Desktop Killers
With dual-core processors, speedy hard drives, and wide-screen displays, the latest notebooks are powerful enough to make your desktop PC unnecessary. Our PC World Test Center report will point you toward the best replacement for your tower.Carla Thornton
Contributing Editor Carla Thornton has covered notebooks for PC World since 1998. Danny Allen is a PC World associate editor.
Alienware's Aurora M7700 has a desktop CPU (upper right). Toshiba's Qosmio G35-AV600 audiovisual Media Center notebook (lower left) and remote (bottom).
Go on, admit it. You've been thinking about ditching your desktop in favor of a laptop. You're not alone--many people have already made the switch and now revel in the ability to pick up their computer and go. Thanks to dual-core processors, dual hard drives, multiformat DVD burners, powerful graphics, and brilliant 17-inch wide-aspect screens, the latest crop of high-performance portables stand ready to replace your desktop PC. Who wouldn't be tempted?
To help you decide whether to opt for a big, powerful laptop instead of a desktop PC, we looked at seven notebooks. Four of these were entertainment-focused: Alienware's Aurora m7700, Dell's Inspiron E1705, HP's Pavilion dv8000z, and Toshiba's Qosmio G35-AV600. We also tried two big business-minded laptops--the Gateway M-685E and the HP Compaq nx9420. The final model in our test group, Acer's TravelMate 8200, possesses both entertainment and business appeal.
To gauge how these notebooks stacked up against desktop PCs, we tested each model using our WorldBench 5 benchmark, conducted our regular battery life and graphics tests, and completed a thorough series of hands-on evaluations.
Ultimately, we determined that two notebooks--HP's Pavilion dv8000z and Toshiba's Qosmio G35-AV600--deserved Best Buy awards. The dv8000z offers the best balance of speed, usability, and features, for a reasonable $2200, while the $2548 Toshiba Qosmio is the best audiovisual notebook on the market today.
Of the others, we liked the HP Compaq nx9420's 7.4-pound weight and the Acer TravelMate 8200's built-in Webcam. The pricey Alienware Aurora m7700 offers the option of dual hard drives and dual optical drives, while the Gateway M685-E is a good all-around small-business desktop replacement for graphics pros. The Dell Inspiron E1705's superb graphics results will entice gamers.
While the entry point for ownership is now remarkably similar for desktops and laptops--about $500--feature for feature, you'll still pay about 40 percent more for a notebook. You might spend $2400 on a portable with a dual-core CPU and a 17-inch screen, or you could invest $1400 in a faster desktop and a 20-inch flat-screen panel--and save $1000.
Desktops continue to have the edge in expandability, too, because of their size and the easy access to internal components they afford. Though you can replace a notebook's hard drive and upgrade its RAM, in most cases you can't swap out the graphics card yourself or add another internal hard drive or a second optical drive. Finally, desktops are usually the first to incorporate new technologies--whether a line of new processors, an improved drive interface, or bigger and faster hard drives. But notebooks also have an edge: Most now offer the added convenience of built-in Wi-Fi, and some support mobile broadband services, so you can work wirelessly almost anywhere.
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The Performance Divide
Powerful AMD Athlon CPUs are giving desktops the biggest speed advantage over notebooks we've seen in years. The average WorldBench 5 score for the four top power desktops on this month's Top Desktops chart--all of them equipped with either a single- or dual-core 2.6-GHz Athlon 64 FX-60 CPU and 2GB of RAM--is 141. That's more than 40 percent higher than the score of 100 turned in by Acer's TravelMate 8200, arguably the best-equipped notebook in this roundup, with a 2-GHz Core Duo T2500 dual processor and 2GB of RAM.
This could translate into extra seconds or perhaps minutes required to complete various tasks on a notebook, particularly heavy-duty processing such as editing graphics or recalculating a large spreadsheet. Still, any notebook here should be equal to any task set before them.
The performance of the HP Pavilion dv8000z, the only notebook in the group to use a single-core processor, helps illustrate the advantage of dual-core notebooks. Though it was a strong performer overall, with a WorldBench 5 score of 95, the dv8000z fell behind in our multitasking testing (in which a PC browses the Internet while converting a sound file), taking almost 12 minutes to finish, compared with the group average of a little over 8 minutes, a 30 percent difference. The Alienware m7700's dual-core CPU, which is designed for desktops, provided about a 10 percent performance boost over the notebooks with Intel Core Duo processors in our multitasking tests.
