Looking to buy a new laptop

d93c2inhxfok4y

Hey all, thanks in advance for any help given

Reckon a good place to start is to fill in the form:

Budget: Up to about 750e

Intended use: Primarily College work, internet and e-mail. A bit of gaming, most of which is football manager. And then music, and downloading, if that makes a difference.

Mobility: It needs to be pretty mobile, I'm gonna be bringing it into college most days as well as home every weekend. I wouldnt like a small mini laptop, screen is just too tiny. I guess I'm looking for standard size.

Warranty: Warranty isnt too important to me tbh.

I've been looking in the Argos catalog at both Samsung and Toshiba laptops, which would be reliable names.

Toshiba stretches from 2-4GB RAM, im leaning towards the higher end though, I'd really like a computer that could handle running loads of applications and programs at once.

There's a Samsung R519 there for 600e
Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200 processor (2GHZ)
Graphics: Intel GMA X4500M

The upgraded version is the Samsung R522 for 730e
Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 (2.16 GHZ)
Graphics: ATI Radion HD4330 (512MB)

It's kinda between these two at the moment, they have the same RAM, but tbh I dont know a thing about processors and how they differ. Could anyone offer any advice?
Or if there's a deal or laptop somewhere that would be better, that would be great too

Thanks a million for any help,
Cheers,
Conor

DubOnHoliday

Have just bought about 20 of these for work.... good mid-range machine if you can get over the plasticy keyboard....


http://www.dabs4work.ie/products/hp-probook-4510s-c2d-t6570-3gb-320gb-vb-xp-15-6--626N.html

slowlydownwards

www.laptopsdirect.ie

Hard to beat this crowd when it comes to choice/value. Think they are UK based. Approx 20eur for delivery. Just recently ordered netbook last friday and it arrived this mon morn.

While you do get a nice big screen with 15inch models, they are quite cumbersome to carry around. Would you consider 12-13inch laptop + external 19inch monitor (approx 100eur) or bigger which could remain in your room/flat? I'd also stay away from dell. Just my two pence.

d93c2inhxfok4y

slowlydownwards wrote: »

www.laptopsdirect.ie

Hard to beat this crowd when it comes to choice/value. Think they are UK based. Approx 20eur for delivery. Just recently ordered netbook last friday and it arrived this mon morn.

While you do get a nice big screen with 15inch models, they are quite cumbersome to carry around. Would you consider 12-13inch laptop + external 19inch monitor (approx 100eur) or bigger which could remain in your room/flat? I'd also stay away from dell. Just my two pence.

This site looks brilliant, the choice is fantastic.

I feel swamped though, I really cant see much differentiators between all these models.

Does anyone know which of these processors is better?

Intel Penium Dual Core T4300 (2.10GHZ)
Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 (2.16GHZ)

And in generally, whats the difference, apart from the numbers after the T? Dual Core and Core 2 Duo sound so similar...?

slowlydownwards

Yep, you've got choice there, all right.

Either of those two processors (CPU) will be more that sufficient. Core2Duo is Intel's latest generations of cpus (in laptops) and they would be the best/fastest. The greater the number, the better the cpu (ie. 4200, 6400 etc).

If you wish to run multiple applications at once, the size of RAM memory is very important. Don't get less that 2gb anyhow, go for 3 or 4gb if possible.

You said you wanted to play occasional game. May be worth getting a laptop with dedicated graphics card - you'll see it under section "Graphics"(Nvidia or ATI). They will generally perform better at games than integrated Intel graphics chip found on most laptops.

Will you need bluetooth and integrated webcam for skype?

All laptops these days come with dvd burner, network card and wireless network card, so no worries there.

And now, the most important item - Warranty. You said the laptop will be doing good bit of mileage around campus, off home for weekends etc... Despite your best care, it will get few bumps and hits. Most manufacturers offer 1 year warranty. If you can afford it, definatelly extend this to whatever your budget will stretch to. Also to this end, it would not be a bad idea to get a well paded laptop bag.

And last (probably least too) item is looks. Does this matter to you? Laptops vary greatly in looks. Some are ugly, beige, square boxes and then there are apple laptops and the like... Will leave this one to you. Good luck choosing.

d93c2inhxfok4y

slowlydownwards wrote: »

Yep, you've got choice there, all right.

