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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hko45 - Friday, July 2, 2010 - link
So this has boiled down to Nvidia vs ATI.My decision tree: Need multiple monitors at home site coming off of identical ports. As far as I could tell, Dell's E-Port Plus is the only reasonably priced docking station that does this. This leaves me with Latitude or Precision laptops. Having had PhotoShop complain about insufficient RAM when I tried to stitch together five large NEF images (and knowing that PP will use all the RAM you will give it), the M6500 seemed to be the best choice. While its not clear that PP takes full advantage of multiple cores (now) like Premiere does, a future-proofed i7 quad processor fits in quite nicely. So my choice is the M6500, and it only offers FX Quadro cards. As for PP only using OpenGL, I'm willing to bet that Premiere's use of CUDA will trickle down to other members of the Creative Suite--certainly within the three year time frame I'm using to drive my purchase decisions, if not by CS6.
aylafan - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
You forgot to mention that the Acer Aspire TimelineX 4820TG 14" laptop is available in the US right now. It's one of the most anticipated laptops besides the Envy 14. A great mix between performance and battery life.The one out right now has a Core i3 350M, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650, 4GB DDR3, 320GB harddrive, optical drive, etc.
Black brushed aluminium lid, 6-8 hours of battery life, less than 1" thin, weighs 4.65 pounds & it has switchable graphics (HD 5650 + Intel GMA).
All this for just the price of $799.
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results....
geek4life!! - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
I went to my local Best Buy today to look at the 13.3 inch screen sizes as I was thinking about the Asus U30Jc but that screen is too small for me. I found the 14 inch to be a great balance between size and portability. With that said I look forward to more reviews and hopefully that refresh will arrive for the back to school season.aylafan - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
You should look at the Asus UL80JC at Best Buy. It's a 14" laptop and it costs only $699. Core i3 & switchable graphics.aylafan - Wednesday, June 30, 2010 - link
I meant UL80J. I was confusing the name with the U30JCgeek4life!! - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
Thanks I will definitely check it out!!!!!!!!!!!!numberoneoppa - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
Can somebody please tell me why 14" thinkpads were not included in this article? They are by far the most iconic 14" laptop.dumpsterj - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
I actually placed an order for an alienware m11x just a couple days ago (interest free for a year) . My asus F3SV has been a great companion for almost 3 or 4 years now but its 8600gs is having a hard time with bad company 2. I decided to replace both my netbook and laptop with one and the m11x seems to fit the bill. Cant wait to get it (07/15)Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
Can you guys do some testing of notebook IGP performance with single and dual channel memory configurations? Also, could you shed some light on these 3GB AMD configurations. (Do they run in dual channel mode?)JarredWalton - Thursday, July 1, 2010 - link
The last AMD laptop we looked at with 3GB (Acer Ferrari One) did not run in dual-channel, but that was a Congo platform. Unfortunately (or fortunately I suppose) I don't have any 1GB SO-DIMMs around anymore, and all the laptops pretty much come with 4GB now. It would be interesting to see if the new Danube/Nile platforms with DDR3 are able to do dual-channel even with uneven memory sizes, though. Intel can do that but AMD hasn't allowed it for whatever reason. I don't think the difference will be more than 5~10% but without testing, who knows for sure?