The 6 best power laptops

[General Veers]

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The 6 best power laptops <!-- TITLE : end--> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" height="15">

</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3" class="bodytext_10pt"> <!-- CONTENT : start --> By Oo Gin Lee

WITH the power of gaming laptops closing in on their desktop cousins, these portable powerhouses are looking more and more desirable. You can get rid of table clutter and still have the option of carting your gaming rig to Wi-Fi hot spots in town to 'gun down' your enemies.

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Dell Alienware M15x​

$3,888​

Look and feel:

The Louis Vuitton of gaming rigs, the Alienware stands out for its beautiful design and immaculate finish. Choose from red, black or grey as the base colour for the lid and the underside. I like the material used for the lid, which is matte (no smudges) and feels like ceramic. Even the bottom is exemplary in its symmetrical design, with the heat vents neatly placed along both sides of the hinge.

Having inspected the bottoms of many gaming laptops, this is one of only a handful that I respect. The machine is very sturdy and it is roomy inside. Roomy is good because it means there is more space to dissipate heat. However, it adds to the bulk, which explains the 4kg weight. The LAN and power ports are on the left-hand side and heat vents are well located near the hinge, away from users' hands and wrists. The keys are of normal size and there is no number pad, which leaves lots of space to rest your palms and wrist.

Features:
Customise the keyboard, power switch and trackpad outline to glow in any colour of your choice: Make them all glow green or choose combos from the entire colour spectrum. In fact, set the WASD keys to a different shade so you can locate them quickly. The full HD screen is a beauty to behold even though for a 15.6-inch, screen text and icons appear rather small. A special 'sleep and charge' USB port lets you use it to charge gadgets like a mobile phone even when the laptop is switched off.

Audio:
Those sound grilles at the lower left and right sides of the laptop are not just for show. They blast out the best decibels among all the rigs tested and leaves the competition in the dust. Blasting rockets and taking out enemy snipers with the right booming sounds to match takes laptop gaming to a whole new level.

Performance:
Benchmarks are comparable to the dumbed-down Asus G51 engineering sample as well as the Gateway 17-incher as all three used the same GTX260M graphics card. Dell did not reset the test unit it sent to me and there were too many junk applications like Michaelsoft inside which messed up the system. I could not install Modern Warfare 2 as a result but my test with 3DMark06 and Crysis showed good numbers.

Final say
Immaculate design with rock-solid performance but at a price.


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[General Veers]

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Acer Aspire 5942G
$2,498 (Promo: $2,298)
Look and feel:

You will either love or loathe its glossy black lid. It is so shiny that you can see your own reflection and fingerprint smudges will be just as obvious.
Open the lid and discover the cool-looking keyboard with 'floating keys'. There is no number keypad, which is not a bad thing as the space saved means larger keys. A generous blue-lit power button lets you know exactly how to get started while a huge blue-lit knob at the lower left corner lets you pump up the volume easily. The body is well designed for gaming, with both LAN and power ports at the top left-hand side and the heat vents along the underside of the hinge. The hinges for the lid is solid and the base is strong, which prevents the machine from being tipped over when the lid is pushed backwards.

Features:
With a resolution of just 1,336 x 768, this machine will play the best shooters only at the lower settings. Truth be told, this is not a big problem as most games already look good at this resolution. What bothers me is that the whites have a yellowish tinge instead of being pure white. Hopefully, this is a defect only on the test unit. There is no Blu-ray drive so you are limited to only DVD movies. However, there is 6GB of RAM instead of the usual 4GB.

Audio:
The huge sound bar at the top of the laptop lives up to its looks, belting out powerful gunshots in Modern Warfare2, though not as loudly as the Alienware laptop. Sound quality is above average, losing out to only the Toshiba and the Alienware. The audio clarity is good enough for me to make out the different instruments in pop songs.

Performance:
Modern Warfare 2 ran smoothly at the maximum 1,336 x 768 resolution that the screen could handle but Crysis Warhead suffered too much lag to be playable. The graphics card is the limiting factor here. That said, there are only a handful of shooters which are as resource hungry as Crysis, so most games will still run smoothly.

Final say​

A basic gaming rig with good audio quality and design. Good value.



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[General Veers]

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Asus G51
$2,998
Look and feel:

The rather plasticky look and feel is not helped by the design of the lid which has two shades of blue and an imprint design that looks like a scratch wound suffered from a claw attack. The inside looks average but I like the palm rest which is rubbery and feels comfortable even after long hours of use. The keys are a little small - Asus has squeezed in a number keypad - but fortunately they are well-spaced so I could still type comfortably. The hinge opens out to almost 180degrees, preventing accidental breakage of the lid. Both the LAN and power ports are located at the top-side, my favourite choice of location, while the heat vents are at the left-hand side.

