Too Cool for Office

Lenovo gets flashy with its new notebook.

Lenovo gets flashy with its new notebook.

Lenovos new Ideapad Y460 laptop comes as a surprise to those used to and bored of its office-staple,the Thinkpad notebook series. The new offering looks slick,with a geometric pattern etched on the cover,a back-lit Ideapad logo and a strip of back-lit touch-sensitive buttons. The latter is also the really revolutionary feature of the Y460. While the laptop has touch-sensitive buttons with specific uses,there is an additional strip of seven dots which lets you do a lot more without going to the programme menu. Run your fingers over the SlideNav strip and you can activate the screensaver,and be assured that no one will be able to unzip it. Touch one of these at a time and you open a dock that lets you access applications and programmes. The dock can also be customised.

Though it will take you some time to master how this works,it is still a handy feature,quite literally. It also tries to break Lenovos made-for-office mould by packing in LBL speakers enhanced with Dolby stereo. Users may decide if its a good or bad feature,but one thing is certain: you turn these on in office and you are guaranteed the pink slip.

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While Lenovos laptops once used to dress for the office,always making sure that they fit in,this Ideapad shows users features they didnt know they were missing before. For instance,in the touch-sensitive strip above the keypad is a OneTouch Theatre button that lets you shift to a customised movie watching screen on the 14.0″ HD Wide LED 1366×768 screen,with better contrast and the right brightness. The same button also lets you revert to normal settings or select the intelligent screen by just moving your finger over it. The tapered keypad reminds us of the Thinkpad,but is still very comfortable,especially if you use it for long hours.

The multi-touch pad has a matte finish while the left-right keys are split. The Y460 comes with Windows and Home Premium and has an i5-430M processor,4GB RAM and 500 GB storage. Maybe because of all the flashy lights,the 6 cell lithium-ion can give only 3.5 hours on a full charge,which isnt very encouraging despite the option of switching to a powersave mode.

Some might call the Rs 57,390 price tag a drawback in the Indian context,but it can be worth every paisa.

Style quotient

If youre looking at a value-for-money laptop thats also stylish,the ID 59C from Gateway is definitely worth a look. This comes in a sleek silver casing and an aqua-blue touchpad that glows when activated. Despite its 15.6-inch HD Ultrabright LED-backlit display,it is just 23-mm thin and weighs 2.3 kg. There is a one-touch social networking button,my backup application and extreme graphics.

Price: Rs 48,999 + taxes

net connected

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Netbooks appear to be a bit threatened with the advent of tablets. Acer,the clear leader in the segment,is not taking any chances. It has Tata Photon Plus high-speed internet access in its new AOD 260 model. The netbook also sports a 10.1″ screen with LED back-lit and 16:9 aspect ratio,Intel Atom N450 CPU,a 1.3 megapixel camera,1 GB DDR2 RAM,160 GB HDD 5400 RPM,six-cell battery with eight hours of life,Windows 7 Starter preloaded,three USB ports,Bluetooth connectivity and in-built wireless capability,besides other features.

Price: Rs 17,999 + taxes

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