Toshiba Portable Hard Drive (HDDR640E04XR) review

I got my hands on this 2.5" 640GB USB 2.0 external hard drive and thought i'd write a quick review on it. 

Here are the main points:

• USB powered
• Internal shock sensor
• Backup software (with optional 256-Bit AES encryption)
• Size 3.19" x 0.65" x 5" (81.026mm x 16.5mm x 127mm)
• Weight 6oz (170g)

The case is glossy plastic with a mini-usb port on the side, a white activity led on the top and two rubber strips on the bottom that serve as feet.

It's compatible with PC and Mac and comes with backup software for both, though complete system backup is supported only on Windows. The software is on the drive itself, there are no CDs. It's simple and easy to use. Here's how it looks on Windows:

You can backup files and folders as well as your entire system. You do the latter either directly to the hard drive or to a CD/DVD. If you do it to the hard drive it makes it bootable which is quite convenient. Booting from the drive offers you a simple recovery window where you can select what restore point you want to use.

The actual size of the disk is 596GB and it comes pre-formated with FAT32. You can convert it to NTFS without loosing the backup software via a wizard that runs the first time you plug the drive in.

Finally, the moment of truth - CrystalDiskMark:

Overall it's a nice little disk to carry around, if it only were a bit faster.

Sony VAIO P review (VGN-P699E)

specs | design | performance | in the box | conclusion

Quick specs

• Intel Atom Z540 1.86GHz
• 1x2GB RAM DDR2 @ 533MHz
• Samsung 1.8" 256GB SSD HDD
• Intel GMA 500
• 8" 25:12 aspect LED screen (1600x769) w/ 0.3MP webcam
• Atheros AR928x 802.11 BGN wifi + bluetooth + gps
• 2-cell 2100mah 16Wh battery
• Weight 1.5lb (0.7kg)

Details

Design
Sony laptops are designed usually fairly well and this one is no exception. It's solidly built, very light and thin, glossy all over with a mate keyboard.

Ports and layout:
Because of the small size the laptop has a limited number of ports, all of them on the sides except for the SD card and Memory Stick slots which are in the front. There is no optical drive.

On the right side we have:  1 USB and the VGA/Network adapter port.
On the left side we have: AC, 1USB and headphone jack.

In the front we have: wireless on/off switch, SD card slot, Memory Stick SG Duo slot and spring loaded Power switch.

The speakers are located above the keyboard in the left and right corner and provide medium sound quality. They're not very loud.

This model also has the Verizon Wireless Mobile Broadband (use your data-plan for internet access) and built in GPS. The navigation software offered is Microsoft Streets and Trips but you can use a number of other programs available, Garmin Mobile PC being one of the better ones out there. The usefulness of the GPS is questionable however since the computer does not have a touchscreen nor are the speakers loud enough to be heard in a car.

Display:
The laptop has a 8" LED glossy screen, with an uncommon 25:12 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1600x768. This resolution is too big for an 8" screen so things look a little small. Increasing the DPI to at least 125% solves the problem in windows (still not all applications are aware of this setting) but not when browsing the web. You will have to zoom in on most websites as the text initially is very hard to read. A more traditional aspect ratio would've provided a much better browsing experience with far less scrolling. In the upper right corner of the screen there's a webcam with good video quality. The screen looks bright and colorful offering medium horizontal and vertical viewing angles and being glossy you can use it as a mirror when dark surfaces are displayed. This is how far it will open:

Keyboard and touchpad:

This laptop does not have a touchpad. Instead it's got a pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard and three mouse buttons on the bottom of the keyboard. The pointing stick can be frustrating at times and takes some getting used to.

The keyboard is excellent for on such a small laptop. It's surprisingly large and comfortable to type on. The layout is good with big well spaced keys. Most things are where you'd expect them to be. It's got a solid fee with no flexing or bending of any kind.

Battery and AC adapter:
This is the laptop's weakest point. The standard battery is a weak 2-cell 2100mah 16Wh rated for 3.5 hours but a more realistic figure is about 2 hours. It does not stick out however and the AC adapter is one of the smallest i've seen. The VGA/Network adapter clips onto the battery so you don't loose it when carrying around.

Performance
This small ultra portable comes with a pretty useful feature that Sony calls an Instant Mode. It's an (almost) instant OS that offers basic things like browsing pictures, watching videos, a web browser, an IM client, Skype, etc. You boot into it by pressing the "Xross Media Bar" button when the computer is off and it takes about 16 seconds to load. It's called that because it uses the same type of user interface as the PSP and the PS3.

