 "3 Laptops On An Unlimited Budget")
Ever since I have joined Tech2 as a technical reviewer, I have had the rare pleasure of reviewing all kinds of laptops ranging from your standard 14.1 inch workhorses to exotic HD-Ready multimedia powerhouses. In many ways it has been like a dream come true, keeping in mind that I have been a tech-head all my life and a laptop fan ever since I laid my eyes on them a few short years ago.
This week instead of picking out 3 laptops from any particular category, I have decided to go in a different direction. The list below represents my wish list of laptops I would love to own. These laptops I think represent the biggest best and fastest machines that are available today. These do not conform particularly to any one category nor are they your standard machines that are available over the counter. These are specialized products and I have chosen them with no budget in mind.
Dell XPS M2010
There are very few words that come to mind to describe this laptop. In fact looking at its LCD size, weight and height I wonder why it is even categorized as a laptop. Designed to be a multi-media power house, the 2010 features a rather large 20-inch LCD panel with a native resolution of 1680x1050. For its core components Dell has equipped this machine with Intel’s most powerful C2D processor the T7600 (2.33 GHz), 2 GB system memory, a mind-boggling 240GB of storage, a Teac based DVD writer with support for all known current generation CD-R formats, 4 USB Slots, a 5-in-1 card slot, DVI and S-Video outputs.
In other innovations, Dell has equipped this powerful laptop with a series of 8 small speakers which are enclosed around the LCD panel and a 2 inch sub-woofer. When you combine this entire setup you get some fantastic and powerful audio playback capabilities. Graphics-wise the laptop does suffer, as it utilizes an ATI based Radon X1800 series GPU, which while not as powerful as Nvidia’s offerings can still run games at highly playable levels. Finally another notable innovation is the inclusion of a Bluetooth wireless keyboard, which allows a user to work in wireless comfort.
There are very few laptops that scale gaming, multimedia and workhorse power as effortlessly as the XPS M2010. Prices for this crazy machine start at US$ 4,500, for a standard base level affair.
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Alienware Aurora mALX
If the XPS M2010 is an extreme machine, the Alienware Aurora mALX is over-kill. In fact the specifications power and cost-factor of this laptop reminds me of the saying that became famous with the online comic “Schlock mercenary”. The saying goes “There is no overkill. There is only open fire and I need to reload.” This saying could not be truer. For starters the Aurora mALX packs in a 2.66GHz AMD Turion 64 ML-44 processor which is not the fastest that is available today, but has plenty of power to run virtually anything that is thrown at it. In terms of system memory, the mALX has 2GB of 400MHz memory which allows just about every game to run without issues. It is in graphics where this laptop begins to resemble overkill. For starters, the mALX packs in a pair of Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GS GPUs with 512MB of memory on each. The graphical cards are run in SLI mode which brings extreme high-definition gaming to the mobile space. This makes games like F.E.A.R which bring other laptops to their knees run at the laptop’s native resolution very comfortably.
In terms of storage capacity the laptop continues to ‘alienate ’the competition’. The mALX contains two 200GB hard drives for a staggering amount of 400 GB that is available to be run in raid zero formation for unbelievably fast performance. The LCD panel on this laptop is a 19” Wide Screen WSXGA with a native resolution of 1680 x 1050. The mALX also packs in a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 sound system which delivers rich sound out of the 4.1 speaker system with the integrated subwoofer. Connectivity the Aurora mALX has everything you can imagine. With 3 USB 2.0 ports, integrated headphone and microphone jacks, a firewire slot and a 4 in 1 memory card reader the laptop is fully ready for expansion via peripherals. Networking is ably handled by the Gigabit, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi modules that are present.
Overall keeping in mind its blistering performance, unbelievable graphics card subsystem and huge LCD panel, the starting price of mALX at US$ 4,600 does not seem out of place.
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Toshiba Qosmio G30
Considering the crazy powerhouses I have listed above, the G30 feels almost like a poor country bumpkin in front of an urban crowd. However it is far from that. The G30 is an impressive performer in its own right and this was adequately reflected in the
comprehensive review
we did on it a few weeks ago.
The G30 comes fully equipped with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor (T7200), a true HD-Ready 17 inch display panel (1920