Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Midrange Quad-Core Laptops
For gaming, quad-core CPUs still don't provide enough of a tangible benefit for us to recommend them over dual-core CPUs. On the other hand, anyone interested in video encoding/decoding or other CPU intensive tasks can benefit from a quad-core processor. With the launch of mobile Core i7, the Core 2 Quad CPUs are going the way of the dodo bird right now, so there may be some good deals if you look around. Q9000 systems offer roughly the same performance as i7-720QM systems in highly-threaded workloads, due to their clock speed advantage (2.0GHz vs. 1.6GHz on the i7-720QM), but the i7 CPUs are more flexible thanks to their Turbo modes.
None of the quad-core offerings are thin-and-light laptops; quite the opposite, in fact: most are going to be 17" (give or take) chassis. Looking on the Internet, we could only find a few Q9000 systems that cost under the $1150 limit we've imposed. The least expensive is $1000, listed at Frys.com, but it's "unavailable for Shipping (try in-store pickup)". If you can find one at a local Frys store, the HP dv7-2040us looks like a good deal. If you go straight to the source, the HP Pavilion dv7-2270us appears to be the same product, but with Windows 7 preinstalled and online availability. We just said that quad-core wasn't the best solution for gaming, but the dv7 includes an ATI HD 4650 GPU, which is good enough for most games at medium to high detail on the 1600x900 LCD. There's a $60 instant rebate right now, which drops the price to $1070, so if performance is a higher priority than size and battery life, give it a look.
The only other quad-core Q9000 alternative we could fine right now is the ASUS N61VN-A1, selling for $1100. It's a 16" chassis, but the LCD is only a 1366x768 panel - rather low for such a chassis. It comes with a GeForce GT 240M, which is slightly slower than the HD 4650. Battery life should top out at around 3 hours, according to online reviews.
Of course, Q9000 isn't the only option. We did find a few i7-720QM notebooks for under $1150. The first is probably your best bet in terms of price, the HP Pavilion dv6t 15.6" notebook. It comes with GeForce GT 230M graphics and a 1366x768 LCD. Battery life should be about 90-120 minutes depending on what you're doing (or twice that with the 12-cell battery upgrade), and $1000 is the cheapest price we could find for a Core i7 notebook. Lenovo has a competing notebook with similar specs, the IdeaPad Y550, priced at $1100. It bumps the GPU up to the GT 240M (only a small clock speed bump relative to the GT 230M) and comes with a 500GB HDD and 802.11n - about the same price as the HP dv6t if you add those items.
Any Good LCDs?
We went through our local Walmart, Best Buy, Costco, Target, and Office Max stores to look at the LCDs and build quality. There were enough options that we ultimately decided to forget about build quality (it's a bit too nebulous to assess in a few minutes) and focus on the LCDs. Over fifty laptops were examined, and we found one - yes, ONE! - laptop where the LCD was clearly better than a 300:1 contrast ratio. We were able to test any of the laptops to determine the exact contrast ratio or color accuracy, and there's always the chance that you'll get the same model laptop with a different LCD, but the sole LCD standout in the retail laptop comparison is the Sony VAIO VGN-SR520G/B. We'd guess the LCD we saw was at least a 750:1 contrast ratio, and the blacks were much darker than any of the surrounding laptops.
Not sure what the difference is or how to tell of a laptop you're considering has a high contrast ratio? Just walk over to the desktop LCDs and open up a sample image - the sample images on a standard Windows 7 installation will clearly show the difference. Desktop LCDs will still have better color accuracy and viewing angles (with a few exceptions), but contrast ratios below 500:1 should be immediately visible to the naked eye.
As far as the Sony VAIO VGN is concerned, the other specs are reasonable. You get a P8400 CPU, GMA 4500MHD graphics, 4GB DDR2, 500GB HDD, DVDRW, 802.11n, and a 13.3" 1280x800 LCD. We've also heard some complaints about the 16:9 aspect ratio LCDs, so some of you will undoubtedly be happy with this 16:10 display. Battery life is listed at 5.5 to 7.0 hours (closer to 5.5 for Internet surfing would be our guess), and the VAIO tips the scales at just 4.3 pounds. If you're looking for an alternative to the ASUS UL80Vt and you want a better LCD, this is the only laptop we could find that's worth consideration. What you end up doing is paying about $100 for a better LCD, which is a reasonable expense in our opinion.
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Hrel - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
I've said it before on here I'd be glad to buy the ASUS UL80Vt if it only had a screen with a resolution of at least 1600x900 (decent quality screen required. like 1000:1 contrast ratio) The Intel SU9600 CPU instead with the same percentage overclock and the Nvidia GT240 GPU. Finally I'd like that laptop to cost less than 1000 dollars and get at least 7 hours internet battery life. If removing the integrated GPU and having only the dedicated GPU is required to keep the price down I'd be totally fine with that.Or better yet, sell it with the integrated GPU, leave the slot and heatsink for the dedicated GPU and offer the dedicated GPU as an add on or after-market purchase on newegg.
geok1ng - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
I really don't get the idea behind the suggestion of the ASUS UL80Vt on the sub $850 range, when you can get the Dell Studio 14z: you get a better CPU, a better IGP ( and having Nvidia 210M as add on VGA isn't really a great improvement over the 9400M G)and a better battery for the same price range.The problem is that outside Mac Books you simply dont get state of art notebook hardware: a C2D 45nm CPU, a 9400M G IGP and a small form factor. And a Non-TN LCDs is a dream.
