Chrome 10 Speed Improvements:

As far as updates you can see, and feel, there is a nice jump in the speed of Chrome. Google says the new browser should result in a 30 to 40% speed increase according to their benchmarks (see the chart below).

Chrome 10 Security Enhancements:

For those who are concerned about web security – and shouldn’t we all be? – there is a new feature called “Sandboxing” which keeps the web page in each tab separate from the other tabs. So, if one browser tab’s page crashes or freezes due to bad or malicious code, only that tab will crash. Also, any malware opened in one page cannot access information in the other tabs. If you are opening a page that asks for a password and it is not encrypted it cannot be accessed by another page with malicious code that tries to leach this information.

Google explains Sandboxing in Google Chrome further in the video below:

Chrome 10 Preferences and Settings Changes:

Something else that Google is highlighting with this new release is the new settings feature. Instead of a separate dialog box it comes as a tab looking just like another browser page. You access it via the little tool icon that looks like a wrench in the upper right corner of the browser. Clicking on “options” from the drop down box opens up the new settings tab. Mac users will find the word “preferences” instead of “options.” Probably the most useful new feature in the settings box is the search function. When looking for a specific setting, just start typing as if you are searching a webpage.

Because the new settings page is a webpage, it has its own URL. This will be helpful when a user is trying to help someone else change a setting.For Example, let’s say you’re helping your mom clear data to remove advertising tracking cookies. You can open up the settings page in your own browser, click on under the hood along the left-hand side, and there you will find the “Clear Browsing Data” button. Now just copy the URL and paste it into an e-mail to mom. Tell her to click the link and find the button.

Below is a video demonstrating the new features of the Settings page in Google Chrome 10:

Chrome Syncing Expands:

With Google Chrome 10, users can also sync the user data.The user can either sync everything or he or she can choose from the following:

• apps purchase from the chrome app store
• autofill information
• bookmarks
• extensions
• passwords
• preferences
• themes

This makes using multiple computers easier. To matter which computer you use, so long as you use Chrome 10, you can have your customizations in place. This is not new if you’ve used the beta version.

We’ve been using the beta version for a number  of weeks. It has been a little bit unstable, but other than that it is a nice alternative to Internet Explorer or Firefox. Now that it is out of beta, we recommend that everyone give it a try to see if they like it. Hopefully, the instability we experienced will be gone. It was very rare, but we did have the occasional freeze. The good news is with Chrome, when one page freezes, the whole browser doesn’t always go down.

Google Chrome 10 Launches: Speed, Security and Syncing Highlighted is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

That’s a big boost especially for the 13″ model which previously only had an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Apple is also adding AMD’s faster Radeon graphics chips that will automatically engage when needed. The Intel HD 3000 graphics that are part of the Sandy Bridge platform runs the rest of the time, saving battery life.

The combination of the above pair of upgrades to the specs should produce an escalation in benchmark numbers and real-world experience. The test results do not disappoint.

One set of benchmarks comes to us from Primate Labs. Their Geekbench 2 test showed a nearly 100% increase in the 17″ model with an Intel Core i7-2820QM 2.3GHz Quad-core processor. It went from a score of 5,837 to 10,165. You would expect that when going from dual-core to quad-core processing power.

When comparing dual-core systems from this year and last, there was also a nice increase. A MacBook Pro 13″ with a dual-core i7-2620QM 2.7 GHz processor reached a total of 6,796 on the test. The comparable system from 2010, with only a Core 2 Duo hit 3,645. So when you compare the fastest 13″ from 2010 to the fastest from 2011 you also see the benchmark scores nearly double.

9to5 Mac is showing similar results in their tests. If you want to test it out yourself, download Geekbench 2, a free program. Below is an unboxing of the new 15″ base configuration of the MacBook Pro. The video also shows how fast it boots.

Benchmark: Apple MacBook Pro Refresh Shows Performance Boost is a post by Kevin Purcell from Notebooks.com.

