The Windows Vista Sidebar loves a display with extra width. So we put six of the best widescreen laptop models through their paces. By Neil Mohr.
Published
on 06 March 2007
Psychic I’m not, but when I say that I would make a healthy wager that your next PC will come in laptop form, it’s based on more than a mere whim. Last year, sales of laptops overtook those of the humble desktop for the first time, and it’s not hard to see why. Even modest laptops are offering power that can rival their heavyweight desktop brethren, but in a stylish chassis that will slip into a bag to take with you or can be put in a desk drawer out of sight.
Like their desktop counterparts, laptops can be tailored for specific jobs or markets. You’ll find budget laptops, business laptops, gaming laptops, Media Center laptops and more besides. It’s a matter of deciding what type you want and choosing the best of class. To help you sift the wheat from the chaff, here are six indepth reviews of highly varied models, with six alternatives to put them in perspective.
MSI MegaBook M677-013UK (£825)
MSI has come to the laptop party rather late in the day, and this market is a pretty tough nut to crack, so it’s going to have to do an impressive job to make any headway at all. The good news for consumers is that an impressive job seems to be exactly what the company is doing.
The M677 is unusual in as much as it’s based around the AMD Turion mobile processor. It is generally accepted that Intel makes the most power-efficient kit, and until AMD comes up with a standard combination of hardware, as Intel has done with Centrino, it will always struggle on battery life, even though processor power as such shouldn’t be a problem.
A Great Desktop Replacement
This is exactly how our test results played out. In general use the Turion beats the other systems for power, but for media encoding it lags badly behind the Intel Core chips. A huge bonus for the MSI is the incorporation of the Nvidia GeForce Go 7600. This enables it to play the latest games smoothly. While some of the Intel-based laptops score an unplayable 10 frames per second with our benchmark game, F.E.A.R., this PC gets a rather smarter 69 frames per second.
As expected, when it came to battery life, the MSI lagged behind even the worst Intel performers, only managing to stay running for two-and-a-half hours, and that’s with it using a high-capacity battery pack.
As expected, when it came to battery life, the MSI lagged behind even the worst Intel performers, only managing to stay running for two-and-a-half hours, and that’s with it using a high-capacity battery pack.
Our verdict
Buy it if... you play a lot ofgames and don’t need to work for long spells on the move.
Don’t buy it if... you are going to be doing media encoding or require lengthy battery power.
The bottom line: A great low-cost gaming laptop that’ll handle everything thrown at it.
Asus S6F Pink Limited Edition (£1,599)
Stylish and lightweight – but at a cost
Going all-out to impress, the shocking pink leather finish on this Asus doesn’t just work well, it looks pretty into the bargain. It’s all part of the premium packaging Asus has opted for with this strictly limited edition model – we’re told that only around a thousand will be available in the UK.
Coming in the most luxurious packaging that we have yet seen gracing a laptop. It has a matching pink leather mouse mat and minimouse, plus a custom carry case and two batteries (one longlife and the other lightweight), providing a decadent feel to the package.
The S6 is what some of us refer to as an ‘ultra portable’. It weighs in at under 2kg and has a screen measuring less than 13 inches, so it stands at the more compact end of the spectrum.
To give credit to Asus, it has created a well-balanced laptop. The Core Duo processor is up to all but the most demanding of tasks, though the 768MB of memory is odd, and we’d prefer to see a full 1GB. Battery life is good, with the extended battery taking it over the five hour mark. The low-looking 2.3 Experience Index is caused by the limited graphics memory, and it obscures the otherwise good overall performance of this laptop.
The 11.1-inch screen is particularly good to use – the 1,366x768 resolution screen looks pin-sharp and produces a gloriously vibrant image. While 3D performance is poor and it struggles with high-def nition playback, it’s happy to handle anything else. This machine also seemed to me to be easily the quietest system tested.
My main concern is the price, which marks this PC as being aimed at the fashion-conscious not the tech-savvy. If you’ve the money, though, you’d look damn good with it under your arm.
Our verdict
Buy it if... you’re looking for the sexiest ultra mobile leather laptop on the market
Don’t buy it if... you’re on a budget, or mainly interested in playing games or watching high-definition movies
The Bottom Line: A great-looking PC with a reasonably high specification, but it costs the Earth.
Evesham Voyager DC720 (£1,699)
The perfect laptop for gaming
There’s no doubt that this Evesham model rules the land of the laptops, for this group test at least – mind you, costing around £1,500, so it should. Out-powering many a desktop system, the Voyager crams a high-end graphics card and dual core processor into its 17-inch chassis, which manages to advertise itself rather well with all that showy silver.
A key draw for this computer is the ATI graphics card, and this does power the system along – slaughtering any 3D tasks you might throw at it. It also helps that the display looks gorgeous, with a high-definition 1920x1200 resolution.
In an odd way, the system turns out to be relatively power efficient. Despite having an average capacity battery, it lasted just over two hours while running a low desktop workload. However don’t expect it to reach anywhere near that if you’re gaming. For that, you will need a good old-fashioned mains power supply.
The big attraction, of course, is the high-end mobile graphics card. The Go 7950 simply mops up anything that’s thrown at it. Taking the average frame rate for F.E.A.R. it topped 154, more than twice the performance of the MSI. Of course you pay for this speed – almost twice as much – but it does mean that this computer will be capable of dealing with the most demanding games such as Oblivion without struggling.
The index of 4.5 is a little misleading, held back by the 1GB of memory. Indeed, for the money being paid we’d have expected twice this amount of RAM.
In its way it’s well-priced, but new machines in this class are beginning to come through with Blu-ray and HD DVD drives, so this PC is pretty well for gamers only. At least you get a three-year warranty for your money.
