Review of the Top 5 Laptops of 2007

The laptops or notebooks as you call them, are the most evolved species of computers. They allow you to work without being restricted to one place. What makes for a good laptop is its performance, portability, and price factors. There are more laptops to choose from than ever before. Looking for a power packed laptop at a reasonable price? We’ve done a bit of homework for the benefit of our readers and identified five top laptops of 2007. Our choice was solely based on the performance and price factors. Go on and check out if any one of these meets your fancy.

Dell Latitude D630
If you have an eye for beauty, then you may skip this and fast forward to the next review. This thin and light laptop doesn’t compete in the looks department, but it sure does in performance and can get the user excited, with its Centrino Duo Platform (known as Santa Rosa) and a great battery life. With all the features of great security and optional WWAN, this product is priced low.

Latitude D630 is gray on the outside and black on the inside, and at a weight of 5.1 pounds, is light enough to be carried to and forth to business meetings. The case is made of magnesium alloy and provides the sturdiness that is rare in most laptops.

The nine-cell battery gives a life of 4 hours 45 minutes, a rarity among laptops in this range. Since this is claimed to be a laptop for the business users, it works well in their favor to have an extended battery life, and makes it perfect for them to work while traveling or vacationing in Hawaii.

The Latitude D630 has a 14.1 inch wide screen display (matte finish screen), which is bright and has a resolution of 1440×900. This allows the user to use multiple window option while working. The only things that are missing are the webcam and microphone. But then, for a low priced consumer oriented laptop, they are not essential ingredients, unless one needs these features for web conferences.

The keyboard is pretty good and quite comfortable to churn out email after email to your love. There is an option for biometric security, which has a fingerprint reader. Talking of security, it also has a smart card slot and internal Trusted Platform Module.

The D630 boasts of the Intel 965GM chipset, which has more powerful integrated graphics core and native 802.11n wireless support. It comes with a 2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 processor, with a memory of 2GB, and a 120GB hard drive. It has an extra USB port. You can even test if there are any Wi-Fi networks within range, without turning the system on.

The Dell latitude D630 starts at $899 and goes upward up to $1913, and is built on Intel’s Centrino Dup platform and also runs on Windows XP. Users can switch to Windows Vista Business, which comes at no extra cost. Multitasking with Microsoft Office applications gives it an edge over its competitors.

A huge warranty of three years in place of one provided by other laptops, make this a secure buy. This laptop is ideal for businessmen and has what it takes to make it a fine performing product that comes at an affordable price.

Gateway NX100X
The ultra portable Gateway NX100X is as slender as a sheet of paper, with a thickness of less than one inch, and weighs 3.2 pounds only. This beauty in black, with a sleek case is a symbol of style. The very affordable price of $1625 makes it a consumer driven product. This lightweight and economical laptop is for those that feel the need to own something stylish.

The three-cell battery gives a life of three hours, with an option to either add a six cell or a nine-cell battery, at some extra cost. The nine cell gives an unbelievable nine hours. The user could literally live outside with this laptop.

It boasts of a 12.1 inch widescreen display with a 1,280 x 800 pixel resolution. Is wont to happen because of the higher resolution, the text gets smaller, but it has its own advantages like ability to open multiple windows on the same screen. The display is good and bright.

Being a widescreen display, it has a bigger keyboard with large keys. Although, the touch pad and mouse button are relatively small, they do provide good functionality. The scroll button is integrated into the touch pad.

The main configuration of NX100X is an 1.2 GHx Intel Core Solo U1400 processor, with a 512MB (533MHz) RAM and a 80GB hard drive. There are integrated Intel graphics.

It has two USB 2.0 ports next to each other, and also has the microphone and headphone jacks. The user is also provided a slot for media card (6-in-1) and it supports multi media card and memory stick.

The networking connections include a modem, WiFi, Bluetooth (optional), and Ethernet. The external DVD that is provided connects through a USB. This comes with Microsoft Windows XP Professional and Microsoft Works 8 mini suite, and apps, used for viewing and burning discs.

The industry standard warranty of one year is applicable to Gateway NX100X too, and if needed can be upgraded to three years for an extra charge.
This inexpensive and stylish laptop makes it a great buy for those that give importance to the look as well as performance, and comes at a budget that most can afford.

Apple’s MacBook
Apple’s MacBook line was released in 2006, which was thought to be revolutionary but the upgrade in May 2007 has created waves in the world of mobile computing.

We are not talking about MacBook Pro, which is fairly on the expensive side. We are going to see what the refreshed Black MacBook with 2.0GHz has for its users, at a very acceptable price of $1,499. With this MacBook, Apple has broken the tradition of having silver or white casing, and introduced black too, which looks very sleek indeed.

MacBook measures 1 inch in thickness and at a weight of 5.1 pounds, is small and light enough to be able to carry it everywhere, and provides the comfort of regular computing. Available in black and white colors, this has a good distinctive look about it, with the edges being rounded. The best part is that it is fingerprint resistant.

The MacBook has a glossy wide screen display of 13.3 inches with a resolution of 1280×800, which shines brilliantly and is very sharp and clear.

The keyboard has flat keys, which give a clean look. It may take getting used to but definitely as comfortable as the concave keys on laptops. It comes with an iSight camera above the display that is built-in with a mic, so the user does not have to carry anything else when traveling, for video chat. There is an exciting Photo Booth program that allows you to take pictures of yourself and add some features to them.

