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As most laptops are essentially commodity products comprised of the same stock list of components and parts, one might assume that all laptop brands are the same, at least as far as the general reliability of the hardware itself.

Warranty firm SquareTrade has just released a research paper analyzing the failure rate for 30,000 laptops comparing brands and hardware categories--and the results might surprise you.

The headline news is that over three years, one out of three laptops will fail, and that Asus and Toshiba laptops have the lowest failure rates, while Acer, Gateway, and HP have higher than average failure rates. Additionally, two-thirds of those problems are hardware malfunctions, while the final third are classified as accidental damage.

Netbooks, in particular, didn't fare as well--as one might expect from low-cost machines. They failed at a rate 20 percent higher than mainstream laptops. But keep in mind, since Netbooks are a relatively new category, this is based on only one year of data.

The full report can be found at the SquareTrade Web site, and we've excerpted some of the most interesting charts and graphs below (and note that some of the numbers presented below are projections based on previous data).

The key takeaway is that laptops in general fail much more often than many other types of consumer electronics--in part because they're among the most complex devices one can buy, and perhaps because pricing pressure has led to lapses in quality control in the design and manufacture of many of these systems.

(Credit: SquareTrade )

(Credit: SquareTrade )

(Credit: SquareTrade )

(Credit: Asus)

We're fans of Nvidia's 3D Vision technology, which uses a collection of hardware and software to create 3D versions of PC games. Our main knock against the concept has been that it requires several highly specific hardware purchases to work. In a recent article comparing Nvidia's 3D Vision technology to a new 3D laptop from Acer, we said:

Nvidia's 3D Vision requires a bundle of specialized hardware. At a minimum, the active glasses plus the USB emitter cost $199. But since 120Hz LCD monitors are still not common (and Nvidia only lists two officially compatible models, along with some DLP TVs and projectors), it's practically a requirement to purchase a bundle including the 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ for $598. On top of that, a desktop (not laptop) GPU--generally GeForce 8000 series or newer--is also required.

That's why we're pleased to see that Asus is announcing an all-in-one solution in the form of a new 15.6-inch laptop with Nvidia's 3D Vision technology built in. The $1,699 G51J 3D has a 120Hz LCD panel, an Intel Core i7 CPU, a high-end Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M GPU, and comes bundled with a pair of Nvidia's active glasses and the USB-powered IR emitter required to make the glasses work.

This is still an expensive proposition, and one that requires you to charge up and wear a pair of battery powered 3D glasses--but flipping open a laptop will certainly be easier for most than setting up a separate 120Hz LCD monitor and connecting to your desktop gaming rig via a dual-link DVI connection.

We have yet to put the Asus G51J 3D through its paces, but the components seem well-suited for mid-high-end PC gaming, and the Nvidia 3D Vision technology itself goes from pretty interesting to mind-blowing depending on the game. Acer's Aspire 5738DG, in contrast, uses a different passive 3D technology that was not nearly as impressive, and was hampered by components that were not up to speed for 3D gaming.

The Asus G51J 3D system is available starting Tuesday from online retailers including Amazon and Newegg.

Samsung Go for cheaper: this used to be a pricier Netbook.

(Credit: CNET)

Whether or not you choose to take this path, subsidized Netbooks are everywhere. For those who choose to use a 3G data plan, going subsidized offers a little bit of upfront savings.

AT&T has announced updates to its Netbook offerings for the holidays, and the Samsung Go and Acer Aspire One have joined its subsidized offerings. The Samsung Go, with its eye-catching textured color and smooth bubbly look, is certainly a change of pace from most Netbook designs. Both come with Windows 7 Starter installed and sell for $199 with a 2-year data plan.

Is the Samsung Go more appealing to you than a $299 Nokia Booklet 3G?

As for the Acer Aspire One, it wasn't that expensive a Netbook to begin with at $299. Does $100 savings and a 3G antenna/Windows 7 Starter seem worth it?

Read our reviews of the Samsung Go and Acer Aspire One AOD250.

