The latest round of updates to the venerable MacBook Pro family aren’t half as radical as when they first launched the aluminum unibody design last year. This time around, the top-of-the-line 15-in MacBook Pro gets a handful of minor component upgrades. Under the identical and supremely robust aluminum chassis, the internals are spectacularly capable — a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor armed with 4GB of memory. In addition, it features a dedicated GeForce 9600M graphics processor with 512 MB of dedicated memory besides the more basic GeForce 9400 GPU.

The advantage of dual graphics cards is that they allow for the option of high performance or longer battery life, but one frustration still remains — switching between the graphics cards requires you to log out and log back in, requiring you to close all your open applications and save your data.

The big news is that this iteration of the notebook comes with a non-removable battery, which Apple claims can last upto seven hours while surfing the web, with minor drops while playing back DVDs. The batteries are good for at least 1,000 full recharge cycles, or about five years of use. Using the best battery life options, I was able to eke out a shade under six-and-a-half hours while using the laptop for standard web browsing on wireless, the occasional movie clips and file transfers.

By any measure, that’s impressive for a standard full spec laptop! Also, Apple’s finally embraced the SD card slot in this iteration, after claiming that external USB card readers would be just fine for all their users. The downside of this addition — no more ExpressCard slot (should you really ever need it).

All in all, the entire MacBook Pro family has seen price cuts all around, and owning a top-end 15-in MacBook Pro is slightly easier, speaking relatively of course! That said, if you’re looking for a portable Mac, most users will be ably served by the less-expensive 13-in MacBook Pro, but the overall combo of a faster CPU, better battery, larger hard drive, and the SD card slot, makes the new 15-in MacBook Pro a solid improvement over its predecessor.

• URL: http://www.apple.co.in/store/flash/macbook_pro/macbook_pro.html

• Quick Specs: 15-in display 1440 x 900 pixels, 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB Memory, 500GB hard drive, SD card slot, Built-in seven-hour battery, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB

• Price: Rs 1,29,590 (End user price local taxes and levies extra)

Good looking ace

Much like the Sony VAIO W series we’ve seen recently, Asus has, with its new Eee PC Seashell line, launched a renewed effort at changing the netbook game, aesthetically-speaking at least. At its thickest point, the 1005HA (the 10-in version of the netbook) measures 1.4-in thick, but it’s much slimmer near the front (hence the Seashell moniker). Unlike the previous Eee PCs though, the netbook features a hinge that lets the screen slide down behind the keyboard when you open it, giving the netbook the illusion of being smaller than earlier 10-in Eee PC models.

Now since it’s a netbook, the specs are so standard, I’m not even going to bother repeating them (hint: look at any other netbook!), but what’s interesting is that the 1005 HA features a removable battery, an access panel for replacing or upgrading RAM, and a full sized VGA port. Without a doubt, this netbook’s best feature is its battery.

Apart from it being removable, the battery on the Eee PC 1005HA runs for a ridiculously long time on a single charge — with WiFi on and the screen set to a level of brightness perfect for web browsing and document editing, I was able to manage a little under 8.5 hours of battery life. Switch off the wireless, and you can probably squeeze out more like 10 hours of juice. That’s awesome for a machine you can carry around all day, and not have to worry about sitting it down for a charge.

Another thing I liked was the 1005HA’s touchpad. It’s rather wide, and while it sits flush with the rest of the body, the textured/dimpled surface lets you feel the touchpad even without looking. Like some previous Eee PCs, the touchpad supports scrolling and multi-touch gestures, and you can use two-finger gestures to zoom or rotate in applications that support it.

Now, at Rs 23,560, it’s priced above the average netbook, but it is thinner and lighter than the many other 10-in competitors. Sure, there’s the downside of the glossy, glare-reflecting screen, but if you can ignore that (or learn to live with it), the decent keyboard and touchpad, average performance, and one of the best netbook batteries around make the 1005HA a welcome addition to the Eee PC family.

• URL:
http://in.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=164&l3=0&l4=0&model=3052&modelmenu=1

• Quick Specs: 10.1” LED-backlit WSVGA Screen, Windows XP Home, Intel Atom N280, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 160GB 2.5” SATA II 5400RPM HDD + 10GB Eee Storage, 6 cell Battery, Black/White body

• Price: Rs 23,560 (MRP)

A smooth talker

Imagine this — you’re talking to your computer, and it transcribes everything you say without you even touching the keyboard once. No, this scene isn’t out of Star Trek, and does not involve a secretary in any way or form. That’s the promise of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10, the latest in a long line of voice-recognition software packages that have steadily gotten better with each iteration. I’ve played around with numerous versions in the past, but gave up with the prolonged learning curve. Would version 10 of the famed suite be any different?

One of the great benefits of getting started with NaturallySpeaking 10 is that you don’t really need to train it for basic understanding of your speech. Out of the box, it’s already able to perform at remarkable accuracy.

You still need to train it a bit for top performance, but this version is noticeably more accurate than its predecessor, and even more importantly, it’s faster. A flipside is that it does consume significant system resources when you use it in high-accuracy mode.

The other main new feature is interesting: the ability to use “natural language” to speak commands such as “Search Web for Seashell” or “search IMDB for District 9”. Right away, NaturallySpeaking opens your default browser (it even supports Firefox!) and searches the Web for you. This, and the number of handsfree commands that let you navigate your PC without even touching the keyboard, make this application compelling for those who can’t or don’t want to type.

• URL: http://www.nuance.com/naturallyspeaking/

• Price: Rs 5,990 (Standard version), Rs 11,990 (Preferred version)