$600 Notebook Roundup - Crowning the Affordability King
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 29, 2005 10:38 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Final Words
The first and most important point that we want you to take away from this roundup is that for $600, you can actually get a pretty decent notebook. The build quality of all of the notebooks here was far from poor, and any of these notebooks have the performance and battery life to work just fine as entry level machines.
The next thing to keep in mind is that it is very easy to have a $600 notebook turn into a $1000 notebook with options and upgrades that manufacturers will push on you before you check out. If we could have anything on these notebooks, it'd be: more memory and wireless support. Not a single notebook in this roundup offered us more than 256MB of RAM, and for Windows XP these days, you need 512MB to keep from swapping to that slow 2.5" hard drive. The Compaq offerings all gave us built-in wireless, but generally for less than $50, you can add wireless support to both the Gateway and Dell solutions - and for a notebook, it's definitely worth it.
With those points aside, which notebook gets our recommendation? While the Dell offered the best all-out performance, the Gateway NX200S actually offered the best overall package. Delivering significantly longer battery life and competitive performance all in a more compact and portable package than the Compaq and Dell solutions, it's hard to find fault with what Gateway has delivered. Our only complaint? Ours didn't come with wireless by default, but it looks like the unit now does come with integrated wireless while still selling for less than $600 after mail-in rebate.
So it is with great honor and appreciation that we give Gateway our Editor's Choice Gold Award for the Best $600 Notebook.
Our second pick would probably go to the Compaq Presario V2000, but given that it is bigger and has a shorter battery life, there's really no reason to consider it over the Gateway.
As we mentioned earlier, we look forward to reviewing Dell's latest additions to their Inspiron line to see how they stack up to the Gateway and competitors.
The first and most important point that we want you to take away from this roundup is that for $600, you can actually get a pretty decent notebook. The build quality of all of the notebooks here was far from poor, and any of these notebooks have the performance and battery life to work just fine as entry level machines.
The next thing to keep in mind is that it is very easy to have a $600 notebook turn into a $1000 notebook with options and upgrades that manufacturers will push on you before you check out. If we could have anything on these notebooks, it'd be: more memory and wireless support. Not a single notebook in this roundup offered us more than 256MB of RAM, and for Windows XP these days, you need 512MB to keep from swapping to that slow 2.5" hard drive. The Compaq offerings all gave us built-in wireless, but generally for less than $50, you can add wireless support to both the Gateway and Dell solutions - and for a notebook, it's definitely worth it.
With those points aside, which notebook gets our recommendation? While the Dell offered the best all-out performance, the Gateway NX200S actually offered the best overall package. Delivering significantly longer battery life and competitive performance all in a more compact and portable package than the Compaq and Dell solutions, it's hard to find fault with what Gateway has delivered. Our only complaint? Ours didn't come with wireless by default, but it looks like the unit now does come with integrated wireless while still selling for less than $600 after mail-in rebate. So it is with great honor and appreciation that we give Gateway our Editor's Choice Gold Award for the Best $600 Notebook.
Our second pick would probably go to the Compaq Presario V2000, but given that it is bigger and has a shorter battery life, there's really no reason to consider it over the Gateway.
As we mentioned earlier, we look forward to reviewing Dell's latest additions to their Inspiron line to see how they stack up to the Gateway and competitors.
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johnsonx - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Inspiron 6000 (can be had for $600 on the right day)Acer Aspire 3003
Rudimentary gaming benchmarks. Yes, most current games are almost unplayable on these, but some would probably play fine. I played Dungeon Siege LOA quite happily on my Inspiron 6000, and old Unreal Tournament works great (even UT2k4 is just barely playable at 640x480x16, though very ugly). It would also be nice to see how much better ATI integrated gfx are vs. Intel (and SiS Mirage 2 in the case of the Acer).
hondaman - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I agree that its long overdue for a laptop graphics gaming review. Using all the common graphics, integrated or not, like the mirage 2, x200m, 700m, 9700, and all the assorted nvidia ones.johnsonx - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
"with the Dell doing absolutely dismally at only 144 minutes. The only tangible advantage we can see that Gateway has in this case is that they use an older chipset"...The tangible disadvantage for the Dell is that they use the old NiMH battery instead of Lithium ion. I have the original version of that laptop, the Inspiron 1000. It's battery life sucked even worse, plus it died after only 5 months.
If you even remotely care about battery life, DON'T buy a dell with the NiMH battery. Don't buy a Dell without a 1-year warranty either.
ksherman - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Is there any hope for upgrades in these laptops? Like if I poped the hood off the COmpaq (Smepron of course) and threw in a Turion MT processor... or even a pentium M for the others, is that something doable?Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I know for a fact that the compaqs are upgradable. you can upgrade the processor/ram/hd/optical drive.bloc - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/compute...">http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopp...el=2&...IT's TFT XGA, not WXGA.
SilverTrine - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I'm amazed that Gateway tries to charge $50 shipping on a notebook. Anands assertion of $600 laptops is misleading, with shipping and tax this laptop is $800.KCjeeper - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I purchased one of these Gateway laptops a few weeks ago and am very pleased with it. Mine came with the wireless G and I only paid $579.bldckstark - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I am curious as to which company(ies) denied access to test parts. It doesn't make a whole lot of difference, but I wonder who is so embarassed of their product that they don't want them compared openly.bjacobson - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Something worth noting is that the good battery life on the V2000 is thanks to the Intel 2200BG integrated wireless, not the Broadcom wireless. The Broadcom is what made the V2000z Sempron's do so poorly.