HP PAVILION DV3Z SERIES – A SILENT ENTRY

HP is about to release a new entertainment notebook series without much fanfare. You can expect to see the new Pavilion dv3z series from HP very soon as declared by their product support page. One of the first models in this series will be the HP Pavilion dv3z-1000 CTO. The HP Pavilion dv3z series is a 13.3-inch notebook with a display resolution of 1280x800 pixels. The series will have AMD Turion with an option to upgrade to either Turion Ultra or Athlon dual core CPUs.
The HP Pavilion dv3z series will also include 8GB of DDR2 memory, HDD and SDD with SATA interface, ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, HDMI and VGA outputs, 802.11n wireless connection, web camera, stereo speakers, Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth, ExpressCard slot, two USB ports, 5-in-1 media card reader, eSATA port and an optional fingerprint reader.
This latest release of HP will weigh 4 pounds and comes preloaded with Windows Vista OS. The HP Pavilion dv3z entertainment notebooks are expected to hit the stands by the end of first week of Jan and the pricing is speculated to start at about $799.99.

TOSHIBA SATELLITE A305 REVIEW – A NEW ENTRY WITH THE AMD PUMA ON-BOARD

The Toshiba Satellite A305 series notebook holds an extraordinary place in my heart, be it anything either the AMD or Intel variant. Here at Computex 2008, I had an opportunity to test out out the brand new AMD Puma platform based variant of the A305.

Design
The design is indistinguishable to both A305 variants at present on the market, together with the color format of the Fusion finish. The variant on display was far from immaculate with in all probability a billion fingerprints, but the terminate underneath the slush was still gorgeous when wiped clean. Muscle quality is every bit the similar breed, providing the same solid feels which you would expect from a high quality laptop.

Performance
The primary thing on my mind when I witnessed this laptop was to locate out how it compared to the elder A305D laptop. I did not have the point in time to install PCMark05 while no one was looking, but I did administer to slink wPrime on it. The resulting achieve was a bit beneath what I had hoped for, and slower than the preceding laptop we had reviewed. Some of this may be accredited to the laptop being an engineering sample, with not so ideal drivers.

The AMD Puma-equipped laptop has gained an HDMI output, even though it sports incorporated graphics. The older A305D laptop only offered VGA only as a principal video output connection. S-Video which seems to be found on the A305D, is now vanished on the new variant, and you only see a vacant port where that would have gone. One truly nice feature that was a huge surprise was the insertion of and eSATA port, taking the position of one USB port. As you might bear in mind from our A305D review, with the 6-cell battery the older AMD laptop scrambled 3 hours even.

Conclusion
Overall I was satisfied to see a speedy refresh of the Toshiba Satellite A305D in person with the new-fangled AMD Puma platform. It has all of the grand features and styling of the A300, as well as a small number of upgrades from the precedent model with the addition of HDMI and eSATA. My only worry is the less than astrophysical system recital and battery life, which should have at least been on par if not enhanced than the preceding model.

Pros
+ First to be in the PUMA skin
+ Same old sturdy looks

Cons
- Slower than the older unit

Value For Money

Our Rating

TOUGHBOOK CF-Y5 IS THE NEWEST ENTRY IN BUSINESS LAPTOP FOR PANASONIC - REVIEW

The Toughbook CF-Y5 is Panasonic's newest launch into the business rugged-notebook market where businesses may not mind investing a little bit more for something that will last and worth spending.

Design
The primary things we notice in this notebook is its weight. Including the power supply unit the laptop weighs just about 1.95kg, which is superb for a 14.1 inch LCD based laptop with a build in DVD writer. The CF-Y5 is also splash-resistant and Panasonic just stamps authority with this kind of feature laded onto the system. The laptop can also be dropped from an elevation of 30cm, although this isn't spectacular by any sense where in most cases notebook falls are likely to be from a desk more than double the height specified.

Performance
At the notebook's heart lies a low-voltage Core Duo L2400 processor pumping at 1.66GHz with 2MB L2 memory cache. Although this dual core chip may appear obsolete next to Core 2 Duo processors with 4MB memory cache, low-voltage Core 2 Duo chips have just recently started to appear public so it's no shock to see the CF-Y5 shipping with this CPU. Performance is ample for the majority of system tasks. The laptop scored a real disappointing score of 2,547 in PCmark05.
Despite its tough-guy gestures, the CF-Y5 is a very attractive laptop. As on the CF W5, the circular mouse pad is small but it performs really well. The 14.1 inch LCD screen has a native resolution of 1,400x1, 050 pixels giving a bigger desktop real-estate for documents. Unlike the CF-W5 and other tough books the backlight bleed, which results in an apparent gradient of color near the foot of a screen, is barely seen on this model.

The screen is powered by Intel GMA950 graphics chip set that dynamically propels with up to 224MB of system memory. The abounding 512MB of DDR2 553MHz Ram is parsimonious and we'd prefer 2GB at this price range; an upgrade to at minimum1GB is definitely recommended. A 60GB shock resistant hard disk drive is also added, while just a single slot is provided for PC card and SD cards.

The keyboard is inspiring for a notebook of this size. An in built 3G HSDPA slot for mobile broadband can be included, but the price then hikes to a heart-jabbing £2,260.

Overall
Panasonic CF-Y5 seems to be a costly effort. The pricing is too high; we would have loved to see the notebook be facilitated more for this demanding price. With decent display, and very minimal gaming features possible, this leaves very little to be admired about.

Pros
+ Design
+ Less weight of jusT 1.95kg
+ Inspiring Keyboard

Cons
- Too pricey
- 512 MB Ram never a great performance statement
- Least connectivity options

Value For Money

Our Rating