College, Light Gaming - Latitude D430 or Vostro 1310

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My brother needs a laptop for college and he will probably play some WoW and Warcraft 3. We have pretty much narrowed it down to either the Dell Latitude D430 or Dell Vostro 1310.


D430:
Core 2 Duo ULV 1.33 GHz
2GB RAM 2DIMMS
40GB 4200rpm HDD
detachable optical drive bay, built in 802.11g
12.1" widescreen WXGA
Intel GMA 950

$1219


Vostro 1310:
Core 2 Duo T5670 1.80 GHz or T5870 2.0 GHz for $75 more
2GB 2DIMMs
80GB 5400rpm HDD
13.3" widescreen XGA anti-glare
builtin 802.11g
GeForce 8400M GS 128MB

$874

his school has onsite dell tech support, service, etc
HDD is not a major factor, thats what externals are for :)
both have Vista home basic, i have never used vista. should I vLite it, to make it run faster, or will it just cause problems?
he likes that the d430 is small, but i'm not sure if it will hold up to WoW/WC3. it also seems a little expensive, like you are paying for the compactness and not getting a good value for performance
 
Hello,

I would say the Vostro. As it has a dedicated video card which is much better than integrated at any given time.

I would highly suggest you do not use vlite. It will cause you grief. I have seen multiple cases where people used vlite to remove some services and in the process remoevd the print spooler while doing so. Unintentionally of course. But this caused them not to be able to print at all. No one knows where that service is tied into so there is no real guide as to what services are safe to remove and which are not.

Cheers,
Mak
 
Look at the Lenovo Y510.

It has a great graphics card (8600gts) and because of the lower price, you can spend the money you saved by upgrading the cpu.

I just one and it looks and works great.
 
I'd say DEFINITELY NOT THE D430. Those specs are just pure WEAK and will have a hard time with Vista itself, let alone any apps. Just because it's thin and light doesn't mean it's good. 1.3GHz is seriously low for Vista and the integrated graphics won't even get Aero to work, let alone any games.

I'd say go for the Vostro or look at something else. The Vostro looks decent, though a 13" screen may grow to be a pain. My friend has an Inspiron 1420 and I think the 14" screen on it is even too small (that's why I got a 17" HP dv9700t). The Vostro would play lighter games easily (8400M GS plays Source engine fairly well on a smaller screen, but my 8600M GS plays much better, and an 8600GT/8800GT/8800GTS/GTX would play even better than mine). If all you're doing is light gaming, the 8400M GS should work, and it is definitely good enough for Aero. With the 1.8GHz, it should be able to work its way through Vista without too many problems. If possible, I'd recommend upgrading to at least 3GB RAM, as Vista is really RAM-hungry (more than it is on CPU or GPU).
 
Man I can't believe how much of a ripoff Dell is and yet people still buy them. I don't have anything against them. As a company they are great as they sell legitamate products 100% of the time. They just charge so much for everything. Look around on a few online dealers for deals on Asus or Lenovo's and you'll find you get much more power for much less. Something is always on sale.
 
People tend to go Dell for customer support. People also go Dell because of employer/school discounts. One thing that Dell has is a large corporate base, lots of companies buy Dell equipment in bulk and that means employees often get discounts on home PC's, thus getting even more sales for Dell.

Above he said he wants a Dell because his school has on-site Dell tech support and service. I'm not sure that that would personally make me go Dell, but for someone who may not know how to do some of the repairs or may not have time to do them, it may be a selling point.

I too agree that Dell is overpriced. I looked at Dell when buying my new laptop and I couldn't find anything 17" with a reasonable GPU and CPU for under $2000 even with my dad's company discount (his company uses all Dell stuff). I ended up going HP, mainly because I've owned a few HP's before and they've been good PC's. I also like the look of HP's current line better than Dell's (the choose-your-color thing is a lame attempt at marketing...I don't want my laptop to be all flashy and colorful, I think that is out of place in a typical computer setup, where the silver/black color of the HP isn't so strange).

I also have a ThinkPad (although it's an older one made by IBM and not Lenovo). It is also a very well built PC. I think it has a more durable construction than my HP does, and it's still going strong today (it's near 9 years old) except for the hard drive which is starting to fail (but can easily be replaced).
 
basically what I'm confused by is exactly how powerful is powerful enough? yes we all know that the bigger laptops will have more power, but it will only be very light gaming, WoW and WC3 and thats pretty much it. Will the Vostro be able to handle WoW?

Hello,

I would say the Vostro. As it has a dedicated video card which is much better than integrated at any given time.

I would highly suggest you do not use vlite. It will cause you grief. I have seen multiple cases where people used vlite to remove some services and in the process remoevd the print spooler while doing so. Unintentionally of course. But this caused them not to be able to print at all. No one knows where that service is tied into so there is no real guide as to what services are safe to remove and which are not.

Cheers,
Mak
Ah OK thanks.

Look at the Lenovo Y510.

It has a great graphics card (8600gts) and because of the lower price, you can spend the money you saved by upgrading the cpu.

I just one and it looks and works great.
I looked at Lenovos, and unfortunately they do not have what I am looking for. The Y510 is a worse deal than the Dell Studio 15, and both of them are larger than what my brother wants (picky, picky :p). Unless I missed something, Lenovo's smaller laptops all have integrated graphics.

I also have a ThinkPad (although it's an older one made by IBM and not Lenovo). It is also a very well built PC. I think it has a more durable construction than my HP does, and it's still going strong today (it's near 9 years old) except for the hard drive which is starting to fail (but can easily be replaced).
I have an IBM ThinkPad as well and they are great. I love the little red nub for a mouse, they are a million times better than the touch pad things. In fact, I'm almost spoiled by it, lol.


thanks everyone :)
 
The Lenovo is a much better deal than the Dell.

Look at the higher end configurations with the nVidia graphics card. It puts the $150 extra for an 8400gs to shame on the Dell.

Plus, the Dell does not have the metal wrist wrest as the Lenovo and XPS series do.

I was seriously considering the Studio 15 but it just cost too much the way I wanted it...
 
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