Laptops Arena

In our days, a laptop has become a very practical accessory. If you are a business man or you simply want to have access to technology every time, you certainly have to be the proud owner of a notebook. For those people who want to buy a very powerful and high-quality laptop, we have gathered the top 10 notebook computers which are currently available on the market at the present time. These models belong to the most popular manufacturers, like Apple, Alienware, Dell, Sony, HP, Toshiba and Lenovo.

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The first laptop that we have to mention in this top 10 notebook computers is the HP Pavilion dv5t. This notebook is designated for those multimedia fans which have a low or medium budget. The Dv5t model comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB of DDR2 RAM memory, nVidia GeForce Go and Windows Vista Home Premium.

It has a 15.4 inch WSXGA+ display with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels and HD (720p) support. Also, it comes with a 320 GB (SATA 5400 RPM) hard drive, a Blu-Ray and supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0.

Another fantastic notebook which is worth mentioning in this top is the Alienware Area-51 m15x. This notebook is designated for gamers and was launched, at a price of $3600. It has a 15.4 inch WUXGA display with HD support and a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels.

Being a gaming notebook, it comes with an Intel Core 2 Extreme X9000 2.8 GHz processor and 2 GB of DDR2 RAM memory. To keep up with the most demanding games, it has an nVidia GeForce 8800M GTX 512 MB graphics card, Windows Vista Home Premium and a 200 GB (Serial ATA 7200 RPM) hard drive.  Besides all these, the Alienware Area-51 m15x comes with a DVD-Burner, card reader, HDMI port and Bluetooth 2.0.

The Sony Vaio FZ is also one of the best notebooks on the market. It is quite a very powerful device at an affordable price. It has a 15.4 inch WXGA display with a native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels and HD (720p) support.

For running multi-tasks without any lag, it comes equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 2.1 GHz and 4 GB of DDR2 RAM memory. In standard configuration it comes with an nVidia GeForce 8400M GT graphics card, preinstalled  Windows  Vista Ultimate, a 300 GB (Serial ATA 4200 RPM) hard drive, Blu-Ray and 2-in-1 card reader. For connectivity it has 3 USB ports, a FireWire port, an Ethernet port, a HDMI port, a VGA port, an S-video port and headphones and microphones jacks.

From the Dell manufacturer, we have chosen the Dell XPS M1530. Because the notebook’s prices are in a continuous decrease, the Dell XPS M1530 comes with a price of only $1900. For this price you will get a powerful device with a 15.4 inch WUXGA display with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, an Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5 GHz processor and 3 GB of DDR2 RAM memory.

Equipped with an nVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics card and a 320 GB (SATA 5400 RPM) hard drive, you will be capable to play a lot of games without malfunctions. Other included features are DVD Writer, Card Reader, Bluetooth 2.0, Mobile BroadBand, a HDMI port, a VGA out port and USB 2.0.

We are at the middle of our top 10 notebook computers with a star in this ranking, the Apple MacBook Pro, available at a price of $2100 – $2500, depending on what configuration you choose. In standard configuration, this notebook comes equipped with a 15.4 inch WXGA display with a native resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels and HD support.

The processor is  Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 2.4 GHz, 2 GB of DDR2 RAM memory, an nVidia GeForce 8600 GT graphics card, a 200 GB hard drive and preinstalled Mac OS x.  Other features are the DVD Writer, an Express Card slot, two USB ports, a FireWire port and a DVI-out port.

The Toshiba Qosmio F55, even if it is considered a low-end laptop, it is definitely worth mentioning in our top. The most attractive feature at this laptop is that it has a 15.4 inch display and a GPS sensor. It comes equipped with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, an integrated nVidia GeForce 9700M GTS graphics card, and 2 GB of RAM memory. On the specification list, it has a preinstalled Windows Vista Home Premium operating system, eSATA ports and HDMI-CEC ports.

Another “fresh” notebook is the Dell Studio 15, available at a price of $1600. This device is equipped with a 15.4 inch WUXGA display with a native resolution of 1920 x 1200 pixels, an Intel Core 2 Duo T930 2.6 GHz processor and 3 GB of RAM memory.