Acer Aspire One

(Credit: AT&T)

AT&T is hoping for happy holidays with the launch of two new Netbooks offering Windows 7 and mobile broadband.

The company announced Monday its new Netbook lineup--the Samsung Go and Acer Aspire One--both with built-in access to its 3G network. Available later this month in stores and online, both portables will cost gift buyers $199 after a mail-in rebate and two-year data plan contract.

The required DataConnect plan will offer 200MB of data for a new lower price of $35 per month, or 5GB for $60 per month, said AT&T. The plan will let consumers hop online via AT&T's 3G mobile network or any of the company's 20,000 Wi-Fi hot spots across the U.S.

"Demand for Netbooks remains strong among consumers, small business customers, and those who desire constant access to the Internet while on the go," said David Haight, vice president of product development for AT&T emerging devices, in a statement. "Paired with the nation's fastest 3G network, AT&T Wi-Fi service, and now the value and ease of use of Windows 7, these devices will make very attractive and affordable gifts this holiday season."

Samsung Go

(Credit: CNET)

Weighing less than three pounds, the Samsung Go is equipped with a 10-inch screen, 160GB hard drive, 1 GB of RAM, and a 1.3 megapixel Webcam. A bit skinnier at 2.2 pounds, the Acer Aspire One also includes a 10-inch screen, 160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM, and built-in Webcam.

Both Netbooks also come with AT&T's Communication Manager software, which tries to help Internet users better manage their connections by automatically tapping into AT&T hot spots.

The Samsung and Acer machines have one potential limitation, however. Like most Netbooks, they come with Windows 7 Starter Edition, a stripped down version of Windows 7 that lacks certain key features of its beefier brethren.

When we first saw Dell's new Inspiron Zino HD this summer, our thought was that when Dell brought this thing to market it would be introducing the affordable living room PC of our dreams. It's small, it's cheap, it has HDMI, and it supports Blu-ray and 802.11n Wi-Fi. What else could you want in a self-contained little Windows box to serve up media to your TV? We're not without questions (how well will the default ATI graphics and low-power AMD CPU handle Blu-ray playback, for example?), but on paper, the Inspiron Zino HD the Dell announced this morning seems to retain most of that promise we saw a few months back.

Dell's new Inspiron Zino HD offers multiple color choices.

(Credit: Dell)

The Inspiron Zino HD starts at $229, which nets you a single-core 1.6GHz AMD Athlon 2650e CPU, a DVD burner, 2GB of RAM, wired networking, a DVD burner, and a 250GB hard drive. It's not much, but that's a better deal than the $199 Acer Revo we reviewed a few weeks ago because of the Dell's larger hard drive and a DVD burner.

And while these low-cost PCs are all the rage these days, we're more excited by the Zino's possibilities after a few key upgrades. Bump the CPU up to the dual-core Athlon X2 3250e, upgrade the RAM to 4GB, add 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and a Blu-ray drive and the price climbs to a still-reasonable $498. A TV tuner option is coming at some unspecified time in the future.

You get two USB 2.0 jacks, an optical drive, and an SD Card reader on the front of the Zino.

(Credit: Dell)

You wouldn't want to use such a spec for editing movies or playing games, for that we'd recommend starting with Gateway's SX2800-01 and adding a low-profile 3D card. You'd probably also run out of storage space with the Zino's 250GB default hard drive sooner than you'd like. But on a home network with another PC hosting the bulk of your media, a $500 or so Inspiron Zino HD would likely meet all of your prerecorded media consumption needs.

Among other ports, the back of the Inspiron Zino HD has both HDMI and VGA video outs, as well as a pair of eSATA ports.

(Credit: Dell)

Dell offers a few color and design options for the Inspiron Zino HD, and all but Piano Black cost an extra $10. According to Dell's Web site, order's placed today will ship by November 26.

Best Buy is set to launch its lowest-advertised-price laptop to date--an Acer model based on Intel's venerable Celeron chip.

