Windows 8 on a laptop: first look

All the talk so far has centred around the wonderful new Metro UI, and how it could well be the nicest touch interface yet – but what of the vast majority of PCs and laptops that don’t have a touchscreen? Does Windows 8 relegate them to an afterthought, or can you carry on with mouse and keyboard as if touch never existed? To find out, I installed the developer preview on a 15in Core i5 laptop and plugged in a mouse.
The Metro UI

First things first, Metro is your main entry point whatever your hardware – and that’s going to annoy a lot of people. It’s large, it’s almost childlike in its design, and it’s so obviously meant for tablets that it feels slightly insulting to anyone who’s comfortable with the ins and outs of the Windows environment.
The concept of full-screen-only apps makes little sense for any device above tablet size, as anyone who works with Outlook, Word, Tweetdeck and Chrome permanently open will quickly realise. You can split apps so that one occupies two-thirds of the screen, but that’s not particularly helpful on larger screens. The desktop itself is technically an app, so you can have that occupy two-thirds with several traditional windows within it. It’s not something I found useful, though.
Metro is a bit iffy to navigate with a mouse. While the live previews in larger tiles are great (giving quick access to tweets, emails and the like – and they can be put on your lock screen too), the icons themselves are big and boxy on a 15in screen, and finding an application to launch manually – even once you’ve dragged them all into related groups of tiles – means much scrolling left and right.
Of course, that’s not the quickest way to launch an application from an idle desktop. In Windows 7 I simply press the Windows key and start typing the name, and the good news is you can still do that here – the difference is no Start menu appears. Or more accurately, the Metro UI is the Start menu, and a press of the Windows key (or a click of the now pretty useless bottom-left Start button) always takes you to that grid. If you’re fast you can ping the full-screen Metro interface up, type the app name and be back on the desktop again in a second, which begs the question why it needs to appear at all when the old, less graphically demanding and space-intensive system worked so well.
The closest thing to a traditional Start menu on the desktop arrives if you instead hover over the Start button. There you get a few menu options, along with a different way in to that search function, which here attempts to search within the currently active app. If that’s not where you want to search – and it usually won’t be – you pretty much have to end up with the full-screen Metro search taking over again. It needs work.
Changing your ways

As you’ll quickly discover, if you want to spend the majority of your time in the traditional desktop, you’re going to have to get used to doing things differently. More specifically, you’ll want to make extensive use of your desktop and taskbar. As we’ve seen, any application not pinned to one of those two locations is tough to launch without returning to the Metro UI in some form. Whether you pile your desktop high with shortcuts will largely depend on how annoying you find that big green grid on a daily basis.
At every opportunity, Windows 8 reminds you that Metro is its new baby: plugging in a USB stick brings up a green tile over the desktop, and further settings are all laid out in the Metro style. Selecting any of the menu options on that previously mentioned mini Start menu produces a vertical Metro bar to the right of the desktop. (Don’t even get us started on why a button in the bottom-left opens a menu on the far right, another design decision made seemingly without the mouse in mind).
All the talk from the launch event has been from people using Windows 8 on tablets, so the quick gestures are getting a lot of love in LA. Back in the real world of PCs and laptops, you can hover over the left edge of the screen to see the last application you had open, and either drag it out to switch to it or right-click to snap it to the right-edge column. It works okay, but other gestures just don’t translate: swiping upwards to unlock, for example, is just horrible with a mouse. Thankfully, a press of the keyboard’s up cursor does the same job, and as far as I can tell most existing keyboard shortcuts still work.
Improvements

Whatever you think of Metro, there are also several smaller changes that really do make a difference on a PC or laptop.
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The new Task Manager is excellent, keeping the existing performance monitoring tools but adding heatmapping (think Excel’s conditional formatting) so you can instantly see which processes are using resources, and several graphs, including live wireless throughput. It adds detailed tabs for app history and user activity, and finally brings the Startup options of msconfig into a much more accessible place. Crapware can now easily be prevented from starting up with Windows.
Explorer windows bring back the Up button they’ve been sorely lacking, and while a lot of people hate the ribbon interface I’m not one of them. The file transfer dialog has been improved, with a dynamic graph now showing the transfer speed second by second, and an estimation of time remaining. It rolls multiple transfer jobs into one window too, which is a vast improvement on having them stacked up.
Finally, boot and resume times are excellent, at least on this test laptop. About a year old, and with nothing fancier than a 320GB mechanical hard disk inside, it boots to the lock screen (if you’ve set a password) in around 13 seconds, and to a ready-to-go Windows 8 in just under 19 seconds. Strangely, the only way to power the laptop down appears to be to go into the Power option in the Settings menu; presumably, Microsoft is hoping laptop users will simply close the lid and make use of the improved sleep mode.
Windows 8: the tablet OS

