Microsoft will give you a new laptop if it can’t upgrade your system to Windows 10

 

 

There’s less than two weeks before Microsoft’s free upgrade offer for Windows 10 expires and the company is pulling out all the stops to encourage people to update. The company’s latest offer is that they’ll give you a free Inspiron 15 laptop from Dell if they can’t update your laptop to Windows 10 with same-day service.

As you might imagine, there are some caveats to the offer. First of all, your PC needs to be compatible with Windows 10 in the first place. If you don’t have a compatible system, you can earn $150 to the purchase of a new PC. PCs must be turned over to the company by noon on the day the service is to be performed, and apparently not all retail outlets are participating, so check with your local Windows Store beforehand.

“We’re not this stupid.” — Microsoft

Those of you thinking of walking in with an ancient Compaq Presario and claiming $150 to the purchase of a new Dell should be advised that there are additional caveats attached to this as well. Microsoft’s fine print reads:

To be eligible for trade-in, you must own the qualifying device, device must power on, battery must hold charge and not be required to be plugged in to operate, and be in fully functional, wor king condition without broken/missing components, cracked display/housing, liquid damage, modification(s) or have device warranty seal broken to be considered working. Cannot be password protected, and include original chargers/accessories. Must contain hard drive. Devices must be running Windows 8 or newer. (Emphasis added).

This last requirement is going to ensure that the majority of customers can’t qualify for upgrades on older systems. The only Windows 8 laptops that wouldn’t qualify for Windows 10 would be some old Athlon 64 and Athlon 64 X2 designs that didn’t implement the CMPXCHG16B instruction, which performed an atomic compare-and-exchange between 16-byte values; systems that lack this instruction would have failed a Windows 8.1 upgrade with a “You can’t install Windows 8.1 because your processor doesn’t support CompareExchange128” message. AMD’s share of the notebook market at this time was extremely small, however, which means very few systems of this era were built. Similarly, some older Intel Core 2 Duo motherboards didn’t support CMPXCHG16B, either (the CPUs of the era supported it, the motherboards didn’t). Again, these systems would predate Windows 8 itself by several years.

Finally, Microsoft will give you a $20 discount on Office 365, which doesn’t make Office 365 any less of a terrible deal compared to buying a copy of Office in the vast majority of circumstances. And apparently there’s an opportunity at some stores to win an Xbox One, though you have to inquire about the details at the store, in-person.

It’s not clear if Microsoft’s offer applies only to laptops, or if desktops are also eligible. The text of the offer refers only to “PCs,” but the fine print notes that the battery must hold a charge and the system can’t require a wall plug to operate. This would seem to imply that the offer is mobile-only. If you decide to take Microsoft up on the option, let us know how it goes in the comments below.

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What happens when the Windows 10 free upgrade timer runs out?

 

 

 When Microsoft launched Windows 10, it announced that all existing Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 customers could receive a free upgrade to Windows 10, provided they took advantage of it within one year. So far, that strategy has paid dividends. Earlier this month, Microsoft reported that more than 200 million users had upgraded to Windows 10, double the number of Windows 8 users that adopted that operating system over the same time frame.

Data from the Register suggests that home users are upgrading more quickly, which makes sense — businesses and government offices deploy new operating systems more slowly. The graph below shows each operating system’s relative market share for three months, ending on January 10. This data was gathered by measuring OS market share on systems used to access US government websites.



The regular dips are weekend periods when Windows 8.1 and 10 increase, while Windows 7 decreases. Interestingly enough, most of Windows 10 marketshare gains appear to be at the expense of Windows 8.1, not Windows 7.

Even at this relatively rapid pace, there will still be millions of Windows 7 and 8.1 users when Microsoft’s one year timer expires. Over at ZDNet, Ed Bott discusses what Microsoft might do next. The company could simply stop giving Windows 10 away and start charging for the privilege, it could simply extend the deadline indefinitely, or it could set a new deadline — say, the end-of-life deadline for Skylake systems we reported a few weeks back.

All of these are reasonable options, and I think Bott is right when he says Microsoft probably hasn’t decided what it’s going to do, yet. The one thing Ed doesn’t mention is what additional steps Microsoft might take to encourage users who don’t currently want to upgrade.

Our coverage of Windows 10 has often touched on privacy concerns, software controls, and the mandatory telemetry logging that Microsoft implemented with its latest operating system. The mandatory feature updates are another issue — security updates should be mandatory, but feature updates are a different story. Developers are vocally unhappy about the current state of the Windows 10 Store as well.

By next summer, most of the people who wanted to upgrade to Windows 10 will have done so, while less-technical users who left “Recommended” updates enabled will be upgraded whether they like it or not. The major holdouts at that point will be enterprise and business customers on their own refresh cycles and individual users who, for various reasons, don’t find Windows 10 attractive enough to switch.

Microsoft, of course, can choose any upgrade policy it wishes — but if it wants to actually move customers off earlier Windows versions, it could do worse than to give those customers more control over certain areas of the operating system.

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Don't Buy a Microsoft Surface, Buy This Instead

 

The most exciting tablet I've seen all year runs real Windows. I've been using the Asus Transformer Book T100 at home for a few days. Unlike with an iPad, I can actually do my work on it. 

 

I'm not just talking about having Microsoft Office rather than the weird maroon that is iWork. I'm talking about calling up full desktop websites in Chrome, complete with add-ons and plugins. I'm talking about downloading a picture from a website into a real filesystem, annotating it in real Photoshop (not the crippled Photoshop Express), popping open two different Evernote windows and putting it all together in our content management system. All on a $349, convertible laptop-tablet.

 

The hero here is Intel's new Bay Trail processor, the first x86 chip to offer the right balance of cost, speed, and power consumption for effective low-cost tablet computing. The T100 - with the keyboard! - is $100 less expensive than Microsoft's crippled Surface 2, $150 less than an iPad Air, and $550 less than Microsoft's Surface Pro 2.

 

More Bay Trail tablets are coming soon, too. They're going to make for real competition to the iPad, in ways the limited Surface and expensive Surface Pro were never able to provide. I never saw the point of Intel processors in Android devices, but combined with real Windows, they're killer.

