Holiday 2011 Laptop Buyer’s Guide
by Jarred Walton on December 2, 2011 3:45 AM ESTThat’s a Wrap
And that just about does it for our laptop holiday buyer’s guide. Obviously this is mostly one man’s opinion, and some areas are rather subjective. I’ve also skirted the whole Black Friday madness and largely avoided digging around for door buster sales. I’m sure you can find some great deals on other laptops if you look around, and if you’re not looking for anything more than a typical consumer laptop a lot of the differences start to blur together. Fact is, outside of gaming and certain CPU intensive tasks (tasks which a lot of people still don’t do, e.g. video transcoding), for a lot of users any reasonable laptop made after 2007 is still “fast enough”. That’s where the discussion of build quality comes into play.
I’ve got a Core 2 Duo laptop that’s perfectly fine as far as performance is concerned, but the hinges are wearing out. I have plenty of friends that ran into the exact same problem with Core Duo/Core 2 Duo or Athlon/Turion X2 laptops—blown hinges and cracking plastic cases. Battery life and performance have certainly improved over the years, but if you’re normally plugged in that’s not a major concern. It’s hard for me to imagine something coming along in the next five years (outside of gaming and video editing) where a modern Core i5 or even AMD A6 laptop will prove to be too slow. The HD video revolution was the last major bump in requirements; if all you’re doing is surfing the web and writing email, plus some Office applications, 2004-era hardware can handle it. We’ve hit a plateau, and build quality and display quality are the areas that seem to have the most problems right now as far as laptop longevity is concerned.
5000+ words later and I still feel like there are plenty of other mobile laptops that we could mention. One area I didn’t get into was the difference between business and consumer laptops. I’ve been the head laptop reviewer at AnandTech since 2006, and something that has become very clear to me over the past five years is how much of a gap we frequently see between the business and consumer models. Consumer models typically offer more in the way of graphics performance, often at lower prices, but I’ve got several laptops that have been around for at least three years and the hinges are all feeling very loose. I’ve also used some ThinkPad and Latitude laptops that are even older where the hinges are still doing fine. Plus, nearly all business laptops still give you a matte display; not everyone prefers anti-glare, but I certainly do.
Business and/or school for the next five years: Lenovo ThinkPad T420 for $950
It may seem like a small thing, and if you upgrade laptops every couple of years it probably won’t matter as much, but if you’re looking for a laptop that can last through four years of college I would strongly recommend passing on gaming and consumer laptops and going for a business laptop instead. My top three picks are all similar in terms of size and features: the Lenovo ThinkPad T420 ($950 for the 1600x900 model with the current sale), the Dell Latitude E6420 ($1172 with an i5-2520M, 6GB RAM, 1600x900 premium panel, and Quadro NVS 4200M), and the HP EliteBook 8460p (no sales on this one currently, so you end up paying a lot more compared to the T420 and E6420—around $1800 right now). As long as you get the 1600x900 LCD upgrade (all three laptop offer such a display), I’d be happy with any of these three business laptops. You get a good keyboard, great build quality, and an attractive design; yes, they cost more than consumer models, but that’s because they’ll last a lot longer. I’d recommend going with whichever laptop costs the least, which means right now the ThinkPad T420 would get my vote.
There are some other topics I never quite got to as well, like 3D displays. Let me put this succinctly: fuggedaboutit! Watching a 3D movie at the theater or on a large HDTV is one thing; on a laptop, though? Seriously, what are you going to do: whip out your stylish 3D glasses to watch a movie while you’re on a plane? Sit in the library on campus, again with the glasses? Certainly you’re not going to be playing any 3D games, because you’d really need a GTX 580M just to reach playable frame rates in most titles. But I’m curious: are there any readers that actually like 3D displays on notebooks? Okay, sure, the 120Hz refresh rates would actually be nice, but does anyone want to view 3D content on a notebook? I’ve tried it and was not impressed; if you disagree, please let me know where I’ve gone astray!
