Photo: Apple

You get laptops and then you get laptops, where the former do the basics and the latter do, well, almost anything a powerful desktop is capable of. Below is a look at some of the top of the range laptops available on the market today.

17-inch MacBook Pro

Where the MacBook has always had a power and functionality advantage, it’s also always had a price advantage – and not in the good old thrifty way. Even then, though, those who love them swear by them. The top-of-the-range 17-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pro have a resolution of 1920×1200 (definitely a full HD laptop, then) and have a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor with 4GB of RAM shipped in the box. Suffice it to say, these can definitely do the heavy lifting.

Asus G73JH

When we reviewed the Asus G73JH we warned users to ‘tread lightly’ for it ‘is not cheap’ and ‘not so by a long mile’. But when looking at the pure laptop prowess and power, you’re going to pay for what you get. In that case, how does an Intel Core i7 – 720QM processor sound to you? How about pairing that with 8GB of RAM right out the box and a 1,000GB (yes, 1 terabyte) hard drive in the box? Oh, and if that’s not enough, this is designed to be a pure gaming machine, with an unreasonable ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 sound? Thought you’d like that. And, of course, with specs like this 1920×1080 as the minimum resolution you would expect, yes? Well, you’re in luck then, because this is an out-and-out 17-inch full HD laptop, too.

Sony Vaio VPCF120ME/B

Photo: Sony

Sony, never one to be left behind in the ‘mine’s better than yours’ comparisons, throws a top-of-the-range HD laptop of its own in the mix. Say hello to the Sony Vaio VPCF120ME/B. This 16.4-inch full HD laptop has an Intel Core i7 – 740QM processor with an unreasonable clock speed of 2,930MHz (yes, 2,93GHz). RAM starts out at 4GB but is expandable up to 8GB, naturally, and it ships with a 500GB hard drive. And if top-notch pixel-pushing is important to you, it ships with an nVidia GeForce GT330M. Will that do?

The options are multi-varied

If all you’re looking for is a well-sized, capable full HD laptop, then your options are manifold. Manufacturers have realized we want high-resolution screens and they’ve given us that. But, of course, not all laptops are built the same, and if you’re looking for a top of the range laptop capable of giving many a run for their money, the three laptops above are solid candidates for that job.

Photo: Intel

Intel introduced a new Intel Core i7 desktop processor that has six cores to go with the previously released Intel i7 Extreme Edition with six cores. In the process, the company also cut the price on some of its older chipsets.

Say hi to the Intel Core i7-970

The new six-core Intel Core i7-970 runs at an impressive 3.2GHz, with 12MB of L3 cache to boot. That much power doesn’t come cheap, though, with the i7-970 carrying a suggested retail price of $885 (about £582).

This, however, is not the first six-core Intel processor available on the market. The Intel Core i7-970 follows in the footsteps of the incredibly powerful (but unbelievably expensive) Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition that was released back in March this year.

Two tiers of performance

Intel has deliberately divided its Intel Core i7 series of chips into two tiers, with the standard edition for high-end desktops while the Intel i7 Extreme Edition chips are intended specifically for power users – most prominently gamers and 3D artists – looking for that extra bit of performance. The Intel Core i7-790 is meant to bridge the gap between the extreme chips and the desktop chips by bringing Intel Extreme Edition power to desktop users.

Cheaper chips with that fish

The one benefit of the constant release of improved processing chips is the downward pressure they have on the pricing of older chips. Intel took the liberty of slashing the prices of its chips – both desktop and server chips – by nearly 50 per cent in some instances. The Intel Core i7-870 processor is now priced at $294 (about £193), representing a 48 per cent cut on its old price. The company also cut the price of some of its Xeon server processors, too. It may take time for the pricing effects to come into play in the UK, so if you were planning on picking up an Intel Core i7-870, you may want to hold off for a month or so. For a more detailed report on how prices have been adjusted at Intel, you may want to look at their price list (PDF File).

Does the new Intel Core i7-970 interest you, particularly at that price point? Relative to the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition, do you think it is value for money?

Photo: Asus

Tread lightly. The Asus G73JH is not cheap. Not by a long mile. But it is an extremely well engineered laptop that can appease the desires of most hardcore PC gamers. Still here? Alright then, dive right in with us.

