3852 Holiday Guide 08

The Holiday Guide to

Laptop Computers

an

Personal Technology eBook

contents [ ] Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers

This content was adapted from Internet.com's Hardware Central, and SmallBusinessComputing Web sites. Contributors: Eric Grevstad and Jamie Bsales.

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Acer Aspire One: No. 1 in Value Eric Grevstad

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Lenovo IdeaPad U110: An Attractive Idea Eric Grevstad

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Lenovo ThinkPad X200: A Three-Pound Hatchling Ready to Fly Jamie Bsales

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Gateway M-1626: 64 But Not Hardcore Eric Grevstad

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Lenovo ThinkPad X300: You Know You Want It Eric Grevstad

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HP 2133 Mini-Note: Eee-clipse? Eric Grevstad

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HP EliteBook 6930p: Keep Your Data and Hardware Secure Jamie Bsales

Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers, An Internet.com Personal Technology eBook. © 2008, Jupitermedia Corp.

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The Holiday Guide to Laptop Computers

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aybe you've got a laptop user on your holiday shopping list, or maybe you want to take advantage of holiday deals to update your existing system. Either way, we created this guide for Internet.com members researching mobile computers that keep them in touch wherever they go.

Internet.com's editors review dozens of gadgets from desktop computers to mobile accessories throughout the year. Here's a look at some of the laptops they tested in 2008. Use them to educate yourself before you start buying. Good luck and happy holidays!

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…we created this guide for Internet.com members researching mobile computers that keep them in touch wherever they go.

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Acer Aspire One: No. 1 in Value By Eric Grevstad

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e have a winner, if not in the sales competition at least in the nomenclature contest: The low-priced, lightweight laptops inspired by last fall's Asus Eee PC and since described as everything from mini-notebooks to kneetops to Microsoft's catchy acronym ULCPCs (ultralow-cost PCs) are now universally called netbooks, after their primary purpose of simple Web and e-mail access. They're also selling like mad to students and traveling professionals who don't want to carry a heavy full-sized laptop just for going online or doing some word processing or presentation work -- and who don't want to pay big bucks for an upscale ultralight such as Apple's MacBook Air or Lenovo's ThinkPad X301. That's why Asus has been joined by HP, Acer, MSI, and (soon) Dell and Lenovo, all trying to find the sweet spot of reduced-butnot-too-reduced features and performance versus price. Trouble is, the plunging prices of fullfledged notebooks are screwing with the sweet spot. HP offers a bare-bones, Linux-based configuration of its 2133 Mini-Note for $499, but the top-of-the-line Windows Vista Business model is a hefty $829. And while the original 7-inch-screened Eee flew off the shelves at $400, Asus' current 10-inch Eee PC 1000 costs $700. That's not even mentioning the online buzz about an Asus presentation this summer that outlined a confusing crop of more than 20 Eee-branded PCs at prices up to $900. Can you say "losing sight of simple and affordable"? That's why we're impressed with Acer's entry in the net3

book wars, the Aspire One. True, "impressed" doesn't mean "enraptured"; Intel's new Atom processor's performance is underwhelming, and our test unit delivered disappointingly brief battery life. But the Acer is a handsome and classy ultraportable with a high-quality 8.9-inch display, a remarkably usable keyboard, and the familiar environment of Windows XP Home Edition with an ample 120GB hard disk for installing applications and storing data, music, and image files. Considering that it cost the same $399 as the 7-inch, keyboard- and storage-cramped Eee PC 4G we cheered last November, we decided fairly quickly to give it a thumbs up. And that was before Acer lowered the price to $349.

Go Get Your Own, Kid Actually, Acer has introduced what it calls back-to-school savings on two Aspire One models. Our review system, model AOA150-1570, combines Windows XP with 1GB of memory and the abovementioned 120GB hard disk. For $329, the Aspire One AOA110-1722 stays closer to the first Eee recipe with the Linpus Linux Lite operating system, 512MB of RAM, and an 8GB solid-state drive (SSD) instead of a hard disk. Like the Eee 4G's variation on Xandros Linux, the Linpus platform hides the opensource OS' complexity behind point-and-click icons in categories such as Connect (browser, instant messenger, e-mail), Fun (media player, photo manager), and

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Work (the OpenOffice.org word processor, spreadsheet, and so on). Both of the above Aspires come with a three-cell battery pack that fits flush with the back of the case. Acer has assigned the $399 price point to a new Win XP configuration (AOA150-1447) with a 160GB hard drive and six-cell battery. We'd like to get our hands on the six-pack, because we rarely got the One to run for more than two hours unplugged -- maybe two hours and ten minutes doing light productivity work with the Wi-Fi radio turned off, but that proved the best-case scenario. Two hours is all right for a luggable desktop replacement, but a toss-itinto-your-briefcase-or-backpack netbook should last much longer. At least Acer's advertised lifespan for the three-cell pack -- a maximum two and a half hours with the hard disk, three hours with SSD -- is less exaggerated than most notebook vendors' battery claims. So when the company estimates six hours for the six-cell, we can hope for an honest five.

Am I Blue? The Aspire One measures 6.7 x 9.8 x 1.1 inches and weighs 2.3 pounds -- an even three pounds with its AC adapter. It's also available in white, but we vote for the Aspire in our test unit's deep blue, which manages to be both one of the best-looking and best fingerprint- and smudge-collecting shades we've seen. There's no polishing cloth in the box for buffing the netbook's lid and palm rest, but there's a soft, snug-fitting carrying pouch. A tiny slider switch on the Acer's front edge turns the 802.11b/g wireless on and off. Microphone and headphone jacks, two USB 2.0 ports, and an SD/MMC/xD/Memory Stick flash-card slot are on the system's right side, with a third USB port, VGA and Ethernet ports, and an additional SD card slot along the left. On the Linux model, this slot performs the nifty trick of merging a memory card with the SSD as seamless main storage, rather than appearing as an additional drive. 4

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Like all netbooks, the Acer's keyboard reflects some downsizing -- the A through apostrophe keys span 7.25 inches, compared to 8 inches for a desktop keyboard and 7.5 inches for the category-leading HP 2133. But it's considerably more comfortable than the 6.5 inches of the original Eee PC 4G, with a sturdy, firstclass typing feel that encourages almost-full-speed touch typing after just an hour or so of practice or consciously precise fingerwork. Considering that we could come up with only one minor gripe about the layout -- the lack of dedicated PgUp and PgDn keys (they're Fn-key combinations with the Home and End keys) -- you're left with a keyboard that ranks near the top of the netbook category. Unfortunately, we can't say the same for the cursor-control touchpad below the space bar -- it's awfully small, with stiff and noisy mouse buttons mounted on either side rather than beneath the pad's perimeter. Tinkering with the controls enables handy features such as virtual scrolling (moving your finger either up and down along the right edge of the pad, or in counter- or clockwise circles next to the edge), but these reduce the already cramped room to maneuver. Overall, the touchpad is tolerable, but a notebook mouse would make a good holiday gift for an Aspire One owner.