The biggest realisation from a couple of days with Windows 8 on a laptop is that if you’re not willing to throw yourself into the Metro interface with gusto, you’re really not going to see the kind of changes to the OS that everyone else will. Those who just want Windows 7 but better are going to find that, at least behind the fancy new UI, it doesn’t feel a whole lot different.
The desktop is still there, your existing applications can still be run, and most of the noticeable upgrades are to background elements of the environment. We’ve no doubt prettying up the Control Panel and various other tools is long overdue, but what Windows 8 seems most intent on is changing your ways to suit the direction Microsoft is taking. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s certain to split opinion among long-time Windows users.
This is a very early build and I’m well aware that I’ve not spent nearly enough time with it to make a proper judgement. But it’s no surprise that Microsoft installed Windows 8 on a tablet to give to attendees of its Build conference, as that’s clearly where it’s more at home.

Read more: Windows 8 on a laptop: first look | PC Pro blog http://www.pcpro.co.uk/blogs/2011/09/15/windows-8-on-a-laptop-first-look/#ixzz1Y7DxPuos

Acer shows off inch-thick Ultrabook Aspire S3 laptop

Acer has today been demonstrating its Ultrabook Aspire S3 Windows 7-based laptop. The ultraportable laptop is housed in a magnesium-alloy case less than an inch thick. It weighs 1.4kg and is 13mm thick. Although it bears a passing resemblance to a MacBook Air and sports an Air-like 13.3in screen with a resolution of 1366x768 pixels, it’s actually a very different proposition.
The chassis is noticeably more robust and has a fingerprint-resistant finish. The keys have a similar Scrabble-tile layout, but the touchpad area is deeper and the screen itself can be pushed backwards so that the entire laptop is spreadeagled. The viewing angles are above average, particularly in comparison to a tablet, and the screen itself is less reflective than some.
Acer offers users a choice of Intel Core i5 and Core i7 processors. A Core i5 model with 4GB of RAM and sa 320GB hard disk drive, will cost from £699 including VAT. The top end model in the range will have a 240GB SSD for storage, is powered by a Core i7 processor and will cost £1099. However, even the entry-level model will have a modest amount of SSD storage as this is used to deliver the instant-on capability that Acer sees as being central to the Ultrabook’s appeal.
Acer introduced the Ultrabook by delineating current computing use as solid hour or two-hour-long sessions at a desktop PC or laptop based in a set location; casual web, communication and email use based around a smartphone or tablet and dabbled in sporadically for a few minutes at a time, but frequently; and a third category of more sustained but also frequent use based around a portable, connected device with sufficient processing power and a keyboard. This category is where Acer sees the Ultrabook fitting. The company believes as much as a quarter of its computer sales will be of this type by this time next year.
One of the most important aspects of the Acer Aspire S3 is its ability to resume from standby in around a second and then connect to a network within two 2.5 seconds.
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Acer says the Ultrabook has a standby battery life of up to 50 days – nearly double that of most smartphones. Around eight hours of active computing use can be expected from a single battery charge. From hibernation mode, the Ultrabook should be ready for action in around 6.5 seconds. Booting into Windows 7 from ‘cold’ takes the same 30 seconds or so that any other laptop might. However, Acer believes the Ultrabook will usually be used for intermittent bursts of activity and will more commonly be used and resumed from its standby state.
The instant connect feature of around 2.5 seconds works only with networks that have been previously set up for the Ultrabook, but several such profiles can be set up for home, office and mobile use.
Acer will put the Ultrabook Aspire S3 onsale in the UK from October.

