We had a tremendous response on our previous giveaway, following the success a new US based company sent us a very compact gadget to expose it to our readers. It is our pleasure to provide a platform to host these giveaways for DigitFreak readers.
The 1byOne Ultra-Compact Tri-Folding Wireless Keyboard is an ultra slim portable gadget, precisely built to accompany you when you are away from the luxury of a standard keyboard. You can simply type long documents and respond to tedious emails on the go with this super compact keyboard on your smartphone/Tablets. Heck, it even works on smart TV or any other gadget that supports Bluetooth connectivity. Yet, we couldn’t recommend it as a viable option to our readers. Find out why on our full review.
This international giveaway is powered by DigitFreak, co-sponsored by our gadget partner 1byOne US.
Want to win the 1byOne Wireless Keyboard? Jump to the widget at the end of the post to participate in the giveaway. Normal contest rules apply here. One entry per method per person. This one’s open to all folks everywhere such contests are legal, but we can’t guarantee the phone/gadget will work on your network/country. (You know how these things go). We’ll announce the winner here on DigitFreak, once they send us their Image with the gadget upon receiving it.
The giveaway is an international giveaway (Except when we can not ship to your Country.)
If we can not ship to your country, you will be compensated with an online gift card of equal MSRP value to the prize.
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The prize will ship when it is available to purchase.
HP released a new series of laptops that comes in between the ultrabooks and Notebooks. The new design is not too slim as an ultrabook, but it doesn’t come any closer to the Notebook when it comes to the thickness. Hardware configuration and build quality seems to be value for money, but are we looking at the best buddy in the category? Lets find out.
Build Quality
When we first grabbed HP Pavilion 15-no12TX (Part No. – F2C09PA) out of the box, we were really amazed to lay our eyes on the slim build of the laptop. It is fairly slim for the mid-range category and certainly isn’t too bulky or thick. The laptop still weighs 2.28 Kg, which is slightly heavier than other laptops in this price range (for eg. – Dell Inspiron 15R 5521 which is 60g lighter), but I guess it isn’t that significant.
The mineral black lid with horizontal brush pattern dominates the plastic case, which doesn’t feel cheap. The laptop is firmly built and features some design improvements over the previous HP pavilion series. The new batch of laptops by HP are sleek and beautiful.
The palm rest area and polycarbonate casing along the display bears the black horizontal brush pattern that we saw on the back panel. I really like how HP pavilion is built and packed with premium casing.
The laptop appears to be a rectangular slab, which feels good to work on. The corners are slightly curved with silver bezel at the sides and it looks sleek and beautiful. You might not feel the difference in the images, but, believe me, it is one of the thinnest mid-range laptops. The nonvisual parts (rear, front and back) of the laptop is plasticky and it feels cheap, but again they did well at the sections where you spend your most of your time.
I know, nobody actually care how their laptop appears at the back, just like the rear of your Brand new Television. — You got to admit that HP has really worked on every aspect of its new Pavilion Series.
DigitFreak Rating: 8/10
Hardware and ports
HP pavilion 15 e012TX (believe me I hate it to call it by alpha-numeric code myself), is packed with 4th Gen core i5 4200U processor, which is clocked at 1.6 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.3 GHz, which is optimized for performance.
It has 1.00 TB SATA Hard disk Drive with max 5400 RPM (could be 7200 RPM). The read-writes speed when we copied/moved the files from one partition to another is really great considering the lower RPM (thanks to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology) — We got average 50MBps for the transfers within HDD.
The laptop sports 4GB DDR3 RAM and 2GB Nvidia 740M graphics card out of the box, which is sufficient to play high end games on your system. It can handle the multitasking pretty well, without stressing your processor for post calculations.
It has HP TrueVision HD webcam for video conferencing or video call with built in mic. The test shots from the webcam was considerably good enough and video output was bright and clear during our test call.
The gadget has an awesome port management, which is distributed at the side (left and right) panels. Everything is squeezed at these two side panels and you won’t find anything on the rear or front side panels.
The Gadget features SuperMulti DVD RW Drive with Dual layer support with 8x Read/Write speed. The DTS Sound+ produces High Quality audio and appears to be loud enough for entertainment purpose. The dual speakers boosts the sound output and provides considerable volume for usual requirements.
It has basic/standard communication ports – Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.0.
