Alienware m14x

Reviewer Rating:

Review Summary:

The Alienware M14x is indeed “the most powerful 14-inch laptop in the universe” but that doesn’t mean much when you can get a much better 15-inch or 17-inch gaming laptop for the same price (and roughly the same weight).

Alienware M14x Full Review: The Best or Worst Portable Gaming Laptop?

Alienware shocked many gaming enthusiasts earlier this year when the company discontinued its popular M15x gaming notebook and replaced it with the slightly smaller M14x. Did Alienware make a good call replacing a 15-inch laptop with a 14-inch laptop? We took an in-depth look at the M14x to find out if it indeed is “The most powerful 14-inch laptop in the universe.”

Build and Design
Love then or hate them, Alienware notebooks feature one of the best known designs among gaming laptops. The M14x might be a new notebook for 2011 but it incorporates all of the key elements that make the Alienware notebooks unique. Combine a stealth fighter with a H.R. Giger drawing and mix in a generous helping of multi-colored LEDs and you’ll get something that starts to look like an Alienware design.

The build quality of the M14x is very good with a combination of metal and plastic parts. Most of the exterior contact points (lid, palm rests and keyboard surround) are plastic. Nevertheless, the M14x feels solid … in no small part due to the unusually thick design. Alienware’s designers make no apologies for the roughly 1.5-inch thickness of this laptop; this gaming PC needed to take up less space in a bedroom or dorm room. One of the common complaints from owners of the old 15-inch Alienware M15x was that it was as large as most 17-inch laptops. Alienware decided to make a high-performance gaming notebook with a smaller footprint on your desk, but in order to make it smaller they had to make the chassis thicker to accommodate the cooling system needed for the processor and graphics.

And so the Alienware M14x was born: A 14-inch gaming notebook that takes up roughly as much space as a 15-inch laptop.

Despite the unique lines and thickness of the chassis, it’s the AlienFX LED lighting system that most people usually notice first. The colors of virtually every light on the notebook can be changed to virtually any color. In fact, you can even set the lighting to a combination of multiple colors or strobe between the entire rainbow of colors. Of course, you can also shut off all of the lights if you don’t desire unwanted attention.

The bottom of the M14x takes a page from the design playbook of the Alienware M11x with a fully integrated battery and no easy access to system RAM, hard drive or wireless cards. In short, you’ll have to spend some time disassembling the M14x if you want to upgrade it yourself.

Ports and Features
The M14x has a very good selection of ports for a 14-inch laptop; no doubt a benefit of the unusually thick design. This Alienware laptop includes two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, HDMI, DisplayPort, VGA, Ethernet, memory card reader and slot-loading optical drive. The only item that’s missing is an ExpressCard expansion slot … but, for better or worse, very few modern gaming notebooks include an ExpressCard slot anymore. All picture descriptions are left to right.

Front: AlienFX lights	Rear: AC power jack and Heat exhaust vents
Left: VGA, HDMI, mini DisplayPort, USB 2.0, microphone jack, two headphone jacks and memory card reader.	Right: Slot-load optical drive, 2x USB 3.0, Ethernet and Kensington lock slot

Review Summary:

The HP Pavilion dv4t is an affordable 14-inch laptop for home use with a good keyboard and good battery life.

HP Pavilion dv4t Full Review: Sub-$500 Winner?

The HP Pavilion dv4t notebook brings satisfactory performance and a good keyboard to the table for a street price of less than $500. What could be improved with this no-frills laptop? We take a look.

Build and Design
The dv4t has a friendly look that’s expected of HP’s Pavilion entertainment notebook line. Unlike higher-end Pavilions, however, HP made the unfortunate decision to cover just about all surfaces of this notebook in glossy plastic. While it may look attractive on a display shelf, glossy plastic is a dust and fingerprint magnet. Keep a microfiber towel handy.

