Which of these 3 is best

Dundalk Daily

Which one from these 3:

http://www.pcworld.ie/productDetails.aspx?productRID=1587&image=Philips_Freevents

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/ie/en/ho/WF06b/21675-38187-38191-38191-38191-12724292-77963653.html?jumpid=oc_R1002_IEENC-001_HP%20Pavilion%20dv2104eu%20Notebook%20PC&lang=en&cc=ie

http://www.mediatec.ie/vaio_notebook/vgn_fs515h.html

Any guidance would be appreciated, medium to heavy use.

Kevo

Forget the sony vaio. it only has 512 MB RAM, a single core processor and a poor graphics card.

I think the HP is best but it depends on what your looking for.

Tom Dunne

Dundalk Daily wrote:

Any guidance would be appreciated, medium to heavy use.

Is that, like, weight lifting?

Assuming heavy use=processor intensive, you should go for at least a Duo with 1 Gig of RAM, so that rules out the Sony. I don't believe the Turion stands up to the core Duo, so that's the HP out the window.

I wouldn't recommend buying in PC world, so that's the Philips out the window.

Check Dell or Laptopsdirect.ie for machines with the above specs, maybe even consider even upping the RAM to 2Gig.

thebman

I agree with above.

If you post your price range, we can help you find a model online that will suite your needs and probably come in cheaper or with a better warranty than what you'll get at Pc World or any retail store.

Dundalk Daily

Thanks guys, budget around 1-1.5k, I wasnt necessarily going to purchase off any of the above, I just posted them for showing the spec. When I say heavy use I do alot of updating websites and alot of net surfing. Also I liked the Phillips for its size very handy to carry and for travel or use on the move.

Im not too pushed on Dell and like the idea of purchasing in a shop so I can pop back if and when a problems occurs. Thanks for the help.

empirix

Hey,
I bought s vaio fe31h the other day for €1400 bug uns, pretty pleased with it, 1.66 ghz core 2 duo processor, 1gb ram, 120 gb hdd, 128 mb dedicated nvidia geforce 7400 graphics card(supoporting 256mb) dvd r 15.4 " wide screen.

Looks good and is light enough, comes bundled with some crap(what doesn't) - one bad thing thoughh is the drivers are only available for win xp.

All in all, pretty leased.
BTW Plays FEAR game nicely, no probs at all
Available in the Sony centres

Hope that helps ya:)

Dundalk Daily

Ive just noticed that the phillips has no firewire connection, what could i connect my video cam with in the absence. Is there such a thing as firewire to usb cable ? Is this a major issue having no firewire.

tywy

if you want a firewire connection get a macbook :P

I think I might make that my sig...GET A MACBOOK!

empirix

The vaio has a firewire conncetion, as well as a tv out port and built in memory card reader(very handy)

Dundalk Daily

Im thinking of going for the Phillips but it has no firewire how do i get round this to use video cam ?

Tom Dunne

You can get a PCMCIA card that has firewire ports. Or, I believe there are USB to firewire to USB cables around.

Dundalk Daily

Thats for the guidance, what do ye think of this phillips

http://www.pcworld.ie/productDetails.aspx?productRID=1421&image=Philips_Freevents

Tom Dunne

That's a single core processor you have linked to. Having said that, for surfing and updating web sites, it would probably do the job. I would also check the specs before you buy it, the processor listed is 1.06 Ghz, that seems a tad odd and PC World are known to have a few typos on their websites.

I take it you have noticed that the screen is 11.1 inches - tiny, very portable. That's also why it is 1400 Euro - you are paying for portablility, not performance.

I don't have any direct experience of Philips laptops, so the above opinions are only based on general laptop knowledge.

On the firewire thing- all you need is here. Just make sure the laptop has a PCMCIA port, not a ExpressCard slot. I have been caught out on this one myself.

thebman

I'd suggest getting an ATI/nVidia graphics card for laptop being used for multimedia over the Intel integrated which are generally very poor if your running image filters in Photoshop or playing games. Otherwise it'll do ya fine.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspn_9400?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

Check out the above Dell's which come with 2 year warranties. With Dell if you have to use the warranty, they ship you a box and you return the laptop with the courier that delivers the box as far as I know.

tonyj

Yea, I looked at the freevents as well. But what puts me off them is that I can very little about it on Google.

Freevents is some venture between Dixons and Phillips. So, in terms of support, drivers, replacement parts etc. I'm not sure how well supported it will be.

edit: also, I didn't think the keyboard felt very solid

maidhc

brim4brim wrote:

I'd suggest getting an ATI/nVidia graphics card for laptop being used for multimedia over the Intel integrated which are generally very poor if your running image filters in Photoshop or playing games. Otherwise it'll do ya fine.

Photoshop relies on the CPU, not on the GPU.

You only need a good graphics card for games.