Laptop advice.

Invincible

Hi everyone,I had a Toshiba satellite pro A200 SE,Core 2 Duo 1.6GHz with Windows XP pro ordered from Dabs.ie,credit card had insufficeint funds on it,when I substituted another card,the laptop had besome "opsolete" on my order page.
I am looking for something of the same spec,with XP,main uses would be for photo editing,email,internet.
Can you recommend an alternative to above please?
I was wondering about the Lenovo 3000 N200,Core 2 Duo T5550,1.83 Ghz Dual-Core,160 GB hard drive,Win XP Pro,15.4 in screen,1280x800 res,DVD writer,intel GMA X3100,Bluetooth,491 euro on laptops direct.
There is a similar one on the iBOOD offer today,is it advisable to deal with this company? I've noticed their spec is Vista.
Thanking all for their opinions.:)

Jackovarian

well, they all seem like good machines, but i would recommend steering clear of any intel based graphics. NO offence to anybody here. I also realise your not going to be playing games as such, but your machine would be much faster with dedicated card rather than an onboard powersucker.
em, I suppose you'd be better off getting one with vista pre-installed. If you ever resell it you'd get more for it as it would "seem" older with xp on it.
although if you dont care about that you may be better with xp pro as its fairly solid at this stage.
vista's dead in the water in a few years anyway when windows 7 comes out. I would be too worried about upgrading to vista at all as xp will be compatible with most things for a long time to come.

as for ibood, i seen some hassle on here before about them selling something and then everybody got shipment errors and whatnot.
ive never dealt with them so I cant comment.

Toshiba would have been good. dont know about lenovo that much.
at that price though its a very good deal.

im not much help!

Tom Dunne

Jackovarian wrote: »

well, they all seem like good machines, but i would recommend steering clear of any intel based graphics. NO offence to anybody here.

Why in the name of jebus would anybody take offense at something like that? If they do, a reality check is in order.

Jackovarian wrote: »

I also realise your not going to be playing games as such, but your machine would be much faster with dedicated card rather than an onboard powersucker.

I don't agree. Games are not an issue for Invincible, so why would you go adding to the cost by getting a "better" graphics card? The Intel cards will do for what he/she intends to use the laptop for.

@Invincible: that Lenovo will do the job you want. I am a big fan of IBM/Lenovo and would highly recommend them. You don't mention memory, but make sure it is at least 2Gb.

Invincible

Well Tom,that Lenovo has 1GB,I was considering getting the memory upgrade to 2GBwhich was bringing it to 589 euro,I just checked their site(laptopsdirect.ie),their prices seem to change faster than the weather,491 has become 543 euro,+1GB is now 627 euro.They havw a Toshiba tecra A9-13p,that I was interested in,but that's gone from being 731 euro to 881 now
I have no experience of using Vista,just what I heard others saying,I was looking at the Microsoft site,they claim to have improved its compatibility with software with their latest service pack,what do ye think?
I know I'd have a better choice if I go for a Vista machine.
What about the option of one with Vista/XP downgradeable?
Thank's again for info.:)

Is the DVD drive noisy on the Lenovo? I read somewhere in a review,I think.

yoyo

Invincible wrote: »

Well Tom,that Lenovo has 1GB,I was considering getting the memory upgrade to 2GBwhich was bringing it to 589 euro,I just checked their site(laptopsdirect.ie),their prices seem to change faster than the weather,491 has become 543 euro,+1GB is now 627 euro.They havw a Toshiba tecra A9-13p,that I was interested in,but that's gone from being 731 euro to 881 now
I have no experience of using Vista,just what I heard others saying,I was looking at the Microsoft site,they claim to have improved its compatibility with software with their latest service pack,what do ye think?
I know I'd have a better choice if I go for a Vista machine.
What about the option of one with Vista/XP downgradeable?
Thank's again for info.:)

Is the DVD drive noisy on the Lenovo? I read somewhere in a review,I think.

Vista is fine and runs great on core2 chips with 2 gigs ram, compatibility is grand and most programs which had issiues at the start will have patches made to fix them, I've only noticed one game which wouldnt work on vista, the rest work flawlessly. Downgrading now generally isnt worth the effort as it can be hard getting drivers for certain laptop features, and newer revisions of laptops probably only have vista drivers so ones for xp mightnt be available. Also microsoft are stopping production of XP next month afaik

Nick

Jackovarian

Tom Dunne wrote: »

Why in the name of jebus would anybody take offense at something like that? If they do, a reality check is in order.



I don't agree. Games are not an issue for Invincible, so why would you go adding to the cost by getting a "better" graphics card? The Intel cards will do for what he/she intends to use the laptop for.

@Invincible: that Lenovo will do the job you want. I am a big fan of IBM/Lenovo and would highly recommend them. You don't mention memory, but make sure it is at least 2Gb.

some people on here get offended very easily. you have to walk on eggshells round this place the whole time.

and, yeah, i realise theres extra cost with the dedicated card, and i'm sure the buyer would have noticed that also, but i'm also sure they would rather stretch their cash a bit further to get a brilliant machine rather than an ok one.

Invincible

I saw an Asus F5VL-Ap128C,T5450,1.66GHz,2048MB,250 GB,15.4" TFT,DVD+/-RW,ATI X2300 w/128MB VRAM,integrated 1.3 Megapixel camera,2 year warranty,Win Vista Home Premium.The price is 400 stg,only thing it's missing is Bluetooth as far as I see.
What do ye think of it?
Would'nt Asus be reliable,good brand?
Thanks for ye'r thoughts.:)

AlmightyCushion

Invincible wrote: »

I saw an Asus F5VL-Ap128C,T5450,1.66GHz,2048MB,250 GB,15.4" TFT,DVD+/-RW,ATI X2300 w/128MB VRAM,Win Vista Home Premium.The price is 400 stg,only thing it's missing is Bluetooth as far as I see.
What do ye think of it?
Would'nt Asus be reliable,good brand?
Thanks for ye'r thoughts.:)

Yeah that's a very nice laptop for the money. Asus would be quite a good brand too.

Invincible

I emailed ebuyer.com to find out if they would deliver the Asus F%VL-AP128C to Eire,their reply was "you would need a UK registered credit/debit card".
As I don't,I thought I read here that people had dealt with them,I wonder how?

AlmightyCushion

I think you need to set up an Irish account. Do a search for ebuyer on here and you might find out exactly what it is you have to do. Sorry I can't be more helpful.