Futurecat - Michael Karek

Technology moves at an unrelenting sprint, and HP is keeping pace with the introduction of several new laptops that take advantage of cutting-edge features like 3D, multi-touch, and their signature "Beats Audio” sound setup.

On the netbook front, HP introduced a new member to its venerable Mini 210 lineup (the Vivienne Tam – which I love – is part of this line) with new optional HD screens, optional GPS, and the option to power up with the Intel’s new Atom N550 processor.  It’s in a slick new chassis that’s less than an inch thick and weighs just a hair over 3lbs, and you can get one starting at $329.  HP also introduced the Mini 5103, which is HP’s first mini-notebook with a multi-touch screen.  It comes in a beautiful all-metal “espresso” colored case, and its available today starting at $399.  I’m really looking forward to getting a Mini 5103 so I can try out multi-touch.  Overall, HP does a great job with touch – just look at the wildly successful TouchSmart line – and I’m excited to see how they miniaturized the experience for the Mini 5103’s 10.1” screen.

The shiny new Mini 210s

Want something bigger?  HP’s got you covered.  Today they announced the ENVY 17 3D, the first 17” laptop in the world to pump out 3D graphics on a 1080p display.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds amazing!  Couple that with monster specs, like an available ATI Radeon 5850 DirectX 11 GPU, 2 terrabytes of storage, an Intel Core i7 processor, and ATI Eyefinity to support multiple external displays, and the ENVY 17 3D is shaping up to be one of the baddest boxes on the market. 

HP rounds out today’s announcement with the ENVY 14 Beats Edition. This is a special edition of the standard ENVY 14 that’s packed with Beats Audio, which HP touts as “A unique, high-performance technology developed by HP and Beats by Dr. Dre™ to provide the optimal sound experience – the way the artist intended it – when playing music or audio through headphones or external speakers.”  I just got one of these laptops into my office and I’ve been playing with Beats Audio and the Beats Audio Solo noise-cancelling headphones and I can attest to how incredible its makes music sound.  Bass is deep, mids are solid, and highs are crisp and clear.  It’s an impressive combo and something that I highly recommend to music lovers.  I’ll be reviewing the ENVY 14 in more depth in the next week or so, so keep an eye out.

It’s always nice to see a leading PC company like HP staying ahead of the game by making cutting-edge technology available in mainstream laptops.  Hopefully we’ll see more PCs with technologies like this coming soon.   Speaking of what’s next – what do you think is the next big thing in PC tech? 

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column.

UPDATED 8/16/10, 9:32pm PST – Added a link to an even cheaper version of Office to save you more dough!

I saw an article over the weekend that said that according to the National Retail Federation, college students are cutting their back-to-school spending by 19% (about $150).  There are a lot of theories on why that’s happening, ranging from the increased capabilities of smartphones to the unstable economy to more students continuing to live at home during college.  Regardless of the “real reason” – I suspect it’s a combination of all of those – one thing is clear; families are looking to stretch their budget and make every dollar count. 

So I got to thinking – would it be easy to outfit a college student with the essentials (a laptop, digital camera, and printer) for $1,000?  The answer is most definitely yes…and its easier than you think.

First and foremost, your student needs a laptop.  This is arguably the most important piece of gear that a college students has, as its at the center of writing papers, building presentations, communicating with friends, and more.  I like 13” – 15” machines for college students as they have the keyboard and screen real estate you need for long-haul work, but are still portable enough to fit in a backpack for class-to-class commuting.   Since we’re working of a $1,000 budget, I took a look at the $500(ish) laptops in my inventory and came up with three great choices: HP G62 ($549 via Bing Shopping), the Dell Studio 15 (starting at $449 from Dell.com), and the Acer Timeline Series ($588 via Bing Shopping).  Click the product name links and read my hands-on posts to get a good idea of what each can do.

Although more and more professors accept papers and presentations in digital format, sometimes you just have to go with good ol’ paper.  Fortunately printers have come WAY down in price and you can get a pretty good one for about $100.  I checked in with Sarah, our resident device expert (and blogger) and she recommended the Lexmark Interact S605 (it’s a scanner, printer, copier all-in-one for $113 on Bing Shopping), and the Canon Pixma MP560 all-in-one that you can get as low as $69.94!).

