You are currently browsing the towards the optimal laptop blog archives for June, 2008.
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This week the new Dell Studio 15 and Dell Studio 17 have catched most of the reviews:
According to Tom’s Hardware, in some scenarios solid-state disks use more power than conventional hard disks. While the methodology is controversial, the results show that the supposed energy efficiency of SSDs is not as good as advertised, and that they are not so advisable for laptops as it’s commonly believed.
Certainly, conventional hard disks have got many enhancements during recent years, while SSDs are a new technology that needs to mature.
Update: Tom’s Hardware has performed new tests.
In addition to the Dell Studio 15, the new Studio series from Dell has a 17″ laptop, the Dell Studio 17, that is also available at Dell (US site; UK site).
Configuration options: these are the available options at the moment:
Pricing: US: from 999 USD; a better configuration (T8100, 4 GB, 320 GB, ATI 3650) costs 1324 USD; adding the WUXGA screen and BD-ROM drive brings the price up to 1674 USD. UK: from 469 £; a better configuration (the same as above) costs 689 £, and the proposed full-HD configuration costs 949 £.
Reviews: PC Magazine.
Found in: Notebook Review.
It seems that the laptop leaked as Dell Inspiron 1535 belongs in fact to a new series of laptops, and its name is Dell Studio 15. Studio laptops combine the style and quality of XPS series and the options and pricing of Inspirons, conforming a very interesting line that is already available at Dell (US site; UK site).
Configuration options: these are the available options at the moment:
Pricing: US: from 799 USD; a better configuration (T8100, 4 GB, 320 GB, ATI 3450) costs 1224 USD. UK: from 479 £; a better configuration (the same as above) costs 628 £.
Reviews: PC Magazine, CNET, Notebookcheck, Notebook Review, Notebook Review, optimitza.
Found in: Notebook Review.
Laptop Magazine compares face-to-face the most popular 10″ ultraportables: Asus Eee PC 1000H vs MSI Wind.
Conclussion: with a better keyboard and battery life and a lower price, the MSI Wind is the winner, but the Eee has its strengths, too. Do you want to know the details? Read the article at Laptop Magazine.
That’s right, Buy.com lists 5 different models of MSI Wind available for preorder: black, white and pink, with 3- or 6-cell battery, and priced 479 to 499 USD. There is no estimated shipping date, but you can ask to be alerted when it’s available.
Source: MSI Wind en español
The reviews of the graphics card ATI Radeon HD 4870 have just been published, and they are really excellent: the performance is similar to that of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 but the price is only a 75%.
AnandTech – PC Perspective – Ars Technica – Extremetech
These reviews include the comparision with all the cards in the current generation: Radeon 4850, Radeon 4870, GeForce 9800 GTX+, GeForce GTX 260 y GeForce GTX 280, and are a very good way to choose the right card for you. We only lack the publication of “the best cards for the money, July 2008? by Tom’s Hardware (very soon in its GPU article section).
You can order many of those cards at Newegg; here you have a few selected cards:
For other manufacturers and more cards, go to Newegg:
Here you have the laptop review I have found during the week:
According to the benchmark tables at Notebookcheck, the laptop graphics card ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3850 x2 scores 12800 in 3DMark06, a bit higher than the GeForce 8800M GTX SLI, that scores 12390. And the Mobility Radeon HD 3870 seems a very competitive option too, scoring between the 8800Ms GTS and GTX.
I don’t know how these scores were calculated, it’s likely that they were provided by ATI, so independent benchmarks are needed to adequately evaluate these cards. Anyway, these scores, together with the announcement of the Mobility Radeon HD 4850, suggest that ATI is going to be very competitive in the market of laptop graphics cards.
Only three days ago, Nvidia released its new generation of graphics cards, and today we can see the first benchmarks of the new generation of ATI graphics cards. It seems that ATI released these cards in Europe first, so we are still lacking the reviews from some classic hardware sites, but the first reviews of the Radeon HD 4850 are very positive:
PC Perspective – AMD Zone – Tweak Town
Update: AnandTech and ExtremeTech just published their reviews.
It’s not as fast as the GeForces GTX 200 from Nvidia, but they deliver on the promises: good performance for the price (200 $). On the other hand, the GeForce GTX 280, while more powerful, doesn’t justify its high price (649 $).
Nvidia’s response has been very fast: the price of the GeForce 9800 GTX has dropped to 199 $ and the GeForce 9800 GTX+ has been announced (it’s going to be 10% faster than the 9800 GTX) (Source: X-bit labs). The market is getting really hot!
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