Rank: Athlon 64 Laptops

Deffinitly the Amilio 1630 (Uniwill 258KA0), no question. Not only does it offer a faster cpu and more ram if you want them, but it comes with a much faster graphics card. I have the exact same model with a 3400+, 1024meg PC3200 ram and it is really fast. I'm very happy with it. Between your two choices that is the fastest.

I would also recommend the Amilo. Like the looks of HP a lot but their GPU just plain sucks for an AMD64 lappy like that.

The 440 Go will perform as the classical bottleneck of your good, fast, A64 3200+. It's almost a sin to put such a good AMD with a quite bad GeForce...

If so, you don't need to put a good processor like that. save money... or... buy the Amilo!!!!!!!! muuuuch better.....

Honestly, my impression today is that graphics cards aren't keeping on shoulders of the advance CPUs are getting... even the Mobility 9700 w/ 128mb can perform, sometimes, bottlenecking your system's overall performance. Once again, get the Amilo and be happy, because you won't make a mistake. Trust us.

You do have a very legitimate point here but I rally wander what/who made HP build such a great lappy and shovel a 4420Go in there and the price is still pretty high. Just imagine how much more appealing and popular HP would have been if they had at least an M10 equivalen of NVidia which would have still allowed them to keep the same price and make some profit.
I guess HP shoild do two things:
1) get rid of NVidia and sign a contract with ATI
2) get rid of the genious(es) who decide to go with a 4 420Go in an AMD64 3400+ laptop.

The reason is because AMD sucks. Well, not really, but to major manufacturers and corporations, if you make an AMD system which will outperform an Intel based system in any realm (gaming, multitasking, multimedia, etc.), you risk putting the entire business in jeopardy. Simply put, Intels cost more, so Intels should perform better. If people could buy "cheap" systems which performed as well or better than the more expensive systems, that would seriously cut into a company's bottom line.

good point

About the Compaq

My Girlfriend bough the Compaq you described (same version, $1800 CDN) and while its a good notebook, that video card sucks big time. Like the previous posts there is no point in teaming up a great CPU and a Crap GPU. Shes not a big gamer so the lappy is great for work needs (i,e word processing, internet, multimedia, etc.) One thing to note is that the compaq has a very solid build and is extremly quite. I just wish my sager was that silent!!!!!
Good Luck

EddieZ_87.... you must be in a real quandry because I've noticed you've had several posts on this same topic to which I responded in another thread. I have the R3240CA, which has the exact configuration you're looking at. Looks like the difference is about $200 between the Presario and Amilo. If you're desperate for a better video card, well I guess you're basically stuck with the Amilo. If you could care less about the video card, then the Compaq is a great machine for less money. In Canada, there is no real equivalent to the Amilo available retail, and the Presario came in at $1800 Cdn like another poster said. This means we're getting it for about $1350 US - a fantastic deal really for the features offerred, even with an older video card.

A lot of the responses are tied to the GPU and gaming capability. I'll confess, I have never played games on my computer and can't really see the fascination behind endlessly pursuing games-upon-games. I've tried some games in the past and yeah, they're a nifty distraction for about a day or two, but I've always thought they were a bit of a waste of time: I believe that the LAST thing this world needs is yet another damn game. (Sorry for the rant...) However, different things for different people, so you need to decide how important video capability is for you. Given what others have said, I suspect you can play some games and maybe some good older games, but not the latest or greatest.

I find the Presario to be built quite well, nicely laid out, and in my opinion, MUCH better looking than the zd Pavillon equivalents. When closed or open, the Presario has cleaner lines and a steel locking hasp that can't be beat.

One other thing to consider is battery life. In my other post, I said battery life is probably not as important as most people think - how many people are really away from an outlet for more than 2 or 3 hours on a regular basis? However, ask yourself what you want to use this laptop for. If you need to be mobile on a semi-regular basis and away from a power source, the Amilo even with its better GPU is going to frustrate you if you constantly know you have to shut down to save your data before the 2 hour mark as you indicate. Trust me... I've been to more than one meeting wishing I had brought my PDA recharger or the extra battery for my tablet PC to go that extra hour. I bought a 12 cell battery for the Presario, charged it up last night, and am using it for the first time today. It's a couple of ounces heavier, but it looks like I'm going to get 3 to 4 hours easily, and that's with the wireless on for half the time and almost full screen brightness.

Well, good luck!

i own one of these things....using it right now....really great lappy, really fast, really good graphics and runs FarCry pretty god damn well. I did take a look at the Compaq and what stoped me is HP's crappy history and the crappy GPU. I really don't regret paying nearly $300 more for the Uniwill

well the thing is, HP will still sell lots and lots of this high-priced laptop with the crap gpu. why is that... because much of their market is lots and lots of people who don't know crap about computers, or would never make anywhere near full use of a 3400+ proc anyway.

from a business point of view, there might be no reason for them to upgrade to a m10/m11 architecture, since they can still sell oodles of systems at a reduced cost for the crappy graphics component.

Ozone - You're right. If you're never going to do anything heavily graphic based, the HP/Compaqs are fine. I decided on the M6810 over the HP since the prices were about the same, but the M6810 has an M10 (Radeon 9600). I probably won't play many games on my system, but I do develop graphics programs. For my needs, a better video card is not essential, but very useful. Plus, for the same price, what's not to love?

if bat life and performance top all your best call is the CL56 or any of the other 1.7 dothan 128mb 9600/9700 lappys. AMD just doesn't give you the life you need. I get about 2 hours of basic usage and about an hour of gaming.

Different AMD64 machines give different run times. I have an AMD64 based EMachines m6805 (3000+).
It quite similar to the IBuyPower model in configuration. It is nicely equiped with a good video card (9600). 7200rpm HD, 1gb of ram, 802.11g, etc... and I get around 3.25 hours of general useage with mine and around 1.5 of gaming.

I have an Asus L5D. I am very happy with it. The graphics card is an Nividia FX 5650 with 64meg, Not quite an as good as the ATI 9600 but I am happy with it. The Nvidia is slightly better at DX8 games but not as good at DX9. The CPU is the mobile AMD64 3000+ which provides more than enough power for me. The ASUS is well made with a great screen. (ACE View). Battery life is not great - 2 hours of mixed use (this included running a bench mark, office work, insalling software and internet. The fan is very rarely on during office type work (ie the notebook is silent then) but during gaming it is on quite abit. It doesn't worry me but some may find it a little loud. It is much quiter then my athalon 1.4 thunderbird desktop. The cpu is about a powerful as an 2.0 dothan according to one review I've read of laptop CPUs. Overall it is desktop replacement rather then a slim light road warrior laptop. The DVD is onlu "-R" format and 2x. I believe some shops allow you to up grade the CPU and DVD drive. the hard disk is 80Gig but only 4200RPM. I liked the fact that all the old ports are present which has made it much easier to use at work.

Good luck with your notebook search. The perfect one is out there somewhere.

the Dothan and the AMD64 can be pretty fairly compared for over-all performance based on the clock speed. the 3200 is a 2ghz, so is the 2ghz dothan. the dothan has 2mb cache, amd 1mb. fsb of dothan is 533, of amd 1600. So the specs do differ....but in the end under 32-bit apps the performance is nearly the same. there is one area where dothan dominates hands down....battery life.

Eddie... I haven't taken any pictures of my R3000 yet, and I have to admit, I was never planning to! However, lucky for you there is entire forum devoted to the R3000/z5000 series. It's www.r3000forums.com. There is one thread with pictures of the R3000.

http://www.r3000forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=2

Have fun!