Buying a laptop

[shought]

I'm looking for a nice laptop that's not too expensive (<500 euro) and I have some very specific 'demands' (ordered by 'importantness' :P):

- Proper (preferably Dual Core) CPU.

- 2 GB or more DDR3 RAM

- a 15 inch screen, or larger. (14 would be acceptable, I guess)

- no Intel GMA 4500 (expecting to end up with an ATI HD4250)

- preferably a 7,200 rpm HD (least important, pretty unrealistic 'demand' as well)

I've already found the Acer Aspire 7551-P323G32MN which is 500 euro and it has these specs (so any suggestions should probably be better than this, I guess):

- AMD Athlon II P320 (Dual Core) @ 2.1 GHz, 1Mb L2 cache, 1066 MHz bus speed.

- 3 Gb DDR3 RAM (1x 2 Gb + 1x 1 GB)

- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 (on-board chip, shared memory)

- 320 Gb HD (5400 rpm)

- 17,3" TFT High Definition CineCrystal LED-backlit 16:9 aspect ratio, high brightness (200-nit), resolution: 1600x900

I also found the Compaq CQ62-a10SD which is 410 euro an really a great system, except for the CPU...:

- AMD V120 processor @ 2.2 GHz, 512 Kb L2 cache

- 2 Gb DDR3 (1 x 2048 Mb)

- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 (on-board chip, shared memory)

- 250 Gb HD (7200 rpm)

- 15,6" TFT HP BrightView LED-screen, resolution: 1366 x 768

If I could only remove the CPU from this laptop and put another one in it...

Edit: forgot to mention: I'll be using it for my study as well as at home. I do not need to play any games on it, but decent HD(720p) movie playback is something I'd like. Some image editing might also be done on it, but nothing that requires 'great' processing power.

So if you have any suggestions; shoot!

[Atasas]

Hmm both lappys already over powered for decently optimized systems to be satisfactory for your needs.

For gaming (the one, you dont need) console's is best option, but for normal computing, 1.6 CPU 1Gb RAM and HD Graphics Card is plenty.

[avmad]

Not sure where you are but you can save a lot of money here http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/dfh/Laptops/ct.aspx?refid=notebooks&s=dfh&cs=ukdfh1

I bought my xps here a couple of years ago and it seemed brand new. Saved £300 compared to the store price. :dance2:

Stuff comes and goes every hour.1/4 past I think ;) I watched for a week before finding what I wanted.

[shought]

Thanks, I'll have a look ;)

(And thanks for the insight as well, Atasas.)

[karachidude]

Good Luck shought ^_^

[bwop]

If you were in the USA, I'd say buy one from me.

My shop rebuilds laptops with the GPU overheating 'feature', fixes the 'design flaw' that makes them prone to overheating in the first place, and then sells them for a much lower price than new, even though it's now a better than new laptop.

Perhaps you can find a place locally that does that as well.

[shought]

If you were in the USA, I'd say buy one from me.

My shop rebuilds laptops with the GPU overheating 'feature', fixes the 'design flaw' that makes them prone to overheating in the first place, and then sells them for a much lower price than new, even though it's now a better than new laptop.

Perhaps you can find a place locally that does that as well.

With the exchange rate of the dollar vs euro nowadays I did consider buying from the USA, but I understand there can be a fair amount of taxes that I will have to pay, or am I wrong here?

Do you have a link to your website/shop or do you have some 'basic' system(s)? (Genuinely interested over here :))

[Bizarre™]

@shought:

We know you're a rich pimp, so just buy the most expensive

[shought]

@shought:

We know you're a rich pimp, so just buy the most expensive

Pimp, I am, not rich though :P

Thinking of going for this one, it is 440 euro:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02262933&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=au&product=4199774&lang=en

- Intel Celeron T3300 @ 2.0 GHz, 2 Mb L2 cache

- 3 GB DDR2 (1 x 1024 MB + 1 x 2048 MB)

- Intel HD Graphics (Intel 5700MHD, pretty nice Intel integrated card)

- 250 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive 7200 rpm

- 15.6" High-Definition LED HP BrightView Display (1366 x 768)

[Atasas]

@shought:

We know you're a rich pimp, so just buy the most expensive

Pimp, I am, not rich though :P

Thinking of going for this one, it is 440 euro:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c02262933&tmp_task=prodinfoCategory&lc=en&dlc=en&cc=au&product=4199774&lang=en

- Intel Celeron T3300 @ 2.0 GHz, 2 Mb L2 cache

- 3 GB DDR2 (1 x 1024 MB + 1 x 2048 MB)

- Intel HD Graphics (Intel 5700MHD, pretty nice Intel integrated card)

- 250 GB SATA Hard Disk Drive 7200 rpm

- 15.6" High-Definition LED HP BrightView Display (1366 x 768)

Is nice, battery "6-cell Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) battery" sound not to be able to be lasting too long... but else- looks very impressive (especially price)

[LeetPirate]

Buying a laptop with a semi strong gpu makes little sense in my book, it's either you want a good gpu or you want good battery life and decent performance. Going in between is wasting money, if you won't play games on the the laptop then forget ATI. The V120 fusion core is weak, it could match the performance of an Atom D510 or a Pentium D 2.6Ghz. No matter how much you like AMD/ATI you have to be realistic, they cannot build a good mobile platform as yet so stick with intel.