There are still a lot of laptops out there that I haven’t had a chance to test. I can tell you that every time I wander through a Walmart, Costco, Target, etc. I’ll take a minute to go bang on some laptops—it drives my wife crazy! What I’ve found is that the consumer laptops stocked by such stores have all been chasing the bottom dollar, and the result is that build quality and display quality are in the dumps. I can’t remember the last time I saw a laptop with a decent display at any of the local stores. Ironically, the tablet revolution is at least getting manufacturers to focus on their displays more, but while we’ve got 1280x752 IPS panels in several tablets (and we’re talking about 2560x1600 tablets in the next couple of years!), we still get shelves full of 1366x768 TN panel laptops. So, my final request this holiday season is for the laptop manufacturers to take a chance and start offering $100 display upgrades on more of your systems. I know I’d happily pay $1000 for a good 1080p 15.6” laptop rather than $850 for a 15.6” 768p display, and I’m not the only one. If you build it, we will come—and our reviews in the next year will continue to praise the companies that get the importance of a display.
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JarredWalton - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
...You wanted to talk about the keyboard experience, so let's do that.You're correct: the key depth is very shallow, but how much that matters is largely up to personal taste. It's the placement of the keys as much as the shape that helps me with typing, and I can definitely type on the UX31E. It won't win any awards for the keyboard, but to utterly dismiss it just because the key travel is shallow (which seems to be part of what we'll see on ultrabooks in general)? Nope, I don't buy that argument at all.
I'd suggest getting keyboard backlighting in place would be higher on my list of priorities than key travel, and I'd really like ASUS to move the power key out of the current location (which is where the Delete key belongs--I had to sset Windows to ignore pressing the power button after the third time I inadvertently "typed" Power Off).
Anyway, the keyboard isn't a ThinkPad or a Dell Latitude, but it's also not an Acer. I'd rate the layout as decent (outside of the power key) but the feel of the keys as below average. And I would much rather be typing on my Microsoft Natural Keyboard. Still, if I were in the market for an ultrabook (I'm not), out of the three or four 13.3" models currently available I'd go for the ASUS, mostly because 1600x900 with a so-so keyboard beats 1366x768 with a slightly better keyboard. I just don't think anyone is going to give me an excellent keyboard in an ultrabook.
And yes, this whole comment was written on the UX31E and I'm not feeling any worse about the experience than I did before starting. Fact is, I've got the Acer S3 sitting right next to me as I type this and having just typing a few quick sentences on it I can say that key travel isn't much better there. I think ultrabooks are going to be about compromise, and one of those compromises is in the keyboard travel. When you set the maximum thickness of the laptop at 0.8", you won't get the quarter inch of travel found in a desktop keyboard.
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
PS: Just for you I've added a note about the keyboard on the UX31E in the article, suggesting potential customers try one out in person if that's an area that matters to them.Penti - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
You miss a whole category I bought a Arrandale (before SNB) CULV 11.6" (1366x768) laptop some while ago for basically as cheap as you get, for the same price as Atom netbooks which comes with decent battery, W7HP instead of W7 Starter and so on. With basically better battery life (got the slightly larger battery, cheapest model don't have them regardless if it's netbook or cheap ultraportable), cpu, software support and it feels like a real computer. Netbooks have no place when you get better hardware for the same price and power envelope. It's nothing to recommend.I'm not terribly sure what you got in that market now in the states, but I would prefer cheaper Intel chips here they are simply much higher end then Brazos or Atom. But you can get something like Toshiba L735-S3350 with Pentium B950, 4GB, 500GB 13.3-inch 1366x768 for 500 USD, Acer TimelineX AS3830T-6870 with Core i5 2430M 2.4GHz, 4GB, 500GB 13.3-inch 1366x768 for 600 USD. HP Pavilion dm1-4050us Core i3 2367M 1.4GHz, 4GB, 500GB 11.6-inch 1366x768 incl external dvd-drive for 570-600 USD. Or more in those lines, it doesn't have to be netbooks or 1000 - 1200 dollar ultrabooks. Certainly worth it for the extra 90 bucks to get a dm1-4050us over a dm1z Brazos netbook. Sure might be $140 with the MIR, but still worth it over the Brazos. I take a hundred dollar over a Atom or Brazos laptop any day. Still cheap or small enough and enough power to contend with 13-15" cheap models too. When we are talking non-properly speced out Atom netbooks for 200-300 they only has 3-cell batteries and virtually no battery life and other drawbacks such as Windows 7 Starter, low amount of memory and low res display, no webcams, bluetooth and so on. Like no hardware accelerated video (and thus Flash player video) on Atom's GMA3150 without Broadcom accelerator card, and I'm not sure you can even get that anymore from HP or others. That's not a problem with the Brazos. But I would still go Intel over Brazos here, they are simply not very powerful and kinda the wrong niche when compared to cheaper Intel Sandybridge stuff. There's more choices any way which was my point.
