ibuypower/abs/acer/hp/dell... which do i choose?

[huypher]

hello there! this is my first post! anyways, i've been wasting a lot of time looking for a notebook for myself (that will replace my old desktop as well performing laptop duties) and i've narrowed it down to 4 options below...

here are my needs:
- normal internet use
- casual gaming (i play some wolfenstein and neverwinter nights right now... but a game in the future might get my interest)
- dvd burning and movie making from a DV camcorder
- photos
- wifi
- a comp that will last a LONG time- this is a big purchase for me and i don't see myself getting another computer for at least 4 more years. so dependability AND specs that will stay relevent as long as possible are important to me.

out of the options below i really like how the acer looks and all the little extras it has (plenty of ports, a cool ferrari optical mouse...) but i'm worried about it being very easy to scratch and damage (as i've read on these forums). the ibuypower also looks nice and is the lightest out of my options, but i've been unable to find anybody that has one and that has reviewed it. the HP is just cheap and the ABS appeals to me because of its specs and looks... but it is also stretching my wallet very thin (i'd like the price to be under $1800) and has low battery life like the ferrari. the dell is a happy medium, doesn't look too good but is also the 2nd lightest and has good battery life.

So any thoughts to help me out? also if you have any alternatives to these... please tell me!

thanks! and this is a great forum!


ibuypower battalion 101e- METALLIC GREEN!

15.0" SXGA TFT LCD 1400X1050 Display
64MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro 256-bit 3D Video
Intel® Centrino™ 1.6Ghz Mobile CPU
512MB DDR-333 PC2700 Memory
60GB 5400rpm Slim Hard Disk Drive
4x DVD+r/rw & 16x CD-RW Combo drive
Intel® 855 GM Chipset
10/100Mbps LAN & 56K V.90 Fax-Modem
Li-Ion Battery Up to 5-Hour Battery Life
2-Spindle high Performance Design
3x USB 2.0 and 1x Firewire IEEE-1394 Ports
3-in-1 Build-in Media Card Reader
Wireless 802.11g 54Mbps Network
6.1 pounds

$1733


ABS Mayhem

Travel Weight: 7.85lbs
15.4" WXGA 1280x800 TFT Display
512MB DDR SDRAM
80GB Hard Drive
Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 2.8GHz 800MHz FSB w/HT Technology
Internal DVDRW 4x24x12x24x8
Multimedia Card Reader
ATI Mobile Radeon 9600 w/128MB graphic memory
S-Video TV-out
Integrated 802.11g/b Dual Band Wireless
56K V.92 Modem & 10/100 LAN
1 Firewire port & 3 USB 2.0 High-Speed Ports

$1824

Acer Ferrari 3000

Mobile AMD Athlon™ XP-M 2500+
Memory 512MB ddr 333mhz sdram
Hard drive 60GB 4200
Optical drive DVD-Dual (DVD+/-RW)
TFT Display 15.0" SXGA+
Graphics 128MB DDR ATI® MOBILITY™ RADEON™ 9200
Connectivity 802.11g WLAN, Bluetooth™, 10/100 LAN, V.92 modem
Four USB 2.0, parallel, DC in, RJ-11 modem, RJ-45 LAN, VGA, S-video TV out, microphone in, stereo headphone out, FireWire® (IEEE 1394), FIR (fast infrared)

$1749


Dell Inspiron 8600

PentiumM 1.7 Ghz 400mhz front side bus
15.4 inch WSXGA+
512 MB 333 Mhz Ram
64MB NVIDIA® GeForceTM FX
4x CD/DVD burner (DVD+RW/+R)
60GB Ultra ATA Hard Drive
Intel® PRO/Wireless 2100 WLAN (802.11b, 11Mbps) miniPCI Card
2 USB, 1 firewire, infrared, s-video
6.9 pounds

$1,768

HP ze5600

Intel(R) Mobile Pentium(R) 4 3.06 GHz 533mhz fsb
Memory 512MB DDR SDRAM (2x256MB)
60 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
Drive 4X DVD+RW/R & CD-RW Combo Drive
Communication 54g(TM) Integrated Broadcom 802.11b/g Wireless LAN
15.0" TFT SXGA+ (1400 x 1050)
Graphics Card ATI Mobility Radeon(TM)
3 USB ports, 1 firewire
7.5 pounds

$1,623

[Enderet]

The IbuyPower you are looking at has been reviewed at least twice....

There are other places where you can buy it. You will find the reviews under.... Aopen 1557 I believe... overall a very good notebook.

[Enderet]

Review (http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=13159)

Review (http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=13989)

:cheers:

You can find another review of the notebook on Mobile PC Magazine, but it however is on a the same model, without the 9600. In short... they liked it a lot except for the fact that it lacked a gpu. This of course is now fixed.

