Top 10 notebooks for August
The COMEX show is a place of hot deals and rock-bottom prices. Though premium brands like Fujitsu and Lenovo offered attractive bundles, a few value-for-money brands went even lower, with models going for around S$1,000 (US$736.25). As such, it was no surprise that budget models like Acer, Compaq and HP maintained their status on the top 10 charts.
But that did not mean more expensive machines didn't stand a chance. With its choice of five shades and sleek design, the Sony Vaio CR series stole the scene with the stylish crowd. The Toshiba Portege R500 probably appealed to students studying in local tertiary institutions, as it was going for over S$1,000 (US$736.25) off in NUS/NTU campuses. The Panasonic ToughBook CF-W5, which cost well over S$3,000 (US$2,208.76), was retailing for around S$2,500 (US$1,840.63) in certain Sim Lim Square stores as a special promotion in August.
Without further ado, we polled what readers searched for on our site, as well as sales
figures from Singapore stores AAAs Com Solution, MC2/PA Mart and Renova, for our latest chart-busters.
Click here for a feature comparison table.
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Compaq Presario V3500 series (Core 2 Duo T5600 Processor 1.83Hz, 512MB RAM)
| Processor | Core 2 Duo | | Processor speed | 1.83GHz | | Centrino | Yes | | Amt of RAM | 512 MB | | Hard drive | 80 GB | | Optical drive | DVD/CDRW combo drive | | Diagonal screen size | 14.1 inch | | Remote | Yes | | TV tuner | No | | Operating system | Win Vista Home Basic | | Weight w/battery | 2.45 kg | | Wireless LAN | 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n | | Webcam | No |
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HP Pavilion dv2500 (Core 2 Duo T7300 processor 2.0GHz, 2GB RAM)
CNET Asia rating: 7 out of 10
The good: Strong set of specs for price; performance almost matches that of more expensive laptops; attractive 14.1-inch display; dual headphone jacks and fingerprint reader; includes most of the ports and connections home users need.
The bad: Average battery life with the standard six-cell battery; opting for an HDMI port means sacrificing a USB port.
The bottom line: The HP Pavilion dv2500 delivers an eye-catching case, a strong set of features, and solid performance at a lower price than competing systems. We recommend it for home or school use.
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Sony Vaio VGN-CR 11GH (Core 2 Duo T7100 Processor 1.8GHz, 1GB RAM)
First take
Where Dell goes, Sony will follow, it seems. The Japanese giant has taken a page out of Mikey D's book and started coloring its notebooks, offering red, blue, white, pink and black flavors. If you're into pretentious marketing terms, that's Blazing Red, Indigo blue, Pure White, Luxury Pink and, er, Black, respectively. To be fair, Sony has always been infinitely more stylish than most of the notebook brands, so one could argue that it's simply a natural evolution.
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Acer Aspire 5585WXMi (Core 2 Duo T7200 Processor 2.0GHz, 1GB RAM)
| Processor | Core 2 Duo | | Processor speed | 2GHz | | Centrino | Yes | | Amt of RAM | 1024 MB (max 4096 MB) | | Hard drive | 160 GB | | Optical drive | DVD Super Multi | | Graphics hardware | Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 | | Diagonal screen size | 14.1 inch | | Remote | No | | TV tuner | No | | Operating system | Win Vista Home Premium | | Weight w/battery | 2.4 kg | | Wireless LAN | 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g | | Webcam | Yes |
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Acer Aspire 5710Z (Core Duo T2080 Processor 1.73GHz, 1GB RAM)
| Processor | Core 2 Duo | | Processor speed | 1.73GHz | | Amt of RAM | 1024 MB | | Hard drive | 80 GB | | Optical drive | DVD Super Multi writer | | Graphics hardware | Intel 943GML | | Diagonal screen size | 15.4 inch | | Operating system | Win Vista Home Premium | | Weight w/battery | 2.8 kg | | Wireless LAN | 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g | | Webcam | No |
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