The first PC to look at is Dell`s new budget performance desktop box, the XPS 8300, available for £550. The package includes a tower case containing the new 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7-2600, the second most powerful CPU going after the overclockable K version. This processor is a beast. It is combined with eight gigabytes of DDR3-1333 memory, a Radeon HD 5870 GPU, which slightly lets down the blistering pace of the other components, Blu-ray disc and burner, DVD read and write, wireless, HDMI and VGA output, four USB ports and two terabytes of disk space. All in all this is an extremely impressive package at a bargain price for a cutting edge processor, not long ago the new top of the line processor alone would have cost you more than this complete machine. This is strongly recommended for those looking for performance at a great price.

Next let`s examine the first Sandy Bridge laptop to hit the market, Acer`s Aspire 5750G, available for as little as £700, appears unassuming on the outside with a matte grey finish exterior to its 15.6 inch compact laptop build. Inside it is packing an Intel Core i7-2630QM, one of the most powerful of the new i7 Sandy Bridge line, it`s a quad core processor clocked at 2 GHz with limited built in overclocking to deal with heavy workloads that can take a single core up to as much as 2.9 GHz. The processor is far more powerful than any previous laptop ranging between eight and over twenty percent faster on a range of heavy work loads and tests. The integrated graphics support the usual DirectX 10.1 and OpenGL 3 graphics along with Shader Model 4 and does so at an impressive clock speed though you don`t need to rely on the weaker integrated graphics as it is combined with the Nvidia Geforce GT540M giving impressive crunching power. The display is the slightly disappointing no man`s land resolution below HD, though perhaps understandable for the small 15.6 inch screen of 1,3666 by 768.

Both machines are startlingly powerful and really show off the advantage of the new Sandy Bridge with incredible processing performance. What is most impressive is that the prices are so low at such an early stage for what is the new tech paradigm for processors. Whether it is desktop computers or laptops the new Sandy Bridges are an amazing piece of kit for power enthusiasts and general users.

What is ThunderBolt aka Intel Light Peak?

ThunderBolt is the latest ultra-highspeed port that will eventually minimize the number of display ports to just one. Thunderbolt is capable of transmitting data at a mind blowing 20GB/sec (2X10) and this is why, it can transmit HD video and audio signals without any delay or leakage. Thunderbolt is mainly considered as replacing HDMI ports because Thunderbolt also supports Audio and Video transmission at the same time.
The transmission can be in form of files as well (like documents). Thunderbolt or Intel Light Peak is being sought as the option to replace USB 2.0 and ultimately USB 3.0, which are not capable of transmitting signals at that speed just yet.

Intel has explained that since this port is bi-directional, there will be no need for an upgrade on the port itself. You will not have to worry about the port being only Out or In. It can accept as well as send the data to any compatible device, unlike HDMI, where you have take care of the version to have a Audio and Video (both) transmitting HDMI port.

The only marketing feature that this Netbook has to offer is, readability under direct sunlight.

It is trying to compete with Kindle and other ebook readers and with a colored display, iPad and tablets as well. It is however, far behind many tablets that were shown in CES 2011.

So, let’s look at the specifications and guess its performance:

Clover Sunbook

Processor                     Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz

Operating System           Windows 7 Starter

Memory                        1GB DDR2

Hard Drive                     250GB

Display Size                   10.1″

Resolution                     1024x600xRGB

Brightness                     165 nits typ (dark room)

235 nits (room lighting)

>1000 nits  (outside, sunlight)

Backlight                       White LEDs

Media Card Reader          SDHC, SD, MMC

USB Ports                      3

LAN                              Ethernet and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n

Weight                          2.91 lbs.

Webcam                        0.3 MP

Conclusion

So, after looking at the specifications, you might have already guessed the performance. Apart from using it seamlessly in light and dark environments, it is pretty much like any other Netbook in the market. Frankly, it doesn’t surprises me and I cannot call it a great wonder for CES 2011, because 2011 is going to be great for electronics and Clover Sunbook, just doesn’t fit in the position.

