Buying a new laptop, help needed.

super_furry

Well after five years of faithful service, it's finally time to consign my old PIII 450 Dell desktop to the scrapheap. I'm aiming to replace it with a decent lap-top capable of running most, if not all of the latest games. The thing is, I'm so far out of the loop when it comes to specs and pricing that I've no idea where to start. I'm leaning towards buying a Dell because of the reliability of my last PC, but was wondering if there are better options. Something like an Alienware laptop would be out of my price range (about €1600), so can you guys give me any recommendations as to what I could get for that and where it would be best to get it from?

Boro

http://www.jes-computer.de/index.php?cat=199 is a good place to start.

ACER laptops are very nice these days, good performance (with 9700's and 9800's etc) and good prices too.

If you check down the computer forum you will see quite a few other threads about laptop purchasing.

Dell are decent for reliability but are defintely far from the best for price to performance ratios.

Boro

Some other links:

www.rockdirect.com
www.tiny.com

very good prices there and lots of people have recommended the Rockdirect place before.

daram

Stay away from rockdirect. laptops are no good.

stevenmu

Boro wrote:

Dell are decent for reliability but are defintely far from teh best for price to performance ratios.

To be fair to Dell they aim for business performance more than gaming performance. They go for things like reliability, battery-life, size, communications etc. We get some in from time to time and they're pretty sweet, nice to use and well designed and built.

To be fair to Boro, they don't really strike me as great gaming machines either, knowing Dell you'd be looking at around €2k for a decent gaming laptop (just a guess though). Lidl and Aldi do cheapish laptops every now and then that are supposedly good for games, I think it's a while since either did one too so maybe there's one coming up soon.

Jammer

got a 3ghz UXGA 15.4" 512mb 128mb9700 from dell, for 1800...runs games grand!

Rew

If you can go for the Centrino/Pentium M, they tend to be more expensive though.

Boro

True stevenmu, Dell laptops are nice. In fact i have one myself. Thing is though they arent particularly great for games unless you want to go over the budget that super_furry specified.

I have never bought from rockdirect, but if you check back through previous threads on this board you will see lots of people recommending them. They look like nice laptops from their webpage though.

If i was to buy a new laptop tomorrow, i would probably go for an acer - have heard a lot of good things about them.

Rew

Boro wrote:

If i was to buy a new laptop tomorrow, i would probably go for an acer - have heard a lot of good things about them.

I have an Acer TravleMate 800 and over all iv been very happy with it. They are serviced in Ireland these days which make s a big diferance.

Alienware have a new 12" wide screen laptop which is v.sexy but it has a **** gfx card... people never learn...

http://www.alienware.co.uk/product_detail_pages/Sentia/sentia_features.aspx?SysCode=PC-EU-LT-SENTIA&SubCode=SKU-PERFORMANCE

super_furry

Cheers guys, lots to get stuck into there. Just from an early look, Acer look really promising.

Rew

super_furry wrote:

Cheers guys, lots to get stuck into there. Just from an early look, Acer look really promising.

Acer prices are much cheaper in the UK and a good few sites will ship to you (www.laptopshop.co.uk) Id recomend buying the extended warrent if you can afford it. I got mine from Elara.ie but then again I wasn't paying for it

Jammer

Rew wrote:

If you can go for the Centrino/Pentium M, they tend to be more expensive though.

they're not as powerfull as the real pentium chips, and actually tend to be cheaper. they're battery savers, thats all. they sacrifice clock speed for cache

Rew

Jammer wrote:

they're not as powerfull as the real pentium chips, and actually tend to be cheaper. they're battery savers, thats all. they sacrifice clock speed for cache

Rubish, they are a complete redesign of the chip. The clock = power myth is well busted these days and if your still buying in to it you need to stop watching so much TV

M chip is more expensive wholesale AFAIK

Id happliy take the 2 Ghz Pentium M over a 3ghz P4 M. 2mb of cache helps alot as well of course. If the M's were **** they wouldn't be pushing the same technology in to desktop CPU's. The existing ones are great but Centrino 2 will have higher clocks, smaller manufacturing and hyper threading all in a nice package that will run for 4 hours or more.

I have a 1.7ghz P-M and the only thing holding me back in games is my Radeon 9200 but I can still paly all the latest games easily enough.

I have 2 batteries and can use the laptop for a days work without worrying about plugging in, Centrino rocks!!!

http://www4.tomshardware.com/mobile/20030418/ibmt40-05.html

http://www4.tomshardware.com/mobile/20040510/dothan-17.html

Toms Hardware when talking about the Dothan chip:

And again, we applaud Intel's decision to end its marketing strategy of emphasizing gigahertz clock speed specifications as the true measure of processor performance

Rew

Rew wrote:

Rubish, they are a complete redesign of the chip. The clock = power myth is well busted these days and if your still buying in to it you need to stop watching so much TV

Intel must be reading this thread...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/14/intel_kills_4gh/

For years, Intel has been insisting that consumers need ever faster processors to handle their desktop and notebook workloads. That pitch, however, will need some refining now that the chipmaker has revealed that a 4.0GHz Pentium 4 once due out at the end of this year (and then planned for 2005) won't arrive at all.

Intel now plans to stick with a 3.8GHz Pentium 4 for the foreseeable future. It will pump up the cache on this chip from 1MB to 2MBs over time in a bid to boost performance. In addition, Intel will tout its Hyperthreading technology and increase research and development efforts around dual-core chips. Intel insists that this focus on other types of technology and not just GHz alone has been underway at the company for a long time.

Shrimp

Try www.gericom.com

Jammer

Thanks for the lesson but if u read the thread then you'll see he's going to be at a desk, so plugging in isn't a problem.

What pentium m would match a 3GHZ 800mhz Pentium 4? Im not saying none of them would, just curious

Rew

Jammer wrote:

Thanks for the lesson but if u read the thread then you'll see he's going to be at a desk, so plugging in isn't a problem.

What pentium m would match a 3GHZ 800mhz Pentium 4? Im not saying none of them would, just curious

He dosnt say he will be plugging in anywhere he just says he is buying a laptop coz his desktop is knackered.

Are you talking about desktop P4's or mobile P4M's? The P4M runs at 533mhz FSB but you can buy laptops using the desktop CPU running at 800mhz. Any Pentium M above 2.0 Ghz also runs at 533mhz FSB (actually a few of the other P-M models/lower clocks run at 533mhz as well).

I havent seen an decent benchmarks fro the Dothen P-M 2.0Ghz versus another chip (other the the Banias V's the Dothan stuff) , but from previous benchmarks the 2.0Ghz model should be up there with the 2.8Ghz 3.0Ghz P4M's. The thing about Centrino is you get all round good package, great wireless (using the intel card), great preformance and great battery life in a small, light unit.

EDIT:

Actually this is a decent enough review http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2129&p=1

JamesB

An ultraportable sony vaio would take my fancy - switched to one a year ago and wouldn't touch anything since. Everything built in & ultra slim & light.