LAPTOP Reloaded: Reviews, Features, and More From the Week of Feb 1, 2010

Every week, the staff here at LAPTOP evaluates numerous tech products and posts many insightful tech features and blog posts. If you haven’t been sitting in front of your browser with laptopmag.com open and hitting refresh a lot, here’s what you may have missed this week.

Reviews & Hands-On Posts

• Sony VAIO W Series Eco Edition (3 Stars) — Sony’s latest netbook sports an eco-friendly design and parent-friendly software, but we wish it had a larger keyboard.
• Dell Latitude Z600 (3 Stars) — This executive-class business system offers plenty of style and innovation, but it doesn’t provide much performance to offset its high price.
• Toshiba Satellite P505-S8010 (3.5 Stars) — Toshiba’s first 18-inch notebook with Intel’s Core i3 CPU features solid performance, an attractive design, and rich sound at a wallet-friendly price.
• Hands-on With The Simple but Brilliant Bccthis — This little app lets you tack on a private, BCC’d message that only some of the recipients of your main message can see. Likewise, with Twitter you can post a tweet to the masses, but then start a private direct messaging chain that will only be visible to select users.  The idea is to save you the tedium of composing a public e-mail and a separate aside message, or a tweet followed by a direct message or group e-mail.

Features

• Best Mobile Startups 2010 – Whether it involves making notebooks sound better, streaming complex games from the cloud, or just keeping businesses more organized, these innovators have created stand-out concepts and products worthy of attention and praise. Don’t forget to take our poll and tell us which of these technologies and products excites you the most.
• Is Free Security Worth the Risk? — Bare-bones software offers pretty good protection from threats, but beware of the trade-offs.
• Tips: 5 Ways to Minimize Cell Phone Radiation — The debate over whether this is a major problem or just an urban myth rages on, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take steps to protect yourself.
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7 — Rivalries are, for better or worse, one of the defining elements of human existence. Those that participate in these long-running feuds typically push one another to produce their best work. Apple and Microsoft have tussled back and forth with snarky ad campaigns and CEO comments that have touted the value of their respective operating systems, but  in reality, Mac OS X and Windows have more similarities than ever before.
• E-Tailers vs. Retailers: The Pros and Cons of Shopping Online and In-Store — How do you know which route to go, online or in-store? Does a retailer carry the same in-store stock as it does online? Which is cheaper? How do return policies differ? What we found may surprise you.
• You Grade The Brands – It’s Samsung’s turn in the hot seat. Check out our list of the brand’s strengths and weaknesses and tell us how you’d grade Samsung netbooks and notebooks. Don’t forget to leave a comment as our report card won’t be complete without your input!

News

• Amazon vs. Macmillan — A week ago the behemoth online bookseller removed all titles published by Macmillan and its subsidiaries from both the Kindle and print stores over a dispute regarding the price of eBooks. Though someone from Amazon indicated that the company would “have to capitulate” to Macmillan’s terms, so far Amazon hasn’t reversed the ban. Click here to read what’s behind the struggle.
• iPad Honeymoon Over — Retrevo reveals that consumers were largely unimpressed with the iPad announcement, though their tune may change on launch. Maybe if they’d called it the iTablet… oops, too late. Since we all still have tablets on the brain, now is a good time for Google to tease us with some tablet concept photos. In other news, Fusion Garage  reiterated their promise to ship the JooJoo on time as they moved to dismiss the lawsuit against them.
• Will Tablets, MIDs, or Smartbooks Succeed? — Can’t get enough of tablets and MIDs and other ultra-mobile devices? Mark provides a detailed look into the pros and cons of these devices and his predictions on their chances of success in this week’s SpoonFed: Attack of the Tweeners.
• Down with the iPhone — As if the iPad thing wasn’t enough, there’s more bad news for Apple as iPhone Loses Market Share. Is the Jesus phone now the RAZR of smart phones?
• Google’s Nexus One Finally Gets Multitouch – A feature Android users have been clamoring for since the G1. The update activates multitouch in the browser, Maps, and photo apps. Of course, Dolphin already brought multitouch browsing to most Android phones. And even after this update we were still able to list 5 reasons why Dolphin is better than the default browser. Android fans have another reason to celebrate as the Motorola Devour is coming to Verizon with Motoblur and Google maps Navigation.