Dell Alienware M15x

The new Alienware M15xDell Gaming Notebook 15.6-Inch Laptop (Cosmic Black) is a powerful new notebook from Dell that features NVIDIA GTX graphics and an Intel Core i7 processor. This system has a great design, and you can choose between black, red and silver. It's a well-built computer with a strong internal frame and lid. It's built to be sturdy and solid, even more so than the average notebook. Its design is really neat and unique, as is expected for an Alienware system.

The Dell Alienware M15x comes with the following, most of which can be configured or upgraded:

· 15.6" 1080p display w/ LED backlighting

· Intel Core i7 processor (920XM / 2.0GHz-3.2GHz Turbo Mode)

· 500 GB hard drive 7200 RPM

· 4GB DDR3 133 memory

· WiFi Link

· Blu-ray reader/drive

· 9-cell Lithium ion battery

· Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate Ed.

· 3 color choices: Lunar Shadow, Cosmic Black, and Red Nebula

The screen, keyboard, and touchpad are all pretty impressive. The LED-backlit display is available in your choice of 1920x1080 and 1600x900. The display looks amazing - it is highly vivid and offers clear contrast and brightness. The surface is covered with edge-to-edge glass, which creates a seamless look. The display is one of the most impressive and near-perfect you will ever see on a notebook computer.

This Alienware M15x review also needs to mention the keyboard. Despite being full-sized, it unfortunately lacks a number pad. However, the keyboard is very quiet and the keys have are designed for good traction. They have a bit of a rubbery-feel to make typing easy and comfortable. The touchpad has heavy texture on its matte surface, which makes navigation somewhat hard to get used to.

Despite a lack of number pad and somewhat rough touchpad, this is still a wonderfully-designed and built notebook. And, with the powerful processor and graphics solution, it can handle any game or program you want to run! It also uses Turbo Boost technology to help the processor run at a faster rate. The battery is excellent, and lasts for several hours if you do light tasks. It can last for around two hours if you do heavy gaming.

Obviously, this notebook doesn't come cheap, so you need to look for some Dell Alienware M15x coupons. Some online computer stores are giving good discounts on this system, so take advantage of them while they're still available. You can knock a lot of money off of your order if you use Dell coupons. This will make upgrades more affordable! Owning a powerful, expensive gaming laptop isn't impossible if you use the right coupons.

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Lenovo Skylight Smartbook

At first blush, the Lenovo Skylight is exactly what the netbook should've been.

Instead of slapping a pared down OS onto low powered hardware, the Skylight approaches the widget-centric Internet we've grown accustomed to on our mobile phones, armed with a full-sized keyboard and clamshell design

Technically, it's an oversized smartphone. Announced at CES on Tuesday, the Skylight is powered by 1.8 GHz Snapdragon processor, with built in WiFi and 3G mobile broadband. Its 10.1-inch HD screen offers 1280 by 720 resolution. And despite being a featherweight at 1.95 pounds, the machine felt sturdy, with a solid hinge and chassis. The full-sized keyboard is typical Lenovo-fare: comfortable, roomy keys made my admittedly limited typing session a pleasant one. The track-pad wasn't as responsive as I would liked, but I was told that this iteration would change before the unit starts to ship in April.

An important note: that garish, hinged column sticking out on the image isn't an antenna -- it's the included USB storage stick, and typically lies flush with the chassis. Tucked beneath it are slots for a micro-SD card, and a SIM card. Insert a SIM card from any 3G-ready GSM provider (that's AT&T and T-Mobile here in the US), and you'll be up and running on their 3G network.

The Skylight will ship with 18 web gadgets, encompassing much of what the Internet has to offer. These run along a dock at the bottom of the screen, and include access to Amazon's MP3 store, GMail and Google Maps, Facebook, or Firefox. If 18 widgets aren't enough, I was told that Lenovo will be releasing the platform's SDK -- expect enterprising developers to pad that list soon enough. The device also supports normal web browsing, so standard web apps will work just fine.

The device offers 20 GB of flash storage, and an additional 2GB of free online storage. If you'd like a bit more room, you'll have to rely on USB keys (the included storage stick can be replaced with a typical USB key), though there is an SD card slot, and an additional USB port. The Skylight will gather media stored across formats and display it on the appropriate widget, re-populating the library as USB keys and the like are removed. If 10.1 inches isn't enough screen real-estate, a mini-HDMI output port is included, for piping your media out onto a larger screen.

The Skylight will retail for $500. It will also be subsidized by phone carriers, starting with AT&T, but pricing wasn't available at the time of my demonstration.

The challenge here lies in finding the right market for the device. Despite the smartbook title, the Skylight isn't so much a new niche, as a re-imagined netbook. This one just happens to focus on the always-on, perpetual connectivity that the "net" prefix should have implied.

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Acer AOD250 10.1 Inch Netbook

Specifications: The new generation of netbooks is finally here! They now have better specs, sport great improvements in design and best of all, have lower price tags. The Acer AOD250 is a great example of such netbooks. Although most of the specs remain unchanged (such as the 1GB of RAM and the 1.6Ghz processor), there are some significant upgrades. For instance, this model now comes with a larger 250GB hard drive (as opposed to 160GB on older models). Like most netbooks, this model comes with the new Windows 7 Starter OS.

Design: I am also very taken with the design of the new Acer AOD250 10.1-inch netbook. They now come with silver hinges on the sides and there is a small gap between the screen and the CPU/keyboard unit. Overall, it looks very contemporary and is an improvement over the design on older Acer Aspire One models. It is available in blue, black, white and Ruby Red.

Features & Performance: In our tests, the Acer AOD250 did a pretty good job in running daily computing tasks such as surfing the web and processing Microsoft Office documents. Watching videos and movies on the screen was also a delight on the LED back-lit screen. The images were very sharp and clear. Some of its other features include 3 USB ports, a multi-touch track pad and a memory card reader. One of the biggest selling points of the Acer AOD250 would have to be its price. At the moment, you can get your hand on one of these netbooks for just around $278 each.

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