Mobile Roundup: A Trio of Midrange Laptops
by Jarred Walton on September 17, 2008 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Conclusion
As we indicated in our last gaming laptop "roundup", we have by no means tested a large percentage of the current offerings. In fact, with just seven recently tested laptops we've hardly scratched the surface. Testing each laptop does require quite a bit of time, of course, and it can be difficult to get all the units we'd like. Nevertheless, we do have a fair number of test results to come up with some recommendations. It's shouldn't be too shocking that much of what we'll say here echoes what we said in our mobile buyers' guide.
The way I figure it, most potential laptop users fall into one of several categories. First, you have the people that just want a mobile computer; they don't really care about performance or features, they just want it to be inexpensive. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have the people that really care a lot about performance and/or features, and they're willing to pay top dollar. In some cases, that will mean they want a gaming powerhouse, but just as likely is that they want a very lightweight laptop and/or five (or more) hours of battery life. While it would be nice to get all of those things in a single package, simple logistics make it impossible to fit high-performance gaming into a small chassis while still providing long battery life. Falling somewhere in between the extremes, there's a large group of users that don't necessarily want the best, but they might want very good quality in one or two areas, or in some cases they're looking for a jack of all trades. The midrange sector caters to these people, and there are dozens if not hundreds of potential laptops.
So let's say you're looking for a midrange laptop; what do we recommend? Out of the laptops we've tested so far, two manage to break away from the crowd. The Gateway P-7811 is pretty much untouched in terms of affordably priced mobile gaming. Our second recommendation for those that don't care about gaming is the Acer 6920G. The 16:9 aspect ratio makes this a better fit for a multimedia notebook; it seems like a little thing, but watching 16:9 widescreen without black bars on the top and bottom makes a difference. Even better is that you get colors quality and accuracy that surpasses the vast majority of notebooks. As mentioned, we'd recommend bypassing the Blu-ray drive for most users, but if you have the extra money it's not a terrible addition. Just watch out for compatibility problems with drivers and software - yet another victim of DRM.
If you're looking for other alternatives, we would focus on the various Centrino 2 notebooks that are now shipping. Raw performance may not be dramatically better, but some of the updates do improve battery life. In particular, we definitely recommend the P-series Core 2 Duo processors over the older T-series. Intel TDP numbers might not be the best indication of real-world power requirements, but the 25W parts clearly improve battery life compared to the 35W parts. DDR3 memory would be an added bonus. You might also want to look at business notebooks that come with a standard 3-year warranty. Dell's Latitude E6400 and HP's EliteBook 6930p are two options that fall into this category (though unfortunately without DDR3 memory).
We're not done yet with our laptop reviews; we'll continue as soon as more arrive for testing (which should happen this week). We're also still waiting on any Centrino 2 notebooks that support the ability to switch between integrated and discrete graphics; frankly, we can't imagine why anyone would make a Centrino 2 notebook with discrete graphics and choose to omit this feature. Alienware showed that it's possible to do this even with X3100, but so far no one has contacted us regarding a G45 laptop with this feature. Hopefully that will change - sooner rather than later.
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Hrel - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
Midrange graphics are great! Why would you expect to run any game on a laptop at high or max detail settings? Why do you care about detail settings? It doesn't effect how fun the game is. On a laptop, as long as you can run modern games at min-med settings and get decent frames that's all I would ever want. If you want to max everything out use your desktop. However, I would like to see the ability to turn off the discrete card and use integrated graphics become standard. And, in general, laptops need much better LCD's and better battery life, HP has a 24hour notebook, meaning the battery lasts 24 hours, LED backlight, why aren't LED backlights standard place?????JarredWalton - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
The HP "24 hour" notebook includes an extra battery attachment that sits under the notebook and weighs several pounds if I'm not mistaken. If you buy any of these laptops and six to eight extra batteries, you could get 24 hours as well. :-) Yeah, that's sort of extreme, but so is a huge battery sitting under a small laptop.As for midrange graphics and gaming, let me reiterate: running at 1280x800 I couldn't break 20 FPS in Mass Effect or Crysis even at minimum detail, and GRID at medium-low detail was playable but looked like a four year old graphics engine. There are plenty of other games that start looking quite poor before you break 30 FPS. Graphics aren't everything, true, but they do make a difference. That's not to say you can't play any games on these midrange GPUs, but I would hate to give people the mistaken impression that midrange mobile GPUs run most games "fine" when that's simply not true.
Midrange mobile graphics *aren't* great, and in fact even the fastest mobile GPUs are slower than desktop "midrange" graphics: the 9600 GT costs under $100 and outperforms the 9800M GTS, and the ~$110 8800 GT 512MB is faster than any mobile GPU. (Same for the HD 4670 and even HD 3850.) If you want to play modern games on a notebook, get the Gateway P-7811 or some other more powerful (and larger) notebook. Otherwise, the vast majority of people will be better off with a midrange desktop for gaming and a true midrange solution.
strikeback03 - Friday, September 19, 2008 - link
For this very reason I'm wondering why you bothered running the full gaming tests on all of these. Wouldn't maybe a full test on one game plus minimum settings/resolution for the others be enough to offer a best case ceiling and say "See, don't look to play modern games on these"? Would save you significant time I'd imagine.JarredWalton - Friday, September 19, 2008 - link
It would save time, but it wouldn't provide a ready comparison to other mobile GPUs, which is one thing I wanted to do. (That's also why I tested the Gateway M-152XL at settings other than 1280x800, just to show how the GPU would run with a different LCD.) If you just want 3DMark scores, you can find that at some other places, but no one plays 3DMark for fun.Another problem: if you choose just one game, which one should you go with? Assassin's Creed DX9 is roughly half the speed of the faster 9800M GTS, and while that's a big difference you can easily turn down a few settings and get acceptable performance at 1280x800. On the other hand CoH is about 1/3 to 1/4 the performance of the same GPU. The best characterization of performance requires more testing, so some people would want scores for TF2, HL2, and a bunch of older games as well, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
At least now I can point to a (relatively large) battery of gaming tests and say, "This is why you shouldn't plan on using low or midrange laptop GPUs for gaming. It's not just one or two games that will struggle, but a large number of newer titles won't run well regardless of settings, and others will only run well when you set the detail levels to 'ugly'." :)
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
Edit: that last line is supposed to say "a true mobile solution".arjunp2085 - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
Why is that i have never seen a Single AMD based laptops on the list....780G is one great solution for graphics on laptops.. Y is there no article about PUMA????
Is it some BIAS??
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
I could forward the list of email messages requesting AMD laptops to you if you'd like. I specifically asked a couple of companies for one of the HD 3200 laptops, because I think it's a very compelling platform. Why haven't I received one yet? No idea... but I'll check back with the contacts and hopefully get one soon.Voldenuit - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
For $1100, you can buy a Thinkpad T400.I don't see how anyone would prefer an Acer, Gateway, or AVADirect at these pricepoints.
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
It all depends on what you're after, but Lenovo is certainly a viable option. The T400 is good, but you'll probably want to spend more than $1100. I'd get 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, LED backlighting, 6-cell battery, Vista Home Premium, DVDR, 802.11N WiFi, and Bluetooth. That puts the price at around $1450, which includes $450 savings (limited time offer) and only a 1-year warranty. Bump it up to 3-years and you're at $1550, which is actually still very good. Without the $500 savings it would be difficult to recommend that much, however.Voldenuit - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
You can easily configure a great T400 w/ 2 GB RAM, DVD-burner, discrete Radeon 3470, wireless-N (only $15 extra), LED screen (only $60 extra) and 6-cell battery (only $15 extra) for under $1200.