Is this a good deal? HP-COMPAQ X600 series - Page 2

hmmm you're right.

I thought I saw them offer financing when I was there...hmmm

oh crap..it was velocitymicro.com that offers it....sorry i got mixed up on who offered it...

Just to add my two bits, if you are after raw power and aren't too worried about weight and battery life, then the Compaq x6000 series would be a very good choice. You get a heck of a lot of computer for the money, with a screen that is much better than the Dells.

If you do want OK battery life, decent power, OK weight and an even better scren, the Sony A series fits the bill. They are pricey, but you can usually find decent deals in the clearance section of the Sony site.

The other 17 inch option would be the Sager 4750.

Cheers

Steve

It really depends what you are using it for - if it is just office apps and games any of latest processors will do. If you are into video and multimedia, then the P4 outslugs the Dothan.

But if you are buying a 17 inch laptop, I have to believe you are buying because of the big screen. In that case you want the best screen you can get. The Dell has a very ordinary screen. Check in the Dell forum for some threads about this.

Cheers

Steve

The compaq X6000 is a nice one as well.

This is a nice laptop...they finance as well...

http://www.winbook.com/store/persona...PkgId=c_530022

Good portability. The only draw back is 14.1" screen.


http://www.winbook.com/store/persona...PkgId=w_698480
This one is based upon the MITAC 8050. A very popular ODM chassis. It is a good machine for both work and play. Light and powerful.


Over all, here is the problem. 17" and Pentium 4 w/HT comes with a price. While it is a bit cheaper in some instances, it is extremely heavy and low battery life. It will usually be at least 9.5lbs (some goes up to 12lbs-13lbs). The battery life is around 1.5 hours and it is thick around 2". Heat is also of a problem as well. The good side is it is FAST because of the desktop style processing.

However, Pentium-M and AMD-64 Mobile will allow you to have a lighter laptop. Usually around 6.5lbs - 8lbs. They usually comes in 15" - 15.4" style screen. They are usually 1.2" - 1.5" thick. Making it very portable and easy to use. Batter life is usually around 2.5 hours - 3 hours average.

So there are pro and con between the two.

Here is another pro and con. You could buy from Dell, HP/Compaq, or Toshiba. All of them are great company. They didn't grow to this size for being just crap. THey offer quicker turnaround service for issues. They have 24 hours technical support. They diffinetly have financing option (you could buy them through compusa or bestbuy as well). However, the CONs are, limited style. Feature is usually not the latest and greatest because they tends to be one step behind.

Asus, Acer, Uniwill, Mitac, etc usually offer the latest and greatest feature. They have a lot of variey. Their ODM are put together by smaller companies (except for Acer, which sell through PCCONNECTION.COM, CDW.COM etc).

Come to think of it, you could look into Acer. They make very good laptop and financing is available through some of these reseller chain.

For example: Acer Travelmate 4500 series model: TM4501WLMi


Another good one is that new GATEWAY offered through like BESTBUY with AMD64 processor. It has a pretty nice graphic card on there. I believe ATI 9600.

Approx 1.6" different , but I would take the WSXGA over the WUXGA.

You will see a good 15% performance boost between 512MB and 1GIG. You see very little performance boost for over 1gb. You will see up to 20% performance boost between 256 vs 512MB.

Between the 03 and 04, I assume you are referring to the new Acer Travelmate 8103 and 8104? If that is correct, for that additional 400 bucks, you are actually getting a 2.0GB processor. Which is 200Mhz more than the 03 model which is 1.8Ghz.

Honestly, in terms of long run...while the Dell 9200 price is temping and nice for the feature, it would most likely go out of date quicker than the Acer Travelmate 8103.

1) Dell is still on a 400FSB vs Acer on 533FSB. That is an automatic 5% boost in power there.
2) Acer is using X700 video card. Dell uses ATI 9700. Automatic boost in quality there
3) Acer is on a PCI-E platform, Dell isn't

All in all Acer is a much new technology than Dell. Ofcourse it will give you a better run for the money. Not to mention the Acer design is much better and it is lighter than Dell. Making it more portable.

So it is an easy win for Acer Travelmate 8103....

