Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Upper Midrange: $1150 to $1500
Naturally, you can add even more upgrades to many of the laptops mentioned so far to get them into this price range. If you purchased a laptop that doesn't get great battery life, you might consider adding a high capacity battery, or a second battery (or two) if you need to go untethered for a while. Batteries can be quite expensive, however, and the need to hibernate/resume when swapping batteries can be an annoyance.
The short summary of the upper midrange price segment is that you can get faster versions of midrange laptops. Where before you had to decide between either a faster GPU or a quad-core CPU, it's now possible to get both in a single system. You can also upgrade LCDs on some laptop models from large OEMs, like the Studio XPS 16 where the 1080p RGB LED LCD adds $250 to the price. If you want a good LCD, there's a lot to like with the Studio XPS 16 (and presumably any other RGB LED LCDs, though they're hard to find).
The big problem with laptops once you get into this price range is that many are unbalanced in one fashion. Ultra-fast CPUs with low-end GPUs are usually unnecessary, and in fact most laptop users rarely need the fastest CPU options. Adding $250 to move from a P8600 to a T9700 is a lot of money for a small increase in performance; a good SSD would almost certainly be a far more noticeable upgrade (albeit with less capacity). Let's talk about our two top recommendations for this price bracket, representing very different computing styles.
Another Good LCD
Dell has been doing some pretty nice sales during the holidays and the Dell Studio XPS 16 is currently going for $1049 ($309 instant savings). We'd add the 1080p RGB LED, HD 4670 GPU, and a 9-cell battery to get the price to $1444. At that point, you can decide if that's all you need or if you'd like an SSD, Blu-ray drive, a faster CPU, or perhaps a different color chassis - we like the white chassis, as the black casing is a fingerprint magnet. Some of the options obviously push the Studio XPS 16 into high-end territory, and without the rebate it's difficult to get a reasonably configured system for under $1500. For a good LCD, it's going to be difficult to beat this particular Dell (even if the contrast ratio is "only" 500:1).
Midrange Gaming II
If you're after raw performance, one of the best candidates we've tested is the ASUS G51J. It comes loaded with just about everything you could want, outside of battery life. The G51J uses the latest Core i7-720QM CPU, which provides four CPU cores with four additional virtual cores via Hyper-Threading. The standard clock speed of 1.6GHz is a limitation for heavily threaded tasks, but the Turbo modes allow single-threaded clock speeds of up to 2.8GHz. The net result is that it provides plenty of speed for most users and is plenty fast for gaming laptops that don't use multiple GPUs.
On the graphics side, ASUS includes a GeForce GTX 260M (similar to the 9800M GT but clocked faster). It's not as fast as desktop GTX 260 cards, but it's fast enough to run many games at the native 1920x1080 LCD resolution and high detail settings. Laptops with GTX 280M are about 20% faster in GPU limited situations, but they also cost several hundred dollars more - we'll discuss those options in the high-end category. The G51J also includes 4GB DDR3 memory and two 320GB 7200RPM hard drives (not in RAID by default). The LCD is a low contrast panel, and battery life maxes out at around 90 minutes (with a relatively small 53Wh battery), but those are the only complaints we have with the G51J. ASUS also has a "3D" model with NVIDIA's 3D VISION glasses and a 120Hz LCD, but the cost for that upgrade is an extra $250.
Really, if you're interested in an affordable gaming laptop, just try to find anything with (in order of decreasing performance) a GTX 260M, 9800M GTX/GT, 8800M GTX, GTS 260M, GTS 160M/9800M GTS (essentially the same thing), 9800M GS, GTS 250M, GTS 150M, or 8800M GTS. Yes, that's a completely confusing list, and that's just the NVIDIA side of things! All of those chips have at least 64 SPs and as many as 112 SPs (for the GTX 260M), with 256-bit memory interfaces. They can all handle 1280x800 at high detail, and 1440x900 for nearly all of the GPUs (with a few games causing problems). You'll want the 96 SPs or more to run 1680x1050 and 1080p resolutions.
On the ATI side, there are quite a few theoretical chips that we're waiting to see in actual laptops, and we're not sold on their mobile drivers. They've updated drivers a couple times with the Win7 launch, but it's not clear if that's the way of things to come or if that was just a short-term decision to get Win7 performance up to snuff. The fastest single-GPU ATI solution that we're aware of is the HD 4850 which shipped in the MSI GT725, but finding that laptop in stock anywhere is a crapshoot at best; performance would be competitive with the GTX 260M should you find one, but pricing is generally going to be above $1500. A rumored Mobility Radeon HD 5670 may come out at some point, but it's not shipping. In fact, the fastest shipping ATI solution that you can find for under $1500 is going to be the Mobility Radeon HD 4670, which has half as many stream processors (320) as the HD 4830. You can find this GPU in the Dell Studio XPS 16, which we already discussed.
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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)