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Sara et Sara

Né(e) le 11 août 2016

10 ans

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Toshiba Qosmio F60 Notebook Battery

Acer loves software, so much so that it installed a slew of apps and programs on the F15 that range from useful to flat-out bloatware. Acer-branded titles include cloud-based apps like abFiles and abPhoto, which let you access important files or photos on any device. Care Center allows you to run system diagnostics, while Power Button provides quick access to shutting the system down or putting it into Hibernate Mode.Extraneous apps include Flipboard, Amazon Kindle, Netflix, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Amazon, Twitter and a Wild Tangent Games Hub app.The Acer Aspire F15 ships with a one-year limited warranty. See how Acer fared on our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands ratings.


The $599 model of the F15 I reviewed has a 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-6200U processor, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD and an Intel HD Graphics 520 GPU. If you're looking to save a few bucks, you can get the $499 base model, which downgrades the display from full HD to 1366 x 768. But if you want to get a bit of gaming in, you can pay $799, which gives you a discrete Nvidia GeForce 940MX GPU with 4GB of VRAM and increases the clock speed from 2.3 to 2.5-GHz.Acer managed to cram a lot of value into the Aspire F15. For $599, you get mainstream Core i5 processing power, an attractive design and a sharp, though dull, display. The true star of the system, however, is the SSD that delivers stronger boot and file transfer times than you usually find in this price range.If you want a laptop with a little more performance oomph and a better display, we recommend the Dell Inspiron 15 5000. But if you're looking for a solid all-around laptop, the Acer Aspire F15 is a strong choice.


If you have a Surface Pro 3 and your battery life has been failing to live up to expectations, you are not alone. Based on a thread in the Microsoft Answer forums and a few tips from readers, those who have devices with the Simplo batteries in them are quickly finding themselves with devices that barely hold a charge.The problem is that starting after one year of the device being used, consumers are reporting that their battery life is a small fraction of what it was when they purchased the device. While battery degradation is expected of these devices as all batteries lose their ability to hold a charge over time, what is happening with the Simplo batteries is far outside the normal wear and tear of these devices.


Several users in the Answer forums have posted the battery report from their device and it clearly shows how these batteries have collapsed in terms of functionality. The problem is quite obvious but it’s when it finally shows up is the problem; this flaw does not show up until the device is outside the standard warranty period which leaves the user on the hook for a repair which will cost upwards of $500.Microsoft has acknowledged that they are looking into the issue, which is a good sign for those who have been impacted by the problem but with no timeline for resolution, it leaves those with the issue stranded. The question becomes should you wait to see if Microsoft is going to act upon the issue or do you need to replace the device now and not waste time sitting idle while a potential solution is researched.


To see what battery you have in your Surface Pro 3, you can run the following command from command prompt: powercfg /batteryreport.Those in the forums who have the issue stated that they were told it is a hardware failure and that a software fix will not resolve their problem which means your only hope at this point is that Microsoft will extend the warranty on these devices. If the company does not, and they likely have no legal requirement to do so as this is not a safety issue, then you are out of luck.But, if the company wants to keep its good faith with consumers, and they find that the Simplo battery is flawed and fails consistently outside of the warranty period, it would be in their best interest to offer those impacted a reasonable solution.



For those who are affected, your best bet is to let Microsoft know you are seeing this hardware failure so that they can better understand the scope of the problem. You can do this by contacting support directly and I’d also recommend posting in the Answer forum as well.Dell’s XPS 15 has become the new trendsetter for big-screen laptops. Like Apple, Dell has come up with a stable, high-quality design.I try out a lot of laptops and laptop-tablet hybrids, so it’s never easy to settle on one machine for long. But Dell’s 2016 update of the XPS 15 has been my main machine for the last month. Here’s why.Big screen: Dell’s 15.6-inch display is so big that you probably won’t want anything bigger. But the company has done a good job making its biggest XPS laptop small and light for its size. The XPS 15’s almost-borderless display allows Dell to compress the chassis to the size of some 14-inch laptops. And the 3.9-pound starting weight (4.4 pounds with the larger battery) is well distributed, making it eminently portable for a 15-inch class laptop.


