Holiday Buyer's Guide: Notebooks
by Dustin Sklavos on November 15, 2010 9:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Guides
- Holiday 2010
Conclusion: Good to Go Mobile
At the end of the day, the buyer's guide isn't just about the best, it's about the best for the money you can get, and that's what we've tried to wrangle here. This holiday season offers some interesting choices, but a lot of old incumbents are still sticking around. We get the sense that the industry is waiting for Sandy Bridge to drop before hitting us with the major refreshes, although Dell's revitalized XPS series is certainly a welcome entrant and worth keeping an eye on. As for the rest, updates seem incremental at best and many of our old recommendations still stand.
The notebooks we have on tap here are all excellent machines, a few are even Editor's Choice winners, but while Jarred and I were scouring the market for our best picks we couldn't help notice that things felt a little thin. Next year should be much more exciting: AMD's Brazos platform looks to be a homerun for netbooks and ultraportables (or at least a base-clearing double) while Intel's Sandy Bridge continues to bring more and more performance to the mainstream along with the most compelling integrated graphics part Intel has ever produced. Later on in the year we'll see AMD's Llano too, which will hopefully bring with it stronger competition in the mobile space from AMD.
In the meantime, the performance demands of most applications (outside of gaming and content creation) have basically plateaued, so while laptops are never going to be as fast as similarly priced desktops, most of the time it just doesn't matter. Perhaps the biggest issue with using a laptop 100% of the time is the screen size/resolution and keyboard, which is why we harp on build quality and displays so frequently. At least Dell seems to be hearing our call for better screens, and ASUS continues to knock out solid options with discrete graphics. This holiday season isn't exceptional, but it's solid and if you're in the market, you could do a heck of a lot worse.
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FATCamaro - Monday, November 15, 2010 - link
For most comparable system it is around 5-20% which isn't steep.Cuhulainn - Monday, November 15, 2010 - link
I'm 5'9" and weigh 168 lbs. This is in the normal weight range for body mass index.If I gained 20% more weight, I'd weigh 200 lbs and would be considered obese.
Just sayin'.
th3pwn3r - Saturday, November 20, 2010 - link
What in the world does BMI have to do with anything? Not to mention BMI is a failed investment that they won't let die. If you're judged as being obese just because you're a certain weight/height ratio it's stupid. Most body builders and fitness athletes are classified as obese through BMI.JarredWalton - Monday, November 15, 2010 - link
Well, here's steep for the MacBook Pro 15:- 2.4GHz Intel Core i5 (i5-520M or i5-450M?)
- 4GB (2x2GB) RAM
- 320GB 5400rpm Hard Drive
- SuperDrive
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 256MB Graphics
- 15.4" Glossy 1440x900
- Secure Digital (SD) Card Slot
- iSight Webcam, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
- 802.11n AirPort Extreme
- Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, 5.6 lb
Total price: $1707 online, $1800 from Apple.
I get more than that in every area with an XPS L501x, with a price of just $1000. Heck, we can toss out the Dell Precision M4500 as another comparison, which is really quite expensive since it's a mobile workstation:
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Core i5-520M (2.40GHz)
3 Year Basic Limited Warranty and 3 Year Next Business Day On-Site Service
NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M 1GB
2x2GB DDR3-1333MHz
15.6" HD+ (1600 x 900) Anti-Glare LED Display with Premium Panel Guarantee
320GB 7200rpm Hard Drive
8X DVD+/-RW
6-cell (60Wh) Lithium Ion Battery
Dell Wireless 1501 802.11b/g/n Half Mini Card
Dell Wireless 375 Bluetooth Module
Integrated webcam with microphone
Internal English Backlit Keyboard
Total price: $1750 (though granted that's with the current sale Dell is doing--which they do all the time)
There's no question NVIDIA charges more for Quadro 880M vs. GT 330M, though they're basically the same chip. Many of the other areas are a wash as well, but the upgraded LCD should be good (hopefully as good as the MacBook, but without testing I don't know). And of course, we're comparing 3-year warranty with on-site service to the standard 1-year Apple store warranty. This is about as close as the comparison gets.