 

This is not a review of the Asus T100 tablet. For benchmarks and lab-based analysis, check out Eric Grevstad's excellent review of the tablet from our sister site, Computer Shopper.

 

The End of Windows RTThe strength of Windows is its ubiquity. You know what runs on Windows; almost everything runs on Windows. When you pick up a Windows PC, you buy into the broadest software ecosystem ever created.

Had Windows RT been sold as a genuinely different operating system, like Apple has sold the Mac and iOS, it might have had a chance. But Microsoft called it Windows 8, made it look exactly like Windows 8, and tried to promote that it ran Windows 8 apps, except for a small set of useless old apps derided as "legacy."

Unfortunately for Microsoft, what the company calls "legacy" apps, most of us call "Windows" apps. That category includes pretty much all of the heavy-hitters for the platform, including many apps and games that are being developed today. The result was a confusing set of "Windows" tablets that didn't do Windows, at least as most of the universe understands it.

With Bay Trail, there is no reason to ever build a Windows RT tablet again. Intel has proven that it can get decent performance at an acceptable price with full Windows compatibility.

That doesn't mean abandoning touch. For many uses, touch is the future. But the split between Photoshop Express and full-blown Photoshop shows why you may want to have both the touch and full desktop options available. Touch is for lightly skimming over the surface of the world by your fingertips: a multi-window desktop interface is for digging in.

With the T100 I found that my workflow was some of this, some of that. In the evening, I'd kick back into the touch version of IE, into the touch version of Kindle, or into the Mail program to read and answer messages. In the morning, I'd open three desktop Chrome tabs in parallel with Evernote and Excel windows and wale on the hardware keyboard.

Can't do that on an iPad.

And Then There Were ThreeWith the coming of the Bay Trail tablets, we now have three valid tablet operating systems. The iPad is still going to be the best choice for many consumers. With Windows 8, you pay a price for power in complexity. The iPad is simple, clean and clear, malware-free, with a unified interface and marvelous apps that spread the Internet before you. Underestimate it at your peril.

Windows 8 now becomes the choice for business: a complete, flexible platform for people who need to get the job done. When you get home, you can flip it into touch mode and hand it to your kids, or use the touch Web browser to look up the names of actors on TV. Because of its more complex user interface, I see this OS as tilting more towards the work side of the work/fun equation.

That leaves Android as the wild card. Android's best bet may be in the low-cost market. Because it's free, Android can provide a lot more value on products like the $229 Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HDX than iOS or Windows could. A huge amount of Android's growth, analysts are now saying, is in sub-$100 tablets that are largely used as e-readers, video players or casual gaming devices, often not even connected to the Web.

Android's challenge now is to prove it has value at the high end; once someone slaps a Wacom pressure-sensitive layer onto a Bay Trail tablet running a real copy of Photoshop, the Samsung Galaxy Note will become a much less appealing product.

The game is now on. Microsoft needed Intel to make it real. Bay Trail finally let them do it. And if you're looking for an inexpensive way to get some work done before you have your touchscreen fun, look straight at the Asus T100.

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Lenovo Y700 (17 Inch) Review

If you're looking for a big gaming laptop with a price that'll leave some money left over to buy games, Lenovo's Y700 could be right up your alley. Starting at $1,049 ($1,349 as reviewed), the Y700 offers a colorful 17.3-inch full-HD display, speedy performance from its Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia 960M graphics, and compelling audio from its JBL speakers. While I wish the laptop's keyboard were a little more comfortable and that Lenovo offered a choice of higher-end GPUs, the Y700 is an affordable gaming notebook that can take on all of today's AAA titles. That is, as long as you don't turn the settings up to maximum.

Design

Like a lot of gaming laptops, the Y700 comes with a black-and-red color scheme. It's not ugly, just a little boring.
The top and bottom are made of fingerprint-loving brushed-aluminum panels with a subtle plaidlike pattern, while the inside sports a smooth matte-black plastic deck. There are a lot of hard edges and sharp angles that evoke a sci-fi spaceship design, but when closed, the Y700 doesn't feel as pointed as its design would suggest.
The Y700 measures 16.65 x 12 x 1.10-inches and weighs 7.7 pounds. That makes it a little bigger, although slightly lighter than the Alienware 17 (16.93 x 11.49 x 0.94-1.35-inches and 8 pounds), and predictably larger and more than 1.5 pounds heavier than the 15.6-inch Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (15.1 x 10.4 x 1-inches and 5.9 pounds).

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Y700's blood-red, backlit keyboard features an above-average travel distance, at 1.8mm, but an unusually light actuation weight of 45 grams. (A more typical actuation weight is around 55 grams.) This makes typing on the Y700 less comfortable than on other laptops, because you tend to bottom out hard while putting more weight behind every stroke.
I'm also still not a fan of Lenovo's cut-sized Right Shift key, which is annoying because years of PC gaming has trained me to reserve Left Shift for controls such as walk or crouch in first-person shooters.
MORE: The Best Laptops for Every Need
That said, I still managed a swift 83 words per minute in 10fastfingers.com's typing test, which is slightly above my typical 75-80 wpm range.

With good brightness and rich, vibrant colors, the Y700's display has more pop than competing systems.

The 4.1 x 2.8-inch touchpad features a smooth, matte surface, but like the lid, it picks up fingerprints and smudges with ease. Thankfully, the excess oil didn't impede the system's ability to accurately track mouse movements or multitouch gestures like two-finger scrolling.

Display

With good brightness and rich, vibrant colors, the Y700's screen gives images and videos a little more pop than competing systems do. This was most evident when watching the X-Men: Apocalypse trailer on the Lenovo's display; Beast's deep-blue skin took on a rich sapphire look, and Scott Summer's blinding eye lasers took on an even more saturated magenta tone.
Lenovo says the 1920 x 1080, 17.3-inch nontouch display has an anti-glare coating. While it's certainly not as shiny as many touch-enabled displays, you can still see your reflection staring back at you, especially in well-lit rooms or when looking at bright backgrounds. Fortunately, I enjoyed fairly wide viewing angles.
When we tested the display for brightness, the Y700 produced a solid mark of 319 nits (more are better). The desktop replacement average is 281 nits, while the Inspiron 15 7000 and Alienware 17 registered just 222 and 253 nits, respectively.
The Y700's color range was also above average, with the screen covering 117 percent of the sRGB spectrum. This is why colors on the Y700 looked slightly more saturated than on the Alienware 17 (106 percent) and much richer than on the Inspiron 15 7000 (70 percent).
The Y700 also had strong color accuracy, as it notched a Delta-E rating of 1.11 (closer to zero is better). The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 was slightly better, at 0.4, although the Alienware 17 was a decent ways away, with a mark of 5.4.

