Bying my first laptop

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StorM_GmA

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Hello guys!

I'm about to buy my first laptop. I'm working on desktop pcs for over than 10 years but now I need a laptop for university purposes. I'm thinking a Sony Vaio or a Toshiba but can't really decide a model. Sony seems better looking but it's a bit complicated with all these categories (C,CR,FZ,N,SZ etc.) and I can't really see the differences. I'm looking for a 15.4" monitor for compact size and I also need lot of power because I'm in programming and I don't want to wait for ages for a compile... a good graphics card is also needed...

more or less, that's my needs! HDD size doesn't really bothers me...RAM will be plenty since the CPU will be fast...DVD-ROMs doesn't bothers me as well...

any suggestions?!
Thanks alot!
 
well, what exactly do you want to do with your laptop, cause there are lots of things that go into it. Personally I have a toshiba satellite s4697 that i got on sale and it does what i want fairly well. I just do school work on it, internet surfing, email and occasional gaming, but it can't really handle anything.

basically i'm questioning what you need for a gfx card, as in why do you want a good one versus a mediocre one.

I'll post some links in a bit and just edit away.

Also, whats your price range?
 
Hello and thanks for the reply!

I want the laptop mostly for university work as I mentioned aboveand that's the reason I want an 15.4" screen! But my university includes programming lessons etc so I need alot of CPU power for quick compiling and at least 1Gb ram...

I rarely play games and if I want to play, I'd prefer my desktop pc...however, a good GPU wouldn't be bad. Not extreme things, but comfortable with simple games...

I don't really have a price range for 2 reasons. The first one is that I live in Greece and the prices here are very different from the US or European market so something that costs 1.200 dollars in US might cost 2.000euro here! The second reason is that I don't want the best laptop, so the price will be low-mid. But if the price is so vital for the conversation, I can afford maximum 1.500euro which is about 2.200dollars but always keep in mind the prices are alot different here, so don't tell me "with 2.200dollars you get the ultra super duper laptop" because here it will cost 3.000dollars! :D
 
sweet deal, good to know were expanding our reach of people. haha. well, so I don't really know any sites to look at for Greece, but i can say what you would want to look for in a laptop.

Most likely 2GB ram, although 3.5 would be nice.
160-250gb hdd, good sized for what you're going to be doing
Basically any 2.0ghz cpu, if you can look for the T7xxx or T9xxx series, their the most powerful cpu's.
If Battery life is a concern (see below), if not then for gpu go for a x1200 ati card, or a 8600 mobile card.

Also are you going to be looking for a lot of battery life out of your laptop? If so then go with a lower powered CPU, but one that will get you along, and the best gpu's for battery life are on board cards rather then dedicated cards.
 
thanks Peter for the info!

I did a little research I've come up with these:

Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31M
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2GHz
RAM: 2Gb DDR2 (propably @667)
HDD: 200Gb SATA 5400rpm
GPU: GeForce 8400GT 256Mb up to 1024Mb
Price: 1349 euro (1988 US dollars)

Toshiba Satellite A200-23W
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 2.2GHz
RAM: 2Gb DDR2
HDD: 2x200Gb SATA 5400rpm
GPU: ATI Mobility Radeon HD2600 512Mb up to 1280Mb
Price: 1499 euro (2209 US dollars)

The GPU of Toshiba is a good one? Better than the GeForce 8400GT of the Sony? IF yes, the +150 euro of the Toshiba worths it for better CPU, larger HDD and better(?) GPU!

here are the links for these laptops:
Notebooks & PDAs : Notebooks : Όλα τα Notebooks : Sony Vaio VGN-FZ31M - Plaisio Computers
Notebooks & PDAs : Notebooks : Όλα τα Notebooks : Toshiba Satellite A200-23W - Plaisio Computers

the first one is the Sony and the second the Toshiba. These are Greek sites but if you scroll down there's a list with the components so you will not have much trouble to read it. Unfortunately there is no English version of the site...
 
The second one is a bit better but if your looking for battery life then they won't last long. (can't give you a figure because i never use laptops)
 
I don't need long battery life since I will use it in university where we have power supply for everything. I think the second one is better too, but I'm not sure about the VGA card...I saw the list here in the forum about laptop's vga cards and I found the HD2600 of Toshiba but I couldn't find the 8400GT of Sony in order to make a comparisson. However HD2600 is above the mid which means is a nice card...not extreme but just nice...
 
nice...Toshiba it is then! Another question, changing operating systems is ok with laptops? Somewhere I read it's hard to install XP when the laptop has Vista because of the drivers. Is it true? What about linux?

Thanks alot for your help guys!
 
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