THE Laptop Thread: Configs, deals and questions.

[khanak]

check out the new sony vaio sz laptop.......very very good looking machine.....nd if ur rich get the carbon fibre version which has a razor thin screen.......btw wht college are u going to

[furioussphinx]

Well no idea about which college i mite end up in......depends on the rank i secure in all the xams that i wrote.

How much does this Sony vaio SZ cost? and whats the difference b/w the normal and the CF?

[devarshi84]

Originally Posted by furioussphinx

Hello everyone, i have passed my 12th (finally!!!), am i am moving to college, now since i need to be in touch with my parents(just an excuse), i am buying a notebook next month. now there are soo many around in the market that i dont know which one to choose, so i need ur help. These are the features :

Keep one thing in mind, i am gonna work with graphics and stuff soon (3d designin and stuff)

1. Very small portable and very light, the lightest in the catagory, i guess the "small" factor kills the widescreens in my case.
2. Very Good lookin (Luv the Ferrari)
3. Amazing top end performance, no idea again.
4. 80GB or above Hard disk, and minimum 512MB RAM
5. Will think and tell....

P.S : My friend suggested to go for "Alienware" branded notebook....

So plz help me.

acer ferrari 4002 was available at tigerdirect.com for $1499. check if the offer is still available.

4005 is also cheaper and 4006 comes with turion 2.2ghz.

FOr a cheaper counterpart look at abs mayhem G3 eclipse. comes with turion MT (25watts) and ati x700

[Zappo]

I do not know why you are such a sucker for looks. Probably its your age... believe me if you look from a practical point of view, when you will start working with 3D designing and other graphic intensive work the only thing that will matter to you will be how many BHPs are there under the hood.

If you are going to US by any chance do check out the options. They can be unbeatable. In fact sites like Dell let you configure your own machine. I can't suggest brands but can tell you that you should look for machines that sport a minimum of 80gb hard-disk with a capability to hook up external devices (has 3-4 USB ports). Should have DDR2 RAM (not the regular DDR1). For your requirement 512 won't be sufficient. You need at least 1 gb. A duo-core kind of processor, 64-bit processing capability, will be a big help. Ensure that you have a very good graphics card (not those built-in types, like those from Intel) and the memory for this is not shared (in other words, has a dedicated memory for video). Also check the FSB of the board that is being used... 833mhz is the minimu start (and can prove rock-bottom sooner than later for your application).

[furioussphinx]

Thanx Zappo, ok now dont just hit on that "LOOK" factor, its just primary, all i meant was that i dont a bulky fat lukin one. Some laptops do look indecent and dirty, thats why, luks not a big point, but yea i dont wanna compromise in terms of weight and size though!!!

Ok yea 1GB is required i know, but that is gonna burn a hole in my pocket for sure.....well my dad's to be precise. And Dell makes Notebooks custom,neva heard, but cant get one from US though , only Kuwait and Indian markets are my 2 options. The graphics, i wanna stivk to only GeForce. HHD is not such a big issue 80 GB will do, coz anyways am gonna buy a lot external HDD. Regarding the USB ports, yes i have that in my mind as well. Minimum of 3 and a card reader will be helpful too with built in bluetooth but not a major priorty though coz i have a bluetooth hardware and a card reader and yes i have a USB Hub,i.e, a USB cable which has 4 extra ports on the othr end so can plug in 4 devices into one. Aint it cool? Could get more too.

BTW aint Dell and Lenovo expensive??? I actually preferred Sony and Acer. Toshiba heats up fast and HP , dont even think about it!!!

Guys has anybudy ever heard of Alienware laptops, just chck em and please tell me how they are.

[furioussphinx]

Hey why doesnt anybody check out the "Alienware" goodies???

Zappo, as u said, i have chalked down Intel Core Duo, but these are also available, which one do u recommend?

1. Intel® Pentium® M (370-780)
2. AMD Athlon™ 64 with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology(FX-60, X2 4200+ to 4800+)
3. Intel® Celeron M(370-780) Processor
4. Intel® Pentium® 4 (630-670) Desktop Processor w/ HT Technology 800MHz FSB 2MB.............These P4 Desktop Processors have the greatest MHz and GHz compared to all the other Processors!!!! MAX : 3.0 to 3.8 GHz
5. Intel® Pentium® M (730-780) and the Celeron M370
6. AMD Opteron™
7. Intel Core Duo

Some Basic Questions:
1. What is the optimum GHz to be taken???
2. What is a Cache? (L2 Cache)
3. What is the optimum MHz??? Zappo told 8xx, but here many have 533.
4. What is the optimum Warranty to be taken?
5. NVidia® GeForce™, but which 256MB or higher?.....There is even the ATI Mobility™ Radeon®, and its much more expensive than the GeForce....but i guess GeForce is the ultimate...what say?

