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Finally Need A New Laptop
dargonight
Member Posts: 255
After my last laptop broke back in 08 (a dell from 2003) I decided that now I really need to get a new laptop for my upcoming year at college. I was wondering if you guys could help me as i've tried asking over at the notebook review forums and all that left me was more indecision than ever before. Basically, i'm looking for something thats light, has a good screen, has a good design (ergonomically) and keyboard, and is somewhat powerful to where it can play most mmo's and steam games smoothly. On this point, I don't really care so much about settings as long as it runs smoothly. I'm also want it to be able to handle some java or C++ programming as i'm going for a computer science major in the coming years. I'd prefer to go with around a 13 incher but I would look at a 15 incher if it was light enough. Money is no problem on this one (thank you contest cash prizes ).
So what would you guys recommend? A little reasoning behind a recommendation would be nice but its not required (those guys over at notebook review put so many doubts in my head about so many things).
Comments
Quizz is going to love this question. Hell, no money barrier has me salivating. Ill defer to a proper opinion though since my leans towards gaming pcs. I do get why you want a smaller pc though. I just got myself a 13 inch Linux book for travel. LOVING IT!
If you don't get many replies here u can try asking the question at computerforum.com they helped me allot while i was building my gaming pc :F I am sure they know allot about laptops too.
http://www.asus.com/Notebooks/Gaming_Powerhouse/G53SW/
High Quality, High Performance, Usually Respectably Priced.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
This.
ASUS will give you the BEST bang for the buck, everytime. I bought a $900 ASUS at Best Buy last July and can play any game on it at high/medium-high settings. No bloatware, good ASUS utilities for performance.
A few questions :
1. Will you be gaming with it?
2. How high of graphics do you need?
3. Will it be strictly programming and you wont be using modellers or such programs?
I have a 15.6" laptop and its really heavy when I carry it along with a book or something. Not to mension the fact that gaming laptops tend to need better power bricks so that will be quite heavy as well. Another thing is battery life. Or well..Lack of battery life. o.o
My main suggestion would be to wait for more llano laptops to release though.
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
For 13'' I would recommend a Sony Vaio SB or SA. The high end models of these are great. For 13'' Laptops they have very powerful graphics, and both of them support Sony's Battery Slice, that gives(their estimate) up to 15 hours of battery. Even without the slice it's still 6-7 hours. Pretty good.
If money is no budget you could go for the next sony Vaio Z. It will have a media dock that is both an optical drive and extended graphics that run through Lightpeak aka Thunderbolt. But it will be crazy priced. At high end, we might be talking over 3000 USD. But it's state of the art. Very powerful, constructed from carbon fibre, is thinner and lighter than a Macbook Air, and has an INSANE screen of 1080p resolution on a 13'' Display. That machine is made for people with serious mobility and power needs in one... but it will cost them.
The SB and SA seem to be the more value-for-money alternatives, and if I had to get a new laptop tomorrow, I would go for one of those.
The SA's difference over the SB is the higher resolution. For gaming purposes remember to get the models that have the ATI 6630 graphics. Otherwise they will not do well for gaming at all. 6630 does not seem to be a power house card, but overall it is impressive for such a small and thin light chassis.
You could also look at the M11x R3. In some scenarios, it's Nvidia 540m graphics is slightly better in some scenarios but the difference is not vast. It's slightly smaller footprint, but is much thicker and also heavier(I think).
I have neither machines. These are just what I have read from others.
want a trick?make sure as much as possible part come from same manufacturer .meanning:if you settle for intel then try to buy a intel powered laptop.same if you go for amd!but make sure a lot of component are from the cpu maker. laptop wise i would go the intel route with a nvidia graphic card(256 bit bandwith data path.but just the card nothing else.best would be to get a laptop with intel motherboard,cpu,ssd, etc as much as you can:why!trust me if you go 69 ways manufacturer you will have issue!i aint an intel fan but i got to give them credit on the mobile front (aside from graphic card)they are king pretty much everywhere.they make the stuff.amd dont make much.apple could be a good choice since they look into this and all!prob best choice then you can add w7 for your learning of the c++ 2010 ms finally released after 10 years of dev.(yep was just released ,i guess they worked hard on c++)
If small and light but still powerful enough for gaming at low to moderate settings is what you want, then your only option is something based on AMD's Llano APU. Using the integrated graphics there lets you skip a discrete video card, and hence the need to cool and power a discrete video card. That allows for long battery life while not gaming, and even 2-3 hours with a suitable battery while gaming on the battery. It also eliminates the weight needed for those things. Not having that much heat in the first place eliminates the need to remove that heat, so the laptop can be quieter. It also runs cooler, rather than your hands get all sweaty if you try to actually touch the keyboard while gaming.