Mini-Hyper-Threading Speaking of scrolling, the Acer's screen's 1,024 x 600 resolution will oblige you to do a bit more vertical scrolling than you're used to, but at least spare you the chore of having to move horizontally to see a whole Web page as the 7-inch Eee's 800 x 680-pixel panel did. The 8.9-inch Aspire One display is crisp and bright, at least with the LED backlight on the top three or four of its ten brightness settings. Colors looked great, albeit sensitive to nudging the screen tilt a few degrees forward or back, with less of the shaving-mirror effect we've seen with other glossy LCDs. If you do want to look at your reflection, there's a bare-bones 640 x 480 webcam above the screen. Under the hood, you'll find 1GB of DDR2/667 memory and a 120GB, 5,400 rpm Hitachi SATA hard drive, as

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well as Intel's Atom N270 -- a single-core, 1.6GHz processor with 512K of Level 2 cache and a 533MHz front-side bus. The watt-saving CPU revives the Hyper-Threading Technology that Intel touted before it had true dualcore processors, giving at least a modest boost for multithreaded applications or multitasking -- the Acer rendered Cinebench 10's sample scene in a bit over 27 minutes without Hyper-Threading, but less than 18 minutes with the feature enabled. To be sure, 18 minutes for Cinebench 10 -- or 1 minute and 15 seconds to boot XP and load the preinstalled utilities and taskbar icons, or four seconds' wait after right-clicking the desktop and clicking Properties to see the Display Properties dialog box -- is not dazzling performance. Overall, the Aspire One is clearly faster than the VIA C7-based HP 2133, and perfectly adequate for everyday applications, but occasionally feels a bit sluggish. Plugged into an external monitor for the sake of our benchmark tests' XGA resolution -- the system can either clone its LCD display on an attached monitor or work at higher resolution with the LCD switched off -the Acer posted a PCMark05 score of 1,501 (CPU 1,478; memory 2,350; hard disk 3,872; graphics 549). And we cry "Oh noooo!" like Mr. Bill whenever we discover that a PC has the old Intel 945GME chipset's GMA 950 integrated graphics. The Acer upheld the video platform's molasses reputation by meandering to 3DMark06 and 3DMark05 scores of 109 and 248, respectively, and stumbling through the DirectX 9.0 game simulation AquaMark3 at 4 frames per second.

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A Real Deal While the netbook has 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, neither Bluetooth nor 3G wireless broadband are included. Plugging in a USB dongle can get you the former; Acer has mentioned an internal upgrade for the latter, but there's no hard news as of yet. It's 3G we're thinking of when we say we wish the Aspire One had an ExpressCard slot like Lenovo's IdeaPad S10. Acer's software bundle is modest. Sixty-day trial versions of Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student and McAfee Security Center are preinstalled, as are Microsoft Works, Yahoo Toolbar, and InterVideo WinDVD, presumably for users who'll buy a USB external DVD drive. The day we registered our McAfee trial, we were amused to get an e-mail offering the full version of the security suite for 29 percent off the list price, followed a few hours later by an offer for 36 percent off. We figure if we wait another day or two we'll get a better offer. By contrast, we doubt that netbook shoppers will see a better offer than the Win XP Aspire One for $349 (though we're equally tempted by the six-cell model for $399). Right now, the Acer saves you at least $100 and in some cases over $200 compared to competitors from HP, Asus, and MSI. It also seems likely to undercut the latecomers from Lenovo and Dell, unless those vendors come in significantly below their announced or anticipated prices. Along the way, it turns the "Since a netbook nowadays costs the same or more, why not get a real notebook?" argument upside down: If you can settle for a plug-in optical drive and slightly subpar touchpad, why should you spend more than $400 or carry more than three pounds? This may be the year's best PC value. I

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Lenovo IdeaPad U110: An Attractive Idea By Eric Grevstad

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o you change clothes when you come home from work? You probably trade your conservative duds for something more colorful and comfortable (unless you're Superman, who dresses more colorfully when going to work).

Lenovo does the same thing: When it supplemented its ThinkPad business laptop line with a series of consumer notebooks dubbed IdeaPad, the company gave the ultralight IdeaPad U110 not a matte black but a vivid red case lid, garnished with an ornate textured paisley pattern that's even echoed on the underside with artfully cut cooling vents. But there's more to the U110 than flash and splash. Once you admit that it's a splurge at $1,899, the 11.1inch-screened compact is an appealing civilian alternative to the super-elite $3,000 ThinkPad X300 slimline we love.

Extreme Portability While the X300 is remarkably light for a notebook that includes an onboard optical drive, the U110 is lighter still, because (spoiler ahead) it doesn't. Instead, the IdeaPad comes with a 13-ounce external DVD±RW drive that plugs into the two USB 2.0 ports on the system's left side. (One port isn't enough to power the AC-adapter-less drive.) Setting aside the DVD burner and the system's AC adapter (11 ounces), the Lenovo measures 7.7 x 10.8 x 0.9 inches and tips the scales at 2.4 pounds with the provided four-cell battery pack, which fits flush with the notebook for a sleek and trim appearance. As is com-

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mon with ultralights, there's a larger, longer-lived alternative battery -- a seven-cell pack that protrudes slightly at the rear and below and hikes system weight to 2.9 pounds. If you winced when you read the U110's price, you should take into account that both batteries, like the USB optical drive and a soft carrying pouch, come with the system instead of hiding as options or asterisks on a lower advertised price. Also, though the IdeaPad has a smidgen less sex appeal, it costs the same as an Apple MacBook Air with no optical drive or swappable battery. On the minus side, while Lenovo estimates that the little and big batteries can last as long as two and six hours, respectively, our U110 fell far short of such endurance. The four-cell lasted barely an hour and a quarter in our real-world work sessions. The seven-cell averaged about three hours in mixed-use stints without the DVD±RW attached and two hours when using the drive to watch a DVD. Besides the two USB ports, the notebook's left side offers a VGA monitor connector and an exhaust-fan vent that can get pretty warm. A third USB port, FireWire and Ethernet connectors, microphone and headphone jacks, a six-format memory-card reader slot, and an ExpressCard slot are at the right. Bluetooth is standard, along with 802.11a/g Wi-Fi.

