Battery Talk

Dell inspiron 1520 review

The Dell Inspiron 1520 under review here is the latest 15.4” in an ever-growing succession of what can be categorized as “consumer mainstream” notebooks offered by Dell’s Home & Home Office division. Since the release of the 1520, Dell has also made available a very similar machine, the Vostro 1500, which can be purchased from the Small Business site. Unlike the Inspiron 1520, which can be configured with any one of eight different colors, the Vostro 1500 is solid black. The Vostro also provides a Windows XP option, which is unavailable in the Inspiron 1520 battery.

It should also be noted, for the benefit of anyone who is somewhat new to this website, that there is plenty of additional information on the 1520, including an excellent full-featured review by someone who actually purchased the 1520, as well as a side-by-side comparison of the 1520 and the HP dv6000t battery; this comparison includes a video that is definitely worth watching for anyone considering the Inspiron 1520, the HP dv6500t or any other 15.4” consumer notebook.

Dell Inspiron 1520 Specs:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 (2.0 GHz/4MB L2 Cache)
OS: Microsoft Vista Home Premium
Hard Drive: 160 GB SATA @ 5400RPM
Screen: 15.4″ WSXGA Widescreen (1680 x 1050)
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT 256MB
RAM: 2.0GB DDR2 SDRAM @667 MHz (2 x 1GB)
Optical Drive: 8x CD/DVD burner (DVDRW) w/Double Layer Support
Battery: 9-cell lithium ion inspiron 1520 battery
Wireless: Intel 4965AGN
Weight: 6.4 lbs
Dimensions: 1.47-1.65” (H) x 14.12 “ (W) x 10.59″ (D)
Ports/Slots: 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire); 4 Universal Serial Bus (USB 2.0); 8-in-1 Memory Card Reader; VGA Out; S-Video; RJ-45 Ethernet LAN; RJ-11 Modem; ExpressCard 54mm; stereo in, headphone/speaker out and dual digital mics
Initial Impressions

This Inspiron 1520 battery weighs about six and a half pounds and is considered a mainstream consumer notebook. Though Dell allows customization of the lid in up to eight different colors, our model has a conservative looking black lid. Because of that our machine lacks some of the consumer flair a “Flamingo Pink” lid would have offered. Nonetheless, my first impressions had to do with a couple of things that distinguish the 1520 from its predecessors:

The overall look is very different, in a good way.
The hardware, particularly in the form of graphics processing, will allow the 1520 to perform about as well as any notebook on the market, with the exception of outlandishly expensive gaming machines that lack any concessions with respect to size, battery life and cost.
These two characteristics are what make the 1520 such an impressive achievement. I actually briefly owned the previous Inspiron e1705 generation’s model, and reviewed the prior-generation e1405 thin-and-light notebook. I must say, the look of the current lineup is immeasurably more appealing. The old silver-and-white style always got me thinking of things like shag carpet and popcorn ceilings: sure, one can make a case for these innovations, just as one can make a case for thick white plastic trim around a notebook, but in the end (which usually comes within a matter of weeks if not months), the style grows tired, the initial promise hollow. The new Inspiron series design is cleaner, simpler and more tasteful. A cousin of the 1520, which shares its look, is the AMD-based Inspiron 1521.

Purchasing Considerations

Though this notebook was sent by Dell GK479 for review purposes and not purchased, I wanted to touch on the above topic, simply because there is something of an art to purchasing a Dell consumer notebook. There are many decisions to make, and like all decisions, they carry with them the opportunity for regret or satisfaction. I heartily endorse this web site’s forums for a little glimpse into the thought, action and subsequent level of satisfaction of other buyers.

As of this writing, deliberately moving along the Dell purchasing highway results in:

An Inspiron 1520 with a fairly basic configuration, but one more than adequate for general media and office tasks, for just over $900.
A deluxe performance configuration, virtually identical to this review machine, for just over $1500.
These prices reflect no special discounts or coupons, just today’s standard upgrades and reductions, which are plainly available to anyone who orders a 1520 today. In any case, at the high end particularly, these prices strike me as very competitive, and a savvy shopper who finds coupons, buys their own memory and times the Dell marketing promotions can do better on price.