Acer laptop

(Credit: Best Buy)

Thought Netbooks were as low as a laptop's price can go? Another category of ultra-low-cost laptops has quietly emerged. These aren't small or ultra-thin or frugal with power consumption. There's nothing remarkable about these laptops--except price.

Best Buy said it will start selling on Wednesday the $249 Acer laptop--the retailer's lowest-advertised-price laptop ever. The laptop comes with an Intel Celeron processor, 15.4-inch screen, 2GB memory, a 160GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Premium. The model is available while supplies last.

Currently, the lowest-priced laptop listed on Best Buy's Web site is an Acer Aspire with an Advanced Micro Devices Athlon Processor (model: AS5532-553). On Tuesday, it was selling for $329.

Why the proliferation of low-cost laptops? "It's gone from one PC per household to one PC per person," said Justin Barber, a Best Buy spokesman. "And sometimes more than one laptop per person," he said, referring to Netbooks, which are marketed as companion devices to a higher-end PC.

At the core of the low-cost Acer laptop is an Intel Celeron Processor 900--not an Intel Atom chip, which is standard fare for sub-$300 Netbooks. The Celeron is a faster design than Atom: the 900 series packs 1MB cache of cache memory and is rated at 2.20GHz.

By comparison, the Z550 Atom is rated at 2.0GHz and integrates only 512K of cache. The Atom's performance is also hampered by fundamental design constraints: it is built for power efficiency not speed.

Netbooks continue to be the most popular low-cost laptop category, however. Best Buy lists dozens of Netbooks on its Web site from Hewlett-Packard, Asus, Samsung, Gateway, Nokia, Lenovo, and Toshiba, among others. Most are priced around $350.

Acer recently outpaced Dell as the second largest PC seller in the world. Is No. 1 Hewlett-Packard next on the list?

Acer Chairman J.T. Wang reportedly intends to ship 40 million notebooks in 2010, a number that could help the Taiwanese company challenge and even overtake current champ Hewlett-Packard for the top spot in portable PC sales.

To achieve this goal, Acer is looking to kick up revenue by more than 70 percent over the next three years, said Wang in an interview with Reuters.

Credit: Acer

J.T. Wang

Much of that revenue growth is likely to come from an anticipated 50 percent gain in sales for low-cost Netbook PCs. As the economy improves, Wang expects to sell an ever greater number of low-priced, portable PCs, a segment that has been very kind to the company.

As chairman since 2008, Wang has led Acer as its sales and market share have shot up over the past year. And with revenue expected to hit $18 billion this year, he's already targeting the next milestone.

With a burst of renewed interest in 3D technology, Acer seems to be slightly ahead of the curve with its Aspire 5738DG laptop, featuring a special combination of hardware and software to add 3D to games, photos, and videos. Thanks to projects such as James Cameron's Avatar, upcoming 3D TV monitors, and Nvidia's 3D Vision project, consumers are hearing more about 3D than any time since the 1950s.

The $779 Acer Aspire 5738DG takes a different approach than the 3D Vision product from Nvidia. While the Nvidia rig requires a desktop PC with a high-end video card, a dual-link DVI connection to a compatible 120Hz LCD monitor, a USB-connected emitter box, and a set of active, battery-powered glasses, Acer's laptop is mostly software-driven, using a special screen coating and standard polarized-lens glasses to produce the 3D effect.

Like the Nvidia 3D vision setup (previously reviewed here), movies and photos need to be rendered in a 3D format to be used, but virtually any video game will work, as long as it makes use of actual 3D data to generate its characters, settings, and in-game objects.

Acer versus Nvidia: Very different 3D setups
Before we even get to which 3D system works better, it's important to note that they are packaged and sold entirely differently. Nvidia's 3D Vision requires a bundle of specialized hardware. At a minimum, the active glasses plus the USB emitter cost $199. But since 120Hz LCD monitors are still not common (and Nvidia only lists two officially compatible models, along with some DLP TVs and projectors), it's practically a requirement to purchase a bundle including the 22-inch Samsung SyncMaster 2233RZ for $598. On top of that, a desktop (not laptop) GPU--generally GeForce 8000 series or newer--is also required. Basically, you're looking at $600, plus the cost of your desktop PC (although there's a good chance you may already own a compatible PC).