You’re going to want to remember all of those great college experiences, right?  Then you’ll also need a digital camera.  Sarah just did a blog post on the Kodak EasyShare M530.  It’s a 12 megapixel, Device Stage-ready camera, and you can get it under $100.  Hard to beat that spec line at the price

Let’s see where we stand if we go with the cheapest combination:

• Laptop: Dell Studio 15 ($449)
• Printer: Canon Pixma MP560 ($69.94)
• Camera: Kodak EasyShare M530 ($89.95)
• TOTAL:  $608.89

That leaves us $391.11 in our imaginary budget.  What else can you get for that dough?  Well, you’ll need a good backpack to lug your new machine around in, and for that, I recommend the OGIO Mastermind, which I use when I’m carrying a heavy laptop load.  You can get one for $64 on Bing Shopping.

Now we’re down to $327.11.  That’s a perfect amount for a copy of Office 2010 Home and Student ($113 via Bing Shopping), Office 2010 Academic Professional for $79.99 and an Xbox 360 Arcade to play when your schoolwork is done ($199 via Bing Shopping).

15 48 bucks to spare!  Plenty for pizza to share with your friends while you show them your new gear.

Have a question about any of this gear?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column!

I’m sitting here in on my in-laws’ deck overlooking beautiful Lake Chelan. Evan sleeping by my side, Audrey is down for a nap and the house is otherwise empty, so I thought I’d take my mother-in-law’s HP G62 out for a test drive. Yes, this is the same one I was conscripted to configure just a few weeks ago, but last time I was giving it the quickie setup (i.e., installing Microsoft Security Essentials, Windows Live Essentials Beta, and Office 2010), so didn’t have the chance to fully put it through its paces.

The HP G62 is part of HP’s line of everyday computers, meaning it’s optimized for light internet work, basic productivity tasks like writing Word docs, and playing music and movies. It’s a value priced machine – MSRP starts at $499.99, and my mother-in-law got her model for a little over $500 at a major retailer. For that price, you get a lot of machine. The G62 comes with a brand-new Intel Core i3 processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and a 320GB 7200 rpm HDD. Graphics are Intel Integrated HD which put out respectable Windows Experience Index score of 4.2 for desktop graphics and 4.8 for gaming graphics. That’s not top-shelf power, but if you’re just watching DVDs, playing casual games or streaming some web video it’s more than enough to give you a great experience.

As with all HPs, the 15”, 1366 x 768 display is gorgeous. It’s very bright but not too glossy; out here on the deck in bright sunlight the screen is still easy to read. Sound is powered by Altec Lansing speakers which produce solid, deep sound that’s better than most laptops I’ve tried in this price range – you don’t get the tinny, hollow reverberation that you find on cheaper speakers. As someone who’s permanently tethered to his Zune collection (or Pandora), that’s a big plus.

Even though this is part of HP’s value line, they didn’t skimp on design. The chassis is imprinted polycarbonate with a light polygon texture and the default out-of-the-box wallpaper matches the case design, which is kind of cool and a nice touch that brings the PC together inside and out. My favorite bit about the G62’s design is the touchpad – or should I say “lack of touchpad”. Unlike most laptops that have a dedicated, defined touchpad that looks like at touchpad, the G62 doesn’t. Its touchpad is seamless with the rest of the palm rest, so the chin of the laptop is completely unbroken (aside from the right and left mouse buttons). That’s an unusual design choice, but I like it and it’s something I wish more PC manufacturers would do. I’m a minimalist by nature, so anything that cleans up the façade of my PC makes me feel all Zen inside.

I’ve only had a chance to work with the G62 for a few hours, but I like what I see so far. Performance while working on this doc in Word 2010 was snappy and Internet Explorer running Twitter, Facebook, and multiple other tabs like CNN.com, Weather.com, The Consumerist, Gizmodo, Engadget, The Windows Experience Blog, and my favorite non-tech blog, The Sartorialist, was smooth and hang-free even when playing video on both Giz and Engadget simultaneously.

If you’re in the market for a solid 15” laptop and you’re working off of a modest budget, put the HP G62 on your list. For around $500, it’s a tough box to beat.

