In the second half of our Mobile Buyer's Guide, we focus on portable machines with screens smaller than 14". The market as a whole is getting a thorough overhaul over the summer, both because of brand new chips coming from Intel, AMD, ATI, and NVIDIA (for those of you keeping score at home, that's...everyone) and because of the rapidly approaching back-to-school season, which always means newly refreshed notebook lineups. With so many new systems out there, who's going to put in the groundwork to figure out which ones can hold their own in the market and separate the contenders from the also-rans? We did, and our findings are in this article. Read on for more details!

The back-to-school season is coming and refreshed product lines are already starting to appear on store shelves. Intel's dual-core Arrandale processors continue to dominate in terms of raw performance, but AMD K10.5-based notebooks are now available from every major vendor. Intel has also refreshed its mobile line and added some low-voltage kit. It's an interesting market full of options, and sifting the wheat from the chaff requires some research. We've decided to do just that and put together a mobile guide with options for everything from multimedia enthusiasts to mobile gaming powerhouses. We're splitting the guide into two installments, with this first part specifically focusing on the larger laptops and desktop replacement (DTR) options. If you're in the market for a new notebook, this article is for you.

Many things have changed in the nine months since our last midrange system guide hit the press, some for the worse—a moment of silence, please, for the passing of yesteryear’s RAM bonanza—but most for the better. ATI in particular deserves a nod for raising the bar for single-chip graphics card performance with its Cypress line (and, more recently, NVIDIA for its Fermi parts). All told, a ~$1700 complete system (~$1200 for the base) built around the i5-750 or one of AMD's Phenom II CPUs promises to deliver better performance than last year’s entry in most applications and beat it soundly in gaming and other graphics intensive tasks, all in spite of today’s significantly greater cost per GB of RAM.

As usual, we'll have both AMD and Intel recommendations today, with a common set of shared components. The story hasn't changed much when comparing AMD vs. Intel. You can get more cores at a lower price with AMD, but Intel will give you higher performance at the same clock speed (and generally higher clock speeds) along with lower power consumption. If you're looking to build a new midrange system, our latest Buyer's Guide will provide the help you need.

That old design lasted us a long time, didn't it? :)  Welcome to the 2010 AnandTech Beta.  We've done a lot of updating behind the scenes as well as (obviously) on the front end.  

Most obvious is the brand new look and feel. For a site that reviews the latest and greatest tech, we can't get by looking like we're still living in 2004. Now when the 80s make a comeback we'll be on top of that, you've got my word.

We've ditched the left hand column, streamlined some of the ads and widened the content column. While each article will still give you a preview of 10 comments, we finally have an option to view all comments on each review page.  Right now we've got this set to 50 comments per page but we'll be tweaking as need be.  We're also cutting down on the number of page loads you'll encounter.  In view all comments mode there's no page refreshing between comment pages.  We'll be bringing this feature to more parts of the site in the future.  User friendliness is our drug :)

The front page allows for both linking to our superlong articles as well as shorter stories that can just appear on the front page for quick scanning.  By default the latest 5 articles will appear in the rotating carousel up top, but if something super interesting comes up we'll promote it up there (similar to what did on the old site).  The expanded summaries on the front page will give you more insight into what it is we're talking about in the article before you ever click anything.

Tags are enabled but not in full effect just yet.  We'll be beefing up search, comments (the return of ratings!), galleries, Bench, user profiles and site layout/color customization over the coming weeks.  We're planning on this being a regularly updated thing so if you see anything that warrants our attention let us know.

It's not all about a pretty face though, we're still going to be publishing the content that you demand from us.  If you haven't seen it, be sure to read Ryan's GeForce GTX 480 & GTX 470 Review.  And I'm commemorating today with a new SSD article addressing one of the longest running questions you've been asking: how do SSDs perform in RAID?

As always, thank you for your support over the years and for reading the site.  It's been a pleasure to be able to write for you all over the past 13 years.  Thank you guys for giving me and all of us the opportunity to do just that.  If you haven't been able to tell by now, I love writing this stuff - and you all make it possible.

Old system got you down in the dumps and you're tired of sinking more money into a black pit of despair? It's time to start fresh, and we've got complete system builds ranging from under $500 for the base computer up to just under $1000 for a powerful new build.

Looking for a laptop, netbook, or even a notebook this holiday season? We've put together our thoughts on the various price segments and have selected a few laptops worthy of mention for this buyers' guide.

We have some changes in our AMD recommendations as the Phenom II platform has matured. On the Intel side are a few small refinements while we wait for the introduction of i5 next month.

Entry, Budget, or HTPC - $825 can buy a lot more PC these days. It can even buy a decent gaming rig.

The new 3.2GHz 955BE is generating excitement for all PC buyers. We detail the latest Phenom II systems built for budget, best value, and top performance.

A short story for those looking to shop this weekend for a new processor, video card, or memory.

We assemble four systems geared for value and performance using AMD Phenom II, Intel Core 2, and Core i7 processors. The $800 to $1800 price range covers a lot of computer real estate.

It's been since the holidays that we've done a GPU buyers guide. It never seems like the right time to do a new GPU buyers guide, as NVIDIA and AMD have been pushing aggressively back and forth for leadership in the market place. When new parts or tweaked cards haven't been coming out, prices have been adjusted quickly to maintain tight competition.

Entry, Bargain, or HTPC - $800 can buy a lot of PC these days.

Phenom II is generating new excitement for AMD Buyers. We look at Phenom II systems built for value, maximum overclocking, and top performance.

Intel Core i7 is the only real high-end choice today. We take a closer look at Core i7 Systems built for value, maximum overclocking, and "go for the gold".

With four systems geared for value and performance from AMD Phenom II to Intel Core i7, the $1000 to $2000 price range covers a lot of computer real estate.

Entry, Budget, or HTPC: $1000 can buy a lot of PC these days.

We take a look at our favorite hard disks and optical drives for the desktop.

There are a huge number of PC suppliers out there, and everyone has different needs when it comes to a desktop system. In this guide, provide our recommendations for several systems at various price points.

Has your CRT finally given its last gasp of electrons? Perhaps you just upgraded to an HD 4870X2 and now need a display with a resolution that can justify such hardware. Either way, we have recommendations to keep your eyes happy.