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Why would YOU pick a 8104 over a Dell 9300?

post #1 of 26
4/3/05 at 9:27am
Thread Starter 
I'm having a hard time deciding which one to get. I can get both for about 2000€ with comparable specs (except videocard, which is X700 for Acer and 6800GO for Dell)

Why would you pick an Acer over the Dell?
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post #2 of 26
4/3/05 at 2:27pm
Well, size for one. A 17" screen is just too big for me by far to be portable, even the 15.4" 8104 is pushing it for me. Also, pricing out a similiarly configured i9300 as opposed to the 8104 gives you the steep price of $3,269, with my education discount. I know there are lots of Dell coupons going around, so if you can find it for a price comparable to the Acer then it's your call. If you like the bigger screen, I would even go with the Dell, considering the better video card and warantee service. Personally, I hate Dell, and it would take a LOT for me to buy one again, and I'm very happy with my 8104.
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post #3 of 26
4/3/05 at 3:18pm
Thread Starter 
just for the record, my 8104 is already ordered but I was beginning to doubt it when seeing the gfx benchmarks for the 9300.
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post #4 of 26
4/5/05 at 8:29am
2 Lbs lighter and an hour longer battery life, And the 8104 comes loaded for a lot less than the i9300, just try to stuff 1gb of ram, a DL 8x DVD burner and a 100 gig HD into the Dell and see what the price comes out to. That said the 6800 Go has a lot more gaming power than the X700.
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post #5 of 26
4/5/05 at 9:13am
Thread Starter 
just placed an order for a Dell 9300. got a pretty good deal after a phone conversation with one of the account managers. a price which is almost 150€ less then what I would've paid for the Acer.

ordered the 9300 with the 1.86ghz cpu, 1024mb ram (2x512), 6800GO 256, 60gb 5400rpm hd (got a 7200rpm at home to be installed in the Dell), 17" WUXGA+ truelife and a carrying bag. also got the 9 cell battery and a 1 year next day on site support for free. total price : 1.985€, including shipping costs

let the waiting begin
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post #6 of 26
4/5/05 at 11:51am

size

Size! I have a 17" HP laptop and its simply too bulky to take anywhere (not to mention heavy as lead). 17" laptops have the dimensions if a cafeteria food tray.

The "perfect" lappy for me is a 1" thick, 3-6lb design, with a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen driven by a 2Ghz PentiumM, Turion, or G4/G5 and an x800 or 6800 video card.

Right now the 8104 is the closet I can get to that ideal, and even the 8100 series is almost too big (wide). If Apple put an x700 and a high rez 16x10 screen on their 15.2" laptop it would be almost a perfect match too. Come to think of it, the dimensions and weights of the Apple powerbooks are almost perfect, I wish an x86 vendor could match them.
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post #7 of 26
4/5/05 at 12:10pm
Yeah it's all about size. The 8104 IS too big. Well ofcourse this is afte coming from an ultraportable.
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post #8 of 26
4/5/05 at 1:07pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by katorga
Size! I have a 17" HP laptop and its simply too bulky to take anywhere (not to mention heavy as lead). 17" laptops have the dimensions if a cafeteria food tray.

The "perfect" lappy for me is a 1" thick, 3-6lb design, with a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen driven by a 2Ghz PentiumM, Turion, or G4/G5 and an x800 or 6800 video card.

Right now the 8104 is the closet I can get to that ideal, and even the 8100 series is almost too big (wide). If Apple put an x700 and a high rez 16x10 screen on their 15.2" laptop it would be almost a perfect match too. Come to think of it, the dimensions and weights of the Apple powerbooks are almost perfect, I wish an x86 vendor could match them.
I understand, but after a bit of thinking, I figured I don't really need an ultraportable laptop. I use my laptop for surfing the net from the couch (while wife is watching tv), or when visiting my mom (mostly stay there for the weekend) so I can take my gaming machine with me. I think the 9300 fits perfectly for these need, doesn't it?

