Dell Inspiron Duo Netbook Tablet Review, Features, Specification and Price

Dell Inspiron Duo Tablet Review:

Dell Inspiron Duo highly innovative netbook/tablet hybrid is easy to criticise, but the Inspiron Duo offers a glimpse at the future of personal computing.

Those that can look past its undeniable quirks may find a device that changes the way they use a computer.

The idea is that you buy the device with a dock. This acts as a hub for the netbook and converts it into an alarm clock and photo frame, while also charging it.

The dock comes with JBL-branded speakers, which are decent enough, but won't challenge a home hi-fi system. 

 

When you're out and about with the device you have the choice of either netbook or tablet mode.

Switching between them, by flipping the panel horizontally and then closing the lid, is intuitive and the mechanism feels sturdy enough to survive rigorous use.

Firstly, the device impresses in netbook mode. The 1366 x 768-pixel resolution is sharp inside the 10.1-inch screen, while the spacious keyboard provides a great typing experience, despite a bit of flexibility. Those who want to edit and type in word documents will have no problem using the device for hours on end. 

 

Performance is standard fare for a netbook and, while office applications run fine, more resource-intensive programs and multi-tasking causes serious lag.

Benchmarks

Battery life: 215 minutes
MobileMark 2007: 60
3DMark 2003: 642

In terms of connectivity, 802.11n Wi-Fi is great for wireless networking to a home router, for example, but the lack of an Ethernet port (even though the dock features one) and video out does seem an omission. It means that those who like to view content on their TV, for example, simply don't have the option. 

In tablet mode you're introduced to Dell's 'Stage' touch software, which gives you quick access to your music, videos and photos, among other things.
It sits over the Windows 7 interface and, although intuitive, features a few quirks that make it sometimes confusing. You can't travel back through some menus, for example.
Flawed touchscreen
The touchscreen isn't as accurate as we would have liked either, which can be frustrating, but once you get used to it, browsing the web and selecting music is surprisingly quick and easy – and offers a much more intuitive experience than in netbook mode.
The Inspiron Duo is also pretty heavy.

 Portability-wise the device is no problem to carry around, but the 215-minute battery life is a little disappointing.
There's no doubt the Inspiron Duo is flawed by a few issues, but we thoroughly bought into Dell's vision of combining the netbook and tablet, and flipping between the two to carry out different tasks is intuitive and fun.

Dell Inspiron Duo Tablet  Specification:

• Intel® Atom® Dual Core Processor N550 (1.5GHz, 512K L2 Cache)

• Genuine Windows^® 7 Home Premium 32-Bit

• 2GB DDR3 SDRAM

• Intel^® NM10 Express Chipset

• Intel NM10 Express Video

• 10.1 inch display (1366x768)

• 2 X 1W speakers for total of 2W standard

• Up to 320GB⁷ SATA hard drive (7200RPM)

• 29Whr 4 cell battery, captive factory replaceable
  Up to 3 hours and 57 minutes⁸ of battery life

• Built-in 1.3 megapixel Webcam

• Wireless 802.11b/g/n
  Wi-Fi Options:Wireless 802.11b/g/n/ Bluetooth 3.0 Combo Card
  BluetoothWireless 802.11b/g/n / Bluetooth 3.0 combo Card (Optional) 

• Externally Accessible
  (1) Microphone
  (1) Headphone
  (2) USB 2.0
  (1) AC adapter connector
  
  Touch ScreenCapacitive Multi-touch technology
  
  Dimensions & WeightWidth: 11.22" (285.0mm)
  Height: 1.03" (26.2mm) front – 1.13" (28.7mm) back
  Depth: 7.66" (194.5mm)
  Starting weight of 3.39 lbs (1.54Kg)

The Dell Inspiron Price Is $549.99

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE Tablet Review, Features and Price

Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Tablet Review and Features:
Verizon Wireless together with Samsung has rolled out the LTE-equipped Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android tablet PC. This version will become available for purchase tomorrow on both online store and Verizon offline stores. This tablet is coming in two color, the metallic gray and glossy white.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE-enabled has run the latest Android 3.1 OS with lot of bugs have been squeezed, and the tablet itself is powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2 SoC, 1GB RAM, 3-MP rear facing camera, 2MP front facing camera and many more. The spec list is similar to the non LTE model anyway. You would only get the faster internet connection if you go with this LTE-enabled version, with a supportive network around your town.
This LTE version will be available in two capacity: 16GB and 32GB. The cost with two year contract is $529.99 and $629.99 respectively. If you are interested to pre-order, you can do it now at this page.