It has 1xUSB 2.0 and 2xUSB 3.0, RJ45 LAN, 1xHDMI port, 1xVGA port, Multi-Card slot and 1x Headphone out/Microphone-in Combo Jack.
There are two USB ports on the left panel and one USB port on the right. I felt that there should be one more USB port because if you are using one of the two USB ports on the left, you end up with the other one unusable as there is very dramatically less gap between the ports. But, I guess you can still manage to carry out your work just well with two USB ports at a time.
DigitFreak Rating: 7/10
Keyboard and comfort
The laptop has standard Island keyboard, that you can find in any modern laptop. The chicklet keys are plus feature because it is really helpful for cleaning and maintaining the latoptop’s keys. I am composing this article on this laptop and I never felt any discomfort or noticed any misplaced keyword. The key spacing is perfect for both small fingers and a fat one.
You might find the navigation keys a little awkward because the up and down keys are one single key split into two. If you are a gamers you better stick to the A,W,S,D key system for navigation while playing the game.
This is the keyboard layout you will find in any new HP laptops. The HP Envy series has the same keyboard layout and it is 25% cheaper than them. The keys are well spaced and feel comfortable while typing. The only thing that I wished there should have been being a — backlit keys. If you are like me, who prefer to work at night – then you might wanna consider a better alternative that offers backlit keyboard, Otherwise it should be fine for general usage.
The Multitouch gesture touchpad is real wonder, You can pinch to zoom, scroll pages at the edge, slide page with three fingers and zoom-in ot zoom-out using two fingers. — but, the awesomeness ends at the software tweaks, I find the touchpad in-resposive at some points making, while trying to move the cursor to small distances. If I swipe the touchpad quickly, it would response just fine – but it is not the same when I try to make little movements.
By turning off “palm-Check Enhacned” and decreasing the pointing sensitivity in synaptics touchpad properties, I was able to sort the issues.
I am using this laptop since last 8 days and it always felt perfect for general usage. The display is bright enough for both indoors and outdoor usage. HP Pavilion 15-n012TX sports 15.6-inch HD BrightView Backlit Display with 1366×768-pixel resolution. We cannot expect Full HD display for the mid-range segment, but you don’t need to be worried about it, you can carry out your personal affairs pretty well.
It has Intel HD Graphics 4400 for desktop usage and usual software rendering. It is powerful enough to obtain the best output for display while you are not playing games or carrying out heavy graphic hungry tasks.
The display is bright enough to be used under the sunlight and looks good at 10-30% brightness indoors. We didn’t experience and issues with the screen brightness while working on it. Playing games on the big screen is fun and it performed well.
HP bundled 2GB DDR3 dedicated NVIDIA GeForce 740M graphics card for casual gaming needs. You can play almost all current and upcoming modern games without any issues. The only things that I noticed are Laptop heating issue — Laptop gets pretty heated if you play high-end games. I had to use the cooling pad to play Crysis 3 and Need For Speed Rivals at the moderate settings, otherwise you will notice gaming lag due to high core temperature.
I installed additional 4GB RAM to measure the performance of the system while playing the game — it turns out that the system handles games pretty well on extended RAM as well as the default configuration.
You need to manually tweak your on board graphics card and dedicated graphics card because they are initially optimized for a balance between the battery life and performance.
HP Pavilion 15-n012TX comes bundled with Latest Microsoft Windows 8 Operating system and HP software goodies. The system is stable and OS works perfectly all right with the system configuration. HP default goodies makes sure that all the hardware are aligned properly for best performance.
HP offers automatic system backup and restore points — which means you can restore your laptop to the original state without reformatting your laptop from the scratch. You just need to follow the Windows 8 System Troubleshooting options and you can re-install Windows 8 on your system without any external setup.
It’s also worth noting that this laptop comes without too much bloatware which manufacturers usually fill their machines up with. I uninstalled Norton, a games app & was good to go.
If you are not so intended to use Windows 8 on the laptop, you can switch to Windows 7 or other operating system you prefer. Just make sure you get all the drives and necessary software for the operating system. I installed Windows 7 on the Laptop and searched for all the Drivers on the internet and everything went perfectly smooth.
Windows 8 is not bad either, specially if it is your first personal computer. You will find Windows 8 little more easier to use, but advanced users still prefer windows 7 because they know every bit of it.
