lgpOnTheMove

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.

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.

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!

Network-attached storage (NAS) isn't one of the first things that would admittedly come to mind when discussing notebook accessories. Yet investing in a good NAS solution can bring much-useful benefits to your notebook, netbook, smartphone and slate, both at home and on the go.

I've been a big fan of Buffalo's products, having owned an external 3.5" USB drive for several years. The LinkStation Duo LS-WX6.0TL/R1 is a 2-drive NAS box offering 6TB of storage. Priced at a very affordable $379, what can this compact desktop solution do for your various mobile gadgets? Quite a lot, as I have come to find out.

I've just today successfully managed to force Newegg to initiate a shipment from three separate warehouses across the country, the first batch of which is due to arrive Friday. That doesn't include a fourth trip I'm making to my local Staples first thing in the morning for a popular 7" tablet that I have found an awesome deal on.

Definitely lots of action happening here at lgpOnTheMove, so stay tuned for some great articles in the coming weeks!

First Impressions - Alienware M18x notebook

This review comes down as a first here at lgpOnTheMove for many reasons. It's my first look at Alienware. It's my first 18.4" notebook. It's my first exposure to Ivy Bridge + Kepler. And it's my first notebook priced above $3000. But more than all of those, it's the first time I have been so excited about getting my hands on a notebook since my review of the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q708 - an impressive and very high-end 17" notebook that I would later go on to own and keep.

Granted, I'm still using my X305 even after 3 years, and am still very happy with it - as the saying goes, you DO get what you pay for. But is it just possible, given today's void in the high-end notebook space by the likes of HP and Toshiba, that something out there could pique even my specific interest and lay claim to the notebook performance crown? Alienware's 18.4" M18x is a veritable behemoth brimming with speed and power, alongside a feature set models from other manufacturers fail to even come close to. Has Dell done it's homework? Let's take a look!

Thank the folks at Dell for making this happen, but I am FINALLY able to present here on lgpOnTheMove a laptop from Alienware! The 18.4" M18x R2 encompasses the pinnacle of what notebook builders in 2012 can create, in both features and unbridled performance. Commanding a starting MSRP of $1999, and going well north of $5000 fully loaded, this is a piece of mobile tech only those with deep pockets can ever realistically think about owning, never mind be able to appreciate it's potential.

As is always the case here on lgpOnTheMove, feel free to feast your eyes below on some high-resolution images of this impressive and expensive beast. If you like what you see here then you will want to stay tuned for the full review that goes live next week!

Blogger's recent update of their CMS interface is wonderful - it's also making me spend more time learning to find where things are again. Other than that small nag, I've had a few other issues crop up pushing back my articles yet again.

No need to fear. I've just today secured the hardware for a MONSTER notebook review (emphasis on the word monster) so make sure to check back next month for some very exclusive lgpOnTheMove eye-candy. Other work I have planned is still in the pipeline, so I should be ready with that in the coming weeks as well.