Currently, laptops are one of the most used electronic devices that can be used for various purposes like playing games, watching movies or multimedia purposes or business purposes. Currently, there are various users, who use laptops for their intense gaming session. Due to the growing popularity of the laptops, currently, all laptop manufacturers are making a notebook of different shape and sizes.
Mid-size laptops are one of the most popular laptops. This kind of laptops comes in 14-inch, 15-inch and 16-inch sizes, whereas the laptop with 15.6-inch are most popular and mostly used for various multimedia works. These laptops are mostly used in the libraries, offices and homes. Few years ago, these laptops used to be bulky and large, but now you will find more portable mid-size laptops. Now a days, the mid-size laptops are pretty thin and relatively small, while still keeping the most specs in the system.
Looking to buy midsize laptops for your normal or daily use, check out the currently available best midsize laptops of 2016. Go through the post and find out which is the best laptop for you that suits all your needs and requirements.
Best Midsize laptops of 2016
Dell XPS 15 (later 2015)
After the tremendous success of Dell XPS 13, the company has planned to bring a new 15-inch portable laptop with the same treatment. Dell brings new XPS 15 at the starting price of $999, whereas our review unit costs $2,100. This new laptop comes with beautiful and sleek carbon fiber and aluminum design, which was first introduced to XPS 13 by Dell. The new system comes with bigger 15.6 inches and can be customized based on your interests. One can select the Ultra HD display and Nvidia 960M graphics card option for their notebook.
The Dell XPS 15 is a light and thin 15-inch laptop. The notebook gives tough completion to other 15-inch portable notebook available in the market if we consider designs. It looks and feels great. Our reviewed unit of Dell XPS 15 comes with an Ultra HD 15.6 inch touch screen display, which is good but has one flaw. The screen reproduces 191.4 per cent of color on the sRGB color test, which is one of the highest scores I have seen. 3840 x 2160 pixels resolution of the display means that you can easily watch 4K videos on the notebook.
Dell XPS 15 comes with sixth Generation Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor and 16 GB of RAM, along with 512 GB of storage space. The specification is more than enough to handle your daily tasks. It performed very well when I streamed HD videos while running full system scan in the background and browsing the Web in 10 Chrome tabs. On GeeKbench 3 test, which is used to measure overall performance, this laptop scored 13,502 points, whereas the file transfer speed of its 512 GB of SSD storage space is 254 MBps. Our review unit of Dell XPS comes with Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card with 2 GB of VRAM, which is enough for some high intense graphical works.
The battery life of XPS 15 is pretty good, if not great. The laptop lasts only for 6 hours and 45 minutes on our battery test.
Configurations
Dell XPS 15 comes with various configuration options. The starting model of the XPS 15 costs $9,99 and comes with Intel Core i3 processor, 8 GB of RAM and 500 GB of HHD hard drive with 32 GB of SSD storage space.
The second model of XPS 15 comes at the price of $1,800 and features a 1920 x 1080 non-touch display, an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage space. It also comes with Nvidia 960M graphics card.
Our review unit of this Dell XPS 15 costs $2,100 and comes with a 3840 x 2160 resolution touchscreen display, an Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor, 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage space along with Nvidia 960M graphics card. The most costly model of Dell XPS 15 comes at the price of $2,750, which comes with 1 TB of SSD storage space.
Our reviewed model of Dell XPS 15 comes with Ultra HD display, which is pretty good for movie watching and all other daily tasks. The laptop has lots of things to offer to its users. If you want to buy a laptop for entertainment purpose, where you can watch 4K movies without any problem, then you should certainly consider Dell XPS 15 laptop.
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro
The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro is pretty god mainstream notebook with sleek and classy design. The laptop features a very bright and colorful Ultra HD touch screen display, many ports for connection various external hardware, loud and good speakers and good performance. Our reviewed unit of Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro comes at the price of $1,600.
The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro comes with a full black chassis except some metal accents, which looks classy and handsome. The chassis of this portable laptop is made of aluminum, which gives it a sleek and slim look. The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro comes with a 15.6 inch Ultra HD (2840 x 2160 pixels resolution) touchscreen display, which is very good. Its display is bright and beautiful. Watching movies on this system was a great experience.
