Desktop External Hard Drive 34275 Iomega Prestige 1 TB USB 2.0

Amazon offers this unit for less than some big-box stores. Another good reason to buy from Amazon.

Always remember that outfits like iomega, LaCie, Fantom and others are packagers, not hard drive manufacturers. There are only a few hard drive manufacturers and all of them turn out good products. This does not mean that hard drives don't fail - they do and anyone who keeps only one copy of critical data is a fool.

The units I purchased both had current models of Seagate Barracuda drives installed: excellent devices. Right now, the drives themselves from some sources cost only a few dollars less than the iomega unit, so you are getting the external housing for just a few dollars.
The housing has a power switch, very nice at a time when other manufacturers are eliminating such "frills" and a white activity light on the side, which strikes me as a strange place for it. Since the housing has no fan, there is no fan noise. The noise from the drive itself should be imperceptible. (If it isn't, return the unit immediately.)The housing remains cool to the touch in use.

The unit size is nice and a plastic base is included for those who prefer a vertical mounting.

A power supply and USB cable round out the package.

One of the very nice aspects of this unit is that there is no software installed on the drive - nor is any included in the box. Yea! The drive comes NTFS formatted and, for use with an Apple Macintosh, must be reformatted.

Overall, a very nice value.

ASUS UL30A-X5 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop - 12 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

Discharge yourself by power cords and begin exploring with up to an astonishing 12 hours of all-day battery life with the ASUS UL30A-X5, cheers to its hyper- Low Voltage (ULV) Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 central processing unit and 13.3-inch LED-backlit display, which aggregates vivacious visuals with boosted energy efficiency. This fashionable, ultra-portable notebook boasts a brushed aluminum lid that not only looks glorious, but also assists in conserving its fashionable exterior day-to-day. The UL30A also features a multi-gesture touchpad, which enables you to intuitively zoom in or out of pictures via pinching, or navigate up and down pages by sliding your finger.

Pre-installed with the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium OS (64-bit version), you will be able to easily make a home network and share all of your deary photographs, videos, and music. Windows 7 is the easiest, fastest, and most piquant version of Windows yet. Best way to find and manage files, like bound Lists and bettered taskbar previews, help you accelerate through daily tasks. Windows 7 is configured for firmer and more dependable performance, so your personal computer just works the way you want it to.

Feel FastBoot, the singular performance boost for Windows 7 made expected by ASUS's close partnership with Microsoft. With ASUS scoop FastBoot technology, this Windows 7-enabled ASUS notebook commences in a staggering 30 seconds.

Compact and under 1-inch thin, you'll be able to fit the UL30A almost anywhere--freeing space for books, files, or whatsoever else you need to enjoy a spacious workspace. The UL30A includes Altec Lansing speakers plus SRS surround for a virtual home theater experience on the go, also as an HDMI port for connecting to an HDTV at home. You'll be able to store all of your favorite applications, most important documents, and large video and audio libraries with the generous 500 GB hard drive. Other features include 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (maximum capacity), integrated webcam, Draft-N Wi-Fi networking (802.11b/g/n), Intel GMA 4500MHD integrated video graphics, and multi-format memory card reader.  And in addition to a 1 year global warranty, the ASUS UL30A-X5 includes a 1 year Accidental Damage Warranty (ADW).

Just received my Asus UL30A-X5 yesterday. After much review, and a try-out with an Acer 1410, I decided that I wanted a full-sized chiclet/island keyboard and the larger screen. I'm already quite pleased with my decision. At the <$700 price point, this is an excellent notebook.

Pros
- Keyboard. A pleasure to type on.
- Touchpad. It drags at first, but once you get some finger oil on it, and change the pointer speed, it's one of the best that I've used. Very smooth two finger scroller. Support for customized two and three finger click.
- Screen. Bright and easy to read at 30 degree angles.
- Battery life. Yes, it will do over 10 hours.
- Weight/size. 1 inch thin and very light.
- Body. Love the brushed black metal look on the case.
- Asus facial recognition login. Didn't think that I would care, but it's nice to have the computer log in, without touch, when I'm sitting in front of it.
- Asus FastBoot (not the BIOS fast boot). This lets you configure which programs load during startup and which load after. Speeds up the boot quite a bit.
- Decent speakers. Not ear-destroying, but suitable for the size. Much better than most netbooks.

