14 DAY TRIAL // Intel's Calpella platform seems to practically be, more or less, ravaging the mobile PC market, seeing how a large number of PC suppliers have either come forth or plan to bring out a new notebook, or set of laptops, based on it. The same can be said for NEC, which seems to have almost finished upgrading its LaVie laptop series with better Intel Core processors. In fact, the company is reportedly planning on unleashing its newest LaVie S (for Slim), which boasts a Core i5 CPU option and a thickness of 35mm.
Skeptical or more demanding end-users may notice that a thickness of 35mm is no longer as outstanding as it was last year, but 35mm is still something to note, especially considering the amount of horsepower that NEC managed to pack inside this package. The CPU can be chosen from the 1.86 GHz Celeron P4500, a 2.26 GHz Core i3-350M, or 2.26 GHz Core i5-430M central processing unit. The amount of memory is also customizable, with options including 2GB or 4GB, and the same goes for the storage, which can be of either 320GB or 500GB.
Like many of the recently-introduced Calpella laptops, the NEC LaVie S does not have a discrete graphics card, relying, instead, on just what is provided by the Intel integrated graphics. Nevertheless, the GMA of choice can still perform well enough to fully take advantage of the 15.6-inch LED-backlit WXGA screen, whose maximum resolution is of 1366 x 768 pixels. Other specifications include 10/100 Ethernet and 802.11b/g/n WiFi, for web connectivity, as well as a DVD writer, for optical storage.
The NEC LaVie S 15.6-inch notebook has a total weight of 2.4kg and comes pre-installed with the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit or 64-bit, or Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Priced at $1,082, it is currently slated to start shipping on April 22.