As for price, you can buy it from Clover’s website for only (which is a little expensive regarding the performance) $795 or Rs.36188/-

As you probably know that blue screen error happens for various reasons and many of them are unknown to normal users who don’t get too deep in this computer thing.

If you just open your computer and work for few hours (minutes) regarding typing, managing data sheets, content management or even just enjoy your time on the web, there is no way you’d come across the reasons behind a blue-screen error.

The screen would just turn blue, show you that ‘the system has experienced some problems and needs to shut down’ and would dump some garbage data, which would just pass over your head leaving you utterly annoyed and confused as to what just happened.

Hard Disk May Also Cause Blue-Screen Error

Right now, I’ll be talking about blue-screen error that is caused by a new hard-disk in new laptops and for this article; I’ll be specific with Dell Inspiron 15r N5010 because I have recently fixed blue-screen error that was being caused by Western Digital hard disk in this laptop.

Now, the big question is, how to fix a blue screen error without calling a technician? It’s super easy, just follow the link.

Then, after you actually download the stuff, it checks for more updates and guess what, when you have completely updated the game with latest cars and tweaks by EA, it checks again! And you know the worst part! Whenever you click ‘Game Launch’, it tells you to click ‘Update’ rather than ‘Launch’! Because of this, the game takes heck lot of time to even start.

If you want to know the rest of the story, in case it’s happening to you as well, follow the link : Need for Speed World Crashed Dell Inspiron 15R.

Installation

This game’s installation procedure is one of the most troublesome installation procedures I have faced to date. Nevertheless, that is just my opinion. The processor, Core i3 350M and 3GB DDR3 RAM do a really good job in keeping a significantly less installation time than my desktop computer, i.e. Pentium D and 2GB DDR2 RAM.

Therefore, even if we have to deal with two DVD’s, a release date check, and a serial key check, the whole process takes less than half an hour. I watched Ben 10 Alien Force while I was installing the game. Therefore, I did not feel that half an hour have passed and I did not get bore either. When I was finally done with all the checks and approval processes. I installed all the official patches to improve the infamous performance of GTA IV for PC.

I could not find 1.0.5.0 and 1.0.6.0 patches online, but I installed all others as well as 1.0.7.0, which was released to remove the necessity of Rockstar Social Club application. This patch uninstalled the application and embedded a sign-up/sign-in window that pops up when you click on GTA IV icon to play the game.

Whole procedure took 45-minutes of my day, but in the end I was satisfied that now I’d be able to check my new laptop’s gaming performance or tolerance, whatever it may be.

CPU Usage and Temperature

Pentium D (my old friend for last 5 years) used to feel a load of 100% whenever I clicked to play this game. Not any more sir, this new laptop with Core i3 350, man it’s really something. The load or CPU usage hangs like a pendulum from 27% to 35% depending on the environment of the game (I know you got me).

The fan is a little disappointment to me because it is little! Yeah! That is the only reason for my hatred for the fan. Because of the size and vent position, I feel hot air (not warm!!) blowing out on  my left thigh when I keep this friend while I am sitting on a chair or something like that. It can get really hot and I like it sometimes, when I forget to increase the temperature of AC and things start to get pretty cold around me.

Anyway, back to our Processor; it really keeps its promise as a mainstream processor as well as gaming. You know that this processor is based on Quad architecture, it performs really nice than other CPU’s for the same range. The processor can take the complete load of every configuration that GTA IV has to offer and remains as cool and silent as it must be.

Apart from GTA IV, the system works like a charm and every application opens, runs and closes like a snap. It is a completely different experience for a person who never laid his/her hands on a processor from ‘Core I’ family.

As for the temperature, I think it is normal in comparison to few of my friend’s laptops and personally, my old mate, Lenovo Y410. You may not want to put this laptop on your lap while playing some intense game like GTA IV or running a powerful application like Maya or Protein Intensifier. However, for other jobs, like checking mails, working on MS word and application like these, the laptop really keeps itself cool and you can put it on your lap to justify its meaning and work at your ease.

