When buying a new laptop there are many choices to be made and many factors to consider such as the memory capacity, processing speed, portability and battery life.

One of the important factor that a buyer of a laptop will consider is its price and this is where the Acer range comes in as they give all the key features of the most expensive laptops: looks, processing power and battery life at half the price, with no loss to quality.

There are many great laptops in this range but the two I will be focusing on are the Acer Aspire 5742 and the Acer Aspire Timeline 5810T, these are two exceptional laptops which are both good in different ways.

The future of the netbook is in doubt after the arrival of the tablet device and ultrabooks with the president of Intel Japan, Kas Yoshida saying in a keynote speech at CEATEC 2011 that the netbook has not performed as well as expected as he said, "The netbook was a very interesting product as it enabled a lower price point which helped expand the [PC] user base.

"However, it did not grow as much as we expected. It turned out to be a low-end booster rather than a focus on useability."

Here is a roundup of the latest news this week from the technology world.

Toshiba announces 7-inch Thrive tablet

Toshiba have revealed a 7-inch version of its Thrive tablet that features an nVidia Tegra 2 chipset and will have Android 3.2. It measures in at 12mm thick and weighs only 400g. The display screen has LED backlighting with a pixel resolution of 1280 by 800 and has Toshiba’s Adaptive Display and Resolution+ technologies.

There are two cameras with one camera boasting 5-megapixels and the other 2-megapixels and both have HD capabilities. It has the latest connectivity features such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.  You can connect external devices via the mini-USB and HDMI ports. On-board storage capacity consists of 16GB or 32GB and this can be extended further by using the microSD card slot.

Acer is one of biggest manufacturers of laptops with it producing the likes of Timeline X, Aspire and Ethos range. It has some great entry-level models with the Aspire 5742Z falling into this category and is the ideal laptop for any user who just wishes to surf the web, check emails, run Office applications and watch films.

The Aspire 5742 features an Intel Pentium processor that is backed up by memory that ranges from 4GB to 6GB depending on which model you buy. You can run numerous applications at once and will not see a slowdown in the laptop.

Here is a roundup of the latest news this week from the technology world.

HP announces Meg Whitman as new CEO

Hewlett Packard has ousted its CEO Leo Apotheker and been replaced by the former CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman. There were reports that the HP board were becoming discontented over the direction that Apotheker was taking the company after he announced last month that HP was exiting the PC making and mobile business to focus on producing software instead.

The announcement also made investors in HP unhappy as their share price drop by 47% percent. It has been reported that the HP board had earlier met this week in order to consider the future of Apotheker and that they had already lined up Meg Whitman as his replacement.

The Lenovo G770 is a laptop that offers unbelievable power and amazing graphics pack into a large screen and is great for using at home. If you are looking to switch from a desktop pc to a laptop, then this would be the perfect choice.

The G770 has a brush metal finish around the laptop and where inside there is an island style keyboard with the keys being well-spaced out. It is very comfortable to type on even after long periods of use.

Underneath the machine is an Intel processor as the models will either have a Core i3, i5 or i7. In terms of graphics, there will be either Intel or an AMD Radeon graphics card inside this laptop.  The RAM capacity varies between 4GB and 8GB depending on which model you buy. This machine is able to handle most applications as you can edit photos, create videos and watching online video content with ease.

Here is a roundup of the latest news this week from the technology world.

Sony reveals 2D to 3D sheet for their Vaio S notebooks

Sony have unveiled a lenticular sheet that can placed on top of a 2D notebook that will produce 3D images without the need to wear special 3D glasses. The 3D sheet will be released as a part of the Sony Vaio S notebooks that were revealed last week at the IFA.

The sheet will be 3 millimetres thick that can be placed over the 15.5-inch display screen enabling users to see 3D images and videos.  There is the possibility that Sony may use this sheet on other laptop ranges.  The 3D sheet will cost £113 that will turn the 2D laptop into a 3D laptop. 

Here is a roundup of the latest news this week from the technology world.

Samsung announce Series 7 notebook

Samsung have revealed their new Series 7 notebook, the 700Z, which is also known as the Chronos. This top-rate laptop has been developed for users who want portability without losing any of the performance. The laptop chassis has been designed with a brushed metallic finish that offers up a 15.6-inch display screen with a HD resolution of 1600 by 900. It also has an anti-glare and 300nit brightness.

There is a chiclet-style keyboard that has backlighting with a number pad on the right. A glass trackpad offers multi-touch support with integrated buttons. The Series 7 boasts the choice of having the Intel Core i5-2430M or i7-2675QM processor with 6GB RAM. The graphics card for both the i5 and i7 model will be an AMD Radeon HD6750M card with 1GB GPU. The hard drive storage capacity for both models will be 750GB.

For gaming fanatics any old laptop will not just do as you need a gaming laptop in order to play the high-end games. How do you know you are buying the right laptop? What technical specifications should it have? It is best to have a clear idea on what gaming laptop you are going to buy. The best place to search for this is by going online and viewing retailers’ websites, reading reviews or discussing the laptop you are interested on forum sites.

Gaming laptops have been developed to support high definition gaming and video requirements. New games that come out require a laptop that can read high-spec graphics. Do not go for a gaming laptop that has integrated graphics even though the processor might look good and has enough memory because it might not give you the frame rates that the high-end games requires.

Lenovo ThinkPad laptops have been by tradition aimed at the business user but they have recently developed laptops that are more consumer-friendly and at affordable prices. The ThinkPad E520 laptop is a powerful machine that offers a high performance and will keep you entertained at home and whilst you are travelling.

The high performance of the ThinkPad E520 is down to it using the Intel Sandy Bridge technology.  The i3 or i5 processors powers these laptops depending on which model you buy. The laptop runs smoothly as when playing games, there will be no lag or stuttering.