Last weekend, I had the whole weekend to get started on my project. No prior engagements, no visitors, no chores to attend to (well, not many). So, I knuckled down and got started. Right?
Not so fast. Didn’t you know I want a new laptop? My trusty Acer Aspire 5672 is showing signs of fatigue after nearly six years of loyal service. That’s good going. All that’s gone wrong in those five years is a dead memory stick and a slightly wonky webcam that I don’t use anyway. I’ll be very impressed if the next one lasts anywhere near this long.
I know what I want specs-wise:
- At least 4Gb memory
- At least 500Gb HDD
- At least 6 hours battery (I’m down to like 45mins on this thing)
- At least 1280 x 800 screen at 14 or 15 inches.
- USB3
- Lighter than the current 3kg (my Aspire must have a steel frame!)
- DVD drive
- Somewhere around the £600 mark
A lot of the seemingly obvious front-runners can be immediately ignored due to the current de-facto 1366 x 768 screens. I’m not taking a backwards step in vertical resolution. It looks like the next step up is 1600 x 900 and they’re few and far between on 14 inch machines. Lots of choice on 15 or 15.6 inch screens, but I’m leaning towards a 14 inch just to keep size and weight down (meaning easier to cart to Canada every 9 months or so).
I’ve been consulting various web sites to try and narrow down my choices but none of them quite get the job done on their own. They’ve each got flaws, making me think of another nice opportunity for anyone in need of a geek project – somebody please do a decent hardware review collecting site where you can filter out by detailed machine spec and various other factors. Sort of a cross between metacritic and dabs.com product search.
For posterity, here’s the sites that have helped to some degree:
- Laptop mag – best for filtering, decent reviews, but for US market. Annoying, nagging flyer thing keeps popping up trying to get me to “find my perfect laptop”, but it seems a bit broken when you do try it out.
- Trusted Reviews – good reviews, basic filtering, just could do with a few more reviews. I’m sure their filtering used to be more comprehensive, perhaps it was too hard to maintain.
- Expert Reviews (Computer Shopper) – ok filtering, but not quite detailed enough. Decent amount of reviews, but no way to filter out old irrelevant ones, and not enough info in each machine’s summary.
- CNET (uk) – broken filtering (at least in Firefox and Chrom(ium) on Linux), patronising and slightly “lad-mag”ish. Another site who I’m sure used to have good filter and search. It seems to have been revamped lately and has lost the goodness.
- PC Pro – virtually identical search abilities as Expert Reviews (both Dennis Publishing, so no surprises there), but different reviews and ratings. These guys go up to 6 stars, woo.
- TechRadar – very basic filtering like price range and manufacturer, so you have to have already narrowed the field down a lot, more or less. Some handy roundups.
- PC Advisor – only filtering by manufacturer, and if you sort by review rating you get heaps of reviews from 2007, 2008 etc. Shame. Probably useful for a second or third opinion when you’ve narrowed your choices down.
- Pocket-lint – virtually non-existent search/filtering, but some good reviews and news.
- Skinflint – great filtering, but just for finding suitable products, no reviews.
So to the contenders.
Asus U46E-BAL5
Close to perfection specs-wise, but for that 1366 x 768 screen and it doesn’t seem to be available in the UK. Good price, even if they do their usual and charge almost the same in pounds as they do in dollars ($699.99). I could maybe get one in Canada in December though.
Seems to have been superceded by the less well received U46SV. Still looks ok, just doesn’t get as glowing reviews.
Samsung Series 7 / Chronos / 700z
Should be out in the UK in the next week or two. It seems to be a stab at a MacBook Pro equivalent for a vastly cheaper price. I’m drooling all over it already. Just waiting for some actual reviews rather than all these “hands-on” previews. They come in at between £700 and £1000. Of course I want the top spec, but really don’t need that. Somebody somewhere mentioned that the 14″ version won’t be available in the UK, and that’s the one I want. Why would they do that? Marketing people, get a clue.
Reviews of the 700z5a (15.6″)
Apple MacBook Pro
Almost every review site says these machines are the shiznit. Very well built, top quality parts, excellent support, you name it. My main beef with them is you really pay for it. For the price of a base model 15″, I could get both of the above two laptops. Seriously. Coming up for £1600. That’s crazy for somebody who doesn’t actually depend on the machine for their livelihood.