The integrated graphics card is an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 and the hard drive has a capacity of 320 GB of free space. In addition, the Studio 15 has a Blu-Ray optical drive, a card reader, HDMI support, a VGA port, a FireWire port, USB 2.0, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

With a price of only $1000, the Toshiba Satellite A305 promises to be another phenomenal notebook made by Toshiba. It comes with a classic 15.4 inch WXGA display with HD support and a native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0 GHz processor, 4 GB of RAM memory, a 320 GB hard drive and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 graphics card.  For connectivity, it comes with a card reader, USB, FireWire, S-Video, VGA, Wi-Fi and HDMI-CEC.

In January 2008, the Lenovo Company has launched the IdeaPad Y510 model, a laptop which impresses people by being one of the most powerful Lenovo notebooks. Available at a price of $1000, it comes equipped with a 15.4 inch WXGA display with a native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, an Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 1.83 GHz processor and 4 GB of RAM memory. It also comes with an integrated nVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics card and a 250 GB hard drive.

For the end of our top 10 notebook computers, we choose an older notebook model, the Sony Vaio NR. Even if this notebook was launched in November 2007, it has proven to be the perfect unit at that time.

Anyway, available at a price of $1050, it is equipped with a 15.4 inch WXGA display with a native resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, an Intel Core 2 Duo T5550 1.83 processor, 2 GB of RAM memory, a 250 GB hard drive and an integrated Intel GMA X3100 graphics card. Whether you choose an ideal laptop for gamers or the most powerful "multimedia monster" any laptop from this top would be a road companion. With prices between $1000 and $2000+, these models are affordable for most customers.

I think that Lenovo notebooks and security have become synonyms. Why is that? Well, Lenovo is mainly known for manufacturing high quality business laptops and business laptops need to have a higher level of security as people inside companies store important and secret files on their laptops. In 2008, Lenovo and Intel announced the launching of the ThinkPad T400 with improved security measures in the shape of the Intel Anti Theft PC Protection. Combining these 2 technologies will allow the laptop to detect and respond to a theft situation.

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If your Lenovo laptop gets stolen, when you report the theft, an IT tech can make the machine inoperable. If the thief turns the laptop on, this technology will report to home base and the techs can delete the data stored on the hard disk and the system is locked. Lenovo notebooks and security are an important chapter as today the number of stolen laptops is increasing rapidly.

People who have their laptops stolen are exposed to identity theft which is much worse and has severe consequence than the simple fact of having a valuable item stolen. The money you have paid to buy that unit is no longer an issue when you remember that you have files stored on the hard drive which contain your social security number, passwords and bank account numbers.

Companies store business report, accounting spreadsheets and other information which can cause prejudice if it falls into the wrong hands. It is necessary to take only the best security measures as our personal information as well as company information can be used against us. Lenovo has always been known for implementing security measures on its laptop models, such as fingerprint authentication and webcam face recognition.

But unfortunately, hackers are doing their homework and sometime these security measures don’t seem to be enough. It is very difficult to actually recover the stolen unit so companies mainly focus on the data which is stored on the laptop and which should not be accessible to just everyone’s eyes. There are different programs which you can buy that offer different types of security measures. For instance, if you have a webcam, it can take pictures of the thief as soon as he turns on the laptop.

These pictures can then be sent directly to your e-mail as long as you have made the required settings. With modern technology, it has become easier to track down a stolen laptop. As it is always better to prevent than to cure, a first step would be not to pull out your laptop in public places. In most cases, laptops get stolen in places like the coffee shop pr when the owner just leaves it exposed on the back seat of the car. Another good idea would be not to store important data like the social security number or bank account details on your laptop. Write them on pieces of paper or, better yet, try to memorize them and not write them down anywhere. If you do, try considering some of the security measures reminded above.