One thing I found interesting while configuring a couple of 1520s on the Dell laptop battery site was the price of a RAM upgrade from 2GB to 4GB: $850. Had I selected a higher-priced starting point, meaning a more full-figured set of warranty and support options, the cost of these 2 gigabytes of RAM would have moved away from the direction of a cool grand, but not by much. I saw no mention of this upgrade including a complimentary iPhone or round-trip flight to London, but it is there and available. That said, I would definitely opt for the T7300 CPU and the 8600M GT graphics included in this review model, if at all possible. While these enhancements will probably add three or four hundred dollars to the final price, they are well worth the cost and will almost certainly give the 1520 a longer useful life.

Design

As noted, I like the look of the Inspiron 1520 and see it as a vast improvement over the Inspiron e1505 battery, the 1520’s predecessor. However, one thing I’ll mention is that my own preference is the black lid of this review model because I find, in pictures at least, that the machines with colored lids have too much color for me. Two distinct colors, in this case silver and black, are just about right. I also like the aforementioned Vostro 1500, very similar to this 1520 and available at the Dell Small Business site, because of the all-black look, including a black keyboard, and the possibility of Windows XP. Though many won’t, I see a black keyboard and XP as decided advantages.

Also a welcome change is the placement and position of the keyboard and touchpad. The prior line of Inspirons featured a somewhat odd shaped keyboard that was set very close to the LCD, and a rather large touchpad placed in the middle of a vast sea of silver plastic. While this did allow the palm rests to accommodate even the most monstrous palms, the new Inspiron 1720 battery line, as represented by this review 1520, has a slightly smaller touchpad and a more centered keyboard; this redesign makes for more comfortable typing and touchpad operation, besides being more aesthetically harmonious.

(view large image)

Build

The Inspiron 1520 feels very solid. The only issue, which has been mentioned elsewhere, is the screen latch, which does have some play. Aside from this lack of a nice, snug fit, the latch did not bother me, and I found nothing in the build quality that would make me hesitant to purchase a 1520. Firm but gentle pushing and prodding revealed no flex or weakness.

Input and Output Ports

The Inspiron 1520 has the following ports selection:

(4) USB 2.0 Ports
Integrated 10/100 LAN and 56K Modem
IEEE 1394a
8-in-1 Card Reader
VGA Video Output and S-Video
Stereo In, Headphone/Speaker Out and Dual Digital Mics
ExpressCard 54mm Slot

Color and brightness were both good on the WSXGA glossy LCD. While I like and would myself choose this option, other resolutions are available: 1280×800 WXGA, in both glossy and non-glossy, and 1440×900, glossy only. This represents improved LCD variety and is a major selling point of the 1520; there is something for nearly everyone. Careful scrutiny revealed only one utterly trivial imperfection in the screen: an eighth of an inch or so of uneven backlighting at the bottom of the LCD, which was only visible when I looked very closely while running a screen saver with a dark background. There has been some discussion in this site’s forums about “grainy” LCDs in the 1520, but I detected none of this. However, I am admittedly not a good cohort for those studying LCD perfection; generally (but not always) I’m okay with the screens I use. Everest Home lists the screen as an SEC3350, a Seiko Epson manufactured LCD.

Graphics

The NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT is currently among the cream of the crop in notebook GPUs. Athough RivaTuner indicated that the 8600m in the Inspiron 1520 had DDR3 memory, in reality it is DDR2, which may be dissapointing to some. All the same, it’s a powerful card and there were no graphics-related problems during my time with the 8600M. For those interested in gaming considerations, there is plenty of real-world information in this web site’s forums.

Sound

As always, or almost always, when discussing notebook sound: more than adequate for getting the gist, feel and intent of what’s being played, but definitely lacking in bass. Headphones or external speakers will provide a much more lifelike experience.

Multimedia Features

This 1520 came with a remote, snugly ensconced in the ExpressCard slot, as well as an array of physical media buttons on the front of the notebook. Both the built-in buttons and the remote worked as expected, forwarding and pausing and muting in accordance with my wishes.

Processor and Performance

Thanks to the very strong components, performance was always good, regardless of the stress put on system resources such as RAM and CPU. The new Santa Rosa platform coupled with an Intel T7300 CPU, together with a stronger GPU, outperformed my “old” T2400-based Dell Precision M65 by a wide margin on all benchmarks.