The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro comes with a solid 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-6700HQ processor with 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD storage space. The processor is more than enough for all your daily works and even some multitasking works. On GeeKbench 3 test, which is used to measure overall performance, this notebook from Samsung scores 12,344 points, which is much higher than 8936 scores of this category average. The transfer speed of its 256 GB of SSD is 134 MB per second.
This Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro comes with a Nvidia GTX 950M graphics card with 2 GB of Video RAM, which is good and powerful enough for all your daily works including some multitasking and graphical works, but is not enough for playing some high-end games. The laptop lasted for just 5 hours and 41 minutes, which is not very impressive but other specs make it a pretty good mid-size laptop.
The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro is a good mainstream laptop. As usual, Samsung has come up with yet another slim and sleek laptop with a classy design. Its Ultra HD touchscreen display is bright and colorful to offer you great movie watching experience. Its keyboard and touchpad are also good and responsive.
Apple MacBook Pro 15 with 15-inch Retina display
MacBook Pro with 15-inch retina display is a very good notebook for the one who wants to buy a laptop with large and beautiful display and powerful performance. In design there is nothing new, its design has been unchanged since its first arrival. This 15 inch MacBook has same silvery aluminum design as its predecessor and white Apple Logo is placed on the lid cover. This system measures 14.13 x 9.73 x 0.71 and weighs 4.46 pounds. This 15 inch MacBook comes with Retina display with 2,880 x 1,800 pixels resolutions, which is brittle and brighter than its competitor. This display provides amazing movie watching experience. The brightness of this display measures 317 nits.
The 15 inch MacBook Pro features a 2.2 GHZ Intel Core i7 processor with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD which offers stellar performance. It also comes with Intel Turbo Boost Technology, which increases the clock speed of this Core i7 processor to 3.4 GHz. This feature is very good if you need some extra power in performance. On the synthetic GeeKbench 3 test which measures overall performance, the 15 inch MacBook Pro scored 13,352 much more than 9,308 average notebook score. The file transfer rate of this MacBook is 282.7 MB per second almost double of 138.7 MB per second average notebook transfer speed.
The 15 inch MacBook pro, which is reviewed here, comes with Integrated Intel graphics rather than Intel Iris Pro graphics card. This graphics is powerful enough to play some casual games and doing the daily tasks. This MacBook Pro scored 25 frames per second at 2,880 x 1,800 resolutions on the World of Warcraft, which is less than 24 frames per second recorded by Dell XPS 15.
The battery life of this MacBook Pro is above average meaning you can do all your full day work on one charge. This laptop comes with a 63.5 watt-hour lithium polymer battery, which lasted 8 hours and 34 minutes on one charge.
Configurations
Apple MacBook Pro with 15 inch Retina display comes with two configurations. The first one costs $1,999 and has a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 processor with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD and it also features Intel Iris Pro Graphics card.
The second configuration costs $2,499 and comes with a 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7 processor with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD and it uses Nvidia GeForce GT 750M GPU for graphics.
If you want to buy a laptop with beautiful design and gorgeous display, then this 15 inch Retina display MacBook Pro should be at the top of your list. Due to its Retina display which is very vivid and offers crisp images while watching any movies and surfing Web. The performance of its Intel Core i7 processor is also very good as it beat its entire competitor on various benchmarks. Its speakers and battery life are also excellent
HP ZBook 15u G2
HP ZBook 15u G2 is a mobile workstation and has Intel Core i7 CPU with 16 GB of RAM, the number of ports for connectivity and a durable chassis, which can handle some tough conditions. This laptop comes at the price of $1,199 (starting) while our reviewed unit costs $1,999. This is a very good and solid workstation but graphics performance is not so great it could have been better.
