Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
NVIDIA ION
NVIDIA's ION platform uses the same N270/N280 Atom CPUs we've already discussed, but instead of the anemic GMA 950 Intel GPU you get an ION GPU - essentially the equivalent of the 9400M G. ION is significantly faster than GMA 950, but the Atom CPU is such a huge bottleneck that it really doesn't make for better gaming in the majority of titles. ION also helps with video decoding, and the combination of Atom and ION with the Flash 10.1 Beta allows for fullscreen HD video playback on YouTube, Hulu, and other similar sites. Without ION, you'll want to avoid HD Flash video on Atom netbooks.
The only real option for NVIDIA ION in this price bracket is the base model of the HP Mini 311. It's priced at exactly $400 (barring any holiday sales), and it comes with the bare minimum of amenities. You do get an HDMI port and an 11.6" 1366x768 LCD, but you only get 1GB RAM and an N270 CPU. HP's 311 integrates the 1GB of RAM on the motherboard, though, so you can easily upgrade the RAM on your own after the fact. The other ION netbooks are the Lenovo IdeaPad S12, which starts at around $430 with 1GB RAM and XP or $550 with 2GB and Windows 7; meanwhile, the Samsung N510 doesn't have an inexpensive option, going for 2GB and Windows 7 for closer to $600. In short, all of the ION netbooks are in the next price bracket after we make a few upgrades.
Intel CULV Laptops
Atom has a reputation of "fast enough" performance with great battery life and a low cost. It provides all of that, sure, but the catch is you can get something much better from Intel if you look around. The Celeron SU2300 is a dual-core CPU based on the Core 2 architecture, with a 10W TDP. However, TDP isn't a real indication of power requirements, and in testing it appears most of the 10W CULV CPUs are able to match Atom CPUs (within a few hundred milliwatts) in low power states.
CULV laptops do cost more than Atom laptops, but if you're looking at an Atom-based laptop costing $400 or more, you'd be crazy not to take a closer look at the CULV options. Even the Celeron SU2300 (1.2GHz, 1MB shared cache) is more than a match for the fastest single-core Atom CPUs - in raw performance, it's about twice as fast. Dual-core Atom CPUs should match the slower CULV processors, but pricing is going to be a wash as well.
There are at present two CULV laptops that meet our $400 criterion: the Acer Aspire 1410 and the Gateway EC1435u. The differences between these two laptops are mostly cosmetic, so buy whichever you like. Similar to ION, you get an HDMI port, the CPU will provide substantially more performance, and the GMA 4500MHD graphics will help with video decoding (unlike the GMA 950). You also get two SO-DIMM slots and a standard 2GB RAM (but it's 2x1GB so you'll have to ditch the SO-DIMMs if you want to upgrade to 4GB). Battery life is quite similar to what we've measured with Atom netbooks, with over 7 hours out of a 53Wh battery.
If it weren't for the Celeron SU2300 laptops, NVIDIA's ION would be a lot more attractive. That said, Flash 10.1 still doesn't decode all HD videos without a few stutters on CULV + GMA 4500MHD; 720p is usually fine, but higher bitrate videos and 1080p stutter. It's very likely an issue with the Intel drivers and the Flash 10.1 beta, though, as DXVA allows flawless 1080p x264 playback on these systems. Flash 10.1 also appears to have some image quality issues right now, so we're waiting for the final release to see how things pan out.
Other Inexpensive Options
We'll mention these last, but you can often find sales and used laptops for under $400. As one example, the Gateway NV52 we reviewed a few months ago, originally priced at $500, has been on sale for $400 several times during the past few weeks. If you value raw performance over battery life, the dual-core AMD laptops with HD 3200 graphics are worth a look, especially if you can find them for $400.
Our opinion on used laptops isn't nearly so positive. Unless you know the seller personally, buying used represents a risk, and buying used from an online auction site like eBay could come back to haunt you. Assuming all goes well, you can get a 2-3 year old laptop offering better performance than most new $400 laptops, but it will have (substantially) worse battery life. You might also find that the battery has gone through enough cycles that it needs replacing, which could end up being another $100 cost. We're not going to say you should never buy used laptops, but we definitely recommend caution. As the saying goes: if a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.
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zicozz - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
I'm looking for a smaller laptop and I'm currently aiming at either the Asus UV30 or the Asus F83. Can't seem to find any reviews of the F83, but the UV30 seems to be the king in this hill in it's class.zicozz - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
Sorry UL30 not UV30JarredWalton - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
The major difference between the UL80Vt and the UL30Vt is the screen size (13.3" for the UL30Vt) and the lack of an optical drive. It also weighs about 1 pound less. If you want something a bit smaller, go for it, but make sure you get the UL30Vt; there's an older UL30 that doesn't support Turbo33 and comes with a smaller battery I believe.jtsarnak - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
I cannot recommend any Sony laptops, even the SR mentioned in this article for its good screen. I am the owner of a Z series and this laptop would have been near perfect except for one problem that is plauging most of Sony's line: Battery Drain.See here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
And here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2...
These are just two examples, there are a ton of threads out there discussing the problem. Sony's line has the unfortunate "feature" of draining the battery while the laptop is completely shut down. I say "feature" because numerous consumer attempts to get Sony to rectify the issue have been met with a canned response that this is typical for their laptops.