For prospective buyers, it may be worth adding that this review 1520’s configuration is worth considering if one is looking for excellent performance while keeping the price reasonably modest. The T7300 is the cheapest available CPU that comes with 4MB of Level 2 cache, the 8600M GT GPU will provide optimal graphics performance, and anything less than 2GB RAM will significantly hinder performance.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Dell Inspiron 1520 keyboard (view large image)

Keys are responsive and have good travel. Overall, I’d say Dell has done an excellent job with the 1520’s keyboard, both in terms of the feel and the new placement that doesn’t err northward the way the last-generation Inspirons did, especially the e1505 and Dell e1705 battery. Individual key placement makes sense, being more or less standard, and the half-height function keys are consistent with, and just as comfortable as, their larger brethren. The touchpad, which is smaller than that of the e1505, is eminently usable and did everything I expected of it with no discomfort or untoward behavior.

Laptop Battery Life

Under fairly heavy usage, e.g., a lot of hard drive activity, wireless going and the screen set to maximum brightness, I managed to run on the battery for almost three hours. Very light usage and a dim display, but wireless still running, yielded an additional hour or so. I expected a greater disparity, given that my usage for the two tests was at opposite ends of the spectrum, but I did have wireless enabled for the light-usage test, and both times seemed fairly strong for a machine with this power. With a little tweaking, I’m sure others could squeeze more life out of the 9-cell Dell FK890 battery.

Heat and Noise

The 1520 was remarkably quiet (virtually silent, in fact) the whole time I had it, and heat was never a problem. The bottom of the unit became a little warm after protracted heavy activity, but not unusually so.

Service and Support

I have used Dell support in the past and have always been satisfied, in the end, with the experience, but I had no reason to contact support regarding this 1520.

Software

Being a creature of habit, I removed most of the “trialware,” along with some other common programs I loathe, as soon as I received the notebook. I was barely paying attention while doing this, but the whole process for this review notebook seemed to go very quickly. There were no apparent software issues, though I do find myself longing for Windows XP whenever I use a Vista machine. The availability of XP is reason #2 for my seriously considering the Vostro 1500 if I were in the market for a high-powered 15.4” notebook at a reasonable price.

Conclusion

Much of what I found while using the Inspiron 1520 is consistent with (to the point of being almost identical to) what has been written elsewhere. There was really only one thing about this notebook that bothered me, my preference for the all black Vostro 1500 battery notwithstanding: the play in the screen latch mechanism when the notebook is shut. Is this a big deal? I would say no, not at all.

There are so many positives, including the overall build quality, and so much flexibility in terms of configuration, the 1520 would seem to make a lot of sense for a wide range of notebook users, and a little bit of latch looseness should not be a determining factor. There are many fine notebook deals in the Sunday ads, as well as online, but there is often something about these machines, such as the keyboard, the graphics or the resolution, that would make me reluctant to purchase one of them. The 1520, or the Vostro 1500, for that matter, can be configured just right. If I weren’t already happy with my two laptops and in no hurry to get a replacement, I’d definitely consider the Inspiron 1520 or its nearly identical sibling, the Vostro 1500.

Via Notebook review

Make your laptop battery last longer in some daily habits

1. Use the lowest brightness settings on screen displays.

This will not work in bright areas like out doors, but sure works well indoors. Cell phones, lap-tops, and even watches have brightness controls that will help stretch the life of any laptop battery.

2. Fully charge and discharge all of your batteries.

Try to avoid “topping off” the battery if there’s enough of a charge in there to get by, then remove the battery or unplug from the charger only after it has had a chance to trickle charge at 100%, and your Sony NP-BG1, Canon BP-511, Kodak KLIC-5001 battery will last 2 or 3 years easily.

3. Use programs that take less RAM and keep useless programs closed.

A lot of laptops come with cluttered programs since the day you take them home from the store. Stuff like Yahoo messenger or Firefox with 20 tabs open takes a lot of RAM and eats up batteries super fast.

4. Keeping the volume level on all of your music playing devices is key to a longer Latitude D620 battery life.

You’ll be amazed at how much life loud music sucks out of your battery. This will also do wonders in preserving your ear-drums as well.

5. To go with #4, also turn down the volume on your cell-phone ringer.

Long ring-tones may sound cool, but hearing your favorite song play every time your phone rings will drain your Dell inspiron 6400 battery in a hurry.