Our verdict
Buy it if... you’re after a great gaming experience and want a high resolution screen.
Don’t buy it if... games are of no interest to you, or you’re expecting an HD optical drive.
The bottom line: A sizzling hot laptop, but one with a hardto-justify price unless you love gaming.
Rock Direct Pegasus t12 (£999)
Battery life makes it great on the go
The Pegasus t12 is a bit special. One reason people buy laptops is that they need computing away from a power source. Until recently, PC laptops struggled to last much past a couple of hours, but the latest technology is pushing this time through three hours and beyond.
There are a couple of approaches you can take to the problem. As Sony has done with the TX3, you can push the technology envelope with cuttingedge engineering; the alternative is to take standard technology and bolt on a huge capacity battery. The second of these is the Rock approach – and it works.
Based around the Intel Core 2 Duo T7400 processor and related architecture, the Pegasus starts off on a good footing. Where it deviates from the norm is that the battery has a huge capacity – way more than most laptops.
The result is a physically large battery that sticks out the back of the laptop, but also boasts a running time of almost six-and-a-half hours. That statistic is mighty impressive considering the 15.4-inch display and the powerful T7400 processor. It is not the most elegant of solutions but it works. And it would be perfectly viable to go for one of the cheaper options with a slower processor, and gain still more running time while shaving a couple of hundred pounds off the price tag.
Everything else you’d want is to be found: double-layer DVD rewriter, wireless LAN, four USB ports, low-noise running. The display isn’t particularly impressive but that’s what you get for running 1,200x800 on a 15.4-inch screen.
As with many other laptops, the reason the Pegasus scores 3.1 is that it is held back by the basic Intel on-board graphics. Good enough to power the Aero interface, but not much else.
Our verdict
Buy it if... you’re after one of the cheapest long-life laptops on the market.
Don’t buy it if... you want to look stylish, or fancy something that’s small and lightweight.
The bottom line: Congratulations to Rock for building a low-cost as well as long-life laptop.
Toshiba Satellite U200 - 155 (£999)
Small, light and very durable
The Satellite range has had a long and auspicious history. Its high-end models have been able to boast cutting-edge technology, while the mid-range machines have been snapped up by business for their durability. The Satellite U200 is one of the more recent additions to the range and is aimed at the ultra-mobile end of the market.
The styling on this machine may best be described as minimalist, and it looks all the sleeker for it. The magnesium alloy chassis has a good feel to it with curvaceous rounded edges. Based on a 12in widescreen display, the chassis is small, and weighs in at under 2kg. Toshiba has been innovative in its design. As it is expected to be out and about, the laptop features shock protection, and the hard drive will shut down if a fall is detected. The keyboard is also classed as spill-resistant, though we didn’t test it.
For the lazy, let your fingers do the security walking. The incorporated fingerprint detector and software means no passwords, just the swipe of a fingertip. The choice of the Core 2 Duo T5500 is a smart one by Toshiba. While technically it’s much slower than, say, the T7400 (running at 1.6GHz compared to 2.1GHz) it has plenty of grunt for a mobile, replaying high-definition content almost as adeptly and not trailing the faster processor by much in our general tests.
Despite its smaller capacity battery, it manages a run time of around three hours, which is reasonable – but there are better long battery life choices out there. The Intel 945GM graphics leads to poor 3D performance and thus a modest Experience Index of 3.1.
Compared to the Rock, for the same money you do get a slower, laptop with a shorter battery life, but its general engineering feels better, and it’s more portable.
Our verdict
Buy it if... You’re after a small, light, general purpose portable laptop.
Don’t buy it if... Extreme battery life or demanding gaming are your priorities.
The bottom line: Despite modest specs, the U200 is one of those devices that just feels right.
HP Pavilion dv2058ea (£899)
Affordable, and a good all-rounder
Hot off the production line, this 14-inch widescreen HP laptop is rubbing up against the ultra-mobile arena thanks to its small size. Even the 2.4kg weight is around half a kilo below what you’d expect from a traditional laptop, and makes it a tempting portable option.
In fact, HP has managed to tag on a number of features, and a price that continues to build this appeal. The price tag is reasonable for the specification, particularly as it comes equipped with the Nvidia GeForce Go 7200 chipset. This helps it power 3D games at almost three times the speed of the standard Intel graphics in this test (as in the Rock and Toshiba), but it’s also the reason for the seemingly low 2.7 Index score.
The Core Duo T2300E does a good job of keeping up with the rest of the pack, but it does struggle somewhat with media encoding and high-definition playback, being noticeably slower than even the AMD Turion in the MSI laptop. In its favour, the 14-inch display has a sharper feel to the image, thanks to the high dot pitch.
At 125 minutes in our tests, battery life isn’t a strong point of the system, but helping make up for this is the inclusion of a Lightscribe dual layer DVD rewriter, enabling you to burn labels direct into compatible discs. And an integrated webcam with dual omni-directional microphones makes it ideal for video conferencing.
It does seem that the most impressive aspect of the HP is its looks. It has a well-balanced set of features and tempting extras, including the extra graphic grunt of the 7200 card, but that is countered by its lacklustre battery performance. Really, it would be difficult to choose this machine over the MSI or even the Toshiba.
Our verdict
Buy it if... If you’re after a jack of all trades in an eminently portable chassis.
Don’t buy it if... If you’re looking for real gaming value or superior battery life.
The bottom line: Scoring high in size and looks depts, it’s only average in most of the others.
Neil Mohr contributes to Windows Vista: The Official Magazine, and works as a freelance technology journalist.
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