The computer came pre-installed with windows vista 32-bit. It's quite slow so i replaced it with windows 7 ultimate 32-bit before i ran any of the benchmarks. It boots from power-on to login screen in 30 sec. Shut down takes 10 secs from clicking the button in the start menu to power-off. Going to sleep takes a quick 4 seconds and waking up - only 2 seconds. 

The laptop also has completely passive cooling so it's practically silent. It does get a little warm but nothing uncomfortable.

Windows experience index:

On AC power in "High Performance" profile - 2.5

Super PI for 1mil and 8mil (on AC power):

"High Performance" profile

CrystalDiskMark:

PCMark05:
On AC power in "High Performance" profile - 1794
On battery power in "High Performance" profile - 1805

3DMark06:

On AC power in "High Performance" profile - 60

On battery power in "High Performnce" profile - 60

Wi-fi speed (on AC power):

Tested on Asus RT-N16 b/g/n wireless router at a distance of 5 feet (2 meters).

On 802.11g it averages to 2.35MB/s - aprox. 40% link utilization

On 802.11n it connects at only 65Mbps and averages to 8MB/s - aprox. 95% link utilization

Video playback:

Playback of a 720p h264 movie proved to be difficult initially. However the latest K-Lite Codec Pack supports DirectX Video Acceleration (using the videocard to assist in decoding the video). Setting the output to "EVR Custom" and "D3D Fullscreen" in Media Player Classic allowed the video to play smoothly and almost lag-free.

CPU usage playing 720p with DirectX Video Acceleration

Playing a video on Hulu was not as good however. Full screen is very slow and even in a window, it starts smooth but soon after gets choppy and unwatchable.

CPU usage playing Hulu in a window

Youtube 480p videos aren't good either starting ok but getting choppy later on.

 CPU usage playing 480p Youtube

Finally Youtube 360p videos play nice and smooth.

 CPU usage playing 360p Youtube

Hopefully when Flash starts using the videocard for rendering these issues will be resolved.

Compared to Fujitsu U820

What's in the box
Battery, AC adapter, vga/network adapter, noise canceling headphones, cleaning cloth, two spare pointing stick caps, manual.

Pros
- excellent keyboard for such a small form factor
- "Instant Mode"
- passive cooling + SSD = completely silent
- good build quality
- small power adapter
- very thin and light

Cons
- high screen resolution, fonts too small at times (1600x768)
- no touchpad, frustrating pointing stick
- ultra wide glossy screen (25:12 aspect) with medium viewing angles
- very poor battery life

Conclusion
Sony has managed to pack an incredible amount of features into such a small device but i am unclear on what they were trying to do with it. The two basic things an ultra-portable needs to do well is offer good browsing experience and have long battery life. The VAIO P doesn't do either of those things well. While the specs and performance are above your typical netbook, the super-wide screen with its high resolution and a meager 2 hours of battery life simply kill the deal. It's great otherwise :)

Asus UL50-VT review

specs | design | performance | in the box | conclusion

Quick specs

• Intel Core2 Duo ULV SU7300 1.3GHz
• 2x2GB RAM DDR3 @ 533MHz
• 2.5" 5400RPM 500GB SATA HDD
• GeForce G210M w/ 512MB RAM / Intel GMA 4500MHD
• 15.6" 16:9 LED screen (1366x768) w/ 0.3MP webcam
• Atheros AR9285 802.11 BGN wifi
• DVD-RW optical drive
• 8-cell 5600MAh 84Wh battery
• Weight 5lb (2.4kg)

Details

Design
As with most Asus laptops the first impression is quite good. The laptop is well built and feels solid (except for the keyboard, see below). The top cover is made of brushed aluminum and looks very nice.

Ports and layout:
The laptop has all its ports on the sides and personally i consider that a design flaw. It's not that big of a deal on a portable laptop as it is on a workstation replacement tho. Most things that get cables plugged into them (usb, network, power, video, etc.) should be on the back because it's easier to manage and less cluttered when you have all of them connected.

On the right side we have: 1 USB, optical drive, network, VGA and kensington lock. I don't like having the optical drive on the right side because i'm right handed and when using an external mouse it gets in the way when inserting and ejecting a disc.

On the left side we have: AC, MMC/SD/MS Card Reader, HDMI, 2 USB, mic in and headphone jack.

The speakers are on the front of the laptop and provide good sound quality.

