WHDI Reviews – Wireless HDTV News

The HP Pavilion dv6-3150us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC is a great portable entertainment solution. If you are looking for a compact system that is capable of handling all your media and give you a great visual experience, then this laptop does fit the bill. This is especially true if you are looking to use it at home as an entertainment hub because it has Intel’s Wireless Display built right in to which allows you to stream the contents of your screen to any HDTV that is compatible with the WiDi adapter.

The 2.53Ghz Intel Core i5-460M processor powering the the laptop is coupled with 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM (expandable up to 8GB), which makes for a good combo for an entertainment machine. It has ample storage space on its 640GB 5400rpm SATA HDD and comes pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit.

The screen is well-suited for watching video content. It is a 15.6inch LED backlit HD display with a native 720p resolution support. The graphics support is onboard, so it won’t be able to handle hardcore gaming. However, the Intel HD graphics with up to 1696MB memory is perfectly suited for playing back HD content and some games that don’t need that much graphics horse power.

There are 4 USB .20 ports on the dv6-3150us with one being a USB/e-SATA combo. It has both HDMI and VGA — a good thing for video enthusiasts. There’s a 5-in-1 card reader and the usual Ethernet and audio ports. All together, HP has made sure that you have more or less everything that an average user might need. The DVD drive is super multi with LightScribe built in. It has Dolby Advanced Audio with Altec Lansing Speakers, ensuring really clear and crisp Audio.

WiFi 802.11b/g/n is built in along with Intel’s Wireless Display which allows you to steam your content to a HD Screen wirelessly. You will be needing the separately sold Netgear Push2TV WiDi adapter to receive the WiDi signals transmitted by the laptop. However, it is only a small investment in order to have a smooth wireless display solution that does not clutter your laptop’s ports.

At around $800 on Amazon, the HP Pavilion dv6-3150us 15.6-Inch Laptop PC quite a good deal.

The Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 LED TruBrite 14-Inch Laptop is aimed at the mobile entertainment market that demands power and flexibility at the same time. This is where the Satellite M645-S4047 really shines. It is an Intel Core i5-450m 2.4GHz powered laptop that borders on ultraportable because it is a 14 inch device. It features the built in Turbo-boost technology that allows you to overclock the processor to 2.66GHz.

It comes with 4GB of installed memory, which is expandable up to 8GB. One snag with this laptop is that it only has onboard, Intel Graphics with a shared memory that is dynamically allocated between 64MB-1694MB depending on what you are doing. It is okay for all your average stuff like surfing, crunching spreadsheets, watching movies and also some gaming action. But if you are looking for a machine that will do justice to your gaming needs, you will have to look at a higher price bracket. Over all, it is a package that is more geared towards mainstream entertainment and it covers all the usual areas.

It’s 14inch screen at a native 720p resolution gives you a good HD experience. The onboard graphics is quite capable of handling all your HD content. The 16:9 aspect ratio makes it especially well suited for watching movies on the go. It comes with a healthy amount of storage — 500GB SATA HDD, although it is 5400 rpm.

On the connectivity front, it integrates an Intel Wireless-N WiFi with Intel’s own Wireless Display or WiDi technology. This enables you to stream your laptop’s display directly on to an HD screen, whether it be an HDTV or an HD projector. You will need the separately sold NetGear Push2TV adapter for receiving the signal but since it is all built in, it makes sure that there is absolutely no hassle when it comes to the laptop itself. There’s no dongle blocking up the ports and there’s no power cable dangling unless you want to plug it in.

On the whole, the Toshiba Satellite M645-S4047 LED TruBrite 14-Inch Laptop is a great piece of equipment to have, especially for those looking at a budget price.

The ASUS U53JC-A1 15.6-Inch Thin and Light Bamboo Laptop comes with a dual-core Intel Core i5-450M processors with the Turbo Boost overclock feature to push it up to 2.66GHz. It also features Nvidia G310M graphics with 1 GB of dedicated VRAM and Optimus Technology for intelligent graphics switching to save battery life. It has 4GB of DDR3 1066 MHz RAM — arranged in 2 slots of 2 GB each. The hard drive has a capacity of 640 GB with an RPM speed of 5400. It comes with a super multi optical drive and Windows 7 Home Premium pre-installed. On the connectivity front, it has Windows wireless 802.11b/g/n and also WiDi (Wireless Display) — Intel’s wireless HD streaming feature. There’s also Bluetooth.

