AKP- Computers and LAPTOP (New Technology)

When MacBook Pro 17” was first released it came on the market with sealed batteries system; now this feature belongs to the smaller versions - new MacBook Pro 13” and 15”. And according to the tests performed by Walter Mossberg the battery seems to be good enough to count it among the best features of the recently released MacBook Pro – 15” and 13”.

The two laptops revealed the fact that the batteries meet Apple’s claims that they last seven hours between charges, almost a full time work without any plugging. In this case purchasing spare batteries seems futile. There are however some aspects left to measure; for one is the Apple’s claim that they last up to 1,000 charging times, meaning the 5 years life time duration of such battery. Secondly, the guarantee terms are not very clearly specified, for instance if the battery doesn’t prove to hold an adequate charge, what then? Apple says that the company allows you to replace it at a price that normally costs the rechargeable one, but this is not to be verified yet. And another aspect that needs to be considered is the case of the users that need the device mostly on their long travels by the planes, and a replaceable battery seems to be a must. And this option for the new MacBook Pros is unavailable, unfortunately.

Lenovo comes up with its new netbook line of IdeaPad S10-2 cutting off the weight (with 0.2 pounds) and thickness (with 0.2”) of its previous S10. With its white glossy plastic lid and the hinge covers that look like a pair of used thumbtacks, the aspect of this Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 appears to be a little bit unattractive. Even if it has a slimmer line per ensemble, the 6-cell battery is bulging out of the frame in such a way that confers the system an extra 0.4” thickness at the back of the device compared to its previous model.

The screen is 10.1” wide with a native resolution of 1024x600 and a bit more spacious than the S10e and few other netbooks from HP and Dell. Images show themselves in a brightness and color that fade away as you get closer to 90 degrees along screen’s vertical axis. Quick Start OS is a Lenovo branded version of the Splashtop instant-on OS and has its apps that incorporate a web browser, music player, photo viewer, IM client, Skype client and Flash games portal. After activating QS button, in 10 seconds appears the screen offering you choices of the applications you want to launch.As to its performance, S10-2 incorporates a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 processor and 1GB of Ram, scoring 1,598 on PCMArk05, thus beating the average of its category by more than 200 points. The Hard Drive speed of 5,400 rpm, 160 GB managed to boot Windows XP in 46 seconds, which is faster than the netbooks average of 54.7 seconds. As to the file transfer the rate of 18.5 MBps revealed a 20% stronger drive than the average of 15 MBps of other netbooks. The Broadcom adapter of 802.11g showed transfer rates of 20 and 17.4 Mbps from 15 to 50 feet, higher than the average rates of the majority of netbooks, excluding Toshiba Mini NB205.The DIMM slot is beneath an upgrade panel, the S10-2’s standard of 1GB of PC-5300 DDR2RAM supporting up to 2GB. For replacing the Western Digital hard drive of 5,400 rpm, 160 GB, you need a standard 2.5” SATA drive. There is a OneKey recovery software that enables you to make perfect backup image of your OS and software.The 6-cell battery while testing lasted 5 hrs and 52 minutes, which means almost 30 minutes below the 6 hrs and 19 minutes for the netbooks that have the same 6-cell batteries power system. The device has a one-year warranty on parts and labor and can be extended to 3 years at a price of $129.00.Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 is a light, easy to handle portable device and proved to have decent endurance. Its price of $399.00 is also available for other netbooks that have much longer endurance, better keyboard and depending on others’ tastes, much more attractive.