Dell is one of the few top-tier laptop manufacturers to use a so-called bezel-less (borderless) display (though others are finally beginning to catch on). This accomplishes two critical things: it makes for a really cool looking laptop and, as I said above, it keeps the weight and size down. Dell has also done this with great success on the XPS 13, which is essentially a smaller version of the XPS 15.But getting back to the display’s size. What a 15.6-inch screen gets you is something pretty close to a standalone desktop display. It’s easy to unplug my external 25-inch Dell display and just use the XPS’s. In fact, if I owned an XPS 15 there would be really no reason for an external display. That’s why a big-screen laptop will always have a following: it’s essentially a movable desktop PC.


And be warned, once you start using a big-screen laptop, it’s really hard to go back to anything under 14 inches. Dell makes it even harder if you opt for the 4K Ultra HD (3,840-by-2,160) touch display – it has 3 million more pixels than the display on Apple’s 15.4-inch MacBook Pro. Made by Japan-based Sharp and co-developed with Dell, it’s easily the best big display I’ve used on a laptop. Windows 10 in high resolution is very different than Windows running on a lower-resolution laptop. And Dell and Sharp have done their homework with color accuracy and color reproduction.


Materials: Dell’s choice of materials sets it apart from the competition too. In order to keep the weight down, Dell uses a carbon fiber composite on the area surrounding the keyboard and touchpad. The soft feel of the weaved carbon fiber while you type is a nice contrast with the all-aluminum laptops prevalent today – the MacBook being the most prominent example. The only downside is that the carbon fiber can be a body oil magnet. (I find I generally need to clean the area around the touchpad every other day with a soft cloth moistened with soapy water.) The rest of the laptop (top and bottom) is aluminum. Overall, it’s a remarkably sturdy machine considering its light weight and thickness – only 0.66 inches at its thickest point.


Performance: The model I have packs a lot of punch with Intel’s newest i7-6700HQ 6th generation quad-core processor. It also has a no-holds-barred feature set, including 16GB of DDR4 RAM, a fast 512GB solid-state drive, an Nvidia GTX 960M graphics chip, and an 84 WHr (watt-hour) battery.Big-screen laptops are often fast, because they can accommodate robust cooling systems and fans to keep even the speediest silicon from overheating. Fast silicon does make a difference. There really isn’t anything that can slow down the XPS 15 that I’m using. Opening a browser with dozens of tabs, or playing a 1080p video full-screen while tweaking an Excel spreadsheet, or diving into photo or video editing doesn’t faze it. And while I don’t play games, it can also keep up with some of the faster gaming laptops, based on tech site reviews. All of that speed can make it painful to return to less performance-oriented laptops.


Battery life: My computer has the extra-large battery so the XPS 15 can stay charged all day based on my on-and-off usage, as long as you turn down the display brightness to about 60 percent and don’t spend a lot of time watching movies or playing 1080p games. Battery life will jump appreciably if you opt for the cheaper version of the XPS 15 with a less-power-hungry, standard-resolution display.Ports/connectors: The XPS 15 comes with an SD card slot, two USB 3.0 connectors, an HDMI port, and a USB-C/ThunderBolt 3 port.Price: Pricing starts at $999 for a model with a standard-resolution (1,920-by-1,080) display and dual-core processor and jumps quickly into the $1,600 to $2,950 range if you opt for the high-resolution display and quad-core processor.



Living in a high-tech hub such as Champaign-Urbana accrues many benefits. One of those is highly knowledgeable readers. We recently wrote about just a few major companies manufacturing the majority of lithium batteries. A reader, who makes his living involving batteries, responded:I have personally visited at least 15 factories in Asia (small and large) producing lithium polymer batteries. From my 25 years of experience doing business in China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea I'd venture to say that there are hundreds of factories producing lipo batteries like the one being discussed. Quality varies widely. My advice would be to look at consumer reviews of the manufacturer's and/or seller's batteries. Even so, buying an off-brand battery is a gamble. I've witnessed batteries in production for big name brands even at some small to medium sized factories, particularly for special applications.