The build quality is satisfactory for a consumer notebook in this price range. The chassis has good internal support and does not flex easily; the surfaces feel solid when pressed down upon. The lid is slightly flimsy and flexes with little effort; surprisingly no ripples appear on the screen when pressure is applied from behind (this means the actual panel is protected). One part of the lid that could be improved is the hinges – they don’t exactly feel anchored to the chassis and are somewhat flexible. Two hands are required for opening the lid.

Fit and finish of the notebook is good; there are no sharp edges and all parts of the notebook appear to be of the same level of quality. The plastics used are of reasonable thickness and are not brittle. Overall the dv4t passes quality inspection but fails in the design department; the excessive use of glossy plastic turns this notebook into an eyesore.

Upgrading the notebook is relatively easy to do; the hard drive, memory (RAM), and wireless card are accessible through two panels on the bottom of the chassis.

Ports and Features
The Pavilion dv4t has the bare essentials and little more when it comes to ports. It lacks USB 3.0, eSATA, and DisplayPort; it’s not possible to add them since the dv4t also doesn’t include an ExpressCard expansion slot. At the very least it has an HDMI port for connection to HDTVs.

Front: Media card reader, stereo speakers	Back: Battery pack
Left: Kensington Lock slot, cooling exhaust vent, VGA, Ethernet, HDMI, 2x USB 2.0	Right: DVD burner, headphone and microphone jacks, USB 2.0, AC power

More than likely, Apple has at least a few years of innovation and product plans up its sleeve that were initiated by Steve Jobs during his tenure. After that time, the company will definitely need “some visionary/charismatic individual to take the helm.”

This is the view of one NotebookReview forum member who shared his perspective on the passing of Steve Jobs and the impact on the company he co-founded.  “Though Steve Jobs is not there, his personality is part of Apple now, so some of it will always remain,” notes forum member aredkid.  Steve Jobs handpicked new CEO Tim Cook for a reason, he added, and he knew very well what that selection would mean for Apple down the road. “I believe it is for Apple to certainly change, but grow nonetheless, with a flavor of Steve Jobs.”

“I don’t think there is going to be much change at Apple,” posts NBR forum member kornchild2002.  “It has been turned into a well -oiled machine that will take a mighty force to push off of its current track. Apple has done a lot this year with the iPad 2 (which was an even bigger success than the first one), OS X Lion, spec bumps in their various Mac lines with newer Intel hardware, iOS 5, development and implementation of iCloud, and so on.”

A Question of Loyalty

Others in the forums were not so positive about Apple’s future innovation track record sans Jobs. “It seems as though there have been no standout ‘innovations’ in the last 12 months or so,” writes writes wally33, a consultant on the NotebookReview discussion forums.  “Apple is now arguably only just keeping up, if not behind in the smartphone market after the release of the iPhone 4s. With everyone expecting an iPhone 5, the people will only wait so long for Apple to begin releasing more of the products we are so used to before changing their loyalty to other manufacturers … Perhaps soon their only selling point will be OSX and an aesthetic design.”

“I haven’t noticed any major changes to Apple over the last year,” points out masterchef341, another NBR forum member. “They weren’t ever being constantly massively innovative. They had the iPhone in ’07 and the iPad in ’10. They released some interesting software in the meantime. It’s ’11 now. We’ve got an iOS style app store on Mac OS X. We’ve got some cloud computing going on. I’m not sure how much innovation you expect.”

This forum member goes on to pan the recently-released iPhone 4S, noting that it took a lot of time to debut and when it did was a very modest revision. He does admit, however, that the iPhone 4S does have “the fastest processor you can cram into a phone” and had remarkable screen resolution. In the end, though “I think their next big thing will be to convince everyone to buy an Apple TV.”

Tuning into Apple Future

This observation may not be too far from the mark. Buried within a Steve Jobs biography published after his death is the revelation that soon after iCloud as developed and announced, Jobs had set his sights on an Apple television. “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud,” he is quoted as saying.