The HP ZBook 15u G2 is a mobile workstation from HP, but it has all specification of an Ultrabook means this laptop is very portable. This laptop measures 14.78 x 9.98 x 0.84 inches and weighs 4.23 pounds. This system is one of the slimmest workstation available. The HP ZBook 15u G2 features a 1,920 x 1,080 pixel 15.6 inch matte finish display. This matte finish reduces the glare, the display is pretty good with a sharp image and crisp detail.
HP ZBook 15u G2 comes with a full size keyboard, which is comfortable enough so that you can use it all day long. The keyboard backlighting is very useful when you use this laptop in dim light or no light. The ZBook has a 4 x 2.6-inch touchpad, which is smooth and responsive. The touchpad responded pretty well to all my actions including two finger scrolling and pinch to zoom like gestures. The system comes with stereo speakers. The speaker bar is positioned just below the display. It produces enough loud sound to fill up the room and the sound quality is also pretty good.
The HP ZBook 15u G2 features a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-5500U dual-core processor with 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB of PCIe SSD, which is powerful enough to handle multitasking with ease. When I was streaming an HD video from YouTube with almost 12 tabs opened and some multiple files opened on Microsoft office, it worked smoothly. On GeeKbench 3 test, which is used to measure overall performance, the HP ZBook 15u G2 scores 6,892. This system features an AMD FirePro M4170 GPU, which is good but not fastest.
The HP ZBook 15u G2 has good battery life as it lasted for 6 hours and 49 minutes on our battery test, which is almost half an hour more than this category average. Its battery life is longer than 3 hours and 10 minutes of MSI WS60.
Configurations
HP ZBook 15u G2 comes with four configurations. Two units feature Intel Core i5 processor and other two units have Intel Core i7 processor. When you select any of the processors, then you can customize RAM and Hard drive for your laptop based upon your choice. You can create a system of RAM up to 16 GB and hard drive up to 1.25 TB.
Our reviewed unit costs $1,999 and has a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7-5500U dual-core processor with 16 GB of RAM and a 256 GB of HP’s Z Turbo Drive with AMD FirePro M4170 GPU.
The HP ZBook 15u G2 is a proficient mobile workstation. This laptop is very good for daily professional works such as downloading files, working on multiple tabs or adobe etc. If you want to buy a workstation, which can be used as ultraportable then this HP ZBook 15u G2 worth your serious consideration.
Dell Inspiron 15 (with 4K display)
Dell Inspiron 15 7000 comes with 4K Ultra HD display. This 15-inch Dell Inspiron laptop features fifth-generation Intel Core i7 processor with optional AMD Radeon R7 M270 graphics card and a very good and crisp 3,840 x 2,160-pixel resolution display. This notebook has enough power to handle your daily tasks like watching movies, working on documents and other daily office and personal works.
The Design of this Dell Inspiron 15 7000 feels good and stylish. Its lid is made of an aluminum metal similar to its predecessor and there is a shiny the Dell logo situated in the center of the lid. This Dell Inspiron 15 comes with a 15.6 inch 4K ultra HD touchscreen display with 3,840 x 2,160-pixel resolution. This 4K display is crisp, colorful and produces detailed images. This display is very good for watching movies of HD, Ultra HD or full HD video resolutions.
This Dell Inspiron 15 7000 laptop comes with a 3 GHz fifth-generation Intel Core i7-5500U processor with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD storage space. This system works smoothly, when I was streaming a video from YouTube with multiple tabs opened on Google Chrome. On GeeKbench 3 test, which is used to measure overall performance, this Dell Inspiron scored 6,380 points. Its 256 GB of SSD is pretty fast, as the file transfer rate of this laptop is 195.7 MB per second, way more than 58.5 MBps this category average file transfer speed.
The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 comes with AMD Radeon R7 M270 graphics card with 4 GB of VRAM, which has enough power to play games in normal settings but won’t be able to play in 4K resolutions. On World of Warcraft, this Inspiron 15 hits 46 frames per second on auto settings, which is more than 30 fps playable frame rate. But when we tested at 4K resolution, it hits 16 fps, much lesser than 30 fps playable score.
The battery life of Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is below average as it lasted for 5 hours and 46 minutes on our battery life test. The battery life is a bit of concern, but the other specs are very good.