Windows 8 Will Take Laptop Touchpads to the Next Level

If you’ve used a Windows 7 laptop with a “multitouch” touchpad, you’ve likely been a little disappointed to see that it offers only a few gestures: pinch to zoom, twist to rotate, two-finger scrolling, maybe three-finger swiping. The functionality is handy, but it’s a long way from having a touchpad that behaves like a little multitouch touchscreen.
Synaptics and Microsoft have been working together to solve the problems that prevent laptop touchpads from realizing their potential. Windows 8 will support a new software layer that allows touchpads that meet certain criteria to operate better than ever. You'll be able to pinch and rotate multiple objects at the same time, utilize more touch points, and manipulate the Start Screen interface as though your touchpad were a tiny touchscreen proxy, not a mouse substitute.
Unfortunately, the software layer requires new hardware. The latest image-based sensors in high-quality touchpads are good enough, but they’re almost always connected to the PC through an internal PS/2 connection. This arrangement makes for low-power operation and a low cost, but the bandwidth is too low for truly rich multitouch. That’s why current laptop touchpads basically work like mice, with a few gestures thrown on top--just don’t try to perform two gestures at once.
Synaptics has come up with a new standard, and made it open for any other touchpad vendor to adopt. In this standard, an image-based touchpad sensor is connected to the system through the PS/2 port, but also through the I2C (“eye-squared-see”) bus, which provides much higher bandwidth. This design allows the touchpad to deliver enough data to work with multitouch the same way a touchscreen does, with multiple independent actions and gestures all happening at the same time. Synaptics calls the standard InterTouch. With an InterTouch connection and driver, your touchpad will have a far bigger role in Windows 8--pinch, drag, flick, swipe.
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The company tells us that some laptop manufacturers are now working on implementing the standard, and we should see some models implement the necessary hardware well before Windows 8 ships on PCs. Buy a Windows 7 laptop with the right hardware, and you'll enjoy a big touchpad upgrade when you upgrade the OS to Windows 8 down the line.
We don’t have any word on actual laptop models that will ship with InterTouch just yet, unfortunately. It will probably be some months before the first systems hit the market. Let's hope that, as we approach Windows 8’s release, we’ll see a greater number of laptops implementing this standard for users who don’t want touchscreens.

Sony Vaio VPCCB15FG Review

Summary

The Sony Vaio VPCCB15FG sports a "unique" look and comes with host of "cool" features such as a full HD screen, translucent plastic build, and backlit keyboard. Even at its asking price, it's a good choice for meeting your multimedia needs.
Pros:

Full-HD (1920x1080) screen

Good build quality

Very distinctive design

Handy features such as "Quick Web access"

Good backlit keyboard

Cons:

"Vibrant" colour might not be to everyone's liking

Tedious approach to manually notebooks battery choosing graphics options for individual programs

Comparatively low battery life
Full Review

The first thing you notice, right of the hp compaq nx7400 battery bat, about the Sony Vaio VPCCB15FG laptop is its 'vibrant' colouring. For our test piece that colour would be green. Yes that's right, green - a colour choice which evoked gateway NV79C battery plenty of not too flattering comments from my office colleagues. While visually it definitely sticks out from the rest of the laptop crowd, let's see whether this holds true at the performance end of the spectrum as well.


Design

The VPCCB15FG laptop Portege R705 Battery has a translucent plastic green back lid with the Vaio design imprinted in the middle and a smaller size Sony logo at the top. This same translucent plastic moulding extends to the palmrest and the area above the Portege R700 Battery keyboard - not covering the keyboard, screen bezel and the bottom of the laptop. It has to be noted that this green plastic form does attract its' fair share of finger impressions and smudges.
The laptop features a full sized chiclet style keyboard with the TOSHIBA PA3534U-1BRS Battery multi-gesture touchpad located below the keyboard, positioned towards the left end. A dark bezel borders the 15.5-inch LED backlit screen, and together with the backlit keyboard's dark colouring, provides for a pleasing contrast to the surrounding green tone. In my opinion, this colour contrast has a better visual appeal than if the entire latop was coloured in one colour.
In line with Sony's promotion of this series' vivid colours, the other PA3534U-1BRS Battery colouring options for this particular series are orange and black. Sony offers a washable keyboard skin - which also comes in a variety of colours, and costs Rs. 1690 - that fits over your keyboard and keeps it clean. While we didn’t get this for our review unit, it should come in handy Lenovo T61 Battery given how the keyboard keys, due to the backlighting feature, are slightly elevated and consequently has spaces underneath them where crumbs could get in.
The Vaio laptop weighs 2.8-kg with a Compaq Presario CQ56 Battery six-cell battery, which is comparably heavier than other laptops we have Compaq WD548AA Battery reviewed - it's important to note here that given the laptops designated use indoors, this shouldn’t be a point to really fret about.
Features

