Actually, the Powerbook is moving at the same speed as always; it’s the applications that are slowing down; later (more modern) software versions tend to be just a wee bit more resource intensive than previous versions, and more developers are beginning to simply drop support for the G4 series of processors in favour of Intel-exclusive applications. The last G4s were released in 2005; it’s already been over three years since Apple switched from PowerPC chips to Intel chips.

The most recent and relevant example of software evolving beyond the capabilities and hardware of the Powerbook is, unfortunately, my favourite piece of software: Adobe Lightroom. Version 3 of Lightroom will run reasonably well on my Pentium 4, apparently…but the Mac version only supports Intel-based Macs.

I suppose I could just get by on the Pentium 4, rather than investing in new hardware. But then, I don’t usually have a lot of time to sit down at home and work on photos. More to the point, in my day-to-day routine and career, I tend to lead a fairly “mobile” life, one that rather lends itself to (and is suited by) the use of a portable computer. There’s also the matter of my plan to return to school in September, to become a teacher. I am reliably informed that having a laptop — and then one that can run Windows, unfortunately — is practically a requirement (in this province, at least).

At the same time, I’d like to find something that can run OS X, Apple’s operating system, as well. Granted, when we’re talking about non-Apple hardware, that requires the use of hackint0sh tools…but that’s a length I’d be willing to go to.

So I have been looking at…possibilities. Which is actually a lot more difficult than I would have expected. The main concerns I have in selecting a new laptop are battery life and LCD quality; I’d like to find something with decent battery life and a screen that offers a decent contrast ratio and good colour. It’s this latter point that’s often problematic, especially when one is looking for a laptop — most laptops tend to have…er…sub-par screens.

Option #1: Asus G51 Series

Specs:

• 1 GB nVidia GeForce GTX 260
• 2.1 GHz Intel Core™2 DuoT6600 processor
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM
• 500 GB hard drive
• 15.6″ HD (1366 x 768) LED backlight LCD

Price: $1,429 at Memory Express (special order)

Pros: This computer is quite the powerhouse; it boasts an impressive hardware setup and would serve well in almost any capacity, especially for graphics-intensive operations like gaming and photo editing. From what reviews I can find, the G51 series offers decent colour and contrast in its LCD, although I can’t find actual numbers to get a feel for just how good it might be.

Cons: Well, let’s be realistic: balls-to-the-wall graphics performance and a higher-end processor are rather…power intensive. The battery life on the G51 series is pretty dismal. The price is also pretty steep (though it’s not the worst offender on this list). Finally, for me at least, the decorations on the LCD cover are kind of…well, let’s just say that I’m not in the market segment such things are meant to appeal to.

OS X Compatibility: Apparently quite decent; the wireless card seems to be non-functional under OS X, though everything else seems to be supported.

Thoughts: I’d probably give the G51 a pass under most circumstances, unless I really get into gaming again in any meaningful sense. Which I don’t anticipate doing.

Option #2: Asus UL80vt

Specs:

• 512 MB nVidia GeForce G210M & Intel GMA4500HD
• 1.3 GHz Intel® Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM
• 320 GB hard drive
• 14″ HD (1366 x 768) LCD

Price: $999.99 at Memory Express (special order), ~$825 at Amazon.com

Pros: The battery life on this series of laptop is nothing short of insane; eleven to twelve hours under normal circumstances, and nine hours under a fairly heavy graphics load. This longevity comes from the fact that the laptop has been optimized for ultra-low power consumption; it uses an Intel CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage) processor. Now, granted, CULV processors typically offer lower clock and bus speeds, but Asus has overclocked this particular processor to offer a respectable 1.73 GHz clock speed and a 1066 MHz bus.

The other interesting and helpful aspect of this laptop is that it boasts two graphics processors — an integrated Intel graphics processor for lower-power operations that don’t require any heavy lifting, and an nVidia G210M which, while not as powerful as the G51′s graphics card, is no slouch either. It’s not a serious gaming card, but it will holds its own for casual gamers like myself. Switching between graphics processors is accomplished with the touch of a button.