When it comes to Lenovo laptops, we have a lot to discuss about their functionality as business laptops. In August 2009, Lenovo has introduces us to a new model: the IdeaPad U450p.
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This 14 inch Lenovo laptop fits perfectly into the thin and light category with its 13.3" x 9.3" x 0.9-1.1" dimensions and 4.6 lbs of weight. The specs are the following: it has a 1.3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor, 4 GB of RAM, 320 GB of hard drive space and the ATI Radeon HD 4330 graphics card with 512 MB of dedicated video memory. One things we absolutely love about the design of this notebook is the checkerboard pattern which is visible both on the lid of the laptop as well as on the area surrounding the keyboard. After using this laptop for a while, some people may become annoyed with this pattern but you have to admit that it looks really nice. On the lid there is a plastic Lenovo logo in the top left corner. The bezel which surrounds the lid is really smooth and these small details makes a laptop look very special. There is no flex in the palm rest area but there is some flex in the screen If you try to twist it. Hopefully, you won't do that. The materials are not the most high quality ones that Lenovo could have used but that does not make the IdeaPad U450p a bad laptop. The laptop has just the perfect size to be carried around whether you're just taking it to school, office or at the coffee shop or prefer a laptop for travelling. If you plan on using this laptop as a desktop replacement, you could try choosing a laptop which has a bigger screen as they are always more comfortable to work it at home.

The screen has a 1366 x 768 resolution. Above the display you have a 1.3 mega pixel webcam which will surely prove itself useful for those that travel a lot and want to keep in touch with the people back home via video conferences. The colors are sharp and the brightness levels are acceptable for a 14 inch laptop. Both the horizontal and the vertical viewing angles are ok. If you plan on watching movies with this laptop, you will find the image of nice quality so this IdeaPad can also make a nice multimedia notebook. The speakers are located above the keyboard and the speaker quality is decent. They are above average if we compare them to other 14 inch laptops but if you turn up the volume too much, the quality decreases. You have special volume buttons located on the right side of the keyboard. If you are in need of better sound quality, external speaker are recommended.



That does not mean you can't enjoy listening to your favorite music on this laptop. As far as the keyboard goes, we have some nice words to say. The spacing plus the size of the keys are ok for a small laptop and there is no flex here unless you apply heavy pressure. Hopefully you won't hit those keys as hard as you can. As expected, there is no special numerical pad and there is a big chance we'll never find one on a 14 inch laptop (unless a manufacturer is crazy enough to shrink the keys to a really tiny size to fit in a numerical pad). The touchpad has a regular size and the left and right mouse buttons are made of plastic and metal. On the right side of the touchpad, there are some orange dots which indicate that is the scrolling area.



In total, this laptop has 3 USB ports, one Ethernet port, one VGA port, one HDMI port, a 4-in-1 media card reader, a security lock slot, and the headphones out and microphone in jacks. This combination of ports is actually quite nice there is no FireWire port and no S-Video port but sacrifices have to be made when you develop thin and light 14 inch laptops. The beauty of this laptop is that it does not get loud and it does not get hot. Every part inside this laptop manages to stay pretty silent while doing its job. The touchpad is the area that gets hot but it's nothing to be worried about. Battery life is important for small laptops as they are bough for portability reasons. This Lenovo managed to work for 4 hours when surfing the internet with both the Bluetooth and the wireless card turned on while playing some videos. This is quite ok, considering that if you don't play videos you could gain some more time. With this laptop you get the chance to test the new Windows 7 Home Premium operating system which operates on 64 bits and it runs really smooth. You will probably get a lot of preinstalled software which you will find useless but it's nothing that a good disk clean up can't handle.



This laptop is perfectly capable of handling the regular daily computing tasks at an acceptable speed. This is not a laptop for gamers even if the video card is pretty good. no one would want to play top of the line games on 14 inch laptops anyway. It does support some mainstream games however, so if you are into playing some Monopoly, that's ok. Not only is this laptop practical but it also looks good because of that stylish pattern. It has an optical drive and optical drives sometimes lack from smaller laptops. You may not like that it comes with tons of preinstalled software and other people will not enjoy the plastic overall feel of the laptop.



Battery life could have been better but it's still satisfying. It is a nice Lenovo laptop even if we are used to seeing big models with dual screen which are too big to be taken off the desk. It's nice change in Lenovo customer orientation. Does it bother you that it doesn't have a fingerprint reader?

It’s easy to compare laptops. There are even websites with special application that allow you to choose between different laptop models and they will show you a table with a column for each laptop model and a list of all the specs, side by side, to see which one has better performances.
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Be careful not to compare a $4000 laptop with an $800 dollars one. Laptop comparison is used when you have similarly priced laptops and it is difficult for you to decide which one of them to buy. To compare laptops may sometimes turn out more efficient than to read a 3,000 word review. Reviews are ok because they explain just how each of that laptop’s component works and some reviews even tell you how your laptop is better or worse than the main competitor models.

