Home: ForBestAdvice - Shopping - Consumer Reports - 2010 - Best Laptop PC for Windows 7
Window 7 Alternative:
Apple MacBook Pro
Best Laptop Computer
MC118LL/A
Best Laptop for Windows 7
Best laptop computer to run Microsoft Windows 7
How to buy the best, new laptop PC

   HP Pavilion dv8t Best Windows 7 Laptop Computer
Quad Core i7-720
 
Apple iPad2 vs Samsung Galaxy Tab


Top Selling Windows 7 Laptops for:
under $400 $400-$549 $550-$699 $700-$899 $900 to $1499 $1500 and Up

Best Windows 7 Laptops:  "Best is highly subjective. Laptop computers usually give up a lot of speed to get into a small package and run longer on batteries, but you can still get excellet performance if you are willing to pay for it. 

For example, the February 2010 issue of  "Consumer Reports" rated the "Apple MacBook Pro MC118LL/A " as the overall best 15 to 16-inch laptop, but it doesn't run Windows 7.  It comes with the "Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard" Operating System and is powered by the the 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which has a 1066 MHz front-side bus (FSB), a 3 MB L2 cache and a 250 GB Serial-ATA (SATA) hard drive (5400 RPM).  At $1,700, this is quite a premium over our favorite HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core i7-720 which has faster hard drive and front side bus plus more and faster memory plus a larger display! 


For some, especilly office workers who have to to take their work home, "best" may mean it is powerful enough to use every day instead of desktop computer.  They will carry a heavier, more expensive computer when they travel so they can have the power and speed of their every-day computer nomatter where they go.

A laptop we like for the performance oriented is the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core i7-720.  It comes with a 1.6GHz  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB, 4GB DDR3, 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M video card and an 18.4" HD (high definition) display and a Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer! 

For others, best might mean it is light weight and has enough power to do things better than their smartphone's limited keyboard at a low cost.

We believe it is an absolute minimum for a new Windows-7 PC to have a dual core and it is much better if you can run 4 threads at once with a Core i3, i5 or i7.  Consumer Reports Magazine agrees as reported by CTV News:
"Some computer makers are using single-core processors instead of dual-core to save money. But if you buy one of these so-called bargains, you might end up with a slower computer... We found several laptops with dual-core processors that offered solid performance for $600 dollars, or even less.  One of the least expensive is the Toshiba Satellite L-505 -- a Consumer Reports Best Buy at $530.”
Here are several other Windows 7 equiped laptops with dual core processors selling for about the same price.
     Windows 7 laptops with Dual core       

For more speed and money:   
To select the best Windows 7 laptop for YOUR needs, we suggest you follow our simple steps:

Start with this "Intel Roadmap" to get an idea of how much power you gain by spending more.


Intel Roadmap: Pentium, Core i3, Core i5 & Core i7 (Clarkdale, Lynnfield & Bloomfield) processors
Intel Roadmap: Pentium to Core i7

Next check the most popular models:  Often there is  "wisdom in the masses" so you should check a list of the  to see what others decided to buy:

Top Laptop Sellers
Best Selling Netbooks Best Selling Laptops Best Selling Desktops
Then read "Consumer Reports" magazine:  Page 40 through 43 of the February 2010 issue of  "Consumer Reports" magazine to see how they rate netbook, laptop and desktop personal computers for what they think is important. [Subscribe to Consumer Reports] 

You may not always agree with all conclusions from "the masses" or "Consumer Reports", but at least we know neither is influenced by the need to sell advertising.

Our Experience:  We recently upgraded our very powerful WindowsXP laptop to a Windows 7 desktop and love the results.  Our old computer was the old vintage using a single core to run programs.  We found it would get unacceptably slow while trying to work on a spreadsheet or MS Word when routine automated tasks ran.  These automated tasks include antivirus software would kicking in automatically to scan new emails, software updates downloading (especially slow was the regular updates by our antivirus software downloading the latest updates).  A newer "Pentium chip" (G6xxx) has two "threads" so it can run two processes at the same time. 

Largest Laptop Brands with Windows 7
Acer Apple Dell ASUS HP Lenovo Sony Toshiba

We bought a custom configured desktop computer with Intel's new "Core i7 920" microprocessor similar to the ones listed here:  Windows 7 Core i7 920 Desktop computer

A laptop we like for the performance oriented is the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core i7-720.  It comes with a 1.6GHz  Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB, 4GB DDR3, 500GB 7200RPM SATA HD, 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M video card and an 18.4" HD (high definition) display and a Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer! 


This Core i7 chip has the equivalent of 8 computers running in parallel so you can do up to eight tasks at the same time.  Of course, the i7-920 chip cost over $500 while the Pentium G6xxx sold for about $80 when this table below was made.  The February 2010 issue of  "Consumer Reports" magazine listed the Dell Studio XPS8000 (Core i7 860) as the top performing machine, but that used the older "Lynnfield" processor.  The newer Bloomfield processors have clearly superior performance, if you are willing to pay for it.


Final Step to selecting your new laptop  Do your own research in the store as your tastes will probably be somewhat different from us,  "the masses" or "Consumer Reports."

Consumer Reports rated the "Apple MacBook Pro MC118LL/A" as the overall best 15 to 16-inch laptop, but it doesn't run Windows 7.  It comes with the "Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard" Operating System and is powered by the the 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, which has a 1066 MHz front-side bus (FSB), a 3 MB L2 cache and a 250 GB Serial-ATA (SATA) hard drive (5400 RPM) .  At $1,700, this is quite a premium over the HP Pavilion dv8t Quad Core i7-720 which has faster hard drive and front side bus plus more and faster memory! 

Top performance for the dollar will ALWAYS be with a desktop computer because it has more power and cooling fans available. 



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