Now, you might be worried about gaming on integrated graphics. The Llano APU loosely takes the desktop parts Athlon II X4 and Radeon HD 5570, and puts them in a single chip, together with shared memory controllers and a northbridge. It clocks them lower than desktop parts, of course, but it is genuinely fast enough for gaming, and nearly all games will run smoothly at moderate settings, at least on the high bins.
The Llano naming scheme is that A8 means the whole die is functional, A6 means 1/5 of the graphics is disabled, and A4 means 2/5 of the graphics and two processor cores are disabled. M on the end means a 35 W TDP, while MX means a 45 W TDP, which allows for higher clock speeds. The A8-3500M, A8-3510MX, and A8-3530MX are the top bins.
The trouble with Llano is that it recently launched, so there aren't many models out yet. Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba, and Gateway have all launched laptops based on Llano. Hewlett-Packard is the only one with A8 bins available, as far as I know. Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba both offer configurators for at least one model, but their configurators are both completely wacky and will push you to get the specs all wrong.
In particular, you want two memory modules of the same capacity. Either two 2 GB modules for 4 GB total, or two 4 GB modules for 8 GB total, will work fine. On a large budget, the latter is preferable. But do not get 6 GB of memory total, as that will mismatch the memory channels and give you performance markedly inferior to 4 GB, as Llano is very sensitive to memory bandwidth. Toshiba makes it cheaper to buy 6 GB than 4 GB. Hewlett-Packard makes them the same price in one configurator. Another configurator says if you get 4 GB, it will be one module, and will leave the other memory channel completely vacant.
Those are terminally stupid options that a reputable company wouldn't even offer, and I'd favor boycotting the companies on that basis, except that you'd end up having to boycott basically all OEMs and not buy a laptop at all. If you want 8 GB, it's likely cheaper to buy 6 GB in the laptop, as well as a 4 GB module separately (which costs about $30-$35), then take out the 2 GB module that the laptop ships, throw it in the garbage, and put your own 4 GB module in. (Actually, you should save the module so that you can return the laptop to the original condition in case you need warranty service.)
On an infinite budget, you could grab a higher end gaming system. If you do, then you get the usual heat and power problems of traditional gaming laptops (short battery life, case gets hot while gaming, can't play games at all unless the laptop is plugged in). That adds weight and cost, so I'm not sure if you want to go that route.
I probably can't help you much with monitor or keyboard quality. It's much harder to make a nice keyboard in a laptop form factor than with more space available like you have in a desktop.
One thing I will say if you have a large budget and want a nice laptop is that you should definitely get a good solid state drive. SSDs are dramatically faster than hard drives, which will make your system feel a lot snappier and more responsive. SSDs have no moving parts, and hence no moving parts that can break. That makes SSDs nearly indestructible, as unlike hard drives, which are very fragile. That will matter tremendously if you drop the laptop, or set it on a vibrating surface. SSDs are also dead silent and use very little power.
A laptop with a hard drive and no SSD is not a nice laptop. Period. Which is why most laptop vendors don't offer an SSD at all, or if they do, won't say what it is, so that it's probably garbage. (There are some SSDs that are really bad.) That means that if you want a nice laptop, you'll probably have to install your own SSD. Thankfully, most SSDs come in a 2.5" form factor that is standard for laptops, as they don't have any use for the extra space of the 3.5" form factor that desktop hard drives use.
If you wait a month or two, then laptop vendors that do offer decent configurators might get Llano in stock and let you configure it nicely. Or they might not. It's hard to tell. It also depends some on how much of a hurry you're in. Most of the Llano laptops out now are 15.6" or 17.3", though Toshiba does have some 14" ones out. Toshiba also disables video driver updates, which is a huge problem on parts that just launched, as it will likely mean that the laptop doesn't come with the right video drivers, and you also can't get them yourself.
