Dell 5150 vs. Toshiba 5205-S119 (+others?)

I would NOT recommend the Dell 5150. Go on the Dell forums - there's nothing but bad news about the computer and its various problems. Dells are decent if you can avoid build quality issues and hence the poor customer service, but in the case of the 5150, it's almost given.

Also, if you really want that 7200 RPM hard drive, I would just buy it from some vendor (say, zipzoomfly.com) and swap it. A 60GB 7200RPM drive should cost <$250, and you can then sell yours on eBay or something. Dell rips people off on most accessories.

The P4 w/ HT should be considerably faster than the P-M 2.2 - the P4-M compares less favorably than its P4 cousin w/ the same clock speed, so you're looking at ~a P4 2.0 Ghz = P4-M 2.2 Ghz.

I would say the Radeon 9600 is better than both of them. You should note, though, that the 5600go is great for DX8 games, but is terrible w/ the DX9 generation.

Try to go for at least a 5400RPM HDD. Performance-wise, I've heard upwards of a 80% differential, while the jump from 5400 to 7200 is ~15%.

Many would say that depends on the application. In some instances, P-M processors indeed scale 150% to P4 processors if not beyond. In other cases, they scale to ~120% if not less. With hyper-threading enabled, the situation just gets more complicated.

But that's not really even relevant here. Sadly to say, the Toshiba has a P4M processor, which is NOT a P-M processor. That is, the P4-M pretty much scales 1:1 w/ P4 processors, except that it can downgrade itself in speed to save battery life. In some cases, the P4-M is even slower than a P4 even when running at full power.

Can't help you w/ the CompleteCare stuff. I usually don't get warranties on my computers...

But recommendations - you can either go the P4 route or the P-M route. If you go for P4, be prepared for heavier laptops that are more noisy (fans) and run hotter. P-Ms are quieter and have much longer battery life, but you pay more for them and they usually aren't as powerful as P4 processors even when considering the 150% scale.

With that said, the best P4 notebooks that I've seen are still Sagers. You can check sagernotebooks.com for a listing of what they offer, then you can buy from a reseller like pctorque.com which offers Sager's models at a cheaper price. If you go P-M, you should try the HP zt3000 (hpshopping.com), the ABS zForce F2 (abspc.com), or maybe ibuypower.com. You can also try the Dell i8600, which is actually quite a deal now if you get a good notebook (i.e. build quality).

You may be confusing the Pentium-M with the Pentium 4-M. At the same clock speeds, the P-M is significantly faster than the Pentium 4. However, also at the same clock speeds. the P4-M is slower than a Pentium 4. The P-M is based on the PIII with a few improvements and a larger cache. The P4-M is a scaled down version of the P4.

I believe for gaming, cpu factor is less concerned compared to a good graphics card. Therefore, since 5600 is better than a 5200. Definitely go for toshiba. However, this is just my feeling though. I will go for a i8600 because it got 128mb ATI 9600 pro , and I heard it is very quiet under normal operation (totally silent). Also, when you draw circle on a 15.4 inch LCD, it is a true circle. Therefore, for graphics or video editor, they tend to go for a 15.4 LCD as well.

Huh? True circle on a 15.4" LCD?! I'm not too sure what you're saying here.

As for the Dell, I've had it, and it's anything BUT silent. The design, IMO, could be a lot better - it really gets continually hotter even when just browsing the net, and when you start a game, the fans kick into high and it is VERY noticable.

Who says you have to spend more money? You can get a Gateway M505X with ATI 9600 graphics for $1349 this week ($1599 - $100 instant discount - $150 AAA discount = $1349).

drsixstring

According to www.sagernotebook.com they've been in business since 1985. They, like many "name brand" computer companies, purchase barebones laptops from an ODM (in Sager's case, Clevo) and populate the systems with memory, processors, etc. A search on these boards for ODM, Clevo, Arima, Uniwill, etc will enlighten you on the laptop manufacturing process (probably more than you want ). I have seen members of this forum posting that they've been purchasing sagers for many many years.

PCTorque I know less about but if you have any questions you should feel free to email or call them and I'm sure they'd be more than happy to tell you how long they've been in business. Personally the fact they set up this forum for us speaks volumes to their dedication to the sager community as a whole as well as those interested in notebooks in general. It is important to note that when you purchase a Sager from a reseller (such as PCTorque) all the support for your laptop is handled with Sager. Resellers will assist you with issues you may have with Sager but the support does come from the OEM (Sager).

I purchased and received a 5680 in January after reading these boards for several months and am extremely happy with my experience with the machine and PCTorque. Hopefully I will never have to have dealings with Sager

I'm sure others will respond as well. Happy Lappy Hunting!

My 2 cents... keep the change

This is simply and absolutely untrue. But don't take my word for it, go to a Gateway Country Store or an Office Depot and see for yourself.

I'm in the same boat as well. One other issue with me is that I don't need or want a wide screen. The short battery life of the Sager makes it almost useless to me. What is someone going to do with a one hour battery?

Ideally, I'd like the 505 without wide screen.

Then you may want to consider the AOpen 1557G.

Woo hoo. ABS zForce F2! www.abspc.com

For those who don't know, ABS is one source for the AOpen 1557G. They call their version the zForce F2.