Please answer all questions
9.

[Dud_Dodo]

Originally Posted by devarshi84

ROTF........LMAO

Are you sure u worked for Dell for 5 years???? I doubt that.

NO, I've not WORKED for Dell for 5 years, but rather STILL DO. I'm still with Dell.

With regards to Dell sourcing out Manufacturing to Quanta etc, This seriosuly is news to me & I will check that out.

With regards to custom built laptops taking 1 month.. in which age dude?? When I ordered mine it took 15 days for me to receive it. The Laptop was shipped from Malaysia within 2 days of being ordered. It was sitting with customs for clearance at Chennai for 10 days.

Since you are in Canada, call 1-800-387-5752 & check with Sales they'll tell you how long it'll take as well as other details like Dell systems always being custom built & that we never ever (at Dell) stock systems with generic specs. You may get generic systems on other Sales channels like Aliant selling Dell systems that they order in Bulk from us for the specs that are most commonly sold. Aliant is just registered as a customer with us & shows up a huge list of order #'s under the same customer # on our tools.

FYI.. Dell ships new orders, Next Business Day in US. Obviously it does get delayed most of the times due to several reasons like logistics etc. But If a cust asks for NBD Air Ship, they'll receive it within a max of 2 to 3 days.

Check this out..
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/topi...us&l=en&s=corp

Not much on that link there. 'm looking for more links that I can share without breaching any policies. I have a power point presentation that I can share, but dunno how to load that.

Notebook Durability Study by VeriTest
In a recent study commissioned by Dell, VeriTest pitted the DellTM LatitudeTM D610 against some of its competitors, and the D610 really performed!

http://www.dell.com/html/us/products.../veritest.html

Watch PC World Put Dell Notebooks to the Test
PC World's rigorous testing - including tableside drops and coffee spills - demonstrates the durability of each and every one of our notebooks. Take a look at PC World's testing video to see how Dell notebooks hold up to the rigors of daily life.

http://www.dell.com/html/us/products/latitude/test.html

[Fuelled]

Not an expert. But will stil try n ans some questions.

Ghz funda is jst a myth. n rarely has much to do with performance.
But stil that is the de fact standard used
So i'd reccomend a 1.7ghz or greater in the centrino duo.
2ghz for the normal centrino.
P4 look for 2.66 or more
Amd athlon 64/turion look for 3000+

Opteron is a server orinted processor, Celeron and Sempron are value procesors, so wont give a lot of power.

Cache memory is on the processor itself, It handles the data used most fequently.. So that the Ram needn't be used each time the processor needs data. Though Intel and Amd dont use similar amounts. But Athlon/Turion and Centrino are good performers in their own rights

Ram speed 533/400/833 are deciding factors in data access speed.
Go for DDR2 as its newer. 533 is the most u'l need and in any case i havent seen laptops yet supporting 833 mhz. But in case u have choice b/w DDR1 400 and DDR2 400 go for DDR1 as it'l be faster

Optimum warranty is upto u dude. BUt 2 years is a good start.

Graphics card are more than jst about the memory u have.
Like for eg take ATI's x300 256mb vs X600 128mb. Then go for x600 as it has a faster processor, ram, etc etc

Regards my experience, then avoid Sony like plague, too costly for the performance on offer.

Alienware is a company soley dedicated to gaming. Very expensive.. but worth it. BUt service in India is very suspect.

PS: since u say u have high graphic requirements u need a beast of a Graphics card. So focus on Ram(large as possible), HD(7200 rpm minimum),
and a powerful processor + obviuosly a fast graphics card.

Cant say about the processor model as u havent mentioned everyones speed in ghz, post that too n then i'l give u a better idea.

But as a rule desktop processors have more power but they hog battery life

Cheers.

Courtsey "Fuelled's Gyan Pitara"

[devarshi84]

Originally Posted by furioussphinx

Hey why doesnt anybody check out the "Alienware" goodies???

