Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
What about Apple?
You might have noticed that we haven't said a word about Apple so far. There are enough fans that we felt a more thorough overview was warranted. Apple MacBooks fall into either the midrange or high-end categories, though it can be difficult to stomach the cost of the more expensive MacBook Pro models. Here's the rundown.
Apple MacBook
The Apple MacBook line becomes an option with $1000 to spend, though you're limited to the base model MacBook. It comes with a Core 2 Duo 2.26GHz, 3MB L2, 1066FSB CPU (presumably the P8400), GeForce 9400M IGP, 802.11n, Bluetooth, a 1280x800 LCD, 250GB hard drive, 2GB DDR3 (standard), and OS X. We'd go ahead and grab the 4GB memory upgrade as well, which bumps the price up to $1100. If you're not interested in Mac OS X, we'd skip Apple in general, but many people have made the switch and have no regrets.
Apple MacBook Pro
We have already done significant coverage of the latest MacBook Pro offerings. The short summary is you can get good performance and great battery life in an attractive chassis. As Anand puts it, most of the decision has been distilled down to choosing your LCD/chassis size… most, but not all.
The Apple MacBook Pro 13" model starts at $1200 (less if you don't go through the Apple store - see below). It's nicer than the $1000 MacBook, but you're still going to need to answer the question of whether you want to switch to OS X or not. If you're not looking to leave the MS Windows camp, we don't see much point in buying a Mac. 2.26GHz CPU, 2GB DDR3, and a 9400M IGP, all for just $1200. You can get a Dell Studio 14z with a faster CPU, the 900p LCD, a 3-year warranty, and an 8-cell battery for about the same price, or stick with a 2.2GHz CPU, 768p LCD, and 1-year warranty (but keep the 8-cell battery!) for $914. The Mac looks nicer, and it will deliver better battery life when running OS X, but by no means is it competitive in terms of pricing.
The base 15" model "forces" an upgrade from the 2.26GHz to a 2.53GHz CPU and from 2GB to 4GB memory. Beyond those upgrades, Apple charges a $200 price premium for the 15" model, part of which goes to the 1440x900 LCD and larger battery. This is the opposite of most PC laptops, where smaller laptops are usually more expensive (provided components are the same), since it takes more effort to cram the same amount of "stuff" into a smaller chassis. The 15" model also offers a $50 upsell to a matte LCD… highly recommended!
The move from the 15" to the 17" comes with a similar premium and required upgrades. You get a minimum 2.8GHz CPU, 9400M IGP + 9600M GT graphics, and a 500GB hard drive. There's another $200 charge for the larger MBP, which includes a higher resolution 1920x1200 LCD and battery upgrades. An anti-glare (matte) LCD is again available… too bad we can't add one of those to the 13" model.
While many people look to Apple when buying a MacBook, if you don't need to customize you can save about $50, and many merchants are currently offering up to $150 mail-in rebates. The base 13" MBP is available for $1050 after $100 rebate, and the upgraded 13" goes for $1300 after $130 rebate. 15" stock configuration MacBook Pros are available for $1500 ($130 rebate), $1750 ($150 rebate), and $2000 ($150 rebate). Finally, you can get the 17" MBP for $2200 ($150 rebate). The only drawback is that none of these offers will get you the matte LCD… so you're really looking at a $200 cost to upgrade to the matte LCD, which is a bit much for most users.
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JarredWalton - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
I've placed an order... I'll do a review if they work well.yacoub - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20091118/by-manf....">http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20091118/by-manf....I can't find the initial article anymore but this just came out a couple weeks ago.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.htm...">http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.htm...
HP had the most quality issues, Asus the least.
Blahman - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
If you thought the UL80Vt was good, check out its newer slimmer brother: the UL30Vt. It shares all the same specs, but better build quality and all packed into a thinner, lighter chassis.It's available from Amazon for $800. The reviews so far are very positive.
http://www.amazon.com/UL30Vt-X1-13-3-Inch-Laptop-W...">http://www.amazon.com/UL30Vt-X1-13-3-In...ctronics...
trickdaddy111m - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
The UL30Vt does look very nice, but it lacks discrete graphics and the Turbo function of the UL80Vt. So, "same specs" is not accurate.KikassAssassin - Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - link
The UL30Vt has turbo and the discrete graphics. The specs are exactly the same as the UL80Vt except it has a 1" smaller screen, no optical drive, and a slightly smaller battery.You're probably looking at the UL30A.