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column!

We’re in the thick of Summer, and for millions of people around the world that means one thing – Summer vacations!  If you’re anything like me (and you probably are, or you wouldn’t be reading these posts!), you always bring  PC with you wherever you go so you can keep an eye on your email, look up a local restaurant or attraction, or take a look at the next day’s forecast.  The next logical question is “What PC should I bring with me?”  To help answer that question, my PC partner-in-crime Ryan Asdourian and I pulled together a short video review of some of our favorite portable PCs – the wicked light Asus UX30, the media friendly Sony VAIO EA, the racecar-inspired Acer Ferrari ONE, the Best Buy Blue Label Toshiba e205 & ultraportable Toshiba t-135, the super-customizable Dell Mini 10, the fashion-forward HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam Edition, and the bafflingly small Sony VAIO P.  Check it out:

Now that you’ve seen some of our favorite travel PCs, Ryan and I want to know…what’s yours?

Have a question about this or any other PC?  Post a comment, hit me on Twitter, or Ask Ben Anything via email.  Your question might appear in my monthly Ask Ben Anything Q&A column!

It’s family time here at Ask Ben Anything! Not just because my son Evan James was born on June 30^th, but also because this month I got literally dozens of questions that began “I’m looking to get my mom/dad/brother/sister/boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/etc. a brand new PC and am having some trouble picking one…”. So I thought I’d share a few that were representative of the types of questions that I got over the last few weeks.

Remember that if you have any kind of PC buying question, you can Ask Ben Anything by finding me on Twitter @BenThePCGuy, leaving a comment on one of my posts, or emailing me at benthepcguy@live.com.

Hey Ben –

My brother is looking for a laptop that meets the following reqs:

1. Cheap, as in, $300 or UNDER. (this is probably the biggest req, so I put it first. )

2. Screen size of 14″ or greater.

3. Processor and RAM at least 1.5 ghz and 1 GB, respectively.

- Thomas S.

$300 means you’re going to be almost exclusively looking at netbooks, but since they all run Windows 7 beautifully, that shouldn’t be a deal breaker. I’ve recently grown fond of the Gateway LT210 series and I recommend you check them out – they look great, perform well, and are right in your brother’s price range. If you can get him to go up just a bit to the $500 range, you can get some really great full-size machines. I’d first have him check out the Acer Timeline 5810, 4810 and 3810 series. I reviewed them a few weeks ago and was impressed by their performance-to-price ratio. We also schlepped one of the 5810’s to our press event last month, where it was very well received. You might also want to look at the HP G62.  It’s got a Core i3 processor, sharp design, a very nice display, and it runs right around $500. My mother-in-law just got one and I really liked it when I played with it. …and by “played with it” I mean “was conscripted to set it up for her.”

My sister is in the market for a new laptop and needs something sturdy (can handle being tossed around a bit) and optimized for entertainment (music, TV, movies, photos). She is willing to spend up to $1,000. Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

- Julia K

At that price you have lots of options, and all of our recent offer machines – the Sony VAIO EB, the Toshiba e205, or the HP dm4 – meet your criteria. The latter is the one I’m most intrigued by right now because it has switchable graphics and a really slick laser-etched aluminum case. All are under $1000 and very solid machines with big drives, Core i5 processors, and nice, bright screens. The Asus UL80vt, the big brother of the UL30vt that I’ve been carrying as my main travel machine for the last few weeks is also a good bet. It also has switchable graphics, a big 500GB drive, and gets 10+ hours of battery life.

Then again….

If you want REALLY sturdy, go with a ruggedized laptop. I’m a devotee of the Panasonic ToughBook 30 and the Dell E6400 XFR. Both are shock, water, dust and impact resistant, and feature fully armored cases and crack resistant screens. They’re used mainly by professionals in heavy industry, law enforcement and the military, but they’re available for moms to purchase as well.

My mom is looking at iPads, but uses a Windows 7 PC for work and loves it (she’s a teacher). She wants something she can travel with (they live in Ecuador, so lots of traveling), that’s super light so she could answer email if she wanted, listen to music, read eBooks and watch TV shows.

Is there a sub $1000 (or around that price point) netbook or super lightweight PC you’d recommend? She likes the idea of a touch screen for the ebooks, but that isn’t a deal breaker.