Let's see an example. We shall compare the Dell Vostro 1310 with the Lenovo ThinkPad SL400. They are both budget laptops dedicated for basic and medium business needs. The starting price for both of these laptops is $800 but it can rise depending on the components you choose (if you want faster processors or more RAM) and the extra features you want (like a green color for the Dell of a fingerprint reader for the Lenovo).  The Dell Vostro 1310 has a 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 processor. The Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 on the other hand, has 6 different processor models you can choose from. They are all Intel Core 2 Duo models. There is the T9400 at 2.53 GHz, the P8600 at 2.4 GHz, the P8400 at 2.26 GHz, the T5870 at 2.0 GHz and the T5670 at 1.8 GHz. Even if the Lenovo offers more choices as far as the processor goes, the Vostro has more options for the operating system. The Lenovo can give you your unit with Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic, Genuine Windows Vista Business, Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate and Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium while the Dell Vostro allows you to choose between Genuine Windows Vista Business, Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate, Genuine Windows XP Home Edition, Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic, Genuine Windows XP Professional, Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate to XP Professional Downgrade Rights and Genuine Windows Vista Business to XP Professional Downgrade Rights. Although there was not such information available, my guess is that you can probably get these laptops with Windows 7 installed.



The display of the Vostro is smaller than the display of the ThinkPad. The 14.1 inch display of the ThinkPad SL400 comes in WXGA VibranView, WXGA Anti-glare and the WXGA+ Anti-glare screen options while the Vostro has a 13.3 inch Widescreen WXGA which is simple or with TrueLife. Both of these laptops have only 2 choices for the graphics card. This is no surprise considering that they are low budget laptops which are not meant for gaming and if you don’t wish to play Far Cry, then the weak video card is not going to concern you very much. The Dell Vostro 1310 comes with an integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 or the nVidia GeForce 8400M GS with 128 MB of video memory. The Lenovo ThinkPad SL400 offers the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X450 or the nVidia GeForce 9300M with 256 MB of video memory.  The Dell lets you choose between a 160 GB and a 320 GB hard disk but the Lenovo has far more options, of 80, 160, 250 and 320 GB of available storage space. We like to see that we have many options to choose from, although most of us like to have a lot of storage space in our laptop because you never know when things start to add up.



Since it has a smaller display, the Dell is lighter at the weight of 4.45 lbs while the Lenovo is as heavy as 5.5 lbs. And now we are going to compare the number of ports and connections of these 2 laptops. I think it’s important to choose a notebook that has many ports and connections because you may end up using most of them even if at the beginning you though they were pretty useful. Many USB ports will come in handy if you need to attach an external mouse, a memory stick and even the digital camera cable to download pictures simultaneously. It can be annoying to keep removing one when you need to attach another.  The Lenovo has 4 x USB 2.0 ports, an external display, RJ-11, RJ-45, plus the headphones and line-out, external microphone and the HDMI port. As for the Dell, it also has 4 x USB ports, a VGA out and an Ethernet jack. This result in not surprising since smaller laptops have fewer ports and fewer connections because it’s difficult to cramp everything in small spaces.



However, both of these laptops are very good if you plan to equip a small office or even a bigger one if you give it to employees with basic tasks. They will be good for the accountant as well as for the secretary. These laptops are ok if you need to surf the internet and read or write some e-mails. They are good for such research and they can run office applications like Open Office or Microsoft Office suite. They are both trustworthy brands. Lenovo even has some very powerful laptops. We have written before about those dual screen computers that are excellent for people who work with graphics programs. I’m sure we will meet with those laptops again.Keep in mind to compare laptops with similar prices. Otherwise, comparison may be useless and quite unfair. Also remember that if the web site where you compare unit does not offer such information, you can always check the manufacturers web site to see if you can choose between different components for that model that you want to buy. Comparing laptops is an excellent way of finally deciding which would be the wisest purchase choice. Come to think of, I’ll go see who is better: the Toshiba Qosmio or the Dell XPS gaming laptops.