6. Turn off your Bluetooth whenever you’re not using it.

This can be an easy one to forget about if you’re often switching between using a Bluetooth, and the phone’s ear piece. Most people use their Bluetooth way too much anyhow, so cutting back on it’s use will lengthen the life of your Dell Inspiron B130 battery.

7. I’ve always heard that when you get a new laptop, or anything with a rechargeable battery for that matter, you should charge it over night.

Pull that bad boy out of the box and give it a nice, long, healthy charge. Even if it says full, leave it in and charging for a while.

8. When I was little I would always find VGP-BPS2C VGP-BPS2 batteries in my grandmother’s fridge.

I always wondered why, turns out she was onto something. If you have extra batteries for your phone, laptop, or anything else, go ahead and store those in the refrigerator. Just make sure not to freeze 40Y7001 40Y7003.

9. Programs that are run from a CD or DVD can be copied to and run from the hard drive, which typically consumes less power than an optical drive.

If you have music and movies you know know you’ll be playing numerous times, just rip them onto your hard drive and you’ll be styled!

10. Lastly, just using basic common sense will help extend the life of all of your Dell KD476 Dell Inspiron e1505 Battery.

If you’re not using it, turn it off! If you don’t need it, get rid of it! This is probably the most practical and applicable way to get the most out of all of your batteries.

Why laptop battery explode?

Laptop battery is composing of enclosure, interface, cell and control circuit board, battery cell is responsible for supplying and storing the power of the laptop. Control circuit board with complex working principle and design, it controls the battery start and stop charging at proper time, control the discharge current reasonable, and it also take charge of showing the battery capacity and recycle charge times recording. When the battery in a high temperature or large current and other un-normal condition, it the control circuit board can protect the battery.

The OEM post in http://www.laptops-battery.co.uk/

The four suspicion of laptop battery explosion.

A, Battery cells interior short-circuit

The Latitude D620 battery cells has no protection function when meet large current, if single or multiple cells happen short-circuit situation, it will let cells discharge at high current. These current generate large quantity of heats will let the battery enhance the temperature, and then transfer to the other parts of laptop.

If the Latitude D600 battery enclosure is plastic material, it will deform or even get fired under high temperature, it is dangerous. The regular cells has experience strict test when out from factory, and the battery enclosure always adopt fireproof material and difficult to get fire. So the most possibility is involved with poor quality material for VGP-BPS2C VGP-BPS2 VGP-BPS5.

B, Battery cells connector wire short-circuit

The Dell Inspiron 6000 Battery, interior structure is too compact which leave opportunity for the cells. The wires in the middle are quite compact and close to the cells, if the skin of the cells and wires wore out, or the connect wires break off, then the cells will discharge at very high current and bring high temperature and cause fire final.

C, The control circuit invalidation

Sometimes, the control circuit will be invalidate for its protection part even it performed normal when use Sony NP-BG1, Canon BP-511,, when under full charge and un-normal, large current situation, the temperature will enhance and cause fire.

D Heat and abrupt incident

The laptop over heat or exterior liquid corrode, lightning strike or voltage un-normal will cause short-circuit.

Benefit analysis of recycling used batteries

     In recent years, China’s annual consumption for the production of batteries to 120,000 tons of zinc, 200,000 tons of manganese dioxide, 20,000 tons of copper, there is a considerable amount of zinc chloride, graphite, asphalt, steel and other material. Mn and other resources need to go through mining, ore dressing, smelting and other processes was already consumed a large amount of resources, but also a certain amount of pollution generated. Therefore, the used batteries to deal with the sound and comprehensive utilization, environmental protection, the protection of significant resources to support the handling of used batteries imminent industry. With the increase in Thinkpad X40 battery Latitude C600 battery Ibook G4 12 battery consumption, improve recycling system, the experts predict that the battery recycling will lead to new business opportunities. China’s production of dry batteries ranks first in the world 15 billion annual domestic consumption amounted to 7000 million.

     Batteries will be used manganese, aluminum, mercury and other substances extracted, can create larger profits. Experts, to build a Apple Powerbook G3 battery Ibook G4 14 battery Apple A1078 Acer BTP-58A1 battery factory, although used to be about eight million yuan, but its revenue is very impressive, not only can enjoy the state’s environmental protection enterprises preferential tax, at the same time every day as long as 100,000 to ensure the handling capacity of the battery can be 1.5-2 million profit. According to forecasts, the end of this century, China’s annual consumption of the battery will reach 7.8 billion.