We’ve tested the Intel X25-M and are were impressed with the benchmarking numbers as well as the real world improvements such as faster application launching, faster boot time and MacBook Air like resume time.

The two downside’s to SSDs are price and size. While you can find typically get a huge laptop hard drive for under $100, you will need to pay around $500 to get a 256GB SSD. But, don’t worry you can get a smaller SSD for under $200, like the 80GB Intel X-25M which is on sale at Best Buy for $179 this week.

Before you go looking for an SSD to put in your notebook, head over to Laptop Magazine to see how the current frontrunners compare in their SSD Battle Royale which pits the following SSDs against each other. They compared these Solid State Drives against a 7200RPM Hitachi hard drive.

• Intel X-25M – 120GB – $230
• OCZ Vertex 2 – 120GB - $216
• Crucial RealSSD C300 – 256GB - $520
• Samsung 470 Series – 256GB - $490

Laptop Magazine tested the read and write speeds as well as how fast the SSD contenders could copy large files, mixed files and zip a group of files. The test also involved seeing how well the drives handled application opening and multitasking. All of these tests were then takin into consideration to crown a winner — the Samsung 470 Series. Head over to Laptop Magazine to see the full breakdown of stats and testing info before you buy a SSD.

SSD Showdown: Intel, OCZ, Crucial and Samsung SSDs Tested by Laptop Mag is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The Toshiba NB550D is powered by a dual core AMD C-50 1Ghz processor and can handle up to 4GB RAM which plays well with the included AMD Radeon 6250 GPU. The NB550D unfortunately won’t be coming stateside anytime soon, but you can still get a look at the green and black machine in NetbookNews

In addition to looks it’s interesting to see how the new processor compares to other machines, and if it can handle gaming and HD video. NetbookNews also put the machine to the test with a dull set of benchmarks and more importantly a video showing HD playback and gaming. If you want to see all the benchmarking numbers head over to the NetbookNews AMD Fusion C-50 benchmark post. While it doesn’t look like it will be your next multimedia machine, it can handle HD video in certain situations.

Toshiba NB550D w AMD C-50 APU Unboxed and Benchmarked (video) is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

Keep reading for our Intel X25-M review and to find out how to win one of your own.

Intel X25-M SSD Quick Specs: The Intel X25-M SSD we have on hand is an 80GB model, specifically the Intel X25-M with a rated sustained sequential read of up to 250MB/s and a sustained sequential write of up to 70 MB/s. You can find this drive from many online retailers for around $200. If you want to pick it up in store, Best Buy carries it for $199.

Installation and Setup:

Installing and setting up the Intel SSD was simple thanks to the free Intel SSD Cloning Utility which made an exact copy of our old hard drive and transferred it to the SSD in about an hour. The hardest part was cutting down on multimedia files so that our used space was below 80GB, but the free utility TreeSize made that a snap.

Once we had our hard drive cloned to the SSD installing the SSD in our notebook only took a few minutes and required a small Phillips screwdriver. You can the video below that shows you how to install an SSD.

Perhaps my favorite part about this upgrade, aside from the speed that we’ll touch on in a second, is that it is a very simple and easy process that most users can undertake in a Saturday afternoon.

SSD Benchmarks:

Since speed is the name of the game with SSDs we measured the speed of our old hard drive versus the new Intel X25-M solid state drive using CrystalDisk. This tool measures how fast the drive can read and write under several circumstances. Aside from the benchmarks, which show a big improvement, it is important to note that there was a significant speed boost that we could tell in using the computer so it’s not all theoretical benchmarks.

Benchmarks for our old hard disk drive, a 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue 5400RPM drive:

Benchmarks for our new 80GB Intel X25-M:

You’ll notice that all of the benchmarked categories showed an increase, with the sequential read and sequential write categories showing a dramatic jump, even above the rated specs for the X25-M. The last option, 4k QD32 is another important one to look at as it shows how fast the disk can read and write a lot of small files in 32 parallel threads. If you don’t understand that, just note the large difference, knowing that a higher number is better, and move on to the performance section below that deals specifically with what you will notice.