I have also emailed various websites and publications in an effort to get someone with a little more visibility and press to address the issue with Sony but to no avail. Sony continues to get good reviews on their machines but I'm doubting the reviewers ever bother to look for the drain during the review process.
Maybe Anandtech will take up the call. Sony is delivering a defective product (a mobile device that loses battery when it is shut off is, imho, defective) and claiming it as a "feature". Anandtech did a great job getting to the bottom of the SSD debacle with the JMicron drives, perhaps they can help us Sony owners as well. In the meantime, avoid these laptops if you don't plan on having it forever plugged in when you're not using it.
aznchum - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
I'm an avid fan of IPS panels, and the only notebooks that I know carried them were the Flexview Panels on the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. If LCD quality is of a huge concern to you, you probably are better off picking up a Thinkpad x200 (non s) and retrofitting a BOE-Hydis HV121WX4-100 panel (12.1" 1280x800) in it. However, most of these panels floating around the market have a digitizer attached, since they're sourced from tablet PCs. So the mod is kind of a pain in the ass. I personally have modded a T60p with a QXGA screen and found it to be a relatively easy mod with the hardware maintenance manual. The 4:3 15" chassis of the T60/61 and R60/61 are probably the fastest notebooks you can buy that come with Flexview panels. If you're not snobby about LCDs, then go with the recommendations in this guide.CheesePoofs - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
Thanks for the article, I've been looking forward to something like this!The UL30VT seems pretty interesting to me - same specs as the UL80VT but smaller package making the low-res screen a bit more bearable (I hope).
Also is there any word on when Arrandale laptops will come out? I've heard Jan 7th for Arrandale chips, but I have no sense of what the delay is between chip release and laptop availability.
btmedic04 - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
I recently purchased a Sony Vaio VPPCW17FX at Best Buy for $799 (before tax) and I am absolutely thrilled with it (especially since i was coming from an ancient HP ZV6000 series with a desktop Athlon 64 3200 that weighed 7 lbs and looks like hell. served its purpose though, but i sure was surprised to see it survive a deployment to Iraq lol)Specs are as follows:
Intel Core2Duo T6600 2.2ghz 2MB L2 800mhz FSB
4GB DDR3 1066 (for some reason at DDR3 800mhz with no option to set 1066 in bios >.< )
500GB Hard Drive
Nvidia G210M with 256mb GDDR3 ram
Blue-Ray player
14" Monitor @ 1366x768
5.5 lbs
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Not bad at all for the price I paid for it. It gets almost 3 hours of battery life with the Balance power plan in Windows 7. I also love the chic let style keyboard and theres no discernible flex in the chassis (as you can understand, im not about to try to fold my notebook in half long-ways LOL) It has 3 USB ports, a firewire 400 port, VGA port and HDMI. I havent tried any gaming on it yet, however I suspect with the lower resolution monitor, I should be able to play modern games with lower settings and older games with higher settings (much better than the integrated ATI Xpress 200m in my old laptop) I have hooked this laptop up to my 32" LCD TV and watched blue-ray movies at 720p with out any issues. Also, Sony released updated drivers for the G210M the day Nvidia did (I dont want to risk the nvidia release drivers as my friend totally destroyed all gaming capabilities on his laptop equiped with a Go7900GS. needless to say Toshiba sucks when it comes to driver updates) All in all, the VPCCW17FX is a great notebook at a great price
Roland00 - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
No intel Celeron t3000 dual core love?It is the same chip as the intel pentium dual core t4200 except it runs at 1.8 ghz instead of 2.0 ghz and intel speedstep has been disabled (thus it won't get good battery life). Yet I seen this chip routinely in the 320 to 450 price range for laptops and it should blow away the competition in that price range.
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40738">http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40738
JarredWalton - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
Is it really that much cheaper than the Pentium T4200/T4300 laptops? I see prices of $430 (Toshiba Satellite L455-S5980) to $500+ (Lenovo ThinkPad SL410/SL510), and that's not even with a well-equipped laptop (i.e. 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD). The Lenovo G550 is 3GB, 250GB HDD, and T4300 for http://www.provantage.com/lenovo-2958acu~7LENO1EE....">$495 or so. It's obviously not a huge jump from 1.8GHz 1MB to 2.1GHz 1MB, but SpeeStep is a pretty big omission IMO.Roland00 - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
The pentium t4200/t4300 will be about 50 dollars more on average. For example without any sale go to the Toshiba website and you can get a T3000, 2gb memory, 160 gb hd and wifi n For $400, it costs 44 more for the pentium dual core.Now the whole point of the t3000 though is not to buy the laptop at the normal price, the same or similar laptop will go on sale. For example fry's has had a similar laptop to the toshiba but an msi 14 inch on sale a couple times for $319 (once) and $349 (twice). The msi also didn't use intel integrated graphics but instead the 8200m (half the speed of the ion but still 30 to 40% faster than the 4500m hd)
$319 is only 20 dollars more than those mythical $299 acers/hps that walmart was selling that was using the amd single core at 1.6 ghz (tf-20)