Yet Another Laptop Thread

[Bobblehead]

Thare are some financial programs that can use the juice, especially if there is some financial modelling going on.

But that does indicate that a high end video card isn't a big concern.

In laptops you want to go with Intel. They have dominated this segment over AMD for quite some time.

Both those systems have 120GB hard drives. Does he need that much space? From a performance point of view, a 7200 rpm drive makes a noticeable difference so unless he needs that much I'd drop to a faster but smaller drive. The screen is WXGA so it will be 1280x800. That is pretty common, but what size is the screen he uses now? If he currently uses 1024x768 then he will love the extra space. If he uses a larger screen (1280x1024) then he may notice the screen is shorter. (In which case you would need to upgrade to the WXGA+, or higher)

I would tend to go with the 6400, given the choices you list, but as I mentioned, find out his real spending limit and build the machine up to that point. That is really the only way to build a machine with a minimum of regrets.

There are only a few things you can easily upgrade on a laptop, so try to get as much as you can up front.

[Red]

Whatever you do get the Intel chip. The AMDs run super hot and require more battery power to cool down. They are also slower.

I just bought 2 HP laptops, AMD Turion x64 and Intel Centrino and the Intel runs so much nicer. Same specs on both, but the Intel is not nearly as hot and it runs a lot smoother. The AMD made it's way back to the store the very next day.

I work with 3 brands of laptops, a Dell Latitude, IBM Thinkpad and now the HP. For the money I think the HP is great, just love the look and feel of it, the touchpad with scroll and tap, the webcam built in, the Altec Lansing speakers....the list goes on, great little laptop and Vista kicks some serious butt. You need 2G of ram to run it, but it is a great OS with some really great features built in. My wife is hooked on all the multimedia stuff on it and she is not a computer friendly person.

The Dell is nice and thin, but I don't like it. It looks cheap to me, wouldn't recommend it.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

In laptops you want to go with Intel. They have dominated this segment over AMD for quite some time.

Agreed. I was looking at that too, but was trying to think of how to word it without starting an "Intel vs AMD" war.

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I would tend to go with the 6400, given the choices you list, but as I mentioned, find out his real spending limit and build the machine up to that point. That is really the only way to build a machine with a minimum of regrets.

Once again a good point. Upgrading a PC is pretty easy. Upgrading a laptop is whole other animal.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Agreed. I was looking at that too, but was trying to think of how to word it without starting an "Intel vs AMD" war.

I replaced a LCD panel on a Thinkpad once (A20m). I was given 2 "broken" laptops, one with a motherboard failure, the other with a screen that was cracked. I never did get the keyboard to sit quite as nice, but I was successful in creating one "good" laptop.

And I am an AMD fan, but in the laptop area since the Pentium M came out Intel has kicked the crap out of AMD. And the Intel's Core 2 Duo has been laying to boots to AMD since it was released. AMD's XP processor line was king of the desktop hill for a few years, but was almost like they took a slapshot at Intel at the end of a period, and now Intel is taking it to them where it counts.

[photon]

Totally agree with the Intel stuff.. had to work hard to convince may dad to avoid a very well priced HP AMD laptop and wait for an Intel one.