Laptops

Sydney Morning Herald

Monday May 21, 2007

Reviews by David Flynn

BUDGET: LESS THAN $1500 Value-packed notebooks for price-sensitive shoppers

Acer Aspire 5570

$1399

www.acer.com.au

4 1/2

Acer cut a few corners to fit the Aspire 5570 (specifically the 5573ZWXMi model we tested) into the under-$1500 space but they're not fatal flaws when you can get so much notebook for so little money. The Pentium dual-core chip is noticeably slower than the latest Intel Core processors favoured by most other notebooks, although it's fine for undemanding day-to-day tasks as long as you do only one thing at a time. It's more than offset by 1GB of RAM, which also helps the Aspire run the bundled Windows Vista Home Premium. Likewise, the integrated webcam is a measly 300k pixels but adequate for simple video-chat sessions. The whopping 120GB hard drive provides oodles of space for music and movies and the battery is good for a solid three hours.

PREMIUM: $3000-$3500 Paying top dollar gets you top-shelf units that excel in a specific area such as entertainment or portability

Acer Ferrari 1000

$3499

www.acer.com.au

3 1/2

With its black chassis, yellow "prancing horse" badge and red racing stripes, you can't help but be drawn to this pint-sized portable, even if the 30cm screen makes it more Fiat X1/9 than a full-bodied Ferrari. Part of that slim profile and light (1.6kg) weight comes from supplying the DVD drive as an external plug-and-play unit. Under the hood is a fast but thirsty AMD Turion X2 mobile chip that throttles battery life down to barely three hours. That's a little too lean for a thin and light notebook and if battery life is a major concern we suggest you look at the Sony Vaio tx57. The rest of the roster is superb, with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive plus a VoIP handset for making internet-based calls using services such as Skype or Engin.

Sony Vaio tx57

$3499

www.sony.com.au/vaio

4 1/2

We'd suspect that Sony played a smoke-and-mirrors trick to cram so much technology into so little space, but the tx57 is no optical illusion. It's 2.5cm thin and 1.25kg on the scales, thanks to a trim but tough carbon-fibre casing, and the 28cm screen makes for a compact footprint. Yet Sony still squeezed in a DVD burner and squeezed out a claimed nine hours' battery life (we clocked it at more than seven using wireless). The cautionary yin to this super-portable yang is the relatively low specifications that help the tx57 attain its slim looks and long batterylife: Sony has chosen one of Intel's slowest low-voltage chips and memory is limited to 1.5GB, of which a chunk is dedicated to graphics, so don't expect barnstorming performance.

Dell Inspiron 9400

$3499

www.dell.com.au

4

In common with several other notebooks, the Inspiron 9400 is a flexible foundation onto which Dell customers can bolt virtually any combination of technology. We had them tick every box on the menu to create a barnstorming 43cm widescreen machine for multimedia. There's one of Intel's fastest Core 2 Duo powerplants, 2GB of RAM and an additional game-worthy graphics card, 120GB of hard disk space - you know the drill. For all that grunt, it's surprisingly quiet. The bonus is three years of on-site warranty. Its appearance, however, is plain as pudding.

Toshiba Satellite A200

$1350

www.toshiba.com.au

4

The A200 is a popular and proven floorplan that Toshiba provides in several configurations and prices. Our budget contender is the PSAF0A-03M019 model but, while its pleasing construction and finish are typically Toshiba, overall it's slightly less balanced than the Aspire. It uses one of Intel's latest Core Duo mobile chips, yet the 512MB of memory cuts it short for Windows Vista (for which only the Basic edition is supplied). We suggest every buyer immediately upgrades to 1GB. The hard disk is a mid-range 80GB although for a budget system the 1.3-megapixel webcam is quite sharp, as is the sound from the top-firing speakers and the vibrant picture on the 39cm widescreen panel. But in the end, Acer's Aspire delivers more of what counts for your notebook dollar.

Toshiba Satellite Pro P100

$3150

www.toshiba.com.au

5

This multimedia-minded 43cm widescreen notebook impressed us in last year's notebook round-up and the 2007 update doesn't skip a beat. It's got the lot - a fast yet battery-friendly Core 2 Duo chip backed by 4GB of memory, an Nvidia graphics accelerator and a 200GB hard drive. This makes it more than up to the task for creative and graphic design work, while the rich, top-firing Harmon Kardon speakers score points for entertainment. The supplied battery won't get you beyond three hours but our price includes the extended life battery (usually sold separately for about $150 extra), which adds four hours to your fun.

