Journey For A New Laptop
Written on 9:22 PM by AudibleKnight
This is the story of how I decided on which laptop to buy to replace my almost 6 year old computer. It's pretty long, geeky and tech based, but feel free to check it out behind the cut.
Read More...
For the past year plus, I have been searching for a new laptop. My current laptop was a lower mid-range computer when I got it some almost 6 years ago. At the time, I was more concerned about being able to carry my laptop around campus than I was about how much horsepower it had. As you can guess, I've found it has limited me more and more as time has passed. Whether it was keeping current on PC games, refining my image editing skills, or learning how to edit videos, my computer has held me back. This spring, I've had enough, and with Intel's new Sandy Bridge chips released at the beginning of this year, computer processors have seen a large jump in performance. It felt like the right time for me to seriously evaluate my options.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4084/intels-sandy-bridge-upheaval-in-the-mobile-landscape
Asus g73SW
A year ago, a computer really caught my eye. It was priced extremely well, while having a lot of the performance I was looking for. This was the Asus g73JH. It was a bit larger than I originally hoped at 17.3", but it had a discrete GPU, a solid processor and ran cool. At a price tag of $1,500 it really was quite compelling. The only real off-putting item at the time was that there was no USB3 ports on the system. If I was going to use this system for years, then I wouldn't be stuck with only USB2 ports. 6 months later an update came out: the Asus g73JW. This system had a single USB3 port, but the price was bumped up to $1,675. However, with Sandy Bridge just months away from being released, it didn't make sense to buy that laptop to me. Finally in early 2011, there was another revision with Sandy Bridge: the Asus g73sw retailing at $1,745.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3662/asus-g73jha2-affordable-xlsized-gaming
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3998/asus-g73jw-geforce-gtx-460m
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4207/asus-g73sw-third-times-the-charm
The g73sw had the check points I was looking for: Sandy Bridge, USB3, discrete processor (Nvidia GTX 460M), but with the price bumps it didn't feel like the amazing deal that originally caught my eye a year ago. There was also the nagging fact that it was still a 17" laptop, that weighed 8.5 lbs that turned me off. I decided to look elsewhere and see what other options there were.
Apple Macbook Pro
With the Sandy Bridge chipset recall, the first real showcase of Sandy Bridge was Apple's 2011 Macbook Pro. The low end 15 inch Macbook pro retails at $1800, with the high end hitting $2,200. The Macbook Pro is often touted as one of the most beautiful laptops available. With its unibody aluminium case it is eye catching, beautiful and light at 5.6lbs. The performance has also reached great new heights thanks to Sandy Bridge and the AMD Radeon HD 6750 in the high end MBP. In some tests, it rivals a full desktop computer from 2009:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4192/macbook-pro-2011-refresh-specs-and-details
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4205/the-macbook-pro-review-13-and-15-inch-2011-brings-sandy-bridge
The thing is though, that I can't configure a lower end 15 inch MBP with the AMD Radeon HD 6750, I have to select the high end system. Then if I wanted to upgrade any of the other options, it would be quite expensive:
- 8GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB [Add $200.00]
- 128GB Solid State Drive [Add $100.00]
- MacBook Pro 15-inch Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen Display [Add $150.00]
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2764570?tstart=0
Those 27 pages and almost 400 posts about it are really quite daunting. Lastly, there's the issue of OSX. While Apple has made huge strides in recent years, software development is still primarily on Windows. Sure there are now more Mac versions of software today than ever, but you'll see better and more upgraded versions on Windows, whether it's something free like VLC, or something huge like World of Warcraft. Between the heating issues, cost and moving to OSX, I decided to look elsewhere.
Dell XPS 15
The Dell XPS 15 was one of the last few options for a Sandy Bridge computer. It was released at the end of 2010, and received a revision in the spring to upgrade the processor to Sandy bridge.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4274/dell-xps-15-l502x-now-with-sandy-bridge
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3999/dell-xps-15-l501x-review/
The XPS 15 has an attractive starting pricepoint at $800. However when you start to load it up I ended up with a price of $1,894.99. However the most aggravating point for me, was the fact that the customization was severely limited. No matter what I did, there was no way to upgrade the Nvidia GT 540M which was a fair step down from the GTX 460M. You could get a solid state drive, but it had to be 256GB, and so would cost an additional $520.
Overall, it felt like a mainstream laptop, when I wanted a bit more from my new computer. There's also the fact that Dell is well known for installing bloatware into any new system. The last thing that solidified my decision was the fact that upgradeability would be a serious issue. With Dell systems, you pretty much have to take the entire laptop apart to get to some of the usual items you'd like to upgrade (ie: Hard drives). Also from the Anandtech review, plastic clips are used to hold pieces together. That never bodes well, as if you break the clip, then you're pretty much out of luck.
Sager NP8150
Eventually I found out about Sager Notebooks, a company that provides custom gaming laptops using Clevo laptop chasses which are used by other companies like Alienware and VoodooPC. Thanks to the notebookreview.com forums, I was able to find reviews by actual owners of these systems. Essentially what I came to find out was that I could order a system through one of the resellers who provide better support than if I bought through Sager. Pricing wise, by getting a Sager system, I could get high performing parts while avoiding a lot of the huge markups that you'd get from a boutique seller, in essence getting some of the best bang for my buck that I could find.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sager_Notebook_Computers
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo-reviews-owners-lounges
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4223/eurocom-racer-radeon-hd-6970m-rocks
With the system I chose, I was able to get a Sandy Bridge i7, a beautiful matte 1080p display, 8 gigs of RAM, 2 USB3 ports, an Intel 120 gig solid-state hard drive, a blu-ray combo drive and AMD's Radeon 6970m. The 6970m is leaps and bounds better in performance than all the previous GPUs I mentioned above, slightly lower and $250 cheaper than the best laptop GPU (GTX 485m). I've ordered my system ($2,094 + shipping), and can't wait to get my hands on it!
GPU Comparisons
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-540M.41715.0.html (Dell XPS 15)
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX-460M.33612.0.html (Asus g73SW)
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6750M.43958.0.html (Apple MBP)
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6970M.43077.0.html (Sager NP8150)
If you enjoyed this post Subscribe to our feed