Sub-$400 Sandy Bridge Notebooks Hit the Market

[CommanderFrank]

Lookout netbooks…..you have some stiff competition in the sub-$400 market these days. Sandy Bridge processors are showing up in cut rate notebooks, like HP’s Pavilion and Toshiba’s Satellite, both priced well under the $400 mark. With prices this low, netbooks are struggling to keep up with the higher end notebooks.

Those pricier Core i5 and Core i7 Sandy Bridge chips come with extras like Turbo Frequency (which speeds up the processor to tackle demanding tasks) and larger built-in cache memory. But you're still getting the same basic 32-nanometer chip technology in cheaper versions.

 

[.Tret]

At first I was a little shocked that half the comments on that article were people arguing whether or not bother and just get a mac instead. But then I realized I was on cnet and it makes sense.

 

[Wirth'sLaw]

This is good for the mobile market.

I bought a netbook over a year ago and at the time it was the way to go considering the price and what I do on it.

The CPU may be faster, but are they still throwing 5400rpm HDs in them?

 

[RIPATI]

This is good for the mobile market.

I bought a netbook over a year ago and at the time it was the way to go considering the price and what I do on it.

The CPU may be faster, but are they still throwing 5400rpm HDs in them?

Well, with all that money your saving, first thing to do is rip out the HDD and replace it with a SSD.

 

[pothb]

You know, I make fun of apple people all the time, but I don't know many apple people to confirm that it's widespread... that page of comments really helped me with that.

 

[Trimlock]

I'm guessing that is the mobile version of the pentium g, I think I would spring a bit more for an i3 2100 honestly.

Those comments were hilarious, some of those apple supporters sound like they are reciting a manual.

 

[armandh01]

I have fallen in love with compact shit and netbooks are just awesome imo, even better when they are gaming netbooks. I hardly need a DVD drive any more, I think I maybe used my external 5 times in the last 6 months.

I just don't like 15" any more.

 

[Trimlock]

edit: HD3000? That may be a typo, it should be a HD2000 if this is "under" the i3.

 

[RM_Bulldog]

i picked up a hp 4530s 1333 memory 7200rpm drive i32300 all for $449 shipped to my door and i must say this laptop has got some legs

 

[SJetski71]

Just in time for wifie to get a new laptop, in a few months anyway.

Lets see what a few months brings

 

[niconx]

I can't help but see tablets and smartphones as severely overpriced when there are laptops like this.

 

[Solidstate89]

At first I was a little shocked that half the comments on that article were people arguing whether or not bother and just get a mac instead. But then I realized I was on cnet and it makes sense.

I suddenly remember why I never visit CNet anymore.

 

[darkpaw]

The only factual statement from a Apple fanatic in that thread was the better trackpad part, but that alone doesn't justify the difference in price. If shopping at the mid to high end range with a specific need for that much power, the MacBook Pros are not bad, but for an every day computer there is zero benefit over a sub 400 notebook that will do the same things.

I'm an equal opportunity user when it comes to hardware, but other than xcode ever app I run on the Mac is a Windows app and if I want something super portable I take my $200 netbook with me.

Smart phones and tablets are extremely overpriced, but smaller does always cost more. The markup on those (especially smart phones) is insane.

 

[kevinpet]

I went to the Apple store today to check out the new Air. Visually and design-wise? Beautiful machine. That makes up at least a solid 5% of my buying decision. Trackpad? It's nice and big, but I prefer PC-style tap-to-click. Keyboard is like typing on a photo of a keyboard. There's no travel, not tactile feedback. But I'm really thinking about it because of the performance and screen.

Screen on the 13" is 1400x900. Comparable PCs are 13??x768, which is what you find on the 11" Air. Battery life is supposedly a reasonably honest 7 hours on the 13", 5 hours on the 11". I'm pretty sure I could live with 5 hours. Performance-wise, I'm guessing these will do most of my actual work on par with my Phenom II x4 805 at 2.5GHz with an SSD boot drive.

What's comparable in the PC space? Lenovo x220? Same screen resolution as the 11" Air, probably a much better keyboard, SSD is an expensive upgrade. x220 with 4GB, 128GB SSD, about 30% faster processor, upgrades for bluetooth and webcam (already on the Air) comes out to $1279 vs. $1230 for the comparable Air (with USB ethernet), weighs 50-100% more depending on battery, and it's twice as thick.