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The small laptop makes room for a full-sized keyboard (8 inches from A through apostrophe), except for halfsized function, Delete, and cursor-control keys. The only layout quirk that takes a little adjusting to is that, while there are dedicated PgUp and PgDn keys instead of the common and clumsy Fn-key-plus-cursor-arrow combinations, there aren't dedicated Home and End keys -- those are the Fn key plus PgUp and PgDn. (Pressing the Fn key along with the cursor arrows dials the LCD backlight and audio volume up or down.) We had to adjust to something else during our first hour or two with the U110 -- the keys, like the palm rest below them, are a glossy black that becomes smothered with smudgy fingerprints after about five minutes. They actually felt a bit slippery at first, like walking on freshly waxed floor tiles, but our fingers quickly adjusted. Call the result a medium-good but not exceptional typing feel. The IdeaPad breaks from Lenovo's ThinkPads in not having a center-of-keyboard nub or pointing stick for mouse control, just a smallish touchpad with goodsized mouse buttons below it. It worked smoothly and nearly silently in our tests. At the risk of getting spoiled, we're rapidly losing our affection for laptop LCDs without the latest LED backlight technology. The notebook's 11.1-inch, LED-backlit display is crisp and clear, at least at the top two or three of its brightness settings -- when we first read the system specs we feared that squeezing 1,366 x 768 resolution into the relatively small widescreen panel would make text and icons too tiny for tired eyes, but the display proved first-class, superbly sharp with colors that pop. It also fits flush with the surrounding black border instead of having a traditional bezel -- Lenovo calls it "frameless" -- for an even cooler appearance.

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2,891) -- decent numbers except for the last, reflecting the leisurely 4,200-rpm Toshiba 120GB hard disk. The slimline scored 3.5 on its Windows Vista Home Premium (Service Pack 2) operating system's 5.9-point Experience Index scale. It rendered Cinebench 10's sample image in 4 minutes and 36 seconds with both CPU cores active. The U110's integrated Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 (Intel GM965 chipset) graphics do disqualify it for all but the most casual gaming -- 10 and 23 frames per second in the old, low-octane AquaMark3 and Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, respectively, with a 3DMark06 score of 593 (1,280 x 768 resolution with no antialiasing).

Take a Look at Me Now Most of the IdeaPad's software bundle is what you'd expect -- trial versions of Norton AntiVirus and Microsoft Office; CyberLink's Power2Go for burning music, video, and photo DVDs and CDs; a handy EasyCapture utility for taking snapshots with the 1.3megapixel webcam above the screen. Shuttle Center II is an eye-candy alternative to Windows Media Center for perusing and using your MP3s, images, and other multimedia files. We were disappointed, however, by one of Lenovo's touted features -- VeriFace, a software solution that uses the webcam to identify your face and automate your Windows login and Web site passwords, as many notebooks' fingerprint readers do.

It's not just in size and style that the IdeaPad U110 stands comparison with the ThinkPad X300. Thanks to a faster CPU -- Intel's 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo L7500, with an 800MHz front-side bus and 4MB of Level 2 cache -the consumer compact beat the professional model in many of our benchmark tests.

It turns out we have a forgettable face. Sometimes VeriFace recognized us and proceeded to Windows after just one or two passes of its on-screen scanner (which puts creepy circles over your eyes as part of its face mapping), but sometimes we spent a frustrating five minutes trying different positions, angles, and generally playing peek-a-boo with a scanner determined, Mission Impossible-style, to disavow any knowledge of our actions. We switched the feature off after a couple of days.

Fitted with 2GB of DDR2/667 memory (one 1GB module on the motherboard and one in the system's sole memory slot), the IdeaPad posted a PCMark05 score of 3,476 (CPU 4,007; memory 3,737; graphics 1,628; hard drive

Still, the IdeaPad U110 has plenty of attractive features for someone seeking an ultralight with more pizzazz than your average ThinkPad or Portege. And if red's not your color, it also comes in black. I

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Lenovo ThinkPad X200: A Three-Pound Hatchling Ready to Fly By Jamie Bsales

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f you've been schlepping around a too-heavy, too-slow notebook for too long, Intel and Lenovo have given you even more reasons to buy a better laptop. The new ThinkPad X200 is Lenovo's latest ultraportable notebook, a three-pound hatchling that's ready to fly thanks to Intel's new Centrino 2 mobile-PC platform.

The X200 replaces the ThinkPad X61, slotting below the rave-reviewed but hyper-pricey ThinkPad X300 in Lenovo's lineup. Instead of the latter's 13.3-inch display, the X200 is built around a 12.1-inch screen that gives the system a footprint about the size of a sheet of paper. Its slim profile tapers from less than an inch to 1.4 inches thick, and its light weight makes it easy to tote to meetings or slip in your bag. The exterior is the familiar ThinkPad matte black; it won't turn heads, but does give an appropriately professional impression.

Beauty on the Inside While the X200's exterior is buttoned-down, its sex appeal lurks on the inside. Intel's Centrino 2 platform marries the latest generation of speedy Core 2 Duo processors to a faster front-side bus (1066MHz, up from 800MHz in previous Centrino solutions), which helps eliminate performance bottlenecks at the system level. Centrino 2 also delivers an improved Wi-Fi wireless chip including 802.11-DraftN support, as well as embedded Gigabit Ethernet networking and improved 8

integrated graphics via a faster Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD chip with hardware-based highdefinition video decoding. Intel boasts that Centrino 2 both improves notebook performance and extends battery life. Indeed, in our informal testing, the Core 2 Duo P8400-powered (a 2.26GHz processor with 3MB of Level 2 cache) Lenovo generally outperformed other ultraportables in the three-pound weight range, launching and running applications at speeds traditionally reserved for larger laptops. A 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo P8600 CPU is an option. If you spend a lot of time away from an electrical outlet, you'll also appreciate the X200's battery life, which Lenovo estimates at 3.2 hours with the standard four-cell battery and more than nine hours with a nine-cell battery that hikes system weight to 3.6 pounds.

Business-Friendly Features The ThinkPad has other features a business pro would crave. Unlike other ultraportables, which make you suffer with an undersized keyboard, the X200's keyboard is full-sized, with the famous feel and responsiveness long a hallmark of ThinkPad portables. Lenovo also provides dedicated volume and mute buttons (no more fumbling with a Fn-key combo) as well as the handy ThinkLight, a white LED above the screen that gives off just enough light to illuminate

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the keyboard in a dark room.

The Tradeoffs

The 12.1-inch, 1,200 x 800-resolution screen is bright and exceedingly sharp. Compared to its X61 predecessor's 1,024 x 768-pixel panel, the widescreen aspect ratio keeps the height of the panel fairly squat, which makes the X200 ideal for use on an airline tray table. You can equip the X200 with an 80GB, 160GB, or 320GB hard drive; a 200GB, 7,200-rpm drive with Full Disk Encryption; or a 64GB solid-state drive (SSD) that uses indestructible flash memory instead of spinning platters. If you've ever had a traditional hard drive die on you, the allure of an SSD is obvious.

While the X200 has a lot going for it, it does necessitate a few tradeoffs typical of the ultraportable class. First and foremost, unlike the pricier X300, the notebook doesn't have a built-in optical drive. You'll have to invest in a USB-based external drive or opt for Lenovo's snap-on UltraBase accessory, which adds a modular bay for a CD-RW/DVD-ROM, DVD±RW, or Blu-ray drive or a second battery second hard disk.

