Laptops and Tablet PCs Lead Analyst Cisco Cheng, who somehow doesn't even seem winded, is spending his afternoon looking at and benchmarking a couple of 17-inch laptops. Putting the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros side by side, it wasn't difficult for me to guess which one has the new LED backlit screen. That 15-incher just looks so much brighter. "Keep in mind the lamp [on the 17-inch model] has to cover more surface area," says Cisco, "so chances are [the smaller model] will look a lot brighter, even though they're using different screen technologies." That's a good point, Cisco, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I wish my MacBook had an LED-lit screen. After the jump, you can check the picture and judge for yourself.

The other 17-inch laptop in the PC Mag labs today is the Dell 1720. Aside from coming in your choice of eight different lid colors, Cisco says, "It's the only 17-inch laptop with integrated WWAN." So if you're looking for a desktop replacement with easy access to high-speed mobile data networks, the 1720 is definitely worth a look.

Labs Analyst Brian Neal is spending more time with printer cartridges than he probably ever wanted to. He's at work on PC Mag's yearly yield test story. In case you don't know what that is (and I didn't until I asked), Brian says a yield test involves six or seven printers, and a set test to "determine if the printer's ink [cartridge] yields what the manufacturers say." That might not be the most glamorous test in the PC Mag labs, but it's a noble task; ink is expensive, so it's important to make sure cartridges will print as much as the manufacturers claim they will. The yield test is a three-week process, and Brian is unfortunately only in week one. Hang in there, man; the PC printing world is in your debt.

That's it for this week. The rest of the Lab gang will be back next time to tip you off about the goings on in the PC Mag labs and just what the next big must-have gadget might be. Let's hope, whatever it is, that it doesn't launch for a couple months at least. After the iPhone frenzy, we all could use a bit of a break.

Post by Matt Safford