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What laptop for me?

post #1 of 23
9/15/04 at 12:18pm
Thread Starter 
Hello

I hope I can make my needs clear and you can help me to pick right PC. I live in Finland and here is not that much variety of different manufacturers or models than I think in many other countries have. Available manufacturers are something like Acer, Hp, Compaq, Fujitsu-Siemens, IBM and Toshiba. I have also seen some clevo or some other "laptop-cases". Europe users can give me good advices to German or other cheaper EU based laptop-sellers.

Ok, I play games and use this thing more like a normal desktop computer. I don't need long battery life but I prefer to have silent and cool machine. So is pentium-m only option then? I want really good screen and would also like to have decent keyboard. I was thinking that Widescreen sucks, cause no games support those resolutions? And if u can stretch the screen the quality gets poor? Of course wide is great when watching movies or desktop working but I need good gaming conditions. Please correct me.

This is what I was thinking:
Dothan 1,6
at least ati9700(prefer 128m)
512 memory
about 60gigs of 5000 or 7000 rpm HD. Not slow 4000.
SXGA monitor
dvd-burner would be extra

http://getbestmobile.de/GBMS/product...products_id=50

This one looks like a nice piece but I have absolutely no idea about the screen or HD.

Thanks. And waiting for many recommendations.
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post #2 of 23
9/15/04 at 5:13pm
whatever you do, don't go acer
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post #3 of 23
9/15/04 at 5:39pm
Q-BiC: You just had bad luck, that's all, or I must be one lucky bastard ;-)

I called Acer this morning for a dead pixel in a customers system, this afternoon I had UPS at my doorstep to pick it up, I didn't even have to pay for the transport.

Most of the time they help you very well, sometimes you get a pure noob on the phone, in that case I just hang up and call again, happened twice until now.

Acer support ain't worse then others, I've been waiting for 2 months now for HP to fix a Laserjet 4200TN with a 4H care pack, still no progress.

The only really good support I saw untill now was the Dell Business support, but don't try their Home Support ;-)
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post #4 of 23
9/15/04 at 5:44pm
Q-BiC, I just noticed that you're from Belgium, send me a mail to info@microplanet.be and I'll see what I can do with Acer.

I'm a reseller for them, that makes things easier to put some pressure on them ;-)
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post #5 of 23
9/15/04 at 5:45pm
Although I have not had experience with widescreen gaming, if you look at dell and alienware, there top gaming laptops are widescreen 15.4". The widescreen must give it some advantage, not sure what but.....why else would they put them on their topnotch gaming laptops?
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post #6 of 23
9/15/04 at 5:47pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantom
Q-BiC: You just had bad luck, that's all, or I must be one lucky bastard ;-)

I called Acer this morning for a dead pixel in a customers system, this afternoon I had UPS at my doorstep to pick it up, I didn't even have to pay for the transport.
Picking up is not the problem, it's getting your laptop back ....

and can accept that it is bad luck when I received a broken laptop, but it gets harder and harder to accept the bad luck when you can clearly see their lack of professionalism like messing up a good working keyboard, waiting 2 weeks to order a new keyboard and taking 2 weeks for the keyboard to arrive. But this discussion should take place on my topic


EDIT: phantom, should i mail in dutch or english? (plz don't make me type french )
EDIT2: i see your site is in french, so I'll stick to english
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post #7 of 23
9/15/04 at 6:01pm
Q-Bic: Gewoon in het nederlands zal gaan zenne ;-) Vlaamse en Engelse versie van de site komen eraan.
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post #8 of 23
9/16/04 at 5:45am
Thread Starter 

hmm

Anyone knows which is better for gaming? sxga or wsxga? How about that CPU thing, is Pentium-m only good?
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post #9 of 23
9/16/04 at 6:09am
sure P M is good (in Centrino Platform), if you buy a P4-3ghz and start gaming with it, i estimate your battery runs flat after 1 hour max
buy a P-M 2Ghz then, faster than P4-3Ghz and you can game for around 2 hours at least. (plus you don't burn your lap because of the heat of the P4)
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post #10 of 23
9/16/04 at 6:11am
For what you want (battery life, quiet) a pentium M is the only choice

I wanted your exact specs, but in a small package. So i chose the sony s1xp (s170 in america) but it may be too expensive for what you are after, you pay a permium for the small size and the sony name

Widescreen is fine for gaming. http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/phpBB2/

Have a look their, lots of games support widescreen, and lots more can be edited to. Equally, quite a few games will get stretched.
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post #11 of 23
9/16/04 at 10:08am
Thread Starter 

hey

actually I'm NOT looking for a long battery life BUT more likely the nice cool gaming environment. so the heating is more of a problem because the fans run like hell and the noise is annoying, and of course the heat itself is bad.