- Beth N.

If lightweight is key, netbooks are always a good bet. I just got my hands on an HP Mini 311 which has NVIDIA ION graphics inside, meaning it’s very capable of handling movies and recorded TV shows. If you go to full-size lappies, I’m a new fan of the just-released Toshiba r705. It’s under $1000, has a Core i5 processor, and Toshiba bills it as the lightest full-feature laptop ever made (it weighs just over 3lbs.). There’s also Dell’s brand-new Inspiron R series, which are also pretty impressive in terms of specs and video playback and available under a grand. And while it’s (way) over her ideal price point, I can’t leave out the Sony VAIO Z. It’s wicked light, nasty powerful, and super slick.

Thanks again for all of your questions – keep ‘em coming!

I recently got in a shipment of HP Pavilion dm4’s, the same machine that is part of today’s offer that Ashley just told you about. The dm4 is a capable machine, and given that it starts at little over $700 it’s very friendly on the bank account, too. The model the Microsoft Store is lists for $849 but through the offer you can get it, and an Xbox Arcade for $794 – that’s a savings of $200, and means you get both for less than the price of the PC. No matter how you slice it, that’s a heck of a good deal.

The thing that jumped out at me immediately when I opened the box is the laser-etched aluminum case. Sure, lots of PCs are incorporating metal into their chassis, such as the Dell Adamo, the Asus UX series, and HP’s own Envy lineup, but the dm4 is just different enough that it stands out from the crowd. The hue is softer, almost pinkish, and it’s accentuated by a deeply textured design on the caseback and palm rest. That’s the real difference for me – while most OEMs are going with a brushed finish (which I do like) HP is taking a different direction. Not everyone will love it, but it is unquestionably different.

Specs on my dm4 are impressive for a sub-$1000 machine. Core i5, 4GB of RAM, 320GB HDD (which you can spec up to 640GB, if you need the space), webcam, built-in optical drive, and a bright & readable 1366 x 768 display. I think my favorite feature of the dm4 is its switchable graphics – you can toggle between Intel HD integrated graphics, and ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5450 discrete graphics. The latter has plenty of power to play almost any game you want, and ATI’s Catalyst Control Center is smart enough to automatically switch between the two options depending on scenario. Not surprisingly, the default is to work off the integrated GPU when on battery, and off the discrete card when plugged in. The screen does flicker when you jump back and forth, but it happens very quickly and is well worth the battery-to-performance balance you get. The auto settings were enough to get me about 6 hours of battery life under normal workloads – plenty to get me through the day. As always, your mileage may vary depending on how hard you push your system.

As with all HP’s, the keyboard is spacious and very easy to type on. The keyboard isn’t backlit – a minor annoyance for me – but not a deal breaker. When I used the dm4 in the dark, the light from the monitor, even with the brightness turned down, was enough for me to clearly see the keys. The dm4 is also impressively light for a 14” PC with a metal body and DVD drive, weighing in at just a hair under 4.5 lbs. Schlepping it around in my Timbuk2 laptop messenger was a breeze.

Even if the Xbox offer wasn’t on the table, I’d recommend the dm4 as a very capable & very attractive PC. With the offer in place, it’s a can’t-miss.

Have a question about the dm4? Leave a comment or find me on Twitter.  And remember you can always Ask Ben Anything about PCs!

Behind door number one:

If you’re in the market for a new PC, I’ve got a deal for you. For a limited time, the Microsoft Store is offering an HP Pavilion DM4 with Windows 7 Home Premium and an Xbox 360 Arcade for less than the price of the PC (you save $200). Ben will have a review of the DM4 up shortly posted a hands on review today. It’s thin and light – so you can take it anywhere – and the 14” screen size is big enough to see everything and small enough to go into a backpack.

Bear with me while I explain why this is an incredible deal: the $200 savings means that the PC + Xbox Arcade is $794. The PC alone is $849. And with Kinect coming, you have another great reason to pull the trigger on a full tech upgrade.

If you haven’t seen what Kinect is all about, check this out:

This offer is only available in the U.S. for a limited time, so if you’re sold go here and give yourself or someone you love very, very much an awesome gift.