MID-RANGE: $1500 - $3000 The sweet spot for mid-range notebooks with a pleasing mix of features, performance and price

Acer Aspire 9420

$2499

www.acer.com.au

3 1/2

"Aspire" or aspirational? Once you move up from the $1500 cheap but cheerful category, notebooks such as the Acer Aspire 9426WSMi (from Acer's 9420 series) show what a difference the extra spending makes. For starters, you can step into the territory of large, 43cm widescreen panels that turn laptops into personal portable cinemas. The powerplant is tuned for serious work and play - in this case, a Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard disk and Nvidia graphics card - which makes a meal out of Windows Vista. But such meaty specifications don't always tell the full story: this beast tips the scales at a shoulder-popping 3.8kg yet the battery runs dry inside of 21/2 hours. If you're going to splash out $2500 for a laptop, there are better and more balanced choices.

Apple MacBook

$1899

www.apple.com.au

4 1/2

Just as we were going to press, Apple refreshed its 33cm MacBook range of notebooks, making them an even better buy. Best value is still the mid-range model, which for $1899 has a 120GB hard drive and DVD burner. If you don't need to burn DVDs then get the entry-level $1599 model - the 80GB hard drive is still good value and you won't notice that it uses a slightly slower Intel chip. The notebook itself is a solid piece of work and can now run Windows as well as Apple's own brilliant Mac OS X operating system. About all that's missing is the in-built reader for digital-camera memory cards, which almost all Windows notebooks have. But under $50 gets you a USB card reader and you're all set.

Dell XPS M1210

$2299

www.dell.com.au

4 1/2

The lush middle ground of the laptop market is usually about choice rather than compromise and Dell's 30cm compact notebook is a great example of this. It packs some serious components such as a Core 2 Duo chip, 2GB of RAM and 100GB hard drive into a fairly compact and attractive chassis weighing a comfortable 2.2kg. There are thinner and lighter ultra-portables around but the XPS M1210 gets the mix about right by leaning towards long battery life - expect to stride past four hours between recharges. As with most mid-range notebooks, the M1210 has a 1.3-megapixel webcam perched atop its screen. Small keyboards can literally cramp your style but the M1210 sports a comfortable, full-size keyboard.

Fujitsu LifeBook S6311

$2499

www.fujitsu.com.au

4 1/2

Despite the Japanese name, there's a clean, European influence to the design, from the knife-straight edges of the chassis to the gunmetal grey and charcoal colouring. And with a solid five hours of battery life on realistic settings and the option to double that by swapping the DVD burner for a second battery, you could work all the way on a flight from Japan to Europe. The LifeBook S6311's made-for-mobile appeal extends to a slim-profile, light 1.7kg weight and a supplied desktop docking station. We liked the specifications - a 2GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive - but it's disappointing the 33cm display is an older square screen instead of a widescreen.

HP Pavilion tx1000

$2299 www.hp.com.au

4

And now for something completely different: a tablet PC aimed at the mainstream, with movies rather than business meetings in mind. The tilt-and-swivel 31cm screen of this "entertainment notebook" forgoes high-tech tablet panels for the cheaper but less accurate touch-screen technology of a PDA. You can still tap and scribble on the high-gloss screen but the rough feel doesn't make for the best experience. Slide out the DVD burner and the weight drops to an easily toted 1.9kg including the battery, which is good for about 2.5 hours. The 1GB of RAM and 120GB hard disk show that HP didn't stint where it counts. We can see the tx1000 as having plenty of appeal for students, as long as they don't expect to spend their downtime playing the latest action games - full-throttle performance is not its forte.

Toshiba Satellite A200

$2299

www.toshiba.com.au

5

Using the same chassis and design as the Satellite A200 in our under-$1500 category, this version (the premium 1400J configuration) adds $900 to the price but ups the ante in some welcome ways. Memory is up to 2GB and a 160GB hard drive, and an Nvidia graphics accelerator gives extra gallop, yet battery life is still good for three hours, thanks largely to the energy efficiency of the Intel Core 2 Duo chip, compared with the older Core processor in the A200. Wireless networking is also upgraded to the new 802.11n "Draft N" system for faster signals and longer reach, provided you've got a .11n base station. All this plus a fingerprint reader makes this Satellite A200 an all-rounder that's hard to fault.

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

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