2006-01-11

Core Duo Dance

Between CES and Macworld, we've seen quite a few Core Duo notebook computers released over the last week and a half. I'm leaning, okay toppling, towards the Apple one, but I figured I would gather some juicy details and do some comparison.



First let's see who everyone brought to the party.

Acer Travelmate 8200
Apple MacBook Pro
Dell Inspiron 9400
Gateway NX560XL
Lenovo T2600
Sony FE11S

And now, the fun.









ManufacturerModelProcessor/RAM/HDScreenSizeWeightWirelessOtherPrice
AcerTravelMate 82002GHz/RAM/120GB 540015.4" 1680x105014.3x10.7x1.5?WiFi, BluetoothCamera, Modem, 5 in 1 Card Reader?
AppleMacBook Pro1.83GHz/1GB/100GB 540015.4" 1440x90014.1x9.6x15.6lbsWiFi, BluetoothCamera, MagSafe$2499
DellInspiron 94001.83GHz/1GB/100GB 540017" 1440x90015.5x11.3x1.67.94lbsWiFi, Bluetooth(+$50)Express Card, 5 in 1 Card Reader$2690
GatewayNX560XL1.83GHz/1GB/100GB 540015.4" 1400x105014x10.4x1.36.32lbsWiFi, Bluetooth(+$50)$1715
LenovoT26002.33GHz/?GB/100GB 540015" 1400x105013x10.6x1.44.8lbsWiFi, Bluetooth(opt)EV-DO opt?
SonyFE11S1.83GHz/1GB/160GB 540015.4" ?x??x?x??WiFi, BluetoothCamera, ExpressCard$2069

Highlights

  • Lenovo wins with the fastest processor

  • Apple wins the smallest package (at least with the data I have). This is a big deal to me.

  • Acer wins with pixel count

  • Lenovo wins on weight

  • The Gateway has decent dimensions, but man is it heavy.

  • Sony packs in the biggest hard drive



It's interesting that even when comparing like stats, you don't get the whole picture. Things like Apple's 1GB of RAM being 1 DIMM where others are using 2 DIMMs, leaving no free slots. I also left out the video card stats. I haven't followed those closely and they are harder to compare manufacturer to manufacturer, so if you are a gamer, go do some more searching.

One final thought. It took forever to gather this info. Wouldn't it be nice to have consistent "window stickers" for computers like they have for cars?

1 comment:

Jason said...

Damn your ugly table that I can't view in either RSS or nicely in HTML. I banish it to evil HTML jail. Wait, actually I blame blogger.

I'm looking forward to the uniform window sticker for PC's, just so I can see the ABBM line item (Additional Best Buy Markup).

All of those are still far too bleeding edge and pricy for me to even consider, but it was a good comparison. I was surprised how far out of whack the Dell landed.