-bit Windows 7 Starter Edition operating system.

The ASUS Eee PC 1018p is similar in appearance to the sleek Apple Mac. It is equipped with a 1.66GHZ Intel Atom N455 processor (made for energy saving), 1GB DDR2 RAM (upgradable to up to 2GB), 5400rpm SATA hard drive with 250GB disk space, Integrated Intel GMA 3150 graphic card (shared), Atheros 802.11 g/n/b Wi-Fi and a 3 x 1.5inch touchpad. Not only that, it also features a one year standard warranty (hardware and software). However, the display screen of this outdoorsy ASUS Eee PC 1018p is a 10.1 inch polished LED Backlit diagonal display, according to Amazon, with a maximum resolution of up to 1024 x 600. Probably the best feature in this sleek modern gadget is its introduction to the world of USB 3.0, with a support of data transmission of up to 4.8GB, as compared to USB 2.0’s 480MB. This netbook also functions a fingerprint reader, to reduce the time of getting logged in and out. It also comes up with a Bluetooth 3.0 support, which is more reliable and faster than version 2.1 and 2.0.

You may also like to note that besides the 1.66 GHz N455 based model, the  ASUS 1018p Eee PC  also comes with the 1.86 GHz Atom N475 processor.  The exact part numbers for the  1.66 GHz version model is   Asus Eee PC 1018P-PU17-BK.

Regarding the performance of ASUS Eee PC 1018p, a movie maniac or a regular website surfer will get the most advantage, due to its energy saving four-cell battery, with four to five hours of battery life, on a user-defined conservative battery plan (single charge). The final verdict of this extra gorgeous netbook is that it has an eye-catching display, long running battery life and calm temperature. Alternatively, this small laptop has an overcrowded keyboard, a rigid touchpad and a dark webcam.