Someone above mentioned Asus, but it's probably been at least a year or so since Asus has launched a new laptop with well-chosen hardware specs suitable for gaming, and an awful lot of important new hardware has come out in that time. And that's even if we ignore the lack of SSDs.
Someone else above mentioned Sony. I'm not sure if Sony makes any gaming laptops at all, or if they ever have. If they do, then I couldn't find them on their site--whether configured intelligently or otherwise.
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"Nvidia 540m graphics is"
...completely obsolete to the degree of being laughably ridiculous. That gets you all of the heat and power drawbacks of gaming laptop, but without the gaming performance to justify them. If a discrete card isn't faster than integrated graphics, then don't get the discrete card.
To the Questions:
I'll be doing only a little gaming with it. Basically just Minecraft, Wow or other MMO's, and sources game like TF2, CSS, etc.
Not too high. I only really care about playing on medium.
I'm not sure about modeling. I might do a little on it but modelling would probably be done on my desktop.
Thanks everyone, especially quizzical for the great write up, for the suggestions. I've kinda narrowed it down to 3 laptops but the problem is each of them has a fault that is a major problem to me despite the things that they go right.
Sony Vaio SA - Perfect computer in every aspect for me except that the screen is pretty bad. It has very "cool" colors, weird gamma and contrast issues, and blacks are more grey than I like them to be (this video gives an idea of the screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAva63yOIXM the SA is in the middle, vaio Z old is on the right and vaio Z new is on the left). This is mainly a problem because as of right now, I pretty much use my desktop as a TV and my Dell Ultrasharp screen from 2003 seems to have a better screen than the SA
HP DV6T Quad - Specs are amazing for the price but I don't much care for the design/keyboard and the gpu has problems swtiching with openGL programs (i.e. no minecraft or Adobe products)
Macbook Pro 13 - Love everything about it except specs are weak for the peice and I prefer windows 7 over OS X (don't exactly hate OS X, just prefer windows).
I'm a bit hesitant to go with the Llano cpu/gpu becasue I use an intel on my desktop and i've never really used an AMD processor before. The new Z is interesting but for that high price, the gpu should be integrated and not a dock and I don't really want to carry a dock everywhere with me. THE LG P330 looks really good as well but there's no work yet on its release date. Again, thanks so far for all the advice. You guys rock!
I can't find the specs on the Sony Vaio SA. Make sure you find them, so that you don't get something with awful specs.
I'd dismiss the MacBook Pro 13" out of hand. That leaves you stuck with Intel integrated graphics, which is the worst graphics you can get in a modern computer. Well, other than older generations of Intel integrated graphics. Some games will be playable at minimum settings, and some won't. And even if the game does run at playable frame rates, it won't necessarily display everything properly. All graphics vendors take shortcuts to save on computational power, but Intel takes shortcuts that are far more damaging to image quality than those taken by AMD or Nvidia. The MacBook Pro 15" with Radeon HD 6750M graphics won't have this problem, though that runs into discrete switchable graphics not always switching properly.
For the HP, you mentioned issues with OpenGL, if the video card doesn't kick in properly. For the MacBook Pro 13", you've only got the Intel graphics, so there is no discrete card that can kick in, and you're stuck with the OpenGL problems. Intel's video drivers are terrible everywhere, but OpenGL is the most glaring problem with them. If you're going to do anything with OpenGL at all and need it to work, Intel graphics should be dismissed out of hand and not even considered.
If you buy from HP, you want the dv6z, not the dv6t, as the dv6z is the one with Llano. But if you do insist on the dv6t, make sure you get the Radeon HD 6770M with 1 GB of video memory, not 2 GB. The only difference that 2 GB makes is higher power consumption and a higher price tag. Oops, HP only offers a 2 GB version of Radeon HD 6770M in the dv6t. They also offer a 1 GB version of the Radeon HD 6490M, but that's slower than Llano integrated graphics, while using more power and getting you all of the drawbacks of a discrete card. So if you want an HP laptop with an Intel processor you'll need to take a different model like the dv7t in order to get it configured right.