Otherwise I agree with all that you mentioned.I don't offer investment advice, but lithium batteries (and the basic elements of lithium and aluminum) should be a profitable investment these days. The ultra-hot electric car company, Tesla searches the world to procure and secure the elements to make lithium polymer batteries at its Gigafactory in Nevada. This is truer now than a year ago after Tesla took far more orders for its forthcoming Model 3 than anticipated. The company needs batteries to power at least 325,000 cars during the first year of production. With Tesla vacuuming up all the necessary raw materials for lithium batteries it could cause smartphone, tablet and laptop battery costs to rise. Fortunately, those applications employ very small batteries compared with those to power automobiles.

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Samsung AA-PB9NC6W Notebook Battery

Another feature meant to please the crowd is the “HDR mode” that alters the colour of the 1080p display. I’m using quotations when calling it “HDR mode” because it is an infuriatingly confusing feature. HDR is a term currently used to describe two things.HDR in photography, where identical photos with different exposures are layered together to provide a highly detailed image (either static or moving).

HDR in video, where those highly detailed images are then reproduced perfectly on very expensive TVs.

Samsung has introduced a third HDR mode that has nothing to do with HDR and everything to do with the rising popularity of the term. Samsung’s HDR mode is really just “brighter colours and higher contrast at the cost of accuracy.” It’s not so much HDR as a badly named display preset for people who don’t know any better.


Samsung Finally Gave Us the Laptop Apple Should Have

Which is a lot of people! I review displays for a living, so I’ve gotten very good at judging the accuracy of one and I deeply value that accuracy, but I also know that friends and family often find “accurate” to mean “dull and sort of brown.” This mode is absolutely for them — too bad it couldn’t have a different name.As it stands, calling the preset “HDR mode” is bound to lead to people proudly showing off their $US800 ($1,048) laptop and saying it’s got a display that’s better than the one on an $US8000 ($10,481) TV. This would be inaccurate, so if you buy this laptop do not do this.


Should You Buy It?

And you should buy this laptop — at least if you’re in the mood for a not-so-lean but very mean Windows machine. Sending a kid to college? Are yourself a kid headed to college? This is the perfect device for you. It’s what used to be the bread and butter of Apple and Dell. This big guy can go anywhere and do just about anything, and won’t make your bank account cry in the process. Apple take note, this is what people are actually looking for in a laptop under $US1000.You might call this one a long-term review: I've had these headphones now for over six months and I thought it might be worth pointing out what I like about them and why I currently default to them when using headphones.First of all, wireless headphones have huge ergonomic advantages over physically tethered ones. They also have a built-in feature I regularly use: a hands-free microphone that lets you make and take calls without holding your phone up to your mouth.

That said, these Sennheiser headphones have a few other advantages. Their physical styling is about the best on the market, with just the right amount of understated fashion and design. This is obviously in the eye of the beholder, but I'd take these over candy-coloured DJ lookalikes any day of the week.


They're also quite comfortable, which is a crucial consideration. I have a rather big cranium and any unevenness will dig in mercilessly - but the leather used is soft and adaptive. These aren't the cushiest on the market (Sony, arguably holds that crown), but they're just fine.
And the Momentum headphones have active noise-cancelling technology on board. This means that they cut out a great deal of the external clattering and chattering around you to let you focus on whatever your Bluetooth audio source is. Indeed, you don't even need to have something playing - you can simply turn the headphones on and you'll get the advantage of the noise-cancellation. (I use this a lot.)The quality of the playback is very good for wireless headphones. There are some useful physical controls on the headphones, including a volume button and track controls.

Battery life is about the same as any other pair of Bluetooth wireless cans I use - you'll get a week from a single charge if you listen for around an hour a day. It's rechargeable using a standard Micro USB cable.


