Laptops: Beauty and the Beasts
If you want the most svelte -- or the most powerful -- computer in a portable package, you'll love these models.
By Jeff Bertolucci, Contributing Writer
From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, April 2008
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They say that you can never be too thin or too rich. That's true of cutting-edge laptops, too. If you're prepared to spend top dollar -- $2,000 and up -- you can get a model so light it should come with a tether for breezy days. Or you can buy a machine so feature-laden it will satisfy the most serious gamers and videophiles. Bottom line: For now, you just can't have them both in the same package. So if you're looking for a lissome laptop or a powerhouse portable, consider one of these four standouts among the latest class of notable notebooks. They'll at least provide a standard by which to judge other laptops when you're shopping.
Apple Macbook Air
Cute, but not too bright. Apple's latest triumph of tech art is the MacBook Air, an innovative wisp of a portable computer that weighs only 3 pounds and is a mere 3/4-inch thick at its widest point. It's a tour de force of design and a great machine for travelers. But in exchange for having the slickest laptop in Terminal B, you will pay big bucks for not much power.
The Air's aluminum shell is surprisingly strong despite its slender shape, and the 13.3-inch display, though too small for an $1,800 laptop, has excellent color and contrast. The keyboard automatically illuminates from behind when ambient light dims -- a great feature for people who log a lot of plane time, and one that's surprisingly rare among Windows laptops. Plus, the Air incorporates a few iPhone innovations. For example, you can magnify an on-screen window by placing two fingers together on the trackpad and moving them apart.
Despite its cleverness, the Air feels incomplete. To start, it lacks a DVD drive. Apple sells an external one for $100, but then your Zen simplicity is cluttered with an external gizmo. A clever software utility you can install on another Mac or Windows PC allows you to access its DVD drive wirelessly, but that only lays bare the laptop's shortcomings.
In addition, the 80-gigabyte hard drive is small, and the optional 64GB solid-state flash drive (similar to an MP3 player's memory) boosts the price by an outrageous $1,000. So while the MacBook Air isn't a machine for the whole family, it would make a fine traveling companion for a well-heeled Mac devotee.
Sony Vaio FZ485U
Thin yet powerful.This Sony Vaio model is neither as sleek nor as light as the MacBook Air, and it won't turn heads like the Air. But the 6-pound Sony sure packs a lot more power inside its trim shell. With a speedy Intel Core 2 T8100 processor, generous 4GB of memory, powerful graphics system, Blu-ray high-definition DVD writer and built-in webcam, it's a fine entertainment machine.
The Vaio costs $2,200, but you get a lot of laptop for the money. The bright and beautiful 15.4-inch display -- by far the prettiest we tested -- is great for viewing and editing photos, videos and DVDs. Its spacious 300GB hard drive is ideal for amateur videographers with plenty of home movies to archive. Another option is to store clips on Blu-ray discs, each of which can hold either 25 or 50 gigs.
But despite its vibrant colors and sharp detail, the screen is too tiny to do justice to the high-definition splendor of Blu-ray discs. Then again, you could use the Vaio's HDMI port to connect the laptop to an HDTV and enjoy a big-screen movie night.
Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV690
Big laptop, big sound. The name may be tricky to pronounce (I've heard people call it "Quasimodo," which befits its monstrous size and 10.6-pound weight), but the $3,200 Toshiba Qosmio G45-AV690 qualifies as a high-end, no-compromise laptop. The excellent sound system, which includes a subwoofer built into the laptop's underbelly, produces deep, rich audio, a rarity among portables. The crisp and colorful 17-inch screen can display full high-definition content, and the HD DVD drive is handy for watching high-def movies. But though the clarity of HD DVD is remarkable, we prefer the competing Blu-ray format, which has more film titles and appears to be winning the high-def-DVD battle. Unfortunately, Toshiba is one of HD DVD's staunchest backers and doesn't have any immediate plans to offer a Blu-ray option.
Want to watch live television? The Qosmio comes with an external TV tuner -- a clunky, router-size box that should really be built into the laptop, as Hewlett-Packard has done with the Pavilion HDX (see below). You can record TV shows, too, and the laptop has some handy touches for audio-video enthusiasts, including media-control buttons (such as Play/Pause, Stop and Record), a large volume dial and an "AV Controller" with shortcuts to multimedia tools. These controls are illuminated by blue backlighting, so they're easy to find in the dark. The fingerprint reader, a security feature, seems like overkill for a consumer laptop -- even a pricey one.
HP Pavilion HDX
Of the four high-end models in this roundup, the HDX is the best suited for watching high-def movies, thanks mostly to its massive 20-inch display. (We tested the optional 1080p-capable screen, which costs an extra $200.) The ergonomic display tilts to a variety of angles for better viewing, and a row of backlit media-control buttons above the keyboard is easy to locate when the lights are dim.
The HDX comes with either a Blu-ray or an HD DVD player. The spacious keyboard includes a numeric keypad (you won't find that on the Qosmio) and there's even a tray for the HDX's remote control, which lets you control slide shows, movies and even live TV from across the room. We're not fans of the remote, however; it isn't backlit and has tiny, hard-to-read buttons.
The HDX comes with just about every feature HP could cram into it, including a built-in TV tuner and a fingerprint reader. Its subwoofer-equipped sound system is clean, although we prefer the Qosmio's deeper bass. Two hard drives provide a combined storage capacity of up to 500GB, so there's ample room for video. Certainly, this gargantuan system isn't for everyone. But if you want it all, it's all here.
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Reader Comments (1)
Posted by: Jim Owen s at 05/14/2008 08:46:05 PM
After a great debate between IBM and Sony, I finally decided to go with the Sony FZ485U. I have been using the laptop for several months now and I am very impressed with the display, I was stunned with the difference between it and my old IBM R61. I also bumped up to the Polished Mosaic keys, which are very nice indeed. The only downside I see so far is the inability to upgrade the hard-drive, well at least thru Sony but you can go thru another PC dealer to get a compatible drive. Lastly the standard battery life is too short so make sure you spend the extra money and get the battery upgrade. Over all I give the FZ485U an 8 out of 10.