For business users, highly mobile device are all about the email. “There were never more than a few dozen hundred BB (Blackberry) apps even in the heyday,” says rOk, a Brighthand forum member. “At my office, more and more BB users are trading them in for Androids. The company still won’t buy an iPhone, but they will buy either a BB or an Android.  If you bring your own phone, they’ll allow you to mess up your iPhone with their Exchange crap.”

In the end, though, it may be Steve Jobs legacy as well as the passion a lot of people have for Apple that will keep the company on the path of innovation over the next two to five years, which is a lifetime in the mobile industry.

“How Apple copes and morphs with these changes will determine Tim Cook’s performance and Apple’s adherence to Steve Jobs’ legacy of taking the self-assured lead and not the back seat,” adds NBR forum member aredkid. “We’ll just wait and see. That’s the exciting part!”

Judy Jefferson is a freelance technology writer based in Boston

  Apple After Jobs Special Report

Related Articles:

• With Steve Jobs Gone, How Will Apple’s Software Fare Vs. Windows 8 & Android?
• Steve Jobs: His Life, His Death, And What It Means For Apple
• Steve Jobs Resigns: The End of the Apple Era?

Review Summary:

The Getac X500 is built to last and offers a large number of options for customization. Unfortunately, battery life isn’t as impressive as the rugged build quality.

Getac X500 Full Review: A Rugged Laptop for ANY Situation

Are you looking for an ultra-rugged notebook PC that can survive everything from a coffee spill to small arms fire? Would you like to stand on your laptop rather than a ladder to reach high shelves? The Getac X500 might just be the 15-inch durable laptop you need.

Build and Design
At first glance the X500 ultra rugged notebook looks like a cross between the first bulky laptops that started to show up in the early 1990s and a modern tank. Like most of the MIL-SPEC notebooks in this category, the appearance of the X500 is the perfect example of usage dictating design rather design based solely on asthetics.

In short, the X500 is butt ugly … yet it’s extremely well designed. Many “rugged” notebooks that are currently on the market are little more than a standard business laptop with some extra metal and bits of rubber to help it meet some basic MIL SPEC tests. The X500 stands in stark contrast: not only is this notebook MIL-STD-810G, MIL-STD 461F and IP65 compliant with a magnesium alloy case, shock-mounted hard drive it also has sealed I/O caps and doors to prevent damage from solid particles (dirt or sand) and moisture.

When it comes to design, the Getac 𕦴 redefines the title of “road warrior.”

Opening the lid on the X500 reveals a simple feature that makes a huge impact to this notebook’s ability to survive, well, impact. Getac placed steal support pegs in each corner of the display (along with coresponding metal platforms on the base of the notebook) to provide additional structural rigidity. Translation: you can park a car on top of this notebook and the weight will be supported by these steal bars instead of crushing the laptop.

Of course, part of the X500′s extreme durability comes from the thick magnesium alloy chasing. Yes, all that thick metal adds to the weight (our test laptop tips the scales at roughly 12 pounds) but with a notebook this tough (and a built-in handle) who needs a laptop bag?

Users looking to upgrade parts or IT staff looking to replacing components will find the Getac X500 is pretty easy to service. There are multiple access panels on the bottom of the notebook for the RAM and wireless cards which require a torx screwdriver to access. However, if you just want to swap a hard drive, optical drive or battery the access panels on the sides of the X500 make this extremely easy. I don’t know how many people need to swap hard drives in the field, but if you do then the Xᒴ is a good choice.

Ports and Features
In terms of port selection, the X500 is well equipped for a current-generation notebook. You get three USB 2.0 ports along with an extra USB 2.0/eSATA port, a docking station connector, VGA and HDMI, Ethernet/LAN, ExpressCard expansion slot, two PCMCIA Type II or one Type III expansion slot, and even a SmartCard reader for added security. The obvious omission here is a USB 3.0 port. Oh, and if you need to interface with legacy hardware then you’ll be happy to know the X500 has two serial ports as well.

