Jun 4, 2008 - The 225WNXM sits in a very thin (about 0.5 inch) matte finish black bezel that's not sleek, but looks good. The display features a 1680 by 1050 native resolution, DVI and VGA ports, four USB ports, headphone jack, and it has a set of hidden down-firing speakers.
Mar 20, 2008 - For $550, Samsung's 2263DX delivers two monitors in one: a 22-inch LCD and a secondary 7-inch display that's handy for expanding your screen real estate. Unfortunately, this added convenience commands a price premium, and the 2263DX is nearly double the cost of an average 22-inch monitor.
Jun 4, 2008 - The Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM looks great--and I'm not talking exclusively about the antiglare treatment or the crisp 1920-by-1200-pixel native resolution, which provides very good visual quality. The SyncMaster also sports sleek lines and a thin, glossy black bezel that stays relatively smudge free.
Jun 4, 2008 - The 22-inch w2207h has all the features you could want in a good monitor. It comes through with great image quality, particularly with text, and it provides tilt, pivot, swivel, and height adjustments.
Jun 4, 2008 - Samsung's 245T is a great-looking, thin-bezel monitor that can swivel, tilt, pivot, and be adjusted for height.
Jun 4, 2008 - Gateway pushes the versatility envelope with its 24-inch FHD2400 monitor. It combines good image quality, a slick design, a great on-screen display menu, and optional speakers that provide fantastic sound.
Mar 31 - Dell has tapped into the current focus on the economy and the environment by producing the G2210t, a $240 22-inch monitor designed for both the wallet- and green-conscious. Dell claims the display is manufactured using recycled materials, and that its cabling is free of PVC and other harmful chemicals.
Mar 31 - This attractive, well-designed 22-inch widescreen monitor offers impeccable image quality. But at $499, it's extremely pricey, particularly when you consider that other 22-inch displays can be found for $350 or less.
Apr 28 - Lenovo's latest widescreen display, the L215p, measures a unique 21.5 inches diagonally, making it slightly more squat than your run-of-the-mill 22-inch LCD monitor. But that size gives it a true 16:9 aspect ratio, and with an included HDMI connection and 1920 by 1080 native resolution, the L215p is optimized for displaying high-definition content.
Dell is offering a deal on its Vostro desktop computers through its small-business store. (Hint: Just because the products are sold in the business store, that doesn't mean you can't use them at home, too.) Right now, you can buy the slim and sleek Dell Vostro 220s with Vista Home Basic, 2GB of memory, a 160GB hard drive, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, and a DVD burner for $359 at Dell.com. That price even includes a 19-inch LCD. All told, it's a savings of $300 off the regular price. And as an added bonus, Dell keeps its Vostro PCs free of bloatware, all the annoying trial software that ordinarily clutters up a new home PC.
Apr 23 - The CyberPower Gamer Xtreme XT-K occupies the frontier between gaming PCs and power PCs. In view of its low price ($1499, as of April 16, 2009), we expected to see some cracks in the foundation, but this system surprised us by delivering a number of top-notch elements, including stronger graphics performance than we've seen in any other power PC we've tested to date. Our test system incorporated an Intel 2.66-GHz Core i7 920 CPU (possessing the slowest frequency of all the Core i7 chips), along with 3GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, an Asus P6T Deluxe motherboard, and a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green Power hard drive.
Aug 28, 2008 - Vigor Gaming's Force Recon BT offers gamers solid all-around performance, and at $4000 with a display (as of 8/8/08), the Force Recon BT is a great value for a gaming PC.
May 6 - Few PCs can match the expandability--or the fit and finish--of Maingear's F131 midsize-tower gaming desktop. It has so many drive bays (five 5.25-inch externals and seven internal 3.5-inchers) that they outstrip the six available SATA ports. (Two of those are rear-panel eSATA connections suitable for internal use, but they're perfect for connecting external hard drives.) Not only are the bays plentiful, but installing drives in them is a breeze too. The 5.25-inch bays each have a rocker button on the side that, when pressed at the top, releases the drive; when you press it on the bottom, it locks the drive down. The 3.5-inch bays use slide-out trays that lock down via a large lever, hot-swap style.
Nov 26, 2008 - Überclok's Reactor gaming PC represents a perfect example of what happens when you send out a star quarterback with a weak offensive line to guard him. In this case, the player is the system--a supremely tuned gaming PC that comes close to hitting some of the best benchmarks we've seen in the category. Playing the part of the weak O-line are the less-than-impressive specifications that come alongside these speedy parts, which include boring peripherals and throwaway optical support.
Nov 26, 2008 - It's time to cash out the mutual fund. Hardcore Computer's Reactor gaming system has a $10,000 price tag, and its design is almost as eye-popping. But what does this cool investment get you? Oil. A lot of oil.
