- Nov 12, 2009
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Well try to remember that Gateway is a division of Acer along with eMachines and Packard-Bell. Acer might have a larger profile there because they are a huge laptop maker but you might be able to find Packard-Bell or eMachines there as well. As I always say, laptops are like people and are all the same under the skin. It doesn't matter if it's Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Dell, etc. as long as it has the specifications you're looking for, in this case, an A6 or A8-series AMD APU. As for the market for Llano expanding, absolutely! Llano has become the darling of OEM manufacturers everywhere because of its simplicity to manufacture coming from the fact that the CPU and GPU are all in one chip. I chose the one I did because it's the most common size. I'm certain that 15" Llano-based laptops are also available.
Well of course, that is very true. The problem is that this is ALWAYS true. There is always something new around the corner and so all that you can do is wait as long as you can and get what's best on the day that you buy. If we are constantly waiting for the next big thing then we'll never end up getting anything. A good example is my desktop. I bought the first model of Phenom II X4 that came out, the Phenom II X4 940. Now, I knew that 6 months later, the AM3 CPUs would be out that would use DDR3 RAM but I needed something right away. My Phenom II doesn't support DDR3 but after using a friend's machine with the 955 and DDR3 RAM, I realised that there is not an appreciable difference between his computer and mine. The differences between CPUs in the same family tends to be very slight because hardware has completely outpaced software and pretty much all modern computers are able to handle the computational requirements of all programs on the market. As you saw, the A6 will run Starcraft II with no problems which means that anything weaker than that (pretty much anything that isn't gaming) will be an absolute breeze.
If your photos are 6-15MB each then they are very high resolution but that's not an issue here because that laptop has a 500GB hard drive which actually translates into 488GB. That means 488,000MB which also means over 30,000 15MB pictures. I don't think you're going to have a storage issue here. In fact, I think you're most likely going to have at least 100GB free at any given time. Llano-based laptops also have a HDMI output which will allow you to plug into a 52" HDTV and allow you to do the photo work on a grand scale.
The biggest reason a company would have all-Dell computers is that Dell gave them a good deal. Their internal parts are no different from anyone else's because they don't manufacture CPUs, motherboards, hard drives, RAM, DVD drives, power supplies, etc. They just assemble them and put their name on them. Having said that, if they are acolytes of Dell, then let them get Dell. The Vostro 3450 looks like a fine machine that will do all he needs without being overly expensive so if he gets that one, it's not a real problem. I was thinking only of the battery life which would be relevant to his travels as it's not always easy to find a place (or the time) to plug in your laptop to recharge it when you're on the run. If he wants the Dell, let him get the Dell. The Dell is not by any means a bad machine, far from it. I just base my recommendations on the absolute best value for what you need it to do. In this particular case, the biggest advantage that the Llano brings is the battery life because your computational needs and graphics requirements are not tremendously high. Non-moving 2D photographs are a snap for even my primitive eMachines laptop with the ATI Radeon X1200 GPU. The Llano A6 could handle them while lying in a sofa eating grapes and watching TV, so to speak. Get the Dell for your husband (just to make him happy) and let him see what your laptop can do as well. He may well get pig-headed about getting his own AMD Trinity laptop a year or two down the road.
/www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/toshiba-satellite-l755d-12l-15-6-laptop-red-10732329-pdt.html
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