Finally, there’s the price. For a not unsubstantial amount of long-lived power in a slim, attractive case, the UL80vt is a hard one to beat.

Cons: The LCD isn’t all that great. In fact, it’s really not that good at all. The build quality is also a bit sub-par; parts of the laptop are evidently quite easy to flex, which…should not be.

OS X Compatibility: No information at this time.

Thoughts: I’d be tempted to go for this laptop if I could be sure that I could get OS X working on it. The battery life is a huge draw, almost enough to make me forget that the LCD is quite sub-par.

Option #3: Asus UL30vt

Specs:

• nVidia GeForce G210M & Intel GMA4500HD
• 1.4 GHz Intel® Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor
• DDR3 RAM
• 13.3″ LCD

Price: No information at this time, probably $1,000 or less.

Pros: Still a bit too early to tell.

Cons: Still a bit too early to tell.

OS X Compatibility: No information at this time.

Thoughts: This sleek laptop was only just announced, so information on it is understandably scarce. I’ve no idea what its particular strengths and weaknesses are, though I would assume that they would be much the same as with the UL80vt (above). The key difference between the UL30 and UL80 is that, not unlike the MacBook Air, the UL30 lacks an optical drive. This isn’t actually a “con” in my books, though I can understand how some might find it off-putting.

Option #4: MacBook Pro

Specs:

• 256 MB nVidia GeForce 9600M GT & nVidia GeForce 9400M
• 2.66 GHz Intel® Core 2 Duo processor
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM
• 320 GB hard drive
• 15″ HD (1366 x 768) LCD

Price: $2099 for a new one, but you can find refurb/clearance models for as low as $1,499. Granted, the refurb models usually offer a lower processor speed (2.4 GHz in this case)…but for most applications and most users, the difference won’t be noticeable.

Pros: Well, it’s a Mac, which means it’s got style and design coming out of every…erm…port. And MacBook Pros are known for their exceptional displays, which offer excellent contrast and colour. The system as a whole doesn’t compare to the Asus G51 for sheer power, but would easily outshine both the UL80vt and UL30vt. Battery life is also decent, especially now that Apple has switched to integrated batteries; Apple claims the laptop gets 7 hours of battery life, and I’d wager that the laptop would probably offer not less than 5 hours of decent performance under “heavy use” conditions.

The dual graphics processors also offer a certain appeal, both because the 9400M chipset is pretty darn powerful for an integrated chipset (it compares favourably with the G210M, in fact), and because the 9600M GT is even better. Granted, 256 MB is not all that much for a modern graphics card, but it’s still enough for the sort of gaming I’d be doing, and for the graphics/photography work as well.

Finally, there’s Boot Camp, Apple’s dual-booting platform which allows for Windows to be installed alongside OS X. Boot Camp doesn’t currently support Windows 7, but I’m still a Windows XP guy myself, so this too is not something I’d view as an obstacle.

Cons: Well, it’s a Mac, which means it’s pricy. To get a MacBook Pro in the same price range as the other laptops on this list, your only option is to buy a refurb/clearance model, which I will grant is sometimes a dicey proposition. (Equally, I will note that I trust Apple refurbs more than I would trust any other company’s refurbs; my iPod Touch is a refurb, and it works like a charm.)

OS X Compatibility: D’uh.

Thoughts: Style, power…and, for me at least, consistency are what the MacBook Pro has to offer. My current laptop is a Mac, and I have greatly enjoyed the use of it. It would make sense to get another Mac to replace it. For me, the only drawback is that I’d be buying a refurb model…and thus running the risk of acquiring a lemon.

Option #5: Dell Studio XPS 16

Specs:

• 512 MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670
• 2.53 GHz Intel® Core 2 Duo P8700 processor
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM
• 320 GB hard drive
• 16″ FullHD (1920 x 1080) RDBLED LCD

Price: $1,199 for the base model, $1,499 with the RGBLED upgrade.