This Vaio laptop comes with a good 15.5 inch full-HD screen - this is very good feature for a laptop with such screen dimensions. The viewing angles are good from the horizontal axis and to a HP G4 Battery lesser extent the vertical axis - the view from the top vertical axis is HP G72 Battery good, however the view from the bottom axis gives a darkish hue to the on screen picture. As with most mainstream laptops that have a glossy screen, the Vaio's screen reflective nature will be an irritant at times. Having said that, viewing videos, images or text on the Vaio's screen is a pleasant experience.
The laptop holds true to the saying that Replacement Acer Laptop battery "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - some folks will like it, but even more folks will not be too appreciative of certain colour choices - such as the green, orange and the even more Replacement Dell Laptop battery "vibrant" pink in some of the other models. Nevertheless, it's always good to see companies come up with something new in laptop designs every now and then. The laptop's plastic translucent-like properties allows for the edge of the Replacement HP Laptop battery back lid as well as the touch pad to appear glowing.

The laptops' plastic appearance should not detract from the fact that it has a Cheap Apple Laptop battery good build quality. The power button is located at the top right of the keyboard, next to the "Vaio", "Web", and "Assist" shortcut buttons. The speakers are placed along the same horizontal as these buttons, with one speaker extension at each of the right and left Replacement Fujitsu Laptop battery ends. There's a 1.3-megapixel (MP) webcam placed at the top of the laptop's screen bezel.
Keyboard Usability

The keyboard’s multi-gesture enabled touchpad was generally very responsive, and so were the dual mouse buttons.
The keyboard, which has chiclet style keys, is Replacement Sony Laptop battery very comfortable to type on and provides good tactile feedback. This is not a downside to the keyboard, but just my personal observation, that the arrow buttons could have been larger in size. The keyboard's backlight feature adds a nice touch to typing under dark or low light settings - It lights up when the ambient light dims out to a particular level.


Hardware

Under the hood, the Sony Vaio VPCCB15FG laptop features a Intel second generation 2.30 Ghz Intel Core i5-2410M (Sandy Bridge) processor, 4GB DDR3 RAM, on-board Intel HD graphics and AMD Radeon 6630M graphics with 1GB of RAM (the laptop automatically switches between the Cheap Lenovo Laptop battery discrete and integrated graphics of the CPU, as and when required) and a 500GB (7200 RPM) hard drive. A point to keep in mind with the switchable graphics mode in this laptop is that unlike in laptops with Cheap Asus Laptop battery Nvidia's switchable graphics, we were unable to manually force the entire system to choose a single graphics option (you aren't allowed to run either the AMD/Intel graphics exclusively). However there is a rather tedious process by which a prompt, which pops up whenever a new application is run, will ask you which graphics option to Replacement Toshiba Laptop battery enable for all the individual programs. I have to say that having to go through the trouble of choosing which graphics option to use, each time a new application was run was rather cumbersome.

The laptop has three USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port, Gigabit Ethernet port, VGA port, HDMI, headphone and Cheap Samsung Laptop battery microphone jacks, DVD writer and a multi-card reader. It also features Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/ n and Bluetooth 2.1 wireless connectivity. There is also a handy switch for enabling/disabling wireless network (both wireless internet and Bluetooth) connectivity - and unlike most Cheap IBM Laptop battery other laptops which use symbols, the "Wireless" tag is written right above the toggle and the "off" and "on" positions are clearly labelled. This makes it visually intuitive for the user to enable/disable wireless connectivity.

More details can be seen on this review's "Specifications" page.