DigitFreak Rating: 8/10
Verdict
HP Pavilion 15-n012TX is packed with the best hardware configuration one can have for this price range. The 4th Gen processor consumes less power, which provides good battery backup (up to 5 hours with minimum brightness).
The display is bright enough, 4GB RAM and 2GB dedicated Nvidia Graphics card ensure optimal gaming experience. HP manages Windows 8 with it’s software goodies, which provides smooth transition and makes you like your new laptop even more.
Laptop’s cooling system is very effective — thanks! to the HP Coolsense technology, you won’t notice any heating issues while using it for hours. It get little heated when you play games and you will have to use the cooling pad to play high-end games effectively.
The laptop is good at delivering performance and peace of ming when we talk about multitasking and high end tasks that requires high-end hardware configuration. 1.00 TB Internal Hard Disk read/write speed is a breeze and manages files pretty well.
The material used in laptop’s external body components doesn’t feel cheap and appears to be durable for daily usage. The only drawback we noticed is its touchpad and USB ports being too close to each other. There is no separate Mic-in and Line-out ports and there is no VGA port.
For Rs 45 to 50K, this is the best laptop you can have among any other premium brands. It is a value for money. The only competitor of this Laptop in Home brand is HP Envy 15-J049TX, which costs more than 60K.
Overall Rating: 8/10
In the Box
Sales Package
Laptop, Battery, AC Adapter, User Guide, Manuals and CD
General
Brand
HP
Model Name
Pavilion
Lifestyle
Casual Gaming
Color
Imprint Mineral Black with Horizontal brush pattern
Well, when I unpacked the laptop I wasn’t expecting the slim beauty out of the box. I was rather thinking of it as a regular laptops with little bit thicker than it actually is, and being an budget Ultrabook it is real “Slim Shady”.
Dell has really worked on the design and build quality. It’s hard to find fault with this recently updated version of Dell’s Inspiron 15R laptop. It’s competitively priced, smart and well built, and provides good all-round performance and battery life.
Build Quality
The laptop is fairly slim and well built, which can compete with high-range premium laptops. The polymer body of the laptop is fused with brushed metal finish on the back panel and on palm rest around the keyboard.
When it comes to the personal choice, I don’t like the metal body for my gadgets anyway. If it is firmly build, which is rigid and strong – consider it a good gadget. When any gadget uses metal casing, the heating issue is taken care of — the gadget doesn’t heat up, but when they do you can cook your breakfast on it and save some cooking gas.
I really like how Dell Inspiron 15R 5521 is built and rigidly packed, you can’t expect more from a mid-range ultra book. It is slightly round around the corner and feels as a rectangular slab with consistent thickness. It is slim and competitively designed gadget that guarantees performance.
Rating: 8/10
Display and Graphics
Dell provides 15.6 inch HD LED display with true life technology that offers resolution of 1366×768 px. It’s sad that Dell didn’t go for the Full HD resolution, which could have been the killer feature, but again you can’t expect much from the mid-range Laptops. The display is bright enough to be used under the sunlight and looks good at 10-30% brightness indoors.
Dell took care of the gaming needs with AMD Radeon HD 8730M 2GB DDR3 dedicated graphics card. You can play high quality games with ease. There has been no lag when I played MW3, Crysis 3, Need for Speed Most wanted and Skyrim at their optimal settings. You need to manually tweak your on board graphics card and dedicated graphics card because they are initially optimized for balance between the battery life and performance.
I didn’t noticed heating issue while playing games on the laptop. The slight increase in temprature is natural and doesn’t bother much.
The Laptop is round around the corners, which gives a finishing touch to the sharp edge of the gadget. The front panel has 4 LED lights that indicates power, CPU usage, battery and Wireless device state. There are two stereo speakers on the front panel as well, located at the left and right side of the panel.
Rating: 7/10
Hardware and ports
Dell inspiron 15R 5521(Model No. – 5521/5521541TB2S1) is packed with 3rd Generation Intel Core i5 (3337U) processor with Mobile HM76 chipset, which is clocked at 1.8GHz (with turbo boost technology upto 2.7GHz) that ensures good performance during heavy tasks. It is buttery smooth for playing games and multitasking.
The 4GB DDR3 RAM out of the box (expandable up to 8GB) is sufficient for playing high quality games and handling the multiple task you throw at your system to be performed. The laptop offers 1TB regular SATA HDD with 5400 RPM (should be 7200), which doesn’t feel slow. Read/write speed is good enough, which is perfect for daily use.
