Samsung r65 Battery all-laptopbattery.com |
Posted: May 27, 2018 |
It, too, is going for $550 on Amazon, but since it’s so new, user feedback is limited. It looks like the better deal on paper, but we’ll confirm in the coming weeks. Based on our latest round of research, though, the E5-573G is still a great get among midrange desktop replacements, especially if you can find it closer to the $500 mark.The 15.6-inch Toshiba Satellite C55-C5241, meanwhile, is probably the most extreme example of the trade-offs you have to consider at the bargain bin. On the one hand, it’s fairly spec’d out for its $460 asking price, with a fifth-gen Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB HDD (which you can upgrade if you’re handy enough). It’s at least comparable to the Acer above for about $100 less. It’s not an outright blazer, but speaking solely in terms of performance, it’s an overachiever.On the other hand, it’s an obvious underachiever when it comes to build quality. Its fake brushed metal aesthetic looks nice from afar, but get your hands on its all-plastic chassis and it’ll creak and bend at almost every interaction. That necessitates you be careful with it, which means it isn’t the kind of thing you’ll want to throw in a bag and carry around town. Beyond that, it has a typically middling 1366x768 display, a rigid trackpad, and a keyboard that’s just okay. Its 5-hour or so battery life is fine, but not spectacular. It weighs less than the Aspire, but at close to 5 pounds, it isn’t exactly light either.In the end, this is one of the strongest laptops you can buy for $425, and you’re buying it for that performance alone. If you know you can be gentle with it, it’s one of the few solid values in this sector.The struggle involved in finding a good budget notebook should get you to ask yourself what exactly it is that you want out of your laptop. Maybe you’ll find that most of the things you do with your computer don’t stretch too far beyond a web browser. If that’s the case, you might very well be able to get by with a Chromebook.These increasingly popular machines run Google’s Chrome OS, which effectively turns the Chrome web browser into a super lightweight operating system. They aren’t of much use without an Internet connection as a result — though web apps like Gmail and Google Drive have gained more offline functionality over time — and they can’t run more involved processes like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Excel. But since you can watch movies, listen to music, write up documents, store files, edit photos, and do a million other things through the web already, they’re enough for most needs. They’re also highly affordable (Chromebook Pixel aside). The latest Toshiba Chromebook 2 is our current favorite in this category. Its Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM don't look like much on paper, but they (along with the included SSD) absolutely breeze something as airy as Chrome OS. You still have no choice but to stick to the basics, but doing so here is much faster (and quieter) than it is on a similarly priced Windows machine. We should note that Toshiba sells a $430 model with a Core i3 processor too, but that's just about overkill for Chrome's needs, and anything over $400 is a little too pricey for all a Chromebook offers. (The latter point is a big reason why we think the Toshiba is a better buy than Dell's nicer-feeling Chromebook 13.)You also get 7-8 hours of battery life here, which is just about average for a Chromebook, but still excellent next to its Windows-based rivals. There's only 16GB of storage on our recommended configuration, but if you use Chrome OS as it's intended, that's not a massive loss. It's just part of the compromise. What really sets the Chromebook 2 apart is its vivid 1080p IPS display. It’s gorgeous, and although it can pick up some glare, in many ways it’s a better screen than that of a $1,000 Macbook Air. Add to that a comfortable enough keyboard (that's now backlit), a responsive trackpad, superb speakers, 802.11ac WiFi support, and a relatively stylish design, and you have a fantastic overall value at $330 — so long as you can accept Chrome OS’s limitations.If the Chromebook idea interests you but you want something a little more spacious than the 13-inch Toshiba above or the sea of 11-inch alternatives, have a look at the Acer Chromebook 15. It’s one of the few other Chrome OS devices with a 1080p IPS display, which looks good, even if its colors and viewing angles aren’t as vivid as those of the Chromebook 2. It’s not the best-looking device around, and its larger frame means it isn’t exactly travel-friendly, but it’s sturdy and well-made. Its keyboard is dependable, too.
