Dell Studio One 19 All-in-one Touch
Available now in Australia is Dell’s Studio One 19 All-in-one Touch desktop computer. Visit the Dell Australia and order yours today. There’s been a bit of a rebirth in the all-in-one desktop category lately and from the looks of it, Dell is onto something with its Studio One 19.
HP 6530B T9400
This business-friendly laptop is a great road-ready presentation tool, but it could benefit from a better screen.
If you’re in the market for an affordable portable work system, the HP Compaq 6530b might deserve a place on your short list. This solid, standard-issue all-purpose laptop sells for $1195 and houses a thoughtfully arranged software bundle that will quickly help you get down to business.
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HP EliteBook 8530p
HP EliteBook 8530p Notebook PCPower Plus Portability. At only 1.1 in/ 28.2 mm thin with a starting weight of just 6.3 lb/2.86 kg, the HP EliteBook 8530p Notebook PC delivers exceptional graphics and performance in a powerful?yet portable?15.4-inch diagonal notebook.
- Featuring genuine Windows for a familiar and intuitive environment
- Intel® Centrino® 2 with vPro™ technology capable. Strengthen security measures and remotely monitor, diagnose and repair PCs over the network with Intel® Centrino® 2 with vPro™ technology.
- Operating System: Genuine Windows Vista® Business 32-bit; Genuine Windows Vista® Business 64-bit; Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic; Genuine Windows Vista® Business with downgrade to Windows XP Professional custom installed; FreeDOS
- Enjoy wireless in more places.Whether you’re across the street or across the country, optional HP Mobile Broadband with Gobi technology4, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ WLAN and Bluetooth® technologies allow you to conveniently stay connected in more places
- Experience life in high-definition. Connect to high-resolution displays with the HDMI port[k7]. Blu-ray Drive plays HD content or stores up to 50 GB on a dual-layer disc. The eSATA port provides a fast connection to an external storage device
- Graphically speaking. Experience sharp pictures, smooth video and fast rendering capabilities required for graphics-intensive software applications with exceptional ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3650 with 256 MB of GDDR III video memory.
HP Mini 2133 Notebook
The HP Compaq 6730b is a reasonable but uninteresting business notebook. Unfortunately the competition — and even HP — are offering much better systems at a comparative or lower price.
just when you thought you’d never find the perfect small form factor notebook for less than $1,000, HP comes to the table with the all new 2133 Mini-Note. This ultra mobile subnotebook features an impressive 8.9-inch screen, a remarkably large keyboard, a full-sized notebook hard drive, and plenty of impressive specs. Is this the perfect road warrior machine? Let’s take a closer look and find out.
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HP Compaq Business Notebook 6730b
The HP Compaq 6730b is a reasonable but uninteresting business notebook. Unfortunately the competition — and even HP — are offering much better systems at a comparative or lower price.
Design
Business notebooks are generally a bland, black on gray affair. But even on this scale, HP manage to made their mid-line business notebooks look bland. Gray and black on the outside, gray and black on the inside, the HP Compaq 6730b just screams “large corporate rollout for an accounting firm”.
Continuing with this theme, this is a no-nonsense notebook. The 15.4-inch matte display is clear, and matte displays are always a plus because they are less reflective. The display has a native resolution of 1280×800, which is low for a display of this size.
The keyboard is comfortable and functional, while the large trackpad features two paddle-like buttons that are clearly designed to last. Between them is a fingerprint reader. One notable feature is the glossy ribbon which sits just below the display, giving you access to a series of touch screen buttons for volume, disabling wireless, presentation setting and the HP Help Centre. Encouragingly, the HP Help Centre is useful, providing shortcuts to information including a system manual and system specifications.
Port options on the 6730b are fairly standard. There is no HDMI or DVI, video out is provided by S-video and VGA ports. There is also no eSATA or USB charging when the laptop is switched off, but HP gets points for the FireWire port. The system features four USB ports, but unfortunately, the USB ports on the right in particular are crammed so close together you might find it hard to fit a USB device into both simultaneously.
