The best laptop, is there even such a thing? Sure, but it depends on exactly what you plan to do with it. Top laptops for gaming tend to be very different from those favored by the traveling business exec. You'll have to decide what aspects are the most important to you - a long battery life or great 3D performance, excellent mobility or something reasonably convenient to replace your old desktop PC and so on. Likewise you probably won't need a quad-core monster laptop if all you do is surf the web and check your email, but if you work with heavy video editing it might come in handy. Find the best laptop for you with the help of sites like Laptopical - our reviews provide you with all the details you need to buy a great laptop that suits your needs.
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Review by Jesper Berg
The latest 13-inch MacBook isn't really a replacement for the classic white MacBook (which is still available). Instead, it's an entirely new laptop in a "unibody" enclosure made from a single piece of aluminum. Read more
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Review by Jesper Berg
Choosing a netbook that suits you often comes down to aesthetics, and by that measure the Lenovo S10 has a lot of things going for it. It's possibly one of the best-looking netbooks around. It has a 10.2-inch LED backlit screen and comes in five different colors - red, blue, pink, black and white like our review model. Read more
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Review by Matthew Brodsky
If you were groaning when Apple discontinued their portable iBook line you may be pleased to know that the thin and light Macbook Air is now on the market. It's svelte aluminium chassis weighs around 3 pounds. Read more
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Review by Todd Gold
The Eee PC has a slightly faster Atom processor and a faster FSB compared to the previous models. While this is not enough for anyone to upgrade, it could certainly attract first-time netbook buyers. Read more
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Review by Jesper Berg
Lenovo continues its push into the consumer segment - this time with the IdeaPad Y530, a successor to the Y510 with some interesting updates. Read more
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Review by Daniel Shain
The Sony VAIO FW-270j is a laptop that looks as good as the HD media it plays. Read more
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Review by Thai Tan
A healthy refresh to the previous generation X61 series, the Thinkpad X200 is the business professionals dream for mobile computing. Read more
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Review by Laptopical.com
The VAIO Z series is one of Sony's premium ultraportable series, and is priced accordingly. Like most VAIOs it comes with a little extra, such as a high-resolution 'X-BRITE' LED-lit screen, a Blu-Ray player and dedicated graphics. Read more
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Review by Daniel Shain
The HP HDX16t is a multimedia powerhouse with enough peripherals to match its style points. Read more
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Review by Laptopical.com
A 17 inch widescreen laptop that features less than stellar connectivity, and a soon to be phased out operating system... Read more
Looking for the Best Laptop
What kind of components would you expect to find in a great laptop? Well, a few years ago we might have suggested that you get a laptop with at least 512MB of RAM memory, a 1.3GHz Celeron M processor, and a 40GB hard drive, but things change. The 2008 average for a mainstream 15-inch laptop is probably closer to a 2-2.5GHz dual core processor, 2 GB of RAM and a few hundred gigs of hard drive space.
However, if history and
Moore's law has taught us anything it's that in a couple of years, we'll demand roughly twice as much performance when we buy a new laptop. So basically, when the sales rep pulls out a shiny new
Acer Ferrari laptop and tells you it is "future proof," he's probably referring to the relatively near future.
Of course, if you follow those arguments to the letter, you would never be able to buy a new laptop - or any other gadget for that matter - and would lead a much less interesting life. But how do you know which laptops are the best right now? First of all, consider what kind of computer you actually need and what you expect to do with it. Then you check out sites like Laptopical, of course.
How fast is fast enough?
If you plan to use your laptop mainly to pay the bills and occasionally surf the web, you would hardly need a performance monster like the
Alienware m15x. Chances are you'd be just as happy with the affordable but snappy
Dell Inspiron 1525. If you do a lot of video editing, or simply want lots of storage space, you might want to consider the
Asus M70, with an entire TB (1000GB) spread across two 500GB drives.
For those who travel a lot, portability is what makes a laptop great. In that case, you would probably like the new
Lenovo X200, or maybe its luxurious big brother, the sleek
X300. Alternatively, for a fraction of the cost, you could get a tiny Netbook like the
Asus EEE PC.