Behind door number two:

If you’re a student and not in the market for a new PC, we didn’t want you to feel left out this summer. From now until September 6 we’re offering you the lowest price available on Windows 7.

If you qualify you can score one copy of Windows 7 Professional for just $29.99! To qualify, you must have a valid .edu email address and currently own a PC with genuine Windows Vista or Windows XP that can run Windows 7. Go here to see if you’re eligible and buy.

Also don’t forget about Microsoft Office Professional Academic 2010: right now, students receive a $79.95 special deal (go here) on that too—which means you can get both Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010 for just over $100.

While the above information is for customers in the U.S., the Windows 7 student offer is also available in Mexico, Canada, Australia, France, Korea and the UK. Please check www.windows.com for full details.

There are still other offers available, so be sure to also check www.windows.com to see if another deal is right for you.

Happy summer! Questions? You can reach me @winashbrown

Interesting news from our pals at Toshiba today with the launch of the libretto W100, their new ultra-mobile dual-screen concept PC. The libretto sports an interesting design – two 7” 1024 x 600 capacitive multi-touch screens arranged side-by-side (like a book, hence the name “libretto”). As the first dual-touchscreen portable Windows PC, the libretto marks the latest innovation in a long line of Toshiba “firsts”, such as the first laptop with an HDD, the first Pentium-powered laptop, the first laptop with an SSD, and more.

Spec-wise, the libretto packs a lot of punch in a very, very small package. It’s powered by a new Intel U5400 processor that is very snappy, and it runs Windows 7 Home Premium, which powers its multi-touch functionality and gives it all of the capabilities of a standard Windows laptop. Onboard is 2GB of RAM and a 62GB SSD, as well as b/g/n wireless. It weighs less than 2 lbs. and is small enough to fit in my jacket pocket. Kind of a nice way to carry a computer from meeting to meeting!

I had questions about the dual touchscreen/no physical keyboard setup at first. After working with it for a few hours, I was particularly fond of the easy-to-type on virtual keyboard with haptic feedback – you can call up different keyboards, such as QWERTY, number pad, “thumb typing” and more – and the finger-friendly navigation controls that span both screens, which go a long way towards eliminating mis-tapping on the small screens. I also liked the “virtual trackpad” that you can call up; it lets you control the mouse just like you would on any laptop, and lets you easily flip between touch-driven or mouse-driven controls.

Toshiba did a nice job with touch friendly software, too. I liked the Reel Time software which is a touch-friendly way to flick through docs, photos, videos and movies, and Bulletin Board, which serves as kind of a home page for accessing your favorite web pages, application and document shortcuts as well as nifty gadgets like to-do lists, sticky notes and a clock. They’re both nice supplements to Windows 7’s core functionality.

The launch of the libretto got me thinking about all the ways that our hardware partners are using Windows 7 to deliver a wide variety of touch experiences. What I mean is that just like you can get exactly the PC you want, in the size and form factor you want, at the price point you want, you can also get exactly the touch experience you want.

Most of our hardware partners are introducing multi-touch trackpads that allow for easy gestures like two-finger scrolling, pinch-to-zoom, and more. Personally, this is something that I can’t live without – my Dell Studio XPS has a multi-touch trackpad as do others like the Acer Timeline Series (which I reviewed and really liked), Asus UL line (I am using a UL30vt now…this thing packs a multi-touch trackpad AND 11 hours of battery life!), and most of HP’s new laptops, like the Envy series and Pavilion dm4. What I love about multi-touch trackpads is that they’re super-intuitive so learning how to use them takes only a few seconds.

I love my new Asus UL30vt so much I feel like I’m cheating on my wife (sorry Deana!)

If you’re looking for a deeper touch experience, you should check out PCs with multi-touch screens. Right now I’m really liking the Lenovo s10-3t, which is a convertible tablet netbook with a capacitive screen that you can get for around $600, as well as the more enterprise-class convertible offerings like the Lenovo x201t and the HP EliteBook 2740p. The latter you can get with monster specs like a Core i7 processor.

Lenovo’s bad-ass business tablet, the ThinkPad x201t.