Nov 26, 2008 - The Xi Mtower HAF-SLI gaming desktop is an overclocker's dream. We haven't seen a vendor push a CPU as far as Xi has dared to go here, and it's a testament to the company's craftsmanship: It ratchets up a 3.33-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 to 4.5-GHz of computing power on nothing but a typical--albeit bulky--Cooler Master air cooler.
Apr 23 - The iBuyPower Gamer Paladin F860 has a peculiar moniker. Paladin? Its general performance indicates that this system is closer to a stable hand than to an itinerant warrior (and given its size, the roaming it does is unlikely to be far, far from home).
May 6 - AVADirect's Core i7 SLI/CrossFireX DDR3 Gaming System fails in the naming department, but I'll assume that the company's PC builders were too busy squeezing every last drop of performance out of this impressive machine to come up with a clever label. AVADirect's system isn't the fastest gaming PC we've tested, but it sure comes close. Factor in its $1840 price tag (as of 5/4/09)--nearly half the cost of the most inexpensive computers on our Top 5 Gaming PCs list--and it's hard to resist this system's allure.
Nov 19, 2008 - Falcon Northwest's Mach V gaming desktop is a firecracker inside a beautiful aluminum chassis. While the Silverstone Temjin TJ03 full tower case itself is nothing new, the Mach V's internal setup represents the fastest PC we have ever tested on nearly every benchmark we could toss at this overclocked monstrosity.
Mar 11 - ThinkPads are the three-piece power suits of the laptop world, delivering sturdy hardware and high-end components in an unassuming black chassis. The new T400 is no exception. Excellent battery life and useful productivity applications are wrapped in a sturdy shell, offering business travelers an efficient platform for getting things done.
Dec 10, 2008 - Welcome back, Samsung. You've been laying low in the U.S. market when it comes to notebooks, but after kicking the tires on the X460, I can honestly say you were missed. I mean, you manage to craft a 14.1-inch thin-and-light all-purpose notebook that's perfectly road-ready and goes toe-to-toe with Lenovo's ThinkPad X300--even though the X300 is an ultraportable-class machine.
Nov 20, 2008 - I'll say one thing about Gateway's MC7803u: It sure doesn't look like it costs only a thousand bucks. Honestly, I'm a little surprised by how the company managed to craft a slick-looking all-purpose laptop and still keep it on a tight budget. Of course, you don't need to be a Mensa candidate to realize that corners must be cut. But after seeing the results, I'm wondering whether the right corners got the axe.
Apr 29 - Yet another notebook trend is on the rise: Laptops that try to straddle the fine line between portable media player and desktop replacement. They sport comparatively large displays (and footprints) with lower price tags than one would assume for the privilege. Take Samsung's R610. This notebook shows promise--but also may be a source of mobile frustration. It's attractive enough on the outside, and the $899 asking price is appealing enough, but unfortunately the underwhelming quality of its 16-inch-diagonal screen makes the R610 a tough sell.
Mar 5 - Gateway's UC7807u costs only $800? I'm not saying that this borderline ultraportable has the speediest parts--or that it's a featherweight (it's far from either). But the slick styling of this beaut certainly tricks you into thinking it is worth more.
Apr 10 - The budget-minded Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv3 laptop gets a lot of things right in its design and delivers just the right amount of style--not to mention supplying all the right ports to get your multimedia mobilized. But it also has enough drawbacks to keep me from wholeheartedly recommending it.
Apr 23 - Micro Express has done it again. Following speed demons such as the JFL9226 and the IFL9025, the JHL9050 provides power and performance in spades. If only the company could iron out the lingering design faux pas, there'd be little to stop this unassuming $1199 all-purpose laptop from climbing to the top of the budget-notebook hill.
Jan 21 - Not all slim and light laptops come off the conveyor belt bursting with sex appeal. Take the Acer TravelMate 6293: Battery life, it has in spades. Everything else? Not so much. This entirely black portable is fairly well packaged as far as all-purpose laptops go, but if this machine were to go on a diet and lose 0.6 pounds, it could qualify as a good deal for an ultraportable. No doubt Acer's goal was to cut corners--and some standard notebook connections--to a hit a palatable $999 price point, perfectly acceptable for a business budget. But the result is a laptop that's a tad frumpy.
Mar 5 - The Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 isn't exactly made for kids, but it sure can kick out the tunes. You can tell it was designed to be a sleek all-purpose laptop that knows how to get down to business and play around a little without costing a fortune (our review unit was $829 as of 2/26/09). Though the Y530 can't run modern games at a screaming pace, it still packs a decent amount of power for its sub-$1000 price tag.
