Lenovo releases various new laptops and desktops aimed at SMB's

Lenovo today announced its latest portfolio of laptops and desktops specifically designed for the small and medium business.

The portfolio includes the ThinkPad E Series, the updated Lenovo M, B and E line of laptops and S series desktops including elegant all-in-ones. Small and medium businesses are looking for PC solutions to reduce IT headaches and increase efficiency and collaboration between employees in the office and on the road. They need to keep business data safe and ensure critical data protection as they look towards expanding their business information and services to the cloud.

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Review: Apple MacBook (2015)

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

While the MacBook does have some compromises (some of them glaring), there is no doubt that most of its features aren’t just here to stay, we can expect them to permeate the rest of Apple’s notebook and possibly even their desktop line. 

The new 12-inch Apple MacBook with a Retina Display is the latest in a long series of notebook innovations by Apple. It follows boldly in the footsteps of the PowerBook Duos, the transparent clamshell iBooks, the Titanium PowerBook G4 and its parent, the MacBook Air.

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HP shooting for the low end of the notebook market with new $199 notebooks

We're at an interesting place right now with Windows 8.1-based systems. Many users and potential buyers seem to be waiting out until the next revision (Windows 9, Codenamed 'Treshold') becomes available. Many of the recent hybrids, convertibles and ultrabooks have failed to gain much traction. Trying a different tact, it seems manufacturers like HP are going the Chromebook route. That is, offering cheap hardware to help push the OS. Revealed today is the colourful consumer focused US $199 HP Stream notebook that's geared to compete with similarly affordable Chromebooks. Interesting features include fanless design, 8-hour battery life and an HD screen.

Featuring modest Intel Celeron processors, an 11.5-inch non-touch display and 32GB of SSD memory. Each of these new-age netbooks will get access to a year subscription of Office 365, 1 Terabyte of OneDrive storage plus a $25 Microsoft Store gift certificate. The Stream notebooks accompany low-cost Stream tablets that offer Windows 8.1 functionalty starting at $150. No Canadian availability or pricing has been released but these will likely find their way to our shores for the holiday season.

Special Feature: HP Houston Labs Tour – A Focus on Quality Part 1

Photo courtesy of Mario Nagano of www.ztop.com.brText and photos by Alex Davies

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of touring HP’s Houston Labs, where they put their commercial hardware through the wringer to test its durability and quality. This large facility was the former headquarters of Compaq before the merger with HP, and it was interesting to see the relics of the former company everywhere we went. Many of the engineers we spoke to on the tour were former Compaq employees who have been working in these labs for years.

One of the mantras that we heard during the tour is that they “freeze it, bake it, shake it, break it”, and as we walked around the facility, we really did see HP’s engineers  subject desktops, notebooks and tablets to all manners of torture – the job wasn’t done until the product broke.  Hit jump for our report on HP's Houston Labs.

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