Of course, “regular” notebooks with multi-touch screens are available too, and are becoming more and more common. Check out the massive Dell Studio 17 Touch and the iBuyPower Battalion Touch CZ-10, the world’s first multi-touch screen gaming rig. The iBuyPower is the one that I showed to Shane O’Neill from CIO Magazine last month:

Many of our hardware partners are making multi-touch available in all-in-one PCs, too. This is where a multi-touch display really shines for me; I use a Sony VAIO J (the little brother of the Sony VAIO L) in my kitchen right now to show off photos and videos of my daughter and navigate my rapidly growing Zune music collection using Windows Media Center. I power up and just flick through content with a finger, and opening a file is as simple as tapping the screen. It’s a really comfortable, natural way to work with your media. Dell has a nice implementation of a multi-touch all-in-one in their Studio One 19, as does HP with their popular TouchSmart series. Touch works great on all of these, so compare sizes, specs and prices to find the one that’s best for you.

Sooooo preettttyyyy….The Sony VAIO L is 24” of multi-touch glory.

That leads me back to the libretto, and other “slate-like” devices like the forthcoming Asus eee Pad. These devices eschew the traditional mouse and keyboard in favor or a touch-only interface. The category is very new, but there’s a lot of promise here. What I do know is that there’s something special about having the convenience of touch and the power (and device/app support) of Windows 7. It’s going to be really interesting to see how this space evolves – I suspect we’ll see a lot of new Windows devices in the coming months.

Not everyone is going to want or need something like the libretto, but that’s the beauty of Windows PCs – if you want it, you can get it! That’s why I’m excited to see a range of touch PCs hitting the market. It’s just one more way to get exactly the PC you want.

Not sure which touch experience is right for you? Leave a comment or hit me on Twitter. And as always, if you have a PC question, you can Ask Ben Anything.

For those of you who didn’t see my intro post, here’s the deal – send your PC buying questions to benthepcguy@live.com, find me on Twitter, or leave a question in the comments of one of my posts, and I’ll pick a few each month to answer publicly. I’ll always look to answer questions.

Before I get started, thank you to the dozens of readers who wrote in! I’m sorry that I’m not able to answer every question directly, because there were some really great questions about PCs and Windows that came through.

Hey Ben, looking to get a good school laptop for my 12 year old. He’s not a huge gamer but does want something that can handle some games.

- Greg M. (via face-to-face chat at Bellevue Square Mall)

The last two offer machines that I covered – the Toshiba e205 and the Sony VAIO EB, are exactly the kind of machine you should be looking for.  Each one is a reasonable size and weight (14” and 15” respectively) has a Core i5 processor, big, bright screen, and reasonable graphics power.  And you can get them each for under $1000.  You might also check out the 14” Samsung R480, which you can get with high-end specs like a Blu-Ray drive and a Core i5 processor.

I just took a new job and will be doing a lot of international travel. Need something small and fast. No gaming for me so I’m not too concerned with graphics power.

- Jeff O. (via email)

Right now I am in love with the Asus UL series. They’re thin, light, and you can get them in 13” (the UL30vt), 14” (UL80vt) or 15” (UL50). Each has a big hard drive – up to 500GB, 4GB of memory, an HD screen, and a Core2Duo ULV processor. What really stands out for me is the fact that the UL line has switchable graphics (NVIDIA GeForce G 210M discrete graphics for better performance, Intel HD Integrated graphics for better battery life), and gets 10+ hours of battery life. And you can get them for around $600! If you’re in the market for a high-end machine, the Sony VAIO Z is one of the most powerful 13” ultrathins out there, and you can get it with killer options like 512GB of SSD storage and Blu-Ray. And of course, if you’re traveling on a budget and aren’t doing a lot of heavy typing, there are tons of great netbooks that might work. I like the Gateway LT210, the Sony VAIO W (which I just posted on a few days ago), the HP Mini Vivienne Tam, (another one I reviewed), and the Asus eeePC Karim Rashid Edition, which you can get in hot pink or coffee brown.

So I’m in the market for a new (home) laptop – and I’m looking for something that’s light (~5 pounds or less), thin (1” or less), has awesome battery life (>4 hours), and looks as cool as a MacBook Pro. I’ve boiled it down to three competitors: Dell’s Adamo, HP’s Envy or a new MacBook Pro (running Windows 7 naturally!)