It's taken a while, but 'convertible' laptops are starting to bring some real extra functionality to portable PCs. Take HP's 13-inch Spectre X360, which I've been playing with for a couple of weeks. Other than some high-end technical specifications, which I'll get to in a second, its main appeal is the screen flexibility that its hinge affords.

Basically, you can flip the screen right around until it backs onto the keyboard. But all points in between make it functional, too - you can stand it up as a single screen if you want to for presentations or simply to watch movies on. Obviously, HP's intent is that this also makes it useful as a 'tablet', although I still have reservations about Windows-based tablets - Windows was, and remains, an awkward operating system for touchscreen operations. It's simply not optimised for this form of input: try to toggle quickly through applications using just the touchscreen features and you'll see what I mean.



To be fair, if you never used any of the Spectre X360's tablet touchscreen features, you'd still have a pretty powerful, slick laptop. The super-slim form factor is gorgeous, with a silver metallic body making it feel like a cross between a MacBook Air and a MacBook Pro.The trackpad on it is huge - almost seven inches across. The backlit keyboard is very comfortable to type on, too.

If you like your physical connections, this laptop has them all with three USB ports, a HDMi port and a memory-card reader. There's also a volume button on the side of the laptop as well as a shortcut key to the home screen. The bright 1080p screen is excellent (it's configurable up to 4K), with very decent speakers built in.


My test laptop had 128GB of storage memory, an Intel i5 chip and 4GB of Ram (although the specs HP gives out appear to stipulate 8GB of Ram as standard).If I was to pick any holes in it, it might be its weight. At 1.5kg this is a little heavier than some other similarly sized skinny laptops out there.

But otherwise, if you need to stick with Windows and are looking for some flexibility, this is an excellent buy.

Serious business users who want a large display and business-class security can't go wrong with Lenovo's ThinkPad T560. The system provides fast performance for heavy multitasking and long enough battery life to get you through a transcontinental business flight, and its top-tier keyboard is just icing on the cake. Other 15-inchers are sleeker and more portable, but the ThinkPad T560 is the most well-rounded.


There are plenty of 15-inch laptops on the market that are slimmer and lighter than the 4.8-lb. ThinkPad T560. Dell's 4.4-lb. XPS 15 stands out as a more commuter-friendly option, though it's not as secure or durable as the ThinkPad T560. If you can live with a slightly smaller display, the ThinkPad T460 is a whole pound lighter.But compared to other business-class 15-inchers, Lenovo's system is actually relatively portable. Dell's 5.6-lb Latitude E5570, for example, is both thicker and heavier. That's less true if you opt for the ThinkPad T560's extended battery, which adds about an extra half pound to the system's weight. The extended battery still comes highly recommended, though, since it nearly doubles the laptop's battery life — but more on that later.


Commuters and frequent travelers will appreciate the ThinkPad T560's extremely durable design. The system sports a glass-fiber-reinforced shell that feels extremely sturdy and rigid; I didn't notice a hint of flex in the lid or keyboard deck. Lenovo says the system has MIL-SPEC-grade durability and was designed to withstand short drops and dings. You get a generous array of ports with the ThinkPad T560. The right edge has two USB 3.0 ports, a mini DisplayPort for connecting to monitors and projectors, and a lock slot for physically securing your laptop at your desk.


Security-minded workers will find a lot to like here. The ThinkPad T560 comes with all the standard business-class security options, including Trusted Platform Module-based hardware encryption and Intel vPro technology that enables corporate IT departments to remotely manage the system. Small business owners will probably get more use out of the fingerprint scanner, an optional feature that can be added for $20. It's a great perk for workers who want to keep their laptops locked down without fussing with a password every time they turn their machines on. Unfortunately, the T560 comes with a swipe-based fingerprint scanner that isn't as reliable as the single-touch scanner on systems like the ThinkPad T460s. It occasionally failed to recognize my print, asking me to swipe a second time.