Kaspersky Lab Launches Endpoint Security 8 For Windows | Best ...

Abingdon, UK, 6 October 2011 ? In today?s business climate, organisations of all sizes are looking to drive greater efficiency, productivity, competitiveness and profitability. Many are turning to new technologies such as cloud computing, virtualisation and mobile technologies to help them achieve these goals. However, these technologies bring with them new threats and vulnerabilities, often dramatically increasing the risk of malware infection. Kaspersky Lab has today announced the availability of its new business security solution, Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows and its Kaspersky Security Center, designed to protect companies as they introduce the latest technologies into their business operations.

The launch of Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows and Kaspersky Security Center provides channel partners with an ideal opportunity to drive new business among smaller firms and corporate enterprises and extend existing customer relationships.

Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows constitutes an advanced endpoint protection suite, built to deliver a new level of business-wide threat protection and centrally managed and controlled by a comprehensive, unified protection management system: Kaspersky Security Center. It provides an ideal platform for channel partners to engage with, educate and support businesses as they address the changing vulnerability of their IT networks, PCs, laptops and mobile devices.

?We believe that Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows will bring new revenue opportunities for resellers while adding value and depth to existing customer relationships,? said Andrew Lintell, Corporate Sales Director, UK and Eire, Kaspersky Lab. ?Businesses want to leverage new technologies for competitive advantage, but face resistance from IT professionals concerned about security and logistical costs. Channel resellers are uniquely placed to help companies address these concerns and introduce an appropriate security solution that will facilitate flexibility, improve overall business productivity and at the same time minimise risk.?

Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8

Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows uses the intelligent methods outlined below to ensure that protection for new technologies is sophisticated, flexible and responsive, leaving companies free to focus on their business operations.

The intelligent protection includes enhanced, multi-layer, anti-malware protection combining new anti-virus engine with a number of sophisticated technologies, like pattern-based signature detection and System Watcher. This is backed by a global intelligence network and unparalleled research expertise. Device-installed software is integrated with the cloud-based Kaspersky Security Network to provide real-time protection against new and unknown threats.

Other key features include System Watcher that proactively monitors applications? activity and can undo the damage caused by malicious programs; advanced Application Control and Whitelisting functionality that monitors and classifies applications, can grant, block or audit the launches of new software and identify application vulnerabilities; Web Control and content filtering; granular Device Control functionality providing exceptional flexibility in controlling the usage of external devices; an enhanced, integrated personal firewall; and Intrusion Detection System to prevent network attacks.

These best-of-breed anti-malware features are matched by comprehensive manageability:

Kaspersky Security Center

Kaspersky Security Center is a revolutionary control hub that supports Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 for Windows, along with all other previously supported and Kaspersky Lab?s new corporate security applications. It replaces Kaspersky Lab?s former Administration Kit. Designed as a single seamless management console, Kaspersky Security Center protects physical endpoints and virtualised environments while greatly enhancing IT productivity and flexibility. The system is built for scalability to fit the needs of smaller, growing businesses as well as large enterprises. Managing protection for multiple platforms from a single console improves visibility and response time, ultimately making IT operations more efficient and ready to address new business requirements.

Kaspersky Endpoint Security 8 and Kaspersky Security Center are part of the Kaspersky Open Space Security product line.

Article source: http://www.darkreading.com/vulnerability-management/167901026/security/news/231900354/kaspersky-lab-launches-endpoint-security-8-for-windows.html

Source: http://www.best-anti-spyware.com/anti-malware/kaspersky-lab-launches-endpoint-security-8-for-windows/

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Ex-commander: US started Afghan war lacking info

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The U.S. began the war in Afghanistan with a "frighteningly simplistic" view of the country and even 10 years later lacks knowledge that could help bring the conflict to a successful end, a former top commander said Thursday.

Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations that the U.S. and its NATO allies are only "a little better than" 50 percent of the way to reaching their war goals.

Of the remaining tasks to be accomplished, he said the most difficult may be to create a legitimate government that ordinary Afghans can believe in and that can serve as a counterweight to the Taliban.

McChrystal, who commanded coalition forces in 2009-10 and was forced to resign in a flap over a magazine article, said the U.S. entered Afghanistan in October 2001 with too little knowledge of Afghan culture.