[huypher]

thanks for that 1557 tip... i didn't know it had a different name... thanks!

do you have any recommendations out of the choices i have?

[Enderet]

Well...since you want for it to last you at least 4 years... I would say go with the most powerful notebook you can get. You didnt mention anything specific regarding battery life... so in that aspect I dont really know what you are looking for. From large desktop replacements you can not expect very good battery life.

In terms of your videogaming... its really hard to say. 4 years from now the games of today are going to be way behind. I can not start to imagine all of the changes that PCI-Express is going to bring. To be on the safe side I would say to go with a notebook that has at least 128 mb of vid ram. While the games you cited would run perfectly in a 64 mb Radeon 9600... 4 years from now the 9600 is going to be a very bad contender.

While I would recommend waiting a couple of more months as there will be some changes... mainly new socket for Prescott, as well as the arrival of Dothan, and PCI-Express, I imagine you being much better prepared for 4 years in terms of upgradability by waiting.

However maybe you do not have much time to wait...

BTW what are your main priorities for your laptop? I speak of things such as weight, size, battery, power, etc.

And... just in case you had not seen it.. Ferrari Review (http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=12833)

[webweaver]

You may want to consider the Asus M6N. I've compared it to the Wistron (AOpen 1557, ZForce2, etc) and feel it's a step up in build quiality. I really like mine.

Disclaimer: yes I do resell the Asus (and the Wistron as well), but you can find plenty of comments from others in this review (http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=13838)

[XSternMinator]

Hm, I didn't know the M6N is available in the US now. Thought it was gonna be a while.

Will you be using the laptop as a desktop replacement? i.e. frequent traveling or no? Is battery life important?

I take it from your question you'd like weight and battery life, hence I am going to recommend the Gateway M505XL. It is a great laptop for DV and comes with DVD-RW. I believe you can get one for $1799.

Second on my list would be the AOpen 1557G.

I wouldn't buy the Dell due to lackluster support and questionable build quality.

I suggest you look in the Gateway forum as well.

[webweaver]

Hm, I didn't know the M6N is available in the US now. Thought it was gonna be a while.

The 15.1" SXGA+ and 15.4" WXGA are presently available in the US. Still no word on the 15.4" WXGA+.

I checked out the Gateways myself at the local Country store and they were some nice machines. By the time I configured to taste, however, they were weighing in at over 2 grand.

[XSternMinator]

Take out the ESP, you can live without it.

That should shave off a good $200.

To my knowledge, the M505s come in only 2 models, the X and XL. Both are preconfigured and you can't do much to them with the exception of Extended Service Plan, and mouse/kb/speakers etc...

X is $1599, and XL is $1799

[huypher]

thanks for the tips! i checked out the gateway and it was really nice... although with a 1 year warranty and a wifi upgrade to g made it over $1,900... the asus is a really nice option too! but it is kinda $$$ especially if i have to spend more money on an OS (the guy in the review said the computer didn't come with one).

i'm really just looking for the best value... the lighter, longer lasting the battery and faster it is... the better. battery life isn't a must though, since i think very rarely will i be out using my computer more than 2 hours without a power socket.

While I would recommend waiting a couple of more months as there will be some changes... mainly new socket for Prescott, as well as the arrival of Dothan, and PCI-Express, I imagine you being much better prepared for 4 years in terms of upgradability by waiting

i have no idea what all of these things are... why are these things so worthwhile?

[Teegunn]

For the price range you are looking in it will be very hard to find a machine that will be good for 4 years. I do believe in getting a top-end vid card (i.e. ATI 9600 128 MB) as this is the single most important component for keeping up with gaming. I would also suggest the PM centrino processor also. Almost as fast as the P4's with 3 times the battery life. Also, if you want this to be good for 4 years don't skimp. RAM is very important also, but you can easily upgrade that. I have been hem-hawing on the HP nc8000 as it has the latest components available at this time (well at least for the next couple of months) and should be able to play games well for a couple of years. But you are looking at well over $2000 for an nc8000. Bottom line is that anything that is "cutting edge" technology will lighten your pocketbook a lot. And at the rate new technology is coming out lately it is hard to have a notebook that is really decent for more than 2 years. Cutting edge doesn't stay that way for long! :mad:

[Enderet]

mmm I have to run off to class right now... but if I get back and nobody has told you what all of these things are I will write up something and post some links. But someone will probably be here before I do...

