Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Midrange $850 to $1150 Laptops
The higher end of the midrange spectrum starts to blend into the high-end market, so we're going to break the Midrange segment into two pieces. We'll start with the less expensive midrange options first. Many of these are merely upgraded versions of the last category - for example, take the Dell Studio 14z and add a P8700 CPU, an SSD, or a 4GB SO-DIMM (5GB total RAM). There's absolutely nothing wrong with such a system, though you do want to weigh the benefits of upgrades against their cost.
Entry Level Gaming
All of the laptops so far qualify as barely capable gaming solutions, at least compared to what you can get elsewhere. With up to $1100 to spend, getting a viable gaming GPU becomes a lot easier. We would recommend trying to keep CPU speed at 2.4GHz for AMD CPUs or 2.26GHz for Intel to avoid bottlenecks on the processor side of the equation, but for most games the GPU is a far bigger concern.
ATI's Radeon HD 4650 and NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 250M are similar in terms of gaming performance (we'd give the edge to NVIDIA, particularly with their mobile driver program), and while they pale in comparison to current desktop solutions like the HD 5850, they can run all current games at reasonable frame rates with some tweaking of the graphics settings. You can also find faster GPUs like the GeForce 9800M for around $1000. Just don't expect great battery life from anything sporting such a fast GPU - two to three hours is the most you're likely to get.
We looked at the MSI GT627 earlier this year, and for the price it's still interesting but it belongs in the next bracket. We really didn't care for the keyboard, though, and we haven't been able to test the other updated MSI gaming laptops to see if they're better. If you can test one in person or are willing to live with a "springy" keyboard, the MSI GT gaming laptops are certainly worth a look. We've looked at Toshiba's X305 as well, and for $1000 that would be our pick for a decent gaming laptop (provided you're okay with the size).
Gateway's P-7908u FX is another option, building on the past success of the FX line. It has similar components to the Toshiba mentioned above, but it upgrades the GPU to the GTX 260M, which is about 25% faster than the 9800M GTS on average, and it comes with a 500GB HDD for the extra $150. Both are more than capable of running current games, and 1440x900 LCDs fit well with these faster mobile GPUs.
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zicozz - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
I'm looking for a smaller laptop and I'm currently aiming at either the Asus UV30 or the Asus F83. Can't seem to find any reviews of the F83, but the UV30 seems to be the king in this hill in it's class.zicozz - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
Sorry UL30 not UV30JarredWalton - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
The major difference between the UL80Vt and the UL30Vt is the screen size (13.3" for the UL30Vt) and the lack of an optical drive. It also weighs about 1 pound less. If you want something a bit smaller, go for it, but make sure you get the UL30Vt; there's an older UL30 that doesn't support Turbo33 and comes with a smaller battery I believe.jtsarnak - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
I cannot recommend any Sony laptops, even the SR mentioned in this article for its good screen. I am the owner of a Z series and this laptop would have been near perfect except for one problem that is plauging most of Sony's line: Battery Drain.See here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=4...
And here:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2...">http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=2...
These are just two examples, there are a ton of threads out there discussing the problem. Sony's line has the unfortunate "feature" of draining the battery while the laptop is completely shut down. I say "feature" because numerous consumer attempts to get Sony to rectify the issue have been met with a canned response that this is typical for their laptops.
I have also emailed various websites and publications in an effort to get someone with a little more visibility and press to address the issue with Sony but to no avail. Sony continues to get good reviews on their machines but I'm doubting the reviewers ever bother to look for the drain during the review process.
Maybe Anandtech will take up the call. Sony is delivering a defective product (a mobile device that loses battery when it is shut off is, imho, defective) and claiming it as a "feature". Anandtech did a great job getting to the bottom of the SSD debacle with the JMicron drives, perhaps they can help us Sony owners as well. In the meantime, avoid these laptops if you don't plan on having it forever plugged in when you're not using it.