I'm leaning towards the 13" Air at $1300 because I primarily run Linux for work, but can get away with Mac OS. But Linux means certain things like Netflix are a lot more painful than they should be.

 

[quackduck]

Sidenote : you can always install your own SSD in your laptop instead of ordering with it from the factory. 128gb drives can be had for around $200 or cheaper

 

[Dark Shade]

I have fallen in love with compact shit

Joking asside, I would like an upgrade from my Acer Aspire 1 that now has terrible battery life and is out of date...

 

[heatlesssun]

What's comparable in the PC space? Lenovo x220? Same screen resolution as the 11" Air, probably a much better keyboard, SSD is an expensive upgrade. x220 with 4GB, 128GB SSD, about 30% faster processor, upgrades for bluetooth and webcam (already on the Air) comes out to $1279 vs. $1230 for the comparable Air (with USB ethernet), weighs 50-100% more depending on battery, and it's twice as thick.

I have the x220t, the convertible tablet version of the x220 and it's a hell of a machine. Looked at the MBA yesterday, yes attractive machine, much more so than the x220t and considerably lighter (the x220t tablet is heavier conventional laptop version) than the and thiner.

However there are trade offs for that lower weight and thinness. As you indicated the keyboard on the MBA isn't exactly the best which is no doubt a byproduct of the MBA's thinness. Keyboards on laptops don't get much better than the x220.

The weight I would consider to be a bigger concern but the x220 uses a full voltage processor so its faster, runs very cool and has significantly better battery life and battery options. And at 3.5 pounds the x220 isn't much heavier than the 13" MBA.

As for the screen, the MBA's is brighter but the x220 has an IPS screen with a matte finish so better colors and viewing angles. Of course there might be some issues with the resolution. The x220s 12.5" screen is 1366x768 which a lot of people hate. So you do getting probably a more desirable resolution is a little bit bigger screen.

Personally I think these ultra thin devices not only don't offer any functional benefit, they hamper functionality as they make a lot of functional compromises for a little bit lower weight and thinness. If you're always carrying the laptop around like a book I can see the benefit of those things but if you're actually using the the laptop those things don't really mean much.

 

[heatlesssun]

I suddenly remember why I never visit CNet anymore.

All of the Ziff-Davis sites are crap these days. There's a few good people there and some decent content but half of their so called journalism are ads for Apple products. They had article on ZDNet the other days about how the MBA 11 was the the greatest laptop the author had ever used. Yeah its thin and light but functionally its outclassed but a ton of devices and its so hilarious to see an Apple fan go nuts over a laptop that gets only 5 hours of battery life when they crucify PC laptops with that kind of battery life days.

Utterly hollow and transparent Apple advertising.

 

[rat]

The CPU may be faster, but are they still throwing 5400rpm HDs in them?

Doesn't matter as much as you think it does. In my old laptop, the 320GB 5200 RPM drive I put in was faster than the 7200 RPM 160GB drive it replaced. Density has a funny way of making other performance metrics less relevant.

 

[rat]

Joking asside, I would like an upgrade from my Acer Aspire 1 that now has terrible battery life and is out of date...

You can get a replacement 9 cell, 10 hour battery for the AAO on eBay, from a US seller and with "free" shipping, for under $30.

As much as people want to shit on it, the Aspire One is still a perfectly capable machine.

I'll continue to use mine for DJing because it pisses off the MacFags.

 

[undercoverDrunk]

I think we can all thank llano for the price pressure on lower Sandy Bridge chips. So now the question is: At $400 which is a better value?

 

[vengence]

2Ghz, 2 core, sandy bridge? friggen awesome.

 

[qfwm]

After seeing this I was thinking of getting my mom the HP for $350. Was going to get an AMD laptop from Microcenter for $280, but I think I am better off spending the extra money. Now if I could just find some place other than Best Buy, that would be the icing on the cake.

 

[pxc]

It's decent for the price range, but a lot is cut down in the Pentium B940. vs i3/i5/i7 SB:

no AVX
no VT
no AES-NI
no QuickSync
has slower HD 2000-based graphics (650/1100 vs 850/1100)
lacks 3D video decoding features and Clear Video HD

It replaces the Arrandale-based (Nehalem) Pentium P6100 CPU, which isn't bad as far as CPU performance is concerned.