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Dell Latitude E6500 Laptop Review, Specs, Features and Price

Dell Latitude E6500 Notebook Review:
The Dell Latitude E is a glimpse into the future of laptops. With high expandability, configureability and a strong design, it should suit most corporate environments. Starting at 2.3kg (with the smallest battery option), the all-black Dell Latitude E6500 somehow manages to produce both the somber design notes of business along with the style of consumer-oriented notebooks. While the plastic and magnesium-alloy chassis is all angles, little touches like the blackened brushed aluminum finish on the back push the new Latitude into new directions. The Dell Latitude E is a glimpse into the future of laptops. The gauntlet has been thrown. Toshiba, Lenovo, Fujitsu--your turn

Build and Design
The black color makes the E6500 finally look elegant—like an efficient tool for a serious job. The only resemblance of the old, gray and silver days are the hinges and battery. However, in pursuit of the business look somebody went too far and made all the edges very sharp. You won't cut your hand on the edges but placing your hands on the palmrest is not as comfortable as it should be. Additionally, the screen protective paddings are not placed around the lid (as in D610) but next to keyboard.
The laptop is very sturdy—for the first time I am able to lean on palmrest. The hinges work so firmly that it is even a bit difficult to open or close the laptop (when you tilt the lid back the keyboard goes up). The only weak point is the bezel below the screen—there is a lot of space between it and the screen and you can bend it easily. The flex is not that important, but the gap is so big that dust will certainly collect there.

The lid latch is not centered as in D610—it is placed a bit to the right. When the laptop is closed the left part of the lid is not pressed firmly against the palmrest and it rattles a bit. Nothing serious but after design lessons Apple gave such issues should be history in business class laptops.



Wi-Fi and Bluetooth
No complaints here, connections work as expected and I am very pleased with the Dell bluetooth mouse (no reason to use touchpad or trackpoint).
I am glad to see a hardware switch for wireless devices—you can configure it to switch Wi-Fi, bluetooth or both of them. There is also signal catcher button but for now it just informs it does not control any wireless networks and such feature will be enabled in early 2009 (according to Dell website). A bit hilarious, however I don’t care because it is pretty cumbersome to press this button, even with software upgrade I doubt it will do any good.
Optical Drive
The DVD drive does not make any vibrations other than what I consider "normal" for DVD. One interesting change is tray eject—now it is barely ejected at all. At home I prefer the old way, when the tray comes out in a half, but those who travel may like this minimalistic behavior better—almost no chance to break the tray. After tray is ejected you to pull it all the way out, as always.
Battery
I performed two tests: 100% screen brightness, Wi-Fi on, bluetooth on, no sound, CPU 100%, sleep mode disabled and hibernate set to 5% of batteries. With such settings I played a DVD in fullscreen and the battery lasted for 97 minutes.
With the screen set to 50% brightness, Wi-Fi on, bluetooth on, no sound, CPU 5-30%, sleep mode disabled and hibernate set at 5% of batteries. I used Opera to download a big file in the background. After 112 minutes the battery meter showed 49% and my patience was over so I stopped downloading, started OpenOffice and continued writing this review. After another 77 minutes computer turned off (189 minutes in total).
This level of battery life is quite OK with me. I didn't expect a notebook with WUXGA screen to be a longevity champion—I will survive through a lecture and this counts for me.
The BIOS has nice options to prolong the battery life—ExpressCharge lets you choose the charging speed (I left "slow" intact, according to Dell not all batteries allow fast charging) and the ability to disable charging at all (this can be switched on the fly).