     Recently, by the Beijing University of Science and Technology and Hebei Yixian of used batteries renewable joint treatment plant put into operation. The plant used Aspire 1300 battery PA3356U-1BRS PA3356U-3BRS Satellite M30 battery PA3331U-1BRS battery scrap processing technology, is different from Japan’s “wet”, but also different from that of Switzerland’s “dry”, nor is it the joint law of wet and dry.

     Its process as follows: material is broken down – chemical purification – waste water treatment, and ultimately can be recycled tin, zinc skin, such as copper material copper needle cap, and through access to high-quality electrolytic processing of zinc, manganese products, but also the recovery of mercury and iron by-product of red. The plant has a total investment of 7.8 million yuan, the design was to deal with 3,000 tons of used Satellite A10 battery VGP-BPS3 Thinkpad X41 battery Thinkpad T30 battery IBM 40Y9797 batteries.

    Supply of raw materials used batteries prospects, Beijing 200 million each year battery consumption, for a total of 6,000 tons in 1999, recovered only 60 tons, the recovery rate of only 1%. 10,000 EVO N410C battery Pavilion dv4000 battery inspiron 5150 battery Inspiron E1705 battery Travelmate 240 batter batteries a ton of weight, to achieve 3,000 tons, 100 million will need to used batteries, which means that Beijing’s half used batteries will be recycled and can be harmless treatment.

Cambridge Silicon Radio has unveiled a new GPS architecture that it says will let portable devices be constantly location-aware without draining their batteries.

The architecture, SiRFstarIV, was announced on Tuesday along with the first product to use it, CSR’s GSD4t receiver for mobile phones and other portable devices.

Mobile phones increasingly have GPS as a feature, for navigation and other location-based services. However, current GPS architecture is a major contributor to laptop battery drain — a situation CSR is hoping to fix.

The UK-based company, which has generally concentrated more on Bluetooth chip design, bought GPS architecture firm SiRF in February. As part of the deal, SiRF’s founder, Kanwar Chadha, joined CSR as chief marketing officer.

Chadha told ZDNet UK on Tuesday that smartphones using current GPS platforms deliver a worse experience than dedicated personal navigation devices with the same technology. He attributed this lag in smartphones to three factors: inspiron 1300 battery consumption, the time it takes to get a fix on GPS satellites (as the GPS has to turn on and off to save power), and interference from other electronics inside the devices.

“GPS was not designed to be navigation-centric,” Chadha said. “If you try to make location available all the time, you drain the Dell laptop battery very quickly. Other radios, the LCD display and the processor also interfere with the GPS signal.”

This situation was a driver for the creation of SiRFstarIV, which is “not on all the time, and not off all the time”, Chadha said.

The platform instead uses an ‘aware’ state, which “keeps the necessary information to do a very fast calculation from the satellite [and is] alive all the time but in a very low micropower mode for Pavilion DV8000 battery“, he explained. This approach means the device’s GPS does not need to be continually turned on and off to conserve power — hence the speed with which it can get a satellite fix for Sony laptop battery.

Chadha said the SiRFstarIV platform uses between 50-500 microamps. That power consumption level is substantially lower than Toshiba laptop battery that found in existing GPS platforms, which burn up power in the milliamps.

The company also looked at the other drags on GPS performance in smartphones for the new architecture.

“The second thing we did is [to] put in a new technology which scans for all the noisy signals for HP laptop battery that interfere with GPS, and eliminates interferers before they can hit the GPS signal,” Chadha said.

The GSD4t receiver is now available in sample quantities to manufacturers of mobile phones and other portable devices, with full-scale production scheduled for October. According to Chadha 6y270, pa3395u 1brs, 40y7003, the first handsets using SiRFstarIV should become available to end-users in early 2010.

The answer for laptop battery frequent asked questions

Last week I buy a Dell notebook from Dell.com, then I want to know some laptop battery tips and problems by google. I found many frequent asked questions about laptop battery, but there are various answers for them. So I send a email to laptop battery expect “Jack Smith” in http://www.laptops-battery.co.uk/ about these doubts. He reply me in the August 11, below is the reply content.