Audio

The Y700 features big red-and-black JBL speakers positioned on either side of the hinge. To further enhance your listening experience, Lenovo includes a Dolby Audio app, which can be used to select from various audio presets (dynamic, movie, music, game and voice), or to set up your own using the customizable EQ.
When playing music, the Y700's speakers did a good job re-creating the synthy organ sounds in Metronomy's "The Look," and in Rainbow Six Siege, the bass added impact to exploding grenades while still capturing the sound of enemy footfalls coming up from behind you.

In Rainbox Six Siege, the bass added impact to exploding grenades.

Gaming Performance

When it comes to gaming, the Y700's Nvidia GeForce 960M GPU with 4GB of vRAM is capable of playing modern titles smoothly at its native resolution of 1920 x 1080, but only if you're OK with not pushing all the settings to the max.

HOW THE Lenovo Y700 (17-inch) STACKS UP

On 3DMark's Fire Strike synthetic graphics test, the Y700 earned a score of 4,075. As expected, that's a little better than the $799 Dell Inspiron 15 7000 (3,929) with its less-powerful Nvidia 950M graphics, but half the score posted by the more expensive $1,850 Alienware 17 (8,234) with its Nvidia 980M GPU.


On World of Warcraft, the Y700 pushed out 102 frames per second at full HD and max settings. In the more demanding Metro Last Light, the Lenovo notched a good 77 fps at full-HD resolution on low settings, but it mustered only 17.6 fps with the settings on max.
By comparison, the Inspiron 15 7000's 58 fps was a few frames short of what we saw on the Y700 and about the same as the Lenovo on high settings. The more powerful Alienware 17 reached 32 fps In Metro: LL at full-HD and max settings, although at low settings, it mustered only 58 fps.

Overall Performance

Our Y700 came equipped with a 2.6-GHz Intel Core i7 6700HQ CPU, 16GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD and a 1TB HDD for extra storage. That means that, aside from gaming, the Y700 doubles as a good machine for video editing or 3D modeling. Anything less tasking, such as browsing the Web or streaming movies, doesn't even register as work for the Y700. Performance was perfectly smooth even when I had 20 tabs open in Edge browser and two 1080 fps videos streaming from YouTube at the same time.


When we used Geekbench 3 to evaluate overall system performance, the Y700 earned a score of 13,540. That's a good deal higher than the desktop replacement average of 10,791, and the Inspiron 15 7000's showing (8,800), and slightly better than the scores of other similarly sized gaming laptops such as the Alienware 17.
The Y700's Core i7 CPU also blitzed our productivity test, which involves matching 20,000 names and addresses in OpenOffice. This notebook's time of 3:35 was 15 to 20 seconds faster than the Alienware 17 (3:58) and the Inspiron 15 7000 (3:58).
The 128GB SSD copied 4.97GB of mixed media in 49 seconds for a transfer rate of 103.8 MBps. The Alienware 17's transfer rate was higher at 149.7 MBps, but the Inspiron 15 7000 and its traditional HDD were significantly slower, at 34.62 MBps.

Heat

The Y700 remained fairly cool during use, measuring 91 degrees Fahrenheit on the bottom, 89.5 degrees between the G and H keys, and a cool 76 degrees on the touchpad after streaming HD video for 15 minutes. We consider 95 degrees uncomfortable. The screen reached 101.5 degrees, but that's not an issue since this isn't a touch-screen system.

Ports and Webcam

The Y700 features a standard assortment of connectivity options, including three USB ports (two 3.0 and one 2.0), a combo headphone/mic jack, HDMI and an SD card reader.

The 1280 x 720 webcam above the display takes decent pictures, producing a nicely exposed photo that even captured some of the details in the office behind me. My only complaint is that in darker areas of the image, visual noise and grain become more noticeable.

Battery Life

The Y700, like a lot of gaming machines, doesn't offer a lot of battery life. On the Laptop Mag Battery test, which involves continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness, this laptop posted a run time of just 4 hours and 19 minutes, a bit short of the 4:37 desktop replacement average.


The Alienware 17 and Inspiron 15 7000 both lasted over 2 hours longer, with times of 6:25 and 6:45, respectively.

Configurations

All 17-inch Y700s come with an Intel Core i7 6700HQ CPU, Nvidia 960M GPU and 1920 x 1080 anti-glare screens. The $1,049 base model starts with 8GB of RAM and a 1TB, 5,400 rpm hard drive, with prices increasing based on memory and storage. The Y700 maxes out at a relatively affordable $1,499 for 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.
I really would have liked to see more customization options. The Y700's big, boxy case feels like it has room to grow, and it's a shame gamers don't have the ability to select more-powerful graphics cards, such as an Nvidia 970M or 980M, for better performance.

Software and Warranty

The Y700 comes with Windows 10 and a one-year limited hardware warranty. Windows 10 offers some nice gaming features such as built-in game recording (just hit the Windows key + G after setting up the Xbox app), DirectX 12 for better graphics performance, and the ability for Xbox One owners to stream games from their consoles to their PCs (useful for times when someone else is hogging the TV).
Additional software includes the traditional set of Lenovo system-health utilities and a little bloatware, such as McAfee LiveSafe and Candy Crush, but overall, nothing too offensive.