Cons
- Placement of touchpad. It still registers my palm as I'm typing even at the extreme setting. Downloaded the new touchpad driver, but that didn't fix. Still looking for a solution. This is by far the most frustrating problem. UPDATE: The TouchFreeze utility seems to almost fix the issue.
- Case still shows fingerprints.
- Web cam is low res and has difficulty in low light (haven't tried different drivers yet).

HP Pavilion DV6-1354US 15.6-Inch Black Laptop - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

 

Product Features and Technical Details

Product Features

• 2.2GHz Intel Core2 Duo T6600 Processor (2MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM (2 Dimm), Max supported: 8 GB
• 500 GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive, LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD±R/RW with Double Layer Support
• 15.6" Diagonal High Definition HP LED BrightView Display(1366x768); Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD (shared) with up to 1.6 GB total available graphics memory
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit, *Up to 4 Hour of Battery Life

Processor, Memory, and Motherboard

• Processor: 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• RAM: 4 GB
• RAM Type: SDRAM
• Memory Slots: 2

Hard Drive

• Size: 500 GB

Cases and Expandability

• Size (LWH): 14.9 inches, 10.15 inches, 1.61 inches
• Weight: 6.34 pounds

I purchased model DV6-1354US with 500gb hard drive and 6 cell battery. I use this laptop for editing photos with Adobe Photoshop CS4, as well as editing audio with Adobe Audition 2.0.

I have a five year old HP laptop running XP and it is still going strong. Despite outsourced Indian phone support, I was able to communicate support issues effectively. I am confident in future hardware performance and support from HP.

Transition from XP to Windows 7 was intuitive. The new taskbar is my favorite improvement. Followed by much better graphic interface and widgets. Some of my XP software causes Windows 7 to turn off Aero mode. I feel that windows has caught up with Apple in terms of graphics and workflow.

As far as laptop is concerned, Dave from Portland has a great review comparing the different models available on Amazon. The DV6-1354US is sufficient for me to use Adobe Photoshop and Audition, as well as multitask.

I will never go to a laptop again without a numeric keypad, this was an unexpected plus. I do miss the old HP media controls above the keyboard. They are replaced now by a volume and wireless control. I like that they are no longer buttons but touch sensitive surfaces above the keyboard.

The DV6 is quieter and cooler than my old HP. The power cord is beefier, which was always a problem with my old HP. Although I would prefer a magnetic power cord like Apple offers. Compared to other manufacturers, I would have to say that HP has the best price for great, reliable hardware.

Everything is a wonderful improvement except for the sound. Frequently, friends would ask where the music was coming from when I used my old DV1000. I felt that the sound was very rich for such a small system. I find the DV6 to have a much shallower, smaller sound that finds trouble filling a bedroom. For this reason, I drop the DV6 to four stars.

Also, the DV6 doesn't come with recovery disks. You need 3 DVD+R or -R (not RW) disks to create your own.

Overall, I really enjoy this computer, and probably will continue to enjoy it for another 5 to 7 years until RAM is in petabytes and laptops cook dinners. If I had to do it again I would still choose it over an Acer, Asus, Dell, Mac, or Sony.

Toshiba Satellite L505-S5993 TruBrite 15.6-Inch Grey/Black Laptop - 2 Hours 25 Minutes of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

 
I bought this machine 2 weeks ago to replace an old personal eMachines laptop, I use an IBM Thinkpad for work. This computer stacks up nicely compared to all the other laptops I've used. First, the screen is very bright and vivid. I love the number pad, it's great not having to hunt and peck for the numbers across the top of the keys. Without a doubt, the memory and RAM are great at this price point. Unfortunately, I didn't get the great deal some others did, but even at $579, it's still a good value. I've already loaded up my iTunes and other applications and it runs smoothly and quickly. It was a breeze to set up.

The only draw back is the touch pad, as others have mentioned. When I bought it, I'd read some reviews that pointed to the frustrations this thing caused, but I figured people were just being picky. They weren't - it stinks. First it's a bit hard to see, but that's not such a big deal. The real issue is the application. I've gone in and adjusted the settings every which way possible, I can't get it to function as I want. I ultimately turned off the tapping function (way too sensitive at every setting) and I'm still not happy. I find myself using the pad and it randomly adjusts the zoom level of the screen. I've no doubt that this issue can be resolved with some setting, but I can't find it.


To summarize, the touchpad is bad enough to take away 1 star, but the pros far outweigh this con, especially if you use an external mouse. Do your research, you probably won't find a machine with this much to offer at a similar price point.