Software

The laptop comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium. The Sony Vaio laptop also comes with its own handy software bundle. One such feature is the quick web access. By pressing the "Web" button, when the Replacement Compaq Laptop battery system is switched off, the system initializes a browser type interface which allows you to just browse the net. This feature starts up pretty quickly, and if you are in a hurry and just want to check some important information online without having to go through the process of the entire system starting up, the "quick web access" feature is Gateway Laptop Batteries invaluable. The browser used is the Splashtop Browser which comes under the Mozilla Public license. If you press the "Web" button, when the computer is already running, it will open the systems default web browser (I.E, Firefox, Chrome)
The other button is the "Assist" button which battery for notebook upon pressing starts up the "Vaio Care Rescue". Just like the "Web" button, this can be accessed without having to enter into the latitude d800 battery main OS installation. When the system is already on, pressing this latitude d830 battery shortcut button will open the "Vaio Care 6.3" program, which is a feature that allows you to troubleshoot problems, run maintenance and tune up facilities and other related utilities.
When the system is already on, pressing the "Vaio" shortcut button will open the dell d620 battery Media Gallery player, which is a feature that allows you to access your photos, videos and music all through one interface. You should keep in mind that this all-in-one feature is latitude d610 battery already provided by Windows, but the Media Gallery player latitude d600 battery does have its charm, in other words "Gesture Enabled" controls - a very cool feature indeed. You can use hand gestures in front of the inbuilt camera and according to your movement, as predefined in the program's settings, you can pause a playing song, move to the next/previous song/picture. I did get quite a few weird glances from people passing by dell latitude d630 battery who thought I was merely waving my hand at the laptop for no particular reason.
Among the other software included in the lenovo t61 battery laptop was the Microsoft Starter 2010 Edition - quite useful as this is not a trial version - which features Word Starter 2010 and Excel Starter 2010. Other software included are the PMB Vaio edition for managing your photos; Arcsoft Web companion 4 for capturing images and video - with an added video monitor lenovo x60 battery mode; Vaio Control Centre for configuring various system settings; lenovo x61 battery Vaio Gate which comes up as a popup from the top of the screen whenever you move the cursor there, and provides easy access to apps and links - it has to be pointed out that some folks might find this thinkpad t60 battery functionality rather irritating; Evernote for Vaio; McAfee PC Security Center 30 day trial: Vaio Data Restore Tool; Vaio Media Plus; Vaio Transfer Support. A point to keep in mind is that most of the software mentioned, is redundant with Windows already providing similar functionality.


Performance

The Sony Vaio laptop had a score of 114 on the Worldbench 6 benchmark - for comparisons thinkpad t42 battery sake, that would be 2 points more than the Acer Aspire 5755G. This Vaio laptop should be more thinkpad r40 battery than capable of performing most multiple processor and memory thinkpad x41 battery intensive tasks without any issues.
During synthetic testing, the latitude e6400 battery laptop's hard disk recorded an average read speed of 82 MB/s and a PC Mark Vantage score of 6828.
As with any system running switchable graphics, the performance Dell 312-0928 Battery difference between the Intel and AMD adapters in 3DMark06 is quite telling: the discrete card scored nearly double that of the integrated graphics (3285 for the Intel adapter and 6442 for the NVIDIA). FarCry 2, played at 1024x768, DirectX 10 mode, AA 2x, and 'Ultra High' Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t Battery settings, registered a average frame rate of 32.90 fps. For Metro 2033, played at 1024x768, DirectX 11, Very High Quality, AAA, AF 4X, and all settings maxed out registered 10.20 fps. Given these scores, playing games at low to Dell Vostro 1220 battery medium settings, would make for a comparatively smoother sailing for gamers.
Watching both 720p and 1080p HD videos is a pleasure on the Lenovo L09S8L09 battery Full HD screen. The sound output from the built in speakers, is appropriately loud for a small-medium HP HSTNN-Q09C Battery sized room, but it does sound very shrill. Listening through headphones would be the best option.
Throughout our testing, the Sony Vaio did a good job of HP F4098A Battery keeping itself cool, which is a positive aspect for any laptop. However, you do notice that the section of the bottom part of the laptop that is next to the exhaust heats up slightly. Moreover, the HP 361742-001 Battery laptop was barely audible during operation, which is another positive feature of this laptop.
The laptop's six-cell battery lasted for 1 hour 4 minutes through one HP F4809A Battery of our battery tests, at high performance mode, and having the wireless connectivity mode HP HSTNN-IB13 Battery enabled. Having said that, you should be able to extract around 2.5 hours out of the HP HSTNN-DB13 Battery laptop's battery for doing lighter every-day work such as browsing the web and listening to Compaq 319411-001 battery music. But despite the Vaio laptop registering a lower battery life than most other mainstream laptops, given the configuration of this laptop and its intended use indoors, battery life shouldn’t be a major concern.


Upgradability

There are two covers at the bottom of the laptop HP 371785-001 battery that can be opened – one at the bottom-left section which is bordered on its top right side by the second cover. The cover at the left contains the hard disk and the neighbouring cover HP F4812A Battery contains the memory modules. There are two memory slots, one of which is occupied by a 4 GB memory module. You can upgrade the memory to a total of 8GB by adding another memory module. Removing the cover for the hard disk slot was very easy - you don’t have 3 Cell HP MINI 110 Battery to expend that much effort in opening this slot when compared to most other laptops. Removing the memory slot cover was comparatively harder although still easier than opening slots in most mainstream laptops.

