New Laptop, what to buy?

roundcrisis

Hi there, I m not sure if this is the rigth place to post this but, here we go.

I m tryng to get a new laptop for myself I will be using Autocad, Dreamweaver, 3 D studio Max, etc
so I believe this specs would be good:

P4 2.8+ or Pentium M 1.5+
< 512 MB
< 40GB

what would you recomend or where can I buy it so if I have a little problem they don't have me there for 3 months or something
I can get a Dell but I ve seen an Inspiron working and I m not sure about it.
I would really appreciate your help


R.

wes

From what i hear Autocad is pretty graphic intensive (someone correct me if i am wrong) so get something with a good gfx card. As for processor i head the new Centrion Dothan cpu's are pretty good preformers.

dark_knight_ire

Well the machine i bought is a HP Pavilion zd7000, great machine really why i got this was i wanted a machine that could handle half life 2 and doom 3 when they come out. The spec is

3.2 Intel HT
17 inch widescreen tft monitor
128 geforce card
and 512 RAM but upgradable too 2gigs

Wireless lan
seperate numeric keypad (very handy)
5 in 1 digital reader as well as 4 usb ports and 2 others which i've not yet figured out what they do ;-)

Oh and its god one hell of a sound system, trust me you have never heard such volume from a small machine like this lol.

This machine about 2 weeks ago cost about 2400 euro, great all round machine depending on what you want it for

Champ

Give the http://www.rockdirect.com folks a look.

Speaking from experience; they're a great crowd to do business with.:)

roundcrisis

thanks to all for your replies
Ill check http://www.rockdirect.com this is the kind of thing I was looking for
I had a terrible experience with Dell and I don't want to repeat it
anyone has ever bougth from elara?

zoro

elara?

over priced shower of f*ckers

Champ

I've heard one or two rather distressing tales about Dell;) Glad your giving the RockDirect folks a shot:) I've had the best experiences with them.

Elara? I would say they are a little weak on the laptop side of things; but they do have a considerable selection available; plus i've heard mostly good things about their customer relations.:)

I believe they also have a forum here on boards.ie:rolleyes:

damnyanks

Just curious,

How hard and pricey is it to buy extra ram and put it into a laptop. I've seen lots of decent laptops around but they only have 256mb of ram. I'd need at the very least 512.

[nicK]

www.acernotebooks.co.uk

give the aspire 2000series a look

jank

seriously what is wrong with a dell laptop

seen loads working and they all look fine

Zentoad

What's wrong with Dell..

Well I used to recommend Dell on the basis of price/performance/reliability and support. In the last year I have had nothing but problems with them.

Wrt price, they are probably still very competitive.
The performance is average.
The reliability on Laptops is now questionable given their change in work practices.
And as for Support........They S*$K.

eg
My cousin was interested in getting a laptop. I suggested Dell and pointed him at the Inspiron M500.
He has only had it about 4 months and the screen has cracked. He said that he did not drop it, but I did note that the protection normally afforded by the outer case seems poor for this model. (I don't believe that the 3yrs Onsite NBD warrenty covers screen breakage). It still works so the following week, while covering a match, he got a Media Bay error. The system would not boot up.

The system was "Made in China". I believe that Dell are rebadging Chinese systems as theirs. This gives rise in my mind to questioning the system quality.


As for support, I also ordered a desktop system unit and while I was away, 2 were delivered. I was told that 2 were ordered and since I was buying them for a business, I did not have the right to return or a refund. Yeah right.
My subsequent experience with Dell INDIA was a nightmare. They insisted that the system did not lie, until I pointed out to them that they had billed me twice for Delivery when there should have been no charge. This took weeks to resolve and each time I asked to deal with Dell Dublin, I was transferred to....Dell India.

Want more...

Recently we wanted to buy a server to upgrade our accounts system. It had to be installed after the end of year accounts had been closed off. We figured 7 weeks should be enough time. Anyway Dell could not get the Flat screens and so our order was being delayed. When asked to just deliver the system unit they said that they could not.....
The came good in the end, but the frustration experienced makes me think that this is now the norm at Dell.

It's not that I actively deal with Dell all of the Time. These were the last 3 purchases from Dell. Not a good record hmm?


Am now considering alternatives to Dell.


Good luck to you
Zentoad....

roundcrisis

Thanks again, the http://www.rockdirect.com seemd a little out there, but Its woth checking, why dell is so bad, at least on my experience
1) they took over a moth to deliver a Inspiron
2) when I was waiting for the laptops they charged me three times when i realised i call them and after 4 hours wasted on the phone talking to someone in india and them someone in the uk, and finally someone in ireland they credit me back
3) the laptop is okish if working on 2000 with xp it s damn slow
4) the cd combo supposedly recording at 24x records properly only at 4x or I have to trow the cd away cause it doesnt work, could i send it to dell, sure but after the customer service i had, no feckin way!!
5) the battery should last aprox three hours and it only works for 2 for some motherboard issue
i dont wanna go on, but Im sure u re getting my drift

as i said this is my experience


I saw a nice laptop in elara.ie its a fujitsu AMILO Pro
FSC V1000 Pro Mobile 15" TFT, P4M2.2, 512MB, 60GB, combo drive, XP Pro


what do you think?
has anyone got a fujitsu

Champ

The specs look sufficent for what you have in mind; though if AutoCad is graphic intensive; the integrated graphics could be a liability.

I would also go for a Pentium M if possible.

Champ

Personally i would go for:
http://www.elara.ie/products/detailsfull.asp?productcode=ECS933361&productID=0

There are some reviews available for it at the bottom of this page:
http://www.notebookreview.com/search_results.aspx?productFamilyID=3&manufacturerID=1&productID=8164&productName=Acer+TravelMate+292LCi+-+Pentium+M+1.5+GHz+-+15&manufacturerName=Acer#reviews

Of course there's still the graphics to consider; Autocad could just about be handled by integrated graphics i think; though this would largely be dependent on the chipset in question; apart from that if it's just going to be purely a work machine then there's no other worries...

jesus_thats_gre

Originally posted by zoro
over priced shower of f*ckers

Oh soo true!