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Whether we like it or not, technology has crept into a corner of our lives and taken up permanent residence.
When taking a holiday, we make sure we at least carry our mobile phones so we can be in touch with family, friends and yes, even the office. Most also include a laptop to be able to keep tabs with home.
So when some friends from Australia dropped by Singapore recently, it was not just good manners but also only reasonable to extend an invitation for them to come by, not for a home-cooked meal but to hook up their laptop to the WLAN. The opportunity to check their email at leisure saw the pair of travellers happily at my front door with laptop in tow.
But my friends had not travelled light I noted, as a hefty 15 inch laptop was unzipped from its case.
As one quickly settled in with his laptop, I offered the other the chance to surf rather than wait her turn, whipping out the new HP Compaq 2510p. "Look at the size !" she exclaimed as the smallest notebook in the HP Compaq family settled onto my friend's lap.
The professed Mac user soon fell quiet as she booted up the device installed with Windows Vista and began catching up with news from family and friends.
Marvelling close to an hour later at the size and weight of the laptop, it was clear that the HP Compaq 2510p had found a new friend.
The keys had been comfortable for typing and the screen size, was neither too big nor too small.
The diagonal wide 12.1-inch screen offers an WXGA display that is both clear and kind on the eyes as the screen is built with anti-glare.
You won't strain your eyes as well when typing in low light as the lettering and legends on the keyboard are subtly brighter.
The keyboard with comfort-dished keycaps boasts a full layout that's compatible with what you'd find on a desktop, such as left/right Control and Alt keys and integrated numeric keypad. There are hotkeys for instant access to power conservation, brightness and other features, as well as touch-sensitive panels just above the keyboard to control audio levels.
Like earlier laptops the HP Compaq 2510p offers the benefit of HP DuraKeys. This is a clear coating applied over the notebook keyboard that helps protect the finish and the printed characters on the keys from normal wear and tear.
In addition, the keys were found to be responsive and well spaced out even for a notebook so small.
Considering that you will spend most of your time typing, many forget that it's really quite important to check out the keyboard of a laptop to see if it's worth the buy. Why bother if you're going to end up with writer's cramp through typing ?
Powered by an Intel Core 2Duo ULV processor with1.06 GHz and 2 MB L2 cache, the little dynamo with up to 2GB of RAM is able to run a good number of programs concurrently without slowing down.
The HP Compaq 2510p comes with either 60 or 80 GB worth of storage,but if that is not enough, you'll find the combo drive with double layer DVD reader/writer super useful.
In addition to the touchpad, there is a pointstick, which I still can't bring myself to like...perhaps that's why HP chose to offer users both in the laptop!
You have a choice of powering the device with either a 3-cell, 6-cell or 9-cell Lithium-Ion battery. But even with the standard battery which keeps the little laptop very portable, you'll find little need to reach for an AC power recharge even after running the laptop for several hours.
Weighing just 1.29 kg it is suitable for executives on the move as well as those who choose to holiday with a laptop packed along.
It's decked out simply, but smartly which is just what you'd want when on the road. There are 2 USB ports, an SD card reader (for easy transfers of your holiday photos), Bluetooth (in case you want to upload shots from your mobile phone) and a Firewire outlet (great for hooking up to your video camera when on vacation).
Along with the built-in wireless connection and microphone, you don't have to wait till you get home to share your vacation with friends and family on your blog, Flickr or through Skype.
That means when you get back to the office, you can go straight into getting the work done.
This no-nonsense, workhorse of a notebook comes with an optional desktop port which you can drop the laptop into. It will power the device while charging the battery and be linked to a larger screen so you can do your work with less strain on your eyes.
You'll also appreciate the security extras from HP in the laptop such as fingerprint sensor, memory change alert, ownership tag and power-on password.
Whether with the desktop port or without, the HP Compaq 2510p will also link up easily to other devices such as printers.
The latest from HP that's just right for the office or home office is the C8180 which is an all-in-one.
You can print up to 34 pages per minute in black and white (33 in colour), and with its Smart Web Printing technology, you'll waste less paper as you'll be able to combine onto one page, different portions from various Web pages before printing.
The C8180 also comes with a scanner which you can use for documents as well as family projects such as storing and restoring old slides and negatives.
The great part about this HP all-in-one printer as well as the Photosmart A626, is the flexibility it offers users.
You don't need to start up your PC to print or even save your photos, slides or negatives.
There are slots to pop in your memory cards, as well as Bluetooth and PictBridge from which you can send pictures to the printer. Each shot will show up on a screen built into the printer so you can view your shots before they become prints.
The C8180 all-in-one printer also comes with a built-in DVD writer, so you can burn a CD or DVD of your 'prints'. In addition, the printer comes with LightScribe technology that will etch the disc with a label you create.
As for the Photosmart A626, it comes with a generously-sized screen which is not just for viewing pleasure.
The practical screen offers users options such as red eye removal, cropping and rotation and for those of us who hate photos that make us look fat, an editing option to make portraits appear slimmer!
Also bundled with the printer is clipart, frames and album pages so you can add fun to the photos before printing.
All this, without once powering up the PC.
In reflection, having technology take over part of our lives may not be such a bad thing after all. This is especially when you know that in some quarters, technology has been created to make life a little less complicated and a little more easy to enjoy, whether at home or away from it.
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