With the exception of FireWire, the X200 has all the ports you're likely to need, including three USB 2.0 ports; a VGA connector for hooking up a projector or monitor; modem and Ethernet jacks; and a PC Card slot. Options include a fingerprint reader for added login security, a Webcam for videoconferencing, and a five-format memory-card reader. Lenovo also offers optional wireless broadband, which lets you connect via cellular carriers' high-speed networks; the WWAN option has a handy option of its own in GPS navigation. If you often find yourself paying for wireless access at airports, hotels, and other W-fi hot spots -- or find yourself someplace without Wi-Fi altogether -- this feature can pay for itself quickly.

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The small size of the X200 also means there was only room for the familiar ThinkPad TrackPoint pointing stick, not the touchpad most portable users have grown accustomed to. And while the notebook's built-in speaker is fine for personal use, you'll want to rely on your projector's speakers if you're given a presentation in any but the smallest conference room. But these compromises can be said of most every three-pound PC, and the X200 does away with two of the biggest shortcomings of previous examples: so-so performance and a cramped, substandard keyboard. Even better, the base configuration starts at a reasonable $1,199. Considering its cutting-edge features and horsepower, that price makes the ThinkPad X200 a bargain to boot. I

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Gateway M-1626: 64 But Not Hardcore By Eric Grevstad

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C prices have come way down? A thousand bucks will buy you a first-class desktop? Even less will buy you a capable notebook? This is incredible! What's that you say? Why yes, my name is Van Winkle. How did you know?

Obviously it's no longer news that even non-techsavvy, non-wealthy consumers are buying PCs at which even experienced power users can't sneer (well, can sneer only at their lack of gonzo gaming graphics or ponderous power supplies). The shelves of Staples or Best Buy or Wal-Mart or [insert retailer here] are full of such machines. Nor is it a shocker to find vendors better known for direct online and phone sales, such as Dell and Gateway, at your nearest superstore, often selling slightly different, prepackaged configurations of the systems you see on their Web sites. The Gateway M-1626 is one such machine -- a version of the company's MSeries 15.4-inch laptop with a sober black instead of some models' snazzy red or blue case, available for $850 at Office Depot. It's still a bit out of the ordinary, however, to find a 64bit operating system between the toner-cartridge and ballpoint-pen aisles. The AMD Turion 64 X2-powered Gateway comes with 4GB of dual-channel DDR-2/667 memory, a chunk more than 32-bit Windows Vista can use but a good amount for the preinstalled Vista Home Premium 64-bit edition.

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Nearly Compatible Technically speaking, we're tickled to see mainstream consumers board the 64-bit computing bandwagon. Practically speaking, we're not sure it's worth it: The number of 64-bit x86 programs is still exceptionally small and still skewed toward specialized and/or enterprise applications. Heck, there are still disappointingly few multithreaded applications that take full advantage of multicore processors. Until that changes, the main benefit of 64-bit Windows for M-1626 owners will be better multitasking for their 32-bit wares, and -- in something likely to puzzle retail consumers more than it will power users -- they'll give up a small but significant amount of driver and application support to get it. Indeed, the laptop comes with a DVD with both 32- and 64-bit flavors of Vista Home Premium, along with documentation saying, "The powerful, preinstalled Windows Vista 64-bit edition is not for everyone" and giving drive-reformatting instructions for those who "prefer to install 32-bit Windows Vista for comprehensive hardware and software compatibility." And as far as megatasking is concerned, the supplied 4GB of system RAM is the Gateway's hardware ceiling. That will disappoint geeks who might dream about the operating system's support for up to 16GB. So, 64-bit Vista aside, what does the M-1626 have to offer? Basically, bread and butter: a capable, full-sized notebook with nice features and decent performance for any productivity (as opposed to gaming or video-

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editing) job. Our biggest complaint is that, though the Gateway is more portable than some of its 15.4-inch peers, it has the poor battery life of a larger desktop replacement -an hour and a half in our disk- and multimedia-intensive sessions, peaking at an hour and three-quarters for undemanding word processing and spreadsheet work. We were also bemused to see Windows' low-battery warning pop up every time we booted the laptop on battery power, even if the battery was actually full.

Basic Black Clad in matte black with a grippable if slightly smudgeprone textured lid, the Gateway measures 10 x 14 x 1.5 inches and tips the scale at 5.9 pounds -- just under our this-is-too-much-to-carry threshold -- with the AC adapter bringing total travel weight to 6.7 pounds. Fancy styling touches are limited to a flush-fitting strip of Windows Media Center and multimedia control keys above the keyboard. You'll find microphone and headphone jacks on the front edge of the system, with the Optiarc dual-layer DVD±RW drive -- with LabelFlash technology to etch labels onto special CDs, as with the LightScribe drives in many HP computers -- joined by a USB 2.0 port on the right. VGA and modem ports are at the rear. On the M-1626's left side are two more USB ports; an Ethernet connector; a flash-card slot for SD, MMC, xD, and MS/Pro storage formats; and an ExpressCard/54 expansion slot. The left side also offers a not-yet-common feature -- an HDMI port for connecting the Gateway to many HDTV sets. Unfortunately, the ATI Radeon 1270 integrated graphics hit the wall at the screen's native 1,280 x 800 resolution instead of supporting any 720- or 1080-line HDTV modes. It's not one of AMD's new Turion X2 Ultras, but the Gateway's Turion 64 X2 TL-60 processor is a respectable 65-nanometer-process, 2.0GHz CPU with 512K of Level 2 cache for each of its two cores. It's paired with an ATI RS690T chipset, which is paired with 128MB of dedicated memory (and can borrow more from system memory) for its Radeon X1270 integrated graphics.

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Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 2.0

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By Eric Grevstad t's hardly a radical idea, but you wonder why no one thought of it before. Microsoft, like its rival Logitech, makes numerous mice designed for use with notebook PCs -- scaled-down devices that don't take much space in a traveler's briefcase, usually with a niche or cubbyhole on the underside to hold the cordless mouse's USB receiver so the latter is less likely to get lost in said briefcase.

However, according to Microsoft, more than a third of consumers prefer to buy full-sized desktop mice to use with their laptops, to avoid having to adjust from a hand rest to a fingertip grip when leaving the office or home. Presto, the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 -- a full-sized, $50 mouse with a USB adapter that snaps into a bottom slot just like its miniature siblings. To forestall any confusion among mouse model memorizers, we should note that the new mouse takes the name of the model it replaces in Microsoft's crowded lineup, the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000. The label on the mouse's bottom adds a v2.0 suffix, but it's safe to assume nobody will experience déjà vu upon seeing the 6000 in a store.