I suggest looking for something with their latest Pentium P6000 cpu/gpu. The P6000 is a 32nm core i3 dual core with hyperthreading disabled and comes with a gpu on the cpu. Somehow with all the advancements and fusion core that AMD built they still could only get 4 hours battery life max meanwhile intel is packing 12 hour battery life on similarly priced notebooks. From a technological standpoint the P6000 is the latest intel architecture based on westmere and it is 32nm dual core, and it is an i3 with HT disabled. Only reason I know all that right now is because earlier this week I ordered an Acer with the P6000 but then I remembered that a 15.6 inch notebook is really heavy to carry around all day so I cancelled that Acer and got this 13.3" ASUS UL30A-X5K instead. Of course I really really wished this ASUS had the new P6000 cpu but I could live with the SU7300 core 2 duo for now. Oh yea and the gpu that comes with the core i3 beats every other previous intel onboard gpu that came on the northbridge so you will get enough power to do alot.

The difference in performance between 5400rpm and 7200rpm is hardly noticeable because the drives are so dense that they come in less platters and you will hardly notice any performance boost from the extra rpm, plus the added heat is not worth it.

As for the laptop overheating issues the problem is they ship out from the factory with a piece of foil covering the thermal paste on the junction where the heatsink rests on the cpu and northbridge and gpu. So basically there is never any good contact between the chips and the heatsink, you have to remove the heatsink and get rid of the stupid foil paper then clean out the old thermal paste and replace it with some good paste but be careful because there is no steel casings on mobile cpu so use only non electrically conductive thermal paste. The best of the best is Arctic Cooling MX-3 but I use Arctic Cooling MX-2 because the benchmarks show only 1 degree less performance and MX-2 costs half as much as MX-3. That's all you really need to do just once as soon as you get the new laptop and you won't have to worry about heat issues for a long long time. MX-2 paste lasts for 6 to 8 years which is pretty legendary but I know you would monitor the temps so you know when is a good time to service the heatsink etc.

You could make a killing fixing heat problems on n00bs laptops, people do it all the time and thanks to hp and their magnificent design flaws you will never run out of business. ;)

[shought]

Thanks floppy, I'll look into that one :)

@Biz

So you would be suggesting something like this:

http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/259670/acer-travelmate-5740z-p602g25mn.html#tab:info

[Bizarre™]

@shought:

Bah. I won't suggest anything. I still prefer a Desktop PC :bag:

[bwop]

If you were in the USA, I'd say buy one from me.

My shop rebuilds laptops with the GPU overheating 'feature', fixes the 'design flaw' that makes them prone to overheating in the first place, and then sells them for a much lower price than new, even though it's now a better than new laptop.

Perhaps you can find a place locally that does that as well.

With the exchange rate of the dollar vs euro nowadays I did consider buying from the USA, but I understand there can be a fair amount of taxes that I will have to pay, or am I wrong here?

Do you have a link to your website/shop or do you have some 'basic' system(s)? (Genuinely interested over here :))

Hi. Sorry for the long delay in responding. We just opened up shop in June and have not gotten around yet to doing a website. It's in the plans at some point, but for now, nothing!

We mostly have systems that are from 1-3 years old that were in the mid to high range priced laptops. Our highest end one right now is a Gateway FX laptop with an Intel dual core 2.16ghz cpu, 4 gb ram, 2 500gb drives in a raid 0 configuration and for video it's got an Nvidia 8800 GTS. Seventeen inch screen as well.

We have a few HP DV9000's that are a pretty good deal too. I am not sure if I'm allowed to post prices on here, so if it's okay, I can and will do that. Otherwise, contact me with a PM if you want more details.

Oh, and I have no idea about taxes. My shop is in New Hampshire, which means no sales tax, but otherwise, I am utterly clueless!

[LeetPirate]

I recommend the Acer Aspire AS5741Z-5539 15.6-Inch. -_-

[shought]

Nice laptop, nice price, unfortunately they don't ship to the Netherlands and it's not for sale here :(