Bottom Line
As far as appearances go, the Sony Vaio HP 537626-001 battery VPCCB15FG is definitely a unique laptop, and one that everyone will notice no matter where you go. That the laptop delivers on the performance side of things, and has features such as full-HD screen, good HP NY220AA Battery backlit keyboard, are a big plus for this laptop. Putting all of these factors into perspective and you HP NY221AA Battery realise that the price tag on this unit is not that high. Keeping in mind that you genuinely like the colour choices for this unit, the Sony Vaio VPCCB15FG is a good contender as a 6 Cell HP Mini 110 Battery home entertainment and multimedia laptop and one that you should definitely check out.

HP Or No HP: The PC Lives

Suggestions that the PC is dead are greatly exaggerated. Flexibility, innovation and users’ storage needs will keep it around a good long while.
The signs to the contrary are everywhere, haven't you seen them?
•Hewlett-Packard, the largest Acer Aspire 7741 Battery computer maker in the world, said Wednesday it's looking to get out of the consumer PC business. HP believes its fortunes lie in a business similar to IBM that focuses on supporting large enterprises instead of trying to profit off the razor-thin margins of Pavilion PCs.

•Also recently, Mark Dean, IBM's Aspire 7741G Battery chief technology officer for the Middle East and Africa and an engineer who worked on the IBM's first PC, the 5150, declared the end of the PC. Dean argued the traditional mouse-and-keyboard computer was going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records and a number of other extinct or outmoded technologies. The IBM exec says he now uses a tablet as his Acer Aspire 7551 Battery primary computing device.

•Market research firm IDC recently cut its PC growth forecast for 2011 by nearly 3 percentage points from 7.1 to 4.2 percent (IDC and PC World are both owned by International Data Group).

Clearly, the PC is dead, right? Well, no.
First of all, despite falling growth in Aspire 5742 Battery PCs this year, IDC also predicts PC sales will rebound in 2012 driven by laptop sales. Shoppers are expected to opt for PCs next year thanks to devices with thinner designs, longer AS10D71 battery life, instant on, and touch.
But it's not just sales that will keep the PC afloat, there also are practical reasons to keep the PC alive for the foreseeable future.
We All Drive Trucks For A Living

Steve Jobs in 2010 famously compared PCs to trucks. The argument goes that more Acer Aspire 5742G Battery people will gravitate toward using tablets while PCs will be used by people who need Aspire 5741 Battery some serious horsepower to drive down the digital highway such as graphic designers and video editors. The premise of this argument is that people largely use PCs for doing email and other light typing, Aspire 5741G Battery checking Facebook, watching videos and playing games.

The problem is an untold number of people still need to use PCs at work, because tablets (at least as they stand now) simply aren't up to the job.
Consider a secretary needing to Aspire 5736Z Battery simultaneously enter data into a spreadsheet, update a contacts database, create a mail merge Aspire 5552 Battery document to send to 1000 clients, and search online for a restaurant for the next office party. Or what about this recent quote from a PC World reader who works as a teacher: "I do so many things with my PCs . . . Just a short time Aspire 5552G Battery ago I had Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Thunderbird, Firefox, Notepad ++, Irfanview, Dreamweaver, and NXT-G running simultaneously. This is typical for me on any given day."
Even lowly writers are better off using a HP KS526AA Battery PC, as PC World's Tony Bradley recently discovered during a month-long bender with an iPad.
PCs Are Flexible

Unless you own a Mac, you can adapt your PC to your Aspire 5551 Battery situation with relative ease. Need more RAM? Just open your PC up and plug in a new stick. Want to swap out Aspire 5253 Battery your 320GB HDD for a 512GB SSD? No problem. Tired of Windows and want to give Aspire 5336 Battery Ubuntu a try? It's only a download away.
Tablets aren't even close to being this flexible. You might be able to Aspire 5251 Battery jailbreak the iPad to get unauthorized software to run on it, but that's much more involved than inserting a BT.00604.049 bootable thumb drive. Tablets are also designed to be replaced year after year because the BT.00603.111 hardware is largely static and unchangeable, while PCs can change as your needs change and are typically serviceable for at least 3-5 years.