For consumer oriented offerings, the Dell XPS and HP Envy 14 cost about half of the MacBook Pro 15 while delivering similar features. Yes, you can complain about the XPS aesthetics, but they do manage to deliver a lot for the price. So you're looking at Dell on the one hand making the XPS 15 with all the features that Apple MBP 15 has but worse aesthetics and a price of $1000. On the other, you can't actually find anything else with a decent LCD and build quality unless you move into business laptops (which not surprisingly carry a price premium), and even then Apple is priced higher for what you get.
I suppose the real question is to define "steep". 5% markup on Apple relative to Windows laptops if you include a student discount perhaps, but for average buyers the markup is at least 20%, and I'd qualify that as pretty steep considering the cutthroat nature of the computer industry.
FATCamaro - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Point taken. The XPS L501x is a winner vs the 15" MBP for value.MeesterNid - Tuesday, November 16, 2010 - link
Right, but if we really are talking mobile here then you have to consider the battery power and the weight of the machines. I'm not sure about the Dell, but the MBP is a fairly portable (not too heavy) device that gives you a fair amount of battery-powered computing time.awaken688 - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
You are comparing the chips inside which is very important. But what about weight and battery.I'm still waiting to see a true side by side with the price comparison.
I still think the Apple 15 is overpriced, but some people value certain things much higher than others such a true portability (weight and battery).
Separate topic:
Long term battery test. I have 3 friends that just bought Apple laptops last year (2 MBP 15", 1 vanilla MacBook). Both are their batteries killed my PC laptop at the start. Now all 3 of their batteries can't even make it through a 1 hour meeting/class unplugged while using it.
bah12 - Wednesday, November 17, 2010 - link
Well certainly the 20% buys you some weight/battery life (hell 20% better get you something), but then subtract from those gains the hassle of OSX or Bootcamp, and the small gain is not worth it IMO. Its strictly a matter of personal opinion of course.Also all batteries degrade over time, as your experience shows Apple is not immune to this either. So replacement part cost should be a concern, and I'm sure you will see that Apple tax sneak it's way back in there too.
awaken688 - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
I can't comment on OSX. Most people that use Macs enjoy OS-X. I know Anand and company does. I still don't understand why someone besides the Sony Vaio Z can't produce a similar quality (speed, battery, weight, screen, usability) to a MacBook Pro. Yes I know it will be just as expensive, but we really don't even have a choice.Maybe Jared knows of one.
- 15"
- 1680x1050 Quality Matte Screen (no I don't want 1920x1080 or 1920x1200. I have a 1920x1200 Dell Precision Mobile Workstation now and that resolution is just too intense for that screen IMO)
- Core i5/i7
- 4GB+ Ram
- Decent GPU (I don't care about games. That is what consoles and desktops are for)
- Under 6 lbs.
- Less than 1" thick (although 1.1" is alright)
- Battery life under light surfing over 5 hours
I know this is a MacBook Pro basically, but is there anything out there that is like this other than Apple's offering?
8steve8 - Monday, November 15, 2010 - link
Anandtech is not entirely different, but the whole geeky media is over-obsessed with gpu performance on laptops. Very few people rely on a portable laptop for demanding 3d games, and the core i5/i3/i7 gpu is fine for non-cutting edge games like warcraft 3, and playing any sort of compressed video.Stressing gpu performance in the media forces the mfgrs to create laptops with discrete graphics, which means wasted volume, weight and energy.
case in point, even the new lenovo U260 seems to have allocated space for a gpu, in its 0.7" thick frame, and partially because of this, it can only fit a 29Whr battery.
http://shop.lenovo.com/gbweb/gb/en/learn/products/...
^ ^ you will see discrete graphics is an option... amazingly stupid trade-off on an ultra-portable.
apple stubbornly sticking to nvidia for GPU, at the cost of several years of cpu progress is not even worth a second of debate, especially on an 11" machine.
I'm not hating on anandtech, just the whole industry, reviews shape future designs, and as we are seeing now, even with good-enough-for-non-gamers igp performance, laptops of all sizes are being outfitted with discrete options. Stupid.