No-one can argue about the VAIO X Series’ design credentials. At 12.2mm, it’s precisely as thick as an iPhone, and its matte-black finish is reminiscent of a sheet of graphite (the only design oddity is its brown bottom). Even the screen drew admiring gasps: it’s wafer-thin, measuring 4.4mm when we clamped our calipers around it.

The main chassis is similarly slight. It’s so skinny the D-SUB port on the right-hand side looks oversized. There isn’t even room for a conventional network port, but rather than force people to lug around an adapter, Sony has cleverly created a hinged port: when you want to use it, the idea is to raise two tiny feet and this gives the hinge room to expand enough for you to slot in your cable.

Like other Sony notebooks, the keyboard on the VAIO X is island style, but at 88 percent of full size, its a bit smaller than most netbooks with 10- to 12-inch screens. Measuring 9.5 x 3.5 inches, the keyboard is about half an inch smaller in both directions than the Toshiba mini NB205, even though the VAIO X has a larger keyboard deck. This is because theres about half an inch of space on either side of the keyboard.

Also notable is the Vaio’s touchpad, which supports multi-touch input. This allows gestures such as pinching together two fingers to zoom in, for example. A pair of flip-out feet underneath the chassis lifts it to angle the keyboard when on a desk, and we found the Vaio X Series comfortable to use when sitting on your lap as well, as the screen can be pushed quite far back to a suitable angle.

So while it was a ‘wow’ factor machine, Sony decided to try again with a cheaper Atom netbook with the VAIO W that stuck to the regular form factor that you’ll find in most netbooks but with the VAIO look and feel. The W wasn’t too bad of an effort, and was priced at a more affordable range comparable to other netbooks. Sure, it performed pretty much similar to other netbooks too, but well, it’s a Sony product you’re talking about.

Now, fast forward to just a few months later, and Sony has unveiled its latest netbook, the VAIO X. This time, the X looks set to razzle and dazzle with its super slim form factor, lightweight design and really expensive price. Of course, the magnesium alloy chassis and carbon fiber frame of the notebook doesn’t come cheap by any standards, but it does give it a feel that’s just perfect for the business users that this netbook is targeted at. How perfect you ask? We’ll find out more over the next few pages but let’s start with our usual exterior pictures and table of specifications first.

HDD scores in our PCMark 05 tests were definitely way up there compared against your usual 5400 RPM drives and handily beat the ASUS netbooks, so we’ve no complains there. Overall, it does show that the Intel Atom Z550 processor does handle better compared to the N280, though its main advantage is still the power savings associated with its lower power draw and TDP requirement despite having a higher clock speed.

There are two USB ports on the left-hand side of the chassis, plus a headphone socket, while slots for Memory Stick media and SD cards occupy the front. And that’s your lot. The rest of the design carries on this minimalist feel. Aside from a wireless switch, the only buttons to press are the two for the simple touchpad and the keyboard itself.

We were sceptical of Sony’s claimed eight-hour battery life for the Vaio X Series, especially after seeing the thinness of the battery pack in the base of the unit. Nevertheless, the unit lasted for five hours and 18 minutes in our tests using the Battery Eater Pro benchmark, which is an impressive score for such a thin and light laptop. We tested the Vaio in its configuration as delivered, except that the screen and suspend-to-disk timeouts were disabled to prevent the system turning off the backlight or going to sleep while the battery life test was running. Users may experience a shorter battery life than this in use, depending on how heavily they use the wireless communications, but should still be able to get several hours of use from the Vaio before a recharge is needed.

hp 311 review

windows 7 netbook

windows 7 netbook

Gursel Batmaz is an experienced writer who works at a laptop related company. To learn more about laptop models take a look at our laptop website.

hp 311 review: hp netbook review

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If you are a fan of the small Sony laptops, you will have to look at the new range of Sony VAIO X series of notebooks. It weighs just 655 gram and measures just 13.9mm from all angles. Running on an Intel Atom TM chip that is normally seen in a netbook, the latest Intel Atom Processor Z550 has the latest Windows 7 OS and a solid state drive. Out to target business users on the go, the higher range Sony VAIO is 3G enabled for fast online surfing.