What do you mean by "pentium-m is good in centrino platform"? In centrino platform there is some sort of intel chip on motherboard or what? And if not centrino but just Pentium-M the performance can be poorer than in centrino?
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post #12 of 23
9/16/04 at 11:12am
Quote:
Originally Posted by juhani7
actually I'm NOT looking for a long battery life BUT more likely the nice cool gaming environment. so the heating is more of a problem because the fans run like hell and the noise is annoying, and of course the heat itself is bad.
if the heat and the fan noise is a problem: go P-M

Quote:
Originally Posted by juhani7
What do you mean by "pentium-m is good in centrino platform"? In centrino platform there is some sort of intel chip on motherboard or what? And if not centrino but just Pentium-M the performance can be poorer than in centrino?
If you go for battery life and a cool laptop, go for P-M on a centrino platform. P-M on itself is not as economical as a P-M on a centrino platform. (Won't be a huge difference but still.. if you choose for P-M, you might as well choose the centrino platform)

(FYI: Centrino = P-M + intel chipset + intel wireless adapter, all configured together to preserve the battery max)
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post #13 of 23
9/16/04 at 11:33am
Your choice seems fine. I'd take rather a 1.7 instead of the 1.6 (and really make sure that it is a Dothan).
SXGA+ displays are just fine. I prefer UXGA (once you get used to the resolution you don't wanna go back).
Widescreen is nice for viewing DVDs, but apart from that I don't see the use (most games don't support them - and I hate streching or bars).

You might wanna check which optical drive is used (if you want to flash the firmware to make your drive region code free) It doesn't work with all drives.

Check the guarantee and dead pixel policy before you buy.
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post #14 of 23
9/16/04 at 11:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by juhani7
Anyone knows which is better for gaming? sxga or wsxga? How about that CPU thing, is Pentium-m only good?
SXGA+ is best for gaming I think, and Mobile Athlon 64 is also best for gaming imho.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ewok^
For what you want (battery life, quiet) a pentium M is the only choice
No, the Acer Ferrari 3200 with its low-power Mobile Athlon 64 processor is also an option here (just replace the hard drive)
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post #15 of 23
9/16/04 at 12:05pm
mobile 64 low noise and heat as well though?

A lot more games than people think can be made to run in widescreen without strecthing. Aletering the FOV in doom 3 for instance.
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post #16 of 23
9/17/04 at 3:08am
Thread Starter 

thanks

thanks a lot for the good answers. I haven't still decided whether I go for wide or sxga so people can still give opinions. I think I go with the centrino because I don't like the looks of ferrari ... laptop ferrari logo and red color is absurd for computer IMHO
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post #17 of 23
9/17/04 at 3:49am
I couldn't be any happier now that I choose wide

the viewing angles are awesome. Finally I can look at a notebook without lookingfor the perfect spot. Finally I don't need to move the screen up and down to minimize the brightess leak. Finally I can look at the screen and see a completely true black screen. Not like the darkness outside on the middle point between Milky Way and Andromeda,but still quite black...
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post #18 of 23
9/17/04 at 6:52am
Thread Starter 

interesting

DDDa your guide is really fine for a semi-noob like me and I found some good points there thanks. there is a problem with most models because they don't give exact specs of their screen for example and then I have no idea, but I think resolutions and price tell the most. Or what should I ask from the seller to be proved that the screen is better than average? DPI maybe?

thanks anyway everybody... thread still open
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post #19 of 23
9/17/04 at 7:42am
Does just being widescreen do all that? Or is it an x-black DDDa?
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post #20 of 23
9/17/04 at 7:47am
We will rarely be able to tell you the dpi on a lappy's screen, nor then refresh rates, they are being communicated to us by the manufacturers.

A Ferrari logo and red are absurd for a lappy ? Don't look at alienware or voodoo then

I see no difference between my centrino machines and the A64's in heat or noice, while gaming the fans make the same amount of noice.

The only "real" advantage I'm seeing in the centrino for the moment is the +1h battery life compared to the A64's, and this only from a gaming point of view, on a business point of view I would go with the Centrino's.

Centrino = Business and Gaming
A64 = Gaming and Business
P4 = DTR

But this is only IMHO
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