Front: Built-in handle and speakers	Rear: Power, USB 2.0 and eSATA/USB, HDMI, serial ports, VGA, audio jacks, Ethernet and modem
Left: USB 2.0 x2, ExpressCard and PCMCIA slots, optical drive and wireless on/off	Right: Battery bay and hard drive

Review Summary:

At $1,099 MSRP the ASUS ZENBOOK is a fine product and a tempting alternative to the more-expensive MacBook Air

ASUS Zenbook UX31 Full Review: MacBook Air Killer?

The ASUS Zenbook UX31 is one of the first “Ultrabooks” on the market — an impossibly thin and light notebook with a beautiful high-res 13.3-inch screen,ņ hours of battery, and a price that undercuts the Apple MacBook Air.

Build and Design
The UX31 is all about design — and it is truly stunning. Constructed almost entirely of aluminum, the UX31 is solid as, well, metal. The chassis has almost zero flex and the lid is just as strong. Even the keyboard keys are made of aluminum.

The edges of the notebook are tapered off to give the impression the notebook is even thinner than it actually is. All corners and edges of the notebook are smoothed off and not sharp in the least; overall fit and finish is excellent.

The UX31’s lid has a darker metallic surface with has a circular pattern giving it a more robust look and feel than the competing MacBook Air. I like how the lid can be opened with one hand. The lid almost seems to be a bit too loose but I had no issues with the design during the evaluation period.

ASUS pulled out all the stops with this design and it shows. Many notebooks pass through my hands; it is not often one comes around that makes me do a double-take. The UX31 is certainly one of the few.

Ports and Features
A casualty of being so thin is a lack of ports; all of the ports sit at the rear because the chassis gets thinner towards the front. ASUS includes two port adapters: a USB-to-Ethernet and mini-VGA-to-VGA (which is the first time I have seen the latter on any notebook). The only major item the UX31 is lacking is a built-in HDMI port; it has mini-HDMI however you will need to purchase an adapter on your own. All picture descriptions are left to right.

Front: Nothing	Rear: Nothing
Left: USB 2.0, headphone jack, media card reader	Right: Mini-HDMI, mini-VGA, USB 3.0, AC power

Skooba Design today announced its V.3 flagship collection, a series of six new laptop and tablet bags and accessories. Skooba focused on comfort, style, and keeping electronics safe while traveling in the V.3 collection. Its VǏ Laptop Sachel features up to 20 pockets and other compartments. The series includes two laptop bags, a tablet messenger bag, a revision of a popular shoulder strap, and two neoprene laptop skins.

The Skooba Satchel V.3 is the big ticket item: it features a dedicated laptop section, padded layers, 20 pockets and other compartments, and a mesh bottle holder that can be hidden from sight. It also features a weatherproof main zipper, a removeable section divider, and the company’s “Superbungee shock-absorbing shoulder strap.” The standard-sized V.3 Satchel bag weighs in at 2.6 pounds and can hold 15-inch notebooks and up to thinner 17-inch notebooks. The larger-sized V.3 Satchel weighs about 2.8 pounds and fits 16 and 17-inch notebooks.

Also new are the Skin Neos for laptops and tablets, made of stretchable, oil-resistant neoprene material. The skins can be converted into a standard envelope style bag, a carrying tote, or a shoulder bag with a strap that can be removed. They are airport security checkpoint compliant.

According to Skooba, all of the compartments in the V.3 Sachel are padded, and the whole collection is made of micro ballistic nylon. The company states that this material provides stability, durability and water resistance.

Shipping begins for the V.3 collection during the week of Nov. 2. Prices range from $27 for the Superbungee strap and $179 for the large Satchel. The convertible Skin Neos are priced at $49.95-59.95.

Left: Skooba V.1 collection; Right: Skooba Satchel

Related Articles:

• Skooba Weekend Warrior Bag Review

Review Summary:

The Dell Vostro V131 delivers a great balance of price, performance and battery life if you can live less than perfect build quality.