This is a laptop geared towards entertainment, a point driven home by the specs and the 15.6 inch HD LED display. There are HDMI and USB 3.0 ports and an 8 cell 5600 mAh battery with a rated battery life of 10 hours. In reality, you can expect a around 6-7 hours with average usage including surfing, some video and music playing.

The U53JC-A1 is a good laptop to have if you are looking for something that is going to be good for entertainment on the go. With 1GB of dedicate graphics and 4GB memory, gaming is quite good on this Intel Core-i5 machine. And since this is a WiDi enabled model, you can easily stream that game to the larger display if your HDTV of HD projector. WiDi requires that you have the Netgear Push2TV (sold separately) for receiving the WiDi signals from your laptop. But even though you have to invest separately for Push2Tv, having the transmission device onboard makes things much cleaner around your laptop. WiDi uses the same Intel wireless architecture, so it is not an additional drain on your system either.

Overall, as a mobile entertainment system, the ASUS U53JC-A1 15.6-Inch Thin and Light Bamboo Laptop is a pretty good option to have around.

The all-new HP Pavilion dm4-1160us 14-inch Laptop PC scores right at the outset with its portability. Hp has tried to ensure that this notebook does not weigh much and is not too cumbersome. It also has an integrated fingerprint detector to heighten the security factor. However, despite the small size, it aims to have a good amount of entertainment features as well, which is why it has a 720p display, Dolby Advanced Surround Support and WiDi.

This Pavillion series laptop comes with an Intel Core-i5 450M processor running at 2.4Ghz, along with 2GB of DDR3 SDRAM (expandable up to 8GB). Graphics is a bit of a let down because it is embedded on the mainboard and has a shared memory. But it can be pushed up to 1696MB, so you can have a decent amount of graphics power with enough memory on the system. The display is a 1366×768, 14inch LED LCD display that is helped by HP’s proprietary BrightView technology. It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium Pre-(64-bit) pre-installed. Other than the Dolby Advanced Surround, the laptop also features Altec Lansing speakers. It has both HDMI and VGA out with 2 USB 2.0 ports and one USB2.0/e-SATA combo port. It also has a 5-in-1 card reader.

To use the WiDi On it, you will have to use the Netgear Push2TV adapter with your HDTV/Projector but it is a small investment to make for those who center their home entertainment around their laptop. And for those who are looking for a compact set up, laptops make perfect sense. WiDi just ensures that there’s wire mess either. Your laptop is will stream HD content wirelessly to your Push2TV connected HDTV without needing to have one or more of it’s ports blocked with adapters or getting bogged down with wires. WiDi’s true advantage hence is the fact that it is completely built in.

The HP Pavilion dm4-1160us 14-inch Laptop PC is selling on Amazon for $700, which is a good bargain for the number of features that this laptop has. Good for anyone who’s looking for an entertainment option on a budget.

The NETGEAR Push2TV TV Adapter for Intel Wireless Display PTV1000, is a companion device to Intel’s WiDi wireless HD streaming technology. It allows the any HDTV/Projector/Device with an HDMI input to display the wireless stream from a WiDi computer. Basically, it acts as the receiver for the wireless stream. It is sold separately and is not included with WiDi laptops. However, if you have a WiDi laptop, it can be worthwhile for you to make the purchase.

Connecting the Push2TV to a TV is quite simple. The connection needs to be done with an HDMI or an AV composite connector and from there on, all it takes is a few clicks of the mouse on the laptop. On being connected, the HDTV works like a second monitor, thereby allowing the user to use it for any application he desires. He can continue to access the web or play games on the big screen just as he would do on a laptop screen. The screen can also be used to access all the applications present on the laptop. However, due to a lack of HDCP compliancy, Blu-Ray and movie playback is not yet supported on the NETGEAR Push2TV.

The Push2TV adaptor comes in an extremely compact and conveniently designed box that approximately measures only 4.17 x 5.43 x 1.25 inches and weighs as little as 5.56 pounds. It is small enough to be carried around even. The sleek design also makes it easy for the user to switch between TVs. The adaptor comes with an HDMI cable included, an installation guide and a power adaptor. The NETGEAR Push2TV TV Adapter for Intel Wireless Display PTV1000 is selling on Amazon for $75 right now and it comes with a 1year warranty.

The ASUS U43JC-X1 14-Inch Bamboo Laptop is projected as an all out entertainment laptop. It is a well-powered laptop with a 2.4Ghz Intel Core-i5-450m processor at the core of it. It also has a turbo boost feature that can take the processing power up to 2.66Ghz. It features a Nvidia G310M Graphics solution with 1GB of dedicated VRAM and NVIDIA’s intelligent graphics switching Optimus feature to save power. It comes with 4GB of DDR3 RAM (maximum) and comes with WiFi (b/g/n) and of course, WiDi.

