CyberpowerPC's Compal NBLB2: Affordable Gaming
by Dustin Sklavos on December 21, 2010 5:50 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- AMD
- Intel
- CyberPowerPC
- Compal
Conclusion: You Can Make a Case for It
When we reviewed the competing Clevo B5130M from AVADirect (and also offered by Cyberpower), the conclusion was fairly clear cut: it'd be an easy sell if Dell's XPS 15 didn't exist. That was reasonable enough then: the two are comparable in spec, but Dell offers a better screen, better build quality, and better battery life. With the Compal NBLB2 in the mix, though, things get murkier.
Shopping around can get you an NBLB2 for $899 or better, which automatically places it above the B5130M because the 1080p screen is standard as opposed to an upgrade. Compal does well on the insides, too: the AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5650 often comes out ahead of the GeForce 420M/425M that the Clevo and Dell notebooks use, so if gaming is high on your list of priorities there's a strong case to be made for going with this notebook over the competition. You still won't be running most games at high quality settings—and certainly not at high quality and 1080p—but medium quality and 1080p is still within reach, especially if you tweak a few of the settings to get above 30FPS. Clearly, AMD had a great design when the HD 5650 launched, and it has held up well over the past nine months.
Unfortunately, getting decent gaming performance means a fairly large trade-off. The Compal notebook's design is horrendously outdated, and while the battery life is fine in and of itself it's still lagging behind our editor's choice-winning Dell XPS 15, thanks to NVIDIA's Optimus Technology. The Dell notebook also offers the potential for an even better screen than the already impressive one in the NBLB2. [Update: Well, at least it did when the 1080p upgrade was available; that's currently missing, presumably because of insufficient supply.] You'll have to contend with Dell's customer service instead of the more personalized service you'd get from a smaller boutique vendor, but we have to wonder if the trade isn't worth it.
Mercifully, at the end of the day the NBLB2 doesn't feel like a complete "also-ran." While the Clevo B5130M found itself butting squarely up against Dell's incumbent, the NBLB2 presents a viable alternative for those looking to get as much gaming performance as they can out of a 15.6" notebook. At $899 from Sager or $945 from CyberpowerPC the price isn't too steep, either. It's not competing with the freak deals Acer periodically throws into the wild for a couple months, but the Compal has a much nicer screen and a better keyboard. If gaming is a top priority but you don't want to break your back with a big notebook (or your wallet with a big budget), the NBLB2 is very nearly as good as it gets.
Of course, besides the build quality and aesthetic problems, there's one other item this Compal notebook has to contend with: Sandy Bridge is coming next month, along with some other hardware updates from the various parties. We can't go into performance specifics any more than Anand did in our preview, but Core 2010 and the HD 5650 are both due for replacement in the near future. When Compal inevitably updates the NBLB2 yet again, hopefully they can make a break with some of the current design points and deliver a product that's better on all fronts.
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DanNeely - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - link
Apple went full glass on the top. Every designer of cheap laptops slavishly emulated the shiney bit as cheaply as could be done. Clueless PHBs then decided shiney was in and forced the rest of their designers to commit the same crime or be fired.JarredWalton - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
I dislike the "edge-to-edge" glossy approach just as much as regular glossy; in fact, putting a glossy sheet over an LCD (typically with a small gap between them) is just brain dead. It's a case of two wrongs making a bigger wrong.Pylon757 - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
Then get a Thinkpad or a comparable business laptop (e.g. Dell Latitude or HP Elitebook). Those don't compromise on usability and most are all-matte.5150Joker - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - link
With a 5650m GPU, you can hardly call it gaming worthy. Sure it's better than Intel integrated graphics but it's definitely not considered mid range in the notebook world. A midrange graphics chip in the notebook world is an nVidia GTX 260M or it's equivalent. The 5650 falls quite short of that.JarredWalton - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - link
I'd say GTX 260M is more of a high-end mobile GPU. It's not in the dream category like GTX 480M, but for mobile graphics it's in the upper echelon. HD 5650 is a good "midrange" mobile GPU, but it's really an entry-level gaming GPU. The 1080p LCD is a bit of a problem for 5650 as well if you're playing games, but again you need substantially more expensive GPU and everything else to make that happen.5150Joker - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - link
The 260M these days is mid range in terms of gaming video cards available. The top end consists of GTX 480M, GTX 470M, GTX 470M, AMD 5870m, 5850m. 2nd tier would be 4870m, GTX 280M and third tier is 260M (mid range by performance). The 5650 is even lower on the scale of performance thus IMO doesn't constitute mid range at all. It's lower mid range if anything. In January we're going to see even faster GPU's released so that will push the 5650 down even lower.synaesthetic - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
For the most part I agree with this... the lack of GDDR5 is a problem with these midrange mobile GPUs... even the desktop 5750 has a gig of GDDR5.At stock clocks the 5650 isn't very impressive, but if you get a good one it can OC like a champ. My 5650 running at 850/900 clocks can give the Mobility Radeon 5830 a run for its money (10k 3dmark06). Yeah, I know benchmarks mean mostly jack, but this chip is great for the price, especially if you're a light game such as myself.
bennyg - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
I agree - the GTX 260M is a cut-down high-end GPU, kind of the low end of the high end. Kind of the "4830" concept rather than "4670"... I am of course referring to a very short space of time when number names had some kind of internal consistency with the product-space-concept the product was occupying :/The core of the issue I think is the challenge to compare technology from different generations or model years - there is relative performance at release (where the 55nm G92b derivative chips were king), then there is relative performance right now (where they're still more powerful than 40nm midrange from both camps but not by very much), after it's been superceeded by a generation or two.
All I know as an individual, my (un-underclocked...) GTX260M runs the games I play at 1080p with good enough quality to keep me happy.
frozentundra123456 - Tuesday, December 21, 2010 - link
A decent system, but the 1199.00 price is way out of line. For this, you can get the Asus G73 model at Best buy, and that has a mobility HD5870 and a 1.73Ghz quad core in a 17 inch chasis.If the NBLB2 is available for 899.00 as the artice stated it might be, then I would consider it.
warisz00r - Wednesday, December 22, 2010 - link
Would you be able to get the G73 with a 1080p panel at the same price? No? I guess as much.