The release of Pentium B940 for sub-$400 laptops is just continuing to raise the low end for Intel models. Not surprising really. It's been happening for years now since the Core 2 days.

 

[boduke]

I picked up a $399 Toshiba i3-2310M at WorstBuy....got it home, flattened it, installed Win7 Pro and drivers and it's a rockin' little machine...snagged an 8gb mem kit off of 'egg so it'll be maxed out....it will do everything she wants it to do and then some...yeah it was Best Buy - but since I will never take to them for anything I was ok with buying it there...

 

[timta2]

I'll continue to use mine for DJing because it pisses off the MacFags.

Please take your homophobia elsewhere. I guess it's not a stretch that someone who hates a computer company and it's customers, also hates someone because of their sexual preference.

 

[pxc]

I think we can all thank llano for the price pressure on lower Sandy Bridge chips.

I don't see why. The B940 was released almost a month before Llano and the B940 replaces the Arrandale-based (32nm Nehalem) 2GHz dual core Pentium P6100, which is a year old. If anything, moving to SNB benefits Intel since Arrandale is a MCM with the CPU on one die and PCIe/IMC/IGP on the other. That reduces the silicon from 195mm^2 in Arrandale to 131mm^2 in the smaller SB die.

There certainly are examples of Llano having an effect on Intel's products (all new i3 models have HD Graphics 3000 instead of HDG2K, for example... saving 14mm^2 on wimpier graphics was a dumb move), but IMO this isn't one of them. In fact, these kinds of low cost Arrandale/SNB processors are putting downwards pressure on what AMD can charge for Llano, especially the A4 and A6 models. Considering that the cut down A4 and A6 are exactly the same size as the A8 makes the situation much worse. There is no native 2 core Llano... all are 400SP, quad core processors with parts disabled.

 

[rat]

Please take your homophobia elsewhere. I guess it's not a stretch that someone who hates a computer company and it's customers, also hates someone because of their sexual preference.

LOL, you're funny.

(PS: I'm gay. A MacFag is regardless of sexual orientation.)

 

[hardware_failure]

I read the comments and I think I dropped a few IQ points.

 

[Trimlock]

I don't see why. The B940 was released almost a month before Llano and the B940 replaces the Arrandale-based (32nm Nehalem) 2GHz dual core Pentium P6100, which is a year old. If anything, moving to SNB benefits Intel since Arrandale is a MCM with the CPU on one die and PCIe/IMC/IGP on the other. That reduces the silicon from 195mm^2 in Arrandale to 131mm^2 in the smaller SB die.

There certainly are examples of Llano having an effect on Intel's products (all new i3 models have HD Graphics 3000 instead of HDG2K, for example... saving 14mm^2 on wimpier graphics was a dumb move), but IMO this isn't one of them. In fact, these kinds of low cost Arrandale/SNB processors are putting downwards pressure on what AMD can charge for Llano, especially the A4 and A6 models. Considering that the cut down A4 and A6 are exactly the same size as the A8 makes the situation much worse. There is no native 2 core Llano... all are 400SP, quad core processors with parts disabled.

So these do have the HD3000?

 

[pxc]

So these do have the HD3000?

It is not an i3.

I mentioned a few posts up that the B940 uses an IGP based on HDG2K, at a lower clock speed, and other things that are disabled vs full SB processors.

 

[bacon]

All of the Ziff-Davis sites are crap these days. There's a few good people there and some decent content but half of their so called journalism are ads for Apple products. They had article on ZDNet the other days about how the MBA 11 was the the greatest laptop the author had ever used. Yeah its thin and light but functionally its outclassed but a ton of devices and its so hilarious to see an Apple fan go nuts over a laptop that gets only 5 hours of battery life when they crucify PC laptops with that kind of battery life days.

Utterly hollow and transparent Apple advertising.

Sounds like Ars, which at one time was one of the coolest sites ever. Now just a circle iFap

 

[Trimlock]

It is not an i3.

I mentioned a few posts up that the B940 uses an IGP based on HDG2K, at a lower clock speed, and other things that are disabled vs full SB processors.

I had to make sure, was seriously considering this as my deployment laptop. The site claimed 3000