Mobile Buyers' Guide: 14" and Larger Notebooks and DTRs
by Dustin Sklavos on June 30, 2010 12:53 AM ESTFull-On Gaming Machine: ASUS G73Jh
Our final recommendation in this roundup is for the best gaming machine you can get while still paying at least a sensible amount of money, and that machine is the ASUS G73Jh. We gave it our Editor's Choice award in our review, and it's pretty easy to see why.
For a second, let's ignore the meaty hardware built into the chassis and just appreciate the subtler, solid build of the G73. The stealth-bomber-inspired design seems unusual at first, but the notebook is virtually devoid of gloss, and is vastly more attractive than its predecessors. The old ASUS Republic of Gamers-branded notebooks were great in their own right, but the build of the G73 seals the deal.
Or is it the fact that our review machine came with a Core i7-720QM, 8GB of DDR3 (in four slots!), two 500GB 7200-RPM hard drives, a 2.1 speaker system with built-in subwoofer, and one of the fastest mobile GPUs on the market, the Mobility Radeon HD 5870? Stack all that with a high-contrast 1080p screen and a remarkably low $1505 price tag and you have both a bargain and a fantastic piece of hardware. If that price isn't low enough, ASUS sells a cut-down G73Jh-RBBX05 model at Best Buy that drops the screen resolution down to 1600x900, drops 2GB of RAM and one of the hard drives, but keeps the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 and Core i7-720QM...for $1199. Good luck even finding another machine sporting hardware that powerful for that price.
The ASUS G73 is big, powerful, quiet, and priced aggressively by a company hungry for market share, and it's our pick for the best full-on gaming machine you can buy without breaking the bank.
Gaming Notebook Runners Up: Alienware M17x and Clevo W880CU
If you're looking for alternatives, you can pick up laptops with Radeon HD 5870 CrossFire for around $2500 (with a few upgrades). Eurocom has a customized version of the Clevo X8100 with 5870 CrossFire (or you can get it with GTX 285M SLI), but the Alienware M17x looks better and packs some compelling features. Topping the list of nice extras is the WUXGA RGB LED display, a $200 upgrade that's worth every penny in our book. While we have little doubt the NVIDIA GTX 480M is going to be a faster GPU than the HD 5870, there aren't any SLI notebooks with 480M yet—and that's going to be difficult to manage, considering each GPU can draw 100 watts!
But there are advantages to single GPUs, like not having to worry about CrossFire/SLI profiles for your favorite game to come out. If you want GTX 480M, you can pick up the Clevo W880CU. One of the first companies to start shipping these bad boys is AVADirect, but it's not going to come cheap. If you must have the absolute fastest, most ridiculous piece of gaming kit, the W880CU aims to satisfy, available with the scorching 100-watt TDP GeForce GTX 480M. Given the lackluster lead the Mobility Radeon HD 5870 had on the GeForce GTX 285M, it's easy to expect the 480M to claim the crown of fastest mobile GPU available. You'll pay a pretty penny for it and the cooling required is going to be decidedly bulky, but if you must have the fastest, Clevo's W880CU will deliver. We're not sold on the design of the W880CU and we'll have a review in the near future, but the 480M is the fastest current single-GPU mobile solution.
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ericgl21 - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Eventhough those Precision models are on the expensive side, they are considered well-built and powerful machines.I wonder why Anand "forgot" about those...
Silma - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Recommending untested products is unprofessional and a joke.sheltem - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Phenomenal laptop but a little pricey, but I was able to swing one for $1861 after discounts. Not a single bit of gloss anywhere, even on the screen. Also has firewire and a expresscard 54 slot that the reviewer was jonesing for :) If you opt for the FirePro 7820, which is the professional version of the Mobility 5870, you can drive up to 4 displays, including the laptop! Tomshardware has a picture here:http://media.bestofmicro.com/,J-Q-243062-3.jpg
They have a premium panel option called Dream Color 2. It's a 10-bit IPS panel. I opted for the standard 1920x1200 panel which is a 8-bit TN panel.
Drag0nFire - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Surprised Lenovo wasn't given any consideration, particularly for the "portability" category. This seems like an oversight. It may not be your personal favorite (and what they did to the screens is a pity), but many people stand by the build quality and overall ThinkPad design. I've never yet met someone who's unhappy about a ThinkPad... and I can say all my friends were jealous of mine in college.racerx_is_alive - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Copied and pasted a few of the winners and suggestions into google, but there were a few that didn't turn up any reasonable responses. Searched amazon and newegg as well, hoping that perhaps some of the recommendations were product families and they'd give me related results. Perhaps the reviewer could include some links to where these laptops can be purchased?JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
All of these should be readily available... we've reviewed many of them. Which ones are you unable to find? I may go back through and try to dig up links, though....JarredWalton - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Or not... it seems Acer has quietly discontinued the 5740G-6979 and replaced it with a much slower HD 5470 model. The 7740G with HD 5650 is still readily available, but it's 17.3" instead of 15.6".A few other options for moderate gaming:
MSI GE600 (i5-430M + HD 5650) for $860:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch_v3.asp?px=FO&...
Sony VAIO VPCEB1PFX/B (i3-330M + HD 5650) for $920:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtool...
Toshiba A665D-S6059 (Phenom II P920 + HD4250/5650) for $860 (review is coming next week):
http://www.antonline.com/p_PSAX3U-002004-GP_822084...
ASUS G51JX-X1/X3 (i5-430M/i7-720QM + GTS 360M) for ~$1100:
http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Gamers-G51JX-X3-15-...
I'm putting in links for the remaining laptops, though.
racerx_is_alive - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
Thanks for putting in those links- The two that I had problems searching for were the Acer one you mentioned, and the ASUS at the beginning. I had searched for the text straight from the heading "ASUS K42J" (without quotes) and it didn't give me anything promising on the first page, mostly a bunch of forums. The link is great though.Thanks
Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
The K42J is on NewEgg's site:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
It looks like it has a low rating, but one of the users is mostly just griping about functionality that the majority of modern notebooks don't have (he's upset the graphics aren't switchable in the BIOS, which is absurd).
bji - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
As time goes on I realize that my dream of ever finding a laptop to better my Panasonic Y2 from 2005 are never going to come to fruition. Because in order to beat the Y2, someone is going to have to offer a laptop that:- Has a 14 inch or larger display with a resolution *at least* 1400x1050
- Weighs no more than 3.5 lbs
- Is fanless
I think that with today's tech this is certainly possible; ultra low power Core 2 processors match the power consumption of the Pentium M in the Y2 and should be able to go fanless. Displays are better now than back in 2005 so there's no reason that a 1400x1050 14 inch display is not possible (of course these days it would probably have to be widescreen, but there is no reason that it has to have fewer pixels! 1366x768? That's just pathetic!). And Panasonic already proved that you can build such a machine at 3 lbs 4 oz five years ago. That's 3 lbs 4 ounces including a built-in DVD player/CD-RW drive and a battery big enough for 5+ hours battery life.
Yes, Panasonic did all that (and more!) in 2005, and I have yet to see any laptop in the last 5 years that even comes close. Things seem to just be getting worse with ever new laptop seemingly heavier than the last, with more cheap plastic than ever, lower resolutions, and OH LOOK SHINY displays.
I would gladly plunk down another $2,500 for a laptop that was a reasonable update to the Y2. I use my laptops for 5 years at least (still use the Y2 daily) so I don't think that cost is unjustified for a quality product. Unfortunately, in these days when nobody wants to pay more than $1,000 for a laptop, I suspect I may be the last person on earth in this market and no company is ever going to offer any laptop that is actually better than the Y2. So sad.