The Toshiba Satellite P55-A5200 is a truly multimedia-oriented machine, because it doesn’t only allow you to output 1080p content on an external screen, but you can also do it on its built-in display as well. The aluminum-cladded and thin full HD 15.6-incher with a backlight keyboard belongs to the latest Satellite P55-series, but unfortunately, it doesn’t come with the latest Intel “Haswell” 4th Generation Core processors.
One of the trends on the notebook market are ultra-thin or ultrabook laptops with full-size 15.6-inch displays. An example is the Acer Aspire M5-581T-6405 ultrabook with a 0.8 thin aluminum chassis and weight of 5.1 pounds, the Intel Core i5-3337U dual-core processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive supplemented by a 20GB solid state drive for improved system responsiveness and multitasking.
The Dell Inspiron I15RV-477BLK, also listed as I15RV-477B in some laptop sections on retail websites, is among the cheapest 15.6-inch laptops on the market with its price of $280 and one of the thinnest in the inexpensive category.
Ingredients hidden inside the unobtrusive matte-texuterd 1-inch thin chassis are the budget-class Intel Celeron 1007U dual-core 1.5GHz processor, offering beefier speed than the AMD E1-series found in the sub $300 notebooks, 4GB of system memory for worry free multitasking and overall work, and a 320GB hard drive which is a bare minimum in modern notebooks.
The brand new MacBook Air for the year 2013 is now available in a form of four SKUs: the 11.6-inch MD711LL/A and MD712LL/A, and 13-inch MD760LL/A and MD761LL/A. Let’s take a look at highlights of the whole new lineup of Apple’s popular ultraportables and the main differences between the models, as well as the first benchmark results of computing speed and (shocking) battery life.
A new budget-friendly laptop that arrived on store shelves is Asus X401U-BE20602Z with a $290 price tag as the main selling point, a 14-inch display, and a CPU from AMD’s E2 “Fusion” family.
The brand new Asus G750 Republic of Gamers (RoG) gaming notebook series with a 17.3-inch display and the latest Intel 4th Generation Core processors codenamed “Haswell” is now available in the US in form of two models: the G750JW-DB71 and G750JX-DB71.
The HP Pavilion g7-2323dx is one of the g-series 17.3-inch notebook configurations with middle-of-the-road components and an affordable 400-dollar price. The g7-2323dx sports the AMD A8-4400M dual-core chip with the Radeon HD 7520G integrated graphics, 4GB of RAM, and a 640GB hard disk, besides the 1600×900-pixel screen, DVD burner, webcam, stereo speakers, Dolby Audio, three USB ports, and HDMI. All of these parts are encased in a 1.5″ thick chassis measuring 6.6 pounds in weight.
The Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5132 is yet another extremely affordable configuration from the AMD-based 15.6-inch C855D series. The 300-dollar laptop has the AMD Dual-Core E1-1200 1.4GHz as the main processing unit, helped by the integrated Radeon HD 7310 for graphics processing. Included 4GB of system memory is more than enough for all tasks an average user might throw at this notebook, but the 320GB hard disk drive is the lowest capacity one you can find in modern laptops. For your DVD / CD playback, software installation, and file writing needs, the C855D-S5132 provides a DVD±RW/CD-RW optical drive.
The recently announced Sony VAIO Fit notebook series has arrived on store shelves. One of the first available configurations is the Sony VAIO Fit SVF14A16CXS, sporting a 14-inch display and all advanced features that come with the new series.
When you look at the specs sheet, the first thing that catches attention is the screen. It’s not only touch enabled, but additionally has unusually high screen resolution for a 14-incher. And one of the characteristics of the Vaio Fit line are high-resolution displays on all models. The SVF14A16CXS has a 1600×900 pixel count, up from usual 1366×768. The former resolution is common on 17.3-inch laptops, but seeing it on a 14″ panel is a real refreshment for the market.
The 15.6-inch Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5116 solves the main shortcoming of the C855D-S5104 – a slow processor. Instead of the very basic AMD E-300, the C855D-S5116 features the lower-mid-range A6-4400M, which has a far better performance than the E-300, while RAM and hard drive capacity is 4GB and 500GB respectively on both models. Another advantage of the S5116 is presence of HDMI output and USB 3.0 technology.
If you like HDTVs with thin bezels you will probably like the Samsung NP365E5C-S02UB 15.6-inch notebook more than other inexpensive laptops. It’s because it also utilizes a sleek-looking thin display panel frame, additionally making footprint of the whole notebook smaller than of laptops with thicker bezels.
If you don’t want to shell out more than $300 for a new laptop, one of the options to consider is the 15.6-inch Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5104 with Windows 8 OS. At the same time, the C855D-S5104 is currently the cheapest 15.6″ laptop on the market, but as you can expect, it has several limitations.
The Toshiba Satellite C855-series 15.6-inch notebook configurations released since the official launch of the laptop about a year ago don’t differ much from each other. They all have Intel processors ranging from the Celeron to the Core i3, and rarely have the Core i5. The i3-3120M-powered 380-dollar Toshiba Satellite C855-S5123 with Windows 8 OS is one of the better equipped configurations, since the included chip offers fairly respectable performance, thanks to its dual cores at 2.5GHz, 3MB of cache, and HyperThreading technology for up to two computing threads per core.
If you want a relatively inexpensive 15.6-inch Windows 8 laptop, but won’t make compromises performance- and style-wise, the P500 – 59372845 configuration from the Lenovo IdeaPad P-series is a good choice for you.
One of the standard-size Windows 8-based laptops with optimal price/performance ratio is the L855-S5119 from Toshiba’s Satellite series. With a price of $400, the 15.6-inch Toshiba L855-S5119 is armed with a 2.5GHz Intel Core i3-3120M dual-core processor, an excellent choice for completing your daily computing tasks with ease. Of course, gaming is largely out of the question because the laptop doesn’t feature a dedicated video card, but office, web, and multimedia will run like a dream.
