The Satellite A660/A665 is the latest generation of 16-inch multimedia notebooks from Toshiba and is the “big brother” to the Satellite M640/M645. At first glance, the design of the A665 is pretty traditional with sculpted edges, a mixture of smooth and textured glossy plastics, and some attractive LED accent lighting. If you’re familiar with the 14-inch Toshiba Satellite M645 and 15-inch Satellite C655 then this laptop just looks like a larger version of those notebooks. The exterior is covered in what Toshiba calls the “Fusion X2 Finish in Charcoal.” Personally, I call it black glossy plastic with a textured “chain” pattern imprinted in the surface to help hide fingerprints and dirt. Despite the silly marketing name for the finish, I have to give Toshiba credit here. The textured chain pattern gives you the modern look of the glossy plastics but doesn’t look like a horrible magnet for smudges, dirt, or whatever else a student spills on a laptop.

The build quality of the A665 is very good with a durable main chassis that doesn’t squeak, creak, or flex even under significant pressure. The screen hinges are a little loose, making it easy to open the laptop with one hand but also making it easy to accidentally move the screen if you bump the laptop. While we’re on the topic of the screen, the screen lid doesn’t provide as much protection as we’d like. If you press on the back of the screen while the laptop is running you’ll see obvious distortions on the screen itself. In addition, placing more than one heavy textbook on the screen lid causes the lid to bend inward sharply toward the screen … suggesting that the screen lid doesn’t offer much protection during travel.

The bottom of the notebook includes two access plates for the RAM and the hard drive. Despite the fact that most consumers buying this type of general purpose or light multimedia notebook don’t perform upgrades, Toshiba engineers made is very easy to get inside this laptop. You only have to remove one screw to access the hard drive and one screw to get to the RAM.

When it comes to replacing a desktop PC with a more elegant modern solution there are many approaches one can take. Some might prefer a semi-portable 15 or 16-inch laptop, others a more permanent all-in-one PC such as the Apple iMac or MSI Wind Top AE2220 Hi-Fi. One other choice is a hybrid of the two: a 17 or 18-inch laptop that’s so large as to be essentially non-portable, but can still be stowed away discreetly when the need arises or thrown in the back of a car when on the move. If the latter is your preference, the Acer Aspire Ethos 8943G might be for you.

With an 18.4-inch screen and a scale busting 4.6kg weight, the 8943G isn’t exactly a featherweight. As such, though you can at least move it around, the Acer won’t be going anywhere in a hurry. Not that there’s anything sluggish about the hardware, however. A quad-core Intel Core i7 processor is the star of the show, which starts at 1.6GHz but can be ‘turbo clocked’ to up to 2.8GHz depending on how the load is spread. Just in case this wasn’t enough this particular version has 12GB of DDR3 RAM as well.

To put that into perspective, the A-Listed Acer Aspire 8942G has the same graphics chip but managed just 20fps in that High test, and the Alienware M15x – with not one, but two high-end graphics cards inside – managed only 27fps. So the Ethos 8943G is a tremendously powerful laptop, and if you opt for a recommended mix-and-match, playing at the native 1,920 x 1,080 but with Medium settings, you’ll be gaming at a comfortable 37fps. All this power is possible due to the Acer’s huge chassis: at 440mm wide and 3.9kg, it’s a real backbreaker for those few times you’ll be lumping it from the study to the living room. But the space allows for so much to be crammed in, not least those excellent speakers above the Scrabble-tile keyboard.

With the Radeon HD 5650 enabled, the 8943G scored 41fps in our Call of Duty 4 benchmark, which means you’ll be able to play most games, although if you want to ramp up the resolution to 1,920×1,080, you’ll have to turn graphical effects such as anti-aliasing off to get playable frame rates. There’s also the promise of speeding up GPU-accelerated applications, although ATI’s Stream technology isn’t as widely supported as Nvidia’s CUDA.

The 8943G managed a score of 90 overall in our Windows benchmarks – that’s only 10 per cent less than our reference desktop PC, powered by a quad-core AMD Phenom II. Coupled with 4GB of RAM, it will handle just about any application, including photo and video editing. A 500GB hard disk should provide ample space for your files, and there are four USB ports along with FireWire and eSATA ports for faster external drives.

3D is what we’re talking about, and it’s about to invade our laps as well. Check out the first Filipino-branded 3D-capable laptop, the NEO Elan L4300-3D. The NEO Elan L4300-3D is a grown man’s laptop. It’s really a hulk in terms of size, a true heavyweight that even Pacquiao would fear to battle.Just by looking at it, you know that portability wasn’t exactly in the mind of its makers. It looks, feels, and smells bulky.

It carrys an attitude that’s very much like the laptops of yesteryears, before the Macbook drove everyone else to get slim or else.That isn’t to say though that it’s an eyesore. Even with its heft, the Elan manages to look good with its no-smudge surface, and decidedly workman-like aesthetics.