Display:
The laptop has a 15.6" LED glossy screen, 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of only 1366x768. On the top it has a 0.3MP webcam with medium quality and a mic. The screen looks bright and colorful offering very good horizontal viewing angles but being glossy you can use it as a mirror when dark surfaces are displayed. It can be challenging to view outdoors. This is how far it opens:

Keyboard and touchpad:

The multi-gesture touchpad is large in size with only one button, placed approximately two inches to the the left from center. It's as glossy as the palm rest area and has no edges around it. This makes it quite sticky and hard to move your finger around. Drag-and-drop is particularly difficult since not only the touchpad is sticky but you can easily move outside of it which makes whatever you were dragging drop. Edges around the touchpad and two buttons would be better.

The keyboard is large with well spaced and separated keys. The layout is good (even got a numpad) except for the arrow keys which could be bigger and placed better. Mechanically the keyboard is a bit mushy and flexes when typing on it. Certainly not as solid as the rest of this really well-built laptop.

Battery and AC adapter:
The laptop came with a 8-cell 5800MAh 84Wh battery rated for 11h30m. I doubt it would get that much with anything but the minimum load on but i haven't tested it. The battery does not stick out and the AC adapter is small enough to be carried around easily.

Performance

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this laptop is that it has two videocards. A discreet Nvidia GeForce G210M and an integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD. You can switch between the two on the fly by pressing the "GraphiX Boost" button (above the keyboard on the left) once you're in windows. The button toggles between three modes - "Power Savings Mode" (use integrated videocard), "High Performance Mode" (use discreet videocard) and "Auto Detect Mode".

Also interesting is that Asus encourages you to overclock the laptop for a little extra power. There's a widget on the desktop that allows you to raise the CPU speed from 1.3GHz to 1.7GHz and the RAM speed from 400MHz to 533Mhz just by flipping a virtual switch. They call it "Asus Turbo 33", hinting at the 33% speed increase i assume. Well put that number to the test below. Here's what CPU-Z shows when overclocked:

This laptop comes with Splashtop, another interesting feature, which Asus calls Express Gate. It's an (almost) instant linux OS that offers basic things like a web browser, an IM client, Skype, etc. You boot into it by pressing the "GraphiX Boost" button when the computer is off and it takes about 6 seconds to load.

The main OS is windows 7 home premium 64-bit. It boots from power-on to login screen in 32 sec. Shut down takes 10 seconds from clicking the button to power-off. Going to sleep takes 5 seconds and waking up - 2 seconds. The OS and all the bundled software take about 27gigs.

Windows experience index:

On AC power in "High Performance Mode" - 4.2

On AC power in "High Performance Mode" and overclocked - 4.9

Super PI for 1mil and 8mil (on AC power default and overclocked):

When overclocked (right) Super PI runs about 27% faster

PCMark05:

On AC power in "Power Savings Mode" and Intel graphics - 2473

On AC power in "High Performance Mode" and Nvidia graphics - 3726 (50% faster)

On AC power in "High Performance Mode" and Nvidia graphics overclocked - 4090 (10% faster)

On battery power in "High Performance Mode" and Nvidia graphics - 3441

Bottom line is that overclocking gives you only about 10% (not 33%) increase in overall computer performance that PCMark measures.

3DMark06:

On AC power in "High Performance Mode" - 3301

On AC power in "High Performance Mode" overclocked - 3425 (4% faster)

On battery power in "High Performance Mode" - 3301

As you can see, overclocking only provides a 4% increase in gaming performance that 3DMark measures. Note that 3DMark could not run at all in "Power Savings Mode" with the Intel videocard, complaining about the lack of D3D support.

Wi-fi speed (on AC power):
Tested on Asus RT-N16 b/g/n wireless router at a distance of 5 feet (2 meters).

On 802.11g it averages to 2.5MB/s - aprox. 40% link utilization

On 802.11n it connects at only 65Mbps and averages to 5.25MB/s - aprox. 70% link utilization

What's in the box
Battery, AC adapter, hand strap, factory restore cd, drivers cd, manual.

Pros
- 2 videocards, integrated and discreet
- "Express Gate" aka Splashtop (instant boot OS)
- easy to overclock with the desktop widget
- great build quality, aluminum top
- big touchpad
- small power adapter
- thin

Cons
- low screen resolution (1366x768)
- hard to use touchpad, sticky and edge-less
- mushy keyboard, flexes when typing
- glossy screen

Conclusion
Asus is trying to impress the the mobile computer enthusiast with this sleek laptop. It's got great innovative features like 2 videocards, one button overclocking and an instant boot OS. It's thin and really well built but disappoints when it comes to the screen resolution, less than solid keyboard and sticky touchpad.