A Slippery Slope

Measuring a conventional 2.8 x 4.9 inches, the 6000 follows recent Redmond rodents in offering a righthand-only ergonomic design that slopes downward from left to right as you look at the mouse from behind, so your index finger is at the summit and your pinky fingertip brushes your mouse pad or desk or airline tray table. There's a trough or scoop on the right that feels like it's supposed to support your ring finger, though it's too shallow to hold the latter in place; it's all too easy to let that fingertip slip downward so that it, too, brushes the desktop. On the other hand, or rather the other side, there's a roomy, concave rubberized grip for your thumb. continued

The latter is an old and humble DirectX 9.0 graphics 11

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solution, which put on a slide show (6 frames per second) in our DX9 benchmark test Gun Metal 2 at XGA resolution. It improved to 9 fps in the OpenGL test Lightsmark 2007 at 1,200 x 800 resolution. Other results weren't quite as rock-bottom, with a 3DMark06 score of 311 at full-screen resolution with no antialiasing. The Gateway rendered Cinebench 10's sample scene in 4 minutes and 20 seconds with both CPU cores firing. As for overall performance, our usual SysMark 2007 application benchmark doesn't run under 64-bit Windows, but the Gateway gets a Windows Experience rating of 3.0 on Vista's 5.9-point scale. The notebook's suitability for gaming graphics is the low point, but it earns relatively high ratings for both system memory and the 250GB, 5,400-rpm Western Digital hard drive.

Image and Input Speaking of graphics, the M-1626's widescreen display is reasonably bright (at its top two or three backlight brightness settings) and colorful, if not particularly vivid despite its glossy coating. None of our test unit's 1,280 x 800 pixels were bad, and Gateway's wise/thrifty decision to forgo any higher resolution for its 15.4 diagonal inches made easy reading of even small icon and menu text, even in dimly lit rooms. The laptop's keyboard is spacious and holds no layout surprises -- all right, the Ctrl key is second from left instead of far left in the bottom row, as we inevitably grouse about, but Delete is in the top right corner where it belongs, and there are real Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys instead of Fn-plus-cursor-arrow impostors. We wound up disabling horizontal scrolling, which seemed to pop into play whenever we wanted simple horizontal cursor movement, but both the touchpad and twin mouse buttons below it are amply sized and comfortably smooth to use. In addition to Vista Home Premium 64-Bit, the Gateway comes with 60-day trial versions of Symantec's Norton Security 2008 and Microsoft's Office Home and Student 2007 plus Works and Money Essentials. The Wild Tangent game service and Napster music player are also standard, as is Gateway's consumer-friendly BigFix 12

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Apart from the ring-finger quibble, we found the mouse perfectly comfortable even through long days of working overtime. Sliver-sized Forward and Back buttons (more like one long button bisected; programmable for other functions via Microsoft's software driver) ride just above your thumb atop the mouse's left edge. As with most side-mounted Forward and Back duos we try, clicking Forward involves a much more natural flick of the thumb than the tiny but awkward upand-back motion required to get your thumb on the Back button. In fact, when we flexed our thumb, it often hit the strip dead center and pressed both buttons, so we assigned Back to both buttons in our browser. The 6000's scroll wheel has a smooth, seamless feel that will disappoint users accustomed to slight clicks or detents during scrolling, but with a little practice we were elevatoring up and down through our e-mail inbox with no under- or overshooting a target. The wheel also tilts left and right for horizontal scrolling through spreadsheets or zoom views of images or Web pages, though (as we've grumbled in many another review) Microsoft's driver doesn't let you reprogram left and right tilts to other functions as Logitech's does. The latter's quick sideways flicks remain our favorite Back and Forward. The IntelliPoint 6.2 driver does let you reassign all five buttons, counting a click of the scroll wheel, to other functions ranging from the usual undo, cut, copy, paste, or zoom to Flip 3D -- Windows Vista Aero's pretty shuffle-stack of active windows -- or Instant Viewer -- a tamer Win XP version of the same that arranges current program windows on the screen like a geeky art gallery. More options include launching a specified application or creating and running a macro combination of keystrokes. And Microsoft didn't forget the convenience of program-specific settings, so the same button that's Back in your browser can be Undo in your word processor. A Magnifier function opens a zoom window that you can drag around the screen for a zoom view of the pixels beneath. A slightly awkward process of holding the assigned button while moving the mouse or scrolling the wheel lets you resize the magnifying lens or switch among several levels of magnification.

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upgrade notice utility. A nice pull-out sidebar at one side of the screen controls the 1.3-megapixel webcam centered above it. Frankly, mainstream 15.4-inch notebooks are getting squeezed between 14- and 13-inch and smaller lightweight travelers and 17-inch deluxe desktop replacements. That said, the M-1626 (or another Gateway M Series model, some with Intel and some with AMD power), is a solid, workmanlike choice for its $850 price, especially for anyone shopping for 64- rather than 32bit Windows. The trouble is, we don't think there'll be swarms of such shoppers at Office Depot. I

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Set loose on a crowded desk, the 6000 turned in a fine performance. Its 1,000 dpi resolution -- what Microsoft calls High Definition Laser Technology -gives sufficient room to move even with just two and a half or three inches of free space next to a notebook. After a few minutes' practice, we were maneuvering as precisely as a Smart car in city traffic. It worked smoothly on every surface we tried except that nemesis of optical mice, a mirror, while its interference-resistant 2.4GHz radio connection kept the mouse and PC in contact even from the next room with a wall in between.

Travelin' On

A light on top of the mouse glows when its two AA alkalines are growing weak, which we didn't have time to observe -- Microsoft claims some users will see up to six months between battery replacements (or refills if you're doing the green thing and using rechargeable NiMH cells). Such users probably get in the habit of unplugging the mouse's flash-drivesized USB transceiver from the PC or laptop and snapping it into its niche on the 6000's underside, which automatically turns the mouse off. Basically, the Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 breaks a decade of silence in exposing the secret shame of so-called notebook mice: It's not that much harder to find room in your briefcase or laptop case for a mouse that's two inches larger. As such, the 6000 is a first-class candidate to be your only mouse -- to use both when you're at your desk and when you're mobile. I

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Lenovo ThinkPad X300: You Know You Want It By Eric Grevstad

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e can't keep it. Our eval loan has run out and we have to return this Lenovo ThinkPad X300 review unit next week. But that's all right. We'll find a way. We can follow it back to Lenovo's address in North Carolina. We can stalk it. Someday it'll be in our arms again and we can tell it how we feel. We'll say those three little words we thought we'd never say, words no level-headed PC reviewer should swoon and say:

cially when coupled with what Lenovo calls glass- and carbon-fiber "roll cage" construction and a ThinkVantage Active Protection System that automatically turns off the drive when the X300 is jolted or dropped. The latter feature isn't nearly as necessary for an SSD as for a mechanical drive, but it has a cute realtime display window in which you can watch an animated image of the ThinkPad jiggle and jump as you mistreat it.

Best notebook ever.