Pros: I wouldn’t have thought to even look twice at a Dell laptop until I discovered the one thing that is the real selling point of this laptop: the RGBLED display. Indeed, I wouldn’t have ever thought to look at a laptop offering a screen size above 15″, until I discovered the RGBLED display. That display is more than enough to make me want this laptop…pretty much above all others, even overlooking the fact that its OS X compatibility is currently quite poor, and the fact that its battery life is nowhere near what most of the other laptops discussed above can crank out.

The RGBLED is really that awesome: it offers a 500:1 contrast ratio (much higher than on most laptops, save for the ultra-high-end ones) and a colour gamut that covers 108% of the Adobe RGB colour space.

Most desktop LCD monitors can’t match that sort of performance.

Granted, the colour accuracy of the display doesn’t quite match what desktop LCD monitors can produce, but that’s a complaint applicable to all laptop displays. Short of shelling out in excess of $3,000 for a Lenovo W700 series rig, you’re just not going to find a laptop display that produces the sort of high-resolution, contrasty, accurate colour that the Dell RGBLED offers.

The graphics card is pretty decent as well; not quite as good as the 9600M GT, but more than enough for what I’d be using it for.

Cons: As noted, the battery life is nowhere near what some of the other entrants on this list offer, and in some cases is almost as dismal as the battery life of the Asus G51. This can be mitigated by upgrading the baseline 6-cell battery to a 9-cell battery, though doing so increases the cost of the system somewhat. With the 9-cell battery, the Studio XPS 16 offers about 3 hours of battery life under “heavy load” conditions.

And, well…it’s a Dell. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Dell.

OS X Compatibility: Spotty, at best. It’s mostly an issue of finding drivers for the various hardware elements in the laptop (the graphics card, network cards, etc.); at present, one can get OS X running on the Studio XPS 16, but one shouldn’t expect all of the on-board hardware to be supported.

Thoughts: Allowing for the fact that I’d purchase a MacBook Pro refurb, the Studio XPS 16 is (with the RBBLED upgrade and the 9-cell battery) the most expensive laptop on this list, coming in north of $1,500. That said, it’s also the laptop that has the highest appeal for me, for several reasons. Obviously, the display quality is chief among these, but there’s also a more general consideration.

In Closing

Many people approach the issue of buying a new computer from the perspective of getting as much performance as they can for under a certain price point. This is not quite a “most bang for your buck” calculus; it’s a “most bang for this many bucks” calculus. They will set a maximum price, and buy the best system (according to what criteria are most important to them) that can be obtained for that price, or for less if possible.

To be fair, there’s a certain merit to that sort of strict budgeting.

But equally, there’s a certain merit to not imposing a strict dollar limit at the outset, because “most bang for this many bucks” isn’t the best calculus to leverage when selecting a new computer system. Nor is “most bang for your buck,” for that matter. No, when buying a new computer, the ideal calculus to employ is “most bang for your buck over the longest period of time possible.”

That is to say: you want to buy a system that will deliver excellent performance for a reasonably low price, but you also want to buy a system that will still kick a reasonable amount of ass three, four, or even five years from now. There’s longer-term merit to spending a bit more now to ensure that you’ll still have a reasonably powerful system later on.

In that regard, the three systems on the list here that are worth investing in are the G51, the MacBook Pro, and the Studio XPS 16 (although we can more or less strike the G51 off for its low battery life). The UL-series laptops are pretty darn cool for as much as they do, but they’re also underpowered…deliberately so, in order that they might offer insane battery life. One could reasonably expect to get five good years of service out of the MacBook Pro or Studio XPS 16 without fearing that the software one uses most often would move on beyond the limits and capabilities of the laptop’s technology; I can’t express the same level of confidence when considering the UL30 or UL80, even though they are very nice, sleek laptops offering quite a bit for a tantalizingly low price.

