No matter how much you love your laptop, sooner or later, no amount of upgrades and new bits and pieces is going to save it from obsolescence, and you’re going to have to face the piper and put your beloved rig down for the count. Most of us don’t like having to do that. Besides the sentimental attachment, there’s also the hassle of yanking out the pieces we want to keep, transferring a few dozen gigs of important files, installing all of our software again, and, of course, trying to make sure that we get the best laptop for our dollar.
The upside is that it’s always fun to play with your new laptop, so let’s be optimistic and just focus on that.
When you’re ready to get a few bucks together and replace your outdated piece with a shiny new laptop, there’s a lot to consider, and it all depends on your personal preference. With that in mind, the laptops listed below have been selected based on user needs. As far as we can tell, these are the very best on the market for what they are. Take a look and grab your weapon of choice.
Best Gamer Rig
With gaming rigs, if you want the very best, most powerful rigs around, you’re looking at Alienware, specifically, the Area 51 line. Any one of those is going to come packed with plenty of RAM, lightning fast wireless connectivity, and the most powerful graphic cards available. That said, Toshiba isn’t giving the top spot away without a fight.
Putting the Area 51 m15x and the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q725 side by side, here’s the basic specs.
Area 51
2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT
8GB 667MHz DDR2 Memory
High def 15.4 inch display
Qosmio
2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q9000
4GB DDR3 memory
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT
High def 17 inch display
The main differences aren’t really in the guts of the machine, as both can play just about any recent game flawlessly, but in the full package. The Qosmio comes with some powerful speakers, a webcam and a mic, while the Alienware unit has a somewhat sturdier build. A lot of reviewers have noted that the Qosmio’s keyboard feels a little flimsy and that it can be difficult to use, with its unusually tiny spacebar. It’s hard to declare a clear cut winner here, so it comes down entirely to personal preference this time.
Best Multimedia Rig
Apple used to be the only company worth looking at if you were after a multimedia rig… but that was about ten years ago. These days, they’re getting a lot of competition from the Sony VAIO line.
The current line of VAIO is packed with a nice little multimedia software package; VAIO Music Box, VAIO Movie Story, VAIO Media Plus, and Click to Disc Editor. Most of them also include an ATI Radeon Video card, and even the basic consumer models will edit hi-def video without fear of crashing, freezing, or slow down. Pick whichever VAIO is in your price range, and you’ll probably be a satisfied customer.
An Apple Powerbook is the preferred choice for many multimedia pros, though. iLife may well be the best multimedia software package out there. The only problem is that Powerbooks tend to be a little light on RAM, and you’ll probably have to upgrade before being able to do any serious work on the system. There’s also the issue of compatibility. The majority of homebrew apps for media users are designed for Windows, though After Effects is available on Mac, and it can do just about anything you want it to when it comes to post production.
Again, no clear cut winner. The VAIO and Powerbook line are both amongst your best choices for multimedia, and from there it comes down to personal preference and how much you want to spend.
Best General Purpose Rig
If you don’t need your new laptop for anything special, no high end gaming, no hi-def video editing, in other words, just a good, simple, reliable unit that you can use for your basic, all around laptop needs, the best well rounded laptops on the market may well be the Toshiba Portege line.
But buyer beware, they don’t all come with genuine Windows. If you want a full scale laptop where you won’t have to use a downgraded operating system and software, you’re probably after the Portege R500. The unit comes with a Core 2 Duo, Intel GMA 950, and most importantly, real Windows Vista. The Portege R500 can handle gaming reasonably well, it can do multimedia, and, of course, the Microsoft Office package is just about the best you can get for basic office software. So for general purpose use, the Portege might well be the clear cut winner here.
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Powerbook is oldschool…MacBook Pro is the name..
…at least since january 2006.
Time flies:-)
You cant beat a bit of old school
Hmm… I’m not sure I agree with your assessment on the “Best Multimedia Rig” category. I just recently had the occasion to do some shopping of my own, and found the HP DV7’s to be very, very attractive. A 17″ screen with 1440×900 resolution, HDMI output for my HDTV, BluRay, 4GB of memory and 320 GB hard drive put it over the top. At $1150, it was a steal, I thought.
I used to be a Mac guy (anybody who went though public schools in the 80’s and early 90’s was, at one point, and Mac person), but the price is too steep to pay for a computer that typically has weaker specs that its PC counter-part. Now, I can already hear people saying “but it’s sooo much more stable”. Ok… buy a PC and put Linux on it. You’re all set.
I do respect your opinions, though. There is nothing at all wrong with the machines you picked as your recommendations. I stared for hours at a Sony VIAO, and entertained a Toshiba for about as long. Nice article!