Mobile Buyers' Guide: 14" and Larger Notebooks and DTRs

Notebook and DTR Wrap Up

The more astute readers are liable to have noticed certain patterns in our picks, in that some manufacturer names come up more than others. We've listed a fair number of alternatives, but a few names generally fail to make the grade. HP, Lenovo, Fujitsu, and to a lesser extent MSI and Toshiba could all use work.

At a basic apples-to-apples level, HP notebooks are frankly just not price competitive in the metrics we're examining. HP charges $200 to upgrade to the Mobility Radeon HD 5650 in any of the notebooks that support it, and that's highway robbery compared to what Acer and ASUS offer. They also almost completely rule themselves out for serious multimedia work, as there isn't a single modern HP notebook with FireWire or ExpressCard. It's a strange thing to keep harping on, but if you've sat in a class with other video students who are just trying to find the best deal they can for cameras and the hardware to edit with, it definitely matters to some and at least a few notebooks from any vendor should support these features.

All is not lost for HP, as their ENVY products have good build quality and look nice; find one of HP's periodic sales and the ENVY line is worth considering, but at the current prices it's substantially more expensive than the competition. HP also has business notebooks that are quite nice, with magnesium alloy frames that make typical consumer laptops feel like they're made of cheap plastic… probably because they are. The ProBook and EliteBook lines compete with the likes of Lenovo ThinkPad and Dell Latitude/Precision notebooks, but we didn't spend a lot of time looking at business options in this guide.

Speaking of Lenovo, the ThinkPad line has traditionally been solid and easy enough to recommend, but like most business laptops it's pricy. The IdeaPad line, on the other hand, has shown itself to be somewhat schizophrenic. Lenovo can't seem to settle on a style for their IdeaPads, and the notebooks are often overpriced for what you get. If you do want something extremely solid, a ThinkPad becomes easier to recommend, but even their screen quality has gone the way of the consumer (low resolution 16:9 widescreens). That's something you might need to research for yourself to determine if you want to make the trade-off.

Speaking of overpriced, but speaking concisely, Fujitsu notebooks often simply don't offer the same kind of power as other notebooks in their price class. If you want something business-class, you're still better off shopping at Dell, HP, or Lenovo, and for the tasks we're putting our notebooks through in this round-up, most of Fujitsu's current line is a tough sell.

Toshiba's offerings come down to a matter of taste. Toshiba notebooks are very distinctly styled in the marketplace, but they're inexpensive and make a reasonable alternative to Acer/Gateway machines in most of the lower price classes. The Qosmio is still overpriced and ugly compared to what ASUS offers for high-powered gaming and media notebooks, but Toshiba's less expensive notebooks can be compelling. Helpfully, Toshiba and Acer both have a strong retail presence, so you can check them out for yourself and determine which vendor's machines you like better. Personally, we prefer the wider selection of machines equipped with solid discrete GPUs in Acer notebooks, but your mileage may vary.

MSI notebooks do remain another healthy alternative, but unfortunately their retail presence is scattershot and mostly confined to their cheaper, less powerful notebooks. This is a shame, because anyone willing to take a gamble is liable to find a fairly well-built and well-specced machine. Like Acer, though, the keyboards can be frustrating enough to completely mar the experience.

Wrapping things up, there are also a lot of whitebook vendors that use Clevo and Compal-based notebooks. Clevo machines are monsters, but if you simply must have ultimate power at any expense, they're generally a good choice. The Compal systems we've seen on the market look reasonable as well, though price-wise they simply can't compete with the mass produced big OEMs. AVADirect, Sager, and others will sell you highly customizable notebooks, but you pay for the privilege (and it's a shame Clevo still hasn't come out with a good keyboard layout).

Hopefully it's clear that our recommendations aren't meant as the end-all-be-all; prices fluctuate, matters of taste and aesthetics come into play, and different people weigh different features with varying degrees of importance. At the end of the day, though, we're confident that our picks are going to be among the best options for the various market segments we've listed. Vivek will have a separate ultraportable guide up next week, with a focus on smaller sized laptops with better battery life. In the meantime, if you have other notebooks you think deserve a mention, or if you happen to come across an amazing deal, our comments section is open for input.