The real hook here is its performance. The Chromebook 15’s fifth-gen Intel Celeron processor easily breezes through Chrome OS, loading web pages quickly and powering through handfuls of tabs with aplomb. It also gets more than 9 hours of battery life on average, which is great even by Chromebook standards. If you’re looking for a Chromebook that’s better suited for getting things done, this is the one to buy. In response to the growing popularity of Chromebooks, various laptop makers have started churning out $200ish Windows machines that run on similarly modest specs. Now, because they use the same full-on OS available on $1,000 notebooks, these devices aren’t nearly as responsive as their Google-bred alternatives. They usually have to cut corners on hardware to hit their price point, too. At the same time, they do run a full-on OS, so they have access to desktop apps like Word, Excel, or anything else you’d use outside of a web browser. (Just don’t expect to get heavy Photoshop editing out of their entry-level processors.) The idea is to sacrifice some speed and build quality in exchange for greater offline capability. In the best cases, all of this makes for a decent secondary or travel-centric device. They’re like modern netbooks. As of this writing, the Lenovo Ideapad 100s is the best of those best cases. Like any other ultra-budget notebook, it’s not strong — its modest Intel Atom chip and 2GB of RAM can’t handle too many open apps or tabs at once, and gaming is just about impossible. It only has 32GB of storage, its keyboard flexes, and it doesn't support 802.11ac WiFi. Its trackpad is strangely devoid of all multi-touch support, too. It’s a $180 laptop, in other words.Still, when used in moderation, the Ideapad is surprisingly fluid next to its peers. Word and the like are perfectly agreeable, and there’s never too much lag once everything’s up and loaded. The keyboard is well-sized and comfortable outside of that flexing problem, and the 11.6-inch 1366x768 TN display is accurate enough for the money. It’s all good enough to get lighter stuff done. It also comes pre-packaged with a free year of Office 365 and 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive storage. What really sells the Ideapad is its build and battery life. It’s plastic, but it’s colorful, smooth, and sturdy, with a flexible hinge that helps mitigate the display’s iffy viewing angles. It doesn’t explicitly look cheap. The battery, meanwhile, lasts an excellent 10-11 hours per charge.
Don’t expect this — or the HP Stream 11, or the Acer Aspire One Cloudbook — to act as your primary device, but if you’re frequently on the move or you only have $200 to spend, the Ideapad 100s should serve you well. It’s worth noting that there’s a 14-inch model, too, but we don’t think it’s worth sacrificing portability for something this underpowered. Whether for work or pleasure, traveling shouldn’t be stressful. But if you’re the type who can’t stop using things with screens — i.e., if you’re a human in 2015 — you may have no choice but to lug along an overflow of gadgets. That might not only include your basic smartphone, tablet, or laptop, but also a handful of accessories needed to keep them up and running.If that sounds like a problem you’ve had before, the HooToo TripMate Elite should help you pack a little lighter. Priced at $38, it’s an all-in-one device that simultaneously serves as a portable battery, USB wall charger, travel WiFi router, and a network-attached storage (or NAS). It packs all this into something the size of a glossy black MacBook charger. Considering how many mini routers, NAS devices, and chargers there are that can’t do their one job right, it’s easy to be skeptical of something that claims to replicate all of them at once. The TripMate, however, actually does work. It isn’t the best at any one of its functions, but it’s serviceable enough at each to come in handy on the go.As a battery and wall charger, it works fine. It has a foldable AC plug and two USB ports built-in — one at 1A, the other at 1/2.1A — and carries a 6,000mAh capacity. That’s enough to charge most smartphones about twice, and most tablets around halfway. When you need to charge the TripMate itself, you just plug it into an outlet.The router and personal cloud features are a little more exciting. Of the two, the router functionality probably works best. It’s altogether simple to set up, and when plugged into a modem, gets close to your maximum internet speeds. There’s an ethernet port on its back, so if you’re staying in a hotel room with just a cabled connection, you can just hook it up here and make it wireless. The device can also act as a bridge for multiple wireless connections at once. And with a little ingenuity, you can use it to get something like a Chromecast working over previously inaccessible networks.
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