- Mark A. (via email)

First off, if you’re going to run Windows 7, then you should buy a Windows 7 PC! We work with our OEMs constantly to make sure that their hardware works great with our software.  And of course, you can always get more for your money with a PC at any size or price point.

In terms of PC choices, I like both the Adamo and the Envy line, so it really depends what you’re looking for. The Envy series is much more media-friendly and they sport powerful discrete graphics and a brilliant screen (as I’ve said before, its one of my favorites). The Adamo is geared towards mobile professionals and features a huge SSD and great battery life. Think about what you want to do, and make the call based on that – they’re both good boxes and are comparably priced.

If you like the Adamo you should also check out the Dell Vostro v13. It’s the same chassis as the Adamo, but with more moderate specs (i.e., no SSD), so you can get it loaded up for about $1000, about half price of a top-of-the-line Adamo.

Thanks again to everyone who wrote in a PC question. Keep ‘em coming!

In my wife’s mind this is one of the most important weeks of the year. No, it’s not our anniversary, the day we got engaged or our daughter’s birthday. It’s not any family event of any kind, actually.

It’s the premier of Sex and the City 2.

Once more, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda are hitting the big screen in style and this time, they’re doing it with some really sharp new PCs from HP, including the HP TouchSmart all-in-one PCs, and the HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam Edition.

Style has always been a key theme in the Sex and the City franchise, and the producers made a smart choice by partnering with HP as their technology partner. I’ve been consistently impressed with their new laptop lines – particularly the new dm4 and Envy 14/17 – but the clear star of their fashion lineup is the Vivienne Tam netbook. For those of you unfamiliar with Vivienne Tam, she’s a fashion world heavyweight – her runway collections are always one of Fashion Week’s most talked about. HP lent me the new “Butterfly Lovers” model for a few weeks (the PC, not the woman on the catwalk, and I can sum up my experience in one sentence: It’s freakin’ gorgeous.

Stunning, actually – enough so that virtually every single person who I passed here on campus stopped to ask me what it was and if they could check it out. I’ve yet to see another PC pull off that kind of response.

Marketed as a “digital clutch”, that beauty is liberally applied inside and out. The exterior is a soft, antiqued gold, accented with Vivienne’s signature butterfly design. It’s built directly into lid using HP Imprint technology, which makes it both eye-catching and durable. The design does an excellent job of standing out without being ostentatious, which is a very delicate and important balance to strike when working with a “look at me!” color like gold. Every detail was carefully planned by HP and Ms. Tam, and the PC is filled with little extras, like a LED that lights up when you plug in an Ethernet cable, and the Chinese character for “happy” on the enter key. Glass is edge-to-edge and puts out better-than-average 1366 x 768 resolution, which if you read my hands-on with the Sony W Mini Notebook, is a huge selling point for me since you don’t run into the truncation issues with web pages that you find on a 1024 x 600 standard netbook display.

Inside, the Vivienne Tam is powered by an Intel Atom N processor, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB HDD and a Broadcom Media Accelerator, all of which combines to offer snappy performance.

Beyond the beautiful industrial and artistic design of the hardware, HP and Vivienne Tam partnered with StarDock to create a custom theme for Windows 7. Normally I’m not a fan of anything that messes with Windows 7’s look-and-feel, but in the Vivienne Tam’s case, it works really well. The wallpaper matches the case color. The window frames and control buttons match the wallpaper. The Windows Start Button has been replaced by a butterfly that gently flaps its wings when you mouse over. And the start menu has an equally elegant butterfly that flutters around and comes to rest on the menu’s translucent back side. It’s a thoughtful look at Windows 7 theme customization and it complements the device well.

If you’re looking for something that’s equal parts Wall Street warrior and 5^th Avenue fashionista, the HP Vivienne Tam is a great choice. You can get one from HP starting at $599.

Or if you’re feeling lucky…

Our buddies on the Bing team are hosting the “Win with Bing™” contest in conjunction with the movie’s launch. Visit www.finditwithbing.com for your chance to win an HP Mini Vivienne Tam Netbook like the one I covered today in Bing’s weekly drawing. The contest runs from May 25^th – July 5^th, 2010.