05.Our findings
There wasn’t a lot to separate the top seven laptops in the overall rankings, with the Dell Studio 1555 taking the top spot. While only third in outright performance, it scored very well for ease of use and had the highest battery life score. It was just one point ahead of the Apple MacBook, followed a further two points behind by the Fujitsu L1010 and Lenovo Thinkpad SL500 which tied. Just one point behind them was the Dell Inspiron 1525, then two points to the Acer Extensa 4360Z and one more point to the HP Compaq Presario. The Dell Studio 1555 at the mid-range price of $1299 offered very good overall package for the price you pay.
Performance
It’s no surprise that the top performers were powered by Intel’s upper range Core 2 Duo processors, with the highest scored Lenovo Thinkpad having the fastest processor at 2.4 gigahertz (GHz). Close behind in second place for performance was the Fujitsu L1010 at 2.26GHz, while both the Dell Studio and the Apple MacBook had 2GHz processors. What might be surprising however, is that the MSI VX600, Pioneer DreamBook M761S and Twinhead Slimnote J13S respectively had similar 2.1GHz, 2GHz, and 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, yet achieved relatively lower performance scores. This goes to show that processor speed alone is not the best criteria for choosing a speedy laptop. Memory (RAM), graphics chips and hard drive performance all play a part in determining the overall performance score.
Design and construction
Our expert user panel looked at the design and construction of the laptops. Here are some notable points from the results:
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Battery insertion and removal — The HP Compaq Presario CQ61-115TU was rated as the best, followed closely by the Dell Inspiron 1525 and the Dell Studio 1555, also rated as excellent. The Fujitsu L1010 was particularly bad in this area (see our video below).
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Status lights/indicators — The Compaq Presario CQ61-115TU again was a clear winner with a rating of ‘excellent’. This model stood out from the others with dual labelling of the status lights on the lid and beside the lights. Special mention to the Dell Studio 1555 for the power status light located on the power cord.
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Ease of opening and closing — For ease of opening and closing the unit, the panel felt that the Apple MacBook was the best and rated it as excellent, with one-handed opening and easy action for opening and closing.
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Design and style — The Apple MacBook also took the top spot for both design and style, with the panel citing its light weight and smooth, clean design lines free of any protrusions. The status LEDs on the actual battery were also considered a nice touch. The multi-touch touchpad was considered excellent, the keyboard responsive and the keys well-spaced.
Video: The troublesome battery
The CHOICE team struggles with the Fujitsu L1010's battery release.
The CHOICE team struggles with the Fujitsu L1010's battery release.
Keyboard comfort
Apart from the screen, what you interact with most on a laptop is the keyboard, so comfort and usability is crucial to your overall satisfaction. While all the laptops scored fairly well in this area:
- The HP Compaq Presario was highest placed. Trialists noted its “right balance of tactile feedback, sound and comfort” and “keys were well sized and shaped” and the full numeric keypad was appreciated.
- Just behind, were the Dell Studio and Twinhead, with trialists noting the Dell’s “solid feel of the keys and the layout of the keyboard was great for small hands”, the Twinhead had “nice large keys” and a “comfortable angle”.
Entertainment
A budget laptop should still be expected to do a bit of everything, and while these laptops were designed primarily for portability and value, they can cope with typical entertainment needs. For example, all can be used to view DVDs when commuting; take advantage of a public Wi-Fi access point, and do video chat using the built-in webcam and microphone. All also had a built-in dual-layer DVD burner for backups and archiving of saved data, as well as reading CD and DVD content.
Screen and sound
The laptops selected for this project ranged in screen size from 13.3 inch to 15.6 inch. The Acer and Dell Inspiron received highest marks overall for their screen, just ahead of the Apple and Twinhead. However, all displays were found to be of high quality and on several of the assessment criteria the user panel found it difficult to pick between them. Of the 10 laptops tested, only two produced quality audio — the Dell Studio 1555 and Compaq Presario CQ61-115TU. Both exhibited good clarity, crisp mid-to-high tones and bass response.
Supplied software
Buying a laptop on a budget is fine, but does it come with any useful software? Eight of the Windows laptops tested come with a trial version of Microsoft Office 2007 that lasts 60-days. After that, you either buy it or look for something else. Both the Dell Inspiron and Dell Studio notebooks give you a full version of Microsoft Works to fall back on.
Likewise, the Fujitsu and Pioneer are the only ones that give you a full security suite with one year licence (in the case of the build-to-order Pioneer this is a low-cost option. Dell offers build-to-order options also). The other Windows laptops only give you limited time trial security software, after which you need to buy it or find a replacement. For an office suite, if you don’t want to pay you can download the free and cross-platform OpenOffice suite (www.openoffice.org) or the freeware IBM Lotus Symphony suite (symphony.lotus.com). The Apple MacBook stands out from the Windows laptops by bundling in its excellent iLife suite of productivity apps, which includes iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, iDVD and GarageBand.
Running costs
We measured the power consumption of the notebooks (in active and standby modes) then calculated the theoretical annual cost based on a scenario of 18 hours standby and six hours active use per day, costed at 17c per kilowatt-hour (kWh). Least expensive to run, based on this scenario, would be the Apple MacBook, with a calculated annual cost of just $6.33 when using its native operating system, Mac OS X.
It’s interesting to note that because the Apple MacBook can also be set up to run Windows, we re-tested it using Vista Home Premium and found the calculated running cost was more expensive, at $9.49 per annum. Battery testing for the laptops was done using Windows-based benchmarking software and it is therefore logical to expect that the battery life figures for the Apple MacBook may be higher when running Mac OS X.