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Asus S96j vs. Compal HEL80

post #1 of 6
6/13/06 at 12:24pm
Thread Starter 
Looking to buy my first laptop. These are the two 15.4" notebooks that caught my eye. Does anyone have any experience with the compal HEL80? I have found plenty of info on the s96j, but almost none for the compal.

Specifically interested in build quality, battery life, and gaming performance. (I'm hoping to play some Oblivion...)

Both notebooks look great but I don't want to make an uninformed decision. Thanx!

first post
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post #2 of 6
6/13/06 at 1:42pm
I'd just make sure you get a nice warranty either way (powernotebooks.com has a 3 year). I know Compal used to have a couple nice models, but besides that, no clue. You might ask on the powernotebooks forum
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post #3 of 6
6/13/06 at 2:40pm
I was looking for the same thing. I can't seem to find the PowerNotebooks forum here. Are you speaking of the one on their site?

I was looking at the ASUS S96J/Compal EL-80/MSI 1039.

Seems to be some good reviews on the ASUS model, but the other two are lacking. Although I was able to glean some information about the MSI 1039. All three of these laptops are in my price range and all three of them look like decent laptops. I'm not sure which to choose. I suppose these questions must be asked:

1. How does the NVIDIA GO 7600 compare to the X1600 graphics performance?
2. Do all 3 laptops have a "glossy" screen?
3. In the case of the MSI 1039 how is the AMD Turion processor performance in comparison to the Intel Core Duo processors of the other two?
4. 667mhz Front Side Bus really a big improvement? MSI 1039 doesn't seem to have that.

Note: Just got off the phone with Ron at Powernotebooks. Really nice guy. He told me a lot about the Compal and I'm thinking I might switch my decision away from the ASUS and try that Compal.

http://www.powernotebooks.com/configure.php?special=354
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post #4 of 6
6/13/06 at 2:56pm
The 7600 and X1600 are both on the same range of performance, so its not that big of a difference between them. However i believe the X1600 has the upper hand on perfomance still.

About turion vs Core Duo. Well, the main difference is the fact one is single(but 64 bit, which today has not much use for gaming etc) and the other is Dual core, so expect much better multitasking with the Core duo, and overall better performance one single aplications with Core Duo. i'd say that core duo is the way to go, because besides performance, you can change your processor later, for example, in the Asus you can change your processor for the Merom, the new intel 64 bit cpus which are faster.

For the reason above, about the change of processor, that is why i rather have the Core Duo 1.83ghz and wait till the new processors, otherwise i would be wasting money for just a little more performance. but that is just me.

Im leaning towards the Asus myself.
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post #5 of 6
6/13/06 at 6:10pm
Thread Starter 
ColdSun: I eliminated the MSI 1039 b/c it lacked core duo and merom support. All have an option for glossy screens. idk about the importance of the bus speed but core duo outperforms turion across the board to my knowledge.

ew2x4: Thanx for the advice. I'll try asking the people at the powernotebooks forum as well.
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post #6 of 6
6/22/06 at 2:17am
I like to point out that the Compal HEL80 is more comparable to the upcoming Z96J nand not the S96j.

the HEL80 has a wsxga option just like the z96j..and the version released right now is NOT the VBI version, which is why it costs slightly more than the S96J.

in a few weeks Compal will release an HEL80 that is VBI and should be as cheap (if not cheaper) than the S96J. This HEL80 will be silver and have some missing instant on buttons and will only be in wxga.
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