I really love Acer though and it's my first Dell laptop. If the 8104 would've had a faste videocard (6800GO for example) and a glossy screen (nice for gaming), I would've gotten the Acer.
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post #9 of 26
4/5/05 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lapino
I understand, but after a bit of thinking, I figured I don't really need an ultraportable laptop. I use my laptop for surfing the net from the couch (while wife is watching tv), or when visiting my mom (mostly stay there for the weekend) so I can take my gaming machine with me. I think the 9300 fits perfectly for these need, doesn't it?

I really love Acer though and it's my first Dell laptop. If the 8104 would've had a faste videocard (6800GO for example) and a glossy screen (nice for gaming), I would've gotten the Acer.
6800 GO is really a nice video card. The performance is better than X700. I would choice 6800 for my desktop for sure. However, I am not going to choice it on laptop. It costs more powers and generates more heats than X700.

Since I already can play most 3D games smoothly enough with X700, why should I pick up a power consuming and heat generating monster? 50 fps or 60 fps makes no difference for eyes.

It's all about compromise. Performance, battery life, weight, LCD screen size and money. In my opinion, 15 inch screen is also a sweet point for most laptop users.
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post #10 of 26
4/5/05 at 10:20pm
where are you guys ordering your 8104s from?
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post #11 of 26
4/6/05 at 3:23am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkhsu
6800 GO is really a nice video card. The performance is better than X700. I would choice 6800 for my desktop for sure. However, I am not going to choice it on laptop. It costs more powers and generates more heats than X700.

Since I already can play most 3D games smoothly enough with X700, why should I pick up a power consuming and heat generating monster? 50 fps or 60 fps makes no difference for eyes.

It's all about compromise. Performance, battery life, weight, LCD screen size and money. In my opinion, 15 inch screen is also a sweet point for most laptop users.
it's a common mistake to think the difference between let's say 40fps and 60fps isn't visible to the human eye. this is true for movies (which run at 28fps I believe) but NOT for games. check the web and the 3D-card fansite for more information about this (rage3D.com, nvnews.net). As a longtime and hardcore gamer, I can assure you that the difference between 40fps and 80fps in a fast first person shooter like Unreal Tournament 2004 can make all the difference in the world

also, the 6800go will definitely allow for more options to be enabled/settings high than the x700, although I'm sure the x700 is a pretty darn fast card too (for a laptop that is)
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post #12 of 26
4/6/05 at 4:01am
Quote:
Originally Posted by katorga
The "perfect" lappy for me is a 1" thick, 3-6lb design, with a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen driven by a 2Ghz PentiumM, Turion, or G4/G5 and an x800 or 6800 video card.
I think that this would be the perfect design for most people, and I really hope that something similar to this comes out by mid-July to the end of July, since that is when I am planning on buying a notebook.

Although personally, I probably wouldnt want a g4/g5 b/c they come on Macs, and Macs don't exactly have the best gaming support currently.
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post #13 of 26
4/6/05 at 4:27am
I don't want to sound like a high and mighty asshole here lapino, but it is my understanding that a human cannot discern the difference between 40 and 60 fps very well, as you claim. Theoretically, anything 30 fps and above should seem the same, and as long as it runs smoothly and doesn't *ever* dip below that point your mind can't really notice a difference. Movies run at 24 fps, by the way.

For me, I relate it to vodka connoisseurs. Sure, anyone can taste the difference between a $8 handle of Zelko (it tastes like rubbing alcohol, if you haven't had it) and a bottle of Belvedere, but once you get in the mid-range varieties no one can really tell a difference. People pretend to be able to taste the intracacies of an $80 dollar bottle of Russian vodka and might even swear by it, but do a taste test and any Abolut or Smirnoff will taste the same. When you know something is running at 80fps you might think you're noticing a difference, for the human mind is a powerful thing and bias is something that effects everything we do, but it's all smoke and mirrors. Unless I'm completely wrong, in which case I'll shut up.
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post #14 of 26
4/6/05 at 5:31am
Thread Starter 
you're not sounding like an asshole, but like I said, it's a common mistake to think games don't need more than 30fps. check this:
http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frame...humans_see.htm
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/41259/
http://www.viperlair.com/articles/ar...ials/fps.shtml
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post #15 of 26
4/7/05 at 3:50am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lapino
you're not sounding like an asshole, but like I said, it's a common mistake to think games don't need more than 30fps. check this:
http://www.100fps.com/how_many_frame...humans_see.htm
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/41259/
http://www.viperlair.com/articles/ar...ials/fps.shtml
agree, plus I believe it also depends on the game. For like rpgs, 30 fps is more than enough. For fps games like call of duty/counter-strike you need at least 60 fps or it starts to look sluggish (IMO). For games like unreal tournament (fast action), you might need as much as 100 fps. However, the most important thing is minimum fps, not maximum.
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post #16 of 26
4/7/05 at 4:42am
It's really meaningless to be picky. If you really care 3D performance, XPS2 is the best laptop at the moment. Performance of Dell 9300 on 3Dmark05 is around 2900-3200 without overclocking. Performance of XPS2 could break 5k with some tunning.

