Holiday Buyer's Guide: Notebooks
by Dustin Sklavos on November 15, 2010 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Guides
- Holiday 2010
Best Mainstream: Dell XPS L501x ($980 with 1080p)
This one should really come as no surprise: it seems like Jarred fell in love with the L501x the moment he laid eyes on it. While some commenters found Dell's styling on their reinvigorated XPS line less than appealing, it must be said: the L501x has a great personality.
Our review unit brought the usual Core i5 along with some new hotness in the form of Nvidia's GeForce GT 420M graphics. While the GeForce GT 430 may not be a very exciting desktop part, it seems to shine a lot brighter in a mobile form factor, as the 420M brings 96 of Nvidia's shader processors to bear and is able to produce gaming performance that can finally catch up with ATI's Mobility Radeon HD 4650/5650 and even scrape or beat the GeForce GT 335M. That kind of advance was a long time coming.
But wait, there's more! The L501x offers an incredibly tantalizing upgrade at a reasonable price: a WLED backlit 1080p screen that ranks among the best we've ever seen. At a time when we'd gotten frankly depressed by the idea of having to test yet another dismal TN panel, the L501x's upgraded screen blew away our testing by producing a staggering 692:1 contrast ratio and 98.3% of the AdobeRGB color gamut, well above the usual 45%-60% we're used to seeing. Oh, and did we mention the speakers are among the best we've heard on a notebook?
Those looking for a well-rounded [Ed: pun intended?] laptop are going to have a hard time doing any better than the Dell XPS L501x, and we gave it our Gold Editors' Choice award.
Mainstream Runner Up: HP Envy 14
You know, it's frustrating because we'd really like to be able to lay hands on the mythical HP Envy 14 that regularly gets recommended in our comments and deliver the final word, and that's part of the reason it hangs out in runner up territory.
HP's Envy 14 brings a Mobility Radeon HD 5650 to the party along with the usual Core 2010 series of processors, and it does this in a unique 14.5" chassis. The performance and high quality design have become the stuff of myth around here, and we'd likely be crucified not to bring up the HP Envy 14, so here we offer it as a potentially worthy alternative to the L501x. We're still waiting on our review unit (we expect it to be personally delivered by Godot), but our comment boards light up each review with glowing endorsements of the Envy 14. It looks great on paper, great in pictures, and everyone loves it, and that's enough for us to tentatively recommend the Envy 14.
Mainstream Alternatives
This one is a bit more difficult, as you need to define the target audience and decide on what classifies as "mainstream". For us, mainstream means that a laptop can do everything reasonably well, even if it doesn't excel in any one area. The XPS L501x works great for music, movies, and even moderate gaming, and the same goes for the Envy 14. If you're looking for something similar but you're willing to give up build quality and features, there are other options of course.
Acer/Gateway are the quintessential budget laptops everyone sees at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, CostCo, etc., and while they may not win any beauty pageants they certainly are affordable! Toshiba also has some viable notebooks in the realm. For those who want it all, the minimum you can spend while still covering your bases is around $750. That will get you a reasonable CPU and dedicated GPU, with switchable graphics giving you better battery life when you don't need the GPU. The Acer 5742G-7200 gives you i5-460M with GT 420M and Optimus, or the Toshiba A665D-S6059 gives you Phenom P920 and HD 5650 with a backlit keyboard; for pure performance, the Acer 5742G definitely has the edge, particularly when you consider the 450MHz clock on the Toshiba's GPU and the fact that even an i3-330M CPU manages to beat the P920 in nearly every benchmark.
If you're willing to sacrifice battery life and give up switchable graphics, a few other alternatives show up. Acer's Aspire 5551G starting at $630 can certainly play games with its dual-core P520 CPU (2.3GHz) and HD 5650 graphics, but again you have to live with the keyboard and overall aesthetic. Toshiba's L655-S5111 gives you a faster Intel i3-370M CPU with the same HD 5650 GPU for $70 more. If you don't mind last-gen DX10 graphics, the Gateway ID49C (i3-370M and GT330M) and ASUS N82Jv (i5-450M and GT335M) also include Optimus and reasonable prices. None of the alternatives really manage to knock it out of the park, with various compromises in each case, but they can all handle just about any task you might want to throw their way.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
50 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Monday, November 15, 2010 - link
Fixed, thanks.StrangerGuy - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
For those who are lucky enough to purchase one, 3820TG with 5650m is the undisputed king of ultraportables...Zero contest when talking about the ~$800 price range.satyr451 - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
100% agree! I looked around at a pile of laptops and that system (Acer TimelineX 3820TG) is nothing short of amazing for the price. I just got it a few days ago and I'm all around impressed with it. It looks nice, has great battery life, feels solid and the specs on it are great. Also, I don't mind the keyboard at all.mschira - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
There is one model missing from the list: the Sony Vaio z-series.The light gaming powerhouse!
