Buying a new laptop

[MartinJol]

I'm buying a new laptop within the next month or so, and I wondered what you considered to be more important.

Looking at this site seems to suggest that Intel processors are some way ahead of their AMD counterparts, but would a 1.8GHz Athlon be expected to outperform a 1.66GHz Intel?

Also, what should I place greater importance on, the processor, or the memory?

Thankyou everyone in advance!

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

It's not about clock speed anymore. It's no longer an objective way of comparing performance between AMD and Intel processors.

Personally, I would get a laptop with an Intel Core Duo or even better, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, instead of an AMD Turion X2 processor. They are more energy efficient.

Also, you'll want a laptop with a mobile processor, not a desktop processor (unless you want it to be hot, noisy and consume a lot of power).

Place greater importance on the processor, because you can always upgrade the RAM if needs be. The specs will depend on your requirements. What do you intend to use the laptop for?

 

[MartinJol]

Hi.

Thanks for the swift reply.

I intend to use the laptop for general use - internet browsing, word processing, looking at and editing digital photos; and also some gaming - I ws hoping for an external graphics card capable of most stuff (have been looking at GeForce 7600 and Radeon X1400).

My budget is £750 - 800 by the way ($1500 - 1600 at current exchange rates)

 

[saltynay]

you will probably only find t5400 processor as being the best for your budget if you see a t7200 then you will be very lucky!!!! look for a dell, hp or acer the sony and toshiba are probably a little out of your budget and toshiba I find more as media laptops

 

[Alvin.C]

Is battery life a priority?

 

[MartinJol]

I'm not too concerned about battery life; most of the time I'm using things that require large amounts of battery (games / photos) it'll be plugged into the mains.
As long as the battery lasts about 1 hour to 1 hour 30 when word processing it would be fine.

Just as an extra:
These are the laptops I have considered so far with their details.

shortlist

Any opinions on any of them, or anything else you can suggest would be gratefully appreciated.

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

All nice laptops. Apart from the Acer Aspire 5683WLMi, which personally I would strike from that list. In my experience, the build of that laptop isn't excellent, compared to the other three laptops.

http://www.laptopshop.co.uk is a great place to buy laptops at very good prices. That's where I bought my nx7300.

The ATI X1700 and Nvidia GeForce 7600 are similar in performance in the real world. The HP Pavilion DV9233 is a very nice looking laptop with a good build, but it's pretty heavy at 3.55 kg, and is large in size due to it having a 17" display. The Asus F3Jp is also nice looking, has a good build, and lighter and smaller than the HP Pavilion DV933 weighing 2.95 kg. But it's reported that the Asus F3Jp laptop's fan is somewhat loud. The Mesh M677 in my opinion isn't much of a looker, but is the lightest of them all weighing 2.85 kg. All three have good specs.

If a choice had to be made between the three, the Asus F3JP has my vote, mainly because it has an Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 processor with two 1.83 Ghz cores and ATI X1700 graphics, which should give you better performance. However, battery runtime under light usage is only around 50 mins when surfing the net.

However, if you want longer battery life with slight sacrifice of performance, go for the Mesh M677. Batery runtime under light usage is around 2 hours 15 mins.

 

[MartinJol]

Thanks very much; some interesting information there.

I was considering taking out the HP from the list, and narrowing my search to just 15.4" screen laptops.

How comparable would you suggest the Mesh and Asus are in terms of performance; is the Asus justifiably £120 more?

Also, are there any other laptops anyone can suggest within my price range, that I ahve not yet considered?

Thanks all.

 

[maroon1]

Video Card Comparison - GPUReview.com

Geforce Go 7600GT completely destroys X1700, it has 3 times the texture fillrate

 

[MartinJol]

True, but have the laptops I've shortlisted got a 7600 GT card, or just a standard 7600 card.

Also this website seems to back up Alvin's view that the performance of the two cards is very similar.