Bottom Line

With one of the best displays in this category, great speakers and an affordable price, the Y700 gives you more for your money. The downsides are below-average battery life, no option for a more powerful GPU, and a keyboard that could stand to be better for both typing and gaming. The latter is a real shame, because Lenovo makes the best keyboards in the industry, and there's a sea of ThinkPads and Yogas to prove it.
While the entry-level Y700 is a good deal, competitors offer better performance for around the same price as our $1,349 review config. With a new lower starting price, the $1,400 Alienware 17 comes standard with the same Intel Core i7 CPU and a more powerful Nvidia 970M GPU. This offers a big improvement for gaming, and will let you turn on more graphical bells and whistles. And Alienware will let you upgrade to a 980M (or the company's beastly graphics amplifier, if you want).
Overall, the 17-inch Y700 is a solid gaming machine that lowers the barrier to entry without lowering expectations.

Lenovo Ideapad Y700 (17-inch) from $1049.00 visit site from Lenovo

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Laptop and Tablet Warranties: What They Cover

Whether your shiny new laptop or tablet was dead on arrival or developed a serious problem after a few months of wear and tear, you'll probably rely on the manufacturer's warranty to get your device fixed. Every hardware vendor offers some kind of warranty on its products, but these protections are not created equal, which is why when you buy a product, you need to know: "What does your warranty cover?"
The problem is that warranties are dense and full of legal jargon that few people read and even fewer understand. To cut through the confusion, we've taken an in-depth look at the standard warranty coverage from the biggest laptop and tablet manufacturers in the business. Many of these companies offer extended coverage for an additional fee, but below we analyze what you get right out of the box, including the length of coverage, who pays for shipping costs and whether upgrading your device voids the agreement.

Brands Covered

• Acer
• Amazon
• Apple
• Asus
• Dell
• Google
• HP
• Lenovo
• Microsoft
• MSI
• Samsung
• Toshiba

Acer

Acer is a good baseline company for warranties. For consumer-grade laptops in the company's Aspire line as well as tablets, Acer gives one year's worth of protection against manufacturing defects. Its business line of notebook computers, the TravelMates, have two years of coverage, which is above and beyond what can be found among most business-model computers. For desktops, Acer offers three years standard, something almost unheard of without paying for an extended-warranty option, which can literally run into hundreds of dollars.

Standard Warranty Length

• Chromebooks, Aspire Laptops and Tablets: 1-year limited warranty
• Desktops: 3-year limited warranty
• TravelMate Laptops: 2-year limited warranty
• Acer Aspire Models S7-392-7837, S7-392-5454 and SW5-171P-82B3: 2-year limited warranty (varies by model between one- and two-year warranty)
• 90-days of software support on all products 

Standard Warranty Coverage

Acer's warranty includes product repair, either by the company or by an authorized and certified shop. Replacement of a product or product parts with either the same item or one of comparable specifications is covered. Acer also offers a refund of the cost of the product minus depreciation if it is determined that the item cannot be repaired or if the customer opts for a refund rather than repair.The warranty must be activated and the device must be registered with Acer to receive coverage.

Shipping Costs

The consumer (you) pays for shipping, insurance, taxes, fees and everything else associated with sending the product to Acer for warranty repairs. The company pays for return shipping.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Upgrading your hard drive or RAM does not, in itself, void the warranty. However, any damages caused by the upgraded equipment, or damages incurred during the removal of the old hardware or installation of the new hardware are not covered, nor is the upgraded hardware covered by the Acer warranty.
While it is generally true that upgrading your computer will not void the warranty, some products carry a seal that voids the warranty if broken. That means you should avoid breaking that seal for any reason, even if you are doing it only for upgrade purposes.

Amazon

Though Amazon doesn't manufacture much in the way of high-end electronics, the company's Fire tablets have been gaining ground against iPads and items like the Note tablets from Samsung. Amazon's standard tablet warranty is good, with shipping completely covered by the company. Its extremely abbreviated 90-day warranty for its newest inexpensive tablet isn't great, but Amazon breaks the mold with its worry-free coverage of tablets for kids, products which tend to endure the most abuse of any piece of electronic equipment.
Standard Warranty Length

• 7-inch Fire Tablet: 90-day limited warranty
• All Other Fire Tablets and Kindle E-Readers: 1-year limited warranty
• Kids Edition Tablets: 2-year worry-free warranty

Standard Warranty Coverage

• Standard Warranty: The standard warranty on most tablets and Kindle readers covers manufacturing defects. If you have a device that's under warranty, you can opt to have it repaired by Amazon or an authorized repair shop, or Amazon will give you a replacement new or refurbished device that is equivalent to the one you have. The company does not offer repairs or replacement for accidents or misuse unless you own a Fire Kids Edition tablet.

• Kids Worry-Free Warranty: In addition to what is covered under the limited warranty, the Worry-Free edition that comes standard with Kids Edition tablets covers basic accidents such as spills and drops. It does not cover fire or misuse (such as using the tablet in a way it was not intended — treating it as a coaster, playing catch with it, etc.), commercial use, personal repair or alterations.

Shipping Costs

Amazon pays the cost of shipping the product to be repaired or returned by sending you printable shipping labels. The company also pays to ship back the repaired items or any replacements.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Any unauthorized upgrading or repair of any Amazon tablet or Kindle device will void the warranty.

Recent Changes to Amazon's Warranty

When Amazon released the 7-inch Fire tablet, complete with special offers for just $50, the company also dropped the warranty on that tablet to only 90 days. All other Fire Tablets — along with Kindle products, the Echo and the Fire TV Stick — get a one-year limited warranty.

Apple

Apple will give you a way to pay for shipping your product to the company's technicians, but its warranty is best for anyone who lives in a populous area where access to a Genius Bar is available. The fairly staid warranty itself gives a basic form of coverage, but the capacity to receive warranty help directly from Apple technicians or employees at any of Apple's retail locations can save buyers innumerable worries and avoid the headache of dealing with phone menus and customer service reps who cannot physically see what is wrong with a device.