What is the six months warranty laptop battery?

Generally the laptop battery quality warranty is one year, but we can find many 6 months warranty “Original laptop battery” in ebay and other online shops? What is these six months warranty laptop battery?

Most the six months warranty batteries are the old battery with the new cells, old original battery shell and protection board. You can find the detail introduce here “How to replace battery cells inside laptop battery“. As the battery protection board is old one, so the laptop battery can only work properly about six months.

For laptop battery, the higher capacity the better?

For different models (particularly different size) battery, the higher capacity battery can work longer. Exclude the size and weight factors, of course that the higher capacity the better.

However, the same battery type, the same nominal capacity (for example,Inspiron 6400 battery 6600mAh), the actual measurement capacity is different: for example One Inspiron E1505 battery capacity is 6600mAh, and the other is 6700mAh, then the 6700mAh battery is better then 6600mAh?

The actual situation may be that : In the high capacity battery’s electrode materials, increase the initial capacity of more things, and reduce the materials to stability of the electrode. It may result that after used for some charging-discharging cycles, the capacity of high-capacity battery reduce rapidly, while the capacity of low battery is still strong. Many laptop battery manufacturers often use such method to produce the high-capacity battery. After used for six months the GD761, KD476, TD347 battery standby time is too less.

Enhance the battery capacity can reduce the battery cycle life. If the laptop battery manufacturers are not make great efforts in battery material, it is impossible to truly “improve” the capacity of the battery.

It is worth to store the fully-charged battery

Lithium-ion batteries have a very bad characteristic, that is the lithium-ion laptop battery aging time. When a lithium-ion battery in storage for some time, even not in recycled, its capacity also lost in the storage. Because the lithium-ion battery anode materials begun the failure process when manufactured. Different temperatures and Pavilion DV8000 batteryy charged state cause the different consequences statute. You can the get the general conclusion by following data ( the percentage of capacity in the form):

Storage temperature – 40% state of charge ——- 100% state of charge

0 degrees ———- 98% (a year later ) ——- 94% (a year later)

That is the all, hopes that can help you.

Here’s possibly Dell’s answer to the Asus Netpal netbook. Move over Mickey here comes Spongebob and iCarly with their very own Dell Mini netbooks. Yes, folks our beloved netbooks regressing into a for-kids-only computing machine. Well, if you’re a fan of Mickey and SpongeBob, I think you wouldn’t mind its Inspiron 1520 battery inspiron 1526 battery.

Well, anyway Dell has just announced the Nickoledion-inspire Mini netbooks, just in time for the opening of school in the U.S.  The Dell Inspiron Mini Nickelodeon Edition features parental controls for Internet browsing for inspiron 1525 battery, wrapped in eye-catching Nickelodeon-inspired “slime” artwork and includes SpongeBob and iCarly theme.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 battery Nickelodeon Edition features:

• user interface personalization
• Nickelodeon-branded wallpaper and icons
• customized widget for adding Nick games and TV programs
• desktop animation linked to educational content
• built-in LoJack for Laptops

The Dell laptop battery Inspiron Mini Nickelodeon Edition will be available at Dell.com and Wallmart. Keep an Eye on it parents.

New Site Provides Information and Solutions for Battery Recycling

Battery Solutions, Inc., a leader in battery recycling kits, systems and services to corporations, governments, municipalities and households nationwide, recently launched a new battery recycling site for your 6y270, pa3395u 1brs, 40y7003.

The new site provides consumers and businesses with information about recycling and a convenient means to order environmentally friendly products and services, such as the iRecycle Kits. These kits make it easy for customers to simply collect and recycle dry-cell Laptop battery.

Not only does laptop battery Solutions, Inc., accept dry- and wet-cell batteries for recycling, but they also collect other items such as fluorescent lamps and e-waste (such as calculators, keyboards and toner cartridges).

Toshiba doesn’t do netbooks. It does mini notebooks. Well, OK then. But the NB200 which I’ve been looking at for a couple of weeks, has a remarkably netbookish set of specifications.

There are no less than ten variants of the NB200 (the battery is pa3395u 1brs) listed as I write, with mine, the NB200-10Z having just undergone a price drop to £303.48 ex VAT. For that money you get:

Windows XP Home
Atom N280 processor
160GB hard drive
1GB RAM
10.1 inch 1024 x 600 screen
3 x USB
Webcam
SD card reader
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g
Ethernet

You can check the rest of the specs out in detail here.