"We didn't know enough and we still don't know enough," he said. "Most of us ? me included ? had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years."

U.S. forces did not know the country's languages and did not make "an effective effort" to learn them, he said.

McChrystal also said that the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq less than two years after entering Afghanistan made the Afghan effort more difficult.

"I think they were made more difficult, clearly," he said because the Iraq invasion "changed the Muslim world's view of America's effort. When we went after the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, there was a certain understanding that we had the ability and the right to defend ourselves and the fact that al-Qaida had been harbored by the Taliban was legitimate. I think when we made the decision to go into Iraq that was less legitimate" in the eyes of much of the Muslim world.

Iraq also diverted some military resources that could have been put to good use in Afghanistan, he said.

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Robert Burns can be reached on Twitter at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2011-10-06-US-Afghan%20War-McChrystal/id-ee4712f6c1024dd18d644a349302d441

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The USPSTF Finally Acts on Prostate Cancer Screening Test ...

Two-and-a-half years after studies appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine questioning the efficacy of routine prostate cancer screening for middle-aged men, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force finally issued its recommendation based on a review of the science. Its recommendation: don?t bother taking the test.

I have no idea if their action was precipitated by recent scientific revelations that nearly half the men who undergo treatments for cancers suffer serious side effects like impotence and incontinence (see this GoozNews post), or the appearance this weekend of a major New York Times magazine article by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer airing the controversies around the test. But there?s no doubt that politics and fear of a right-wing backlash delayed this recommendation. Here?s the Brownlee/Lenzer summary of that controversy:

According to an internal document, in 2009 the task force conducted an in-depth analysis of data and seemed poised to give routine P.S.A. testing a ?D? rating ? ?D? as in don?t do it ? for any man of any age. But this was around the time that the task force stated that routine mammography for women ages 40 to 50 was not necessary for every woman. That recommendation caused a public uproar, and Ned Calonge, the task-force chairman at the time, sent the P.S.A. recommendation back for review. One year later, in November 2010, just before midterm elections, the task force was again set to review its recommendation when Calonge canceled the meeting. He says that word leaked out that if the November meeting was held, it could jeopardize the task force?s financing. Kenneth Lin, the researcher who led the review, quit his job in protest, and now, nearly two years after its initial finding, it remains uncertain when the task force will release its rating for P.S.A. screening.

Well, better late than never. I salute the USPSTF?s willingness to finally take on this controversy. It?s now imperative that all journalists who believe in the primacy of science over the politics of self-interest carefully scrutinize those who will no doubt question this decision in the days ahead. It should begin by fully vetting whether they earn their living by offering surgery and radiation to people diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer; whether they have invested in or would benefit from patents and royalties associated with any aspect of treatment; and where, if they are with an advocacy group, their funding comes from.

Here?s my own blog post from March 2009, when the NEJM studies first appeared. It?s last sentence called for the actions taken yesterday by the USPSTF:

I recently received word that an old friend, someone I hadn?t seen since 1991, passed away at age 90. Arnie and I became friends in the late 1980s because my significant other (soon-to-be wife) and his new significant other, a woman who was about 20 years his junior, were close friends. Around 1989, Arnie told us over dinner that he had prostate cancer ? a diagnosis produced by a PSA or prostate specific antigen test followed by a biopsy.

Arnie, a bushy-eyebrowed teddy bear of a man, was an old-school psychiatrist. He believed in Eros, Thanatos and talk therapy. Prozac nation wasn?t for him, and in his semi-retirement he continued to see the few patients whose insurance would either pay for regular visits or could afford the sessions on their own.

At the time, knowing nothing about medicine, I was bit skeptical about his response to a cancer diagnosis. But over dinner, the last and only time we ever spoke about the disease, he explained his choice of foreging treatment. There was no way he was going to risk becoming impotent. Better to die, he said, smiling gently at his 50-year-old (soon to be a grandmother) girlfriend. When she emailed the sad news of his passing, my wife didn?t even think to ask from what.

