Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Entry Level Laptops - $400 to $850
The next step up the pricing ladder opens up some additional possibilities, along with upgraded versions of the sub-$400 options. Some of the upgrades are more useful than others - more RAM or a larger hard drive is something you can add at any time to just about any laptop. A faster GPU, on the other hand, is something you either have for the life of a laptop or you don't. To date, no one has successfully implemented a laptop where you can upgrade the graphics as newer GPUs become available. Besides, even at $800 you shouldn't expect to get a good gaming laptop; you'll need to move to the next category for that.
Intel CULV Revisited
For us, by far the most interesting laptops in this price bracket are the many CULV offerings. With the additional pricing headroom, we are able to add quite a few options beyond the basic Celeron SU2300. Pentium SU4100 doubles the L2 cache to 2MB shared, with a 1.3GHz clock speed. The Core 2 SU7300 and SU9000 chips move to 3MB of shared cache; the SU7300 is clocked at 1.3GHz while the SU9300 is 1.2GHz, the SU9400 is 1.4GHz, and the SU9600 is 1.6GHz. These CPUs are faster than the SU2300, yes, but they do increase the cost of laptops quite a bit. Since the CPUs aren't upgradeable, however, getting a faster CPU may be a worthwhile investment.
Along with upgraded CPUs, CULV laptops are available in sizes ranging from 11.6" up to 15.6", with 13.3" and 14.0" models in between. Most of these laptops offer the same 1366x768 resolution, so it's a matter of getting a larger keyboard and pixels. The 14" and larger options also include optical drives on most models.
Storage and memory options also receive upgrades, with 3GB and 4GB RAM configurations and hard drive sizes ranging from 250GB to 500GB. Unless price considerations prevent it, we recommend 4GB models so you won't have to worry about memory upgrades. We also recommend trying to get a DDR3-based laptop rather than DDR2, since DDR3 uses less power (voltage) and thus improves battery life (all other areas being equal). Hard drives are all basically the same, unless you move to SSDs. If you want an SSD in place of a conventional HDD, consider adding the drive on your own after purchase - most vendors continue to charge a premium for factory installed SSDs, and if you're not careful you could get one of the less desirable SSDs where performance substantially degrades over time.
What CULV laptops do we like? We've got Acer Timeline 1810 and Gateway EC5409u reviews in the works (aluminum cover = yummy!), and both the Acer Timeline and Gateway EC lines are good options (provided you stick with dual-core models). We also have the Dell Inspiron 11z undergoing testing. The systems we've tested all meet the advertised battery life figures (6+ hours), albeit mostly in less demanding tests.
There's also the Lenovo U Series, which appears slightly more expensive but we know a lot of people who like the Lenovo aesthetic. You can pretty much choose any of these laptops based on features and price and you'll get a good long-battery-life laptop.
Our Favorite CULV Laptop
Another laptop we're reviewing is the ASUS UL80Vt. It improves upon the competition in a number of ways. First, ASUS allows CPU overclocking, taking the SU7300 from 1.30GHz up to 1.73GHz - a 33% overclock. This will reduce battery life by about 10% at most; it's 5% or less in more demanding tests, which is a fair trade.
The second big feature is that ASUS includes integrated GMA 4500MHD graphics as well as GeForce G210M discrete graphics, with the ability to switch between the two options on the fly (it takes about three seconds to turn off the discrete GPU and 15 seconds to turn it back on). The G210M isn't a high-performance gaming solution, but when combined with the overclocked SU7300 it will handle nearly any current title, albeit at lower detail settings.
Perhaps the biggest selling point of the UL80Vt is its stellar battery life, helped by an 83Wh battery. Running at stock CPU speed and using the integrated graphics, we have achieved idle battery life of up to 14 hours and Internet battery life of around 8.5 hours. Nothing else we've seen can come close to the flexibility and battery life.
The UL80Vt cost is quite a bit higher than competing solutions, and the laptop isn't "perfect". At just over $800, we feel that the poor contrast ratio (like most other laptops) could have easily been improved. The chassis build quality is also somewhat questionable, showing more flex and torque than we'd like, but it's not bad by any means. All of the other features make the UL80Vt a great laptop. Our full review is still in the works, but the UL80Vt has earned an Editors' Choice award and is currently our favorite laptop in the ~$800 price range.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
49 Comments
View All Comments
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.