One final area we looked at in pure benchmarking was our Windows Experience Score, which remained at a 5.5 after the upgrade thanks to the Intel Core 2 Duo processor we are running but we did see the primary disk score jump from 5.8 to 7.6 after installing the Intel X25-M.

Performance:

When it comes to actual performance, I was surprised by how much I noticed the speed of the new SSD. Specifically we’ll touch on startup and shutdown, performance during intensive tasks and general use.

When it comes to startup and shutdown, the Intel X25-M cut both in half. On average it took 29 seconds to boot into Windows and start working with the SSD compared to 63 seconds with the hard disk. When it came to shutting down th SSD could turn off in 16.2 seconds on average, while the hard drive took 38.1 seconds. These improvements are ones that you will notice every time you turn your computer on and off.

One of our readers wanted to know how the solid state drive held up during intensive tasks like video editing, so while we edited the how to install an SSD video embedded above, we used the system to do other tasks such as web browsing. Since we were still limited by our CPU we didn’t notice a major difference between the solid state drive and the hard drive, but there were times where launching applications seemed snappier with the SSD.

In general use I am still amazed by the SSD. If you click a program, it’s ready to go almost instantly which means that you won’t be suffering from “Hourglass Syndrome” which accounts for up to 3 days of lost productivity a year. You literally click on a program and by the time you get your mouse to the file area it is launched. Of course more taxing programs like video editing software aren’t as instantaneous, but they are ready to go faster than on the hard drive. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just imagining the difference, so I went back to the old hard drive for an hour and it felt like molasses in wintertime compared to the SSD.

Size Does Matter:

The biggest drawback with switching to an SSD is size. The price per GB is still significantly higher than with a standard hard drive which means you may have to settle for a smaller drive. In our case we had to move a lot of media files over to an ExpressCard SSD, external USB hard drive and network attached storage. With our examples we are able to have all of our data with us at all times, but without our ExpressCard SSD (review coming) we would need to make sacrifices regarding what we could carry with us at all times.

Hopefully with the next generation of solid state drives we’ll see an increase in size and a break on the price.

SSD Maintenance:

One area where Intel continues the good job of support is in solid state drive maintenance, with the Intel SSD Toolbox which allows you to run diagnostic scans and checks your settings to ensure optimum SSD performance. First off you can run the Intel SSD Optimizer which uses TRIM functionality to optimize your SSD and can run this on a weekly basis. This is an important function, that not all SSDs have.

The toolkit can also check your system configuration to make sure that Windows settings are tweaked for use with an SSD and that disk defragmentation is turned off.

Conclusion:

There are definitely tangible benefits to switching to an SSD as your main drive that go beyond the benchmark bragging of geeks. While the price of an SSD is more expensive than a hard drive counterpart and the sizes may make you feel like it’s 1999 again, the switch is still an exciting one — so long as you have a second drive handy to store media files. We are eagerly awaiting cheap, large solid state drives, but if you can handle the disk size, there is a significant benefit to switching today.

Pros:

• Noticeable Speed Improvements
• TRIM Support
• Ease of installation

Cons:

• Size requires sacrifices for storage

How to Win an Intel SSD:

Intel was nice enough to send over an extra 80GB Intel X25 SSD for us to give away! You can enter the Intel SSD giveaway by commenting below, or tweeting about the contest as shown below. You earn one entry for a comment and another for a Tweet. You cannot gain more than two entries. The winner will be chosen using a random number on October 31st at midnight Pacific time.

1. Comment below telling us how you would use an Intel SSD for one entry
2. Tweet – “I just entered to win an #Intel SSD from @Notebookscom #SSDcontest – Notebooks.com/go/IntelSSD”

This contest is valid in the U.S. only. If you tweet to enter you must be following @Notebookscom so that we can DM you for shipping details.