Zappo, as u said, i have chalked down Intel Core Duo, but these are also available, which one do u recommend?

1. Intel® Pentium® M (370-780)
2. AMD Athlon™ 64 with HyperTransport and Dual Core Technology(FX-60, X2 4200+ to 4800+)
3. Intel® Celeron M(370-780) Processor
4. Intel® Pentium® 4 (630-670) Desktop Processor w/ HT Technology 800MHz FSB 2MB.............These P4 Desktop Processors have the greatest MHz and GHz compared to all the other Processors!!!! MAX : 3.0 to 3.8 GHz
5. Intel® Pentium® M (730-780) and the Celeron M370
6. AMD Opteron™
7. Intel Core Duo

Some Basic Questions:
1. What is the optimum GHz to be taken???
2. What is a Cache? (L2 Cache)
3. What is the optimum MHz??? Zappo told 8xx, but here many have 533.
4. What is the optimum Warranty to be taken?
5. NVidia® GeForce™, but which 256MB or higher?.....There is even the ATI Mobility™ Radeon®, and its much more expensive than the GeForce....but i guess GeForce is the ultimate...what say?

Please answer all questions
9.

alienware systems are good but not recommended if u need to use it in India. It will be more than a headache to get them. look good but same models are available with www.pctorque.com ( resellers for sager and administrators for www.notebookforums.com )

Intel pentium M( many know as centrino processor) is good but now completely outdated. Intel core duo is nothin but two pentium M cores joined togather. Many say intel is better performer per clock compared to Turion but turion beats centrino is price per performance. 64-bit which is a compulsary necessity for windows vista to run is supported by turion but not centrino or core duo(yonah). And additional plus is the hypertransport with turion while intel is still using the crippled FSB technology. core solo is just a updated pentium M.

amd athlon or athlon x2 are desktop cpu's . My R4000 is running on socket 939 amd athlon 4000+ desktop cpu and believe me they are heavy and ugly.
The current performance king is the 19" amd lappie available with sli nvidia or ati crossfire dual gpu. second is the 9750 which is again bulky 17".

Many unknown people will say that celeron M sucks but the truth is that celeron is based on the pentim M itself with lesser 1mb l2 cache and lack of speedstepping technology. Much cheaper than pentium M's and certainly worth a buy intead of pentium M. battery life wont be the same if u are carrying it in standby but from start to finish u wont notice much diff between the pentium M and celeron. performance takes a beating due to lesser L2 cache but u can get the highest clock speed cpu which will satisfy what you need at half the centrino's price. and anyways in a graphics intensive application its the gpu that does 90% of the work and not the cpu.

pentium 4's with 64bit extensions only gain the 64-bit extensions along with 2 mb l2 cache instead of the older 1mb. the longer pipelines cripple the performance a lot and the performance by clock sucks. Cpu's are expensive and laptops carrying these are less in option and bulky. look at the asus 15.4 with nvidia 6800 (asus z81sp) or sager 9890(alienware,voodoo, abspc, hypersonic-pc etc options available too). They get too hot and certainly not equivalent to Amd desktop counterparts or intel and amd mobile counterparts. not at all recommended. I didnt believe this when I was a noob but a 2ghz turion or intel pentium M can beat a 3.8ghz pentium 4 easily. this is due to the longer pipelines and low l1 cache.

amd opteron is a server cpu and hence not in consideration here. But fyi it beats intel xeon which is in direct competition in all the tests by huge margins.

core duo is covered in along with pentium M.

If u are not in a hurry then wait just for 3 months. turion x2 dual core and intel merom which is a real dual core are about to be launced. both are 64-bit. Merom will supposedly have 4mb l2 cache while turion will have 2000mhz fsb along with 2mbl2 cache and lower wattage. Both will be manufactured with 65nm technology.


there is not specific ghz clock count that affects performance in each cpu.