Everyone in the netbook game has to work to differentiate their offerings from everyone else’s. Part of Toshiba’s play is to call its offerings mini notebooks.

There is also a colour thing going on. The brown finish of the NB200-10Z I was sent won’t suit everyone, but others among the ten variants come in black, white, pink and, probably my favourite, indigo. There is a problem in that all colours are not available in all specs variants. If there are features you really want, you’ll probably just have to take the colour on offer.

More practically, there is anti shock protection for the hard drive, a powered USB port so you can charge devices when the NB200 itself is switched off and a comprehensive power management utility, The NB2000 battery is not as the normal toshiba laptop battery PA3176U-1BRS, PA3178U-1BRS, PA3191U-1BRS, PA3191U-2BRS, PA3191U-3BRS, PA3191U-4BRS, PA3284U-1BRS, PA3285U-1BAS, PA3285U-1BRS, PA3285U-2BAS, PA3285U-2BRS, PA3356U-1BAS, PA3356U-1BRS, PA3356U-2BRS, PA3356U-3BRS, PA3395U-1BRS, it is a small and light battery.

I found the isolation keyboard comfy to use though there is a fair amount of give which heavier handed typists might not like too much. The touchpad is wide enough to get the cursor right across the screen on a single sweep. Sound output was disappointing with the speaker very quiet and tinny.

What really impresses with this netbo- er mini laptop is battery life. Toshiba claims up to nine hours of life, and while you might find it difficult to reach that it should be possible to get six hours plus even when using Wi-Fi or a 3G dongle. Inevitably, to provide this much life, the battery protrudes from the back of the casing. But that is not unusual and it doesn’t look too odd.

I barely got the new netbook unpacked and plugged in before emails started arriving asking “where are the benchmarks?” Actually, for folks curious about the slightly tweaked Intel Atom N280 CPU over the pretty standard N270, it’s a valid question. Just remember that we’re talking about some very minor differences in the architecture here: the N280 supports a faster front-side bus speed over the N270 Discount laptop battery Discount laptop batteries— 667MHz vs 533MHz — and bumps the clock speed from 1.6GHz to 1.66GHz. That’s hardly a major change, so I wouldn’t expect a major difference.

The most fair comparison I can do is between the MSI Wind and the Toshiba laptop battery NB205. When I ran the CrystalMark tests against the Wind, it had 1GB of RAM just like my NB205 currently does. I’m likely to upgrade that in the near future, but this makes for a good head to head comparison.

My pre-expectations were generally met with the Toshiba NB205 earning an overall score of 29,309. That compares to the MSI Wind’s score of 27,365 and HP laptop battery from last year, or about a 7% increase. Both have a 5400 RPM hard drive, but the NB205 earned 7,656 marks compared to the Wind’s 6,780. The difference is due to the faster read and write speeds on the Toshiba drive — they were in the 54 to 57MBps range for sequential reads and writes. The hard drive in the Wind could only push sequential data at around 42 to 44 MBps in Apple laptop battery. Random reads and writes are important too, due to disk fragmentation, and the Toshiba’s drive edged out the one in the Wind there as well.

After I ran the CrystalMark program the first time, I thought to run the laptop battery again. Why? Because I was using the Toshiba Power Saving program in “Full Power” mode and it’s actually unlikely that I’d be doing that while mobile. It’s also good to see what the minimum performance on the netbook is. To this, I unplugged the device from the AC adapter. I have the Toshiba Power Saving app configured to run in “Long Life” mode whenever it’s on Pavilion ZD8000 battery power, so pulling the power cord immediately changed the power settings. Mostly, they dim the backlighting and reduce the amount of time before sleep mode, etc… but the “Long Life” mode also scales back the CPU to save some juice as well. That’s why I decided to re-run the benchmarks — to see what impact there was on the overall system.

The results were telling: an overall score of 21,625 marks. That’s nearly a 26% drop in overall benchmarked performance. Everything from graphics and hard drive to calculations and memory dropped as less power was provided to the components for 6t473. Good to know when you’re on the road with a netbook and running on battery power. It should also provide some information on how to balance the compromise between performance and laptop battery life with a mobile device.