Dell Vostro V131 Full Review: A Good, Cheap Business Laptop

The 13.3-inch Dell Vostro V131 is a solid small-to-medium business notebook with exceptional battery life, a backlit keyboard, a business-friendly matte display, and plenty of power to handle any office productivity task you throw at it. Keep reading to find out if this is the right notebook to purchase for your office.

Build and Design
The Dell Vostro V131 has a clean, business-casual design wrapped in black surfaces and silver accents. The notebook is mostly encased in matte, but has a few glossy silver lines around the touchpad and keyboard. The lid is a bit more stylish; it’s mostly silver and has a design that is close to glitter in appearance. There is a trademark Dell logo in the center, also glossy silver, and you can see the screen hinges on the lid.

It’s one of the thinnest notebooks I’ve reviewed to date, at .63 of an inch thick if measuring the thickness from the front and .83 of an inch if measuring from the back. It’s a bit thicker from the back because the battery is of a higher capacity and it sticks out but that’s OK, we’ll take more battery life over a thinner form factor. Its full dimensions are 12.96 x 0.63 (F)-0.83 (B) x 9.36 inches and it weighs 4.03 pounds.

The build quality is about average for a small-to-medium business notebook, with a few weak spots. The chassis backbone is much more solid in some places than it is in others. For example, when the palmrests are pressed down upon, they hardly flex; when the keyboard is pressed down upon from the center it folds easily. The notebook also bends inward slightly when you twist the corners. Ripples form on the display when you bend the corners of the display; it seems cheaply made. In the end, the design is stylish and works for business purposes; while the build quality is average and lacking a harder structure, even if it is brushed with aluminum on the outside.

Users can reach the RAM and hard drive by removing one screw on the bottom panel and pushing the panel toward the back. That sounds easy in theory, but it took two of our editors and a lot of innovation to actually remove that panel (even though it has tiny springs that were supposed to help with its removal). We had to pry a credit card along the panel’s crevice and press with so much force that we were afraid we might break something in the process. Although the memory and hard drive may be upgraded after removing it, since we were afraid of harming the laptop while we got to the hardware, we recommend purchasing the final hardware that you’d like to have rather than purchasing and installing it later. Up to 6GB of memory can be installed in total.

Ports and Features
The V131 has a very good array of ports. It not only has one USB 3.0 port, but two; it also has HDMI, an 8-in-1 card reader, one USB 2.0, and VGA. I would’ve liked to see another USB 2.0 port – or at least a docking station port so users could have the option of more. Other than that, some potential buyers might be put off by the lack of a SmartCard reader, but this notebook does have a fingerprint reader – so that might replace it in some terms, such as general notebook security. The notebook is also missing a DisplayPort – which may or may not be a big deal because it has VGA and HDMI instead.

We’ve reviewed four popular antivirus security products from Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee and Kaspersky over the past few months. So how did they all stack up when we put them to the test? In this antivirus software buyers guide, we reveal the name of the winner of our latest software security shootout, and how we got the scores.

Antivirus Security Software Solutions

The following antivirus products are considered here. (All except Microsoft Security Essentials are paid-for solutions.)

• Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE); free
• Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2011; $39.99, one license
• McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011; $49.99, one license
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011; $59.99, three-user license

These products are designed primarily for home users requiring basic protection against Internet threats.

Check out our previously published Best Internet Security Suites 2011 Buyer’s Guide for reviews and comparisons of more robust security solutions that include a firewall and parental controls. Next week, NotebookReview.com will start a series of full reviews of the now emerging 2012 generation of security suites.

How We Test

The four antivirus security products will be objectively and subjectively rated over four categories:

• Pro-activeness and Protection (30 points)
• Ease of Use and Installation (10 points)
• Performance and Scan Time (10 points)
• Value (5 points)

Proactiveness and Protection

This section is the most heavily weighted for obvious reasons; the overall point of investing in an antivirus product is to keep your PC protected. Two components make up this section (30 total points):

1.     Did the product detect antivirus files on download (15 points)?

2.     Did the antivirus software effectively remove the test virus files (15 points)?

The test virus files are rather elementary and easy to detect; I have not tested a product that did not identify them as malicious. However, in the past I have tested software that did not fully remove them. Fortunately all of these solutions did and left no traces of the download. Both Symantec’s Norton product and Kaspersky Anti-Virus did not even allow the malicious files to be downloaded in the first place, blocking my download attempts at the source.

