Going to buy a laptop, advise please!!


blinx9900

blinx9900

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Dec 5, 2006
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Its down to these two:

Dell XPS M1330 Laptop Product Details
Configured with:
Intel core2 duo T8100 2.1ghz
4gigs ram
320gb hd
Geforce 8400m gs graphics card
PRICE $825 + shipping!

HP Official Store — Buy an HP Pavilion dv3 and dv3z series notebook PC from HP
Configured with:
AMD Turion x2 dual core rm-74 2.2 ghz
3GB ram
320GB hd
onboard ATI Radion 3200 64mb cache
PRICE $679 shipped!

The plan is to downgrade either one to Windows XP so the extra gig the XPS has is worthless, only other difference is now a dedicated gcard, this will be used for high res anime watching/pron/sieble testing/web surfing/high res playback onto 1080p tv via the HDMI out etc... OPINIONS? Both have the standard bells and whistles like HDMI out, DVD burner, 13.3" screen etc...

EDIT: Am i correct in assuming the ATI card is onboard or are they both stand alone?
 
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I would of said the dell because its got the intel chip. I used to run amd's but found the intel chips seem to work better. So I now ask you why is the extra gig no good if you want down grade to xp. I run xp on my machine and run 4 gigs of ram on it.
 
i got a Dell Vostro 1510
for £600 i got:
15" widescreen
2Ghz dual core processor
4GB Ram
150Gb disk drive
256Mb Nvidia gfx card 8??? (not sure which one)
Cd drive
SD/MMC Card reader
Intergrated wireless.
intergrated webcam
MS Vista Ultimate edition

for the money i paid for this i highly recommend.
I have had this 2 years and it is running very strong still.
Very fast laptop considering it has Vista Ultimate
hope this helps mate
 
For the difference in price, you can't go wrong with the HP. They make really good laptops in my experience.

Both me and my girlfriend have HP Pavilions and they have never missed a beat. My girlfriend runs Vista, so its a bit slow at boot and far to nanny for my liking. But ive re installed xp and fiddled with a few bios settings and mine has never crashed in a years worth of ownership.

I also find AMD chips alot better than Intel. They tend to run closer to the spec'd speed and respond to overclocking a lot better also. Not sure if you would be doing anything like that but its worth knowing.

I could ramble on about these things, but basically. If it were me I'd save some money, get the HP.

I know a couple of people who have had bad experiences with Dells too. An i wouldn't worry if it has onboard graphics either, for what you have mentioned it will handle it fine.

Hope this helps, just my opinion though! lol :nice:

Nath
 
Accessory Zone said:
I would of said the dell because its got the intel chip. I used to run amd's but found the intel chips seem to work better. So I now ask you why is the extra gig no good if you want down grade to xp. I run xp on my machine and run 4 gigs of ram on it.
Click to expand...
Sorry i thought all windows XP was 32bit, well let me ask then do i need a specific version of XP to run over 3gigs of ram or is that just vista? Cause i know Vista 32bit only works with 3gb ram and you need Vista 64 to run 4gigs or higher. Am i wrong on any of this?


Mattharvey12 said:
i got a Dell Vostro 1510
for £600 i got:
15" widescreen
2Ghz dual core processor
4GB Ram
150Gb disk drive
256Mb Nvidia gfx card 8??? (not sure which one)
Cd drive
SD/MMC Card reader
Intergrated wireless.
intergrated webcam
MS Vista Ultimate edition

for the money i paid for this i highly recommend.
I have had this 2 years and it is running very strong still.
Very fast laptop considering it has Vista Ultimate
hope this helps mate
Click to expand...

Thank you, glad to see you are happy with the Dell, i may go with the Dell since i get %15 off so it will come out to around $700 :nice:
 
Nathbot said:
For the difference in price, you can't go wrong with the HP. They make really good laptops in my experience.

Both me and my girlfriend have HP Pavilions and they have never missed a beat. My girlfriend runs Vista, so its a bit slow at boot and far to nanny for my liking. But ive re installed xp and fiddled with a few bios settings and mine has never crashed in a years worth of ownership.

