Which is better?

tinkerbell

My dad has to buy my brother a laptop asap coz his one is borked (so he hasn't been able to use it for a while now in college n stuff). The one my bro has is a Dell, which was always a useless heap of junk from day one. My laptop is a Dell, which is also a useless heap of junk.

My dad was looking at specs for three laptops:

Dell - around €900
Fujitsu - around €1200
HP - around €1500.

The Dell isn't that great, it has a Pentium M 1.6 (I think), with a 64MB gfx card, not that great a soundcard, etc.

The HP is good but it has a Pentium M - 1.7 I think, not too sure.

The Fujitsu has a Pentium 4 2.88GHz, lotsa RAM, hard drive space, good gfx card & memory, etc.

Anyway, I reckoned he should go for the Fujitsu. Steer clear from the Dell. Maybe the HP. But would a P4 be better than a PM? My bro wouldn't really be using the laptop for mobility. He just uses it in college (he lives on campus) so he'd be just using it there, and bringing it home at weekends.

So what do you knowledgable people reckon? Are Fujitsu crap or are they as good (or better) than HP?

Thanks a million

Nukem

Dell - depends on Model
Fujitsu - i think look bitty but ok though
HP - no experience

Full spec to all three machines and we caould help ya faster.

NUKEM

WillieDH

what model fujitsu - Amilo D7850s or 1845 ( widescreen ) are pretty good. personal experience

Tom Dunne

Nukem wrote:

HP - no experience

I've a HP laptop, can't recommend it highly enough.

Nukem wrote:

Full spec to all three machines and we caould help ya faster.

I'll second that.

tinkerbell

I'm waiting for my dad to get back to me with the full specs coz I can't remember the model type of each laptop.

I think the HP one is here

I think this may be the Dell

I think this is the Fujitsu

My dad hasn't gotten back to me yet. So I'm just going on what I remember from looking at the specs at the weekend - and I think these are fairly similar or else are the specs I was looking at.

Nukem

WillieDH wrote:

what model fujitsu - Amilo D7850s or 1845 ( widescreen ) are pretty good. personal experience

Amilo 1845 - looks the better buy in my view. That Dell looks dated and its got a sh!te gfx and the cpu aint all that either.The Fuji is the heaviest but by only .3kg(nothing) The HP has a Cele so id rate them.

Fuji 1.
HP 2.
Dell 3. These are all my opinion and not gospel.Wait for other views.

Hope this helps.

Nukem

tinkerbell

Thanks Nukem, I was going for the Fuji one as well, but my dad wanted second / third opinions Heh. I'm almost certain that the Fuji one is the one my dad was on about. I'll update more when I hear from him - been trying to ring but can't get through, so I'll keep ye posted

Infini

I fyour going to spend E1500 on a laptop I'd recomend a sony VAIO. They're damn good laptops in terms of performance.

tinkerbell

My dad's emailing on the specs of all machines today.

I just remembered, there was also a Sony Vaio on the list. Maybe it was the Vaio that was €1600. I'm kinda confused now It had a 100GB hard drive, pentium M.

So it's either this one

Or this Sony

Since they are all Pentium M, I still thought that the Fujitsu would be better, coz of the processor speed (considering my bro ain't getting it for mobility purposes asuch).

L1011

HP Tech Support: Useless. Completely and utterly useless.

Sony Tech Support: Sorry, what? They sell shiny toys. No real tech support - you're on yer own. Warranty = cash back, no repairs.

(Just to note, I'm typing this on a HP tc1100 and theres a Vaio R600 beside me...)

Fujitsu tech - never had to deal with them. My Scenic has been running 24/7 basically since I bought it with no hardware problems. However, it isn't running Windows...

Dell tech - OK. Opinions wildly differ on them; I've had no problems.

voxpop

I heard fujitsu's have dodgy hd

What about Toshiba laptops - Im on my second now and havnt had a problem with either

Saruman

All i can say about the fujitsu is i got 2 of them in a row for a customer that were faulty. The second was a replacement laptop needless to say the third was not a fujitsu. He went with Acer.. look at them maybe

Nukem

If you can get an Acer get one - i like tham,a bit on the heavy side though.

