Advice for choosing laptop

noexpert

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Jul 20, 2007
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18,510
Hey guys

I have been thinking about possibly purchasing a laptop to do mainly work on and sure I'll be watching videos, so I won't need a laptop with a really powerful graphics chipset which will drive the cost over £500. Although something decent would be useful, I'm not too keen on intels GMA graphics as i havent read much good about them, though they seem to be in most laptops I have been looking at.

My maximum budget is £600 although these days laptops are cheap so i was thinking of something under £500 maybe.

A few questions...

What proccessor should i look to get as there seem to be various models within the likes of Core 2 Duo, AMD Turion, Pentium Dual Core or Celeron M.

Is the Celeron M a whole different class in performance comparing against the others (those laptops are very cheap)

Ok so let me get this Toshiba, Sony, Asus, HP and Dell are the manufacturers with good build quality but what about the likes of Acer.

Finally after looking around here is one I thought looks decent

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/ASUS_F3E_AP073C_F3E-AP073C/version.asp

What do you think of the Intel GMA X3100, i read i think it has shader model 3.0, what would it be capable of playing?

Like i said this isn't primarily for gaming, but the occasional sims2, adventure games and upcoming pro evo 2008, mainly those type quality games, as these games usually aren't as intense as shootem ups, how would it be for them. Realising this is intergrated intel graphics on a laptop, i don't expect much and so do you guys think i should spend less on a laptop.

So overall is this laptop a good deal if not any pointers?

I hope its not too many questions

Thanks
 
What proccessor should i look to get as there seem to be various models within the likes of Core 2 Duo, AMD Turion, Pentium Dual Core or Celeron M.

In order from best to worst in performance: Core2Duo> TurionX2/CoreDuo>Turion>CeleronM

Is the Celeron M a whole different class in performance comparing against the others (those laptops are very cheap)

It is cheap because it is old and not that good. Stay away from the single core laptops.

Ok so let me get this Toshiba, Sony, Asus, HP and Dell are the manufacturers with good build quality but what about the likes of Acer.

Dell, HP and Asus will probably be your best bets. Sony's look nice but tend to be overpriced. The Asus you linked wouldn't be bad, but with Vista, look for 2gbs of RAM.

The X3100 would be able to play some of the less intensive games. Sims would play, but I'm not sure what evo will be like. You may be able to find a system with a low-end 8400 that would be better.
 

noexpert

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Jul 20, 2007
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Ok thanks for the feedback

I don't mind stretching the budget a little over £500. Thing is you get a laptop and its something that isn't that upgradeable so overall I am looking for something with decent peformance all round that will last.

I won't go for a totally powerful laptop as it probably won't give much battery life. Also i can't see myself gaming on a laptop so i'll leave my desktop for proper gaming and light gaming on the laptop.

Here is one that seems pretty good.

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_F3Jp_Laptop_F3JP-AS113C/version-1.asp

What ya think?

Once again what do you make of the ATI Radeon X1700 supporting 512MB HyperMemory, what is it capable of?, is it better than the 8400? Should dx10 compatability be a deciding factor.

I read it isn't that bad but haven't been able to find enough info.
 
That would be a much better alternative. The X1700 is a little better than the 8400. No DX10 shouldn't be a deciding factor at this point since games won't DX10 only for a while. The 8400 probably isn't powerful enough to run DX10 all that well anyway.
 

noexpert

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Jul 20, 2007
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ok then well i have been looking around and this laptop seems to be my best option and so probably go with that.

the big question is how do you think it will handle those games i talked about.