KikassAssassin - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
The UL30Vt looks like a really nice alternative if you want something lighter than the UL80Vt and you don't need an optical drive. Unfortunately, the UL30Vt on Amazon is the X1 model that only has a 4400 mAh battery, compared to the UL80Vt-A1's 5600 mAh battery, so it'll only have about 80% of the battery life. The battery life should still be excellent, just not quite as amazing as the UL80Vt'stechwriters4breakfast - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
atom 2arrandale
bsoft16384 - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
I just want to give another shout out for the Acer 1410. This is an absolutely fantastic notebook for $400.I have the single-core version (Core 2 Solo SU3500, 1.4GHz, 3M cache) so it's somewhat faster on single-threaded code but slower on multi-threaded code than the Celeron SU2300 (1.2GHz, 1M cache). That said, I have no performance complaints about the laptop.
GPU performance is, as you would expect, pretty bad. But it's still dramatically ahead of a GMA950-based netbook (around 5X by my estimations), which makes it fine for playing older titles like Warcraft III, CS 1.6, UT classic or 2004, Quake 3 / OpenArena, Half-Life.
Even WoW runs "OK" on the Acer 1410, as long as you're willing to deal with ~20-30 FPS and a slideshow in Dalaran. But you *can* run it, and it's fine for doing dailies or checking the AH. I have my desktop if I want to play for real.
The keyboard is excellent, except for the page up/down buttons (which are annoyingly above the arrow keys) and home/end (combined with page up / down). Other than those annoyances, the keyboard is full-sized and has the layout that you would expect.
The screen is decently bright; contrast is "OK" but not great, and the viewing angle is lame (but so are most laptops). It's easily better than my ThinkPad T61.
There are some surprises port-wise: the 1410 has HDMI (with 8-channel LPCM audio) and the audio-out port does SPDIF/TOSLINK (with a 3.5mm to TOSLINK adapter), neither of which are common on a $400 laptop.
The WiFi is Intel 5100 802.11n, which is also nice. Ethernet is Atheros, audio is Realtek.
As you would expect with an ULV notebook, the 1410 doesn't really ever get hot, even at 100% CPU / GPU. It's not particularly noisy either, unless you have a defective fan (as my first one from Amazon did).
The 1410 takes forever to charge from empty (2.5 hours if off, 3-4 if on). That's because it uses the same 30W power supply as the Aspire One. On the other hand, the power adapter is very small and decently cheap, both of which are pluses.
Battery life is 5-6 hours, depending on how hard you push the machine. At idle, at minimum brightness, Windows reports over 12 hours, but you can't achieve this in practice. With light web browsing and Flashblock, expect 6+ hours.
The touchpad is Synaptics, and does multi-touch.
This system is the smallest, lightest system that I would consider a 'notebook' rather than a 'netbook'. I considered the HP Mini 311, but it maxes out at 3GB and doesn't support x86-64 or virtualization, plus the Core 2 Solo beats the pants off of the Atom. NVIDIA ION isn't really a whole lot better than the GMA X4500MHD, because the Atom CPU prevents you from playing any modern games anyway and the GMA X4500 does fine for Windows Aero and HD video acceleration.
Two years ago the Aspire 1410 would have cost $2000 and would be called an 'ultralight'. Today it's $400.
Keeir - Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - link
Don't forget its slightly more expensive brotherTimeline 1810T-8
Core 2 Duo (SU7300), 4 Gigs of Ram, Bluetooth, Larger HD, same wieght and battery
Picked mine up for <600 from Amazon (though I see they have ballons to close to 700)
notanakin - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
Unfortunately this guide came out just a few days too late, but fortunately I'd settled on the Acer 1410 (SU2300) and it's a nice little machine. Certainly fast enough for simple tasks and for my old eyes the screen size is better than the 10.1 inchers.Here's a very useful link to a table of laptops/CPUs/Screen size prepared for the recent PC Show in Singapore where I bought the laptop. Great for doing some quick comparisons.
(Prices are in Singapore $ - about US$1=S$1.4, so the prices are a bit more expensive than in the USA, but they give some discounts off the published price and throw in stuff - I got an external DVD-writer plus a few smaller things with the Acer.)
But how I HATE the glossy screen. Are they cheaper than matte screens or what? I'd gladly pay US$50 more for a matte screen.