2008 Notebook Holiday Buyer's Guide

There are still a few days left before Christmas, and shoppers who are looking for notebook computers are in luck. There are more laptops than ever before that are geared towards people with many different needs and interests. Whether you're a student who needs a low-cost computer that fits in a small backpack for school, a gaming enthusiast who wants to play Crysis and watch Blu-ray movies, or a business traveler needing a rugged yet portable solution, this guide will point you in the right direction.

A host of new models were announced over the back-to-school season and within the last month that are just coming onto the market. In addition, there are many excellent notebooks that were released earlier this year whose prices have come way down and are great bargains. You can find some of the laptops in this guide at prices ranging from less than $400 to many thousands of dollars. Obviously, higher priced notebooks have better build qulaity and better performance, but low-priced computers provide an excellent value for young students and adults who don't need high performance and just want to stay connected.

This guide will cover four different classes of laptop computers, four of which – ultraportables, general use/mainstream, gaming and multimedia, and business – are considered full-featured notebooks that can handle just about any task you throw at them (depending on the configuration). The fifth class is made up of budget-oriented mobile internet companions, or netbooks for short - smaller, cheaper, and generally less capable than full-featured notebooks, netbooks are designed for people who need constant access to a computer for email, internet access, or limited work but don't require a full notebook for content creation. Each laptop class contains recommendations within different price ranges. Our goal is to help you find the notebook (or netbook) that will make the perfect holiday gift for family, friends and last, but not least, for yourself.

Jump to: Netbooks | Ultraportables | General Use/Mainstream| Gaming and Multimedia | Business

 

Umm... The netbook buyers guide needs updating: It doesn't mention the Samsung NC10 which seems to be very popular with users.

John

 

also the gaming and multimedia needs to be updated as well
it doesn't even mention any sager or the budget g50 or any asus at all

 

I agree with the rationale (presented by JerryJ in the Gaming section) that the list shouldn't be overwhelming, especially since this list doesn't want to be anyone's final deciding factor so much as just a jumping-off point from which the reader can do his or her own research. That being said, I think it's unfair and misrepresentative of NBR opinion to exclude Sager from the gaming notebook list in favor of Alienware, which is less firmly supported and is simply too expensive to be the only option available for a novice reader (like this article's target market).

If I could make a suggestion, you should group the Alienware m15x and m17x together, just like you did for the HP HDX 16 and 18. It would make sense to me as a reader if there were big-brother-little-brother pairings for each manufacturer, provided that there were a little two-sentence blurb at the beginning mentioning how the larger models always are more powerful but less battery- and wallet-friendly. With that format, you can introduce more information to even the novice reader in a more intuitive format.

Multimedia
Dell Studio 15-17
HP dv5-7
HDX16-18

Gaming
XPS 1530-1730
Alienware m15-17
Sager 8660-5793

(I think the 9262 should remain off the list, because if a gamer is gonna drop $3500 on a laptop he or she will already have heard of it).

I hope these ideas are considered,
Batman

 

It's not a listing of every single notebook or netbook on the market (not even a list of every great notebook and netbook) it's just a list of netbooks and notebooks that our staff has personally messed with and that we think offer good value for holiday shoppers.

We fully acknowledge that there are many, many great netbooks and notebooks that didn't make it on this list, but we didn't want to just copy and past the Notebook Database from our site.

 

Nice Guide!Looks pretty complete

 

here are my current "bang for the buck" high-end gaming notebook picks....
(with 256-bit memory interface videocards)

For 17"
*($1500 budget and below)*
- Sager NP5793 (Clevo M570RU) .... its hot right now since Sager is making it fully loaded with 9800M GTS and even Blu-Ray drive to liquidate its stock so that they can focus on the new (but slightly more expensive) NP5797.... Clevo M570TU/ETU.
- Gateway P FX with 9800M GTS is another good choice but does not have better build quality and cooling than the Clevo M570RU.
- MSI GT725 .... fully loaded 17" with ATI 4850
*($1600 to $2000)*
- Clevo M570ETU (aka. Sager NP5797) .... new model with Montevina, quad-core and choice of 9800M GTS/GT/GTX
- Arima W840 DI (aka. OCZ Whitebook, Alîenware m17, etc...) .... new 17" dual ATI 3870, quad-core and dual HDD
*($2000+ budget)*
- Toshîba X305 .... 17" with SLI 9800M GTS .... processor could be better
- Clevo D901C (aka. Sager NP9262) .... remains to be king of notebooks... 17" with single/dual 9800M GTS/GT/GTX, uses desktop quad-core CPUs, three internal HDD, and the best notebook cooling design to date.


For 15"
*(sub-$1400 budget)*
- ASUS G50VT .... 15.6" with 9800M GS (budget high-end card)
- Toshîba F55 .... 15.4" with 9700M GTS (still considered high end on the bottom rung of the ladder of high-end cards)
..... and the rest of the mid-range notebooks with Nvidia 9600M/9650M, ATI 3600/3650, etc..
*($1400+ budget)*
- Clevo M860TU (aka. Sager NP8660) .... new 15.4" with Montevina platform and 9800M GTS/GT

Alîenware (except for M17 which is re-branded Arima) and .Dell does not make the list (mainly for the high-end systems), they are quite outdated and configurations are usually overpriced.

This is a bang for the buck list... if you want to pay for aesthetics and lights, then look elsewhere.

 

the asus g50vt is one of the cheapest gaming laptop out there