Heat and Noise
Dell did a nearly excellent job dealing with heat and noise. First of all the E6500 does not heat up—I used both CPU burn-in and Prime95 to torture the CPU for more than two hours, I managed to get the CPU at 78 degrees Celsius (according to I8kfanGUI) and the palmrest kept the temperature of the human body, the bottom of the laptop was lukewarm and the only warm part (but not hot) was the left speaker. This is a major improvement because the bottom of my D610 is burning hot. So you can say the E6500 is lap friendly.
The E6500 can keep the fan off for a long time—you can additionally tweak power management profiles to keep the laptop very quiet. The only sound is the disk drive humming/clicking and some electronic hiss (I cannot locate the source of it). I have to admit the humming is not noisy but when you have to focus it can be annoying.
When some heat builds up the fan is turned on to about 2800rpm up to about 3100rpm—this is a low speed range. Using just OpenOffice does not trigger the fan at least for several hours, watching on-line videos does—after about 20 minutes, watching DVD—after 5 minutes (in this case fan is inaudible actually because of the the whoosh of the spinning disc). If the low speed is not enough fan kicks into higher gear—~3900rpm. It is the level of some serious number crunching—I get immediate headache from the noise, but on the other hand I can take a break (better than any on-screen reminder).

The heat and noise department looks like a big success. But that's not true entirely. The minor issue is using flat grills on the intakes of the air vents—in the D610 the fins of the grill are slightly rotated. It doesn’t guarantee perfect air flow but adds some safety. But the huge mistake is air exhaust—it is placed on the left, not at the back. So not only it is more noisy when running (the lid does not muffle the noise anymore), but you have to smell characteristic hot-hardware odor. The hot exhaust also makes it unpleasant to put your left hand next to the laptop. And since I use the mouse with my left hand (to save my right one for typing, I am right-handed) I am furious when I feel hot air on my hand.

Dell Latitude  E6500 Specification

• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53 Ghz (2.53GHz, 1066MHz FSB)
• 2GB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz Dual Ranked (2 DIMMs)
• 15.4-inch Ultra Sharp Widescreen WUXGA Screen (1920x1200) 2CCFL
• Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, Nivida Quadro NVS 160M 256 DDR3 
• 320 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
• HL DVD-ROM/CD-RW Combo Drive
• 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet Card
• Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module
• Dell 1397 802.11B/G Wireless Mini Card
• Regular Keyboard (not backlit)
• Integrated .30 Mega Pixel Web Camera and Microphone
• 5-in-1 card reader, PCMCIA & ExpressCard 54
• 2 Regular USB Ports, 1 PowerShare USB, 1 eSATA, IEEE 1394,
• VGA and DisplayPort
• Audio Out, Microphone In
• Black Chassis
• 6-Cell Primary Battery
• 90W AC Adapter

 Dell Latitude E6500 Starting Price Is $700 ....

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Samsung S8530 Wave II Smart Phone Review, Features and Price

Samsung S8530 Wave II Mobile Review and Features:
When we reviewe the original Samsung Wave, we were greatly impressed by the overall performance of the phone. But what we really liked about that phone was that despite the laundry list of features that it had, it was quite affordable. Due to shortage of its Super AMOLED displays, Samsung had to discontinue that phone but since it was its flagship bada handset, it couldn't just let it go. So, in its place, comes the new Samsung S8530 Wave II. 

The new phone brings some notable changes. First of all, the display is now bigger and instead of Super AMOLED, Samsung is now using the Super LCD. The new phone also runs on bada 1.2, which brings about some useful changes. The new Wave II is also a bit cheaper, which makes it even better value. Read on for the full review of this handset.

Bundle

• Samsung S8530 Wave II
• Battery
• Charger
• Stereo Headset
• Data Cable
• User Guide
• 2 Software CDs
• 2GB microSD Card

Design and Build:

The Samsung Wave II looks almost identical to its older brother. The design shows subtle differences, the most prominent being the new chin, which houses a different looking set of buttons. The front side is now completely flat as against the concave front of the original Wave. The phone is obviously longer because of the bigger display. From the back, the two phones look exactly the same, except for one minor difference. We noted in our Wave review that the battery cover looks to be of a slightly different color than the rest of the body. In the Wave II, this issue is fixed and everything looks just the way it should. The camera lens cover and the LED flash are diamond shaped just as they were on the original Wave, even though the front menu button no longer has that shape on the new model. One more thing I'd like to note is that the black plastic at the base of the phone is actually translucent, so you can see some of the circuits inside when you are under a strong light.