Penti - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
I wouldn't call a Llano which has worthless graphics in all fairness no faster then integrated HD 3000 Graphics a choice when it comes to gaming and I would even be critical and pushing it to call GT540M a choice for low-end gaming.That IPS displays don't end up in 11-16" laptops is basically because they aren't manufactured or are manufactured in low volume or are expensive, or power hungry. HP's dreamcolor 15" IPS display is still specced at 15 Watts. In tablets they usually use AFFS+ displays for outdoor viewability which you simply don't get with IPS displays in that way. Even though some Tablet PC's do use IPS displays in the 12-13" range. However does displays probably end up costing quiet a lot.
For gaming I would probably say something like GTX550M or HD6750M is minimum. You can probably find some Llano with HD 6755G2/HD6750M for 500 refurbish and 700 ordinarily if you like budget. If you really like an AMD option. But again for 700 you have Intel options as well. 650-700 is probably where you find yourself under those 1000 dollar machines.
seapeople - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
Since the GT550m can play Starcraft 2 at 1080p in high just fine, I don't think the ~20% or so drop off to the GT540m disqualifies it for "low-end gaming".Penti - Saturday, December 3, 2011 - link
You would need GT550M for 1366x768 gaming basically for other games, but of course Llano without discrete GPU is disqualified. You wouldn't even get SC2 on 1366x768 medium on that. You need a discrete graphics card if you like to play SC2 at reasonable level. GT540M is just pushing on the limit to be disqualified, which is why I didn't outright say it's useless. For example a game like Metro 2033 would be too heavy for GT540M at 1366x768 and does not meet the _minimum_ requirements of many games at all. Anandtech here concluded for that matter that GT555M is not or just barely enough to drive 1600x900 in Alienware M14x in most games.Roland00Address - Monday, December 5, 2011 - link
For console ports Llano is fine for cheap laptops, since cheap laptops usually have 1366x768 resolution.PC focused games on the other hand is a different matter, high settings is another matter since what most people consider "medium settings" is what a xbox 360 is really running.
Malih - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
tired of waiting for good ultrabooks with decent speed, good heat dissipation and good display,finally I put an end to all the wait and decided to get a MacBook Pro 13 (Late 2011),
I'm using it (mostly) on Windows, as I bought the Windows version of my work/development tools, it would be too costly, highly inefficient to buy the mac version too.
Vxheous - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
I bought a G74SX-xc1 for $1350 Cdn, which other than 8 GB of RAM instead of 12GB, or having an SSD, was comparable in spec to some of the pricier G74 models. the XC1 is probably your best bang for buck in the midrangefrozentundra123456 - Friday, December 2, 2011 - link
Great article.One note however. I went to the Sears site, and several reviewers stated that that particular laptop has a somewhat gimped GT 560 M with a slower memory bus. I think the same thing happened a while back at Best Buy. They had a really good price on an asus gaming laptop, but the video card had a slower memory bus than the normal cards.
It wouldnt be a deal breaker for me, and that price is outstanding. But it is just something to be aware of regarding that notebook. Like I said, I would also be wary buying at Best Buy because they tend to do the same thing.