Innovation Is Out There

Sure, the basic look and feel of a PC hasn't changed ACER AS10D75 that much over the years. The basic set of components including a display, keyboard, CPU, and mouse have remained largely static AS10D73 Battery whether you're looking at a desktop PC or laptop AS10D61 clamshell. But consider this: the standard automobile has had four wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel for more than 100 years, yet that hardly means that automotive technology is standing still.
PCs with integrated touchscreens such as ACER AS10D51 Battery the Acer Aspire Z5610 are evolving, voice control is getting better, and Microsoft's Kinect Windows SDK may open up a AS10D41 whole new world of interaction for the PC. Who knows? Maybe those wall-sized PC displays predicted by tech luminaries and sci-fi writers may become a standard part of most people's homes before the decade is out.
You Need To Store Your Stuff

Right now, tablets have puny storage AK.006BT.080 capabilities compared to a PC, where 500GB drives are standard and 1TB drives are easy to come by.
But what about "the cloud," you say? "We'll just store all that AS10D3E stuff online." Maybe. But the future of the cloud is currently up for debate. Amazon and Google want you to use the cloud as if it were a hard drive accessible from ACER AS10D Battery anywhere you have an Internet connection.
Apple's iCloud, meanwhile, is AS10D31 designed to sync your stuff across all your devices. If Apple's vision wins out, you'll still Gateway NV53A Battery need a device with a large amount of storage in your home as a central repository for stuff that's not being stored online such as older photos. One day, tablets may fit that bill, but for now PCs are still a better place to KS526AA Battery 12 Cell keep your files.

Tablets are a great tool for using on the go, and it's a fair comment to say we're living in the Post-PC era or PC-plus era as Microsoft calls it, but the PC has a lot of life left in it and tablets are no replacement for my Lenovo X220.

Upgrade Your Life: Laptop Battery Life

Laptop battery wearing down? In this week's episode of Upgrade Your Life, Yahoo! News' Becky Worley shows us how to help batteries last longer ... and what to do when they run out!


First, the basics


Most laptops use batteries that can last for 3-5 years, or about 1000 charges. (A premium laptop's battery might last longer.) Every time you charge your Compaq Evo N610C Battery , the total capacity of the battery is diminished. Originally it may have had a run time of 3.5 hours, but after LENOVO IdeaPad S10 battery a year it'll run out of juice at 3 hours, even on a full charge.


If your battery capacity has diminished, there are a few things you can do about it. First, you have to hp g62 battery correctly gauge how much capacity has been lost. There are free downloads to do this job, like HP F4809A battery Eater (for Windows PCs) or Coconut Battery (for Macs). These will compare your battery's current maximum capacity to how long it lasted when it was new.


Calibrating your Battery


You can't miraculously reconstitute your HP DV6000 battery 's capacity. It loses power over time due to chemical reactions taking place in the Dell Latitude D600 battery , as it chugs along powering your laptop. You can't undo those changes, but there is one common battery issue you can fix: In many laptops, the operating system's battery meter gets out of sync with how much juice the battery actually has.


Imagine if the gas gauge on your car dashboard was misreading how much gas you actually had in the tank. You'd either run out of gas when you thought you had a quarter of a tank left, or you'd be filling up too frequently. In your HP F4812A Battery laptop, this can mean your laptop shuts down abruptly when the meter says you have 30 minutes left. Or else the meter might warn that you only have 2 minutes of battery life left and shut your laptop Lenovo Thinkpad T61 Battery down, when it really has another 20 minutes remaining.


Recalibrating gets the Sony VGP-BPS8 battery meter to correctly read the current state of the battery, so you and the operating system know where you stand with existing battery life.


How to recalibrate


First, charge your laptop's Latitude D610 battery battery to full, and leave it that way for at least two hours. Then unplug your laptop hp mini 210 battery , and set its power management settings to never turn off or lower the monitor brightness. (HP has instructions for how do to this on Windows 7 and Vista, as well as Windows XP, while Apple has instructions for Mac laptops on their site.)


You want to drain the HP HSTNN-LB42 Battery completely, then let your laptop sit for at least five hours this way -- like, say, overnight. (Just be careful and mute the volume, since some laptops make a warning sound when they're about to run out.) Afterwards, charge battery Evo N610C up again, and you should notice a more accurate portrayal of your battery capacity. In some cases, you may even get more life out of it.


Best practices to maintain battery life


You'd think that the best way to keep your laptop's battery from wearing out is to not use it. Right?