Features:
This machine would have knocked out the competition with its superior hardware specs but Asus does not have a commercial unit for review and hands me a dumbed-down engineering unit which, amazingly, is still on par with the other top performers. The test unit uses the GTX260M (like the Alienware and the Gateway) instead of the superior GTX 360M. Also, it has a pixel count of just 1,336 x 768 resolution instead of the top-range 1,920 x 1,080 and 4GB RAM instead of 8GB.

Audio:
Quality was average, despite the branded Altec Lansing sound bar.

Performance:
Where I expect the G51 to really shine is in its performance. Its hardware specs on paper beats its rivals hands down. With the significantly faster GTX 360M graphics card, this machine will rule the sub-$3,000 gaming rig roost.

Final say
Do not be fooled by its looks, it reeks of power under the hood.

 

[General Veers]

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Gateway P7904g
$3,288 (Promo: $2,788)
Look and feel:

The only 17-inch machine in this round-up, the P7904g has a glossy black lid with a huge fireball design in the middle. The gloss is unusual in that while it attracts smudges, they do not look as obvious compared to those on typical glossy blacks. A larger size allows for full-sized keys plus a number pad in the keyboard. The black and orange colour combination looks cool and the multimedia keys above the keyboard have an orange glow too. The hinge folds backwards to 180degrees, which is great for preventing accidental hinge breakage. Two heat vents - one each on the left and right sides of the hinge - cool the rig without interfering with your mouse. My only gripe is that the LAN port is located too low on the left side and the LAN cable tends to get in the way of the mouse cable.

Features:
The larger 17-inch screen is definitely a plus, although I was disappointed that its resolution does not go higher than the default setting of 1,440 x 900. There is no Blu-ray drive. I used this machine for about a month and found it to be very stable. It did not hang even once.

Audio:
Average at most.

Performance:
Although the rig runs on the older quad-core processor, the benchmarks show that it is equally capable. Its numbers were comparable to the Asus G51 and Alienware M15x and both games ran smoothly.

Final say
If you do not need Blu-ray, this is a good gaming rig with a large screen and good performance.

 

[General Veers]

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MSI GT640
$3,088 (Promo: $2,888)
Look and feel:

There is nothing like the feel of cold metal and this machine stands out for its brushed aluminium finish on the lid and the palm rest inside. Red and black is the colour combo but the chilli-red bezel does not work for me. The touch-sensitive multimedia keys at the top of the keyboard make turning on the webcam, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi easy. The power port is well-placed below the hinge and the LAN port at the top of the right side is not obtrusive. A big problem is the heat vent. It is at the right-hand side and the heat blows onto my mousing hand. I had to keep moving my right hand away from the laptop to avoid the heat.

The keys are large and there is a number keypad despite the compact body. However, I find a slight lag in the keys when I go online. In Gmail, for instance, I often have to pause for about half a second between every letter I type or the letters will not appear. There was no lag when I was doing work offline like typing in Wordpad. As with those of the other rigs in this feature, the hinge goes back 180 degrees to prevent accidental breakage. At just 2.7kg, this is the most compact gaming rig of the lot.

Features:
The 1,600 x 1,080 screen is one-up over many of the laptops tested. Also unusual is the fact that its built-in sound card works with a 7.1 speaker system.

Audio:
Average.

Performance:
The slower GTS250M graphics card results in lower benchmarks for the GT640. Crysis Warhead is unplayable although Modern Warfare 2 plays quite smoothly.

Final say
A very compact gaming machine so it is easy to lug around.

 

[Ramseth]

Just buy a Dell with Windows. Don't buy Apple. If it can't crash, it's not a real computer in the sense of computing, it's just an appliance. If you don't experience crash and learn recovery, you're a computer dummy.

 

[General Veers]

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Toshiba Qosmio X500
$3,988
Look and feel:

I really like the look and feel of this machine. The glossy black body with red accents along the rim looks classy, even with the word Qosmio emblazoned in red on the black lid. The large and flat keys work silently too. They also light up with a serene white glow in low-light while the multimedia keys and the top outline of the trackpad emit a red glow. The heat vents are just below the hinge, sending heat away from the user.

Features:
The large 18.4-inch screen is a real turn-on. The 1,600 x 945 resolution is decent, although full HD 1,920 x 1,080 will definitely be more suitable for a screen this size. Another special: The Blu-ray burner which lets you read as well as write on Blu-ray discs. Plus, a USB port lets you charge your devices even when the laptop is off.

Audio:
The twin Harmon Kardon speakers are not decibel devils but are the best in audio quality. With the deepest bass and the best clarity, I can easily discern the sound of the different instruments like the cymbals and electric guitars. Topmarks.

Performance:
Except for its slower GTS 250M graphics card, this machine is almost perfect. It beats the Acer and the MSI machines but does not top the other machines running on the faster GTX260M card. Had Toshiba used the latter, I would have gladly awarded the DL Choice award to this laptop.