Contrast Arnie?s decision with that of my father, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer a few years later. In his early 70s, he was already in a noticeable downhill slide from dementia. On the advice of his doctors, whose word he and my mother would never even begin to think to question, dad had a radical prostatectomy. And over the last four years of his life, which was mercifully ended by pneumonia after most of his cognitive brain function had been destroyed, my late mother had to care not just for a demented old man, but an incontinent one.

These two very different responses to a prostate cancer diagnosis in late middle or early old age highlight the horrible dilemma thousands of men experience every year due to widespread PSA testing. The two studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine today (see here and here) provide more evidence that for most men, PSA testing as currently practiced is unnecessary and a waste of health care system resources.

The National Cancer Institute-funded study found that screening identified 17 percent more cancers after ten years, but didn?t significantly reduce the number of deaths. A European study found that screening could marginally reduce the prostate cancer death rate, but that 1,410 men would need to be screened for ten years and 48 would have to be treated for prostate cancer to prevent one death. In other words, 48 men would have to experience the debilitating side effects of prostate cancer treatment in order to extend the life of one older man who may soon die of some other disease.

There was widespread coverage of these studies in today?s news and it struck the right note, which isn?t surprising given that even the head of the American Cancer Society now questions the usefulness of widespread prostate cancer screening tests. Otis Brawley told the Washington Post:

I know guys who are morbidly depressed because of the complications of their prostate cancer treatment. I know three people who attempted suicide. I know widows of guys who died from their treatment. There are significant harms associated with over-treatment of prostate cancer.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recently recommended that men over 75 no longer receive prostate cancer screening tests. It said the evidence for younger men was equivocal and took no position.

Yes, these latest trials were rushed into print, and the prostate cancer screening lobby (see the website of the partially industry-funded Prostate Conditions Education Council to get a flavor for its boosterism) was quick to suggest longer-term follow-up may turn up a larger health benefit. But the disturbing data contained in these studies, which corroborate the experiences of thousands of families who have been needlessly subjected to biopsies and treatment when watchful waiting was more appropriate, suggest the USPSTF ought to reconvene its committee and rethink its recommendations for younger men.

Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it, about it, and subscribe to the blog RSS feed.

Source: http://gooznews.com/?p=3239

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Obama knocks GOP leader; pushes jobs bill in Texas

President Barack Obama makes a statement at the start of a Cabinet Meeting at the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 3, 2011. White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is at left, National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon is at right. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Barack Obama makes a statement at the start of a Cabinet Meeting at the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 3, 2011. White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley is at left, National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon is at right. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

DALLAS (AP) ? President Barack Obama is singling out and criticizing House Republican leader Eric Cantor for declaring that the president's entire $447 billion jobs bill will not get a vote in the House.

"I'd like Mr. Cantor to come down here to Dallas and explain what in this jobs bill he doesn't believe in," Obama says in remarks prepared for delivery in Texas Tuesday.

Obama's remarks come a day after Cantor said Obama's jobs plan contained elements that Republicans could support. "This all or nothing approach is unreasonable," Cantor said.

Obama is stepping up the campaign for his jobs bills, sharpening his strategy to blame Republicans if his bill, or at least significant portions of it, don't pass by the end of the year. Three weeks after sending the legislation to Congress, the full proposal has encountered resistance from Republicans and even from some Democrats.

Republicans have identified pieces of the legislation they could support, including a payroll tax cut for workers and employers. In a letter to GOP members late month, they also listed other tax relief in the president's proposal that they would be prepared to endorse. And in a letter Monday to Obama, House GOP leaders said they were willing to look for common ground and called on the president to support their efforts to ease regulations on businesses.

White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Dallas, said Republicans should specify what in the president's bill they oppose.

"Say so. Vote accordingly," Carney said. "But don't hide behind letters you've sent to the president. Tell us where you stand."

Obama has become increasingly forceful in singling out Republican opposition to his bill.

Several of the president's trips have taken him to the backyards of his Republican rivals, most notably a speech he gave last month in front of a bridge linking Ohio and Kentucky, the home states of House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. He also spoke in Cantor's district in Richmond, Va.

Tuesday's trip continued that trend, taking Obama to Mesquite, Texas ? not only to the district of Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the Republican co-chair of the congressional supercommittee on deficit reduction, but also the home state of Gov. Rick Perry, one of the top Republican presidential candidates.

