Looking for a new notebook? Take a look here first - Page 5

Hi,

First of all..great post (not sure if you knew that after the first 1000 people already told you...lol). So I am in the market for a notebook and like the price and options of the Asus you mentioned. Since you recommend it, I assume the build quality is good (I understand Asus has been spotty in the past)?

Do you, or does anyone have another recommendation for a 15"/15.4" core 2 duo with minimun X1600/7600? I'm thinking it would be good to get a slightly better video card, but I cannot afford the top of the line ($$$$ ouch!)

Lastly, I am unclear about the differences between the T5000 series and the T7000 series. From what I gather, the T7000 series has 4mb cache vs 2mb cache for the T5000. Is this correct and are there other differences?

Thanks for the sage like advice.

John

Hey Filippo,

Thanks for the info...that 14" looks good...except that it is a 14"...lol. Do you have any insight as to when these new 15.4" notebooks will be released? Asus has so many models I'm afraid that I'll never find them when released.

Thanks again,
John

Filippo, quick question regarding LCD displays.

So yesterday I bought new 19 inch LCD monitor for my desktop.
When I was choosing which one to buy, i couldnt notice how desktop LCD's have much lesser resolution.

For example:
A usual widescreen 17 inch notebook display like Dell E1705 has max resolution of 1920x1200, while only being only a17 inch display
A usual widescreen 20 inch monitor has maximum resolution of 1680x1050, while being a 20 inch display.

So i dont get it.
How can a 17 inch monitor display up to 1920x1200 resolution, while the only way to have such a huge resolution on a desktop, you would need 23 inch monitor.

How can 17 inch laptop display do the same job as 23 inch desktop LCD.]


and 2nd question, which doesnt relate to 1st question in any way:

When i do buy my E1705 as you adviced, and conect it to my 19 inch monitor: what resolution will be used? The one that my monitor has (1280x1024) or the one which my laptop's display uses (1920x1200)?

DELL Inspiron 1505 PLEASE MENTION ANY PROBLEMS PERIOD.

NOVEMBER 29, 2006
PLEASE MENTION ANY PROBLEMS PERIOD.

I am looking into purasing a Dell with:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
Hi-Speed: Dell Draft N Wireless
Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 [Included in Price]
15.4 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen SXGA+ Display with TrueLife
2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
160GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory
Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™ HD Software Edition
85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
4Yr Ltd Warranty and At-Home Service
Add CompleteCare Accidental Damage Service to 4Yr Lim Warranty
Dell On Call, 30day, Getting started Assistance, unlimited incidents
PC-cillin Internet Security: AntiVirus, Firewall, Spyware removal 24-months

IS THERE ANYBODY THAT HAVE HAD PROCBLEMS WITH GETTING THE WIRELESS TO WORK PORPERLY?

ANY PROBLRMS WITH DELL 1505 PERIOD?

PLEASE DESCRIBE YOU ISSUES AND IF THER WERE RESOLVED.

NOVEMBER 29, 2006

Hey Filippo...

Thanks for this article. It's incredibly useful but I have some questions on cpus (the best Core 2 Duo vs the best Turion X2). I've done some research and there doesn't seem to be a clear cut winner. I've read about C2D winning in benchmarks but I'm not concerned with benchmarks. I'm looking for real world use. I've also read that the two cpus seem to be pretty much the same considering their architecture (C2D being loaded with L2 cache but poor memory architecture, and the Turion X2 having smaller cache but better memory architecture). I've also read the the C2D is the latest "next gen" cpu while AMD has yet to release their "next gen" Turion X2, so it is safe to say that you can't really compare the two (as the Turion X2 should be compared the original Core Duo and not the Core 2 Duo)? I've also read that the C2D is not a pure 64bit cpu (somewhere around 58bit or something) while the Turion X2 is pure 64bit.

I'm looking to get a laptop primarly for day-to-day use (email, internet, graphics (Macromedia Fireworks), website building, etc) and a gaming machine second (but I will be getting a really good gpu). So with what I want, which is the better cpu? I'm asking your opinion since a lot of posts I read (not just here, but everywhere) are very opinionated or think one is better over the other with minimal data to back up their claims and you seem to be incredibly knowledgable on the subject.

TIA!

I think you did a great job stressing build quality, it is something I was not thinking of at the time I bought my laptop, It's a great computer, but might as well be made of glass.

Filipo, hi again.

I am almost (99%) ready to buy a laptop now.
my budget now is much less than what i originally planned ($2000), so getting Dell e1705 with 7900gs and 2gb ram is out of the question cause its too expensive.