If You Have To Ask ... They say love is blind, and we were struck blind by our first look at the X300's price tag: At retail, our test configuration (model 6478-1VU) costs as much as four adequately equipped, full-sized laptops -- $3,000 equipped with 2GB of DDR-2/667 memory, Bluetooth, webcam, fingerprint reader, and a Verizon mobile broadband module with GPS. When we configured a matching model on Lenovo's Web site, it came to $3,400. The best discount we found was from Datavision, offering the X300 for $2,800. Part of the system's high tariff is that it features a 64GB solid-state disk (SSD or flash-memory drive). That's much less storage capacity than most notebooks' conventional hard disks, but it gives the Lenovo a fast startup time (about 30 seconds) and extra reliability, espe-

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But the real reason the X300 inspires devotion is that it's the PC market's closest thing to Apple's celebrated, skinny status symbol, the MacBook Air. At 9.1 x 12.5 x 1 inches, it isn't quite as svelte as the Apple, but has essential features the Air lacks -- a DVD±RW drive, for example, along with an Ethernet port and a userremovable battery. The Lenovo is also light enough to make briefcase-lugging a pleasure: Our test unit tipped the scale at 3.4 pounds (an even 4 pounds with the AC adapter). You can add a few ounces by replacing the optical drive with a second battery pack for, Lenovo says, up to 10 hours of battery life. And, to return to the MacBook Air, the ThinkPad's $3,000 price may be daunting but is $98 less than Apple charges for its slimline with the same size solidstate drive but no optical drive. And while both have 13.3-inch displays, the X300 offers higher resolution (1,440 x 900 pixels versus 1,200 x 800).

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A DVD Drive Hardly Thicker Than a DVD

some practice to adjust to their location in the keyboard's top right corner.

On the notebook's left side are two USB 2.0 ports and microphone and headphone jacks. At the rear are a third USB port and Ethernet and VGA monitor ports.

Lenovo also offers travelers a choice of IBM's famous original or today's most common mouse alternatives -a textured TrackPoint micro-joystick stub embedded at the intersection of G, H, and B, plus a touchpad in the palm rest with vertical and horizontal scrolling zones along its right and bottom edges.

We were disappointed not to find a flash-memory card reader or an ExpressCard slot, though Lenovo would likely say there's no urgent need for the latter since what's under the hood already includes mobile broadband; a GPS chip; and support for WiMax, should Intel's chosen long-range wireless standard overcome the apparently long odds against it ever being deployed. One of the ThinkPad's most remarkable features is on its right side -- a super-duper-slim, swappable DVD±RW burner. The dual-layer Matsushita drive is just 7mm (a quarter of an inch) thick; we found ourselves wishing it would pull out just a fraction further but it proved easy enough to slip a disc into the tray insideedge first. The latest thing in skinny screens is LED backlighting, which helps make the X300's 13.3-inch display crisp and vivid for black text and color images alike. On the other hand, to be frank, the 1,440 x 900-pixel panel didn't seem super-bright or show whiter whites under office fluorescent lighting, unless we left the backlight on its highest setting. Working at home, with just one or two lamps at opposite sides of the living room, made things look better. Under such less-than-sunny conditions, or on a darkened airplane beside a snoring seatmate, you can press a Fn-key combination to activate the cutest little night light you ever saw, tucked into the top bezel beside the 1.3-megapixel webcam and shining down on the keyboard. The keyboard lives up to the high standard of other ThinkPads, stretching back well before 2005 when Lenovo acquired the matte-black brand from IBM. It's virtually full-sized (spanning 8 inches from A through apostrophe, just like our desktop keyboard) and delivers a smooth, yielding-just-enough typing feel. There are dedicated Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys instead of shifted cursor arrows, as well, though it takes

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Both the TrackPoint and touchpad have their own left and right mouse buttons below. We found that, when using the X300 in our lap, the latter's mouse buttons were often too close or pressed against our belly to use, so we happily relied on the joystick's buttons just above the touchpad.

Let's Go Green Lenovo boasts that the X300 is the most environmentally friendly ThinkPad to date, consuming 25 percent less energy than older X Series models and meeting both Energy Star 4.0 and EPEAT Gold standards for low power consumption and minimal impact on Mother Earth. Along with the LED backlit display and no-moving-parts SSD, one of the key contributors to this status is Intel's Core 2 Duo SL7100, a 1.2GHz processor with an 800MHz front-side bus, 4MB of Level 2 cache, and a thrifty TDP (thermal design power) of 12 watts. The CPU specs should clue you in that nobody's going to use the X300 for hardcore gaming or video encoding, but the notebook's performance is perfectly fine for office applications. It scored 3,305 on PCMark05 (CPU 3,279; memory 3,262; graphics 1,042; hard drive - wildly skewed by solid-state -- 15,787), and rendered Cinebench 10's test scene in six and a quarter minutes. Intel's GMA X3100 integrated graphics handled our benchmarks about as well as you'd expect, managing 70 frames per second in our nostalgic Quake III Arena test and 10 fps in the more demanding AquaMark3; its 3DMark06 score at native 1,440 x 900 resolution with no antialiasing or other eye candy was 362.

A View Without Vista Lenovo's array of models with just slightly different ID codes (6478-1VU versus -1TU, for instance) can make it hard to spot the exact configuration you'd like, but we

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must confess that one thing we liked about our test unit was that it came with the simpler, quicker Windows XP Professional instead of Windows Vista.

different networks and logons), hardware configuration, and security options presented so as not to frighten even the technophobiest.

A page on Lenovo's Web site (under the banner headline "It's hard to say goodbye") says that systems with XP preloaded were available for purchase only through May 20, 2008, but that customers will be able to buy a downgrade DVD that wipes out the newer and installs the older operating system. One of the company's tech support pages adds that the downgrade kit will be available (though "fees may vary") until January 31, 2009.

Finally, the X300's light weight doesn't indicate a wimpy battery pack as with some slimlines. The supplied six-cell battery lasted a good four hours during a multimedia-heavy DVD-viewing and music-playing session, while a less demanding word processing marathon stretched to five hours.

The rest of our ThinkPad's preinstalled software ranged from the predictable (trial versions of Norton Internet Security and Microsoft Office) to the Picasa2 image organizer, Diskeeper Lite defragment utility, InterVideo WinDVD, and an impressive stack of utilities and control settings arrayed under the ThinkVantage label.