In pentium M u should atleast go for 1.86 (wont run xp64 and windows vista 64-bit)
intel yonah 1.83 is enough for your work

amd turion doesnt have a comparable cpu but 1.8 is slower while 2.0 is faster. 1.8 will do the job but 2.0 is recommended which is cheaper than intel mobile cpu's

celeron m430 is the top of the line cpu from intel and is prices lower than both turion and pentium M.

a cpu has 2 kinds of cache memory or Random access memory for the cpu. L1 is the instructions cahce while l2 cache is data cache.


here by mhz you probably mean the fsb speed. Intel uses the front side bus or fsb technology for this which is obsolete. their highest cpu the extreme edition desktop cpu runs at 1.66mhz. p-4's with 64-bit set run at 800. new pentium M yonah cpu's run at 667mhz while older sonoma and dothan run at 533mhz and 400mhz respectively. Amd uses a new and better technology called hypertransport which uses the FSB to full effect. The amd mobile cpu's run at 1600mhz while the desktop counterparts run at 2000mhz.

dont go for extended warranty unless you have money to be spent. I had a 1year warranty which has expired. Hp mailed me an extended offer recently which I didnt take up as I dont find much value at $200.


nvidia is not good for notebooks as it takes up more power than ati. But nvidia performs better too. look at the ati x700 or x1400,x1600 or x1800. x1400 will be just about suffice. x1600 will do better. X700 is enough while x1800 will blast everything out of water.

If u still want to go for nvidia then look at nvidia 6600 or nvidia 7800 or nvidia 7600.

[devarshi84]

I had actually ordered a dell inspiron 9300 on december 17th in USA fully loaded

1.86 cpu
media center OS
remote control
17 wuxga
1gig Ram
100gb 5400 Hdd
wireless b/g with bluetooth
combo drive
6cell battery
nvidia 6800 gpu

$1255 Shipped

with $750 off coupon and a $50 further off in christmas savings. cancelled it coz my R4000 arrived back from its trip to India.

the ship date was february 10th considering the christmas promotion load.

at the same time 10 days before my friends ordered some fully loaded inspirong 6000 with free printers for $1100. It took exactly 28 days.

my own compaq R4000 from hp took 26 days to reach.

inspiron 6000 shipping was in Canada while 9300 and R4000 was in US.

maybe now Dell keeps some whitebooks ready to ship as soon as orders are received considering they ship millions every year.

about your durability tests I wont buy it coz there are also similar studies posted on Hp website too.

dont forget that all these are made in the same factories and hence quality control will be the same.

[navin]

If you fear all this rocket science (like I do) just get yourself an IBM. Lenovo makes them and sells them but the R, T and X series machines still have IBM design. If these machines evr go out of production I'd switch to Apple.

I have not been happy with Toshiba, Sony, or HP/COmpaq and have not dared to try Acer etc.

[devarshi84]

IBM machines are good. They are better built and lightweight too. We have an old IBM p-3 lying in the house around. Pretty well built.

But IBM machines look bland and certainly not for youngsters.

look at acer and asus. they make good looking lightweight laptops. Asus is among the best notebooks around.

[sharathjeppu]

Originally Posted by devarshi84

IBM machines are good. They are better built and lightweight too. We have an old IBM p-3 lying in the house around. Pretty well built.

But IBM machines look bland and certainly not for youngsters.

look at acer and asus. they make good looking lightweight laptops. Asus is among the best notebooks around.

Certainly Agree. For small and light notebooks, one could look at the X Series which is without the built in CD/DVD drive or the floppy drive. Has a small screen but extremly light and reliable. I especially like the system update features that the thinkpads give which makes it pretty painless.

[devarshi84]

look asus z70va refresh and asus z71v

first one is pentium M with carbon fiber chassis and x700 128mb

second one is pentium M with 15.4 wsxga screen with auto brightness control. Gpu is nvidia 6600 128mb.

will cost you $1400-$1600 depending on the config. Maybe me a bit more in India.

[gkrishn]

Originally Posted by devarshi84

Intel core duo is nothin but two pentium M cores joined togather.

That's rubbish. Not true at all...

If you fear all this rocket science (like I do) just get yourself an IBM. Lenovo makes them and sells them but the R, T and X series machines still have IBM design. If these machines evr go out of production I'd switch to Apple.

Yes, i can vouch for Think pad. Used T40p for 2 and 1/2 years and now using T43 for past few months.
But I guess T43 is product of lenovo. I am suspecting few quality issues with it. Where as T40p was rock solid, except for occasional xp crashes.

1. Very small portable and very light, the lightest in the catagory, i guess the "small" factor kills the widescreens in my case.
...
3. Amazing top end performance, no idea again.

Well, i dont think these 2 points can go with each other. A top end performance oriented laptop will not light or small. Also give some thought about the power consumption and heat generated. Also do give your thought about how mobile you want to be.