However, when comparing Dell 9200 vs Asus M6N series or Compal CL-56. I say go with Asus M6N series. The reason is that the Asus is a much better design chassis. It is lighter than Dell. While the rest of the spec are almost the same except for ATI 9700, one being 128MB vs 64MB.

128MB Video Memory vs 64MB Video Memory really isn't much different in performance. Because performance is more of the graphic card chip. The memory is a buffer point for texture rendering where it passing data to the chip. The more complicated the texture (doom3, hl2, etc) and the higher the resolution, the more memory needing to be pass over in larger chunk, thus this is where you will see the different.

In most cases, there is a small number of people who actually run it at full blood and gory awesome graphic. The rest is on a "good enough" mode. WHile they have the equipment to maybe handle the "give me god mode", they usually run in "good enough" mode, just for the fact they list the performance of it rather than quality.

So my choices would be

Acer Travelmate 8103 / 8104 (obvious choice)
Acer Ferrari or similar platform using AMD64 processor (aka Uniwill 258KA)
Asus M6N
Mitac 8050
Compal CL-56
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Alienware 55m (a bit pricey though)
...
Dell 9200
...
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HP/Compaq
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If you could wait until next month, take a look at the Acer Travelmate 4600 or the Acer Aspire 1690 series. Both is on the new sonoma platform and will give you a good bang for the buck. It is cheaper than the 8103 as well.

Yes. The 8103 comes with one stick of 512MB. Thus leaving you one open slot for upgrade.

X600 is still petty good. I could play SWG, EQ2, and WOW with it w/o any problem. hehehe Heck I could evne play Doom 3 w/o any problem with it. heehheh

I would buy it over HP anyday.

I say go for it, if money is no object.

Otherwise...take the other one. THey are both good. Same Chassis design too hehe

THAT IS SO WRONG THAT IT'S PAINFULLY NOT FUNNY

THIS IS THE TRUTH

MRX600, PCIe, 4x1, 2 vertex shaders, 128 bit memory, Slightly faster than the MR9700 by virtue of having 560 mhz ram.

MR9700, AGP, 4x1, 2 vertex shaders, 128 bit memory, almost the same as the MRX600 only with 520 mhz ram.

MR9600, AGP, 4x1, 2 vertex shaders, 128 bit memory, Basicly a MR9700 only clocked about 25% lower on average.

MRX300, PCIe, 4x1, 2 vertex shaders, 64 bit memory, or shared system memory, basicly a Cripled version of the MRX600.

All four of the above cards are based on the same architecture.

MRX700, PCIe, 8x1, 6 vertex shaders, 128 bit memory, Based on the Desktop X800 architecture, produced on .11 micron fabing, roughly 2X as fast as the MR9700/MRX600.

MR9800, AGP, 8x1, 4 vertex shaders, 256 bit memory, Based on the Desktop X800 architecture, produced on .13 micron fabing, power Hungry, but faster than the MRX700.

MRX800, PCIe, 12x1, 6 vertex shaders, 256 bit memory, Also based on the Desktop X800 architecture.

BTW the number of vertex shaders are going to determine how much DX9 pixel shading power you have. And for the record the X600 Mobility offers performance between what you would expect from a 9600 Pro and a 9600 XT on the desktop. The MRX700 offers very similar performance to the Desktop Radeon 9700 Pro. The MR9800 seems to offer performance that is right around 9800 Pro levels on the desktop, and the MRX800 comes in a bit under what you would expect from a Radeon X800 Pro on the desktop.

BTW the Acer 8100's have the MRX700 chip it should last considerably longer than the MRX600 based solutions.

These reviews should help put the MRX700 performance into proper prespective.

Acer TM8100 reivew.
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/acer-tm-8100/

MRX700 VS desktop parts.
http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...y_radeon_x700/

the asus might have some good hardware specs but do you realy want to pull out a ass boat looking laptop out of your backpack?

The measurments given for LCDs are always the viewable measurments. From the upper right pixel to the lower left pixel.

The HP zd8000/Compaq X6000 is a great value with an excellent screen. I've played with an X6000 with the x600 and was pleasantly surprised. The zd8000 is CNET's top rated DTR... above the 9200. On a tight budget it would be tough to do better.

Having said that, all things being equal, I'd take Dothan over P4 and x700 over x600.