Standard Warranty Length

• iPads, iPad minis, iPad Airs, MacBooks, iMacs, Mac minis, Mac Pros: 1-year limited warranty
• 90-days of technical support

Standard Warranty Coverage

The standard warranty protects only against manufacturing defects, with no coverage for accidents, fire, water or damage caused by repairs or upgrades attempted by any unauthorized person. It will not help with defective parts that are deemed consumable, such as batteries, and won't cover cosmetic damage or damages caused by other products, including any cables, mice or other third-party accessories that are attached to the device. Any acts of nature or external forces are expressly not covered.
You may receive product replacement, repair or servicing by either sending your device to Apple or taking it to one of the company's retail locations or a certified repair outlet. In some cases, Apple will offer you DIY repair services. Typically, this will be done only if you speak to support either online or via telephone. Once a product is taken to Apple for repairs, the company will handle the repairs rather than giving instructions and parts to a consumer.
For all DIY repairs, hardware will be sent to you along with instructions for doing the repairs yourself. If this happens, you will not be compensated for any labor costs you incur during the repair procedure. Any damages you cause while performing the repair are also not covered.

Shipping Costs

If you need to mail your product to Apple, the company will send you prepaid shipping labels for free. To ensure your product is not damaged when you send it in, Apple will also typically give you the packaging materials to be used with your product so it can be properly protected while in transit.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Replacing most components, including but not limited to hard drives and RAM, will not void the warranty unless you use incompatible hardware or do damage to the machine during the upgrade process.

Asus

For gamers, Asus stands out from the crowd. Among the company's gaming lines of laptops and desktops, buyers can expect to receive either lengthier coverage — as is the case with Acer's business and gaming desktops — or will get expanded coverage for spills and accidents, as is the case with the Republic of Gaming computers. The ordinary warranty is fine, if unremarkable, but clumsy buyers with a passion for gaming will appreciate the company's willingness to cover damage caused by the user.

Standard Warranty Length

• Desktops, Laptops, Chromebooks, Hybrids and Tablets: 1-year limited warranty
• High-End Desktops: 3-year limited warranty for business or gaming computers (consumers must check individual product to determine which warranty applies).
• High-Range Notebooks: Some notebooks, such as those in the ROG (Republic of Gamers) line, have one-year warranty coverage that also includes drops, spills, accidents and acts of God. It also has two-way shipping for warranty service.

Standard Warranty Coverage

Each warranty covers parts and labor to repair a product, and you can exchange some items for comparable product replacement.

Shipping Costs

Whether or not you pay for shipping your product to Asus for repair depends on your individual product. The more expensive the product, the more likely Asus is to pay for shipping both ways. Asus will pay to return all products to you.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Any tampering, repair or modification by unauthorized personnel voids the warranty, so you cannot upgrade, enhance or fix any part of your Asus machine without it nullifying your warranty.

Dell

Dell is the computer for the everyman and everywoman. As such, the company's warranty shows a lot of parity. You'll get nearly exactly the same level of service whether you buy an inexpensive piece of equipment or the top of Dell's line. The company has everything from DIY repair to on-site coverage, though its on-site repair options are mostly limited to the Alienware line of gaming computers, the only place Dell lacks egalitarianism.

Standard Warranty Length

• PCs, Laptops, Tablets: 1-year limited warranty
• Refurbished products have a 90-day limited warranty.

Standard Warranty Coverage

The type of service you receive from Dell's standard warranty is a bit different, depending on the type of computer.

• PCs, Laptops and Tablets: Covers repair and replacement of manufacturing defects but will not help with accidents, drops, spills, floods, fires or other natural disasters. Mail-in service only.
• Alienware Laptops and PCs: This typically includes on-site service for any manufacturing defects or problems after a remote technician has diagnosed them. Though it includes on-site help, the warranty will still not cover any accidents or defects that result from use by the consumer.
• Online Chat: Part of Dell's warranty service includes customer service via chat or over the phone, during which time the representatives can remotely access your PC and attempt to diagnose and repair any issues you may have. Any repair attempts done at the direction of Dell service are completely authorized and will not void further warranty service down the line.

Shipping Costs

Dell will pay the shipping both ways for all mail-in repairs or replacements, but you need to supply the box. In some cases — such as if you no longer have the original product box or request additional packaging from the company — Dell will dispatch a box for shipping along with payment to ensure your product is properly housed in transit. Dell may also send you a replacement part, which the company's customer care reps will instruct you on installing. The company covers all shipping for these parts.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Hard drive and RAM can be upgraded without voiding the warranty, but damage to the system incurred during the upgrade process is not covered. Also, your warranty will not cover any new parts you add. Upgrading the video card, CPU and most other components will void the warranty.

Google

The many items that seem like they would be made by Google, such as Chromebooks and the Nexus tablets, actually aren't manufactured by the search engine giant. The one item that is Google-made, the Pixel, has passable warranty coverage. However, Google's lack of outlets for repairs, and the fact the warranty doesn't cover shipping for service makes this warranty slightly less helpful than average.

Standard Warranty Length

• Tablets: Google doesn't actually manufacture any of its own tablets, so the company does not offer a warranty. Nexus devices bear a warranty from the manufacturer, with nearly every Nexus made by a different company. The manufacturer of each Nexus is as follows:
  • Nexus 4, 5, and 5X: LG
  • Nexus 6: Motorola
  • Nexus 6P: Huawei Technologies
  • Nexus 7: Asus
  • Nexus 9: HTC
  • Nexus 10: Samsung

Most of these companies offer one-year limited warranties that include basic service and repair.

• Pixel Chromebooks: Covered by a one-year limited warranty in the United States, or a two-year limited warranty in most of Europe.

Standard Warranty Coverage
Google's warranty covers repair parts and labor for the Pixel. It does not cover accidental damage.

Shipping Costs

You pay the shipping to send your Pixel to Google for repair or replacement, as the warranty doesn't guarantee payment of transit costs.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Swapping out the RAM on your Pixel will not void the warranty. You cannot change or remove the integrated SSD memory without enormous difficulty and high technical know-how, but even if you do so, it will void the warranty.

HP

HP offers a fairly common one-year warranty on its products. However, the company pays shipping costs for sending products in for service, something not all manufacturers do.
Standard Warranty Length
PCs, Laptops, Chromebooks and Tablets: 1-year standard global limited warranty.
Standard Warranty Coverage
With the standard one-year limited warranty, you will be covered for repair or replacement of parts deemed defective. The warranty does not cover accidents, abuse or use of an HP product outside of the standard-use instructions included with the product.
In some cases, HP may provide instructions and parts that enable you to service your own device. The company may also determine that you must mail in your machine or take it to local representatives for work to be completed. During DIY service, so long as you are acting in accordance with the instructions provided by HP, the warranty will cover your repairs even if you damage the system while acting as HP instructs.