This laptop comes with two USB 2.0 ports, FireWire 400 port, and a DVD burner. The user can hook up a regular monitor with an adapter to the mini-DVI port. The only draw back is there is no media card reader. For all networking requirements, there is a built in Bluetooth and a wireless card.

This is a perfect laptop for a mobile lifestyle with Intel Core 2 Duo processor, RAM of 1GB, along with a 10GB 120GB hard drive. RAM can be increased to 2GB and the hard drive to 160GB or 200GB. This allows the user to keep the options open for future.

The battery life is 3 hours and 30 minutes and for travelers, Apple also offers an airline power adapter at extra cost. It comes with a one-year warrantee.

MacBook is surely far more superior to any iBook or Powerbooks. This is certainly the most advanced but affordable Mac notebook ever and gives the best laptop architecture in the most beautiful sleek design that is less expensive than the slower models. It’s almost like getting a huge Mercedes for the price of normal car.

HP Pavilion dv9500t
HP’s Pavilion dv9000 series is one of the first laptops to feature Intel’s new Centrino Duo mobile platform, which is called Santa Rosa. This is one of the most inexpensive desktop-replacements available in the market today. Although, the gaming capability of this laptop is nothing to write home about, it will surely appeal to home users who are looking for entertainment from their laptop. It is a little heavy at nine pounds, but can still be carried around. This model, Pavilion dv9500t, is very popular and comes at a very reasonable price of $1615.

It has a flossy display with a resolution of 1440×900. The 17” screen has good color and sharpness, and is great to work on. The keyboard is big with good sized keys. There is also a numeric keypad for those that work with numbers a lot. I am not sure if any other 17” laptop offers a numeric keypad.

The webcam is an integrated VGA-resolution, which provides a very good frame rate for webconferencing, even in conditions with less light.

The dual headphone jacks make it easier to share music and movies with friends.

The HP Pavilion dv9500t has the latest Intel platform/Santa Rosa and a Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB RAM, a 240GB hard drive and Wi-Fi, along with the standard DVD burner. This laptop run on 32-bit Vista Home Premium. This should be sufficient for the user who is not a gamer. There is no need to spend money on higher configurations as the user gets to surf, watch movies, work with applications such as MS Word, Excel, Adobe and Power Point.

The battery life is around 2 hours 40 minutes and this is considered to be a good thing, especially for one with a big screen.

HP backs the purchase of Pavilion v9500t with a standard one-year warranty. Users have the option to extend the warranty to three years, at the cost of $200. A 24/7 support on toll free lines is available all through the warranty period. The best part is the availability of live chat with a customer service representative, from the HP website.

As an addition, the user has the option to secure this investment for a few years with the accidental damage protection, which costs $475 (with tax) and this makes sense. Guess what!! The LCD screen is also covered by this.

Overall, a great laptop for those that always wanted to have a 17” screen. The laptop itself is sleek and slim and has a great look about it.

Toshiba Satellite U205-S5057
The Toshiba Satellite U205-S5057 is a lightweight, power packed, and inexpensive laptop. Since it is light, the user will not have problems stuffing it in a backpack and carrying it around. This $1,299 laptop is surely a great choice for people seeking compact and a good-looking product with full features. At 4.2 pounds, this weighs a lot lighter than expected. It may be light but has a well built and sturdy look about it.

The U205-S5057 comes with a 12.1 inch widescreen display, with a resolution of 1280×800. The Trubrite technology allows for a vibrant and brighter image. Unlike most other over bright laptops, the U205-S5057’s screen does not have distracting reflections and glare. It is a pleasure to watch movies. There is one low though, and that is the speakers don’t give out great sound and this calls for the usage of headphones for better sound quality.

For a laptop that is as compact as this, the keyboard is unusually large and is a pleasure to type on, apart from being spill resistant. The fingerprint scanner provides security and password maintenance. The lid being dark gray, the silver on the keyboard provides a good contrast.

This laptop has three USB 2.0 ports and a four pin FireWire port, CardBus card slot in place of the ExpressCard slot, VGA-out, and a 5-in-1 card reader. It also has a DVD burner. The multimedia controls over the keyboard are for play, pause, fast forward, and rewind, to be used when watching movies or listening to music. The instant-on software is a wonderfully convenient feature that allows the user to play DVDs or CDs without having to boot to Windows first. The lack of the Bluetooth option and a built in Webcam may not be felt much because of the other features and the great pricing.

The configuration is Core 2 Duo 1.66GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, and an integrated CMA 945 graphics card. It includes a Windows Vista Home Premium.

There is a six-call battery that lasts 2 hours and 19 minutes. This laptop is very quiet and always stays cool, both when plugged in or when running on battery.

There is a warranty of one year that covers parts and labor. Also the 24/7 customer support toll free is good.

Toshiba Satellite U205-S5057 takes your budget into consideration, yet takes care of most of the daily computing needs. Another good laptop to consider.

We have come to the end of an exciting performance oriented journey. It’s time for you to make a choice, but whatever your choice, it certainly is not going to make you any poorer. Each one of these laptops would be ideal for users that are not looking for lots of bells and whistles.

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