Specs

Considering the amount of money you’re paying, you definitely want the specs to justify the shillings. Asus works hard at doing this for you. The Asus G73JH has an Intel Core i7-720QM processor. It ships with 8GB RAM right out the box and a beefy 1,000 GB hard drive (yes, that’s right, a terabyte in the case). What of that promise for gamers? No need to fret, how does an ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 sound? Thought so. Add to that a Blu-ray ROM built in (still something of a rarity on laptops) and HDMI, VGA output with Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, you start to see how the costs of this Asus G73JH just escalated and escalated.

Display

The display is a generous 17-inches in full HD (1920×1080p) with an aspect ratio of 16:9. You’re not going to want to take it outside, since the reflections from the glossy screen are unbearable. Viewing angle is surprisingly forgiving, allowing for slight movement vertically and horizontally relative to the screen’s positioning, but dodging the reflections is the big problem. And this bright, generous display also adds to the battery life problems.

Input

There’s little to say about the input. Both the keyboard and trackpad are above standard fare, presenting a pleasant user input experience. The keyboard is backlit, too – which always excites us more than it should – which is another major plus.

Performance

Photo: Asus

Which brings us to the big one – performance. With a battery that hits three hours at the beginning of its life cycle and continually depletes thereafter, one may feel the pinch with the Asus G73JH. The truth is, this considered, perhaps performance is not as good as the price might suggest. Let me reiterate, the Intel Core i7 and ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 ensure it works like a charm, but the misgivings start to stack. We tested the machine with the most popular first-person shooter on PCs at the moment, Modern Warfare 2, and at a full 1920×1080 p resolution with 4x anti aliasing turned on and textures extra turned on, it averaged a very respectable 48fps. It’s not quite the COD optimum 60fps, but this is a notebook, after all.

Naturally with applications, this theme carried through as well. It runs really well. Really, really well, actually. And you’ll be hard pressed to find many desktops with equivalent specs or graphics capabilities. But it costs over £1,600, which makes us take a pause. Is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 really worth that? What of the Intel Core i7 processor? It’s just, you sort of feel like it’s overpriced by £200. Sure, we realise at 8GB worth of RAM, with a fantastic processor and a remarkable graphics card, add to that a full HD display and Blu-ray drive, how much did we expect to pay, right? Still, though, it hangs in our minds.

So, in effect, if you’re looking for a superb gaming laptop and price is not a sticky point for you, get the Asus G73JH now. If price is a sticky point, you may dance around the issue a little bit, as we have been.

Photo: Intel

Micro processing chip Intel has just had a record quarter, bringing in more revenue and more profit than ever before, even amidst concerns about its efforts in the smartphones market.

Pretty numbers

The company had profits of $2.9 billion off $10.8 billion in revenues. That represents an incredible profit increase of $445 million over what they achieved last quarter, as well as an enormous $3.3 billion from this same period last year.

Growth drivers?

What has driven this growth, you wonder? Oh, how about those millions of Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5 and Intel Core i7 chips we mention week in and week out, considering they’re in virtually every laptop released? Add to that the Intel N-series of chips found in netbooks, like the ubiquitous Intel N400 and the fast proliferating Intel N450, and it begins to make sense how the company is performing so well. Growth in the server market has also contributed greatly to Intel’s recent fortunes.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

The most important indicator for this performance is the burgeoning demand for and sales of computers worldwide, with global PC shipments showing strong growth. With Intel’s business directly tied to that, effectively, the more PCs are sold in general, the more money Intel makes.

Cause for concern

Intel’s business does have one or two blind spots, if you will, with many analysts and investors concerned about their inevitable move into the smartphone and tablets markets. Sure, the company has a deal with Nokia through their shared MeeGo platform, but even in that realm there is some confusion and Nokia’s smartphone prospects haven’t been great, either. To add to their woes, the successes of the Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5, and the Intel Core i7 on PCs are replicated by other companies like ARM on smartphones.

Even then, kudos to Intel and their success. Click on the links provided to see what kind of hardware the Intel Core i3, Intel Core i5 and the Intel Core i7 are powering.

Photo: Apple

While all the debate and conversation centres around what tablet computers mean for netbooks, many people overlook the grandfather (and still the best all-rounder) of mobile computing – the laptop. We’ve racked the brains of our editorial team to come up with the top three Intel Core i7 laptops released in 2010.

The Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch (2010 release)

The latest batch of Apple Macbook Pro laptops brought with them a much-needed innards revision, when the stalwart Intel Core 2 Duos were replace by the Intel Core i5 and i7 respectively. The top-end configuration of the Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch sees a 2.66GHz Intel Core i7 processor, with 4GB of RAM and a 500GB hard drive. We’re biased toward the 15-inch because the 17-inch just feels too unwieldy, but if a bigger monitor is your thing, by all means go for it. You will always pay a premium for Apple products, but this Macbook Pro is a mainstay in anybody’s Intel Core i7 laptop range.

The HP Pavillion dv7-3110ea

Photo: HP

The HP Pavillion dv7-3110ea muscles its way on to this list almost exclusively on the back of its surprisingly good price relative to its capabilities. This Intel Core i7 720QM notebook packs 4GB of RAM and a spacious 500GB hard drive, just like the Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch above. The only difference is processor clock speed is 1.6GHz vs 2.66GHz and it costs less than half the price. Feeling thrifty? This 17.3-inch Intel Core i7 laptop is price sensitive, too.

The Asus G73JH

Photo: Asus

Although it has an unnecessarily wieldy name and costs an average of 1.5 times the price of HP Pavillion dv7-3110ea above, the Asus G73JH deserves its spot on the list. Specs wise, it has the identical Intel Core i7 laptop processor the Pavillion has, the i7 720Qm clocking in at 1,6GHz, but it gets a RAM upgrade to 8GB. Hard drive capacity is also 8GB, with a 17-inch monitor. How then does it lay its stake? By having an ATI Mobility Radeon HD5870 graphics card, that’s how. Capable of playing the bulk of mainstream computer games on solid to very good settings, this utility laptop is the mobile PC gamer’s dream. And, if the graphics card is not justification enough, it is still cheaper than the Apple Macbook Pro 15-inch above. Convinced yet?

What other Intel Core i7 powered notebooks have you come across this year that you feel deserve being mentioned or reviewed in another post? Let us know in the comments section below.

Photo: Sony

In a world where speed is often considered everything and Intel’s power processors, the Intel Core i5 and Intel Core i7, get all the attention, the Intel Core i3 laptop processor is often overlooked. This is a mistake, considering the Core i3 has plenty of power for what most people use their computers for, and also makes for a notably cheaper device – which is always a good thing. What options are available for those looking for a capable, yet affordable, i3 laptop?

Debunking the misconception

One of the unknown realities is the difference between the i3 and i5 processors are tiny, especially at the lower end of the i5. The i3 is meant for those on a budget without giving a budget performance, considering the biggest sacrifice is the loss of the turbo boost feature found in Intel’s other processors.

The range

Having said that, Intel Core i3 laptop options are plentiful, with some laptops starting off as cheaply as £360, from a wide range of manufacturers, including the usual suspects like Sony, Toshiba, HP and so on.

The popular Sony Vaio VPCEB1E0E/WI is an Intel Core i3 laptop (330M), clocking in at a speed of 2,130MHz, with a base configuration of 3GB of RAM and a memory capacity of 320GB. Sure, you’re not about to play resource intensive games on this laptop, but we fired up Photoshop CS5 with a large 500mb file to see how the computer would hold up and we’re glad to report it didn’t fall over. Quite frankly, it outperformed even our expectations with the stress test.

Photo: Samsung

The Samsung R780, which we reviewed on an Intel Core i5 configuration, is also another example of a solid i3 laptop. But what this review also showed was that performance alone should not be the only consideration, with us finding the laptop’s performance solid though its build quality lacking.

Balancing act

The trick with playing off performance for budget is too make sure the performance is, at a minimum, good enough to handle your requirements, while also making sure the build of your hardware is rock solid. Once these two factors are married, you’ll be surprised at the number of budget laptops you’ve overlooked because you thought Intel Core i5 and Intel Core i7 were the base processors for your computing needs.

Photo: Apple

Last year, the Apple laptops lineup was consolidated, with the company reducing its Macbook range to one laptop and adding a 13 inch variation to its Macbook Pro lineup. And this year, Apple refreshed its Macbook Pro lineup, dropping Intel’s Core Duo 2 processors for the 15-inch and 17-inch Pros in favour of the newer Intel Core i5 and Intel Core i7 processors.

Size matters

The 13-inch Macbook and Macbook Pro will stick with the Core Duo 2. The Macbook will run at 2.26GHz, whereas the Macbook Pro is available at 2.4GHz and 2.66GHz. In this respect, they will be notably slower than the 15-inch and the 17-inch Macbook Pros, considering those laptops are adopting the newer Core i5 and Core i7 processors.

