$600 Notebook Roundup - Crowning the Affordability King
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 29, 2005 10:38 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Final Words
The first and most important point that we want you to take away from this roundup is that for $600, you can actually get a pretty decent notebook. The build quality of all of the notebooks here was far from poor, and any of these notebooks have the performance and battery life to work just fine as entry level machines.
The next thing to keep in mind is that it is very easy to have a $600 notebook turn into a $1000 notebook with options and upgrades that manufacturers will push on you before you check out. If we could have anything on these notebooks, it'd be: more memory and wireless support. Not a single notebook in this roundup offered us more than 256MB of RAM, and for Windows XP these days, you need 512MB to keep from swapping to that slow 2.5" hard drive. The Compaq offerings all gave us built-in wireless, but generally for less than $50, you can add wireless support to both the Gateway and Dell solutions - and for a notebook, it's definitely worth it.
With those points aside, which notebook gets our recommendation? While the Dell offered the best all-out performance, the Gateway NX200S actually offered the best overall package. Delivering significantly longer battery life and competitive performance all in a more compact and portable package than the Compaq and Dell solutions, it's hard to find fault with what Gateway has delivered. Our only complaint? Ours didn't come with wireless by default, but it looks like the unit now does come with integrated wireless while still selling for less than $600 after mail-in rebate.
So it is with great honor and appreciation that we give Gateway our Editor's Choice Gold Award for the Best $600 Notebook.
Our second pick would probably go to the Compaq Presario V2000, but given that it is bigger and has a shorter battery life, there's really no reason to consider it over the Gateway.
As we mentioned earlier, we look forward to reviewing Dell's latest additions to their Inspiron line to see how they stack up to the Gateway and competitors.
The first and most important point that we want you to take away from this roundup is that for $600, you can actually get a pretty decent notebook. The build quality of all of the notebooks here was far from poor, and any of these notebooks have the performance and battery life to work just fine as entry level machines.
The next thing to keep in mind is that it is very easy to have a $600 notebook turn into a $1000 notebook with options and upgrades that manufacturers will push on you before you check out. If we could have anything on these notebooks, it'd be: more memory and wireless support. Not a single notebook in this roundup offered us more than 256MB of RAM, and for Windows XP these days, you need 512MB to keep from swapping to that slow 2.5" hard drive. The Compaq offerings all gave us built-in wireless, but generally for less than $50, you can add wireless support to both the Gateway and Dell solutions - and for a notebook, it's definitely worth it.
With those points aside, which notebook gets our recommendation? While the Dell offered the best all-out performance, the Gateway NX200S actually offered the best overall package. Delivering significantly longer battery life and competitive performance all in a more compact and portable package than the Compaq and Dell solutions, it's hard to find fault with what Gateway has delivered. Our only complaint? Ours didn't come with wireless by default, but it looks like the unit now does come with integrated wireless while still selling for less than $600 after mail-in rebate. So it is with great honor and appreciation that we give Gateway our Editor's Choice Gold Award for the Best $600 Notebook.
Our second pick would probably go to the Compaq Presario V2000, but given that it is bigger and has a shorter battery life, there's really no reason to consider it over the Gateway.
As we mentioned earlier, we look forward to reviewing Dell's latest additions to their Inspiron line to see how they stack up to the Gateway and competitors.
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Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
x200 graphics with/o dedicated memory.If you get x300 graphics with some dedicated memory, it should play some of hte latest games at halfway acceptable settings. Just dont' expect to be playing FPS smoothly though, but RPGs/rts should be fine. Racing should be fine too.
manno - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
meLoneWolf15 - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Interesting to note that even without Speedstep, the Celeron-M still has better battery life. Then again, didn't Intel change some designs in transistor-switching to make battery performance better even at full speed?One comment, more to notebook manufacturers: Where the heck is my Trackpoint mouse? I can't stand touchpads, which require me to take my fingers off the keyboard to use, when a trackpoint can be used almost simultaneously. I can type 75-80wpm, and don't find touchpads very efficient for this reason (my older but top-of-the-line-when-released Latitude C840 has both devices). Somebody, please bring back the Trackpoint!
Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Also, why do you have to take your fingers of the keyboard to use the touchpad? I keep one hand on the keyboard, and one hand on the touchpad when using my computer. Rightclick is tap top right corner, leftclick is tap anywhere on the touchpad that doesn't involve the top right corner.Zorba - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
I too hate touchpads and miss the old mouse sticks. I always rub the touchpad with my arm when typing and usually end up clicking some where I don't want to. It also takes me much longer to navigate with a touchpad and I usually accidently click something because I change the amount of pressure on the pad (I know you can turn the clicking off, but I still don't like the pad). It is a personal preference but I would like to at least be given the chance to pick between the two.matthewfoley - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
Yeah, well I hate the mouse sticks. Who cares.Zorba - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
The point the original poster and I were trying to make is manufacturers should include both devices, which a lot of them used to do.Hacp - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
The battery life difference is most likely due to the ATI chipset and integrated graphics, which uses more power than intel EE.Tamale - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
page 9's link to page 10 is shotTamale - Tuesday, November 29, 2005 - link
nvm :]