It comes with a Tray-load DVD RW Optical Disk Drive to play your favorite music collection that you have been proudly collected since the Music CD era. I rarely use the CD/DVD drive, because internet and other storage device is handy if it comes to storing my favorite stuffs for easier access.
There are 4 USB ports (2 x USB 2.0 and 2 x USB 3.0) – three on the left panel and One on the right beside the DVD writer. File transfer rate is optimal and performs fairly well. It comes with the standard Intel Centrino Wireless-N 2230 Wireless card and offers Bluetooth v4.0 technology for easy file transfers and seamless WiFi access.
The Laptop has Stereo Speakers with Waves MaxxAudio 4 technology. The sound is little bit on the treble side, you won’t notice much difference, but its certainly not the best speaker for entertainment purpose.
It has 1.0 MegaPixel web Camera which offers decent image quality for video calls. The touchpad is responsive enough and doesn’t lag during the general usage. Haven’t tested it for gaming, as I always use my Razer Mamba during the game play.
It has 8-iin-1 multi-card reader, RJ45 Lan port and HDMI port in case you want to connect your Laptop to other devices for output.
The keyboard layout is perfect for typing. I am using the same Laptop for composing this article, and I haven’t noticed any misplaced key placement. You might have to get used to the well spaced keyboard if you have been using the smaller laptops before. The space bar is thicker and keys feels soft during the usage.
Rating: 7/10
Software and features
The gadget has pre-installed full version latest Windows 8 (Metro UI) OS, which is smooth and flawless. However, I don’t like windows 8 for PC or laptops and do a complete format to install Windows 7 OS on new devices.
The Laptop comes bundled with McAfee antivirus with 15 months free license. It isn’t the best antivirus out there but it can protect your gadget against the moderate security risks. If you are worried about the security, I recommend Kaspersky Pure or Kaspersky Internet security.
Rating: 8/10
Dimensions and battery
Dell inspiron 15R 5521 has a standard dimension of 376 x 259 x 25.3 mm and weighs only 2.22 Kg, which is optimal for 15.6″ laptop with the powerful features. The battery backup is decent and delivers performance and consistency. It stayed with for ~2 hours while playing Crysis 3 and around 4.3 hours while surfing the internet using USB dongle.
Rating 7/10
Verdict
If you’re looking for the budget laptop, you are in luck. Dell Inspiron 15R 5521 is the perfect laptop for general purpose and meets the requirements of both professional and casual user. The dedicated graphics card along with the premium hardware ensures powerful performance and optimal user experience.
The display resolution might be an issue, dell could have incorporated Full HD resolution. It isn’t a big deal, but for the price you’re paying for the laptop, it could be the deal breaker. Overall performance is great, you won’t experience any lag or inconsistency during the usage. Dell offers 1 Year full cover Home warrantly.
Dell doesn’t have service center and you have to contact support for any issue you might come along. This might be little frustrating because you can’t meet the representative at dell service center directly. The technical engineer will come at your home, few days after you have placed complaint.
If you are looking for a powerful budget laptop, just go for it.
You love your Gadgets and so does your gadgets in return, by providing the best platform they can. Every Gadget you use does their job, what they are best at and it is your responsibility to keep them healthy.
Laptops are more delicate objects which performs jobs which are impossible without them. You get most of your work done by it and it never complains, except in some situation where you are the only one “guilty”. You have to take care of it at all situations and not to act lazy.
Here are some common pratices you can adapt to take care of your Laptop (or any other similar Gadget):
Keep it clean: When you get your new gadget you keep it as if it’s a “King of the world” and after few months it’s your “servant”? You have to change this attitude. Your gadget is your property and it is your responsibility to keep it clean. Always clean your gadgets twice a month for longer life span, cleaner you keep it longer it will be available for you and do your dirty jobs done. Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.
Do not use improper sanitation: ok, i am getting little into vacubular disaster, but you have to understand how delicate your gadgets are. They seem tough from outside but are never from inside. Never use manufactured detergents or any other similar household cleaner which contains acetone, ammonia, or alcohol, it can ruin the beautiful coating on your laptop or any other gadget.
React to the accidents immediately: You dropped your laptop, spilled water on it, bumped it on the desk or it is just banged against the wall, always react to such situations immediately. When you bump your laptop on the floor or spilled water on it, immediately remove the battery and check if anything damaged from the outside or clean the water immediately and make it dry (using your hair dryer or just the natural sunlight will do). Never act lazy. Some people suggests that you can place your laptop in a bag of rice, which helps soaking the water.