Intel X25-M SSD Review and Giveaway: Vroom Vroom Fast is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

We’ve gathered up the HP Mini 311 reviews and hands on experiences to give you a good look at what you can expect from the little powerhouse.

The HP Mini 311 looks impressive but how does it actually stack up to real world tests? Our own Xavier Lanier had some hands on time with the HP Mini 311 and provides a good introduction to the new HP Mini 311 netbook.

Reviews:

CNet: “The real payoff is in the Nvidia Ion, which, while not a true discrete GPU, offers enough power to play HD video files smoothly (a sticking point for Netbooks), as well as do some basic gaming. For nongraphics tasks, it won’t affect performance much (and GPU support for Flash video, such as Hulu, is still a work in progress), but it does solve some of the frustrations associated with Netbooks, without driving up the price.” – Dan Ackerman

PCWorld: “By netbook standards, the HP Mini 311 is reasonably priced and offers features most netbooks lack. You’re paying a small premium for a netbook that has an HDMI port and can drive 1080p resolutions to a bigger display. Though it didn’t deliver on 1080p playback, it handled 720p and 1080i videos better than netbooks with Intel-based graphics. For those who were hoping to make a gaming netbook out of this, think again. High-end 3D games are still best played on full-fledged laptops.” – Cisco Cheng

Blog.laptopmag.com: “The design, the bright and beautiful screen, and the price all make this netbook a head-turner.” … “The trackpad is very smooth and our fingers glided easily across it. We also like that the two mouse buttons sit underneath instead of on the left and right sides. The bottom of these buttons is flush with the edge of the chassis, a nice design touch.” – K. T. Bradford

LaptopMag official Review: “With the Mini 311, HP has broken the netbook mold; no longer will users be limited to simple activities on these small systems, nor will they have to pay upwards of $600 for portability and performance. At its $399 price, consumers in the market for an inexpensive system can’t go wrong with this notebook. While we would have liked a better touchpad, the Mini 311 offers dramatic performance benefits in comparison to traditional netbooks while still offering nearly six hours of battery life.” – Michael A. Prospero

Laptop Magazine was so impressed with the HP Mini 311, that despite having issues with the trackpad, it was given an “Editor’s Choice Award”.

If you want to know exactly how the Mini 311 stacks up to the competition in all kinds of benchmarks including 3dMark, battery life, file transfer speed and much, much more be sure to hit up the detailed comparison at LaptopMag.com.

Notebooks.com: The Nvidia ION GPU that earns the HP Mini 311 high marks from pretty much anyone who lays hands on it also gives the Mini the ability to transcode files much faster than similarly spec’d netbooks without the Nvidia Ion. In this video you can see just how fast the mini transcodes a movie file compared to a Lenovo S12 without an ION GPU.

The Mini 311 is already impresses reviewers with Windows XP installed and it looks like things will only get better when Windows 7 arrives.

According to Liliputing.com on October 22nd you will be able to purchase the Hp Mini 311 with an 80 GB SSD 2-3GB of Ram and a full Nvidia ION GPU. By replacing the Nvidia ION LE, which is available now, with a full version users should experience better HD processing and will gain DirectX 10 support which will bring greater game compatibility.

Another improvement coming to the HP Mini 311 in the near future addresses the ability of the HP Mini 311 to play Flash video without looking like a bad kung fu movie. When Adobe releases Flash 10.1 this year it will be able to use the Nvidia ION GPU to provide stutter free streaming HD Flash Video.

Overall the reviews are positive with the trackpad being a point of contention between the Laptop Magazine blogger and the official reviewer. Even with shorter lasting battery life than many competitors the ability to do more including watch HD content, play games and, when Flash 10.1 comes out, watch Hulu more than makes up for this shortcoming.

This is one netbook I can’t wait to get my hands on once Windows 7 and the additional options come out, even if they do bump the price up into notebook range.

HP Mini 311 Review Roundup is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.