Having a GT 330 and up to i7 CPUs, a high definition screen in a 1.4 kilo 13" package is simply amazing.
And it not more expensive than similarly speced MacBook Pro 15".
If you recommend the apples, you have to consider the Sony, too.
Worse I hear Anand complaining that all the notebooks are alike that there is no model standing out.
How does the z-series not stand out?
Cheers
M.
Evil_Sheep - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Anandtech didn't overlook the Z, but they noticed it stood out mostly in the wrong way: price. At $1700-2000 it even makes Apples look like a bargain.It's a nice machine but an overpriced niche product. If Sony dropped some of the bleeding-edge specs and released it at $1000-1200 they might not just be a bit-player in the notebook market.
mschira - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
But claiming that the Sony Z-series is overpriced it simply wrong.Yes they start at a whooping 1800, but then they come with a 128Gb SSD and with fast i5-460, 4 Gb of ram.
Try it yourself, for 1800 you get a Macbook pro 13 with an SSD but a slower CPU.
Yes the Z-series is expesive, but that's because the ONLY come with SSD.
And a fast one!
Now I hear Anand tell us all the time we WANT SSDs in our laptops.
M.
mschira - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
P.S. and whe you max them out the Sony Z series is 2800, but that's with a 8GB ram 256 SSD, i7-640 an Nvidia GT335 and a highdef screen.The mac 15' clocks in at a whooping 3500$ if you try to match this.
M.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Comparing with the MacBook isn't doing your argument any favors, as we've already established that they're fleecing the customer. Two 64GB SSDs will run about $220 at Newegg (and they'd actually be higher performance models than what Sony uses in all likelihood). Plus putting SSDs in RAID0 is stupid unless you're using models with excellent resiliency and garbage collection; I think Sony is using Samsung SSDs, which have neither feature.So start at a basic 13.3" laptop size. Acer gives you that in the 3820T for around $700. Now upgrade the keyboard to something decent with backlighting; that will cost around $50 tops. Put in Optimus 330M for around $100. Make a slick carbon fiber chassis for $100. Upgrade to dual SSDs for $150 (subtracting the standard HDD cost). Fingerprint reader and Bluetooth for $75. Upgrade the CPU to the i5-460M for $100. Toss in a good 900p LCD for $200 (being generous here). Add all of that up and we're looking at a base cost of around $1475, and I figure the above prices already account for the R&D department. So, your "Sony VAIO Z tax" looks to be around 22% -- just like Apple's MacBook tax I guess.
Is it an awesome laptop? By most accounts yes, though now I'd like to see the 420M in there instead of the 330M. But like the MacBook, you need to understand that you're paying significantly more for the "Sony experience". And honestly, dual HDD bays in a 13.1" chassis seems more like a case of proving you CAN do something as opposed to doing something people are clamoring for. I'd rather have a single 128GB SSD with good TRIM support than RAID0 64GB SSDs--or a single 256GB SSD with TRIM instead of RAID0 128GB SSDs. Or a bigger battery, or better cooling, or whatever. Again, not that the VAIO Z is bad, but it's almost an exercise in excess.
mschira - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Well if only there was 13" laptop with a Gt330. Or any other decent GPU for that matter. Of course I would not say no to an even better GPU (is the 420 better that the 330?).Or any real light 13" with a fast CPU for that matter - heck ANY notebook under 2k with a decent GPU - (maybe the alienware, but 11" is too small).
Nobody said the Sony Zs are cheap, but not more so than MacBook, and everybody seems to thinks it's kinda O.K. for them.
(Evil_Sheep even suggested the Sony prices make Mac look like a bargin - not so. Mac's are in fact more expensive, while weighting more).
Not sure what sort of SSD Sony is using, but I don't think they have really hard drive Bays in a 13" casing. They offer up to 4 SSDs in RAID and they sure don't have 4 bays.
In fact I would prefer a standard drive bay myself, so I can get a decent Sandforce SSD in case the factory build in models fail.
M.
narayanagame - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
what non sense are you talking...there is no competition for vaio z for its specs at that price..
i understand sony premium but vaio z is completely reasonable and i am being modest here.
whatever laptop u consider wont match vaio z with its specs for 3lb weight..
vaio z is marvelous.
look, u think 1800$ is premium price and in my country vaio z starts at 2200$ and i still feel its good enough.
in real there is no laptop that has as good specs as vaio z at its weight for that price.compare it with whatever you like nothing ll match atleast till CES 2011
now dont compare with macbook's,they are underpowered with shiny looking casing.
the main thing that goes for apple is good screen and battery life and aesthetics and for these they charge easily 40% extra.
if you think properly battery ability ll wear off within 1 and half yr and you wont be able to replace yourself.