HP Pavillion DV9000 laptop

Rating 9.5 out of 10.


Features:

• AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core 1.8GHz
• 120 GB hard drive
• 1GB RAM
• Integrated 802.11b/g wireless LAN
• High speed 56k modem
• 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN
  
• Lightscribe super multi 8x DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
• NVIDIA GeForce with up to 128MB (shared)
• Altec Lansing speakers
• 17" High definition , BrightView, Widescreen monitor
• Built in 1.3MP Web CAM
• Built in microphone
• 4-in-1 memory stick reader (SD, MS/Pro, MMC, XD)
  

Pro:

• 17" wide screen monitor
• Ligthscribe DVD writer
• Built in web cam
• Built in microphone
• Remote control (for windows media player)
• S-Video out
• S/PDIF audio out
• Full keyboard with num pad
  

Cons:

• A bit heavy at 7.8lbs (to be expected for a 17" laptop)
• Right shift key not in the proper place, the UP arrow takes its place (really annoying at the beginning). The Shift key is moved a bit to the left
  

I wanted a replacement for my desktop PC and I wanted a dual core laptop for video editing. When I bought this laptop I was impressed with all the gadgets that came with it; In the box there was a pair of good headphones and a remote control. When I first powered it up I noticed the built in web cam, it is really neat. Then I tried the DVD burner and noticed that it was Lightscribe enabled. I had never tried Lightscribe before and I was impressed by the results - see my Lightscribe review here.

The built-in web cam has a very good image quality even in dark rooms and with little light. The built-in microphone is really good as well and there is no feedback loop between the speakers and the microphone. The Atlec Lansing speakers are good but not excellent, though they are probably one of the best for a laptop. If the speakers aren't good enough for the application, HP was kind enough to provide us with free good quality headphones. The remote control, the S-Video and S/PDIF outputs make movie or slideshow playback on a regular TV easy and enjoyable.

The laptop is a bit heavier compared to an equivalent 15" laptop so if you are a frequent traveler who uses the laptop on the road, the extra pound or two might become a burden, but for the average home user looking for power and flexibility, it is a great little machine.

HP LightScribe DVD burner

My HP laptop came with a LightScribe enabled DVD burner. I had never used this technology before. So, needless to say, it greatly surpassed writing my disc titles with a Sharpie marker. I was impressed by the quality of the burned image, it is very sharp and clear. I had to control myself so I wouldn't spend hours designing the picture on the PC. After all, it is just a label. I found a couple of sites with free labels: lightscribe.com and supermediastore.com, and there are many others on Google.
On the downside, the image burning process can be lengthy (about 40 minutes) for a full label image using the maximum quality mode. And the price of blank CDs and DVDs that are Lightscribe enabled is about double the price of the regular media, 15$ for 10 single layer DVDs.

What is LightScribe?

LightScribe technology is used to burn labels on recordable CDs and DVDs. It was developed and licensed by HP . Right now, it is only available in black and white but HP is working on a color version. But the discs are available in different colors. The same burner that is used to burn data on the disc is used to burn the label. Just turn the disc over, choose and customize the label and press burn. It is as easy as that. Many free designs are available online and can be tweaked easily with the right software. Nero and Sonic are two common softwares that can be used to personalize the labels from a template or from your own pictures.

Sandisk Cruzer Micro 1GB flash drive

Yesterday at Costco I bought the Sandisk Cruzer 1GB flash drive, and I really like it. Of course, as with many USB devices, the installation was simple: truly plug & play. It also had some software already stored on the device, like CruzerSync to synchronize files between PCs, SKYPE to make free "phone" calls from PC to PC and the antivirus software AVAST. Of course, I bought the flash drive not for the software but for the drive itself, but the softwares bundled with it are nice to have.

The one differentiator between this drive and other drives I saw at Future Shop and Best Buy is the retractable USB connector, I don't need to worry about loosing the cap on the USB connector anymore. Also, the LED to indicate if the stick is powered (indicates when it is safe to remove the drive from the PC) is bright and easily noticeable. In all, it is a well built USB flash drive that I am sure will last me a long time. Now I can play music or movies on my Samsung home theater without the need to burn a CD, I just upload the data on the USB drive and plug it into the Samsung DVD player.

Samsumg Home Theater HT-P50 5.1 Dolby Digital

Rating: 9/10

The Samsung HT-P50 offers:

• 5 speakers
• 8-inch subwoofer
• DVD player with 5 disk changer
• MPEG, Dolby Pro Logic II, Dolby Digital, DTS decoder
• Samsung Anynet HDMI output
• USB input: plug and play
• AM/FM Radio

Pros:

• Good sound quality
• Compatible with multiple media formats: DivX, DVD-Audio/Video, MP3, WMA, JPEG, DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW playback
• USB input
• Nice design, sleek speakers
• 5 disk changer
• HDMI output for great picture quality

Cons:

• Not many inputs - just 2 composite videos and 1 optical audio
• Proprietary speaker connections

I bought this home theater system for the sleek look of the speakers because our bookshelf speakers were too bulky to hang on our family room walls. The first time I listened to the sound, I was really impressed by the quality.

Our house was pre-wired for home theater but this system has proprietary speaker connections. I was therefore forced to cut the wire on the speakers and solder it to our existing wires in the wall. I don't understand why most "home theaters in a box" come with these kinds of connections when more and more homes are getting pre-wired...

For under 400$, this system is a good buy. Don't let the term "home theater in a box" scare you away; the sound and the picture quality are very good.

Acer Aspire 5040 Laptop

Rating: 7/10
Acer Aspire 5040 laptop:

• AMD turion 64 (ML-34, 1.8GHz 1MB L2 Cache) cpu
  
• 1GB of memory
  
• 120GB of hard drive
  
• 15.4" WXGA CrystalBrite LCD display
  
• DVD-Super Multi Double Layer (DVD+R and DVD+RW)
  
• Wireless Ethernet adapter (802.11b/g)
• 56K Fax/Modem. 10/100/1000Mbps LAN
• ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M 3D graphics up to 128MB
• Windows XP Media Center Edition

Pros:

• Light weight
• Bargain price
• Quiet fan
• Good battery life

Cons:

• Buggy drivers - need to hunt around for the correct ones
• Not bundled with much useful software
• Mediocre sound quality
  

At first, out of the box, the laptop is light, weighing 3.07 kg (about 6.7 pounds). However, it comes with absolutely no CDs, not even a data recovery cd. When the laptop is first powered, there is lengthy setup time, of about 30 minutes, for Windows and all the other Acer software. One of the nice features of the laptop is the middle mouse button on the touchpad that can be used as a scroll wheel. However, every time that button was pressed, the mouse driver (Synaptics Pointing Device) would crash. Downloading an update from the Acer website didn't fix the problem. I had to download the latest version of the driver, v8.3.4, from www.synaptics.com for the problem to disappear. Once this problem fixed, I noticed that the Wireless Network Connection in Windows XP wouldn't find my network connection after the laptop was in standby mode. I tried downloading the latest Broadcom drivers and it didn't help. It is not a problem with Windows XP as I never saw this problem with any of my wireless devices before, it must be a problem with either the Acer laptop of the Broadcom drivers.

The laptop is bundled with minimal software, it does however include a 60 day subscription to Norton Antivirus. The battery life is about 3 hours with light usage, under heavy usage it is a bit under 2 hours since the cooling fan will be on more often and the CPU will be running at higher speed. The speaker are not loud enough to make video streaming a pleasant experience.

If you can live with some of the issues with this laptop, like needing to restart windows when the wireless network connection cannot be found, for 850$ Canadian, this laptop is a bargain.