Graphics Performance

I am very much impressed with ATI Mobility 5470 1 GB in this laptop. I did not compromise for a 512 MB version and I have a very good reason for that. In GTA IV we can see the resource usage as we adjust the graphical settings like texture, shadows, reflection, resolution, vehicle density, view distance, etc.

Therefore, even when I kept everything at medium, the resource usage ate up 466 MB of my graphical memory and that’s close 512 MB. So, I am just glad that I have a 1 GB version. I didn’t want to buy 512 MB version because I wanted to keep VRAM free for OS and some other applications. That’s an understandable thing, isn’t it?

The graphical performance is pretty nice at medium settings. This card is for mainstream users with a little gaming-heart, not for hardcore gamers. Still, it can handle all games to date and will support many others to come in future.

Average FPS (frames per second) are, 19 FPS as per the in-game benchmarking tool and it is a playable score. I do not feel any problems while playing this game, again at medium settings. When I lower the settings (I cannot increase them because the games stutters a bit when I increase the settings), the game looks a little odd but on the other hand is much more playable than before. However, for the pleasure of my eyes, I do not do this.

I mean, I like this game because of the lovely environment, how can I lower it further, it might look like some old dumb game!

However, I do have few words on this one. The shadows look choppy and the edges look like somebody just sliced every corner of the game. This could be because of medium settings but even when I dared to increase the settings, the shadows still looked horrible and edges looked like someone sliced every corner with a Katana rather than with a Saw.

I will update the drivers after a few days, but until then, I’ll have to deal with these graphical nightmares. Even with all of these problems, the game is still a lot of fun and I can loosen myself after a tiring day. Rather than taking a nap, I love to shoot people around and jacking sports car, something that I would never do in real life.

Conclusion

Dell Inspiron 15R N5010 deals with GTA IV quite fairly and I am not even a bit worried about the mainstream capabilities of ATI Mobility 5470 1 GB graphics card. I love my new system and I love the way it deals with every application quickly.
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Dell Inspiron 15R Final Price after Tax

Isn’t this a big crisis? Well… It is for me. I’ll update you if anything changes, or at least tell you whether I bought it at last or not.

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Rainbow 6 Vegas 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Go60-5euYA8[/youtube]

GTA IV
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9DZNIqV9as[/youtube]

Mass Effect 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLhGBZbThb4[/youtube]

Dirt 2
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0cHlZieU5M[/youtube]

I am truely grateful to pwnoobhax and matze2506, who took their time and benchmarked this graphics card. You must join their channels for more great benchmarking videos.
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I am going to compare two of the most hyped laptops from Dell and see which one is better. However, I must tell you that it’s up to you to decide which one to buy in the end because I am here to give my own personal opinion like I gave to my friends.

Dell™ Inspiron 15R Laptop (T540611IN8)

Dell(TM) Studio 15 Laptop (S541036IN8)

I am talking particularly about these two laptops from the whole range of Inspiron 15R and Studio 15. This gives me the opportunity to compare two mid range laptops which are enough for a normal student who wants to work and play at the same time.

The chart below shows the hardware comparison between Inspiron 15R (above version) and Studio 15 (above version) respectively:

Dell Inspiron 15R and Studio 15 Specifications

It clearly shows you the main differences between both laptops in the first glance. There is slight change in processor’s model, RAM, Wireless Network Card and Optical Drive. Rest is same for both the laptops. Processor and RAM are defiantly the main components of a computer and can’t be ignored but you must look at what your needs are and will the processor and RAM suffice your daily work needs or not?

When I said that both of the laptops are great for mid range computing and normal student, I was talking about a student who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree (like my friend is doing B.E. and other one is pursuing B.D.S.), hence the use of laptop is still a lousy one for them.

