Audio and Video Systems - Top Computing Brands Highlights in West Coast Midnight Run

Audio and Video Systems - Top Computing Brands Highlights in West Coast Midnight Run. In the world of computers it's not the Amazon Jungle you will be faced with. The options and variety of products can be overwhelming. West Coast Midnight Run gives you the skinny on select brand names in the category.

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Hewlett-Packard have been offering
its customers the EliteBook since
2008. The product line is considered
a premium notebook series, de-
signed for workstation-type heavy
lifting on mobile platforms.

The EliteBook is manufactured to
meet US MIL-STD-810, a military
standard for reliability and perfor-
mance under severe conditions, pri-
marily temperature, shock, dust,
vibration and humidity.

A brief highlight of the EliteBook
8770w which is targeted at small and
medium sized businesses reveals a
platform with an Intel i7 quad core
processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 750 GB
SATA harddrive, 17.3” LED HD
screen, four USB ports, one eSATA/
USB port, SD/MMC card port, 720p
webcam, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi con-
nect, fingerprint sensor and a host of
additional ports and features. MSRP
starts from a whopping $2,799.

A duo core version is available with
an i5 processor, 8GB DDR3, 500 GB
Sata, 15.6” HD screen with USB
ports, sockets and features for an
MSRP starting from $1,649.

The price structure appears to be
based on a specific market that re-
quires compliance with MIL-STD-
810, such as government agencies.
However to extend the product to the
general public may have been an
overreach in branding and marketing
that may leave some prospective
consumers unfamiliar with HP’s strat-
egy scratching their heads.

On another front HP is working hard to bring you the Z1, an amazing new design in workstations that puts the entire computer inside the HD display screen. Yes the entire guts of the computer sits inside the HD screen and its ease of maintenance is only exceeded by the sleekness of its design. The new workstation will simply blow you away with its sinplicity for those with the DIY attitude that can’t wait for the IT guy.

Toshiba may not be the Toe of Sheeba yet it may be just as tough as Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, when it comes to the world of consumer electronics.

The Group recently acquied the HDD division of Fujitsu, the Swiss-based Landis+Gyr (a competitor of Siemens), and Westinghouse Electric.

Toshiba has been busy extending the reputation of its Satellite series for consumers into a new product line aimed at business professionals, the Portégé, designed to be slim and lightweight and starts from machines that carry an Intel i3 duo core all the way to an i7 duo core for top of the series. None of the Portégé are offered with a quad core, thus far, and it is available in the R930 and Z930 series, with Z being more powerful.

There is no PC Express card slot nor a Smart Card slot but there is a Memory Card Reader and an HDMI port. MSRP ranges from a low $863 to $1,479.

However if you are seeking a performance model and you don’t mind lugging your laptop’s extra pounds a few steps from your car or SUV to the office or cafe (how many of you jog around town with your laptop?), then you ought to check into the Qosmio series.

The gamer platform, Qosmio X870, is built with a little more muscle. The low end has an i7 quad core, 12 GB DDR3 RAM, 1 TB harddrive (2 x 500 GB units), 17.3” HD screen, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M card, HD webcam, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 6 USB ports, HDMI port, an optical DVD drive and a few more features all at 7.5 lbs and an MSRP of $1,449.

The top end of the X870 has all the features just mentioned except that instead of 12 GB it has 16 GB DDR3 RAM, and 1.75 TB combined harddrive (1 TB drive and 750 GB drive), a Blu-ray rewriteable DVD optical drive, a 3D display and viewing package with an MSRP around $1,899.

This magazine is produced in part on Acer platforms, from a Taiwanese group that has grown in leaps and bounds thanks in part to a management team that was willing to restructure the company several times over, from centralized to decentralized and vice versa.

In the process Acer managed to acquire Gateway and Packard Bell and made significant headway in European markets.

The current lineup of Acer notebooks may be considered anemic by some standards, however it features an ultra thin and light S5 ultrabook that matches the MacBook Air in thickness profile and in performance.

The S5 has an i7 duo core while the MacBook Air has an i5 processor. Both have a 256 GB SSD and a 13” screen. And the S5 beats the MacBook’s MSRP by $100 at just $1,399.

The V3 series top of the line unit is the only machine from Acer that features an AMD quad core TurboCore processor. There is just 6 GB of DDR3 RAM mated to 500 GB harddrive AMD Radeon HD 7640G card, with a Blu-ray DVD optical drive, 15.6” HD screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth connectivity, HDMI port, a built-in webcam and multi-format card reader slot.

This laptop is a little light on the hardware considering it is running with the latest generation quad processor, however for an MSRP starting from only $579, I would not be making too much music complaining, but will be drawing admiring and envious music for the amount I would be saving on my bank account if I were ordering multiple units for my departmental staff.