Notebook and Laptop Comparison Shopping

(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)

For one whole hour on Thursday, August 28, starting at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. Eastern), I'll belive at CNET.com to entertain your questions and discuss anything to do with backing up your computer data as well as hard drive storage...and possibly more.

So get your questions ready and come on over to join the party. Remember to bookmark the page and be on time.

See you there!

To give credit where credit is due, Dell's recent reveal of its new Latitude E-series business laptop line was the first new laptop announcement in a long time to not completely leak a few days or weeks early. (There were some photos and rumors a few months ago, but overall, it was a successful launch.)

The same cannot be said for Dell's consumer side -- every new product is leaked, usually with detailed photos and spec sheets, leaving little actual news for the system's launch day. Case in point -- these new photos and details (purportedly from an internal PowerPoint) of something called the Dell XPS Studio line.

We're familiar with both the XPS and Studio brands, and we're curious to see if this new hybrid is the beginning of the end of one or both as a standalone. These slides, from notebookreview.com, show slot-loading Blu-ray drives, edge-to-edge glass displays, hybrid SLI graphics (that's a GPU and the motherboard's integrated graphics working together), and backlit keyboards. In addition, the 16-inch model is shown with some cool-looking wood accents on the lid.

According to the leaked docs, you can expect the Studio XPS 13 and 16 sometime in November. Check out the purloined PowerPoint slides after the break. . . . Read more

I've been watching the new category of small cheap laptop computers since they first came out. Watching, but not buying. The time, however, may have come to take the plunge.

One of the few Netbooks* I've actually used was the first Asus EEE. It was an amazing machine, small, cheap, light, sturdy and reasonably fast. It sparked my interest in the emerging new hardware category. But, it wasn't amazing enough to get me to buy it. The keyboard and the screen were just too small.

The flood . . . Read more

If you've always wanted to connect an external display to your laptop without having to physically hook a cable between the two, I have good news for you.

Iogear introduced on Tuesday its Wireless USB to VGA Kit for streaming PC content to an alternate display. This is going to be one of the first implementations of Wireless USB.

WUSB technology has been under development since 2004, and the first time I saw its demo was during Winhec 2006. As the name suggests, it's essentially the current USB . . . Read more

Solid-state drives, if not yet ubiquitous, have arrived. You can find them in laptops big and small and as a high-octane storage option for gaming PCs.

Alienware 128GB SSD option adds $550 but on the Dell XPS M1530 this option adds only $450.

(Credit: Alienware)

SSDs made their mark by appearing in the trendiest ultraportables like the Apple MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC--typically as stratospherically priced options, fashion statements rarely seen in the real world.

These drives are now coming off their rarefied shelf space and appearing across a wider . . . Read more

The breadth of EPEAT's criteria covers so much more than just toxicity and energy consumption. EPEAT Bronze compliance not only requires a better than average product but a conscientious manufacturer:

Reduction of materials and energy

• Elimination of intentionally added SCCP flame retardants and plasticizers in certain applications
• Elimination of paints or coatings that are

When shopping for a laptop, graphics are a thorny question. A little extra performance is always good, as it will probably come in handy someday. But the more advanced the graphics solution, the more likely that it will consume more power, and generate more heat, shortening battery life, and keeping you from actually putting it on your lap.

In the general case, integrated graphics solutions have come a long way, and are more than sufficient for most real uses. Let's face it, email, report writing, and browsing the web

One of Intel's most successful marketing pitches has been "Centrino", a name well understood as denoting a notebook with solid, desirable features.

But what is it? Most people only have a general grasp of what exactly goes on inside a computer, and Intel doesn't have time to give the full story in a commercial. The common perception, even among general computer-store employees, is that 'Centrino' is a processor (it does not help that Intel calls it 'processor technology').

However, Centrino is a platform, a combination of different pieces . . . Read more

In the world of laptops, there are always a number of compromises that must be made to try and make it as useful and as portable as possible.

There are two general approaches to handling graphics hardware in computers today. You can have separate, or 'dedicated', hardware that does all the graphics

(Credit: IBM)

When contemplating the features you want in a laptop for school, consider an integrated fingerprint reader. A fingerprint reader will simplify your life, secures your identity (a fingerprint can not be shared), and more importantly, the reader protects you from prying parents.

Several manufacturers offer integrated