I also find AMD chips alot better than Intel. They tend to run closer to the spec'd speed and respond to overclocking a lot better also. Not sure if you would be doing anything like that but its worth knowing.

I could ramble on about these things, but basically. If it were me I'd save some money, get the HP.

I know a couple of people who have had bad experiences with Dells too. An i wouldn't worry if it has onboard graphics either, for what you have mentioned it will handle it fine.

Hope this helps, just my opinion though! lol :nice:

Nath
Click to expand...

Thank you! Thats all good to know, i am an HP fan also, my desktop is an HP.
 
Where the hell is Techy? Don't by Dell they're overpriced as hell. You could get so much more for your money elsewhere. Let me do a bit of research and I'll get back to this thread.
 
I stumbled upon this and made the account just so I could post. First, you will defiently want a discrete graphics card and I recommend nothing less the 512mb onboard. It will cost you a little more now but in the long run it will help with anything you want to do. Second, XP will run 4gb of ram but will only utlize 3.75gb base of being 32bit. Now, Vista on the other hand with a 32bit OS will natively run up to 4gb meaning you can use 4gb of ram without going to 64Bit. That being said you come to processors. I have used both intel and amd very much and have pushed both to the limits of their abilities. If all you want to do it movies/anime stuff like that, you will be fine going to an intel core2duo or centrino model. If you want to do something that is more graphics intensive and using products that can utilize an HT link, I would suggest you go to AMD. Will all that said, if you are going to get an intel make sure you get a 9xxx series model of high 8xxx series. They have more memory built into the chip and allow for more fluent buffering. If you are going AMD make sure you get atleast 2.2Ghz a core as anything below that will start to "hickup" with vista. Hope this helps you in the decision of what to get...keeping that parts in mind you can get any brand you like. The best is a Thinkpad, they are kind of pricey but I can give you a way to login with an employee discount so everything is a bit more affordable. Good luck in your shopping.
 
GTLVR82- I was thinking the same thing lol

cnstecky- Thank you for taking the time to sign up and post, really appreciate it :nice: I will certainly keep all of what you said in mind :D
 
In my honest i would say reliability wise HP is the best, speaking from owning a few laptops,
 
The ATI Radeon HD3200 is an Integrated GPU. It's not bad. I got mine to play Half-Life 2 with mid to high settings at 1440x900 fairly well. Has trouble with CoD games though. Had to run CoD2 in DirectX 7 mode to get playable framerates (actually quite playable but DirectX 9 ran like crap). CoD4 and CoD:WaW aren't really playable.

Why the downgrade to XP. Nothing's wrong with Vista. Also, many newer laptops don't seem to take kindly to XP now. I tried to downgrade the last one I bought (that I wound up selling) to XP to test HD video playback, but it wasn't even usable. It was unbearably slow and there were no XP drivers for it. As I've stated in the past about my main desktop, it ran terribly on XP 32-bit but ran incredibly well on Vista 64-bit.

Also there are both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of XP. All 32-bit OS's are limited to being able to address 4GB but things like the video card's memory have to be taken into account as well which is why you only see something like 3.25 or 3.5GB of RAM instead of 4. 64-bit OS's can address 17,179,869,184GB or RAM. And yes that's Gigabytes. So they have no trouble detecting that 4GB of system ram and the video card's RAM.

I've had 4 HP/Compaq's. I've only hated one. That was mainly the Processor's fault though. Don't touch the new Mobile Athlon X2's. They suck. Can't decode HD video right and suck down the power. The Turion X2's I have no problem with. My new laptop has a Turion X2 RM-74. It seems to use less power and has zero trouble with HD video.

Now I just got this new one but I got it after exchanging a Toshiba with a Core 2 Duo. The Core 2 Duo idled cooler but the temp sky rocketed under load which caused this particular one to overheat and lock up (hence why I returned it). The Turion idles higher and takes longer to cool off but at least it's load temps weren't as high. I mean hell, the Toshiba with the Core 2 Duo locked up from heat just uninstalling the bloatware. I've successfully played 30 minutes of StepMania, 20 minutes of Call of Duty 2 and 10 minutes of Half-Life 2 without any problems on the HP with the Turion. Now I imagine that the real heat problem with the Toshiba was to do with the thermal paste. Still I didn't like seeing it go from 36 Celsius to 85 out of no where (heat stress much?). At least the Turion goes from 46 or so at idle to 77 with Call of Duty 2 running .
 