Ease of Use and Installation

The next most important aspect of a security suite is its ease of use. Companies producing these products need to assume most of their user base is not technically inclined; unless the product is easy to use, customers will get frustrated and may not purchase the product again. Two components make up this section (10 total points):

1.     The install process: download size, amount of time, and amount of user interaction (5 points)

2.     How effective is the interface (5 points)?

All of these security products had impressive interfaces; this is a rarity in our software comparisons. In previous buyer’s guides I have taken off considerable amount of points for poor user interfaces; some provide too much information and in more than one case, not the right information. All of the products in this roundup provide the need-to-know information up front and clearly indicate protection status as well as any issues that need resolution. Additionally, all the interfaces were aesthetically pleasing and had good color choices.

Norton continues to offer the simplest installation process of any antivirus software I’ve tested. It literally takes one click. All of the installations were relatively easy. Microsoft received one point off because it took too long to update after installation. McAfee and Kaspersky did not get full credit because they just could not match Symantec’s Norton for sheer simplicity.

Performance and Scan Time

Another important aspect of a security suite is its ability to “set it and forget it” – that is, not be noticed once installed. Two components make up this section (10 total points):

1.     System performance impact measured with Futuremark PCMark benchmark suite (5 points)

2.     Time it took to complete a full scan of our test system (5 points)

Fortunately, modern security products perform well in this area, for the most part. All of the products in this antivirus software roundup certainly did. Our benchmarks showed less than a five percent difference before and after installing the security software. which is attributable to benchmark error. Furthermore, we did not notice more than a few seconds added to both Windows startup and shutdown times.

The scan times are a different story. It’s clear these companies optimize their scanning engines differently. Microsoft was dead last with the inexplicably long time ofŁ hour, 38 minutes; McAfee came in well ahead at 53 minutes; and Norton and Kaspersky came in at 39 and 37 minutes, respectively. Anything under one hour is considered fast.

Value

This is more of a bonus category; it is objectively rated on the price per license (5 points):

Note that we are of course looking at the price of the paid-for product as listed on the company’s Web site. It might be possible to find these products for less elsewhere. That said, Microsoft provides its software for free so it’s the natural choice for those not wanting to spend money. Those seeking products with more robust features should stick with the paid products. In this case, Kaspersky is the overall best value unless you only need one license.

Conclusion

The final ratings are as follows:

 
And the Winner Is?

And the best antivirus suite we reviewed in 2011 is:

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011

We almost had a tie between Norton and Kaspersky. Both of these products excel for a number of reasons. They proved to be the most proactive products of the bunch and also had the most polished and aesthetically pleasing interfaces. Lastly, the installation for both was a breeze. Norton came in with a faster download and installation, while Kaspersky produced slightly faster scan times. In the end, it evens out. Kaspersky takes the number one spot because its price — while $10 higher than that of Norton – includes three licenses and is a better value for multi-user households. I would be happy with either suite on my computer.

The other two products, McAfee and Microsoft Security Essentials, are still competitive. Microsoft does admirably well considering it is a free/no cost product, but its scan time is extra long. McAfee does OK in everything and there’s something to be said for including a firewall, but it doesn’t go “above and beyond” like Norton or Kaspersky.

Remember, though, that while some scored higher than others, all four antivirus products individually passed our tests and are recommendable.

Related Articles:

• McAfee Releases ‘All Access’ Security for PCs, Macs, Tablets & Phones
• McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2011 Review
• Norton AntiVirus (NAV) 2011 Review
• Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) Review
• Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011 Review

Review Summary:

The ASUS GȕSX-A1 offers fantastic performance, a great screen, sharp design, and even has decent battery life

ASUS GȕSX-A1 Full Review: Powerful Portable Gaming

This latest addition to the ASUS G-series gaming notebook lineup has fantastic performance, a great 15-inch 1080p screen, and a stealthy design. See why we recommend it.