They have to work on C++, Oracle, Java, .Net, Ajax, presentations, word processing, mastering Excel and much more. But none of these works are powerful enough to put the laptop at heavy load. As far as fun and entertainment is concerned. One would watch movies, video songs, listen to audio songs, play games, etc. So apart from games, none of these entertainment activities are powerful (again) enough to let your processor or RAM choke or hang.

My take on this is, that Intel has innovated Core I series keeping in mind that the applications should run the processor and not the processor should run applications. That’s what happening now, if your application wants some real power then it can tell the processor to turn on Turbo to use all of its available cores (I hope this makes sense). And RAM is something that speeds up your work and lets you enjoy what you do.

I am still running 1 GB of DDR2 RAM on my laptop (it’s really old, but I still like it) and everything is just fine as long as I stick to typing articles, blogging, making presentation, podcasts, video reviews and all that, my laptop helps me at every corner and never turns me down.

Now compare this with a laptop which has 3GB of DDR 3 RAM (like Inspiron 15R) or has 4GB of DDR 3 RAM (Studio 15). I hope you get the picture here, your work isn’t gonna stop just like that. Everything would run smooth and you’ll enjoy what you do, even if it’s just playing games.

However, I always wondered on how many people don’t know a thing about how these hardware configurations facilitates the laptop as a whole, but they still keep going on and on about asking about them. For example, they ask about the graphics card and if the seller says proudly that it contains a graphics card that has 1GB memory, then it happens to be the last thing they want to know about the graphics card. Not too bright, isn’t it?

So, let me talk about the graphics card which is present in these laptops, since it is same for only these two models of Inspiron 15R and Studio 15, I would only give a quick sneak peek on what you can do with this card in your hand.

It is ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 with 1GB of graphical memory. This means that no matter what your game is, it won’t turn your card down just because it has less memory. Trust me; 1GB is a lot for nearly every game. And I am not talking about lousy games; I am talking about Crysis Warhead, Batman, GTA IV, Stalker: Call of Pripyat, Prototype, Dirt 2, etc. The list can go on and on, the point is that you can play nearly every game on any of these laptops.

I have added ‘nearly’ because I don’t want to arise your hopes too high. Games are getting better and better every year and sooner or later a new game would come and slow your laptop down or crash. When that time comes, don’t blame your laptop for not being powerful enough. In spite of that, blame yourself, for not buying a computer build especially for games.

Well, I hope you already know about ATI 5XXX series of mobile graphics card. They are just insane and can blow every game out of the way (not nearly). This card in particular, features Eyefinity (up to 4 monitors), Avivo HD (UVD2), Full Bitstream Audio (8-ch HD Audio over HDMI), DX 11 and everything that you can hope for.

You should definitely check this link from Notebookcheck.net which demonstrates the power and features of this really fine graphics card : ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470.

Also, if you want to watch this card in action, then you shouldn’t read furthur before clicking this link: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 Capabilities.

By this time, you might be wondering and getting confused on which one of these must be in your ‘list of things to buy for graduation’. I do have something to say for this:

1GB of extra RAM (Studio 15) and slightly better processor (Core i3-370) can get you slightly better performance. But ask from yourself, is it that sane to invest Rs.5500/- for that little improvement. Your best bet would be to invest that sum of money to get 3-years of Warranty period, just to make sure that your laptop can be made anew if something ever goes wrong.

Currently Dell™ Inspiron 15R Laptop (T540611IN8) is available for Rs.38,900/- and Dell(TM) Studio 15 Laptop (S541036IN8) is available for Rs.44,400/-.

So there you have it, you can go for any of these laptops if it suits your budget, but even if you get Inspiron 15R, you will not regret it. After all, things have changed too much in just 1 year (just 2009 was enough to rule out other Intel Core processors). So when you pass your graduation and wonder why the hell did you buy a core i3 laptop when core i10 (or something) is ruling the market, then would be a nice time to blame me.

But right now, I can recommend you Inspiron 15R (above version) as much as Studio 15 (above version).

Update: I just submitted Dell Inspiron 15r to Dell’s shopping cart. Here’s the complete cost after tax. Click here.
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