Merry Christmas from lgpOnTheMove

It's that special time of the year again where lgpOnTheMove is sharing the Christmas spirit. I would like to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas and a safe, fun-filled happy holidays.

For those of you lucky enough to have a brand-new notebook sitting under the tree, I'm guessing your Christmas just got extra special.

Stay tuned for more great notebook news and reviews coming in 2013.

Tech Tips - doing the SSD upgrade

Solid State Drives (SSD's) have become perhaps the most significant component to enter the PC hardware market over the last 5 years. It's no denying their overwhelming appeal - they boost performance, use less power and suffer none of the drawbacks of mechanical disks. From $300 netbooks to $30,000 rackmount servers, SSD's are making a presence everywhere.

While expensive back in 2008, this year has seen an unprecedented fall in SSD prices to levels far below $1/GB, and in some cases approaching fifty cents per gigabyte. Notebook and netbook users long wishing to upgrade their factory hard drives can now make that jump and enjoy all the benefits of SSD's... without breaking the bank! Read on to see how I upgrade my HP 210 Mini netbook and install a Samsung 840 series SSD.

The Best of 2012

I don't know why, but I'm finding it a little hard to put together my best-of list for 2012. The year has definitely shown progress, built largely on the efforts seen in 2011. There's certainly options out there for notebook fans, slate shoppers and even the netbook die-hards such as myself.

The issue perhaps is not so much as picking my favorite items, but more trying to figure out how 2013 will unfold as far as changes go given the shifts observed during 2012. With that pondering thought in my mind, however, let me present my top picks for the year.

Quick Look - Google Nexus 7

It was back in 2010 that I looked at the original Samsung Galaxy Tab and had my first exposure to Android. The $650 7" slate may have found over 1.5 million fans, yet I returned mine in utter frustration due to a lack of video playback and video streaming ability, among it's other notable drawbacks.

Fast-forward two years and I now have one of the latest 7" Android slates, the Google Nexus 7, in my capable hands. Has Asus improved on the hardware and Android improved enough to make me ditch my Windows netbook? Let's take a look!