Desktop PCs with the latest graphics card technologies remain the clear winners in graphics performance, but many notebooks can hold their own. The Dell Inspiron E1705, featuring nVidia's new GeForce Go 7900 GS chip with 256MB of video memory (an option Dell says it will offer by next month), won all of our graphics performance tests except Doom 3 run at a resolution of 1024 by 768 and 32-bit color with antialiasing turned off. In that test, the Gateway M685-E achieved 102 frames per second versus the E1705's 98 fps. The Toshiba Qosmio couldn't support high-end games due to its underpowered graphics; and the HP Pavilion dv8000z's integrated graphics make it a poor choice for gaming.
The HP Compaq nx9420.
The average battery life of the notebooks we looked at was a shade less than 3 hours. We were pleasantly surprised that the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 came out on top, lasting 3 hours, 52 minutes. Next best was HP's Compaq nx9420 at 3 hours, 34 minutes, followed by the single-core HP Pavilion dv8000z at 3 hours, 9 minutes, and the Dell Inspiron E1705 at 3 hours, 4 minutes. The remaining three--including the Alienware Aurora m7700 at 1 hour, 36 minutes--ran for less than 3 hours each. The m7700's mark was predictable, given the power drain exacted by desktop processors.
When it comes to storage, it's now possible to obtain up to four 500GB hard drives--2 terabytes--in one tower. Many desktops also come with drives in a RAID 0 or RAID 1 configuration. This means that the system distributes the data between two identical hard drives to enhance speed or to mirror the content for fault tolerance. Notebook hard drives have only recently broken the 200GB barrier, and few come with RAID capability. The exception here is Alienware's Aurora m7700. Though our model came with a single 160GB drive, you can choose instead to have two 7200-rpm SATA 160GB hard drives in a RAID configuration. One of our two Best Buys, the HP Pavilion dv8000z, had the greatest amount of storage, with dual 120GB hard drives for a total of 240GB.
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After-Hours Appeal
Three of the notebooks we looked at used the Windows Media Center Edition 2005 operating system, remote controls, and TV tuners. The Qosmio had a built-in TV tuner, the HP Pavilion dv8000z relied on a PC Card tuner, and the Dell carried a USB add-on tuner.
Dell's E1705 offers a unique one-touch MediaDirect button, which lets you access music and video files from your hard disk or even a media card without turning the unit on. The Toshiba Qosmio uses two instant-on buttons: one for TV, and the other for CDs and DVDs.
Most notebooks' audio can't compare with the output of desktop PC speakers, but Qosmio's G35-AV600 is the first computer to carry a 1-bit digital amplifier (found in many high-end home stereos). Combined with built-in bass-reflex Harman/Kardon speakers and subwoofer-emulating bottom air pockets, it bests cheaper desktop speakers with its loud, clear tones.
Two models in our roundup had 1.3-megapixel Webcams built in. But the one accompanying the Alienware Aurora m7700 was basic, compared with the Acer Travelmate 8200's, which could swivel 225 degrees to capture images at front and back.
Aside from the 15.4-inch Acer, all of the notebooks featured 17-inch wide-screen displays with glossy treatments to improve visibility. The Dell E1705 had the highest native resolution, at 1920 by 1200; but among the models we tested, 1440 by 900 was a far more common native setting.
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Creature Comforts
The Gateway M685-E (upper left) includes a numberpad. Acer's 15.4-inch, 6.7-pound TravelMate 8200 (lower right).
All seven desktop replacements are luggable, but they vary widely in weight. The lightest was the 6.7-pound Acer TravelMate 8200 (which has a smaller screen), and the lightest 17-inch model was the 7.4-pound HP Compaq nx9420. Alienware's m7700 weighed in at 12.8 pounds, the heaviest in our review.
We found the Alienware's keyboard a tad uncomfortable because the laptop itself is so tall and the Page Up and Page Down keys are awkwardly positioned. Similarly, we recommend trying the Acer TravelMate 8200's special ergonomic keyboard (which has a 5-degree curve) before buying it. The best desktop-like typing is supported by the two HP notebooks and the Gateway M685-E; they all felt comfortable, and each comes with a dedicated numerical keypad. The Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 lacks a numberpad, but it has a dual-mode touchpad for controlling volume and for launching applications with the swipe of a finger.
For security, smart card readers are built into Acer's TravelMate 8200 and HP's Compaq nx9420. The latter has a biometric fingerprint reader option--A feature built into the Toshiba Qosmio.
Desktops still offer more legacy connections than notebooks (only the Alienware had serial and parallel ports), and they usually have more audio ports as well. While you might get a couple more USB ports on a desktop, notebooks have effectively caught up: The Dell Inspiron E1705 provides six, and all the others in this group offer four. Though some high-end desktops now accommodate every possible flavor of flash memory card, each notebook here has a built-in media card reader, but the Alienware reader supported the most types. The Qosmio comes closest to matching a desktop's range of A/V ports, including composite-in and both S-Video-in (to record from a VCR, for example) and S-Video-out.