LongTimePCUser - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
For many people the ul80vt is a much better solution than the Dell 14z.The Dell 14z has a 5 hour battery life. The ul80vt has a 12 hour battery life.
The Dell 14z doesn't have a DVD player. The ul80vt has one.
JarredWalton - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
G210M is roughly twice the performance of 9400M G, and where 9400M still has games where it struggles, G210M can run everything, albeit at low details in some instances (i.e. Crysis @ LQ 1366x768 and 42.05FPS -- compare to 14z with 25FPS for the same setting, with a CPU that's running 38% faster). If you can get both the benefits of G210M performance with better battery life than 9400M, isn't that desirable?As for non-TN panels, I believe you're mistaken. Everything out right now is TN on laptops. MacBooks used some IPS in the past, but that was several years ago. They have matte LCDs on the 15" and 17" MBP, but that's about it.
Paulman - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
I was very surprised to see no mention of the AMD Athlon Neo based netbooks, such as the MSI Wind U210 or the HP dv2 series. My brother got an MSI Wind U210 with the Athlon Neo processor several months ago, and it ran Windows Vista on 1GB of RAM decently and I think the prices was just under $400 CDN online at Future Shop here in Canada. This was a 12.1" netbook (1366x768 with a bright LED backlight) at ~1.5 kg in weight with a 6-cell battery. I recently upgraded it to Windows 7 and it's running nicely.I quite like it, so I was disappointed to see that Athlon Neo-class products weren't even mentioned in this roundup.
JarredWalton - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
My experience with Neo is limited, but battery life didn't appear to be in the same ballpark as Atom and CULV products. Neo is faster than Atom, but CULV is clearly faster (dual-core CULV at 1.2GHz easily beats single-core MV-40).I guess it depends on what you're after. The MSI Wind U210 should get 3-5 hours of battery life at 100 nits. The HP dv2 with 4-cell battery looks like you'll get about two hours of Internet surfing, or 3 hours with the 6-cell upgrade. So if you're after battery life, Neo isn't an answer to Atom or CULV. However....
When Neo is paired with a decent GPU, you can get much better than Atom performance, but the price of the HP dv2 is too high (nearly as much as the ASUS UL80Vt and UL30Vt). The Wind U210 uses X1270 IGP, which is only slightly better than GMA 4500MHD in terms of performance. Still, the Wind U210 would be a better choice for Neo than the HP dv2... pairing a (relatively) low power CPU like Neo with a discrete GPU doesn't make much sense, unless you can turn the dGPU off and run on an IGP when you want (a la UL80Vt).
rwrentf - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
I posted a comment about the HP DM3 asking you how that would compare, and for some reason my comment is gone. The DM3 has a dual core neo (L335), 4GB ram, 7200 rpm hard drive and ATI HD3200 graphics. You say in your comment that the CULV is clearly faster, but I haven't seen any tests that back that up online. And Why would you compare the dual core CULV directly to a single core MV-40 when you can compare it to a dual core L335?JarredWalton - Friday, December 11, 2009 - link
I'd expect a 1.3GHz CULV (i.e. Pentium SU4100) to be roughly on par with the performance of the L335 (1.6GHz), and I would expect the L335 to use more power (18W TDP, but in my experience AMD chips run much closer to TDP than Intel chips). However, HD 3200 is still 2~3 times faster than GMA 4500MHD (though still too slow for gaming IMO).I suppose the question is what sort of battery life you can get out of such a laptop compared to CULV options of a similar price. I found a comment from an HP representative (off Wal-mart) stating around 3 hours from the DM3, which is about half of what a typical $600 CULV will get, but elsewhere you see "up to 6 hours". If it can truly get 6 hours, it's definitely worth a look.
Incidentally, if I were to go with a DM3, I'd grab the Turion X2 L625 -- better power characteristics than the Athlon X2 L335.
zefyr - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
I commend you you on a thorough article. You've covered many of the laptops I've been looking at, and indeed have raised the same question "Any Good LCDs?" But, whats the answer? Especially if you plan on buying online. Can one find a high contrast LCD w good blacks like the Sony VAIO you mentioned and also get a gaming level NVIDIA GPU? Can it be done online w/o actually seeing it in person? I've almost bought both an ASUS g51vx and g71 for $800 or $900 respectively, until I realized the only thing they lack is a good LCD. Anyone, please post any suggestions.kawatwo - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
I have the G71x from Best Buy and the viewing angle is not great but for just you sitting directly in front of the laptop it is not an issue. The bang for the buck is still amazing. Don't know how long it will take for someone to come out with a 280m for ~ 1500, maybe never. I'm happy with the 260m though.