Which laptop should I get?

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Thanks for everyone's input! It looks like either the Inspiron E1705 that BrynS suggested or the XPS that Ace Rimmer suggested might be the best bet. It's hard to tell which of those would be better. So the next step would be how to find the best price/service for the laptop- is it best just to buy direct from Dell? Is there anywhere to find discount coupons/etc.?? I'm guessing I'll have to ask them for the Windows Vista discounts.

I never realised Dells were 64 bit capable, that's why I had wanted the Turion 64, so posting here was very educational. I'd again appreciate any further advice, and thanks again everyone!!
 
Mjr. Whoopass said:
Thanks for everyone's input! It looks like either the Inspiron E1705 that BrynS suggested or the XPS that Ace Rimmer suggested might be the best bet. It's hard to tell which of those would be better.
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Well, the thing about Dell is that you customize the components you want. The system you end up with could easily be considerably different than either base model. The models that you can link to are just starting points. You need to figure out what processor you want, how much ram, what size hard drive, what video card and then configure both to match and see which one comes out cheaper.

Mjr. Whoopass said:
So the next step would be how to find the best price/service for the laptop- is it best just to buy direct from Dell? Is there anywhere to find discount coupons/etc.?? I'm guessing I'll have to ask them for the Windows Vista discounts.
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Dell doesn't sell most of their product retail (only in limited ways through places like Costco, where they're often more expensive), so ordering through their website is really the main option. They are well known for their coupons. You should check some coupon websites for what's current. Occasionally the sales that are publicly visible on the website end up being best however.
 
Dell appear to have integrated the Vista coupon upgrade into their purchasing menu, i.e. when customizing a notebook you can select the appropriate Vista upgrade based on the notebook's exisiting Windows XP configuration or upgrade to one of the different Vista packages.

Dell are supposed to have some sub-$500 AMD laptops on sale before the end of the year, most likely Semprons I would think (some of them are 64-bit), but they may be able spec some Turions within that price-range, given the volumes they'll be pushing and the preferential pricing they've already secured from AMD for the CPU's in their desktop systems. I believe that Dual-core X2 Turion Dell laptops are due to appear within the first quarter of 2007.

All the Dell Intel Core 2 Duo's are 64-bit capable, the Core Duo's are not. :)

Cheers,


Bryn
 
i would recomend an HP/Compaq. i bought the compaq presario V3000 2 months ago for $750 USD and its got an AMD turion dual core and a geforce 6150. while the gpu aint so good it still allows me to play doom 3 on medium with no lag and older games ( elite force & no one lives for ever series ) on maxed out settings so i cant ask fom more. also its got a 14.1" screen so its very portable and the all black carbon fiber styled finish on it looks sweet. i believe for a higher price you should be able to get something with a beter graphics card ( a geforce 7 series should be your goal )
 
When buying laptop id sugest either HP or IBM. From my own experience these two will probably be the choice Id go for since so far i have processed more Dells with problems then HPs and IBMs. Then again maybe the reason some ppl have had bad experience are the ones made in asia. No offence to asianans, but some of the stuff we get MP3 players, Laptops, Monitors, mice and keyboards are really low quality. meaning they look nice and all but fail in about month or so.
Anyway maybe with custom Dell laptop you wont into that kind of problem, because they will be using the best, but with mass shipments you can never know for sure.
 
GreyViper said:
When buying laptop id sugest either HP or IBM. From my own experience these two will probably be the choice Id go for since so far i have processed more Dells with problems then HPs and IBMs. Then again maybe the reason some ppl have had bad experience are the ones made in asia. No offence to asianans, but some of the stuff we get MP3 players, Laptops, Monitors, mice and keyboards are really low quality. meaning they look nice and all but fail in about month or so.
Anyway maybe with custom Dell laptop you wont into that kind of problem, because they will be using the best, but with mass shipments you can never know for sure.
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Except that IBM no longer makes PCs and has sold all that part of their buisness to some Chinese company that now makes all the stuff for IBM...
 
Death said:
Also, like Ed said, if it's something you'll be carrying around a lot, a 15" screen would be a better bet. Being an LCD, instead of a CRT, that measurement is the actual screen size, so it's closer to using a 17" desktop system monitor than using a 15" one.
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Actually, no. All laptops are now widescreen (mainly 16:10, some 16:9), while CRT's are in general all 4:3. Since you loose size from the aspect ratio a 15.4" laptop should actually end up smaller than the 15" CRT.

Anyway, another thing to make sure of is that the laptop has a button for turning off th touch pad, as it can get annoying when you accidently brush it with your keyboard hand while you're gaming with an external mouse. HP seems to be pretty good in that category. Apple not so much. Most Dell notebooks that I've seen have no way to turn off the touchpad, though I'm not sure about the XPS line. Besides that though, Dell notebooks are pretty slick.
 
