Color Notebooks Views

General Goods

ASUS today announces the launch of the ASUS X Series Color notebooks. Building on the popularity of the other models that came in midnight blue and titanium grey, this new range of colorful 14-inch notebooks come in hues of include pink, red, white and blue. The X Series has an ergonomic, streamlined design that houses a host of user-friendly features that include a chiclet keyboard, a touchpad with Palm Proof Technology, and Power4Gear power management system.

UNTIL RECENTLY, COLOR NOTEBOOKS HAVE BROUGHT TO mind unrealistic price tags, extra heft, and crummy battery lives. But steady advances in technology have lessened the trade-offs, making stylish color offerings more affordable (though not cheap) and even practical. Today's color notebooks, powerful enough to be used as primary computers, also serve as impressive field assistants.

Color notebooks are most often classified by the screen technologies they use: active matrix, passive matrix, or dual-scan passive matrix (see Screening Color Screens ). The best of the three, the active-matrix screen, is the most challenging to manufacture and, as a result, often the most expensive; a notebook with an active-matrix display generally runs $1,500 to $2,000 over one with a passive display. The premium has come down quite a bit, however, making these units at least within reach. With their brilliance and responsiveness, active-matrix notebooks provide an impressive platform for presentations and are ideal for long hours of work in graphical environments. We look at nine popular active- matrix color notebooks for use on the road or in your ofrice. The street prices range from $3,000 to $5,300 for a deluxe model complete with multimedia capabilities.

Making a colorful splash, Dell ’s new Inspiron notebook series are available in eight colors (jet black, alpine white, espresso brown, ruby red, midnight blue, spring green, sunshine yellow, and (yes) flamingo pink) with screen sizes ranging from 14.1 inches to 17 inches. All offer Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity, optional mobile broadband options, and high-definition video options like Blu-ray drives and integrated Webcams. The Inspiron notebooks are driven by Intel Core 2 Duo processors (the 14.1 and 15-inch models) or AMD Turion Dual-Core processors (for the 17-inch model) running at speeds up to 2.2 GHz, support up to 4 GB of memory, and are available with a variety of screen resolutions (and LED backlighting), storage, graphics, drive, and OS optionsemdash;although none are available with Linux pre-installed . The new Inspiron systems are available today, and prices start as low as $749.