Laptop Computers Reviewed

With the recent drop in the value of the $NZ and as a consequence the price of imported electronic goods going up, it’s more important than ever to get value for money when buying a high priced item.  In this review we examine the laptop computers on offer for around the $1000 mark (give or take a few hundred!). There are many highly-spec’d laptops that are considerably more than this – often running over the $3,000 mark, but for the average user, be that a business person or a student you don’t need to spend that much to get a machine that will perform perfectly well for your needs.

Laptop computers fall into three broad categories; there are the ‘desktop replacement’ type laptops – these are usually large – 15” – 17” screen, and can often weigh in excess of 3.5 kgs.  Great if you want the convenience and portability of a laptop but you need the screen size to complete detailed tasks – say if you are a designer. At the extreme other end of the scale are the  super hot item of the moment;  a  netbook. These are mini-machines with screen sizes that used to be as small as 8.9”but the latest netbooks come with a 10” screen and often weigh under 2kg. These are the answer for a student or home user who wants to surf the ‘net and check their email. Probably not the best if you have serious work to do on your machine because they do have restrictions – not least of all the small screen size. They are improving however, with the upper end models now shipping with 60GB HDD’s as opposed to the flash memory of the previous and cheaper models. These disadvantages turn into advantages at the till, where these laptops come into their own, often selling as low as $700. Straddling these two extremes are smaller laptops – with screen sizes around 12” – 14” and weighing under 3kg. With the advantages of portability and grunt, these machines generally provide the best of both the first two options. The one sticking point with these machines is the price; packing the power of a big machine into a smaller space costs so getting value for money in this category provides us with the greatest challenge. Check out what we consider the best value available in each of these categories .

Desktop Replacements:

There is plenty to choose from in this category so what we are aiming to achieve when looking for ‘bang for your buck’ is processor speed and reliability first, followed by features and then looks. Combining all these things our top pick for this category is the HP Presario CQ60-210TU. This good looking machine has a glossy black case that belies it’s workhorse mentality, this laptop is robust and reliable. It comes with a 15.6” widescreen, Intel Celeron Dual Core Processor, 1GB RAM, 160 GB Hard disk drive and DVD/RW. For the $1099 GST incl price it comes with Windows Vista Basic. For our money, for another $400 we would up-spec to the 212TU which gives you a 320GB HDD, Webcam, 2GB RAM and a Pentium T3400 processor for notably increased speed as well as Vista Home Premium.

Second on our list is the Toshiba L300 Satellite Pro, which, while not the prettiest laptop in the world, combines plenty of features for the $1082 price tag. The Celeron processor at 2.2 Ghz has good performance and comes with 15.4” widescreen, 160GB  HDD, Webcam, DVD/RW and 1GB RAM. It ships with Visa Home Premium.  The pedestrian looks are made up for by the toughness of these laptops, they can sure take the knocks, hence they are often used in a classroom situation.

Netbooks

There is plenty of competition in this category, and that’s not surprising. A ‘netbook’ is the latest and hottest laptop to hit the street, and at a pricetag often less than a top end mobile phone they are certainly a computing option worth investigating. From the ‘dumb blonde’ – gorgeous but useless, to the bland but workable, these mini machines run the gamut of options as each provider attempts to outdo the competition. Drum roll then as we have narrowed down the options to our two favourites;

First place goes to the Acer Aspire One Atom which retails at $999 and comes in a gorgeous selection of glossy black, blue white or red. Looks aside though, the 10.1” screen, Intel 1.6 Ghz processor , 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD mean this mini certainly punches above it’s weight in terms of performance. It also comes with a webcam and card reader and the OS is Windows XP. The 10.1” version is hot off the press, replacing their previous 8.9” version at a cost of only another $11. If you can work with the small screen size of this mini – this could be the one for you.

Running a close second place in this hotly contested category is the HP Pavilion Mini-1001TU. Not much separates the HP Mini from the Acer however, for another $50, retailing at $1049 you are losing 100GB of storage as it only comes with a 60GB HDD. If you are a fashion victim the HP won’t appeal as it only comes in standard laptop black. But for many people the power of the HP brand will keep them coming back for more, and you could do a lot worse than buy what will be a reliable and extremely portable computer.

Smaller Laptops

Keeping within our self imposed budget constraints proved impossible in this category with entry level around the $2,000 mark. Ouch! Our pick is that with the netbooks becoming more powerful and the screen size and storage on the increase that these smaller laptops will be phased out. However, for the purposes of this exercise, we have chosen our picks.

First cab off the rank – from Hewlett Packard the HP6530b, is a 14.1” widescreen machine with bells and whistles and all the speed you’ll need with a 2Ghz Dual core processor, 2GB RAM and 160GB HDD. At $1907 RRP it’s not the cheapest laptop as we have discussed at it’s looks are strictly business, but once again the brand speaks and Hewlett Packard turn out a reliable machine with great portability at only 2.41 kg. These also still ship with the options of Vista or XP Pro.

The Lenovo Thinkpad R400 was where we went next. This little known brand actually now has IBM as part of it’s stable. ‘Bland but rugged’ is how our technical team described this laptop – but the specs are good; dual Core processor, 2 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, webcam , 14.1” screen and a lightweight  2.29 kg. However, with a price tag of $2,248 you’d certainly be looking at the same specs for half the price in a bigger laptop before you went this way.