 As before the design of the phone is very nice. It has a very premium feel to it and the dimensions and finish of the materials makes you want to hold the phone in your hand. The build quality is terrific, as is usually the case with Samsung phones. Just based on its looks and build, the phone manages to create a very good first impression.


 Display
The biggest change to the phone is the display. When Samsung moved from Super AMOLED to Super LCD, a lot of people worried that this would adversely affect the image quality of the display. Samsung's Super AMOLED has become some sort of a benchmark in mobile phone displays, along with Apple's Retina display and people feel anything less would be a serious downgrade. But one must not forget that this is Samsung and even if it is not Super AMOLED, it will never ship its phones with sub-standard displays.

Whatever fears we had regarding the display performance were put to rest when we first switched on the phone. Quite honestly, Super LCD looks as awesome as the Super AMOLED. If you feel it is inferior, it is possibly because of a placebo effect. The only time Super AMOLED's superiority comes across is in viewing angles, which were a bit better. But apart from that, we had no complaints with the Super LCD on the Wave II. As an added bonus, it is now bigger compared to the one on the Wave.
The display is also covered by a scratch and smudge resistant glass, although there is no information on whether it is Corning's Gorilla Glass. We tested it by rubbing our keys against it and couldn't produce any visible damage.

Hardware
The Samsung S8530 Wave II runs on Samsung's Hummingbird platform. It consists of a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU and PowerVR SGX 540 GPU. This is the same combo that was found on the I9000 Galaxy S and is actually superior to the one on the I9003 Galaxy S. The phone has 2GB of internal memory for applications, messages and files, 512MB of RAM and expandable memory via microSD cards, which, unfortunately, is placed under the battery, just like on the original Wave.

Software
The Wave II has bada v1.2, which brings some improvement over its predecessor, although most of them seem to be under the hood because we did not spot anything that was radically different apart from the browser, which is now better than before. bada is still one of the better mobile operating systems out there with a good, easy to use interface and plenty of features. But what holds it down right now is the poor choice of apps that are available for it. It is hard not to get depressed when you browse through the Samsung apps store, trying to find something interesting but failing to do so. We could only find a few applications and games that we actually wanted to download. Everything else was just rubbish. 

Unfortunately, we don't see the situation really improving on the application front, not unless Samsung drops Android and only focuses on bada, which it won't do. Its original plan was to launch several low-end touchscreen phones with bada but now it seems it has chosen to go with Android in that segment as well. When the manufacturer itself is showing so little interest in the platform, the developers cannot be blamed for sharing the enthusiasm.

Connectivity
The Samsung Wave II is a quad band GSM 3G handset. It supports HSDPA 3.6Mbps, HSUPA 2Mbps, EDGE, GPRS, Bluetooth v3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n and A-GPS. We felt that the HSDPA speeds were quite low; most phones these days support 7.2Mbps and although none of the networks in India seem to be delivering higher speeds, it makes sense to have a phone that supports higher speeds and is future proof. The Bluetooth 3.0 support is a good thing but when we tried to transfer a file between the Wave II and the Nokia E7, which also supports Bluetooth 3.0, we got abysmally slow speeds that were more in line with Bluetooth 2.0. Even when we tried to transfer a file between the Wave II and a MacBook Pro with Bluetooth 2.1, we got speeds of around 100KBps, which is far too less.

Wave II supports Samsung's AllShare feature, which lets you stream the content on the phone to a compatible device or watch the content on another device on the phone wirelessly. We did not have a compatible device to test this feature though.

The browser has now been updated and has a much better interface than before. The browser on the older Wave had floating buttons above the bottom bar. In the new version, the browser close button has been integrated in the bottom bar and the other buttons have been done away with, which is fine as they were extremely annoying. Strangely though, with the controls, Samsung has also done away with the functions. You no longer have the brightness control and more importantly, no full-screen mode, which is really unfortunate.

The browser performance has improved slightly but some of the older annoyances remain. The address bar on top pops down every time you touch the screen, blocking the links on the top. Things are even more annoying in landscape mode, with half the screen occupied by the bottom bar and the address bar at the top. The browser supports Flash but a lot of the content does not load properly. The browser also runs out of memory very fast and starts choking when you open a page with lots of images.

Unfortunately, there is not much of a choice available if you don't like the built-in Dolfin browser. You can download Opera Mini but it isn't properly optimized for the Wave II's display.