Final say
The large screen, top-notch Harmon Kardon audio, great looks and a Blu-ray writer make this an excellent all-rounder.

 

[General Veers]

Here is our shopping checklist

Screen size
You will not go wrong with 'the bigger, the better' thinking for screens - they give the best gaming experience. However, if you are planning to lug your laptop around, go for the smaller 15.6-inch machines. I would prefer at least 17 inches though, as I am used to 24-inch monitors at home. The good news: choices abound for laptops with screens from 15.6 to 18.4inches.

Screen resolution
The higher the resolution, the better your game looks. Resolution, along with the engine of your graphics card, determines whether you can enjoy a game's eye candy in full glory. It is best to get a full high-definition (HD) 1,920 x 1,080 screen because many of these machines also come with a Blu-ray drive for enjoying HD movies. If these full HD screens come at a premium, consider one with a lower resolution, especially if your graphics card is not among the best. At the very least, its resolution should be 1,336 x 768. Personally, I would go for at least 1,600 x 1,080 if the price gap is not too great.

Graphics card
This is the one thing that makes the most difference to your game. The question is not whether a specific game can run on your machine but at which resolutions does it run smoothly. Of the six machines tested, three of them ran on the faster Nvidia GTX 260M, two on the GTS 250M and one on the ATI Radeon Mobility HD5650 (the latter two are about the same in performance). Both the HD5650 and the GTS 250M ran almost all the games smoothly, including last year's top shooter Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in low to medium resolution, but will find a handful of older shooters like Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2 a challenge. The GTX 260M should be able handle any game in the market now, at least in low and medium resolutions. If shooters are your thing, consider paying extra for the GTX 260M as you will need the extra oomph for the more demanding ones.

Audio
A good game needs great speakers so you can hear the booms of grenades and feel the adrenaline rush as you mow down an entire army, Rambo-style. However, audio is the hardest to test because the only way to know which laptop sounds better is to listen to it. It is also very subjective.

Design
Typically, gamers place their left hand on the WASD keys and their left wrist on the palm rest below the keyboard. So, the design of a good gaming laptop ensures that areas like the left-hand side of the machine remain cool after hours of intense use. As the mouse is held in the right hand, a well-thought out system should not have the LAN or power cable on the right-hand side. This would cause it to interfere with the mouse cable. Heat vents should ideally be at the top of the machine; the top of the left-hand side is the second best place. Right-side vents are a poor design because they heat up your mousing hand.

Test notes
The Asus G51 unit provided to us was an engineering sample with lower specs. For Modern Warfare 2, we launched the Sniper Fi Special Ops mission and recorded the average frames per second (fps) for one minute. For Crysis Warhead, we ran the first minute of the game and recorded the average fps. For low resolution, we set it at 1,280x1,024 or the nearest equivalent resolution with no anti-aliasing. For medium resolution, we set it at 1,680 x 1,050 or the nearest equivalent resolution with 4x anti-aliasing.

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[General Veers]

Five best laptops running Windows 7

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Five best laptops running Windows 7 <!-- TITLE : end--> </td></tr> <tr><td colspan="3" height="15">

</td> </tr> <tr><td colspan="3" class="bodytext_10pt"> <!-- CONTENT : start --> By ADLI YASHIR

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1. HP Envy
From $3,499, get from HP dealers

With its intricate metal etching on the cover, the HP Envy deserves a place in an art museum or at least in the hands of a discerning user who demands a premium class notebook. But this beautiful, thin and light notebook is no softie. You get premium graphics performance from the ATI Mobility Radeon 4830. It comes with the Beats audio software that lets you tweak audio settings like the bass or treble levels for greater clarity. Instead of the traditional touchpad and buttons, the HP Envy comes with the new ClickPad, a new touchpad that integrates mouse buttons. So instead of clicking on a button, you tap once or twice directly on the touchpad. There are two versions to choose from - one with a 13.1-inch display or a slightly more expensive one with a 15.6-inch display.



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[General Veers]

2. Acer Ferrari One
$1,598, from Acer dealers

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The famous Italian sports car with the prancing stallion logo has a new mini notebook with head-turning trimmings. This hot red and black mini notebook looks absolutely gorgeous and sleek. This 1.5kg notebook is light and compact. It is sure to attract attention when you pull it out from your bag at a cafe or at an airport lounge. Key features include an AMD Athlon X2 dual-core processor L310 and up to 4GB RAM. You also get a bright and sharp 11.6-inch TFT LCD screen that can display up to 1,366 x 768 pixels.
Graphics is powered by the ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics processor with up to 2047 MB of HyperMemory. To provide better audio performance, Acer enhances the audio with third-generation Dolby Home Theater.