Either of those two processors (CPU) will be more that sufficient. Core2Duo is Intel's latest generations of cpus (in laptops) and they would be the best/fastest. The greater the number, the better the cpu (ie. 4200, 6400 etc).

If you wish to run multiple applications at once, the size of RAM memory is very important. Don't get less that 2gb anyhow, go for 3 or 4gb if possible.

You said you wanted to play occasional game. May be worth getting a laptop with dedicated graphics card - you'll see it under section "Graphics"(Nvidia or ATI). They will generally perform better at games than integrated Intel graphics chip found on most laptops.

Will you need bluetooth and integrated webcam for skype?

All laptops these days come with dvd burner, network card and wireless network card, so no worries there.

And now, the most important item - Warranty. You said the laptop will be doing good bit of mileage around campus, off home for weekends etc... Despite your best care, it will get few bumps and hits. Most manufacturers offer 1 year warranty. If you can afford it, definatelly extend this to whatever your budget will stretch to. Also to this end, it would not be a bad idea to get a well paded laptop bag.

And last (probably least too) item is looks. Does this matter to you? Laptops vary greatly in looks. Some are ugly, beige, square boxes and then there are apple laptops and the like... Will leave this one to you. Good luck choosing.

This is exactly the kind of help I was looking for, thanks a million, really really appreciated!

I think i'm going to look for 4GB RAM, and try to pair it with a Core 2 Duo T6500 processor. To be honest, the main main main thing I want this laptop to do it to run nice and quickly and smoothly. The laptop I have now is yeeeears old, so Im used to the horrible feeling of it shuddering for up to 5 minutes on startup as it struggles with msn and other programs like that, as well as just switching on.
Programs can be sluggish too. I often play a game called Football Manager and try to play music in the background. Coupled with msn signed in, the music often skips, and the game (which is largely text and basic colour based, I dont know if you've ever played it) runs like a tortoise.

So yeah, speed and responsiveness is basically the primary thing Im looking for out of the laptop! Obviously it doesnt need to be state of the art or anything, but you reckon the above mentioned RAM and processor set up would do it? I'll aim for that and hopefully I wont have to go much lower cos of price.

I dont really have much of an idea about graphics cards, but they dont seem too hard to compare.

Bluetooth would be very very handy, but I have a cable to connect my phone to my pc so I dont think I'd need it? Or is it's benefit in sending things between laptops via bluetooth or...? As far as I knew it was just for sending stuff too and from a mobile phone?

I'm looking for a webcam, but almost all of the models I've been looking at seem to have one built in at about 1.3 megapixels which will do me fine.

Screen size wise im basically set on 15.4, just nice and general.

You make good points about the warranty, I'll definitely see how long I can extend it for.

Looks dont really matter to me a great deal to be honest! I'd love a macbook looking machine but it's no biggie, it's what's on the inside that counts!

Thanks a million for the help again, its greatly appreciated!

ED E

Just in case you didnt realise you will need to run 64 bit to get the full use of 4GBs of RAM. On 32 you can only use 3.24Gb. It'd be a shame to waste so much valuable ram

d93c2inhxfok4y

Lethal_Bullet wrote: »

Just in case you didnt realise you will need to run 64 bit to get the full use of 4GBs of RAM. On 32 you can only use 3.24Gb. It'd be a shame to waste so much valuable ram

I've been seeing references to this all day, thanks for bringing it up!
How exactly does one run 64 bit as opposed to 32 bit? Im not even entirely sure what it refers to to be honest!

slowlydownwards

Your new laptop will ship with Vista (either 32 or 64 bit). As the previous poster said, in order to utilize more than 3.2gb of ram, you need to have 64bit operating system installed.
Hopefully you will be offered some sort of upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out in October, 'cause Vista is bloated and STILL buggy.
You mentioned bluetooth earlier in the post. You are right it is mainly used to transfer files to and from pc to mobile devices. Some people use their mobile phones as 3g broadband modems, connecting them to pcs via btooth, but this is fairly rare, considering availability of 3g usb dongles.
Also some people are advising to use irish etailers, as it would be easier to return product in case of malfunction or similar. While this is true, you'd pay through the nose for this priviledge and would be better of dealing with the manufacturer directly anyhow.