MADMAXX

IF you want a very good laptop for a very good price have a look at the Ei system laptop it is a great little mech and not 2 expencive stay well clear of dell {they have put commadore 64 parts into a shiney new box lol} . good luck

Saruman

Hey there is nothing wrong with Dell laptops! I have one and its class Got it in Sept 2003 and its still pretty good specs wise by todays standard!!
Its their desktops that are not the best and some people have problems with their service. (which i have never had to use )

tinkerbell

Okay, he has sent me on the specs of each machine, so I'll write 'em here along with the prices he was quoted. All prices are ex. VAT. A Dell was mentioned as well, but I have told him to avoid them as they are absolutely useless, tech support are even more useless, and their supervisors are even worse!

1. HP Pavilion 2058 Centrino 725, 512MB RAM, 40 GB HDD, DVD+RW Dual, WiFi, 10/100 Network Card, Modem, XP HOME, 15" XGA Screen (€ 990.00)
   
   Full spec: ze2058EA - I didn't guess this one right, so here's the actual one.
   
   
   
2. Sony VAIO FS115Z Centrino M740, 512MB RAM, 100GB HDD,
   DVD+/-RW Dual Layer, Modem, WiFi, 10/100 Network Card, Win XP HOME, 15.4 Wide XGA Screen (€ 1,620.00)
   
   Full spec: FS115Z - I had this one down in one of my earlier posts too.
   
   
   
3. Fujitsu Siemens Amilo D1845, P4 2Ghz, 512MB RAM, 60 GB HDD, DVD+RW, WiFi, Modem, 10/100 Network Card, 15.4" WXGA Screen, Win XP HOME (€ 1,199.00)
   
   Full spec: Amilo D1845 - looks like I was bang on with my guess on what model it was, yay!

So, what do you guys reckon? Which is better? I'm still going for the Fujitsu, coz of processor speed, P4, etc.

Thanks a million everyone

po0k

Toshiba - they're the Volkswagon of laptops. Built like tanks.

Terra

I'm sure you could get a better deal with Dell.

Have you looked at there other laptops.

Also remember a lot of them use the centrino processor which will be rated with less ghz but still be just as fast if not faster.


http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspn_9300?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspn_6000?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

tinkerbell

Dell is a no go. End of story!

There's no way I'm letting him get my brother a piece of crap like a Dell laptop. Sorry to be so blunt, but my bro's laptop is a Dell, and it has never worked from day one. It was even repaired and it still wouldn't work. After that, they refused to do anything else. The hd was faulty, the cd-rom was faulty, everything was faulty.

My laptop was got about a year later - it's a useless Dell as well. Touchpad doesn't work, the hard drive is faulty, the Windows install was desperate that they put on it, the fan is wonky, oh I could go on forever.

Tech support - did they help? No, they were absolutely useless. Had to talk to supervisors and everything, and even then, they couldn't help. Then they expect us to fork out money to replace parts for the heap of junk that they supplied us in the first place (which never worked originally). Oh I could rant and rant about Dell all day, but I have better things to be doing!

In short - Dell may have better deals, better specs for cheaper prices, but at the end of the day - they are putting in junk parts which will break. Two of my friends both got Dell laptops about a year ago. I told them not to, to go get anything but Dell, but they ignored me, bought the laptops, and within a day they were getting blue screens all over the place. I've never had any problem with Dell desktops, but as for their laptops, steer clear.

Nukem

Still say the Fujitsu is the better buy IMO.

Nukem

Mutant_Fruit

Remember, a P4 in a laptop is a BAD idea, unless you really want your battery to be eaten alive. P4's have no speedstep control, wheres Pentium M's are.

If you want a loud fan, and 80 mins of battery life, get a P4 laptop. If you want a quiet fan and 3+ hours of battery life, get a Pentium M.

(these figures are estimates from both my friends laptop and mine).

Nukem

Sony only has a battery life of 2hrs? and the Fuji has 1.5hrs but very valid point on the power consumption.But for that cash?

Nukem

Bard

The Vaio FS-115 should have a longer battery life than 2 hours, iirc ... Centrino (Pentium M) chips tend to have lower than normal power consumption.

Out of that lot I'd go for the Vaio.

But otherwise, I'd agree with Syxpak. I've gone for a Tosh twice and have been delighted each time - enough so to be hoping to get a Qosmio next time I upgrade.

Saruman

WTF??? I have a P4 3.06 GHZ in my Dell and i get between 3.5 and 5 hours EASY with it!! Depends on use... 3.5 if im watching movies but if just surfing the net etc can get almost 5 hours easy!

tinkerbell

Hey guys, we went for the Fujitsu one (the 3.3 GHz version). My bro got such a sweeeet PC, I'm so jealous!

Thanks for all your advice, twas very much appreciated