With Labor Day now long gone it’s time to put away those ghastly white jeans and face reality. Fall is here and school is back in session. While purchasing pens and pencils may be a good start, this year’s school supply list contains notebooks. No, not the ones filled with crisp-clean paper but laptops. Check out these great and surprisingly inexpensive laptops and other technology finds needed to help you or your child’s school year run a lot smoother.
The Gateway ID Series is especially designed for those who “live the mobile lifestyle.” Weighing about 5lbs, it’s light enough to carry from the dorm room to the classroom. It has a 14-inch HD display, an Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of memory, and 500GB hard drive. It also includes Dolby home theater sound, a DVD burner and a web cam. It also includes a social networking tab that allows students to quickly access their social networks sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. For about a fraction of the price, and the size, check out the 2lb,10-inch Gateway LT Series netbook. It includes a webcam and digital microphone, 1GB of memory and 250GB hard drive. It’s the right size to throw into any backpack or messenger bag. $680; $350 respectively Gateway.com
Printer
The KODAK ESP 5250: All in one Printer is the perfect tool needed for any student boggled down with tons of term papers to print. It includes Wi-Fi connectivity, which allows you to print from anywhere: your room or you could even print directly from your phone if you install the proper application. Not to mention Kodak has some of the cheapest ink in the industry, only $10 to cartridges. $119; Kodak.com
E-Readers
Text books too heavy to carry around in a backpack? The Pandigital Novel is a color eReader that allows you to download tons of books and easily organize them into libraries. It provides a great reading experience with its high resolution screen. The Pandigital Novel runs on the Android operating system, which means students can surf the web and check their email. Comes in white or black. $179; pandigital.net
Phones
The HTC Evo 4G is one of the newest phones trying to give the iPhone a run for its money. With Wi-Fi accessibility, an HD camcorder and a massive 4.3-inch screen, it is the first 4G phone on the nation’s first 4G network— which just means you can upload, download and browse the web much faster. What makes this phone extra neat is its live -streaming video application which can instantaneously connect any student with someone across the country. $199 with contract; Sprint.com
Back in June, I gave you a LA Besace Lime Drop review for a bag I really liked and use pretty often. Last week, I found a new bag from be.ez called the LEvertigo in my mail. It’s designed for a 13″ MacBook or a 10.2″ netbook and has a compact design.
Simple Design and Function
The LEvertigo looks pretty simple from the outside. It’s a slim shoulder bag that is very portable. Like the LA besace I reviewed before, it has a gray exterior with a lime green interior that provides a nice contrast. It’s not bad looking from the outside, but you really don’t feel its fashion until you open it up. Be.ez decided to replace the traditional zipper with velcro in the shape of a lower case letter e and a period. It’s the details like this that set the be.ez bags apart. While this makes getting to your notebook faster, it’s louder and not quite as library (or sleeping wife) friendly. For fans of zippers, they managed to include a couple inside the bag. The first is a small pouch in the bottom of the bag, just big enough for a paper back book. The other zipper is found closer to the top, sealing up a larger pouch that might hold CDs, etc.
Also near the top of the bag are three small pockets, each big enough for a cell phone. The bulk of the inside of the LEvertigo is soft, so it’s not likely to scratch up a cell phone. I’m not sure that three of these pockets is as good an idea as, say, two pockets and some pen/pencil slots. Of course, this bag has two large compartments that will be used the most. The first is the larger area for the laptop and had the usual velcro strap to keep it in. This time around, the strap is adjustable to fit your specific notebook. The final area is a large mesh pocket to hold important papers. Where the flap folds over, the sides fold in, as well to create a little more protection from any rain you might come across. Everything hangs off the shoulder with the help of the seat belt like strap that seems to be a welcomed theme for be.ez products.
Conclusions
Another tough bag from be.ez, I can imagine this one faithfully protecting your portable computing for years while being, itself, very portable. It will likely turn a couple heads when you open it and can be purchased in black/pumpkin as well (and additional colors for the non-US version). At about $60, it’s not cheap, but you’ll get your money’s worth, I’m sure. If you know someone who’s getting a netbook for Christmas, this would be a decent compliment to it.
For a long time, I’ve been carrying around an old leather brief case with my laptop in it. I’ve preferred it over a traditional laptop bag because it just suits me more. It also feels less likely to be stolen at the airport. Recently, I was asked to take a look at a new bag and being a creature of habit, I didn’t expect to be swayed at all.