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"I'm a bit hesitant to go with the Llano cpu/gpu becasue I use an intel on my desktop and i've never really used an AMD processor before."
x86 compatibility means that AMD and Intel processors will function identically at a much lower level than most products that are compatible with each other at some high level. Any particular x86 instruction says, if you take these inputs, you have to get exactly this output. If it doesn't work exactly right every single time, then AMD or Intel simply cannot ship the product. This is very different from a lot of products, where you can ship a product with defects that get covered up in drivers or error correction protocols.
The processor side of Intel's Sandy Bridge is genuinely better than the processor side of AMD's Llano. Performance per watt is likely comparable (though it isn't possible to do an apples to apples comparison in laptops), but Sandy Bridge can get you much better (perhaps 50% better or so) processor performance.
You mentioned at one point issues with switching between integrated graphics and a discrete card. The brilliant thing about Llano is that it completely avoids this problem. You get the low power consumption of integrated graphics at idle, and the decent performance that you need with gaming, without having to switch to a different GPU. It's the same GPU that can power gate down for minimal power consumption at idle, and kick in for decent gaming performance when you need it. That means that it isn't possible to have problems with switching from one GPU to another, and that is a huge deal.
Staying with integrated graphics lets you save power in other ways, too. Having the GPU and CPU in the same die means that they can share memory, without needing dedicated video memory constantly sucking power and putting out heat. It means that you don't need a bunch of PCI Express lanes burning power for the CPU and GPU to communicate. Integrating the northbridge into the same chip has some of the same effects, though recent Intel processors do this, too.
If you want a low power, lightweight, portable machine that can also play games, then Llano is really a revolutionary product. If you were to take the best deal on a budget gaming laptop that you could find a month ago, and then had the option to get exactly the same thing today for $200 cheaper, that would be a horrible deal today. Llano is that big of a leap as compared to everything else in laptops. (In desktops, on the other hand, Llano is rather pointless, and seems to exist mainly as a way for AMD to get something for failed laptop dies rather than throwing them in the garbage.)
Llano + 8 gigs of 1866 RAM + about 100gigs of SSD = pwn anything on the market today till trinity comes out:D
Laptop Llano only supports up to 1600 MHz DDR3, and even if the memory controller supports it, the BIOS might not. OEMs tend to go with cheap junk motherboards.
ahh i was looking at desktop boards. my bad
IF you do go with llano, try to get 1600mhz of memory because llano supposedly scales better with faster memory or somefing like that o.o
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**This bunny was cloned from bunnies belonging to Gobla and is part of the Quizzical Fanclub and the The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club**
Thanks again quizzical for the info. I just have a few more questions. I really don't know much about Llano (except the stuff quizzical explained) and was wondering how its performance is on moderns. What type of Llano chip should I look for (I saw yoiu guys said an A8 but whats the most powerful worthwhile chip that has a workable $ hour battery life). Are there any known problems with the Llano as opposed to intel? And can you guys recommend any good laptops that use the Llano or might be coming out with it (something the vaio SA but with the AMD chip).
Oh, and if anyone could recommend some laptops like the vaio SA with similiar but with a screen that has better color reproduction, that would also help a lot. I don't mind if it has a lower resolution as long as the colors are better.
"Moderns"? Modems? Modern games or programs? I'm not sure what you're talking about there.
For battery life, the main thing is power consumption at idle. All of the bins of Llano will only use a few watts at idle, so for battery life, it won't make much difference which bin you get. At load, anything with an M on the end has a TDP of 35 W, while anything with an MX on the end has a TDP of 45 W. That means lower power consumption and hence longer battery life for the 35 W versions. But "at load" doesn't mean "while you're using a browser"; it's closer to "while you're playing games on the battery", as games are the only common application to push a processor or video card very hard for very long.
Here's what New Egg has in stock:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006740%20600165139&IsNodeId=1&name=AMD%20A-Series
Notice that none of the pre-built ones have anything above an A6-3400M.
For a higher bin of Llano, this seems to be the only thing out just yet:
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Processor&v1=AMD&series_name=dv6zqe_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/AMD/dv6zqe_series
That's basically the same as the dv6t that you mentioned above, except with different hardware inside. Honestly, I don't know what laptops would have a keyboard, monitor, or build quality to your liking.