As it turns out, batteries are like muscles; they need to be worked out regularly to Lenovo T61 Battery stay healthy. Ideally, you'd use your laptop unplugged at least once a day, like on a train or bus commute or on the couch in front of the TV. If you're not going to use it, constantly charging your battery is a bad idea; HP recommends on their website that if you're going to hp dv2000 battery leave your laptop plugged in or put up in storage for more than two weeks, you should take the battery out of your laptop.


Past the expiration date


So when is it time to throw out that old battery? The answer, surprisingly, is "never." Laptop batteriescontain lots of toxic chemicals, and should never end up in landfills. Fortunately, e-stewards.org has a list of environmentally responsible recyclers that will take your old battery with no fuss.


When is it time to replace your battery, then? Use the free utility apps Becky mentioned, and when they say that your TOSHIBA PA3534U-1BRS Battery can only hold around 25% of its original capacity it's probably time for a new one. You can buy a replacement battery from the original laptop manufacturer, and there are plenty of places online that sell discounted PC laptop batteries, like wholesalebattery and laptop-computer-batteries.org. Owners of newer Mac laptops can get their laptop's non-removable battery swapped out at any Apple store, with a scheduled appointment.

Hacking laptop batteries: A new security threat

Accuvant Labs' Charlie Miller describes how to hack Apple laptop batteries
LAS VEGAS--The latest security threat to your laptop HP 537626-001 battery comes from an unexpected source: its HP 537627-001 battey .
A security researcher demonstrated today at the Lenovo IdeaPad Y560 Battery Black Hat security conference how he was able to gain complete control of the microprocessor embedded in batteries used in Apple Macintosh laptops and then remove or bypass the built-in safeguards.
"I can clearly brick the Lenovo 57Y6440 battery," said Charlie Miller, principal research SONY VGP-BPS22 battery consultant at security firm Accuvant Labs. "That's a cinch. I'm a pro at that."
Miller suggested it would be possible to SONY VGP-BPS22A battery overheat a battery and start a fire by convincing a controller that the battery was discharged, even though it was completely full, but said he LENOVO 57Y4559 battery ss has not tried it and an analog fuse may prevent disaster. "The charger will think the remaining capacity is whatever I want," he said. "So it might overcharge."
Accuvant posted working code today featuring an interface that Miller wrote that makes it easier to send commands to the battery controller.


Sniffing battery-to-laptop communications
(Credit: Accuvant Labs) Bricking a battery, of course, doesn't mean that a laptop SONY VGP-BPS20 battery ceases to work. And older MacBook Pro laptops have batteries that can be replaced in Apple MB771 seconds. But newer MacBook Pro laptops, and the MacBook Air, have batteries that are not designed to be replaced by their owners.
Even worse, if malware successfully slips past the defenses built into MB771LL/A OS X and takes up residence on a laptop, it could continue to keep bricking replacement batteries.
Miller said the attack could take place in the HP ProBook 4320s battery other direction as well: Malware inserted into the battery's firmware could try to seize control of the computer even if the SONY VGP-BPS20/S operating system were reinstalled. "If the OS kernel has a bug, you could attack the HP ProBook 4520s battery OS from the battery," he said.
Apple uses three chips made by Texas Instruments to control its LENOVO 57Y4559 battery laptops' batteries. Two provide protection against overcharging, short circuiting, and so on, while the TI BQ20Z80 chip keeps track of the Lenovo 57Y4558 battery battery's status, maintains the charge, and communicates with the laptop.
Miller's presentation described how he began trying to figure out how the laptops communicate with their batteries and discovered that Apple did not change the default LENOVO 57Y4565 battery password. Here's an excerpt:


For the batteries that ship with all the Acer Aspire 3935 Battery Apple laptops I tested, the password to unseal the SAMSUNG AA-PB9NC6B battery and the password to enter full access mode are the hard-coded values provided in Texas Instruments documentation. In this work, I provide API functions which can be used to communicate with the AA-PB9NC6W battery . This allows the ability to make arbitrary configuration changes as well as dumping of the data flash and instruction flash. I provide IDA Pro scripts to disassemble the machine code from the firmware. We provide a way to dell 312-0234 battery disable the firmware checksum as well as to make arbitrary changes to the smart battery firmware. Due to the nature of the Smart Battery System, changes made to the smart battery firmware may cause safety hazards such as overcharging, overheating, or even fire.
One of the utilities he released today lets you change the password from its default setting.