Still, the president's plan has also encountered opposition within his own party, especially his proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy and on corporations to pay for jobs program.

His package would reduce payroll taxes on workers and employers, extend benefits to long-term unemployed people, spend money on public works projects and help states and local governments keep teachers, police officers and firefighters on the job. He would pay for the plan with tax increases on wealthier Americans and by closing corporate tax loopholes.

With Congress willing to consider only pieces of the administration's bill, the White House is making a concerted effort to highlight the individual components of the president's measure, not just sell it as a full package

On Tuesday, the focus was on selling the bill's education proposals. The White House says the measure would prevent the layoff of up to 280,000 teachers across the country while also allowing states to hire back tens of thousands more. The administration also says new spending would go toward modernizing at least 35,000 public schools and community colleges.

Referring to a teacher from the Dallas suburbs, Obama, according to excerpts released by the White House ahead of his remarks, says: "Mr. Cantor should come down to Dallas, look Kim Russell in the eye, and tell her why she doesn't deserve to get a paycheck again. Come tell her students why they don't deserve to have their teacher back."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2011-10-04-Obama/id-63f854b6abec44be818d1c9713a5b5a5

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Source: http://myleadnetproonline.com/locating-a-worthwhile-home-based-business-opportunity

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Dean Baker: Steve Jobs and Alan Greenspan

On the tragic passing of Steve Jobs, while still a relatively young man, it is interesting to juxtapose him to Alan Greenspan, one of the other iconic figures of our time. One made us rich, with a vast array of new products and new possibilities. The other made us poor with a long lasting downturn that could persist for more than a decade.

The two of them can be taken as symbols for the best and worst of modern capitalism. Jobs is the symbol of capitalism when it works. Again and again he broke through barriers, creating new products that qualitatively altered the market by making vast improvements over the competition.

Apple made personal computers a standard household product by developing a simple user friendly idiot-proof system that anyone could use. Jobs was a decade ahead of the Microsoft based systems, using menu driven computers in the mid-80s that were not matched by Microsoft until Windows was developed in the mid-90s. His later generation of computers continues to include features that make it far superior to the competition.

As we know, computers were only the beginning. The iPod changed the way people listened to music. The recently developed CD quickly followed the record on the dust heap of antiquated technologies. Vast amounts of music could be stored in a small handheld device instead of requiring massive bookshelves of records, as had been the case just twenty years earlier.

Then we had the iPhone that made smart phones a standard appliance featuring everything from video cameras to translation systems. And, of course there is the iPad, which, along with its competitors, is revolutionizing the way we read books and is largely replacing the laptop computer.

Jobs didn't do any of this by himself. He put together teams of great innovators. But the point is that he was able to recognize talented people and give them the means to make great innovations and bring them to the market. This is what a market economy is supposed to do.

By contrast, Alan Greenspan's vision was about getting rich. And plenty of people got very rich under the rein of Alan Greenspan, a disproportionate number of them on Wall Street. When we think of successful people in connection with Alan Greenspan we have to think of people like Angelo Mozilo, the CEO of Countrywide in its heyday as one of the leading pushers of subprime mortgages. Mr. Mozilo walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars while many of his customers faced foreclosure and his shareholders lost their shirts.

Richard Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers is another hero of the age of Greenspan. Under Fuld' s rein, Lehman Brothers took the lead in packaging into mortgage backed securities (MBS) the loans hawked by Mozilo and his competitors in the subprime market. It apparently did not concern him that many of these loans were fraudulent and would inevitably blow up on both the homeowners and the purchasers of the MBS. Lehman also walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars as his company went down in flames.

And then there is Robert Rubin, another Wall Street multi-millionaire. After leading the charge for deregulation at Greenspan's side as Treasury Secretary, he took a top position at Citigroup. He pocketed over $100 million as Citigroup fell to near bankruptcy -- saved only by government bailouts - also done in by the subprime trash it marketed around the world.

The computer guru of Greenspan's world is Bill Gates, a man who got far richer than Steve Jobs. Gates' secret was not making great products -- the only ones praising his creativity at his funeral will be people on his payroll -- but rather in gaining control of markets. In other decades, the anti-competitive practices he pursued to win Microsoft a near monopoly in the computer market might have landed him behind bars. But in the age of Greenspan they made him the richest person in the world.