Never leave your laptop unattended for longer: You don’t use your laptop at regular intervals, well that could be the problem, specially when you live at someplace where climate is not stable (sudden temprature drops or environment change). Never leave your laptop in too cold or too hot situation, it might crash your harddisk. Yes you heard it right. Your hard drive can expand and fail in the heat and freeze in the cold if left unattended. Just like liquid, heat, cold, and your laptop are not good bedfellows. Not only do hot and freezing temps suck the life out of your battery, but they also cause damage to your internal components.
Always use Shutdown button: Some people just put their laptop on hibernation or standby mode. Well these options can come handy at some situations when you are in a hurry, but making it a habbit isn’t a good step for your laptop. Always use proper “Shut Down” process after work, which can help protect your internal delicate components.
Use Anti-Virus: Some people thinks if they are not using the internet or are just so careful they won’t need an Anti-virus to protect their laptop or computers. Well, this assumption is totally wrong. You must have a gatekeeper to protect your castle, it is not like your home where you live. Your computer stores sensitive data and some personal stuffs which you won’t like the world to see. For such purpose their must be a proper Anti-virus installed on your computer or laptop (DigitFreak suggests “Kaspersky Internet security 2012”). Some virus or malwares are capable of destroying your hard disk or other internal componetns, so better protect it.
Defrag regularly: The faster your hard drive does its work – less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.
Dim your screen: Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.
Protect your investment: If you’re going to be lugging a laptop around, make sure it’s protected in a padded case.
Cut down external devices: USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.
![[Review] Hp Pavilion 15-n012TX Laptop – 4th Gen Core i5, 4GB Ram, 2GB Nvidia 740M Graphics Card and more](https://digitfreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/20131201_142123-1.jpg)
I know, nobody actually care how their laptop appears at the back, just like the rear of your Brand new Television. — You got to admit that HP has really worked on every aspect of its new Pavilion Series.
DigitFreak Rating: 8/10
DigitFreak Rating: 7/10
This is the keyboard layout you will find in any new HP laptops. The HP Envy series has the same keyboard layout and it is 25% cheaper than them. The keys are well spaced and feel comfortable while typing. The only thing that I wished there should have been being a — backlit keys. If you are like me, who prefer to work at night – then you might wanna consider a better alternative that offers backlit keyboard, Otherwise it should be fine for general usage.
DigitFreak Rating: 7/10 (Keyboard) & 6/10 (Touchpad)
![[Review] Dell Inspiron 15R 5521 Laptop – 3rd Gen Core i5 3337U, 2GB dedicated Graphics and more](https://digitfreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/dell_inspiron_5521_812_1.jpg)
Dell took care of the gaming needs with AMD Radeon HD 8730M 2GB DDR3 dedicated graphics card. You can play high quality games with ease. There has been no lag when I played MW3, Crysis 3, Need for Speed Most wanted and Skyrim at their optimal settings. You need to manually tweak your on board graphics card and dedicated graphics card because they are initially optimized for balance between the battery life and performance.
Dell inspiron 15R 5521(Model No. – 5521/5521541TB2S1) is packed with 3rd Generation Intel Core i5 (3337U) processor with Mobile HM76 chipset, which is clocked at 1.8GHz (with turbo boost technology upto 2.7GHz) that ensures good performance during heavy tasks. It is buttery smooth for playing games and multitasking.
It comes with a Tray-load DVD RW Optical Disk Drive to play your favorite music collection that you have been proudly collected since the Music CD era. I rarely use the CD/DVD drive, because internet and other storage device is handy if it comes to storing my favorite stuffs for easier access.
The keyboard layout is perfect for typing. I am using the same Laptop for composing this article, and I haven’t noticed any misplaced key placement. You might have to get used to the well spaced keyboard if you have been using the smaller laptops before. The space bar is thicker and keys feels soft during the usage.
Dell inspiron 15R 5521 has a standard dimension of 376 x 259 x 25.3 mm and weighs only 2.22 Kg, which is optimal for 15.6″ laptop with the powerful features. The battery backup is decent and delivers performance and consistency. It stayed with for ~2 hours while playing Crysis 3 and around 4.3 hours while surfing the internet using USB dongle.