GreyViper said:
When buying laptop id sugest either HP or IBM. From my own experience these two will probably be the choice Id go for since so far i have processed more Dells with problems then HPs and IBMs.
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Which makes sense, since there's a lot more Dell computers in circulation than HPs or IBMs.

hurleybird said:
Most Dell notebooks that I've seen have no way to turn off the touchpad, though I'm not sure about the XPS line. Besides that though, Dell notebooks are pretty slick.
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I'd be pretty surprised to see a laptop that didn't let you disable it. The handful of Dell laptops I've worked with have all had it (Latitude/Inspiron/Precision.. haven't tried any XPS ones).
 
I'd be pretty surprised to see a laptop that didn't let you disable it. The handful of Dell laptops I've worked with have all had it (Latitude/Inspiron/Precision.. haven't tried any XPS ones).
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Both my Inspiron and my XPS let me disable the touchpad.
 
How important would you guys say processing speed is nowadays? I just need a replacement for internet and work related stuff, so I assume I could just go with the cheapest processors available, but I still want everything to run smoothly of course.
 
AD said:
Except that IBM no longer makes PCs and has sold all that part of their buisness to some Chinese company that now makes all the stuff for IBM...
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Yeah the new brand are called Lenovas. Waiting to see how they are going to turn out.


Mav23 said:
Quote:
Originally Posted by GreyViper
...No offense to asianans...
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Ups :p
 
Mav23 said:
How important would you guys say processing speed is nowadays? I just need a replacement for internet and work related stuff, so I assume I could just go with the cheapest processors available, but I still want everything to run smoothly of course.
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You have to look at the options available. If you can get a Core 2 for not much more than a Pentium 4 or Core Duo, then I'd go for that. Even with the fastest processors around, there's tasks that take time.
 
Have a look into the ASUS A6000KM. Here are the specs of the A6000KM I got at the start of this year for 1900$AUD.

Sempron 3100 1.8Ghz
1.5 Gig of ram
Geforce 7300 256MB
60 gig of harddrive space
Inbuilt camra and microphone
Bluetooth
Infrared
Inbuilt Card reader
1000 Gig Ethernet
Wireless, 801g or something :D
56k Modem
DVD/CD Burner combo - can't write DVDs
Free 256MB Flash Drive

Its a beast, it can be updated to a Turion 64 chip. I had no problems on Battlefield 2 with 48 bots and Quake 4 runs. Its funny, I thought the CPU would have let the system down big time but its challanging my desktop which is a P4 2.4Ghz with a Geforce 6800.
 
I hate dell, HP, Compaq, Toshibia, Sony, and any other brand name computer besides Alienware.

I would spend money on a overpriced laptop from alienware just for the name alone. It known to all gamers and will blow peeps mind away that you own one. Its like the Rols Roys of computers.

I pefer to build my own computers though. You get some advanages, one being price. You can buy alot of raw power for cheaper price if you buy all the compents seperatly and you peice them together yourself. Dis advantage would be warranty and tech support, you would have to rely on your self. But for what i sells for 2000 off dell or 3000 off alienware you can prob build for around 1500.
 
Alienware is the official PC of Rush. That's well more than good enough for me.

For myself, the only brands I bother checking out anymore are Alienware and Apple.

The it's-cheaper-self-built routine is largely untrue and may never have been very true in the first place. Large companies like Dell leverage economies of scale to deliver pre-built machines to you for basically the same price you'd pay assembling the same system yourself.

I guess if you go the janky white-box no-warranty nightmare then you could save 100 bucks on the cost of an entire machine. Not worth it, in my opinion.
 
On the other hand, there is something to be said for having complete control over what software is actually installed on your computer (like, say, skipping the shiney bullshit they slap on to try to make a system more like a household appliance than a computer), not to mention being reasonably sure that the components aren't some two-bit pieces of crap that were thrown into a system because they were cheap.

Granted, there are times when I look fondly back on tweaking config.sys and autoexec.bat files, and setting manual jumpers to assign IRQs and such... :D
 
The same economies of scale that allows big computer companies to be competitive naturally causes the products to be at the razor edge of reliability, because it becomes cheaper to process as-required replacements during the warranty period than to pay a premium for better quality and engineer more tolerances for every unit sold.

e.g. consider a typical IBM/Lenovo P4 desktop computer with a power supply of under 250W which is cutting things a bit close. Also consider how they managed to make it almost silent - an aggressively throttled CPU fan causing CPU temperatures to be at the upper end of the operating range.
 
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