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.
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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.