All that real estate was put to good use: the laptop features a host of ports such as USB, headset, mic ports, a memory card reader, a USB 3.0 port, HDMI, eSATA, and a Blu-ray optical drive! Everything but a floppy drive.Then there’s gaming. With the Nvidia GeForce GTX 285M handling the graphics chores, we were confident with the NEO Elan L4300-3D’s gaming prowess. And we weren’t disappointed. We fed it with games like Halo 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, and of course, the biggie, Crysis. Yep, we’re suckers for first-person shooter games. Anyway, the performance was optimal except for a few cut scenes and explosive encounters in Crysis. Just a few minor lags.

Adding to our joy is the huge 15.6-inch HD screen that provides bright and crisp images. Our only beef with the whole experience is the built-in speakers that are decent at best. Cranking up the volume will send notes scattering, and the bass, even if you tinker with the manual settings, isn’t just deep enough. To get maximum multimedia experience, a high-grade speaker system or headphone set is a must.

The Z series don’t have a very glossy appearance unlike Y series but yet it manages to look nice. It has a nickel chrome and shiny black theme which looks appropriate and most suitable for home users. The lid and the frame surrounding the screen are black but the palm rest has a nickel plated matte metal brushed finish. The laptop has a good built and being a 14 inch laptop it is quite sleek and compact. The Z460 has a chiclet type keyboard with generous spacing of keys and the keys are slightly concaved which eases typing. The touchpad and mouse buttons function well and the only disappointing thing is that enter and shift keys are a bit small.

The new 14-inch Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 is the latest addition in Lenovo’s IdeaPad series of laptops for home. Unlike Lenovo IdeaPad’s Y-series of home entertainment laptops, the new Lenovo IdeaPad Z460 laptop is aimed at customers interested in a stylish, trendy looking laptop under Rs. 34,480.

The lid and the screen frame are black, while the wrist rest has a brushed metal (matte) nickel plated finishing, pretty neat for an entry-level multimedia laptop. What’s worth the praise is the solid build quality, and also, being a 14-incher this one’s quite light in weight, a very good pick for daily use. What’s even more reassuring is the chiclet keyboard, which is quite comfortable to type on, the keys are spaced well and are slightly concave which makes typing quite a breeze.

Specifications

• Weight: 2.4 kg
• Chipset: Intel HM 55
• Processor: Intel Core i3-350, 2.27 GHz, 3 MB L3 cache
• RAM: 2 GB DDR3
• Graphics: Intel HD
• Network: Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi N and Bluetooth
• HDD: 320 GB
• Optical Drive: DVD Writer
• Screen: 14-inch glossy (1366×768)
• Battery Test: Over 2.5 hrs and still running (to be updated)
• Price: Rs 34,480

The Acer Aspire Timeline X series is the latest generation of thin and light notebooks from Acer designed to offer solid performance and long battery life in a surprisingly lightweight package. At first glance it’s easy to mistake the Aspire 1830T for one of the dozens of Acer netbooks that have shown up over the last few years. Looks, however, can be deceiving.

Build quality is quite good despite the diminutive size of this laptop. The combination of relatively thick matte plastics and black brushed aluminum palmrests leave the notebook feeling solid and showing almost no signs of flex. The screen stays firmly shut with a good amount of tension from the screen hinges when closed. Protection from the screen cover is only adequate; the cover flexes quite easily and distortions appeared on the display when we applied pressure to the back of the cover. Opening up the screen you can tell the hinges should hold up for a long time with strong tension that prevents the screen from flopping around once opened. The body of the notebook seems to be well designed with minimal chassis flex and no obvious creaks from the plastics.

The Core i5-430M’s 2.27GHz frequency, for instance, is far in excess of any CULV chip, and both of its cores are kitted out with Turbo Boost so a busy core can borrow a little boost of power from an idle one as required. There’s also Hyper-Threading technology, as well as a 500MHz GPU integrated on to the die itself.

These technical improvements manifested themselves in much more laptop-like benchmark scores. The TimelineX 5820T sped to an overall score of 1.54, which is only a shade slower than the ever-popular Dell Studio 1557, with its mobile Core i7-720QM processor.

Port selection on the Aspire 1830T is fairly standard for a modern netbook or 11-inch ultraportable notebook. Acer gives you three USB 2.0 ports, HDMI-out, VGA, LAN, and audio jacks. It also features a SDHC-card slot for expanding internal storage or just loading images off your camera while traveling. Since we’re starting to see USB 3.0 on more consumer notebooks and there are many USB 3.0 external hard drives on the market we really wish Acer had found a way to put at least one USB 3.0 port on this $900 notebook.

Specifications:

• Intel Core i7 680UM processor (1.46GHz, 4MB L3 cache)
• 11.6-inch 1366×768 HD display with LED backlighting
• Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
• 4GB DDR3 memory
• 500GB 5400rpm HDD
• Intel HD integrated graphics
• Gigabit Ethernet and 802.11n wireless
• Bluetooth 3.0 (Foxconn BCM92046)
• 6-cell Li-ion battery
• Dimensions: 11.22 (w) x 8.03 (d) x1.01-1.10 (h) inches
• Weight: 3.09 pounds