Shipping Costs

HP picks up the tab for shipping in both directions, including parts you remove and return to the company at HP's direction. HP will often provide you with shipping materials if you do not have the original boxes and packing materials in which your device came, to protect your product when you send it.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Upgrading your computer's RAM or hard drive will not affect your HP warranty unless you break something during the upgrade process or the upgraded components damage your system.

Lenovo

Lenovo offers several types of standard warranty, based on the type of laptop or tablet you bought. The warranties vary not only by length but also by who pays the shipping costs of sending your product in for service.

Standard Warranty Length

• Mainstream Consumer: 1-year limited mail-in warranty
• Premium Consumer and Mainstream Business Laptops: 1-year depot warranty
• Premium ThinkPad Configs: Some configurations of higher-end ThinkPads, such as the T450s, W550s and X1 Carbon, come with three-year depot warranties standard.

Standard Warranty Coverage
Lenovo's standard warranties cover parts and labor, but not necessarily shipping (see below). Accidental damage isn't covered.

• Limited Mail-In Warranty: Consumer pays shipping costs to send the product in for service.
• Depot Warranty: Lenovo pays shipping costs and even provides a box for shipping the product back safely.
• Self-Repair: If the defective part is consumer-replaceable (e.g., a battery, RAM or storage drive), Lenovo may send you replacement parts and instructions on how to perform the repair.

Shipping Costs

You pay for all shipping and packaging when mailing products to Lenovo.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

You can upgrade or modify most Lenovo products, including upgrading the hard drive and RAM, but only if those parts bear no warranty seal. Breaking of any warranty seal, or damage caused during repair or modification, are not covered.

Microsoft

Microsoft's Surface tablets and laptops have a solid warranty that covers both the systems themselves and peripherals such as the Type Cover and active stylus. Unlike some other manufacturers, the Redmond software giant covers shipping costs for products you send in for repair.

Standard Warranty Length

Surface and Surface Pro Products: 1-year limited warranty with 90-days of software support.

Standard Warranty Coverage

Microsoft's warranty covers repair or replacement of any manufacturing defects of the device itself, as well as the Touch Cover, Type Cover, Surface power supply cords and adapters, and Surface pens. The warranty does not include accidents or damage caused by unauthorized repairs, drops or abuse by the consumer.

Shipping Costs

The company will issue a prepaid shipping label for you to send the product back for servicing. Microsoft also pays for return shipping.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

You cannot open or tamper with any Microsoft product without voiding the warranty. You also cannot use any Microsoft product with any non-Windows operating system without voiding the warranty.

MSI

MSI's standard warranty backs the entire system for one year, but important individual laptop parts like the CPU and motherboard have longer coverage. The one big drawback of the MSI warranty is that it doesn't allow for upgrading your RAM or hard drive.

Standard Warranty Length

• Laptops: 1-year warranty for repair of defective parts or entire systems. The company also offers two years of warranty coverage for replacement of defective parts that does not include system-wide issues.
• Tablets: 1-year limited warranty for repairs or replacement of parts.

Standard Warranty Coverage

Defects are covered by MSI's warranty, but accidents, damage caused by the consumer, spills or natural acts are not covered by the warranty.

Shipping Costs

MSI advises customers to take the product back to the store where it was purchased and have the retailer ship the device back to the manufacturer, or to take it to the nearest MSI service center. http://www.msi.com/page/service-location/. Customers are responsible for packaging the products so they won't be damaged in transit.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

The warranty will be voided if the customer performs any modifications or alterations to the device without authorization. This includes simply removing parts.

Samsung

The Korean electronics giant offers a fairly vanilla one-year standard warranty in the United States. If you need to send your laptop or tablet in for repair, you must cover your own shipping costs.

Standard Warranty Length

PC, Laptop, Chromebook, Laptop Hybrid and Tablet: 1-year limited warranty

 Standard Warranty Coverage

Samsung's warranty coverage includes repair for manufacturer defects and replacement of parts or replacement of the entire system with a new, refurbished or equivalent replacement.
The warranty does not cover accidents, spills, acts of God or equipment damaged by the user for any reason.

Shipping Costs

You must ship the product to Samsung at your own expense for warranty service. The company will return the repaired product to you at no cost.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

Samsung reserves the right to refuse to service your computer if your RAM or hard drive has been replaced, since the company's warranty bears a clause stating that "altered products" will not receive warranty service. Any damage incurred while changing out the components is not covered.

Toshiba

Toshiba's standard warranty is similar to that of most of its competitors, with a one-year guarantee on parts and labor, but not accidental damage. Prepare to pay your own shipping costs if you need to send your system back.

Standard Warranty Length

PC, Laptop, Chromebook, Laptop Hybrid and Tablet: 1-year limited warranty

Standard Warranty Coverage

Parts and labor are covered by the standard warranty, meaning repair and replacement of any defective parts or an entire system fall under the purview of the warranty. Accidents or harm caused by the user are not covered, nor are acts of God or damage caused by unlicensed repairs.

Shipping Costs

You pay for shipping and packaging a device when sending it to Toshiba for warranty service. The company will pay to return the device once it has been fixed.

Will Warranty Be Voided If RAM or Hard Drive Is Replaced?

The warranty will remain in effect after you upgrade your hard drive or RAM, unless you break a warranty sticker seal, damage the product while making the upgrades or install incompatible equipment that damages your device.

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Dell XPS 13 (2015) Review

The best laptop just got even better. With its latest updates, Dell has given the XPS 13, our favorite notebook, a brighter screen, longer battery life, a new USB-C port with Thunderbolt 3 and your choice of Intel's latest 6th-generation Core Series CPUs. Dell also kept all the features we liked on the previous model, including the sexy aluminum and carbon-fiber body, the gorgeous quad-HD infinity display and comfy backlit keyboard on this $1,399 ultraportable ($799 to start). While the location of the webcam still feels out of place and the less-expensive nontouch model offers even longer battery life for less, this latest XPS 13 continues to reign supreme.