Unfortunately, we continue to live in the world of Alan Greenspan rather than the world of Steve Jobs. In spite of the remarkable innovations in technology over the last three decades, much of the country is poorer than it was 30 years ago. We have 26 million people who have the skills and desire to work, who can't find jobs or full-time jobs because of the mismanagement of the economy. We have people losing their homes and going homeless even though we have more than 14 million housing units sitting vacant.

This is economic stupidity of a high order. It is a world of unnecessary scarcity, where we have the ability to meet individual and social needs but are governed by people too timid or incompetent to take the steps needed to get the economy functioning right.

It is great to see people rising up in response to this absurdity in the Occupy Wall Street movement and its imitators around the country. Where this will end is anybody's guess, but at the moment it is our best hope for escaping the world of Alan Greenspan and moving toward a world that fosters the sort of creativity that Steve Jobs demonstrated in his too short life.

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Follow Dean Baker on Twitter: www.twitter.com/DeanBaker13

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dean-baker/steve-jobs-and-alan-green_b_997432.html

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Sony VAIO VPC-SE16FX/S

The Sony VAIO VPC-SE16FX/S ($1,249.99 direct) is a 15-inch laptop that will appeal to shoppers tempted by sleek, thin chassis and high-end parts like a Blu-ray player and AMD discrete graphics. With a lustrous design, a gorgeous high-definition display, and a potent combination of processing and graphics hardware that would put the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Thunderbolt) ($2,199 direct, 4 stars) to shame, the Sony VAIO offers itself up in a light 4.4 pound package, without the Apple price tag. Those seeking the same rich feel and polished design of an Apple product, however, will be left a bit disappointed, with details like the keyboard and mouse feeling oddly unrefined.

Design
The VPC-SE16FX/S utilizes what Sony calls a "full flat" design, meaning that the laptop is flat with no degree of slope and no hint of a wedge shape in the profile. With a magnesium alloy skeleton inside and brushed aluminum covering the lid and palm rest, the VPC-SE16FX/S uses a combination of metal and plastic to keep the weight down to 4.4 pounds. It's actually a hair thinner than the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Thunderbolt) , which is 1-inch thick and weighs 5.5 pounds. Even with the optional sheet battery attached, the VPC-SE16FX/S is still a close match in weight, coming in at 5.6 pounds. The enviable slimness disappears, however, as that battery adds nearly half an inch to the laptop.

One of the key features of the VPC-SE16FX/S is the 15.5-inch screen that displays in 1,920 by 1,080 HD resolution. The quality is better than what either the Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft) ($999 direct, 4 stars) or Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch have to offer, and looks great whether you're watching HD movies via the Blu-ray drive or streaming shows on Netflix. An anti-glare coating also provides a slightly matte finish to the screen, reducing reflections and improving visibility indoors and out. An ambient light sensor measures the light in the room and adjusts the display brightness accordingly, without the user having to give it any attention at all.

The keyboard is done in the same chiclet style we've seen on other laptops like the HP Envy 14 (Sandy Bridge) ($1,079.99 direct, 4 stars), but it can't quite match the comfortable feel of the Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft). The keys on the keyboard and adjacent numeric pad have a platinum silver finish that used throughout the laptop. The keyboard is backlit but, like the display, the backlight brightness is automatically adjusted according to the lighting conditions of the room. And while the self-adjusting backlighting is a great concept, in practice it's less than perfect. When the backlight is off, the letters are a dull grey that is nearly washed out against the keys' silvery finish. With the backlight on, a fair amount of light seeps out from around the keys, proving to be more distracting than helpful. And though you can rely on the ambient light sensor to turn it on and off, it would still be nice to have a control on the keyboard to turn it on and off as needed. The accompanying multitouch trackpad features two oversized mouse buttons, but the surface of the touchpad tends to stick, and I found myself wishing that the trackpad had some texture to it.