[acurarsx]

eMachines and the M6807 (http://emachines.com/products/products.html?prod=eMachines_M6807) . If you want your notebook to last four years and stay decently up-to-date, you'll probably want to get a 64-bit processor (which this has). It also has a 15.4" WXGA, 512MB of PC2700, 60GB HD (although it's 4200rpm.. you might want to create a few partitions), DVD+/-RW, internal 802.11g, 6-in-1 memory card reader, ~2.5-3.5 hours of battery life.. all for $1649 before the $100 rebate. :love: They should have one of these puppies at your local Best Buy (not mine though.. I'm from Canada, eh)

I'm not sure where eMachines is going to be in a while.. Gateway has bought them out, but they have a contract with Intel to only use their processors. Hopefully they keep eMachines around to circumvent that contract, and keep coming out with AMD64's.

I'm going to hold off a bit and see if they'll put a 128MB MR9600 and at least a 5400 HD in a similar model. If eMachines is about to go under, however, I would buy one tomorrow, for sure.

[Enderet]

Ok im back... in regards to Dothan ... Dothan is the new version of the Pentium-M. Why should you be excited about Dothan or consider waiting for Dothan?

Well first of all you want this notebook to last you 4 years. Dothan will be the newest thing on the block and you will be able to upgrade. I dont want to say it is the same thing as the current P-M, since I dont really know its specifics, but one thing that is going to change is the amount of cache it has. 2MB of cache, while the current Pentium-M has 1mb. Some people might say this wont make a big difference blah blah blah.... some people said the same thing about the current Pentium-M and look at what great of a performer it is.

When I mentioned the new socket for Prescott... I said it with upgradability in mind. The new socket that is going to come out, I dont remember the name (its just numbers) will be upgradable to high GHz. So... if you buy a 3.2 prescott now (which runs slower than a P4C) with the new socket... you will be able to upgrade probably to 4GHz if not more. All of this I said, keeping in mind that you want it to last you 4 years. Oh... well I dont know how much you know about processors and so forth... or even if you know what PreScott is... so just in case... it is the new version of the Pentium 4. Here (http://www.anandtech.com/cpu/showdoc.html?i=1956) is a link to some info on PreScott and what I am talking about.

Ok so now we get to PCI-Express. All I have to say about it is that it will impact PCs in a big way. Much more than anything that we have seen in the last few years. Here (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0%2C3973%2C522663%2C00.asp) is a good and long article on PCI-Express.

Hope this helps... you have lots of reading to do. :cheers:

[chemicalali]

go for the dell 9100 if u dont mind the weight, size, and its looks. almost same as the XPS except u can configure it to around $1900, with the new ATI 9700, p4 3, 512 ram, dvd+r. best deal around i would say.
as for it lasting 4 yrs, it depends on the individual. i bought a compaq p2 383, 64 ram, ati rage 8mb, dvd rom in '99. it was one of the better ones at that time. by '02 it became unbearable for me to keep the comp. it took me almost a year to buy the dell 8600 as i kept waiting for new tech. that was around the corner. however, the person i gave the old compaq to finds it quite satisfactory for his needs.
about playing future games, im pretty sure HL2 and doom will catch ur fancy. the ATI 9700 should be able to blaze through them. :awdance:

[Enderet]

the ATI 9700 should be able to blaze through them. :awdance:

I along with several others will probably differ in opinion in regards to this. Doom3 might now be out till the end of the year... by that time the newest and the best will leave the 9700 way behind. If by blaze you mean highest settings with the nice resolutions 1024 x 768 (being the lowest) and up? Because if so... forget it. :cheers:

[huypher]

lil update to my thread...

thanks for the all the help everyone. in the end i bought a laptop that i hadn't even been considering:

an apple powerbook 12" 1.33 G4 526 mb ram, 60 gig HD, combo drive... after looking at what i really needed from a laptop i thought the most important feature that would help me get the most from my purchase was the actual portability of the notebook itself. after all the more places i can take the notebook comfortably the more i'll be inclined to use it. so i totally went away from the more powerful midsized notebooks and started looking at the light sized computers with high battery life, yet with decent specs of course.

my options were for light notebooks were all 12" from sony, fujitsu(acutally 13"), ibm and dell.

after customizing the sony and ibm to the way i wanted it... the price was WAY too much... and actually the compact dell was more expensive than the fujitsu and the apple...

well i'll write a review up for my apple later for the forums... but in the end my powerbook for $1490ish was just too sweet a deal to pass up.

thanks for all the help guys!

[grahamisded]

well that's quite a different animal from what you were looking at before. nonetheless such a small, powerful computer has alot of appeal.
i'd probably still have gone with the fujitsu p series.
oh yeah - buy this bag. (http://www.booqbags.com/Detail.bok?no=63)
congratulations on the purchase