Design

Like the previous version from early 2015, the current XPS 13 features a carbon-fiber deck sandwiched between its brushed-metal lid and bottom, which creates an appealing and modern two-toned look. I really like Dell's attention to detail, which is best seen in the bottom-mounted aluminum flap, whose sole purpose is to cover up the ugly service stickers and labels required by the Federal Communications Commission.
When you open the lid, you're treated to Dell's infinity display, which features an almost nonexistent bezel that seems to just disappear into the background. It's intimate and engaging, and when you watch movies, it's feels like the video player is just hovering in midair.
The Infinity display isn't just for looks, either, as the smaller lid means the XPS 13 also has a small footprint. Measuring 11.98 x 7.88 x 0.33-0.6-inches and weighing 2.9 pounds, it's even smaller than some of the tiniest 13-inch systems, including the MacBook Air 13 (12.8 x 8.9 x 0.11-0.68-inches, 2.96 pounds) and the Lenovo Yoga 900 (12.75 x 8.86 x 0.59 inches, 2.8 pounds).

Keyboard and Touchpad

The XPS 13 features a backlit keyboard with two levels of lighting. Dell makes up for the keyboard's somewhat shallow 1.2 mm of travel by adding a good spring at the bottom of the stroke, so even though there's not a lot of room to work with, it's not painful when you bottom out while typing.
On my first attempt at 10fastfingers.com's typing test, I recorded 85 words per minute, which is 5 more words per minute than my typical pace.


The 4.1 x 2.3-inch touchpad features a seductively smooth matte-black surface that my fingers simply couldn't get enough of.
Even better is the feeling of the touchpad's mouse click, which offers a really satisfying snap every time you press down. As expected, mouse movement and multifinger gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scrolling, responded quickly and accurately.

Display

The Dell XPS 13's 13.3-inch quad-HD (3200 x 1800) touch screen is a sight to behold. It features wide viewing angles, and even better brightness and great color range than the full-HD version of this notebook.

The Infinity display is intimate and engaging, making it seem like the video player is floating in midair.

The result is a display whose picture lags behind only that of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. When I watched the trailer for Gods of Egypt, the radiant blue light of Horus' eye provided a good contrast to the dark and gloomy dungeon. When compared side by side with the nontouch XPS 13, the quad-HD model featured brighter and more saturated colors, although the nontouch model didn't have to deal with the glare from having a glossy coated screen.
When measured with a light meter, the XPS 13 produced 336 nits of brightness. That's more than the Yoga 900 and the nontouch XPS 13 could muster. However, the pricier Surface Book (387 nits) is brighter.
Color range was on point, with the XPS 13 covering 103.6 percent of the sRGB spectrum. The MacBook Air 13's color range was significantly more limited, at just 66 percent, although the nontouch XPS 13 (92 percent), the Yoga 900 (93 percent) and Surface Book (99) percent) weren't far off.
Interestingly, despite good brightness and great color range, the XPS 13's color accuracy is only slightly better than average, with a Delta-E rating of 3.13. (Closer to 0 is best.)

Audio

Even though size is at a premium, the XPS 13 still puts out a lot of sound. When I listened to DJ Mehdi's "I Am Somebody," I was surprised by the Dell's better-than-average bass and overall volume (which was more than enough to fill our testing lab), although I would have liked more crispness from the percussion.

Heat

While the nontouch 2015 XPS 13 stayed cool on the Laptop Mag Heat Test, the touch version did not fare as well. After streaming HD video for 15 minutes, a section near the vent on the bottom registered a disturbing 112 degrees -- far above our typical 95-degree threshold. Other areas, such as the touchpad and space between the G and H keys, were much less worrisome, at 87.5 and 98.5 degrees, respectively.

Ports and Webcam

New on this year's XPS 13 is a reversible USB Type-C port with support for Thunderbolt 3. Though it doesn't charge the laptop, this Type-C connection transfers data at up to 40 Gbps or outputs video to multiple 4K displays over a single cord.
The other ports include two traditional USB 3.1 ports, an SD card reader and a combo headphone/mic jack.

The touchpad features a seductively smooth surface that registered gestures accurately.

Due to the laptop's slim bezel, the XPS 13's webcam is located beneath the display.
The 1280 x 720 camera features dual mics for better audio during video calls, although it's a little awkward to always be looking down at the bottom-left corner. This can often cause shadows to fall on your face. Despite the good detail and sharp focus I saw in a selfie I took in our office, the picture ended up looking a little darker than necessary. 

Performance

HOW THE Dell XPS 13 STACKS UP

Our $1,399 quad-HD XPS 13 review unit came with a 6th-gen 2.3-GHz Intel Core i5-6200U CPU, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB PCIe x4 (aka NVME) SSD. In our tests, this machine multitasked, streamed video and crunched numbers with the best of them. Even when I streamed multiple 1080p 60 fps videos in YouTube with 15 other tabs open in Edge, there wasn't a hint of slowdown.

This machine can multitask, stream video and crunch numbers with the best of them.

On Geekbench 3, which tests overall system performance, the XPS 13 scored 6,374. As expected, the MacBook Air 13 (5,783) with its older 5th-gen Core i5 CPU, didn't score quite as high, although the Yoga 900, with the same i5-6200 U, was in the same ballpark, at 6,264. The Surface Book finished even higher due to its slightly faster Core i5-6300 chip.
When we used OpenOffice to match a spreadsheet containing 20,000 names and addresses, the XPS 13 finished the task in 4 minutes and 28 seconds. While this is a good deal faster than the 8:30 ultraportable average, it was slightly behind times from the Yoga 900 (4:18), Surface Book (4:17) and even the MacBook Air 13 (4:03).
Results were similar on our storage test, which involves duplicating 4.97GB of mixed media files. The XPS 13's 256GB SSD returned a transfer rate of 159 MBps, which is higher than the 153-MBps average but surprisingly low for an NVME disk, which should provide two to three times the performance of a traditional SATA drive. It was also behind the Yoga 900 (181.8 MBps), the MacBook Air 13 (358.4 MBps) and the Surface Book (318.01 MBps), which also has an NVME SSD.

