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 When
it comes to computers, laptops are generally the
pick of the man about town – the executive who
needs to have an information reservoir at his
fingertips and wants to look hip to the max when
he accesses it.
Most home enthusiasts, however, prefer desktop
models, since punch-for-punch they have
historically left their portable cousins
standing when it comes to editing movies or
running the latest first-person shooter.
Enter LG's S900, the latest player to spawn on
the "desknote" battleground. The term "desknote"
is an amalgam of "desktop" and "notebook". They
are portable computers that sacrifice
portability for performance and can attract the
hobbyist who wants to set up a home-media
centre, as well as the avid gamer who is out for
a graphically vivid surround-sound death fest.
It is interesting to "note" LG officials saying
this model's target market is "stay-at-home moms
and singles". Indeed, it is hard to imagine
anyone outside the world of professional
wrestling who would consider the 5.9kg S900 a
smart choice for regular mobile computing.
But once you get this beast onto a desk and get
down to business, it flexes its silicon muscles
like you would not believe.
This is the Hummer of laptops – not great for
getting around town, but get it out into the
open and it can negotiate 89-degree slopes
without breaking a sweat. We had all
out-of-the-box applications running plus games
Doom 3, F.E.A.R. and Company of Heroes – and
they looked very handsome on the 19-inch screen.
Just the sort of performance you would expect
from a 2.53GHz Intel Core2 Duo processor,
supported by 2GB of DDR2 RAM and 256MB of
onboard graphics capability – which was exactly
what we were playing with. A desktop suite in a
laptop chassis.
The S900 has legs, given the number of expansion
options. And this mouth-watering arrangement
retails at Dh6,299, which is a bargain when you
consider the other models playing in the same
sandbox.
So this desknote is a lot of "desk" with just a
little bit of "note". It should be the choice of
any user for whom power is paramount. You can
make movies, play music, run graphic-heavy games
and run a tactical-weapons platform from your
kitchen – all at the same time, apparently.
What's hot
We were going to save it for later, but could
not resist revealing this new beauty from
Samsung. Just out, the cobblestone-shaped MP3
player is a "musical gemstone" that can play
various music and video formats, has FM radio
and recording and photo viewer capabilities.
Just five grammes light, the YP-S2 player is
available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB formats at all
leading electronic stores in the UAE.
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