Configurations
The Dell Inspiron 15 7000 comes with different configurations, the basic model costs $679 and has a 1,920 x 1,080 pixels resolution full HD touchscreen display, a 2.7 GHz Intel Core i5-5200U processor with 6 GB of RAM and 1 TB of hard drive space, it also features Intel HD Graphics 5500 GPU.
Our reviewed unit costs $1,449 and comes with a 15.6 inch 4K ultra HD touchscreen display with 3,840 x 2,160 pixel resolution, a 3 GHz fifth-generation Intel Core i7-5500U processor with 16 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD storage space and it also comes with an AMD Radeon R7 M270 graphics card with 4 GB of VRAM.
Dell Inspiron 15 7000 is another multimedia laptop with sexy and stylish design. The overall performance of this system is also good. The AMD graphics card doesn’t do justice because it didn’t perform well on when you play games on its native 4K resolution. Its 4K ultra HD display is crisp and colorful and perfect for movie and TV watching.
Asus ZenBook Pro UX501VW
This Asus ZenBook Pro UX501VW comes with solid specifications and sexy design. This laptop is capable of doing all your works ranging from movie watching to video editing or working on some high graphics projects. This laptop would be very good for different sets of people like architect or director, who needs to buy a laptop that, can work as a mainstream laptop. With this ZenBook Pro, you don’t need to worry about spending more than $2000 for getting your work done because you this system can get your all work done at just about $1,500.
Asus has kept the design of ZenBook Pro very simple, which is a good thing. The company has opted for all aluminum body of the laptop while you’ll find the company’s traditional concentric ring finish at the back of the lid. The company has added a 15.6 inch Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels resolution) touchscreen display, which is very good for all kind of works and even better than its Apple counterpart. The display is perfect for photo and video editors. The display produces very detailed and crisp images, which was completely evident when I was watching 4K trailer. The display looked good in every scenario like during playing games or watching games.
The keyboard of the ZenBook Pro is very good and comfortable. The travel distance of the keys is 2.1 mm, which is much more than 1.5 mm comfortable travel distance of the mainstream laptop and makes this keyboard very comfortable for typing. The keys also require 62 grams of actuation weight for pressing, which makes typing pretty easy and comfy on this keyboard. It also comes with a 4 x 2.75 inches touchpad with the smooth silver matte finish, which is spacious and responsive.
The ZenBook Pro comes with a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 6700HQ processor with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage space, which is more than enough for handling all your multimedia and productivity works. This system is so powerful that it didn’t even bother with any normal tasks like playing casual games, watching movies and some other daily works. On GeeKbench 3 test, which is used to measure overall performance, this ZenBook Pro laptop from Asus scores 11,472 points, which is much higher than 8,938.42 average scores of this category laptop. The transfer speed of its 512 GB SSD storage space is 462.66 MB per second, which makes it much faster than 160.52 MB per second speed of this category average.
The Asus ZenBook Pro comes with a Nvidia 960M discrete graphics card with 2 GB of Video RAM, which means that the system is more than capable of handling everything you through at it. The graphics card of the system can handle all your productivity along with some serious intense graphical works. You won’t have any problem in multimedia or video editing or some other graphical works.
Configurations
Asus doesn’t offer any other configurations of this laptop; the company offers only one configuration that is reviewed by us. The ZenBook Pro costs $1,499 and comes with 15.6 inch Ultra HD (3840 x 2160 pixels resolution) touchscreen display, a 2.6 GHz Intel Core i7 6700HQ processor with 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of SSD storage space for storing all your media files. The laptop also comes with a Nvidia 960M discrete graphics card with 2 GB of Video RAM.
The Asus ZenBook Pro UX501VW is a pretty good multimedia laptop that comes at the pretty reasonable price of $1,499. The company offers all kinds of the specification that other pricier competitor laptop offers. The company has added a solid amount of ports for connecting all kinds of external devices for professionals. The laptop offers solid performance and battery backup. Its display is also very crisp and bright, which allows you to get better multimedia experience.
The post Best Midsize laptops of 2016 appeared first on The Laptop Bulletin.