Graphics

The XPS 13 features Intel HD Graphics 520, and while it's not powerful enough to play demanding games at 3200 x 1800, you can still enjoy casual titles, such as Hearthstone, at its native res or older entries, if you step down to 1920 x 1080.
On 3DMark's Fire Strike graphics test, the XPS 13 posted a score of 783, which was a bit worse than the Yoga 900 (840) and the Surface Book (854 without discrete graphics).

Battery Life

The late-2015 XPS 13 provides a small but insignificant increase in battery life over its immediate predecessor. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits), the quad-HD XPS 13 lasted 8 hours and 8 minutes. That's a 44-minute increase from the early-2015 model, which featured a similar configuration.
MORE: Laptops with the Longest Battery Life
When compared to competing systems, the battery life of Lenovo's Yoga 900 was about the same, at 7:57, but the nontouch version of this year's XPS (11:42), the 13-inch MacBook Air (14:00) and the Surface Book (12:29) all had significantly longer runtimes.

Configurations

Our $1,400 review unit, with its 13.3-inch quad-HD touch screen, is the least-expensive touch-enabled XPS 13, but if you're willing to spend more, you can upgrade to an Intel Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD for a grand total of $2,000. If you decide nontouch is the way to go, $800 gets you an Intel Core i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. 

Software and Warranty

Dell includes Windows 10 and a one-year limited hardware warranty standard on every XPS 13, but if you like, you can upgrade to its premium support for up to four years, for a total of $299. The premium tier includes 24/7 tech support, on-site servicing and automatic alerts that highlight potential hardware or software issues.
Don't worry about bloatware on this ultraportable. Our XPS 13 arrived with a clean desktop and just a few nagging apps, like Candy Crush Saga and McAfee LiveSafe, lurking in the Start menu. You do get some useful trials, including 20GB of storage on Dropbox.

Bottom Line

In the end, the XPS 13's biggest competition is itself. For $300 less, you can get another configuration with the same specs (except for a 1920 x 1080 nontouch display) and an extra 3.5 hours of battery life.
Microsoft's Surface Book is also an intriguing option because of its detachable display and long battery life, but a system configured similarly to this quad-HD touch-screen XPS 13 costs $1,699, or $300 more. If you want the best ultraportable on the market, the XPS 13's combination of sparkling display, looks, performance, comfort and portability can't be beat.

Dell XPS 13 (2015) from $799.99 visit site from Dell Home

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Asus X551MA: Our Take (Mini Review)

 
The 15.6 -inch Asus X551MA ($268) is a no-frills, budget laptop with a 15-inch display and very basic hardware. Though we have not tested this system, we can draw several conclusions based on its specs, user reviews and evaluations from other tech publications.
Check out our Best Laptops Overall or Best Sub-$500 Laptops lists for a series of systems we highly recommend based on our real-world testing.

From $269.99

Amazon

Who is it for?

The Asus X551MA is designed for those who want a very basic laptop for document creation and light Web browsing. With a price below $300, the X551MA makes sense for parents looking to buy a "first time" computer for their children, or those who need a simple "living room laptop." However, its 15-inch, 4.7-pound body isn't particularly lightweight, so don't plan on carrying it back and forth to school every day.

Key Specs and Features

The Asus X551MA has a 15.6-inch, non-touch display with a resolution of 1366 x 768. This laptop is powered by an Intel Celeron N2830 CPU, a dual-core processor clocked at 2.16GHz, which should be good enough for basic tasks like document editing, Web surfing, video viewing and light media editing. With 4GB of DDR3 RAM, the laptop offers enough memory for light multitasking, while the 500GB HDD has plenty of space for movies and music, but is not very fast.
Embedded in the display is a simple 1-megapixel webcam. Interestingly enough, this unit comes with Sonic Master speakers, which reportedly offer a better listening experience for movies and music than speakers found on similarly priced laptops.

Connectivity options include 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Gigabit Ethernet. The selection of ports includes one USB 3 port, one USB 2 port, HDMI, an SDXC card reader and a microphone jack. The system ships with Windows 8.1.

Our Experience with Similar Laptops

We reviewed the similar Asus X555la in August 2015 and appreciated its springy keyboard, high-quality audio and solid battery life. However, we noted some trade-offs, including a hollow-feeling clickpad and a blotchy webcam.

What Owners Say About the Asus X551MA

Despite the X55M1A's shortcomings, most Amazon commenters described it as an excellent entry-level laptop. The screen drew praise for its decent picture quality, and the Sonic Master speakers received high marks for their excellent audio quality. Users also enjoyed the chiclet keyboard, noting its comfortable feel, excellent key response, reasonable spacing and convenient numeric keypad. Users commented that the laptop provides them with enough performance for basic multitasking, such as light Web browsing and document editing.
On the negative side, commenters complained that the Asus X55M1A feels like a "chunk of cheap plastic." They also lamented the low-quality touchpad, citing it as "glitchy" and criticizing the lack of separation between the embedded right and left buttons. Others claim that they got only 3 hours of battery life, a disappointingly short amount of endurance.

What Reviewers Say About the Asus X551MA

A number of professional tech publications have reviewed the Asus X55M1A. According to Laptop Reviewers, it is " no more than an oversized netbook." They cite it as having an uncomfortable touchpad, describing it as "wonky" due to a lack of separation between its right and left click keys. However, they liked that the screen offered a decent, colorful viewing experience.
Notebook Check praised it for being "lighter than many other budget 15.6-inch laptops," and found that it provides enough power for very basic tasks such as Web browsing and document editing. However, short battery life and lack of Bluetooth were listed as major disappointments.
Overall, reviewers praise the comfortable chiclet keyboard, and the laptop's slick, modern design. Despite the webcam's paltry 1-MP resolution, the consensus is that it gets the job done when used for video conferencing. Additionally, journalists report that the Sonic Master speakers provide a better-than-average listening experience. However, like users, professional testers also experienced subpar battery life.

Upshot

If you are looking for a dirt-cheap, entry-level laptop for your family or yourself, the Asus X55M1A is worth considering, provided that you don't plan to lug it around or use it unplugged all that often.

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