WiDi, as you might know by now, is Intel’s very Wireless HD content streaming technology. It cannot be purchased on its own and to get it you must buy a laptop or PC that comes with WiDi. However, since it comes built in to your system, it has the advantage of working seamlessly with your system. No set up hassles and no blocking the precious few ports that a laptop has. This is the true advantage of WiDi — being set up right on the mainboard.

Talking about ports, this one also has HDMI out, so if you already have a wireless kit that accepts HDMI out, you can then simply plug it in to your own system rather than buy the Push2TV appendage. It also has a USB 3.0 port, which promises a blazing fast speed of  4.8 Gbits/s. Doing that math, that means you can plonk down 25GB in 70 seconds flat. So speed is not an issue with the U43Jc-X1.

The display is quite standard but good quality. 1366×768 LED backlit LCD display, which means it covers resolutions of up to 720p. The laptop comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit pre-installed and it has an 8-cell 5600mAh battery that promises up to 10 hours of battery life. Of course, that is under testing conditions. Under real life conditions, you can expect around 5-6 hours of battery life under moderate usage. Too much video or gaming will definitely lower that mark down further.

The ASUS U43JC-X1 14-Inch Bamboo Laptop is selling on Amazon for $900 right now and it is quite a value for money deal.

The HP Pavilion dv5-2130us laptop PC is a 14.5 inch diagonal (13366 x 768) HD LED bearing device. It is positioned as an entertainment hub more than anything else, which explains it carrying WiDi with it. It is powerd by an Intel Core i3-370M Processor (2.40GHz, 3MB L3 Cache) and has 4GB DDR3 SDRAM memory, expandable up to 8GB. Storage is in the form of a Serial ATA hard drive and it comes with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit pre-installed. Graphics is handled by the inbuilt Intel HD graphics chip. It comes with an integrated 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Wireless LAN 802.11b / g WLAN.

There is a 5 in 1 memory card reader, 3 USB ports (2.0), one HDMI, VGA (15-pin); 1 RJ -45 (LAN), 1 Headphone-out and 1 Microphone-in. One good thing about it is that you can video chat in low light conditions due to it’s built in TrueVision HP webcam. It also has Lightscribe for custom CD labels. The laptop uses the puffy HP ClickPad and full size island size chiclet keyboard making navigation easy.

But my main focus is the WiDi that it comes with. It streams your media content, from photos to videos and music, right on to your HDTV and to your home theatre set up by extension. However, you will have to invest in a Netgear Push2TV adapter for your HDTV separately. It does not come with the laptop, which is a bit of a let down. However, having WiDi inbuilt makes sure that you do not have to plug in a separate dongle and it also gives you easier access to your media files. WiDi is an Intel developed technology, which also means that it works seamlessly with the laptop. So there’s no setup to be done. The HP Pavilion dv5-2130us laptop PC is going for $610 on Amazon right now, which makes it good value for money.

Intel is pretty bullish about getting into the portable segment in a big way, but so far they have only been able to realize that goal in terms of laptops and netbooks. When it comes mobile devices like modern smarpthones and tablets — ARM still rules the roost. Intel has been trying to get into ARM’s turf with Atom for quite some time now and this time they are trying a different approach that involves their WiDi wireless streaming technology.

After integrating WiDi into multiple laptops, Intel is planning to bring it to tablets as well. The main advantage for the consumer would be that they would be able to stream content from their PC to their tablets and walk around the house with you.

But right now, getting a WiDi enabled laptop is not the only thing that a consumer needs to get the whole laptop to tv streaming happening. They need to buy a Netgear adapter for $100 to attach to their TV and complete the whole connection.

Read more »

Intel [NASDAQ:INTC] already has WiDi in the works to take care of onboard streaming capabilities. But that is not all that available right now. So what we have here is a new GPU from the NVIDIA [NASDAQ:NVDA] stable that will be able to wireless stream video.

Popular card maker Galaxy is at it again, showing off a new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 card that has Amimon’s WHDI technology onboard in order to wireless stream video to your nearest HDMI ready TV screen. We have covered them in the past and it seems like there is a no dearth in their enthusiasm about their card. But there is a lack of information about the whole thing.

There is no details on the pricing of this card as of yet but they have finally announced a tentative shipping schedule. The Galaxy GTX460 WHDI card is supposed to start shipping towards the end of this month. So it should at least be here by Christmas, given that they are still very vague about things. Expect for this to be at quite the premium when it releases.

Read more »