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I use a HP laptop at work, it has a core 2 duo 2 processor and 2 gig of ram. No problems with it right now I don't remember the model.. What I don't like its the design, for me its like grabbing in a 1999 laptop lol, and its very heavy. I prefer a fancy computer with some cool options :nice:

Dell XPS is a great option, and the best is that it has a intel processor, I've user amd cpu before, and I don't like them. And I'm not a hater. I worked on a Turion based laptop, and the keyboard after 2 hours of use, was very hot, this might not happen with the HP laptop but keep in mind this.

Are you going to connect the ATI video card to a DVI port or something?

Well keep in mind that ATI video cards have serious issues connecting to a dvi monitor or to a HDTV with a HDMI to DVI port. I suffer this issue with a ATI video card, 4870 to be specific, but I sold it because of this.

DELL XPS comes with Vista 64 right?

My vote goes for the DELL XPS. :nice:
 
Techy: the reason for XP is i will use this laptop for Sieble testing (IT work) and Sieble only works with XP, thank you for all the info though, i hope i have no problem downgrading. I have Vista on my main rig and have no problems :nice:

rvm: I just found a 30% off coupon for the HP laptop so i think i will be going with that now, i will save a lot of money and be able to add more upgrades!
 
Dell wins hands down much better spec and the AMD Turion isn't as good as Intell core 2 imo.
 
Too late!! I bought the HP, with the coupon code i really got some good stuff for the price:

HP Pavilion Entertainment dv3z customizable Notebook PC

* • Vista (64-bit)
* • AMD Turion(2.3GHz, L2 Cache)
* • 4GB Ram
* • 500GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
* • ATI Radeon(TM) HD 3200
* • 13.3" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800)
* • Slot Load Super Multi 8X DVD+/-R/RW w/Double Layer Support
* • Webcam + Fingerprint Reader
* • Wireless-N Card
* • Full Size Backlit Keyboard
* • 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* • Mobile Stereo Earbud Headphones (1 pair)

Total plus tax plus shipping plus the coupon code ended up $820 which is still cheaper than the XPS without tax and shipping and has a larger HD, LED Screen etc. I know the Intel chips are stronger but that seems to be the only thing the Dell had.
 
Fair do's mate still a great laptop. Only gripe i've had with my HP is build quality isn't as good as the DELL but thats my one bought a yr ago.

Enjoy
 
ijwhiteman said:
Fair do's mate still a great laptop. Only gripe i've had with my HP is build quality isn't as good as the DELL but thats my one bought a yr ago.

Enjoy
Click to expand...

I will not disagree with you on that note, my HP desktop does have some questionable build quality, some of the ports i could not get to without bending some tabs in the back that were in the way of the S video out and my DVD drive did die after only about 30 burns but that was easy and cheap to change so i didn't mind.
 
Intel has the advantage in speed but AMD as the advantage in value.

How does your software not work in Vista? Have you tried to use the compatibility options to make the software think it's XP?

Also, dell's aren't better. Their build quality isn't any better (often I've seen worse build quality in Dell's) and they seem to have battery issues. Both a friend of mine, and a coworker have Dells and their batteries are both completely shot after only a year and half or 2 years. I have 2 batteries for my old laptop. One is the battery off the laptop I had before it. It's 3 years old and the one that came with my last laptop is 2 years old. They both still hold a 2 hour charge no problem.

blinx, try Vista and try the compatibility mode before switching it to XP.
 
i would advise against HP unless you upgrade to an accidental damage warranty. They cover everything cause I guarantee something will go wrong, also their customer support sucks!!!! As for having to run XP, run a virtual machine allowing you to run XP inside vista, newer parts aren't really meant to run XP as they are optimized for vista.

and DO NOT GET A DELL!!!!
 
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