The 15-inch Macbook Pro will be getting a processor update to the Intel Core i5, with speeds of 2.4GHz (520M) and 2.53GHz (540M) available. An Intel Core i7 variation running at 2.66GHz is available, too.

The 17-inch Macbook Pro, is available with the same 2.53GHz Intel Core i5 configurations seen in the 15-inch Macbook pro, and the 2.66GHz (620M) Intel Core i7 configuration as well.

Deliberate tiering

Photo: Apple

This move is contrary to Apple’s recent Mac strategy of converging the capability of their machines by creating a 13-inch Macbook Pro variation. Now the company has deliberately tiered the 15-inch and 17-inch laptops, meaning, in architecture at least, the 13-inch is more a half-step between the Macbook and the Pro than a full blown Macbook Pro.

The Standard

All the laptops have 4GB RAM, With 320GB hard drive capacity for the lower end and 500GB capacity for the step ups. The laptops start at $999 (around £780) for the 13-inch Macbook model and at $2,299 (almost £1,500) for the base 17-inch configuration.

Photo: Apple

Apple, who claims to be a mobile devices company, is still lagging in its lineup, with many products lacking mobility. But rumours are swirling that a 27-inch Cinema Display is on the way as well as a Mac Pro with a significant speed bump courtesy of the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition and 32nm Xeon Parts.

Cinema Display

Photo: Intel

The Cinema Display is Apple’s standalone monitor, with a 30-inch display that has not been updated in nearly three years. In this regard, ars technica reports, a 27-inch LED Cinema Display, using the very panel that’s in current 27-inch iMacs, is set to replace the 24-inch LED Cinema Display that was first introduced back in 2008, as well as kill off the aforementioned 30-inch Cinema Display. The display is expected to have a more traditional aspect ratio of 16:9, as opposed to the 16:10 used in the iMacs presently.

The Mac Pro

The Mac Pro, Apple’s workstation tower, is due for a major update as well, considering they’ve only had the slightest tweak since being released back in late 2008, too. The recently reviewed 12-core Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition is expected to be the onboard processor for the lower end Mac Pros, while Intel recently launched 32nm Xeon Parts, with the codename ‘Westmere-EP’, which are expected to power the rest of the Mac Pro lineup. Architectural differences between the Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition and the 32nm Xeon parts may lead to only the Xeon being adopted throughout.

Long overdue

Photo: Intel

These updates are long overdue, given Apple’s strategy of updating hardware annually, but given Apple’s promise of lots of new hardware on the horizon at its last earnings call, and Intel’s processor releases, these updates are expected to see the light of day soon. Apple, admittedly, are not focused on their tabletop-bound solutions, but don’t want to unnecessarily neglect the customer base they have built up in that realm either.

Photo: Intel

Intel’s new flagship processor, aimed at heavy duty rigs, is bursting at the seams with capabilities. The Intel Core i7 chip series that replaced the Intel Core 2 as Intel’s flagship processor has recently got a major upgrade that has resulted in one of the world’s most expensive and highest spec processors on the planet.

All that power

The Intel Core i7 supports six hyper-threaded cores and up to twelve threads for exceptionally fast processing. The newly released Intel Core i7-980X is set to replace the beastly Intel Core i7-975 XE at the exact same price point. So, essentially, you are getting two extra cores for free. The i7-980X has the exact same base speed at 3.33GHz, with support DDR3-1066 across three channels and 12MB L3 cache across all six cores. The importance of that much cache is that tasks that are performed often will be readily accessible for reuse without the need to use core processing capacity.

The criticism

Photo: Intel

While all are in agreement this is easily the fastest consumer processor Intel has released, the added advantage of two cores will not result in a massive speed boost immediately. What is required is for software that takes advantage of this six-core system to be developed for the full benefits to be reaped.

The audience

This rig is aimed squarely at gamers. At a starting price of around £799, rigs built by gamer-specific companies like Alienware with the Intel i7-980X built-in are set to cost a lot of money, with the Alienware Area-51 ALX rig being the first Alienware platform earmarked for such release.

AMD’s response

While Intel solidifies its lead in the processor market with the Intel Core i7, AMD, the company’s biggest competitor, is forced to play catch-up. It’s unexpected that this processor, with its low volume high price model, will make a dent in AMD’s business, but it does put the company under pressure to make good and turn their recent fortunes around.