 

[General Veers]

3. Dell Adamo

From $2,899, buy online at www.dell.com.sg

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Take a deep breath and take your time to admire and adore this lovely piece. Adamo means 'to fall in love with' in Latin. One look and you understand why it is not hard to fall in love with this notebook. At just under 1cm thick, Dell says it is the world's thinnest notebook. Despite its slimness, the notebook has a tough aluminium chassis with elegant details. For example, the notebook has a 13.4-inch widescreen LED high-definition edge-to-edge display. The basic model comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo 1.4GHz processor with 2GB DDR3 RAM and a 128GB solid state hard drive. The Adamo comes in two colours - Onyx Black and Pearl White. Both are equally beautiful.

 

[Alamaking]

Just buy a Dell with Windows. Don't buy Apple. If it can't crash, it's not a real computer in the sense of computing, it's just an appliance. If you don't experience crash and learn recovery, you're a computer dummy.

LOL, this is funny, hahhaha

 

[General Veers]

4. Alienware M15x
From $2,999, buy online at www.dell.com.sg

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This is arguably the most powerful 15-inch gaming laptop in the world. Featuring the unique Alienware's new design with spaceship-like buttons that glow orange - a sure geek turn-on - the M15x offers exceptional performance in a compact package. This mobile gaming machine has been designed to satisfy the needs of the mobile gaming enthusiasts and hardcore gamers looking for a quick fix when travelling. The first Alienware laptop to feature a mobile Core i7 processor, it takes all the sweat from crunching graphics and makes gameplay silky smooth. You will not miss when you pull the trigger to shoot the enemies, for the computer will react instantly with no lag. Alienware ships the M15x with a 1GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M graphics processing unit and up to 8GB DDR3 RAM. This is more than enough firepower to take on the most demanding games.

 

[General Veers]

5. IdeaPad U150

Free with Singnet Broadband subsription
Check out www.lenovo.com/singnet/sg

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With its slim and chic profile, the IdeaPad U150 is an affordable choice for the mobile user. Weighing just 1.35kg and measuring 13.5mm thick, the U150 is designed to strike the right balance between mobility and functionality. Users can enjoy a full wireless Internet surfing experience in a much thinner and lighter body. Other highlights include Lenovo's Enhanced Experience that will boot up your computer up to 50per cent faster. This notebook is also rich in multimedia features like a high-definition 11.6-inch widescreen display, high-definition multimedia interface and VGA connector. Lenovo ships this notebook with OneKey Rescue System and Active Protection System, which make the IdeaPad U150 a more reliable machine. This ultra-portable notebook is powered by an energy-efficient Intel Core 2 Duo 1.3GHz processor, 2GB DDR3 RAM and 320GB hard-drive.

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

 

[Unrepented]

Big version of the iphone, IMO.

i give up on PCs...this is my next purchase...if everyone uses this instead of PCs, there will be less hatred, anger and frustrations...i.e. the world is much a peaceful place...

 

[singveld]

Carry these notebook in an backpack with the power supply which is like a brick.

Will kill you.

 

[Unrepented]

yah 286

iphone is enough to perform whatever a PC can do...

 

[Unrepented]

KNN, ok lah, you win lah, dont waste bandwith.

BTW, the alienware M11X is going to be release and priced below USD1,000. But don't know how it will perform as a gaming PC.

what can't it do?

 

[yuelao]

Carry these notebook in an backpack with the power supply which is like a brick.

Will kill you.

How is this a problem? I used to carry fully-laden full-pack for forced march of 5-8 kms during NS. Unless you are like a feeble old man close to dying, I don't see a problem with heaving a few kgs on your shoulders, not asking you to run a marathon with the backpack.

 

[Watchman]

Online Only - Dell launches ultra-compact Alienware M11x

http://imcms2.mediacorp.sg/cmsfiles...87&450&f=2070&img=2070_156240.jpg&h=287&w=450

by May Chua
06:30 PM Feb 03, 2010
The latest glowing Alienware device has landed.

Launched by Dell earlier today, the Alienware M11x aims to abduct the hearts of gaming road warriors with its formidable gaming prowess in a compact form factor.

The 1.99kg laptop touts an 11.6-inch, white LED backlit screen that displays high-definition (HD) graphics at 720p resolution and 30 frames per second - thanks to a 1GB NVIDIA GeForce graphics card. Integrated HD surround sound audio heightens your gaming enjoyment.

If the small screen's not quite your cup of tea, the laptop's HDMI output offers you the option of hooking it up to a television instead.

The M11x has up to 8.5 hours of battery life. For $1,699, you get a 1.3GHz processor, 4GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive and Windows 7 Home Premium.

Other treats include a 1.3-megapixel webcam and the Alienware Command Center software. This programme has applications and controls like AlienFX lighting effects and AlienFusion Power Management to crank up the cool factor of your gadget, and optimise its battery life.

The Alienware M11x comes with a one-year warranty and is available in black or grey.