First Look: Toshiba U845W Ultrabook

Specs: $675 Sep 2013

14.4" LED widwscreen 1792x768 screen, 3rd Gen Intel® Core™ i5-3337U processor, 6GB ram

500GB Serial ATA hard drive, Intel® Wireless Display, Multiformat media reader, 3 USB 3.0 ports, Weighs 4 lbs. and measures just 0.8" thin, Midnight silver aluminum finish

I love the casing on this laptop, it has a grippy-rubbery bottom and half of the top. This makes it feel very secure in your hand which is optimal for portability. The processing specs of this laptop are great, the ethernet and usb ports are a plus. The thing I don't like is the super widescreen display. While it is about 14" wide, it is only 7.9" tall. This does not make for very much vertical screen space, therefore forcing lots of scrolling. I think the screen is something you'd have to really want if you were considering this purchase, otherwise there are lots of other laptops with similar specs with a more familiar screen size. The screen itself did have very crisp bright color.

At 4lbs, this laptop is very solid feeling, if a little heavy. I carried it around a little and it was just OK.

For usability, this laptop came with Windows 7 and functioned similar to other i5 Windows 7 machines.

Pros:

Processor

Ethernet and usb ports

Thin

Body

Card reader

Cons: 

Screen size

Weight (maybe)

Kindle Fire HD 8.9"

The 8.9 Kindle Fire is a huge difference from the 7". The screen makes web browsing and movie watching all that more enjoyable. If you don't think you need the smallness of the 7" then the 8.9" is definitely the better choice.
Web browsing just doesn't seem as easy as when I use Dolphin browser on my Galaxy S4, but it is very doable.
Watching Amazon Prime movies and TV shows is excellent. It can resume watching the media right where you left off, whether it was on the Fire or the computer. The sound quality is good, the screen quality is excellent. Shipping around parts in movie is as fast as your internet can go.
Reading is very comfortable, both landscape and portrait views are convenient. There are multiple color and size settings so you can choose what reading style you prefer.
Games and Skype aren't something I tested heavily enough to have much comment on. I could comfortably some that they are very good.
For the price I would definitely recommend the Kindle Fire HD for books and movies. I couldn't see it replacing my ultrabook but its a great media tablet option. If the Prime books and movies were available on a regular tablet, such as the Nexus 10, I'd probably have that, just for the flexibility of the full android. But obviously that's why Amazon had those features locked to the Kindle Fire.
Overall I'm very happy with the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

Logitech Illuminated Keyboard: A Review

I love this keyboard! I often had to turn a lamp on in the evening to see the keyboard (I don't need to look while I type, its helpful for using arrow and symbol keys).
Pros:
Keys are comfortable and quiet.
Space bar is rounded and nice for thumbs to rest on.
Media keys - play/pause/skip
Turn backlighting on or off with one button
Palm rest is comfortable
Ultra-Thin
SetPoint software allows customization of shortcut keys

Cons:
The only thing so far is the skip ahead media buttons don't work in my Win7 Media Center.