More Laptop Advice

[Oriadin]

Some of you may remember me asking advice on Laptop graphics and what to look for etc. Well, im comming closer now to buying a laptop and would really like to hear what people in the know think or any advice on whats good on the systems, whats bad or if you can get it, get this sorta thing. These are the two ive picked out so far, just let me know what you think. Also, which has the better graphics card?

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Dell Inspiron 5100

Standard Features: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.4GHz
Norton AntiVirus 2003 (with 90 days free virus updates)
Internal modem & 10/100 NIC

Screen: 15" SXGA (1400 x 1050) TFT Colour Display (+ GBP £30)
Memory: 256MB 266Mhz DDR SDRAM
Hard Drive: 20GB Hard Drive
Video Card: ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 W/32MB SDRAM (+ GBP £20)
Fixed Bay CD, DVD & CD-RW: Integrated 8x DVD & 24x CD-RW Combo Drive
Floppy Drive: Not Included
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional Recommended For Small Business (+ GBP £75)
Software: Microsoft Works 7.0

£1088.05 inc. VAT

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PACKARD BELL 5541 - £1,013.99 (from dixons)

— Intel Pentium 4 2.4GHz
— 256Mb DDR RAM
— DVD & CD Rewriter Drive
— 30Gb hard drive
— 14.1" TFT display
— Geforce 4 Go Graphics Card 32Mb
— Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
— 56k modem
— MS WorkSuite 2002
— Weight 3.5Kg
— 4 x USB ports
— TV out Option

[Oriadin]

Oh yeah, also, whats better...

15" SXGA (1400 x 1050) TFT Colour Display (+ GBP £30)
or
15" XGA (1024 x 768) TFT Colour Display (Free upgrade from 14")


Thanks :)

[Marcus Telcontar]

SXGA is better. and when it comes to laptops.... go Dell. In my experience, the best laptops out there. I had a Inspiron 8100 which was the absolute ducks guts.

[Oriadin]

I have to admit, Im leaning towards the Dell. Thanks Marcus.

[Morgan Evanar]

I'm a Toshiba laptop fanboy. Since that isn't an option, Dell.

Honestly, I think you'd be better off with a slower processor that is less power hungry. ~2ghz is fine. THEY GET REALLY HOT TOO.

My desktop machine is 2000+ (1.67ghz).

Less CPU, more memory.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
I'm a Toshiba laptop fanboy. Since that isn't an option, Dell.



Toshibas stink. Theyre service is woeful, they are overpriced and there drivers are rancid. The only worse notebooks I have come across is Sony.

IBM stinkpads are nto too bad. Some Compaq's are okay. Fujitsu make a nice machine.

The best notebook (relative to it's time) was a Digital, they were alarmingly superior to anything. I've never come across anything with that type of quality and performance gap over the rest fo the field.

Generally, I can say out of the hundreds of laptops I've supported, Dell's are the easiest and most reliable. But make sure with any laptop you get extended warranty. Anythign goes wrong outside of warranty, your in for big dollars.

[Oriadin]

Originally posted by Morgan Evanar
I'm a Toshiba laptop fanboy. Since that isn't an option, Dell.

Honestly, I think you'd be better off with a slower processor that is less power hungry. ~2ghz is fine. THEY GET REALLY HOT TOO.

My desktop machine is 2000+ (1.67ghz).

Less CPU, more memory.

Right... so the CPU heavily affects the battery time. I checked this out and the battery should last about 2.5 hours but the battery is pretty huge and means the laptop weighs in at about 3.5kg although weight isnt too much of a big deal for me. Im still looking though, thanks guys.

[Sejah Haversh]

Fujitsu does not make a good machine.

At least when it comes to laptops. A friend of mine has one, and it's been a POS since day one. I loved my Sony. Loved it loved it loved it. If I had the choice again, it would be Sony. Though, I also love my Dell, so, it might be a hard choice....

And everybody I know who has ever had a Fujitsu Laptop has hated it to death.

[Figrin D'an]

I had a Toshiba laptop (a 4090x DVD) and I loved it... A friend and I bought 4 of them for dirt cheap at an auction (a .com startup that went under). Two of them we had to make some minor repairs on, but the others were perfect, and all four of them worked beautifully. I only sold it last year because I wasn't using it much anymore.

Dell is a good choice though. Their laptops are very solid. Go with Dell between those two choices. :thumbup

[Oriadin]

Ok, another Laptop has just entered the running...
I know the processor speed looks a bit crappy but its Intel's latest chip which is supposed to perform better than the 2.4 Ghz processor in many cases. Head over here for a quick review on the system...

http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/review/13/1/3243.html

Only trouble really is im not sure if I can stretch my budget to £1300 which is the cheapest I can get it plus the screen from the place says it will only be a 1024 x 768 res. What do you think?


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MODEL; : ACER TRAVELMATE 800LCI

PROCESSOR; : Intel® Mobile Centrino P1.3GHz

MEMORY : 512Mb PC266 DDR MAX 2048Mb(no slots free)

HARD DISK; : 40 GB Ultra ATA/100 HDD

FLOPPY DISK; : Internal 3.5" 1.44Mb

CD OR DVD; : Internal MediaBay (24/10/8/24x)DVD + CD-RW combo drive

DISPLAY; : 15.0" XGA TFT (1024 x 768)

GRAPHICS; : ATI® Radeon® 9000, dedicated 64MB DDR video memory

SOUNDS; : SoundBlaster-Pro and MS DirectSound compatible

BATTERY; : Li-ion battery pack

PCMCIA; : 1 × CardBus type II slot

COMMS; : 56K Modem + 10/100 LAN + Wireless Lan

SOFTWARE; : Windows XP Professional

PORTS; : 1 × DC-in jack for AC adapter 1 × ECP/EPP-compliant parallel port 1 × external VGA port 1 × speaker/ headphone/ line-out jack 1 × microphone/ line-in jack 1 × FIR port 1 × IEEE 1394 port 4 × USB 2.0 ports 1 × S-video-out (NTSC/PAL) port 1 × 100-pin docking port 1 × SmartCard interface slot

POINTING DEVISE; : Built-in touchpad pointing device with ergonomic buttons and four-way integrated scroll key

DIMENSIONS; : 330 (W) × 272 (D) × 27.9-29.5 (H) mm

WEIGHT; : 2.69kg (*actual weight may differ, depending on configuration)

WARRANTY; : 2year carry in- Customer pays inbounds freight, Acer pays outbound freight. (1st year International)

NOTES; : Port replicator option available

[Figrin D'an]

I haven't read a lot on the Centrino processors, so I can't really comment. If you need good solid opinions on hardware in general, try here:

http://www.anandtech.com

They should have a review of the Centrinos up.

[Oriadin]

Well, I finally decided which one to go for. After asking as many people as I could and reading as many reviews as humanly possible I finally came to a decision.

In the end ive gone for the Acer. Its got so many good write ups I couldnt resist. Had more memory than the Dell (which was my second choice) as well as better graphics card and longer lasting battery power. I should be getting it about Tuesday next week so fingers crossed its what Im hoping it will be. Thanks to everyone for your input and advice. :)