The HP Pavilion dv3-2103TX Portable can be called the Harley Davidson of laptops,for it is all style and power. HP even to do a Mac with a glow-in-the dark insignia on its back panel,supplemented by an Espresso Pattern that run all along the body. There is even a chrome fender around the unit,with a dash of steel on the touchpad too.But,it will be the quest for celluloid that will bring buyers to the dv3,which is all geared up for multimedia buffs. For one,the dv3 features great Altec Lansing Stereo Speakers which allow you to enjoy music without having to plug on external speakers or earphones. It is not always that you chance upon laptop speakers that actually produce any sound of consequence. The HP Mediasmart software that comes pre-installed organises all your audio,video files,so that you dont have to click around for which movies to watch next. Moreover,the 13.4 LED backlit widescreen,with 16:9 true wide aspect ratio,makes watching movies a pleasure.Under the hood is an Intel Core2 Duo Mobile Processor T6500 which promises 4GB RAM and 320 GB Serial ATA storage. The dv3 comes preloaded with Vista Home Premium and a bunch of HP software that make life much easy. Plus,the slightly curved keys are a refreshing change from its Qwerty class peers. The steel finish touch Pad has a two-way scroll zone,but I think its time HP thought of introducing pinch and flip features too. The touchpanel below the screen allows you to adjust volume as well as control the Bluetooth link.But the inbuilt webcam will let you down in poor light conditions. And there was some turbulence while running discs on the DVD drive,which sports LightScribe which enable you to burn labels as well. HP claims its six-Cell Lithium Ion battery carries about five hours of juice. Price Rs 54,274.Nandagopal Rajan The world in your pocketFor many students,Wikipedia ended the need to visit a university research library. But for those who cant get to the Internet,a new device might provide answers. WikiReader does only one thing: it displays the text of all 3 million-plus English-language Wikipedia articles,as well as their Wikipedia links,on an approximately 2.5-inch square LCD screen. You search for articles by typing in letters on the touch screens keyboard. The $99 battery-operated product,housed in white plastic,easily fits in a pocket. You dont need an Internet connection,because all the articles are stored in the devices memory. For $29,you can receive two updates per year sent on an SD card,or you can download them for free. Tweeting through SMSCompulsive social networkers can now send and receive tweets on SMS,provided you have a Airtel connection. The telecom service provider has tied up with Twitter to allow its customers in India to receive text messages from people they opt to follow and tweet or message someone directly. Users will need to send their tweets to short code 53000 at Re 1 per message. Bringing multimedia to the TVBored of watching all your downloaded media on the computer screen? Amkettes portable Flash TV multimedia player allows users to playback their downloaded movies,pictures and music from USB hard drives,flash drives or memory cards directly to HD televisions. The Flash TV,which acts as a converter between the hard drive and the TV,offers high resolution video with a remote control. The tiny unit weighs just 45 gram and is available for Rs 2,995.
