Laptops

Is your computer or laptop feeling a little sluggish lately? One of the best upgrades available for adding a whole new level of performance to a PC is to replace its hard drive with a solid state drive. SSD capacities continue to increase even as prices fall, so adding new life to your older PC is easier than ever.

Looking for a convertible 2-in-1 device that will cover off both your tablet and Windows laptop needs? Microsoft kickstarted this growing segment with the Surface tablets, but competition is heating up. Lenovo’s Miix 700 is one of the newest entries and I just wrapped up a week with it. Here’s what you need to know.

Asus adds some extra screen size, along with key additions inside and out to improve upon the original and give this ZenBook 3 its Deluxe name.

Have you been thinking about buying a Chromebook, but not sure if there's a good reason to upgrade? Here's a quick look at what the newest models have to offer you.

As you no doubt know, when it comes to trying to pack the performance needed to undertake serious video gaming in a laptop, it comes down to a very tricky balance between speed and portability. Try to shove too much power in a gaming laptop and for all intents and purposes, it ceases to be a portable PC —heavy, bulky and with little battery life. Go too far in the other direction, though, and you end up with something that’s svelte but unable to play games on anything but the lowest settings. I just spent some quality time with a gaming laptop that manages to strike the perfect balance: the Eurocom M3. It’s a compact, lightweight laptop with the power to chew through pixels and polygons while keeping frame rates high. Eurocom says the M3 is the most powerful 13-inch notebook ever made and everything I’ve seen supports that claim.

Most consumer tablets have displays in the 8-inch to 10-inch size range. Microsoft tapped the prosumer and professional market when it released the big-screen Surface Pro line of tablets that convert to a PC laptop form factor. HP—one of the world’s largest PC manufacturers—offers its own take on that the 2-in-1 convertible laptop form factor. The Envy x2 13.3, a very big Windows tablet with features Surface fans will find familiar, namely a kickstand, digital pen support and a magnetically attached keyboard cover. The approach is familiar, but the Envy x2 is a different beast from the Surface Pro (and new Surface), as I found out during my review period.

Lately I’ve been on a bit of a kick with gaming laptops. They’ve really been coming in to their own as of late. There are so many great options and people’s interest in having enough PC muscle to game, in a laptop form factor is definitely increasing. For most people something like an Ultrabook or Chromebook is basic enough to get work done day to day, but when you want to do multimedia creation, or enjoy the latest PC games without having to sacrifice on graphics or performance, a gaming PC is tough to beat. If you can get the power of a gaming PC with the mobility of a laptop you’ll have something that has been the dream of many gamers for years. These days it’s not that farfetched and you have a few options. The latest model I’ve looked at is the Electra 3 from Eurocom. I’ve been a big fan of Eurocom’s laptops in the past so I was curious if this latest model would continue their winning streak.

Keyboard cases have been important accessories that can convert touch-focused tablets into decent subportable notebook replacements. Not only do they protect tablets, they also add QWERTY keyboard capability while freeing up displays for typing. Here are some outstanding keyboard case solutions.

We all buy laptops based on different criteria, but battery life is often a big one. If you’re in search of a laptop that will go all day without plugging in to an electrical outlet, I’ve put together a list of four battery life champs.

What makes a business laptop? What a business (or a professional user) needs in a laptop is going to vary depending on who you ask and the nature of the industry they’re in, but there are some characteristics most business laptops have in common. Generally speaking, a business laptop is powerful enough to take the place of a desktop PC with a display that’s good enough to take the place of an external monitor for hours at a time. It’s able to run software such as Microsoft Office, has the storage capacity for plenty of documents, it’s durable and it has a high quality keyboard. Other factors such as a full complement of ports and connectivity options, battery life and pre-installed software like Microsoft Windows 8 Pro may also come into play. Here’s what else you need to know before deciding on a business laptop.