So how was Sony able to achieve such a thin and light netbook? The VAIO Xs chassis is made of a magnesium alloy, and the lid is built from carbon fiber. This material allows the screen to flex, which can be a bit unnerving, but Sony said that its designed to bend somewhat. Also, by using an Intel Atom Z-series processor, which uses less power (and creates less heat) than the N-series Atom chips in most netbooks, the company was able to make the netbook incredibly slim without requiring a fan. The lid of our review unit was matte black, as was the inside, with a bronze underside that felt slightly rough to the touch. Sony also offers the netbook with a Champagne Gold lid, but only for the model with a 128GB SSD (more on that later).

With a single-core Atom processor, the VAIO X Series is never going to be a great performer. Even though the 2GHz Z550 chip supports hyper-threading, this is no substitute for the performance of the dual-core processors used in most other laptops, and the VAIO felt a little sluggish at times. Our review unit was rated at just 2.5 under the Windows Experience Index built into Windows, but this score was held back by the low performance of the Intel GMA 500 graphics function in the chipset, while the memory and disk scores were quite respectable. However, like netbooks (which also use Atom processors) the VAIO has ample performance for productivity tasks such as word processing, email and delivering presentations.

Performance was also possibly affected by the presence of various pre-installed applications, such as 60-day trial versions of Norton Online Backup and McAfee Security Center, which run every time the computer starts regardless of whether you accept the 60-day trial conditions or not.

I think that when you purchase a PC like this it will find most of its use in ultraportable situations. A business person would love to have something like this for a myriad of situations plane, office, meeting, lunch. A college student could pull this off. The nice thing is that it doesnt have an explosive price like the VAIO TT did. I think Sony will do well with the X Series because its $1,300 not $2,000 3,000 like the TT. This is a direct competitor to the Macbook Air in my eyes and wins in several segments. Dont try and tell me Snow Leopard is better than Windows 7, either. Ive used both and they are both excellent operating systems.

There are two USB ports on the left-hand side of the chassis, plus a headphone socket, while slots for Memory Stick media and SD cards occupy the front. And that’s your lot. The rest of the design carries on this minimalist feel. Aside from a wireless switch, the only buttons to press are the two for the simple touchpad and the keyboard itself.
The VAIO Xs touchpad was a decently sized 2.1 x 1.6 inches and offered little friction. However, like the keyboard, it could have been a smidgen larger especially considering its capable of recognizing multitouch gestures, such as pinch and zoom. Two mouse buttons below are also small but responsive.

The laptop’s 11.1 inch screen and 6.5 hours of battery life is also respectable. Snap on an optional larger battery and your battery life jumps to 14 hours. This is of course also thanks to the Windows 7 OS and solid state hard disk under the hood which is optimized to greatly improve battery life compared to past laptops.

hp 311 review

hp mini netbook

hp mini netbook

Author of this article Can Zara is an experienced notebook article writer. To learn more about new models visit our HP notebook website.

hp 311 review: hp mini netbook

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Netbooks are all in vogue since the last two years. They were introduced first by Asus as the Eee Pc. The netbooks available currently are much higher versions of what was available two years back. Intel specially introduced the Atom processor for netbooks and smaller size PCs. The question you may have in mind is whether you should purchase a netbook or a notebook. You should totally go for a notebook if you are just looking to replace your PC with a portable solution and need as much computing power. You will need a notebook if you plan to run resource-intensive applications, graphics intensive programs, games, etc.

Netbooks work best if your use of the computer is mostly restricted to using the Internet. For bloggers, a netbook is God-sent from heaven. If you use the computer only for browsing the Internet, checking your emails, updating Facebook, chatting on IM, etc., a netbook is perfect for you. If you travel constantly and need to do all the above stuff on the go, you will find using a netbook much more convenient compared to a notebook. It’s much lighter, smaller and has a longer battery life. Go for an SSD hard disk and your netbook will be so light that you won’t know that you are carrying a computer in your bag. Some netbooks are known to last for more than 10-12 hours alone on their battery which is very difficult to get on a notebook.

If you plan to play simple card games like Solitaire, etc.then a netbook will work fine. But if you plan to go for actual games like shooting, racing, etc., a notebook will be a better option. If you plan to watch DVD movies on your computer, you can’t do it on a netbook because most netbooks do not have an in-built disc drive. But every notebook computer has a disc drive and a larger screen. So watching movies is a far better option on notebooks than on netbooks.

Now that you know most of the differences between netbooks and notebooks, go and take your own decision.

hp 311 review

hp netbook review

hp netbook review

The author likes to write text messages and advises for internet and social networking content like twitter backgrounds and myspace graphics. He also writes quizzes on subjects like career, personality, etc.

hp 311 review: hp 311 netbook

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