aznchum - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
I'm an avid fan of IPS panels, and the only notebooks that I know carried them were the Flexview Panels on the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads. If LCD quality is of a huge concern to you, you probably are better off picking up a Thinkpad x200 (non s) and retrofitting a BOE-Hydis HV121WX4-100 panel (12.1" 1280x800) in it. However, most of these panels floating around the market have a digitizer attached, since they're sourced from tablet PCs. So the mod is kind of a pain in the ass. I personally have modded a T60p with a QXGA screen and found it to be a relatively easy mod with the hardware maintenance manual. The 4:3 15" chassis of the T60/61 and R60/61 are probably the fastest notebooks you can buy that come with Flexview panels. If you're not snobby about LCDs, then go with the recommendations in this guide.CheesePoofs - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
Thanks for the article, I've been looking forward to something like this!The UL30VT seems pretty interesting to me - same specs as the UL80VT but smaller package making the low-res screen a bit more bearable (I hope).
Also is there any word on when Arrandale laptops will come out? I've heard Jan 7th for Arrandale chips, but I have no sense of what the delay is between chip release and laptop availability.
btmedic04 - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
I recently purchased a Sony Vaio VPPCW17FX at Best Buy for $799 (before tax) and I am absolutely thrilled with it (especially since i was coming from an ancient HP ZV6000 series with a desktop Athlon 64 3200 that weighed 7 lbs and looks like hell. served its purpose though, but i sure was surprised to see it survive a deployment to Iraq lol)Specs are as follows:
Intel Core2Duo T6600 2.2ghz 2MB L2 800mhz FSB
4GB DDR3 1066 (for some reason at DDR3 800mhz with no option to set 1066 in bios >.< )
500GB Hard Drive
Nvidia G210M with 256mb GDDR3 ram
Blue-Ray player
14" Monitor @ 1366x768
5.5 lbs
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit
Not bad at all for the price I paid for it. It gets almost 3 hours of battery life with the Balance power plan in Windows 7. I also love the chic let style keyboard and theres no discernible flex in the chassis (as you can understand, im not about to try to fold my notebook in half long-ways LOL) It has 3 USB ports, a firewire 400 port, VGA port and HDMI. I havent tried any gaming on it yet, however I suspect with the lower resolution monitor, I should be able to play modern games with lower settings and older games with higher settings (much better than the integrated ATI Xpress 200m in my old laptop) I have hooked this laptop up to my 32" LCD TV and watched blue-ray movies at 720p with out any issues. Also, Sony released updated drivers for the G210M the day Nvidia did (I dont want to risk the nvidia release drivers as my friend totally destroyed all gaming capabilities on his laptop equiped with a Go7900GS. needless to say Toshiba sucks when it comes to driver updates) All in all, the VPCCW17FX is a great notebook at a great price
Roland00 - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
No intel Celeron t3000 dual core love?It is the same chip as the intel pentium dual core t4200 except it runs at 1.8 ghz instead of 2.0 ghz and intel speedstep has been disabled (thus it won't get good battery life). Yet I seen this chip routinely in the 320 to 450 price range for laptops and it should blow away the competition in that price range.
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40738">http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40738
JarredWalton - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
Is it really that much cheaper than the Pentium T4200/T4300 laptops? I see prices of $430 (Toshiba Satellite L455-S5980) to $500+ (Lenovo ThinkPad SL410/SL510), and that's not even with a well-equipped laptop (i.e. 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD). The Lenovo G550 is 3GB, 250GB HDD, and T4300 for http://www.provantage.com/lenovo-2958acu~7LENO1EE....">$495 or so. It's obviously not a huge jump from 1.8GHz 1MB to 2.1GHz 1MB, but SpeeStep is a pretty big omission IMO.Roland00 - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
The pentium t4200/t4300 will be about 50 dollars more on average. For example without any sale go to the Toshiba website and you can get a T3000, 2gb memory, 160 gb hd and wifi n For $400, it costs 44 more for the pentium dual core.Now the whole point of the t3000 though is not to buy the laptop at the normal price, the same or similar laptop will go on sale. For example fry's has had a similar laptop to the toshiba but an msi 14 inch on sale a couple times for $319 (once) and $349 (twice). The msi also didn't use intel integrated graphics but instead the 8200m (half the speed of the ion but still 30 to 40% faster than the 4500m hd)
$319 is only 20 dollars more than those mythical $299 acers/hps that walmart was selling that was using the amd single core at 1.6 ghz (tf-20)