Recently in Hardware Category

Update: The recipient of the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z was announced in the video below. I try to giveaway stuff as frequently as possible, so you can count on many more giveaway opportunities in the future. If you weren't the recipient of the Lenovo ThinkCentre M90z, congratulate the person who did get it and cross your fingers for better luck next time. Thanks again to everyone who participated - this was a seriously cool computer, so I'm happy to have had the opportunity to share it with all the readers of this site.

The Lenovo ThinkPad line has long been known as a workhorse brand for businesses of all sizes. The notebook computers may not be as sexy as a MacBook, but they hold up well to the rigors of travel both to-and-from the office and on the road. Recently Lenovo has been making a strong entry into the desktop computing space as well. Not too long ago I gave away a ThinkCentre A63. In terms of price for performance, I strongly recommend the ThinkVision L2440p model monitor I use daily, complete with fully adjustable stand (meaning both height and direction), as well as a screen that's bright enough for all kinds of office settings.

Netbooks have taken the entire portable computing space by storm. The small lightweight computers are generally about half the physical size of most of the laptops we carry around. Netbooks tend to be half the price of a regular laptop too, but they are substantially less than half as powerful for doing most of what I consider to be standard computing tasks. Don't get me wrong, I love the HP Mini Netbook I purchased in 2008, but I need to strip services to the bear minimum to eek out every ounce of performance I could muster. Overtime, many of the compromises found me back to carrying around a full-sized notebook computer.

Lenovo lioaned me Thinkpad X100e to review back in January. After using the X100e daily for about two months, I find it exceeding my expectations for a small computer. Lenovo managed to figure out how to get the extra performance I need, without substantially driving up the price. Yes, the Thinkpad X100e is bigger than a Netbook. The screen is 11.6 inches instead of the standard Netbook 10-inch screen. The weight is slightly more than a Netbook at about 3.5 pounds, which is largely due to the size of the battery. Those two features justify the larger size, because they dramatically improve productivity.

One of my more recent projects has been work on creating a series of videos for HP, providing education about key product features. In the first of these videos, I walk through features of their back-to-school lineup of notebook computers, including the Pavilion dv6, Pavilion dv2 and Mini 110 line. I do not currently own any of these units, although I do have a dv2 on loan from HP and love it. I spent enough time with each of the three notebooks to feel confident in recommending all three for a number of use cases as back-to-school options for college students. I have previously purchased Pavilion dv5 and HP Mini 1000 line computers and use both almost every day. Watch the video for a quick rundown of notebook features.

NVIDIA finally has Windows Vista certified 64-bit drivers. This feels like a long time coming as ATI had there's out when Vista shipped. I'm running Windows Vista 64-bit on an AMD 64-bit machine and one of my major frustrations is finding the right drivers and software. Plenty of the 32-bit stuff will run in some kind of compatibility mode, but there's a large chunk of my software functionality that's just plain broken. Having the right video drivers is essential, especially when you want to do something seemingly simple like playing HD-DVDs. Thanks to Ed Bott for the tip-off.