That configurator offers any quad-core bin of Llano, and the top bin A8-3530MX is only $100 more than the bottom bin. If you want to configure it as well as you can, then pick some A8 bin of Llano, the integrated graphics (no discrete card), and a 7200 RPM hard drive. You could pick 6 GB of system memory, pull out the 2 GB module when it comes, and replace it with your own 4 GB module. Or you could just pay more to get 8 GB up front. There are battery and monitor upgrade options that you might want to look at, but you're on your own there for what to get.
If you really want something nice and have a large enough budget, it would be nice to pull out the hard drive when it comes, replace it with a good SSD like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231463
and then do a clean install of Windows to get rid of Hewlett-Packard's bloatware. But you might not be up for that, depending on how tech-savvy you are, and how much capacity you need.
There will probably be other configurable laptops with Llano APUs coming very soon, as other laptop vendors bring them to market. I don't know when that will happen, though.
The advantage to going with Intel right now rather than AMD's Llano APU is that a Core i7-2630QM gets you about 50% better processor performance than Llano. The huge downside to going with an Intel processor is that you need a discrete card if you want to play games, and that brings a number of problems that you'd rather not deal with. Someone looking for a higher end gaming laptop and willing to put up with the problems of a discrete video card in a laptop should get an Intel processor, as the advantage of Llano is its integrated graphics. That's not the way to get good battery life, though.
Look here, for example:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4444/amd-llano-notebook-review-a-series-fusion-apu-a8-3500m/7
The graphs at the top to compare absolute battery life aren't the right things to look at, as that depends tremendously on battery capacity. Scroll down a ways for relative battery life, in minutes per W-hr of battery capacity. At idle, Llano comes in second only to what is basically a netbook with a smaller monitor, and even that is close. For web browsing, Llano trails only that same netbook and a laptop with a dual core processor and only Intel integrated graphics. For watching videos, it again trails only those same two laptops. If you want to see how typical gaming laptops would compare, then look at the three systems with a GeForce GTX 460M, all of which have dismal battery life.
They also compared battery life running 3Dmark, which is a synthetic benchmark somewhat similar to a gaming load. There, Llano got double the battery life of the Asus K53E that beat it in a couple of other tests, and Llano did that while also delivering far superior performance.
basiclly the corsair unit but $10 less? or am i missing somthing?
All three of the "115 GB" SSDs on New Egg are a first generation SandForce controller paired with 25 nm IMFT NAND flash, so they're identical and give you 107 GB of usable capacity. At least some of OCZ's "120 GB" SSDs do that, too. I suspect that some of A-Data's "128 GB" SSDs are like that, as well, but A-Data's naming scheme is a mess.
If you already have a desktop, then just skip 90% of the gaming stuff on the laptop. When you try to add in Gaming + Laptop, you end up eating a lot of power, creating a lot of heat, cutting down on the battery, adding a lot of weight, and adding a lot to the pricetag. A lot of negatives for a notebook, especially one in the 13-15" range.
For notebooks, I always recommend the Macbook Pro's for a few reasons:
First and foremost: Applecare. Hands down the best reason to own an Apple laptop.
Second: Bootcamp/Virtualization. If you don't like OSX, then just use Bootcamp (or VMWare, or Parallels, VirtualBox) or to run Windows 7 - or any other 32/64-bit operating system you want.
Third: Unibody aluminum frame. It really is nice. It does run warm to the touch, but that's because it's an integral part of the heatsink for the internal components. And it's probably the most "solid" laptop I've ever used. No other laptop manufacturer has anything close to this.
Lastly: It has a Sandy Bridge CPU, backlit keyboard, amazing battery life, Thunderbolt I/O, the best trackpad made, an extremely nice screen, and just about anything built in that you would realistically need in a laptop. The only downside to the 13" is that you only have the option of dual core with Sandy Bridge graphics, whereas with the 15/17" you can get a quad core and a second (very nice) discrete card as well. That being said, I love the size of the 13", but I have a 15" myself (I like the bigger area around the keyboard and the extra screen space). If I did a lot of traveling, I would get a 13" in a heartbeat - that "performance" your missing translates into a lot longer battery life, and honestly, you probably won't even miss that performance, because when you need it, you have your desktop.
Now, you can get "better" hardware for cheaper. But I don't know that you can get higher quality, and you can't get anything like Applecare anywhere else. Aside from Apple, I'd recommend Asus, but honestly I've little experience with their laptops, I can only go off reviews for that.