Best Aluminum Chassis Notebooks


Recommended Posts

So today I have decided to start researching for a new laptop.

My current toshiba tecra m4 is slowing dying from an overheating video card (long story, posted here a while back) , ended up reinstalling Vista on it from Win 7 RC, didn't seem reasonable to buy Win 7 full for a dying laptop. I have a Dell XPS 200 desktop with Win 7 on it currently from Win741.com

Basically I am starting to realize how much more I use my laptop on a day to day basis as to my desktop which I may just turn into a Media Center only computer.

I have used Windows pretty much my entire life, but also Macs as well at school and work however with Windows 7 I am thinking of just sticking with a PC even though I am going into a design field.

The one thing that has always gotten me with PC laptops is the creaky cheap plastic shells so I want to see whats out there in Aluminum besides obviously the Macbook Pros which I have not ruled out

So far I have found the

Dell Adamo

Hp Envy

Asus?

Does anyone else know of some good laptops that are Aluminum. The HP Envy and Dell Adamo are both nice, but don't have an optical drive. My experience with HP in the past has been iffy, they always seem to break quickly.

Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/878236-best-aluminum-chassis-notebooks/
Share on other sites

Im not ruling out the MacBook Pro, but do want to look at other options. The Dell Studio XPS line does look pretty nice even though its not Aluminum.

Quality wise I know Apple is at the top there and also never had any issues with Dell or Sony in the past. Toshiba and HP have always been a hassle for me.

If you specifically want an Alimunium laptop I'd go with the HP Envy. But the Dell Studio XPS is a very nice machine, very good looking, nice tactile keys. Overall a great computer.

I'd get the MacBook Pro regardless, to be honest. The other choices are simply not as good.

How do you mean not as good?

MacBook Pro first is still a core 2 duo laptop. The new ones will probably be i5 based.

Dell XPS Studio is absolutely fantastic. I have ordered the new one and I sold my older one.. $2200 of absolute beast

2009-01-09stuxps-5.jpg

Obsidian Black High Gloss Finish

Intel? Core? i7-820QM Quad Core Processor 1.73GHz (3.06GHz Turbo Mode, 8MB Cache)

8GB Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz

500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive

Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module (2.1+EDR)

Slot Load Blu-ray Disc (BD) Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD)

Full HD Widescreen 15.6 inch WLED LCD (1920x1080) W/2.0 MP

ATI Mobility RADEON? HD 4670 ? 1GB

85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi MB

Intel? 5300 WLAN Wireless-N (3x3) Mini Card

Integrated 10/100 Network Card

The Vostra V13 looks nice as well, looks like the business version of the Adamo

Basically like I said Aluminum would be nice, I am looking for quality here, price wise thats pretty open, but I am a design student so I will be running a lot of Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign and also doing some 3d modeling possibly with Solidworks

The studio XPS is a solid machine and dells engineering and design teams look like the have stepped it up.

HP I am still a bit iffy with, there machines have always felt cheap engineering wise for me, but the Envy doesn't look bad.

What does HP have to compare to the Studio XPS?

I may also look into Sony, but there prices have always been pretty high

If you need a well-built, sturdy and dependable notebook, I would suggest a thinkpad. You have to live with a magnesium alloy chassis though. But hey, you can run over it with a truck :-) They are, I believe somewhat lighter than Macbooks. And they come with a lot of options. I recently put an order for a T410. It has core i7 cpu, discrete gpu, gps, finger print reader, tpm module and lotsa other goodies...

How do you mean not as good?

MacBook Pro first is still a core 2 duo laptop. The new ones will probably be i5 based.

I see nothing in his post about specs. I'm just going off the build materials.

You can't beat the unibody chassis. :p

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • My favorite file manager for Windows 11 finally gets a long-requested feature by Taras Buria Files is among the best File Explorer alternatives for Windows 10 and 11. This free app is packed with all sorts of features and conveniences, but there is one crucial feature that is still missing—Tree View. Fortunately, the latest update in the Preview channel finally delivers it. With version 4.1.4, which is now available for download in the Preview channel, developers implemented Tree View, a new mode that displays folders in an expandable hierarchy. Windows 11's stock File Explorer always had this feature, but it was nowhere to be found in Files until now. Starting with the latest preview update, you can expand each drive and its nested folders without leaving the current location and then open the folder you need in the main view. To try Tree View in Files, update the app to the latest preview version, then click the small arrow next to a drive to expand its content. The developers say they are rolling out Tree View in Preview first to gather feedback from users and improve the feature before bringing it to all in the stable channel. In addition to Tree View, Files 4.1.14 improves the Windows Fonts folder. You can now preview each font directly in Files with no need to open the built-in font viewer. For now, these two features are only available in the Preview channel. For those using the stable release, developers recently released version 4.1.3, with improvements for the built-in tag system, on-demand folder size calculation, and plenty of various fixes. You can check out the full release notes here. You can download Files from the Microsoft Store (paid version) or its official website (free).
    • Who is paying for this 30x scale-up? Its sounds expensive.
    • Millions of users to benefit from Windows 11's new performance boost on Adobe Photoshop by Sayan Sen Despite the advent of AI-generated imagery, Adobe's Photoshop remains one of the most popular tools on this planet. Adobe does not have a publicly reported total user count but it's probably not wrong to assume there are millions. As of 2025, Adobe Creative Cloud has had approximately 41 million paid subscribers, many of whom likely use Photoshop. In addition, more than 166,000 companies worldwide are apparently also using the app. These figures are according to a very recent report by SQ Magazine. Out of them, it is fair to assume that many are probably running Windows. As such, there is good news for these users as Microsoft has announced Photoshop is getting a big 20% performance boost on x86-64 (AMD64) systems and a 13% bump-up on Arm devices. This is definitely great news for them as many have complained about the slow performance and general sluggishness of Photoshop on Windows 11 ever since the advent of the latter back in 2021. If you are wondering how Microsoft managed to do this, the answer lies in a combination of compiler-level optimizations and a technology called Sample Profile Guided Optimization (SPGO). According to Microsoft, Adobe worked closely with the company’s Visual C++ team and adopted the latest MSVC toolchain enhancements together with SPGO to squeeze more performance out of Photoshop’s CPU-bound workloads. Unlike traditional Profile Guided Optimization (PGO), which requires developers to create special instrumented builds and run lengthy training workloads, SPGO gathers performance data directly from optimized release binaries. This means Adobe could collect real-world usage information which gives a major advantage to this technique, as companies could leverage data collected from actual customer workloads rather than only relying on synthetic benchmark runs. In theory, this should allow optimizations to better reflect how users interact with software in the real world. Thanks to this, there are improvements to code layout, function inlining, hot-and-cold code separation, and other low-level tweaks that help processors execute instructions more efficiently. Essentially the compiler is better able to identify “hot” code paths, those which are most frequently executed, and optimize them accordingly.
    • "The 2TB Samsung 990 PRO NVMe SSD hits lowest price in over three months¨ I'd prefer to see the lowest price in over a year
    • Glad these prices are starting to come down, but that is still crazy. I bought the 2TB 9100 Pro (slightly more expensive version with PCIe 5.0) last year for $240.
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      Jocimo earned a badge
      First Post
    • Week One Done
      suprememobiles48 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Windows Guy earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      Prasann earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Prasann earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      521
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      174
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      90
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      81
    5. 5
      ATLien_0
      70
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!