My current budget is $1200-$1300 canadian taxed and shipping included (that's around $1100-$1200 US).
My absolute highest point is $1500 cnd which is $1350-$1400 US (only will spend this much if i got a great deal)

Anyways, what I wanted is a laptop that i can play World of Warcraft on highest settings and Battlefield2 on medium settings. I do not need to play the latest game and highest settings.

I do not care about size/weight/screen size/hard drive speed (although 15.4 is optimal for me cause 17 is too expensive)/brand.

What I do need though is:
-1 or 2GB of RAM
-glossy screen (preferably widescren)
x1600 or 7600 video card.

Any suggestion? I know you listed many examples in this sticky for my budget, but i think they are bit out of date cause i couldn't find the setup you mentioned for the price you mentioned.

I have asked this in another thread, but i would like your opinion about these questions I am curious about:

1) will nvidia 7600 or x1600 be able to run world of warcraft on high settings and battlefield2 on medium settings.

2) how much of a difference will i really see going from 5400rpm to 7200rpm?
is it drastic? is it worth the $80-100 that i will pay? like will windows load 2-4 seconds faster and will games load like 5 seconds faster? how much of a difference in seconds will i see?

3) am i making too much of a deal by ignoring core duo and getting core 2 duo? for example when playing world of warcraft, how will core 2 duo be different versus core duo? if i get core duo instead of core2duo, then it will open some possibilities

4) you said X1600 is same as 7600....but i noticed that x1600 only has 128mb memory while 7600 has 256. How can they be same on perfomance? isnt 256 surely better?

PLAESE HALP!!1

In particular, about the 128 vs. 256 MB thing for video cards:


The performance of a video card doesn't have much to do with the amount of RAM it has attached, other than that faster cards usually have more RAM on them. The 7700 in my machine has 512 MB of RAM, but there are many 256 MB cards that would blow it out of the water.

So, what does this number mean?

Well, the purpose of a video card is to do a bunch of math so you can draw pretty pictures on the screen. To do that it's got a specialized processor built in. The faster this processor is, the better framerates you get. However, if that processor had to go to your system's main memory every time it needed to look at a texture, it'd have to wait around forever. (Your main CPU, especially if it's AMD, has very quick access to your system RAM. The video card, not so much.) So, your video card has some RAM built in, only so the video processor has something to store textures and the like in.

Having more video RAM won't make the video processor any faster. However, if there's not enough room in video RAM to store everything, you wind up with slowdowns as textures have to be loaded from system RAM.

You probably do want to get the 256MB graphics card. A 7600 or x1600 is fast enough that it can, in some games, make use of all that memory. 512, like my card has, is overkill -- it's not fast enough to deal with that many textures!

I can second the recommendations of the HEL80 or Asus S96j. I believe MilestonePC is a Canadian company that sells both; go give them a look.

I'm looking for pretty much the same thing as airforce, but I want to get a 17" sceen for games etc. What I got lined up so far is an HP Pavillion dv9000 core 2 duo 1.83 with 2gb ram and a geforce 7400f for about 1400. How do you think that copares with the asus? I'm not really interested in dell. tx

what would be the real difference, the vid card? overall integration?
also, is wide XGA+ going to be a problem for running games, for example is the screen going to look shitty at non-native resolutions? okay and another stupid question, EIDE is just the HD standart people have been using before SATA, right and its slower?

And another...whats your take on scratch and dented? I don't really mind the look its just that I'm worried about hardware damage.

and yet another. what about m90 vs e1705? seems expensive with descent upgrades but I saw some kid on the forum got a descent machine for 1500.


Okay, configured e1705 for about 1500, looks like a sweet deal to me, 20% coupon really saves a lot of money. Looks better than any deal witht he m90, only question is how much better is the quad than the 7900

Module Description Show Details Inspiron E1705 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB) Operating System Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 LCD Panel 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™ Memory 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz Video Card 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS Hard Drive 80GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0 Combo or DVD+RW Drive 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability Sound Options Integrated Audio Wireless Networking Cards Intel PRO/Wireless 3945a/g Office Software (not included in Windows XP) No productivity suite- Includes Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription Primary Battery 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery Warranty and Service 1Yr Ltd Warranty and At-Home Service Internet Access Service 6 Months of EarthLink Internet Access Miscellaneous Inspiron 1705 Dual Core Environmental Options Recycling Kit and Plant a Tree for Me Upgrade to Windows Vista No Express Upgrade to Windows Vista Selected Dell Digital Entertainment Trial pack- Basic and trial products from Corel and Yahoo Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor Labels Windows Vista™ Capable

dammit looks like all the coupons got redeemed fuq, back to looking for something else i guess