Build and Design
The G53SX’s design is based on a military stealth bomber aircraft. The wedge-shaped chassis is covered in black anti-glare plastic. Most of the viewable surfaces have a grippy rubber finish. The quality of plastics used is good and does not flex, even when pressure is applied. The overall fit and finish of the notebook is good although some of the angled edges are a bit sharp.

The overall design and wedge shape of the notebook makes it bulky and difficult to handle. It is perhaps the largest 15.6-inch notebook on the market; it is about as large as a typical DZ.3-inch notebook and heavier. The lid is securely attached to the chassis; pushing in on the back does not produce any ripples on the screen. It resists twisting well. I wish the screen tilted back a bit further.

Upgrading the G53SX is not an easy task; it involves removing the keyboard and palm rest to access the RAM and hard drive. This notebook actually has two hard drive bays; our review unit only has a single drive.

Ports and Features
Despite its size the G53SX has a below average variety of ports for a notebook this size; the only notable inclusion is a single SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port. The G53SX lacks an ExpressCard slot, eSATA, and DisplayPort. All picture descriptions are left to right.

Front: Media card reader, status lights	Back: Cooling exhaust vents, lock slots
Left: DVD burner, 2x USB 2.0	Right: Headphone and microphone jacks, 1x USB 2.0, 1x USB 3.0, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, AC power

The monsoon rains that have created flood conditions in Thailand since July are expected to have a significant impact on computer manufacturers and production worldwide, mostly affecting desktop and notebook PC systems. 

The downpours and flooding, the worst in 50 years, have forced the closure of hundreds of factories in and around the capital city of Bangkok. These businesses produce a third of the country’s total output of hard drives, or about 120m units per year, notes market research International Data Corp.  Thailand produces roughly a quarter of the world’s hard drives, according to market intelligence company iSuppli.

Satellite imagery of the floods in Thailand

As major manufacturers like Dell and HP rush to find alternate sources to avoid supply problems, other firms like Apple Computer, have said the factory closures and disruptions in hard disk drive supply will have a significant impact on desktop and notebook production and availability.  Earlier this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook, who replaced the late Steve Jobs, said he is “virtually certain there will be an overall industry shortage of disk drives,” notes an Associated Press report.

Disruptions and supply delays could very well continue into July of next year, said a Gartner analyst, although it is still too early to measure the full extent of the problem.

Leading HDD Makers Hard Hit
Hard disk drive manufacturers directly hit by the severe flooding include Western Digital, Toshiba, Seagate and Samsung. Western Digital, the world’s largest HDD maker, has approximately 37,000 workers in Thailand and was forced to temporarily halt production, according to an iSuppli report.  The company produced 53.8 million HDDs in the second quarter this year, representing a 32 percent share of the global market. Toshiba, the fourth ranked HDD supplier, also recently shut down production.

Seagate, the number two supplier of HDDs and disk drive components, was still operational as of this writing.  This situation may change, however, as component manufacturers like Nidec Corp., which produces the motor assemblies and supplies them to Western Digital, Toshiba and others, struggles to remain up and running as the rains continue to fall and floodwaters rise.

IDC analyst John Rydning points out that hard disk and other component suppliers have a history of swiftly recovering from disasters averting long-term difficulties.  A most recent example are the earthquakes that hit Japan earlier this year and brought a significant portion of the country to a standstill.  The hard drive industry’s supply chain is “highly redundant and remarkably resilient,” he was quoted as saying in an AP report.

However, multiple and global issues outside of natural disasters, such as the lingering recession and economic problems that have impacted Europe, Asia and the U.S. may make recovery a bit more difficult.   Other forces may also come into play, like continued price erosion in the industry, higher research and development costs, and increases in the cost of materials, adds iSuppli analyst Fang Zhang.