Acer's Aspire 5738DG is a much simpler complete package. For $779, the 3D-ready laptop includes a basic pair of cheap plastic polarized glasses, plus a second pair of completely ridiculous-looking clip-ons for those of us who already wear glasses (the Nividia specs fit easily over even our gigantic glasses). Acer's is a more convenient, and more portable, overall package.

But does it actually work?

We were dubious of the 3D claims made by the Aspire 5738DG, especially after a sneak peek at the technology several months ago. That demo was wholly unimpressive and led us to expect the technology not to work at all. But after taking some time to play around with different screen positions and get used to its quirks, Acer's 3D laptop exceeded our admittedly low expectations.

The system includes several built-in demo videos, and they ranged from middling to mildly effective. Putting on the glasses, you have to tilt the lid back and forth until you find the sweet spot--for us it was about 120-degrees back, and with us sitting about twice as far from the screen as we normally would. The effect works best with objects that recede into the distance, where we could get an excellent level of 3D immersion. Objects that popped out of the screen toward us just got blurry or out of focus, and didn't work at all. It's also important to keep your head still to main just the perfect angle.

The screen also has what appears to have a series of fine lines running horizontally across it, even when you're not using any 3D software. It's a distracting look, and certainly not something you want to put up with during everyday computing.

Since there isn't a 3D section on Netflix or the iTunes video store, playing games in 3D is what the Aspire 5738DG is really for. The process is slightly more involved than launching a game normally, but not by much. Launching the TriDef 3D application from the desktop opens a listing of compatible programs. You can have the system scan for them, or drag and drop the apps yourself (by dragging the desktop launch icon for a game into the TriDef window).

TriDef offers a small number of specially tuned game presets, for titles from Call of Duty 4 to Left 4 Dead, but most games will simply have to use the "generic" preset. We loaded up a few games, and compared the experience with our Nvidia 3D Vision rig, which was hooked up to a Maingear small form factor PC equipped with dual GeForce GTX275 GPUs and an Intel Core i7 CPU.

Keep in mind that by way of comparison, the hardware on the Aspire 5738DG was easily outmatched, with only an ATI Radeon HD 4750 graphics card and a 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 CPU.

Testing games in 3D
In our first side-by-side test, Batman: Arkham Asylum would barely run--we had to dial the resolution down to 800x600 pixels and turn all the graphics settings to low or off. Running the TriDef 3D software in the background didn't help matters -- pressing ALT-SHIFT-MINUS turns the processing off and on, and the frame rate took a major hit in 3D mode. Unfortunately, the Aspire 5738DG wasn't able to run the game in 3D properly, even with after we downloaded a custom profile for the game from TriDef--the effect popped in and out randomly, making for a very disjointed experience.

By way of comparison, we were able to run the same game at high settings easily on our Nvidia 3D Vision desktop rig, and the 3D effects were excellent, adding context and detail without getting in the way of the game. To be fair, this is a game specifically tuned for 3D Vision, and one of Nvidia's preferred demos showcases for the technology.

Our next test was Call of Duty 4--an older game more suited to mainstream laptop components (we've even played it on an HP Mini 311 Netbook). This was a much better match for the Aspire's hardware, and the game ran reasonably well, with 3D effects that were for the most part impressive. Our only issue was with the laser sight on our gun, which sat uncomfortably in the foreground, forcing us to close one eye when aiming down the sight (which kind of defeats the purpose of 3D gaming). If you dig around the 3D options (by pressing ALT-SHIFT-F1), you can turn the laser sight off, as well as tweak the 3D depth.