Features
Sony didn't hold back when it put together the feature set of this laptop. The VPC-SE16FX/S is filled to the brim with top of the line features, like a speedy USB 3.0 port, a Blu-ray player, and WiDi 2.0, Intel's wireless technology that lets you stream HD content to any HDTV, provided you have a Netgear Push2TV ($99) reviver. HDMI and VGA outputs are also available for those who want to take the wired route.

The VPC-SE16FX/S also features a fair amount of security, with a case lock slot, Trusted Platform Module (TPM) available, and the new Semantic VIP Access, which allows secure VPN connections without requiring any sort of security token. Two card readers let you pull files from most any form of flash media (SD, SDHC, MMC, MS/Pro, HG, MagicGate), and two more USB 2.0 ports are available for any peripheral devices you want to use. The integrated webcam uses an Exmor HD image sensor?a little goodie picked up from Sony's camera and imaging department?and Bluetooth Stereo means that you can use a variety of devices wirelessly, including a Bluetooth stereo headset or sound system. The Bluetooth and 802.11n Wi-Fi can be turned on and off with a physical switch, and a Gigabit Ethernet port provides wired network access when there's no Wi-Fi available.

The VPC-SE16FX/S is equipped with a 640GB 5,400rpm hard drive, and while it's not as big as the 750GB one in the MacBook Pro 15-inch (Thunderbolt), it's larger than the 500GB drive found in the Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft), and the typical user should find 640GB to be more than enough storage space. There are a few programs that come already installed on the hard drive, like Microsoft Office Starter 2011, a 30-day trial of Norton Internet Security, and a few free programs, like Skype, Evernote, and a Bing branded toolbar. Sony does throw in several proprietary VAIO utilities, but overall, there's little bloatware on the VPC-SE16FX/S.

Performance
The VPC-SE16FX/S is equipped with a 2.4 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5-2430M. It's more agile than lesser iterations of the Core i5, scoring 2.6 points on Cinebench R11.5 and completed our Handbrake video encoding test in 1 minute 51 seconds. Compare this laptop with systems utilizing the Core i5-2410M version, like the HP Envy 14 (2.24 in Cinebench; 1:57 in Handbrake) and Dell XPS 15z (2.53 in Cinebench; 2:02 in Handbrake), and you can see the results vary ever-so slightly. The VAIO VPC-SE16FX also performed well in overall productivity, scoring 1,881 points in PCMark 7 and media creation, scoring 4 minutes 5 seconds in Photoshop CS5.

A physical switch on the laptop lets you manually flip between Intel's integrated graphics and AMD Radeon HD 6630M discrete graphics processor. Though it isn't being billed as a gaming laptop, the VPC-SE16FX/S definitely has the graphics horsepower to support demanding games. It pumped out some strong 3DMark 06 scores, scoring 8,010 points at default settings and 1,024 by 768 resolution. By comparison, the Acer Aspire TimelineX 5830TG-6402 ($799.99 direct, 3.5 stars) scored 2,252 points, and the HP Envy 14 (Sandy Bridge) scored 2,009 points. The Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft) edged it out with 8,610 points, and the Apple MacBook Pro leads the desktop replacement category with 10,878. In actual gaming tests, cranked out 64.7 frames per second (fps) in Crysis, and 49.7 fps in Lost Planet 2, beating out every comparable system except the MacBook Pro.

We tested the VPC-SE16FX/S's battery-life with the optional sheet battery attached, which Sony has boasted will provide up to 12 hours of battery-life, but we only squeezed out 10 hours 33 minutes in MobileMark 2007 with the discrete graphics card and keyboard backlight disabled. With the standard 6-cell 63Wh battery and all the graphics hardware and lights turned on, it barely broke the four-hour mark (4:11), putting it alongside the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (4:40), but falling behind the Dell XPS 15z (7:13). If you use the optional sheet battery and carefully manage your power consumption, this laptop will last you through a full day of work or very long flight.

Based on its hardware specifications alone the Sony VAIO VPC-SE16FX/S is a tempting deal, with its Intel Core i5 processor, AMD graphics, and all those excellent HD features. While there are a few points that don't feel as refined compared to the Editors' Choice Dell XPS 15z (Microsoft), like the backlit keyboard and the sticky trackpad, it's still a solid desktop replacement and a smart buy.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Sony VAIO VPC-SE16FX/S with several other laptops side by side.

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