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The Best Products of 2003: Page 5 of 6

NOTEBOOK Hewlett-Packard NX7000 ($1,999)

In picking the notebook of the year, engineers wanted something a little different yet representative of the numerous advances in notebook technology in 2003. It had to be portable yet have a big screen, and be relatively light in weight yet loaded with features. It also had to use the latest in processors and include wireless technology without busting the budget.
Hewlett-Packard's nx7000 is a wide-screen Centrino notebook. It's useful for working on spreadsheets, high-resolution graphics applications or multiple applications side-by-side. As a bonus, the unit excels for watching wide-screen DVD movies. The notebook's combo optical drive supports recording on both CDR and CD-RW media.
The nx7000's 15.4-inch display has a very fine native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050. The unit weighs only 6.5 pounds, even though it measures 14 x 10 x 1.36 inches. It features a Pentium-M processor running at 1.6GHz with as much as 2 Gbytes of memory. It also features built-in 802.11b wireless connectivity. Other features include a hard drive as large as 60 Gbytes, an integrated Secure Digital slot, JBL Pro Speakers, three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, S-Video out, 10/100 NIC, 56K modem and one Type II PC Card slot.
HP offers a broad range of support through its PartnerOne channel program, including compensation tools and customized marketing assistance.Full article>>

PRINTER Xerox Phaser ($2,499)

In the printer category, the CRN Test Center was looking for an SMB-friendly model that was easy on the wallet while not making any compromises on features or performance. It also had to be small in size. Xerox's Phaser 6250 certainly fits the bill. It prints up to 26 ppm in color or monochrome at 2,400 x 600-dpi resolution. Its input trays combine for a total of 600 sheets, and it's rated for a monthly duty cycle of 100,000 pages. Small for a color laser printer, the 6250 measures 17.5 x 17.3 x 23.2 inches and weighs 80 pounds.
A 10-page monochrome Word document took about 35 seconds to print with the first page out in 13 seconds. A 10-page Word document with color headings took 43 seconds to print, again with the first page out in 13 seconds. The test file from the Spencer & Associates printer test suite took just 19 seconds to print, while a color photo of a castle took 27 seconds.
The printer's image quality is very good. Surprisingly, the Phaser 6250 is quite a bit faster than its predecessor, the Xerox Phaser 6200, yet it costs the same.
On the channel side, Xerox specializes in online and in-person training and marketing assistance, especially for solution providers focused on the SMB market. Xerox's excellent partner Web site provides marketing support and tools to help solution providers build co-branded Web sites and promotions.Full article>>

SERVER Hewlett-Packard TC2120 ($1,669)