Mobile Buyers' Guide, December 2009
by Jarred Walton on December 6, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Guides
Sub-$400 Laptops
At the bottom of the price spectrum we have laptops that cost under $400. The vast majority of these laptops are going to be netbooks, typically a laptop that's under 12" for the LCD. We're not particularly concerned with that classification, though. Laptop, netbook, or notebook: it doesn't really matter to us. What matters are the features you can get, so let's look at the $400 or less offerings.
Intel Atom Laptops
If you're buying a new laptop for under $400 - and especially if it's $300 or less - you're likely getting something with an Intel Atom processor. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but you should be fully aware of what you're getting. The fastest Atom laptop CPU, the N280, runs at 1.66GHz and offers about the same level of performance as a 1.2GHz Pentium M. Considering 1.2GHz Pentium M laptops were state-of-the-art about seven years ago, we're obviously not looking at lightning fast performance. The difference is that an Atom CPU consumes far less power than any Pentium M; in our testing, the "worst" Atom-based netbook still managed to provide over 5 hours of battery life in typical tasks (with a 6-cell battery), and over 3 hours even for demanding tasks like HD video playback. Netbooks like the ASUS 1005HA can last up to 10 hours on a single charge, making the promise of "all-day" computing a reality.
Netbook options these days typically range from 9.1" chassis designs up to 11.6", with a few 12.1" options. We tend to prefer the larger netbooks simply because they offer a higher resolution LCD. 9.1" and 10.1" LCDs are mostly of the 1024x600 ilk, which can be frustrating with some applications. A few manufacturers have offered 1366x768 LCDs in 10.1" netbooks, but those can be difficult to find. In contrast, all of the 11.6" laptops we've looked at run at 1366x768, which is a good balance of size and resolution, and the 12.1" designs usually have a 1280x800 display.
You will be hard-pressed to find a laptop with more than 2GB for under $400, and Atom-based netbooks typically support a maximum of 2GB RAM (via a single SO-DIMM slot). We recommend getting 2GB if at all possible from the start; with netbooks only supporting a single DIMM, if you upgrade later from 1GB to 2GB, you end up with an extra, "useless" SO-DIMM. A few netbooks include 1GB of RAM soldered onto the motherboard, in which case you can get up to 3GB, but with no 64-bit support there's not much incentive to move beyond 2GB right now.
What would we recommend out of the sub-$400 Atom laptops? One laptop we've tested extensively is the ASUS 1005HA, and it's the best of the Atom netbooks we've used. The overall design and features are pretty typical, but battery life was better than the competition and more importantly, the 1005HA LCD delivered a stellar contrast ratio above 1000:1. It makes a huge difference in the way movies and pictures look, and considering the 1005HA doesn't cost much more than competing options, it's an easy recommendation. There's even a matte LCD version of the 1005HA (the 1005HA-VU1X-WT or 1005HA-VU1X-BK), which is awesome to see (but the casing and bezel are still glossy). So glossy or matte: you get to decide. You can also choose between Windows XP and Win7 Starter, but we'd stick with XP or plan on getting 2GB RAM and running Win7 Home Premium - Starter is a bit too limited for our tastes. It's a shame we haven't been able to find any 10.1" 1366x768 LCDs that offer a similar contrast ratio, as that's the only item on our 1005HA wish list.
There's at least one competing alternative to Atom right now, the VIA Nano, but the only netbook with Nano is the Samsung NC20, which costs over $500. We'll pass on that; performance of Nano appears to be a bit better than Atom, but for the price there are many other options. Also worth noting is that even the smallest SSDs that are worth having cost over $100, so you won't find any good SSDs in this price range. We definitely wouldn't bother with upgrading an Atom laptop to an SSD either - if the increase in performance such an upgrade brings is important, we recommend starting with a CULV laptop instead. That brings us to the other $400 alternatives.
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JarredWalton - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
I've placed an order... I'll do a review if they work well.yacoub - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20091118/by-manf....">http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/bto/20091118/by-manf....I can't find the initial article anymore but this just came out a couple weeks ago.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.htm...">http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10400447-1.htm...
HP had the most quality issues, Asus the least.
Blahman - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
If you thought the UL80Vt was good, check out its newer slimmer brother: the UL30Vt. It shares all the same specs, but better build quality and all packed into a thinner, lighter chassis.It's available from Amazon for $800. The reviews so far are very positive.
http://www.amazon.com/UL30Vt-X1-13-3-Inch-Laptop-W...">http://www.amazon.com/UL30Vt-X1-13-3-In...ctronics...
trickdaddy111m - Tuesday, December 8, 2009 - link
The UL30Vt does look very nice, but it lacks discrete graphics and the Turbo function of the UL80Vt. So, "same specs" is not accurate.KikassAssassin - Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - link
The UL30Vt has turbo and the discrete graphics. The specs are exactly the same as the UL80Vt except it has a 1" smaller screen, no optical drive, and a slightly smaller battery.You're probably looking at the UL30A.
