Darren Yates discovers that spending twice as much on a laptop doesn't give you twice the speed, features or battery life.

With the latest round of electricity prices getting set to bite off a bigger chunk of your wallet, choosing that next computer could be a more important decision than you realise. But there's a AL10A31 Battery product category and a price where it's possible to really back a winner.
Most notebook computer makers would rather you spent more money but the ACER D255 Battery fact is the best-value notebooks at the moment are found around the $800 price point. For the ACER D260 Battery most part, not only do you get good app performance, you can also get very good battery life – not quite 'iPad' battery levels, but as good as you'll get from any Windows laptop.

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One of the major benefits of newer laptops is better 9 Cell Acer AL10A31 Battery power efficiency. These newer models can consume around a third of the power used by an equivalent desktop computer – that means replace a desktop with one of these and it'll likely make a difference on your next power bill too.
But what makes laptops ACER D260 Battery at this price well worth a look is that spending twice as much won't get a 9 Cell Acer AL10B31 Battery laptop that's twice as fast, has twice the features or twice the battery life.
There are three basic classes of Acer D255 Battery laptop computer on the market at under $800 – the ultra-cheap $300-or-less 10-inch netbook with its great battery life but slow app speed; the slightly-larger ultra-portable CULV (consumer – ultra low voltage) laptop with passable app speed, 9 Cell TOSHIBA PA3780U-1BRS Battery brilliant battery life and near-netbook weight; and the full-sized 15.6-inch consumer laptop that delivers good battery life, weighs around twice your average netbook but runs apps around five times faster.
Aren't tablets better?
Still, it seems everyone is talking about tablets these days, even in the court system as Apple brings out its legal big-guns against rival Samsung over claimed similarities between its iPad and the new Galaxy Tab 10.1.
But with tablets on the rise, many are questioning whether laptops TOSHIBA PA3784U-1BRS Battery are still relevant. Forgetting the tablet hype for a bit, the most important factor in helping you decide which device is TOSHIBA PA3785U-1BRS Battery right for you is to think about what you need your next portable computing device to do and the applications you need to run.
Even if you include the iPad, the tablet category is in its infancy as a Toshiba NB300 Battery computing device so there's still some way to go before it reaches the maturity of the budget laptop market.
Apple's iPad 2 comes closest to getting it right for now but the latest round of LENOVO ThinkPad T410 Battery tablets from the likes of Samsung and others using Google's Android operating system are starting to make some inroads. However, if you need to run Windows apps, a laptop is the way to go.
There are Windows-ready tablets available but the Windows 7 user interface just isn't right for the job.
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So if you've got $800 to spend on your next computing device, don't write off a good budget laptop – not only will it pay off now but with lower power demands, it might just keep paying off in the long run.
MSI CR640

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Price: $699

Web: au.msi.com
MSI is a big-name brand in Taiwan and better known in 9 Cell HP Mini 210 Battery Australia for its desktop computer parts but this CR640 model is one of the best-value laptops around. Selling for $699, it gets the trifecta of good performance, terrific battery life and weight that won't require you a HP WD546AA battery shoulder reconstruction. It's big 6 Cell HP MINI 110 Battery enough to give you a numeric keypad, has the latest 802.11n wireless technology (the fastest you can get) and one of the biggest hard drives you'll find at this price.
Toshiba Satellite C665

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Price: $699

Web: www.mytoshiba.com.au
This brand-new model from Toshiba was released just last week and comes with the HP NY221AA Battery latest version of computer chipmaker Intel's budget chip, the Core i3. It's just as fast and has almost the same battery life as MSI's CR640 but weighs a little bit less. What you don't get is an HDMI port – so it won't connect to your big-screen TV like the CR640 will. It's not as HP MINI 110 Battery fast as the Dell Vostro 3550 but Toshiba has a good solid brand-name so you're not going to go too far wrong here.
Dell Vostro 3550

Rating: 4 out of 5

Price: $799

Web: www.dell.com.au
Right on our $800 price limit, Dell's Vostro 3550 is just about the fastest laptop HP 537626-001 battery you'll find for under $800. It comes with a faster Intel Core i5 chip, a higher-grade of computer chip than others we've looked at here, which translates into about 15 per cent greater app speed. That extra performance does come at a small cost in battery life – both the HP 537627-001 battery and MSI models will give you an extra 15 per cent battery life on our testing. In terms of weight, all units we tested bar the HP weighed in at around 2.5kgs.
Acer Aspire 5560

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Price: $699

Web: www.acer.com.au
Another new laptop released just last week, this Aspire 5560 features an equally-new AMD A-series chip that delivers good battery life. It's not as fast as the Intel chips in the Toshiba, MSI and Dell laptops 3 Cell HP MINI 110 Battery and its battery life is almost as good. This one is the best of the HP 537626-001 battery five if you're hoping for a bit of gaming, thanks to its built-in Radeon HD 6480G graphics. Just don't get your hopes up too high. It comes with HP NY221AA Battery all the must-have features – wireless networking, HDMI port, DVD burner and the same 500GB capacity hard drive.
HP Pavilion dm1

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Price: $699

Web: www.hp.com.au
If 2.5kgs or so is too much to carry, that's where it pays to consider CULV laptops. Think of them as smaller-screened, ultra-portable laptops that sacrifice a fair chunk of app speed to save about a kilo in HP NY220AA battery weight. This Pavilion dm1 from HP also comes in at $699 but weighs just 1.4kgs (about two first-generation iPads). You get some good features including fast wireless networking and HDMI port but no DVD burner. Its battery life though is excellent – about 50 per cent greater than all the other units we tested, however, its app speed is less than half of those other models.