Technology has gotten to be something else. You can now buy laptops that are built just for gaming. This makes it possible for you to play your internet and other games anywhere you go. You may need Wi-Fi for some of these games but nowadays you can find Wi-Fi anywhere or just about anywhere. Besides gaming laptops there are computers that run special versions of windows. I don’t know what I would do without windows on my laptop. It makes life so much easier. With special hardware on the laptop new versions of windows will run even better.
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Posted on August 3, 2011 at by dave
MacBook Pro
How long does your laptop’s battery last on a single full charge? I still remember when this MacBook was new – I could stay unplugged from four to six hours (depending on what I was doing) without becoming edgy because of having to be absolutely sure that there was an available socket. Today, after many months of almost constant use, my laptop battery gives me about 3 hours max – if I am lucky.
I know that, for sure, I am not alone in this. Every laptop user experiences battery issues, and I am willing to bet that many will pay for a solution that results in longer battery life – as long as it does not involve having to lug around an extra 5 pounds!
The good news is that there is an existing solution to getting more out of your battery. It is simple – you simply need to change the way your laptop uses Wi-Fi. Of course, the average user will not want to waste time monitoring and tweaking settings all the time. And it may not even be possible to monitor and retrieve all the necessary data.
That’s where the new system called SleepWell comes into the picture. This technology has been developed by Justin Manweiler of Duke University. His idea is based on the fact that Wi-Fi drains the laptop battery (and other devices, for that matter) faster than a mosquito can suck your blood. This is even more applicable when there are a lot of devices around you competing for the Wi-Fi signal. With the plethora of Wi-Fi enabled gadgets these days, it is inevitable that your laptop’s battery will always be working hard because of Wi-Fi.
The solution? SleepWell will take control of the laptop’s activity with respect to accessing the Wi-Fi when there are other devices around. This simply means that when another laptop in the vicinity is hogging the bandwidth temporarily and there’s nothing you can do about it, SleepWell will let your laptop “rest”, thereby conserving your battery. The great thing is that SleepWell has been designed to cycle stagger the activity cycles of your laptop (or other device) so that you will not notice (or barely notice) the sleep times – performance is not affected.
The ultimate result – possibly double the battery life that you have now!
This is very new, but if it really does work as it is supposed to, we might very well see the technology applies in the near future.
Via
Photo courtesy of niallkennedy
Posted on July 6, 2011 at by noemi
At least that’s what Consumer Reports tells us in the latest report it published. The report that has been released sings the praises of Apple laptops and hails the MacBook Air line and MacBook Pro line as the best that one can have in the market.
Consumer Reports compared some of the most popular brands – including the Macs, of course – taking the sizes into consideration. Whichever size you pick, though, the Macs came out on top.
For the 11-inch category – it’s a no-brainer. The 11-inch MacBook Air came out as the preferred laptop, beating HP and Gateway. For the 13-inch category, the results were pretty much the same. The 13-inch MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and MacBook all got impressive scores. Nothing’s different with the 15-inch and 17-inch categories, except that the MacBook Pros got all the top spots.
Aside from the machines themselves, Apple also got the top spot for their tech support. If you are an Apple user, you have got to admit that AppleCare does have its merits, and you are probably nodding your head as you read all about how good Apple computers are. No arguing about that.
If you have not tried an Apple computer, though, this report just might convince you to give one a try. You might have heard this story many times before, but let me just say it one more time – as a former Windows user turned Mac user, the level of satisfaction is really something else. This is not about being a fangirl or anything like that – it’s all about having a machine that does the job and does it well. ;)
Posted on May 27, 2011 at by noemi
It seems that technology can do just about anything. From directing your every move, to what you’re going to eat for dinner, to using a reverse phone lookup. Even though their presence has increased in our lives, some companies are doing better than others. The PC hasn’t been doing to well for years now. Apple has been hitting the market, like clockwork, with increasingly newer and fresher innovations that, coupled with an aggressive marketing campaign, has made them a consumer favorite. Most Apple products are far more expensive than their PC counterpart but people are still driven to purchase these high-end machines. Some say that their increased reliability and brand recognition are just a few of the reasons for this success but PC’s aren’t out of the game. Some PC manufactures hope to revitalize their candidacy for supremacy in the computing market with newer sleeker laptops.
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Posted on May 25, 2011 at by dave
Happy with the speed your laptop’s dual core processor gives you? If you are, then you’ll be even happier once you change it for one that uses a quad core processor.
Via Technologies just announced this week the release of their latest processor – the QuadCore X86. The X86 is designed with mainstream laptops and desktops in mind, but is also great for budget laptops and netbooks. It is meant to run multimedia, productivity, a Internet applications, and can do this easily operating at a speed of 1.2 GHz without drawing on too much power.
According to Via, the processor is one of “the lowest power quad core processors” you can find. With the X86 operating at merely 2.5 watts of power, their statement is clearly true. The low power consumption of the X86 is due to the fact that it is simply a combination of VIA’s two Nano X2 processors, which although released just last January, has proven itself in terms of power consumption. However, according to Jose Vilches of TechSpot, Brazos and Atom still has an edge over the X86 with a lower power consumption although it is competitively priced, being a low-cost processor.
Still, though we appreciate this quad core processor from VIA, we don’t expect them to oust Intel or AMD when it comes to being the processor of choice for PC manufacturers. With VIA having such a small marketshare of approximately 0.2%, it will have to content itself with slowly eating away at the market of AMD (18.9%), and Intel (80.8%). This is despite Intel’s quad core laptop processors performing much worse in terms of power consumption with their i7 processor operating at about 45 watts. Still, we’ll see what happens when VIA starts shipping of its newest chip to PC manufacturers later this year.
Via Tech Spot
Posted on May 13, 2011 at by noemi
