Happy medium on laptop specs?

Soarer

Afternoon all.

Looking to upgrade my 15" XPS that I've had for years, and I'm gonna go for an Asus of some kind (I think!).

I'm gonna enlarge the screen size, as it's rare enough that the laptop at home is moved anywhere, so portability isn't a huge issue. Still needs to be portable though.

So I'm between 2 Asus'.

This one....

Product Description Asus 17.3" N73SV
Display 17.3"Widescreen- Full HD 1920 X 1080- LED Backlit
Processor i7-2630QM - 2.0GHz
RAM 6GB DDR3 SODIMM
Hard Drive 1TB -5400rpm
Optical Storage Dual Layer DVD±ReWriter combo
Graphics Controller NVIDIA GeForce GT540M - 1GB
Webcam 2.0 Mega Pixel
Speakers Bang & Olufsen ICEpower
Network Gigatbit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n draadloos, Bluetooth
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium - 64 bit
Connections HDMI, VGA, USB3.0, 2 x USB2.0, RJ45 LAN
Battery 6 cell 5200mAh
Keyboard US Layout
Dimensions (WxDXH) 42cm x 29cm x 3.8cm
Colour Black
Weight 3.4KG

And this one....

Product Description Asus 18.4" K93SV
Display 18.4" LED-Backlit TFT - 1920 x 1080 Full HD
Processor 2nd Generation Intel Core i7-2630QM - 2.0GHz
RAM 8GB DDR3 SODIMM - 2x4GB 1333
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GT540M - 1GB
Hard Drive 1TB - 7200rpm
Specifics Master HDD: 3.5" , Second HDD: 2.5"
Optical Storage Dual Layer DVD±ReWriter
Webcam 0.3 Mega Pixel
Battery 6 cell 5200mAh 56Whrs
Speakers Altec Lansing® speakers
Connections HDMI, 4 x USB2.0, RJ45 LAN, Mic in Jack, Headphone out Jack
Network Bluetooth V3.0, Gigabit Ethernet, WLAN 802.11 b/g/n
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium - 64 bit
Card Reader 3 in 1 (SD/ MS/ MMC)
Weight 4.11 kg
Dimensions 44cm x 29.5cm x 5.5cm

Now to me, the latter is a no brainer. But do any of the enlightened have any experience of anything as big (oo er!)?
There's only €10 in the price, so that doesn't come into it.

Thanks guys/gals.

cherryghost

What are you going to be using the laptop for?

Soarer

Thanks for your reply cherryghost.

It's a bit of a redundant question though, as the 18" one listed above has gone up in price by €90, so isn't as attractive.

If/When I get something, it'll be used for a small bit of gaming, ripping, surfing, office, etc. Basically everything.

danger_mouse_tm

I have had experience on two counts with big laptops. I had a toshiba qosmio back in the day ( 1st generation). It was more of a portable video machine! Beautiful laptop, and for the first year when we were renting in Cork it was our main TV. It's great to have a screen that size when there is more than one person watching a movie. it's not too bad even with the laptop over the other side of the room hooked up to a hifi.

Recently i took a trade in of a 17 inch toshiba. Again, a fantastic machine to work on. The extra real estate was great. It's important to splash out on a high quality back pack to give the laptop some protection. If you break a 17 inch screen it will be more expensive to replace than the normal 15.4 or 15.6. Much worse, is breaking an 18 inch screen as second hand ones of those are very difficult to get.

it might be an idea to look into the possiblity of getting a high powered laptop with a smaller screen and getting a nice 23 or 24 inch monitor with hdmi and a wireless keyboard and mouse. i think you will have the best of both worlds then. You can even use both screens at the same time, either in extended view or mirrored view. In windows 7 you can quickly swap between views my pressing the windows key and "P"