With same game using the Nvidia 3D Vision system, we got a crisper, clearer 3D image (although the active shutter Nivida glasses make everything seem dark, and we had to crank up the brightness)--and we didn't have the same troublesome laser sight issue. The Nvidia 3D software's custom settings for this game made everything look right.

Just as were about to give up on the idea of a 3D laptop, a colleague suggested we try Half-Life 2. It turns out that the TriDef software works especially well with games using game developer Valve's 3D engine. Half-Life 2 looked great and ran smoothly, and the effect was a reasonable substitute for Nvidia's more complicated 3D Vision technology.

On the more casual side, Sega's Mini Ninjas worked well, but onscreen text, including the in-game menus, vanished in 3D mode. We've heard anecdotally that World of Warcraft and Left 4 Dead also produce good results.

Which 3D technology is right for me?
We could have easily gone down a list of a dozen games, noting bugs, quirks, and occasional success stories, but the point is that the 3D technology in the Acer Aspire 5738DG clearly isn't the kind of easy to use, widely supported toolset that is going to break through to the mainstream anytime soon. The entire process can be best described as "finicky."

As a mainstream laptop, the Acer Aspire 5738DG is fine 15.6-inch Core 2 Duo workhorse, with middle-of-the-road specs and Acer's typically solid construction. We especially like the wide, flat keyboard and separate number pad--but the fine horizontal lines on the display are a constant distraction.

But if you specifically want to play the handful of games that work really well, and don't mind the not being able to crank up the graphics settings, then this is worth at least a test run; but we strongly suggest an in-person demo first, and checking the TriDef Web site for custom profiles of your favorite games. The Aspire also has the benefit of being an all-in-one solution, with nothing external to buy or configure.

If you're serious about 3D gaming, however, Acer's package can't hold a candle to the Nvidia 3D Vision. Even though that system is expensive, complicated, and has an exacting set of hardware requirements, the effect worked (to varying degrees) with every 3D game we threw at it.

The results ranged from mildly interesting to completely mind-blowing. With some of the games not specifically supported by Nvidia, including the new MMO game Aion, and the racing game Fuel, the 3D effect still worked well, but some objects were out of place, and onscreen text could sit uncomfortably in the foreground.

While the effort required to put together an Nvidia 3D Vision setup is cumbersome, we've heard that some PC makers are working on compatible laptops, which is a development we'd be keenly interested in seeing.

Now that we're past the official release of Windows 7, most new PCs should come with it pre-installed. But if you purchased a new computer with Windows Vista recently, or for whatever reason end up with a Vista system in the near future, there's a very good chance you're eligible for a free Windows 7 upgrade.

From the period of June 26, 2009 through January 31, 2010, many major PC makers are offering free upgrades to Windows 7 for those who buy a Vista-powered laptop or desktop. The deals are all essentially the same, and, as expected, have some exceptions and asterisks.

Click the gallery link below and we'll show you the details for PC brands including Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and Sony -- complete with upgrade terms and instructions, and links to each PC maker's free Windows 7 upgrade request forms.

Photos: How do I get my free Windows 7 upgrade?

Getting your free Windows 7 upgrade is handled through the company you bought your PC from, not by Microsoft, and in most cases you'll have to register and fill out some online forms. Now that we're past the October 22 launch date for Windows 7, you'll receive a physical copy of Windows 7 via snail mail once your submit the proper documentation. The upgrade path looks like this:

Windows Vista Home Premium→Windows 7 Home Premium
Windows Vista Business→Windows 7 Professional
Windows Vista Ultimate→Windows 7 Ultimate

Using Vista basic? Tough luck! Also worth noting, upgrades are arriving via DVD, so you'll have to have a DVD drive available (although there is a USB drive workaround). Also royally screwed are Netbook buyers who have Windows XP, and are not eligible for the free upgrade.

> See CNET's full Windows 7 review here.
> Missed the big gallery link above? Brand by brand details on getting your free Windows 7 upgrade are here.
> This article updates our earlier pre-Win7-launch feature: Ask the editor: Should I buy a new laptop now, or wait for Windows 7?