However, even XPS2 isn't the man comparing to desktop. 6800 GT SLI can break 10k on 3Dmark05 with overclocking. Is it the man? No, Asus announced 6800 ultra SLI card few days ago.

Well, back to topic, the reason for me to pick up a 8104 over Dell 9300 is "balance". If I wana high performance of 3D, desktop is all the way, not laptop. I will consider more factors on laptop, not only video card.
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post #17 of 26
4/8/05 at 12:16pm
Quote:
6800 GT SLI can break 10k on 3Dmark05 with overclocking
Thats it? That is a LOT of money, power consumption, noise and heat, to hit that number.

My little laptop provides totally acceptable minimum fps, but does so at a lower cost than most SLI gaming rigs, makes about as much noise as a single GPU fan, and using a 70w PSU.

Personally, I don't use my desktop for gaming at all any more. In the past I had six PC's (350w-500w psu's with 40 total cooling fans!). I used PC's running linux for everything. Today I have one desktop. I have replaced server functions with cheap, quiet, low power appliances for firewalls, network attached storage, proxy server, pvr and vpn gateways. Three laptops perform the interactive computing, and the remaining desktop runs VMware sessions for virtual machine replacements of physical servers. Its amazing how quiet, cool, and uncluttered my office is now.

And I can't tell any difference in my gaming, its just as good as it was before.
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post #18 of 26
4/8/05 at 1:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkhsu
It's really meaningless to be picky. If you really care 3D performance, XPS2 is the best laptop at the moment. Performance of Dell 9300 on 3Dmark05 is around 2900-3200 without overclocking. Performance of XPS2 could break 5k with some tunning.

However, even XPS2 isn't the man comparing to desktop. 6800 GT SLI can break 10k on 3Dmark05 with overclocking. Is it the man? No, Asus announced 6800 ultra SLI card few days ago.

Well, back to topic, the reason for me to pick up a 8104 over Dell 9300 is "balance". If I wana high performance of 3D, desktop is all the way, not laptop. I will consider more factors on laptop, not only video card.
I agree with you. Sure its nice to have nice graphics performance on a laptop, but that costs in terms of battery and weight. A laptop that only runs for an hour to me is useless, it totally goes against what a laptop stands for. Portability while on the move is what (to me at least) having a laptop is all about.

The technology within laptops is finally starting to shuffle towards that of desktops. But its still a long way off. If you are crazy over being able to run the latest games maxed, a desktop just can't be beaten.

Deciding on what laptop you want to buy is down to your needs and uses. For me battery life is at the top of the list. All about weighing up what you consider more important.

For me I would choose the 8104 over the 9300, due to size and better battery life. Id be fine sacrificing the faster GPU for it.
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post #19 of 26
4/8/05 at 1:39pm
Thread Starter 
well, I made up my mind. I have the 9300 on order, if it's not in production or on it's way by the end of next week, I'm going to cancel it and get the 8104 instead. I'll be happy with either one, so I'm gonna give Dell the benefit of the doubt for a week
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post #20 of 26
4/8/05 at 3:00pm

Grats

Grats on the Dell. Its a beast of a laptop and fully capable of replacing the almost any desktop except for the most extreme, expensive enthusiast rigs.
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