So what do we mean by best notebook ever? Simply the best-engineered, most desirable, thin-and-lightwithout-compromises laptop we've seen in many long years of testing, reviewing, and not infrequently buying. Out of all the PCs that have occupied the Labs, Weather, & Sports Desk, the ThinkPad X300 is the one we most hate to send away. Ah, well. If you love something set it free. I

A pop-up ThinkVantage Productivity Center offers maintenance, wireless (including location profiles for

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HP 2133 Mini-Note: Eee-clipse? By Eric Grevstad

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alk to HP executives, and they'll tell you that the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC targets the educational market. Ask about its place in the mainstream laptop segment, and they'll tie you to a chair and tell you it's meant for instructional use. Comment on its VIA processor or choice of operating systems, and they'll wrestle you to the ground and tell you it's designed with K-12 classrooms in mind. They're not fooling anybody.

glossy 8.9-inch display with 1,280 x 768 resolution and a scratch-resistant coating. Asus' second-generation Eee has a larger screen, too, but won't come close to what HP boasts is a 92-percent-full-sized keyboard: The A through apostrophe keys on the 2133's home row span a bit over seven and a half inches, versus our desktop's eight inches and the Eee's six and a half. The Mini-Note's Ctrl and Delete keys are in their proper bottom left and top right corners, respectively, instead of being relocated on some designer's whim. And while the Insert, Delete, and function keys and the cursor arrows are half-sized, the alphanumeric keys seem as big as floor tiles at first glance, as well as styled to match the 2133's aluminum case.

While it does compete with Intel's Classmate PC (and, to a much lesser extent, the $200 One Laptop Per Child notebook), the 2133 is unmistakably HP’s response to the two-pound, $400 Asus Eee that's been winning over business travelers -- and putting “Sold Out" signs in retail stores -- since its debut. Like the Eee, the HP handles daily productivity tasks such as spreadsheeting, e-mailing, and Wi-Fi Web browsing instead of trying to be a multimedia or gaming machine; it relies on a humble, single-core CPU and lacks a built-in optical drive; and it's priced far below the thinnest and lightest notebooks from the likes of Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Dell, or Apple. The base model is $499, with our loaded, top-of-the-line test unit slated to cost $749. If that's a couple of hundred bucks above the various Eee models, it's because the Mini-Note gives you more PC, beginning with a considerably more stylish and solid-feeling aluminum instead of plastic case. It surpasses the Eee's 7-inch, 800 x 640-pixel screen with a 17

And Four To Go At rollout HP offered the system in four configurations, with custom tailoring presumably available at the hpshopping.com Web site. The $499 model is the most Eee-like: It runs Novell Suse Linux instead of Windows and has a 4GB solidstate drive instead of a hard disk. Its modest 512MB of memory and 1.0GHz VIA C7-M processor ensure its entry-level status, although budget buyers enjoy the same spacious keyboard and screen as their deeperpocketed peers.

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Next up are a pair of twins -- two Mini-Notes with a 1.2GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a 120GB (5,400-rpm) hard drive, as well as the 802.11b/g Wi-Fi and threecell lithium-ion battery pack seen in the $499 config. The difference is that the $549 model comes with Suse Linux, the $599 unit with Vista Home Basic. For $749, the fourth and fanciest version offers a swifter 1.6GHz version of the VIA processor; Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi; the system maximum 2GB of DDR-2 memory; Windows Vista Business; and a larger six-cell battery pack that, instead of fitting flush, props the HP's rear an inch or so off your desk to form a fair typing angle. Our preproduction version had a 160GB Hitachi hard disk (and an "HP Compaq 2133" label instead of the correct, Compaq-free moniker), but company spec sheets list the $749 Mini-Note as having the same 120GB hard drive as the middle two models. Options will include a 160GB, 5,400-rpm drive and faster 7,200rpm drives in the same sizes (120GB and 160GB). With the 4GB flash drive installed, HP says, the 2133 tips the scales at 2.63 pounds. Since our system had a hard drive instead, it weighed in at 2.88 pounds with the smaller or 3.25 pounds with the larger battery pack. That's heavier than the 2.06-pound Eee, but not enough to notice the difference when lifting your briefcase; the Mini-Note is as much a pleasure to travel with as are far more costly featherweights like Lenovo's ThinkPad X300. At about 6.5 x 10.3 x 1 inches, the HP is almost as easy to fit into that briefcase as the Eee, though its AC adapter is bulkier and heavier (14 ounces).

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right luxurious for a subnotebook -- its practically fullsized span makes up for a good-but-not-great (slightly flat and soft) typing feel. The touchpad is wider than you'd expect, too, with large, rubbery mouse buttons on either side. Except for a finger repeatedly straying into the vertical scrolling zone at the right of the pad, it worked fine.

Take a Long Look Your first sight of the 2133's screen will be a dim one -every time the system restarts or awakes from hibernation, it's turned the backlight brightness off rather than retain the level you set earlier for the sake of babying the battery. And we were happy with the LCD's brightness only at the highest or second highest of the settings available. Once it's brightened up, however, the display is clear and colorful, if a bit prone to doubling as a makeup mirror. We're torn between cheering and complaining about its impressively high 1,280 x 768-pixel resolution -- images and fonts look ultra-sharp, but small pulldown-menu text (and the cursor, until we resized it) was almost too tiny for our middle-aged eyes. Yes, we wear bifocals, but we'd never found ourselves sliding them up and down our nose and bobbing our head like a sitcom geezer before. Speaking of the battery, the 6-cell, 55-watt-hour battery is an option that should be standard. The flush-fitting 3cell, 28-watt-hour pack averaged just an hour and a half in our real-world work sessions, while the protruding battery/keyboard prop lasted for a solid three hours, stretching to three and a quarter in non-heavy-duty word processing and Web surfing sessions.

Power and wireless on/off switches are handily located on the laptop's front edge. On the left side are headphone and microphone jacks, a VGA monitor connector, and a powered USB 2.0 port for an external storage device.

Of course, we always wish for longer battery life, but that isn't our greatest wish for the Mini-Note. Our greatest wish would be more horsepower under the hood.

A second USB port is on the right, as is an Ethernet connector (what's that you say, Apple MacBook Air owners? You don't have these things?). You'll also find a slot for an SD flash-memory card and an ExpressCard/54 slot -- suitable for the 3G broadband wireless adapter the HP definitely needs.

To be sure, the 2133 doesn't pretend to be a high-end gaming or video-editing platform, and it feels adequately responsive while you're typing documents or putting together presentations -- the 2GB of system memory sufficient to bear the ponderous weight of Windows Vista, although we're dismayed that the HP can't be upgraded above 2GB.

As we've already noted, the Mini's keyboard is down18

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But our test system took a lazy two minutes to boot up in the morning, with even its audio stuttering or skipping a note in Vista's startup tune, and barely limped through a small subset of our usual benchmark tests. Given the oldest and easiest game in our toybox, Quake III Arena at 1,024 x 768 resolution, the Mini managed 26 frames per second. PCMark05 refused to issue an overall score, but the HP's processor and memory subtotals of 908 and 1,408 trail even the Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC with 800MHz Intel A110 processor that we tested last summer. The 1.6GHz C7-M and Chrome9 chipset graphics carried the subnotebook to a ground-floor 3DMark05 score of 175, while Cinebench 10's scene-rendering test -- handled in one to two minutes by even the entry-level laptops we've sampled lately -- took 36 minutes. Just for kicks, we compared the 2133's numbers to those of the revved-up, quad-core Gateway gaming tower we reviewed a couple of weeks ago. PC Wizard 2008's global performance score showed that the feisty underdog was, well, more than one percent as powerful as the Gateway. The bottom line? Seems those HP execs weren't entirely kidding about selling to the educational market: They could have waited until summer or fall to ship a

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Mini-Note with VIA's faster "Isaiah" replacement for the current C7-M "Esther" CPU, or -- even more likely -with one of Intel's elegant new Atom (nee "Silverthorne") ultraportable processors. But that would have missed school districts' budgeting and buying for this September.