When my LA besace Laptop Bag arrived, I thought it looked pretty normal, and seemed a little nice. Wanting to focus more on items that blink and beep, I set it aside for a bit and hadn’t really taken a good look at it. I try to review items without reading other reviews or finding out much about the cost where possible. When I opened it up, it was like a bright light shining on a gray messenger style bag and I liked it.
An everything bag
One of the things I liked about this bag right away was its shape. Its curved top design, combined with the bold (yet not obnoxious) color contrast, has the Lime Drop making a mad dash away from the boring old laptop bags I’m used to seeing and in a more flexible direction. It just feels comfortable to throw things other than a laptop in it when you’re leaving the computer at home. For example, I used the Lime Drop to carry a couple cameras and some other items on my trip to go skydiving yesterday. Like the normal laptop bag, this one has lots of pockets and pouches for computing accessories, pens, note pads, etc. There’s also a couple outside pockets for easy access, which is good, too, because the one thing I didn’t like was that opening up the main compartment was a little cumbersome with the curved design and the zippers hidden away. It looks sleek, but that’s one spot where beauty comes at the price of convenience.
Some notable features
The Lime Drop brought to mind some features that should be (and usually are) on most laptop bags, some that were nice little surprises, and one that I felt was missing. The feature that I felt was missing was a handle on the top. I love the shoulder strap and it does free up my hands for other things, but when I’m getting in and out of the car, a top handle would have been nice. The shoulder strap didn’t miss a beat, though. It has the adjustable pad so the strap doesn’t dig into your shoulder, but what I thought was unique was the seat belt style strap. I don’t know how much stronger it is than other straps, but it gives the impression of durability, at least. The front pocket was also nice, but I enjoyed finding the back pocket by accident one day. This small back zipper pocket seems like an ideal place to store my plane tickets, which I’ll test soon enough. Finally, while I wouldn’t exactly dunk this think in water and trust it to not ruin my laptop, I would feel a lot more comfortable running through the rain to my car with the Lime Drop protecting my stuff rather than some other bags I’ve used.
Is this the bag for me?
I’d love to tell you to run right out and grab one, but the truth is that at about $80 it’s not really the cheapest bag you can buy. If you’re looking to go cheap, keep looking because there are a lot of cheap laptop bags out there. I can’t speak to their durability, longevity expectations, or feature sets as I haven’t reviewed those bags, though, so use your judgment. The Lime Drop, on the other hand, is a bag I’ve tried and am willing to venture is worth the price tag. It’s not because it looks so cool, but more because I think the design and bag will both hold up through my next few laptops.
Tomorrow, Toshiba will announce to the world it’s new Mini NB205 netbook. A first for Toshiba, it looks like they’ve planned ahead to do it right the first time, offering extra long battery life, a full, sleek keyboard, and a variety of colors to choose from. Looking at the picture below, you can see why those of us who got a sneak peek are buzzing about it.
Features available on the Toshiba mini NB205 include:
– 10.1-inch diagonal widescreen TruBrite™ backlit LED display (WSVGA)
– Windows® XP Home operating system
– Intel Atom N280 processor[iii] (1.66GHz)
– 1GB DDR2 800MHz RAM[iv], upgradeable to 2GB
– Spacious storage with a 160GB HDD2
– 802.11 b/g wireless[v] and 10/100 Ethernet
– Bluetooth V2.1 + EDR (only available in mini NB205-N310)
– TOSHIBA Hard Drive Impact Sensor
– Lightweight and very portable at only 2.9 lbs.
– Long-life 6-cell battery delivering up to 9 hours of productivity
– One USB port with Sleep-and-Charge and two USB 2.0 ports
– Built-in Webcam, speaker and microphone
– Toshiba PC Health Monitor
– RGB port for connecting to external displays
– Memory Card Reader Slot
– Security Lock Slot
– One-year international limited warranty and award-winning Toshiba service and support
One of the cooler features that I like is the USB port with Sleep-and-Charge that enables users to charge various consumer electronics devices even when the unit is turned off. I currently have to leave my laptop open and “awake” to charge my iPhone, which is a terrible waste of energy.
The Toshiba mini NB205-N310 ($399.00) and mini NB205-N210 ($349.00) will both be available on June 23, 2009 at major retailers, online and direct from Toshiba.
It looks great and I’m already hearing on other sites that it’s more comfortable to use than other netbooks, too. I can’t wait to get my hands on one.
