Laptops That Are Aluminum
The term aluminum laptops refers to notebook computers housed in aluminum enclosures. Several major computer manufacturers have begun to move away from traditional rigid plastic enclosures and toward chassis constructed out of aluminum, due to the material’s natural rigidity and tendency to remain cool. Though they share the same external construction materials, aluminum laptops can differ significantly in specifications and features.
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Size and Weight
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Apple's aluminum 15-inch MacBook Pro measures 14.35 inches wide, 9.82 inches deep and 0.95 inches thick at its thickest point. It weighs 5.6 pounds. Hewlett-Packard's aluminum Envy 14 is slightly smaller than the MacBook Pro, measuring 14.01 inches wide, 9.33 inches deep and 1.16 inches thick. It weighs 5.69 pounds. The ASUS NX90SN is one of the larger aluminum laptops available, measuring 20.87 inches wide, 11.02 inches deep and 1.18 inches thick. It weighs 9.7 pounds.
Processors and Memory
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Apple sells base versions of the 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.2-GHz Intel i7 processors with 6MB of Level 3 cache memory. HP sells base versions of the Envy 14 with Intel i5-2430M processors and a clock speed of 2.4 GHz and 3MB of Level 3 cache. ASUS outfits standard versions of the NX90SN with the Intel i7 2630QM processor, which features a 2-GHz clock speed and 6MB of Level 3 cache. Standard versions of the NX90SN and MacBook Pro come with 4GB of RAM, while HP equips base versions of the Envy 14 with 6GB of RAM.
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Displays and Multimedia
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Apple outfits the 15-inch MacBook Pro with a 15.4-inch LED-backlit screen with a native resolution of 1,440 by 900 pixels. HP equips the Envy 14 with a slightly smaller, 14.5-inch LED display with a resolution of 1,366 by 768 pixels. ASUS outfits the NX90SN with a considerably larger 18.4-inch screen with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,080 pixels. All three aluminum laptops feature discrete graphics chips. The MacBook Pro’s graphics chip has 512MB of RAM, compared to 1GB for the HP Envy 14 and 2GB for the NX90SN. All three companies offer more robust graphics chips as optional upgrades.
Storage and Additional Information
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The MacBook Pro and Envy 14 both come standard with 500GB hard drives, compared to a 1.5TB standard hard drive for the NX90SN. The MacBook Pro comes bundled with the Mac OS X operating system, while the other two laptops come with Microsoft Windows 7. All three aluminum computers have built-in Web cameras, stereo speakers, Wi-Fi capabilities, Bluetooth support and on-board memory card readers. The Apple laptop comes with a one-year warranty, while the HP and ASUS laptops come with two-year warranties.
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