No, I’m not going to come out in favour of any one laptop at this time; I’m still mulling things over in my head. Granted, the Studio XPS 16 is the current favourite…but nothing is set in stone yet.

Of course, getting things to work was something of a task. It ultimately required removing all ATI software and drivers from the system, running a program to clean up any driver “remnants,” and then installing new Catalyst drivers (version 8.7) from a hotfix I managed to unearth from the Sapphire website.

Of course, that was only most of a solution.

Neverwinter Nights isn’t exactly a new game, and so does not require or support some of the newer graphics features that modern video cards can deliver. In most cases, of is easy to correct for this; in the case of an ATI card, using Catalyst’s control center to set all the advanced 3D features to be “application controlled” (where possible — “off” where necessary) will typically do the trick.

So I did this.

Neverwinter Nights started up just fine, loaded the test module just fine (a good sign: the module loading process had been where I’d been having issues) and displayed the scenery graphics just fine. But: no character models were visible.

Frak.

A bit of Googling turned up a solution I wouldn’t have expected, however. It seems that with this video card and driver set, it is the case that the Catalyst A.I. is apparently necessary to run in its advanced mode. That struck me as unusual when I first read it, but making the change worked…the characters were visible during the next test run.

Apparently this also has something to do with a setting in the game concerning environmental mapping onto character models; since I had this mode enabled (it maps “real time” reflections onto metallic surfaces on each character’s armour or clothing), that may also have had something to do with the missing models.

Eh, whatever. It works now, which was the goal. ATI drivers have never really played nice with BioWare titles, so I’ll probably have to monitor the situation like a hawk in the future. And there is this pesky issue with the mouse cursor’s repainting that I still have to sort out.

But it works!

I hate being beaten by a computer problem, so it’s nice to have put this one to rest.

Suspecting that the source of my Windows computer’s instability might be the existing video card (a Radeon 9600 XT), I went and picked up a Sapphire Radeon HD 3850 — pretty much the most powerful AGP graphics card in existence today. (ATI has always been my preferred brand.)

Anyhow, I installed the card and its drivers, and proceeded to test out Neverwinter Nights. That’s where the trouble started: NWN crashed, every time. I did some digging, and found a few hints in various places that the issue may have something to do with ATI’s Catalyst software — certain versions of the control center application evidently conflict with NWN, for example.

Things got worse when I tried to switch Catalyst versions (Sapphire ships the card with what I believe is Catalyst 8.4). Reverting to Catalyst 7.11 (apparently a very stable version) was no help: the driver didn’t support the card. Installing the Omega Drivers — which use Catalyst 7.12 — didn’t work, and for the same reason.

Installing the Catalyst 9.4 update/hotfix from Sapphire didn’t improve things any. And to add insult to injury, the Cayalyst drivers that can be downloaded directly from ATI’s website actually don’t support the card in question (it’s a relatively new card from Sapphire: AGP support and 512 MB of DDR3 memory).

Nothing seems to make NWN work. Which is a pain, as I’d hoped to start work on a new idea that would have greatly benefitted from the enhanced performance the HD 3850 promises.

A bit more searching today furnished me with downloads, from Sapphire, of Catalyst 8.7 through 8.9, and I’m hoping one of these will do the trick. Failing that, I plan to try reinstalling NWN, to see if that could somehow be the issue. I’ve already tried the critical rebuild patch for NWN 1.69.

Failing THAT, I’m thinking of maybe trading the card in for an eVGA nVidia GeForce 6200 LE and another 1GB stick of DDR RAM (this doubling what the system is currently equipped with).

nVidia cards apparently play nicer with BioWare games in general, although the 6200 is not as powerful, by a fair bit, as the HD 3850.

In the end, though, raw power is less important to me than that NWN runs, preferably at a frame rate in excess of 30 at a resolution with at least 600 pixels vertically (720 preferred) on a 16:9 monitor.

Thoughts? Should I even waste time on the HD 3850, or should I just swap it for the 6600 and the RAM? Has anyone else had this issue before and resolved it successfully?