The dv4-2045dx ran for 2 hours and 31 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the included six-cell battery. This is pretty short in comparison with other systems that are at or below its price. However, the hard drive also spins at 7,200rpm, which helps explain why it’s shorter than most on our demanding drain test. In anecdotal testing, we got up to 3 hours of laptop battery life; not great, but more typical of what you can expect. Also, despite being Energy Star qualified, it costs more to run it annually than any of the other budget notebooks in our roundup .
The NW270’s highlight feature is its optical drive. It’s capable of playing Blu-ray discs and reading and writing DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray support typically shows up on larger, pricier laptops, though it has started to trickle down the price ladder. To wit, the 17.3-inch HP Pavilion dv7-3065dx features a Blu-ray drive and costs $729.
Take the battery life you see advertised for any laptop with a grain of salt. Why? A few vendors still use unrealistic testing parameters in order to report the longest A1175 battery life possible. For example, a “tested” laptop simply might be turned on, with the screen brightness lowered to the darkest level, and allowed to run down without anyone touching it. When the laptop undergoes typical, everyday use–say, with the screen brightness turned up to a readable level and with the user working in several applications or playing a CD or DVD movie–its battery life could be much shorter than a vendor’s claims.
The latest 17-inch MacBook Pro is by all measures a minor hardware upgrade over its predecessor, offering only slightly faster processor options and an increase in hard-drive capacity. The more significant change is the value you get for your money. If you purchased a 17-inch MacBook Pro after February’s unibody introduction, you have little reason to upgrade now–or to regret your purchase. But if you’ve been on the fence about splurging for the monster of all MacBooks, the decision to buy just got easier: This is the lowest price Apple has ever charged for a top-of-the-line notebook.
Rechargeables can be retrained by wearing them down until they’re drained and then recharging, but there are also “smart rechargers” that can discharge and charge laptop batteries until they’re like new and that won’t overcharge a battery.
Happily, they can be recharged inside the unit via your computer’s USB port or load in any pair of AA’s you have lying around if you’re pressed for time. The device is designed to be hand-held, but for those get-’em-perfect moments,the UltraHD offers an optional tripod for an extra $15. Since it’s a coveted item for teens, it’s too bad the Flip Mino’s trendy colors and designs aren’t yet available for this model; it comes in standard white and black.
There are a few reasons why we choose to use TMPGEnc for our tests. The first relates to the reasons laid out above. The sheer ease of use and flexibility is appreciated. Beyond that, the application does us a huge favor by tracking the encoding time, so that we can actually look away while an encode is taking place and not be afraid that we’ll miss the final encoding time. Believe it or not, not all transcoding applications work like this.
I haven’t touched the 4GB model of the notebook, so it could be that things improve a little there, but I can’t state for that certain. It does surprise me, though, that with Vista running on a low-powered notebook like this, HP had no problem with loading the hard drive to the nines with bloatware. But ahem, I’ve already whined about that enough as is.