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What To Choose?
Because of their wide-ranging differences in features, no single notebook will be perfect for every user. The HP Pavilion dv8000z, which comes with a TV tuner, neatly balances price, features, and performance--except for gaming. Our other Best Buy, the Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600, would be a nice match for anyone seeking an audiovisual unit with style.
Our number-three choice, the HP Compaq nx9420, is the only unit here that's light and comfortable enough to use on your lap despite having a 17-inch screen. With its 15.4-inch screen, the Acer TravelMate 8200 is the lightest model in our group, yet still performed up to speed. The desktop-CPU-equipped Alienware m7700 had the shortest battery life but performed well, and its ability to use dual optical drives and two SATA hard drives in a RAID configuration could convert even the most ardent skeptic of desktop replacements. Businesses and graphics pros may appreciate that the Gateway M685-E has a 12-month life cycle and can share accessories with other Gateway notebooks, but it lacks some desirable extras such as a DVI connection. Finally, we also liked the Dell Inspiron E1705 for its bundled TV tuner, record mobile gaming performance, and one-touch media playback features.
Desktop replacements may be pricier than most desktop PCs, but you should consider their upside carefullythese desktop killers will handle most tasks you throw at them, and then some.
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What's Next?
A new breed: Dell's 20.1-inch desktop replacement concept.
In the past few years, notebooks have grown bigger and more powerful, and more changes are imminent. One source of these changes is likely to be the battle between CPU rivals Intel and AMD, the latter having stated its intention to market its own dual-core (and likely 64-bit) mobile Turion processors by midyear.
Meanwhile, the latest step in mobile graphics for work or play is here. Alienware, Eurocom, VoodooPC, and WidowPC are selling notebooks with mammoth 19-inch displays and nVidia SLI graphics--two tech specs previously unavailable on notebooks. VoodooPC's Envy U909 gaming laptop, for instance, features a 19-inch display (with 1680 by 1050 resolution) driven by dual 256MB nVidia GeForce Go 800 GTX graphics chips. Dell (which recently purchased Alienware) previewed its new XPS concept notebook with an adjustable 20.1-inch wide-screen display at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. The entertainment-focused unit also featured a detachable Bluetooth keyboard, a slot-loading DVD drive, and eight built-in speakers. As of press time, however, Dell had yet to confirm when--or if--the unit would ship.
Danny AllenIn This Article:
Add-Ons Mimic Your Desktop
The HP Pavillion dv8000z, with HP's xb200 expansion base.
So your new desktop is a notebook? If you're using a notebook but yearning for desktop functionality, it's worth checking out some of the myriad USB, Bluetooth, PC Card, and ExpressCard/54 notebook add-ons--not to mention sampling the scads of ergonomic accessories that are available--for the most comfortable and rewarding desktop experience possible.
Basic third-party USB port replicators and screen stands are available from many vendors including APC, Belkin, Kensington, and Targus; but if your notebook company makes custom accessories, start there. Logitech and Microsoft are good places to begin looking for keyboard and mouse accessories.
Then there are products such as HP's xb2000 Notebook Expansion Base. Compatible with any HP notebook that includes an Expansion Port 2 (such as our Best Buy, the HP Pavilion dv8000z), the xb2000 provides a screen stand for docking the notebook; it comes with a wireless keyboard and a wireless optical mouse. Built into the $500 base are an additional 250GB hard drive and a pair of Harman/Kardon speakers.
Dell's Inspiron E1705 with Ergotron's LX desk stand.
Another type of stand to consider is a desk-mounted arm such as the $99 Ergotron LX. Adjustable arms enable you to free up your work space by lifting the notebook completely off the desk. As a quick fix for poor notebook audio, you can add surround sound by using Creative Labs' $99 Sound Blaster Audigy2 ZS PC Card sound card; it provides an S/PDIF output for connecting to external speakers. Accustomed to working with multiple monitors? You don't have to give up this workflow when you switch to a notebook, thanks to external graphics products like Matrox's DualHead2Go. This $169 palm-size box connects to any PC's VGA port and displays the output on two side-by-side external monitors at a double-width resolution of 2560 by 1024 pixels. You can view output as a single wide picture across two monitors or on three displays, including the notebook's screen. You can surf the Internet on one, check e-mail on another, and edit a photo on the third. Matrox also recently launched a TripleHead2Go priced at $299. Carla Thornton