When laptops first appeared on the market there was this big WOW and most people wondered if they could ever afford such a useful gadget. Well, prices have gone down quite a lot and a good laptop which was worth $1800 dollars last year can now be bought for half the price. So, it won't be very difficult to find some laptops under 400 dollars for this article. Some of you may not be pleased with these models as you are looking for something much more powerful. Well, you must know that really good and powerful laptops are expensive (by expensive I mean over $850) so unless you are willing to spend a little more money than the laptops in this article may be a good choice for you as well.
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The Toshiba L505-S5984 laptop has good specs considering its $399 price. It has an Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 processor which is quite unexpected for a cheap laptop. It has a 16 inch display which makes this laptop a good desktop replacement. Because it's bigger, it also has a numerical pad which is ideal for most users, especially for people that work with numbers and spreadsheets (may be useful when playing some games as well). 3 GB of RAM will allow you to run multiple tasks without any kind of trouble. We highly suggest you run Windows Vista or Windows 7 in order to get the best out of all you RAM as Windows XP might run a bit slow and the applications will take longer to launch. You can upgrade from your 3 GB of RAM to a maximum 8 GB but we don't think this is necessary because this is not a gaming notebook.

The graphics card is rather weak so you can't play any top of the line games on this laptop. Some old ones will do though. The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD is no excellent video performer so no 3D applications for you either. The built in webcam is not that great but you can still get some good images in a properly lit environment and especially if you use the Skype application which is one of the best video chat programs available. You will probably get your unit with Windows 7 and other preinstalled software, like anti-virus trial programs and the Microsoft Office suite. Just in case the 250 GB of free disk space are not enough to store all your files, documents, games music, pictures, and applications, you can always use the dual-layer DVD drive to make DVD copies of all your files and then clear up some disk space. This is probably one of the best laptops under 400 dollars that money can buy.



The Sony VAIO VGN NW235F/W may also be considered a wise choice for people that are looking for a 15 inch laptop which is beautiful, powerful and cheap. You can imagine that is it elegant because good looks are a common feature for all Sony VAIO laptops. Be careful because the white chassis will become dirty in no time if your hands are not properly washed when you use it (not to mention that is also attracts fingerprints even if your hands are clean). The unit comes with a 2.10GHz Intel Pentium T4300 processor plus 4 GB of RAM which means you can run Windows 7 Home Premium without any problems. The graphics card is an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD. You have 320 GB of disk storage. Other cool features of this laptop are the motion eye webcam and the microphone which have a face tracking technology. You also get a DVD burner. The battery will keep your laptop up and running for about 4 hours on a full charge so there should be problem with laptop shutting down when you most need it.



For $350 you can buy the refurbished Dell Latitude D610. It has 1 GB of RAM, another 40 GB of HDD and the ATI Mobility Radeon X300 PCI Express x16 with 64 MB. This laptop is not as powerful as the ones we presented above but if you are not looking for a power horse, just a laptop that can help you get your basic computer need done, than this model may be the right thing for you. It has 4 USB ports, S-Video out and even the Infrared function. The display is 14.1 inches long so you will have no trouble with reading large documents or big web pages. It's ideal for office work and you can buy it for home usage is you are not going to run any demanding programs or games. Due to the strong chassis, this laptop is very durable and the weight is somewhere around 5.4 lbs so if you need to carry this laptop around with you, it shouldn't be a big problem.



The Lenovo ThinkPad R60 refurbished laptop costs a bit less than $400 and it comes with a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo T2400 processor which is ok considering the small amount of money you spend. This laptop has 1 GB of RAM, 60 GB of available disk space and an Intel GMA 950 graphics card. As you may have already noticed, the components are not top of the line material but the price you pay for such laptops is not exactly a premium one as well. This 14.1 inch laptop also comes with 4 USB ports, one VGA out, one Ethernet port, one docking/port replicator, you regular headphones out and microphone in jacks plus a FireWire port.



Remember that the usual warranty period you get for refurbished laptops is 6 months. Refurbished laptops are a good choice if warranty is really important to you. In fact, it's a much better choice rather than buying a used laptop from someone and not knowing of they are just selling it because they don't need it any more or because there is something wrong with the laptop. Anyway, remember that if you are willing to spend some extra hundreds of dollars, there are really cool laptops waiting out there for you to buy, buy, buy.