Size, Price, and Style So should you buy an HP Mini now, or wait for a probably improved version? That depends. The Eee still has its picture in the dictionary under cute, but the 2133 should be listed under style or glamour. You won't see a more chic handheld this year. Against that, when Asus unveiled the Eee at $400, the conventional notebooks available at that price were easy to shun -- or to rationalize, "Yes, I know I could have more screen, keyboard, speed, and storage, but I'll trade that for the convenience and portability of the Eee." Today, the fully loaded HP faces some pretty darn nice conventional notebooks available at $750. But show us a configuration with a faster CPU, Windows XP instead of Vista, broadband wireless, and even a smaller (80GB?) hard disk if necessary to stay under $600, and we are so there. I

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HP EliteBook 6930p: Keep Your Data and Hardware Secure By Jamie Bsales

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or mobile pros, skimping on a laptop purchase could certainly prove penny wise and pound-foolish. Budget notebook PCs are fine if you only occasionally tote the machine in a padded bag, but they lack the durable construction and security features offered by a higher-end model aimed at road warriors. That could spell disaster if your machine takes a hit — or takes a walk — when you’re traveling.

So if you spend most of the time out of the office, you need a notebook like the HP EliteBook 6930p. This business-rugged machine has features to keep its components safe from knocks, as well as hardware and software security measures to keep your data secure.

Sleek, Handsome Design The first thing you’ll notice about the EliteBook 6930p is its anodized aluminum skin. The brushed metal looks tasteful, gives the 4.7-pound machine a solid feel, and it conveys a professional, polished air to clients. Vanity aside, the aluminum cladding also protects the notebook’s 14.1-inch screen better than the typical plastic lid. The aqua LEDs used sparingly around the unit add to the machine’s modern feel. For added strength, HP employs lightweight magnesium alloy for the chassis, which makes the notebook less prone to bending and thus better protects interior components. The hard drive's accelerometer senses if the machine falls or bounces (as during turbulence on a flight) and parks the hard drive heads. This keeps the 20

heads from impacting the drive surface, avoiding potential data loss. Add in a spill-resistant keyboard that can help the machine withstand a few ounces of errant liquid, and you have a machine that is as tough as it is handsome. In fact, HP notes that the EliteBook 6930p meets Military Standard 810F for drops from 30 inches, vibration, dust, high and low temperature and humidity.

Peace of Mind The EliteBook 6930p also has the latest security features to keep your data safe. You can set the machine so that it requires a password, a swipe of your fingerprint, or both before it will boot or resume to Windows. You can also use the included Privacy Manager utility to automatically encrypt e-mail and instant messages. HP has also included its File Sanitizer applet to let you be sure that deleted files are truly and completely deleted. When you delete a file in Windows, its name is removed from the hard drive directory and its space is made available for new files. But until a new file is actually written in that space—and with today’s large hard drives, that could be a while — the deleted file continues to reside on the hard drive and can be recovered. File Sanitizer overwrites a deleted file up to seven times with random data, permanently expunging the file.

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Helpful Software Beyond the security utilities, HP has included other thoughtful software that makes your life a little easier, especially if you don’t have a dedicated IT department. Press the “i” icon above the keyboard to launch the HP Info Center. Here you’ll find links to a host of useful applets, including the • HP Connection Manager and HP Wireless Assistant for easily setting up network connections • HP ProtectTools Security Manager to help you set backup and recovery options, fingerprint authentication, data encryption, passwords and more • Presto BizCard electronic Rolodex Another button above the keyboard launches the Presentation Settings utility to help you quickly set the machine for use with a projector or other external display. In addition to the components that come with the computer’s Windows Vista Business operating system (you can also opt for Windows XP), HP includes • Roxio Creator Business for creating CDs and DVDs • InterVideo WinDVD for plying DVDs • PDF Complete for creating documents in that format

A Pleasure to Use In our hands-on evaluation, the EliteBook 6930p proved a pleasure to use. Its full-size keyboard has a crisp feel ideal for long bouts of typing, and HP has included both a pointing stick nestled in the keyboard and a touchpad below. Because of the two sets of mouse buttons, the touchpad is a tad smaller than usual on a machine this size, but it’s still usable. Above the keyboard you’ll find a touch-sensitive strip for controlling the volume for the notebook's stereo speakers. The EliteBook 6930p uses a 14.1-inch widescreen LCD, and the high-resolution (1440 x 900 pixels) panel is bright and exceedingly crisp. You can even read tiny on-screen text, although the high resolution means default text sizes on some Web sites and in Windows’ menus (like the All Programs list) can be pretty small. The LCD delivered vibrant colors in Windows apps, as well as good motion reproduction for video.

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ing applications. HP’s easy-to-use utility lets you set the camera’s resolution to eight different levels ranging from 160 x 120 (good for grabbing a tiny snapshot of yourself to append to your e-mail signature line) all the way up to 1600 x 1200 (for taking a photo as good as a 2-megapixel camera might). At the default 640 x 480 resolution, the camera showed good color accuracy, though lots of motion resulted in lots of blur. Icons at the bottom of the utility let you take a still picture, capture video or capture audio only.

Choose Your Hardware The EliteBook 6930p has all the requisite ports and connectors, including three USB ports, a memory card reader, a FireWire connector, LAN and modem jacks and an ExpressCard/54 slot. It includes 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and the platform supports the addition of an integrated wireless broadband module to let you connect to the leading high-speed 3G cellular data networks. Starting at $1,199, the base configuration includes an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 processor (running at 2.26GHz), 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Mobile Intel GMA 4500MHD graphics chip and a multi-format DVD burner. Those components have more than enough power to run even demanding business applications without breaking a sweat. If you need even more speed, the top EliteBook 6930p configuration comes with a 2.4GHz processor and dedicated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 graphics. HP backs the EliteBook 6930p with a generous threeyear warranty on parts and labor and toll-free 24/7 tech support. That alone goes a long way to making the few hundred extra dollars you’ll spend on an EliteBook worth it compared to a budget laptop. Figure in the powerful components, extra security and durability features plus the great looks, and the machine begs to be on your short list. I

Above the screen you’ll find an integrated Webcam, ideal for video chat, video e-mail and videoconferenc21

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