Battery Life
The Samsung Wave II has a 1500mAh Li-Ion battery. In our testing, the Wave II lasted for a day and a half, which is quite an achievement for a smartphone these days. Our usage generally consisted of calling and web browsing over 3G network and audio playback for a few hours through headphones. The mail application was running in the background and downloading mails after a fixed interval.

Verdict
The Samsung S8530 Wave II is  Us Price $340  For that price, the phone is very good value for money. It looks great, has very good build quality, the display is excellent and the phone is packed with features. Unfortunately, as a smartphone, the Wave II does not fare well. The lack of good applications makes it nothing more than a feature phone on steroids. Although that may be fine for some people, most people now want to use applications on their phone would hence find the Wave II very disappointing in that department. We also had issues with the video playback and the web browser, although better than before, could still use some improvement. Actually, we would like to urge Samsung to drop the Dolfin altogether browser and employ Opera Mobile in the next version of bada. 

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Nvidia Geforce GTX 560M Laptop Graphics Review and Features

Nvidia Geforce GTX 560M Graphics Card Review:

You can expect to see a new species of monster performance gaming laptop appearing in the market very soon because NVIDIA has just unveiled their latest NVIDIA GTX 560M GPU. This GPU is said to be able to gives user full HD 1080p experience and high graphical performance for hardcore 3D games. The first companies that were expected to get this upgrade are including the renown Alienware, and following up by Toshiba, ASUS, and MSI to just name a few. It would be interesting to see how each company trying to attract the market’s attention with their own personal mix of features and technology.
But of course, anyone who’ve tried to own a gaming laptop should make sure their pocket is thick enough because those are things that cost 2000+ or above.

GeForce GTX 560M GPUs are “DirectX 11 Done Right,” and offer even more performance-per-watt than the previous generation, with faster frame rates and more detail with the same battery life. The power of GeForce GTX GPUs means gamers can play at full 1080p high-definition resolutions with the advanced technology features that set GeForce GPUs apart from the competition.

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Acer Iconia Tab A500 Android Tablet Review, Features and Price

Acer Iconia Tab A500 Tablet Review and Price:
Acer rolls out more Android tablet dubbed as Iconia Tab A500. This tablet is now coming with 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen support up to 1280 x 800px resolution. Similar to Iconia Tab A100, This Iconia A500 is also running Android 3.0 HoneyComb under the hood.
The specification list has mentioned NVIDIA Tegra 250 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB DDR2 RAM. It’s quite high and ready to run any app that is available right now. Acer Iconia Tab A500 has either 16GB or 32GB storage, 2-megapixel front camera, 5-megapixel rear camera with auto-focus and LED flash. It also capable of working continuously for 8 hours per charge.

For the connectivity option, Acer Iconia Tab A500 Android tablet has WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, USB 2.0 port and HDMI Port. You can also add more storage to this tablet via microSD slot (support up to 32GB). 
Price-wise, Acer Iconia Tab A500 Android tablet has been priced for $449.99. Currently Best Buy has this tablet in store. If you are interested, you can find out more details there.

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Creative Zen StyleM300 MP3 Player Review and Price

Creative Zen Style M300 MP3 Player Review:
Creative ZEN Style M300 MP3 Player has 1.45-inch TFT display supporting up to 128 x 128 pixels resolution that displayed up to 265K colors.
Unlike iPod 6G, Creative ZEN Style M300 MP3 player has no touchscreen display. In exchange, it has featured a touch keys around the screen that you can easily navigate around.
Even it is small, ZEN Style M300 has supported multiple audio format like MP3, WMA, WAV, Audible Format 4, Audible AAX, also support video SMV format. To store the multimedia files, this MP3 player has supported up to 32GB of storage via microSD card slot.
Creative ZEN Style M300 also coming with supplementary features like Bluetooth connectivity, FM radio that has 32-customizable station presets. It’s good that the MP3 player has Bluetooth connection. I can connect with my Bluetooth enabled wireless speaker if I have this player in hand.


Flavor-wise, Creative has made thie ZEN Style M300 MP3 Playeravailable in four colors, including red, white, black and yellow. Go to Creative Official site to get this MP3 player for £39.99 GBP if you wish.

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