KikassAssassin - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
The UL30Vt looks like a really nice alternative if you want something lighter than the UL80Vt and you don't need an optical drive. Unfortunately, the UL30Vt on Amazon is the X1 model that only has a 4400 mAh battery, compared to the UL80Vt-A1's 5600 mAh battery, so it'll only have about 80% of the battery life. The battery life should still be excellent, just not quite as amazing as the UL80Vt'stechwriters4breakfast - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
atom 2arrandale
bsoft16384 - Sunday, December 6, 2009 - link
I just want to give another shout out for the Acer 1410. This is an absolutely fantastic notebook for $400.I have the single-core version (Core 2 Solo SU3500, 1.4GHz, 3M cache) so it's somewhat faster on single-threaded code but slower on multi-threaded code than the Celeron SU2300 (1.2GHz, 1M cache). That said, I have no performance complaints about the laptop.
GPU performance is, as you would expect, pretty bad. But it's still dramatically ahead of a GMA950-based netbook (around 5X by my estimations), which makes it fine for playing older titles like Warcraft III, CS 1.6, UT classic or 2004, Quake 3 / OpenArena, Half-Life.
Even WoW runs "OK" on the Acer 1410, as long as you're willing to deal with ~20-30 FPS and a slideshow in Dalaran. But you *can* run it, and it's fine for doing dailies or checking the AH. I have my desktop if I want to play for real.
The keyboard is excellent, except for the page up/down buttons (which are annoyingly above the arrow keys) and home/end (combined with page up / down). Other than those annoyances, the keyboard is full-sized and has the layout that you would expect.
The screen is decently bright; contrast is "OK" but not great, and the viewing angle is lame (but so are most laptops). It's easily better than my ThinkPad T61.
There are some surprises port-wise: the 1410 has HDMI (with 8-channel LPCM audio) and the audio-out port does SPDIF/TOSLINK (with a 3.5mm to TOSLINK adapter), neither of which are common on a $400 laptop.
The WiFi is Intel 5100 802.11n, which is also nice. Ethernet is Atheros, audio is Realtek.
As you would expect with an ULV notebook, the 1410 doesn't really ever get hot, even at 100% CPU / GPU. It's not particularly noisy either, unless you have a defective fan (as my first one from Amazon did).
The 1410 takes forever to charge from empty (2.5 hours if off, 3-4 if on). That's because it uses the same 30W power supply as the Aspire One. On the other hand, the power adapter is very small and decently cheap, both of which are pluses.
Battery life is 5-6 hours, depending on how hard you push the machine. At idle, at minimum brightness, Windows reports over 12 hours, but you can't achieve this in practice. With light web browsing and Flashblock, expect 6+ hours.
The touchpad is Synaptics, and does multi-touch.
This system is the smallest, lightest system that I would consider a 'notebook' rather than a 'netbook'. I considered the HP Mini 311, but it maxes out at 3GB and doesn't support x86-64 or virtualization, plus the Core 2 Solo beats the pants off of the Atom. NVIDIA ION isn't really a whole lot better than the GMA X4500MHD, because the Atom CPU prevents you from playing any modern games anyway and the GMA X4500 does fine for Windows Aero and HD video acceleration.
Two years ago the Aspire 1410 would have cost $2000 and would be called an 'ultralight'. Today it's $400.
Keeir - Wednesday, December 9, 2009 - link
Don't forget its slightly more expensive brotherTimeline 1810T-8
Core 2 Duo (SU7300), 4 Gigs of Ram, Bluetooth, Larger HD, same wieght and battery
Picked mine up for <600 from Amazon (though I see they have ballons to close to 700)
notanakin - Monday, December 7, 2009 - link
Unfortunately this guide came out just a few days too late, but fortunately I'd settled on the Acer 1410 (SU2300) and it's a nice little machine. Certainly fast enough for simple tasks and for my old eyes the screen size is better than the 10.1 inchers.Here's a very useful link to a table of laptops/CPUs/Screen size prepared for the recent PC Show in Singapore where I bought the laptop. Great for doing some quick comparisons.
(Prices are in Singapore $ - about US$1=S$1.4, so the prices are a bit more expensive than in the USA, but they give some discounts off the published price and throw in stuff - I got an external DVD-writer plus a few smaller things with the Acer.)
But how I HATE the glossy screen. Are they cheaper than matte screens or what? I'd gladly pay US$50 more for a matte screen.