There are also a couple of legacy ports, in the form of a serial port on the right and an RJ-11 port, which connects to the modem, on the back. The 6730 features both an express card 54 slot for expansion and a media card slot.
At 2.7kg the 6730b is a mid-weight laptop, we wouldn’t recommend it for travellers, but it’s not as unwieldy as a desktop replacement.
Features
The internals of the 6730b are an unexciting mix of standard business parts. Our review system came with an Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.4GHz) and 2GB of RAM. On the plus side the system is Centrino 2 certified, meaning a/b/g and draft-N wireless as standard, better integrated graphics and power management. We use PCMark05 to benchmark notebooks, and this one gave a middle of the range score of 4658.
Our system came running 32-bit Windows Vista Business, and we were disappointed to see that there is no 64-bit Windows Vista available as a pre-install. However, Windows XP SP3 is available as a downgrade.
Our 6730b came with a 250GB SATA II 5400 RPM drive. That’s the maximum available on this line, the cheaper model has a 160GB HDD.
Graphics on our system was provided by an integrated Intel GM45 graphics chipset, which forms part of the Centrino 2 platform. This should be fine for office applications, but is not a graphics performer, yielding a 3DMark06 score of 745. There is no discrete graphics card available with these systems, so those looking for graphics capabilities should look to a different system.
In order to test battery life, we set screen brightness to 50 per cent, turned off the sound and then played a DVD. This yielded a poor score of one hour and 45 minutes (105 minutes). We generally hope for at least 2 hours. The battery on the 6730 is 55Whr.
The level of pre-installed trial software wasn’t too bad for a business laptop. Trial software included MS Office 2007, while full software included Roxio DVD Creator for business, AOL toolbar, PDF Complete and Adobe Flash Player.
Verdict
The 6730b system we were sent comes in at AU$1900, although the base model is available for AU$1500. We’re not thrilled by this pricing. Lenovo’s ThinkPad SL500 comes in at the same price, and has more port options, a discrete graphics card, better battery life and a higher resolution display. Dell’s base model of the Latitude E6500 comes in cheaper, and is similarly a much more advanced machine.
Otherwise you might look to a similarly configured Dell Vostro 1510, which currently comes in $300 dollars cheaper (AU$1600), but includes twice the RAM and a discrete Nvidia graphics card, and can also be customised. Ouch.
Fujitsu’s offering is similarly overpriced, but includes decent battery life, even while once again squeezing in a discrete graphics card.
If you’re specifically after a HP notebook, you’re much better off investing in the higher end EliteBook range, which is a much better machine for only AU$100 more.
Google Crashes for Several Hours
Reports in the IT media report that Google search engine and their Gmail services crashed for several hours in the UK affecting millions of users.
With the world’s reliance on Google and it technologies becoming every more apparent the Telegraph UK asks the question ‘is the world becoming to reliant on one internet company’?
Dell Computers to be Sold in Dick Smith’s
Dell Computers in your local electronics shop, well the answer is yes. It’s been reported that the US computer giant company will start selling its computers in Dick Smith stores.
EXACTLY one year ago, Dell marked its entry into the Australian retail market with Officeworks jumping onboard to start selling its computers and laptops. Read more
Windows 7 and Hackers
With Windows 7 about to be released in the near future it has been reported that hackers are taking advantage of the beta versions
MICROSOFT said cybercriminals are already hawking booby-trapped versions of just-released Windows 7 operating system software. Read more
Star Trek for the iPhone, iPod Touch
Electronic Arts (EA) on Thursday announced the release of the Star Trek game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s available from the App Store for $5.
Just in time for the premier of the new motion picture that “reboots” the legendary science fiction franchise with a new cast reprising the roles of “Classic” Trek characters Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Uhura and Chekov, the Star Trek iPhone game lets you pilot the U.S.S. Enterprise on a mission to seek out and … destroy your enemies. Read more
Internet Explorer Market Share
In a recent report by computerworld it states that IE (Internet Explorer) has lost 0.7% of market share in April and now has around just 66.1 percent of the browser market share. This is a worrying and alarming turnaround for the browser giant as just this time last year they controlled over 80% of the market. Read more
