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About to buy i9300, but need some advice on...

post #1 of 9
7/25/05 at 12:34am
Thread Starter 
  1. OS - Can someone please illuminate me on the reasons for buying Home vs. MCE vs. Pro? This is not going to be a work laptop.
  2. Processor - Besides shear processing power, is there any reason to spend the extra $$ for the extra Mhz? I'm particularly looking to gamers who have the 1.6 or 1.73 to speak up here.
  3. Display - WUXGA w/ truelife because I want it to look schweet. Honestly, I dig the glossy look a lot and the resolution is fine by my eyes.
  4. RAM - I'm planning on getting the standard 256MB and adding a 1GB stick afterwards. Do the sticks have to match for duel channel nowadays (they did when I built my desktop a few years back)??
  5. Hard Drive - 60GB 4200 rpm is not great, but I don't really want to shell out >$150 for a 7200 rpm drive. Any thoughts considering I'll have a 120GB external?
  6. DVDRW - Ah, might as well.
  7. Wireless Card - Any reason to shell out the $ for an a/b/g card over the standard b/g card?
  8. Battery - I'm going to get both the 6 & 9 cell batteries because this thing will be mobile occasionally (i.e. plane trips, when the photovoltaics go out, etc.)

I'll be using the 9300 to replace my desktop. I'll be using it for gaming (I'm a fan of the Star Wars KOTOR line, Jedi Academy, etc.), and am waiting to get my hands on HL2. I'll do some photo editing, video editing/conversion, and the all-round office type tasks (excel, word, powerpoint, internet). It will be the sole electronic toy in the house for dvd watching & music playing. I will not be plugging this into a cable tv connection (so no recording a la TIVO).

Also, as an added thought, if there was something you'd get rid of to cut the cost, comment on that too.

Any thoughts would be helpful. Cheers.
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post #2 of 9
7/25/05 at 12:55am
1: Windows Media Center Edition really just ads a main screen that gives you access to all your media folders. I'm not all that familiar with it, but standard Windows is fine if you don't plan to go media heavy with it. Hell even if you do standard Windows is just as fine from what I gather.

2: I have the 1.73, and it runs fine. The Pentium M series has a lot of power for it's low clock speed. I have yet to test a real modern game with high demands, but Civ3, Sims2, and Grim Fandango all run amazing.

3: I have the upgraded screen. It's beautiful. Some sparkle since I have the LG, but crystal clear.

4: You can find what RAM to buy by searching. It's like $110 for a gig from Newegg. Once I get that kind of scratch I'm buying one.

5: If you plan to use an external HDD than go for a moderately sized one. No need to spend tons for space you really don't need.

6: DVD burner is a must.

7: I upgraded to the a/b/g, but it was probley unneeded. I just wanted to be covered anywhere.

8: 9-Cell gets a standard of 3 hours of life. Add features like WiFi being on, playing a CD/DVD and max screen brightness you'll cut that a bit. Not sure how the 6-Cell performs, but 2 9-Cells may be better suited.
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post #3 of 9
7/25/05 at 12:59am
Thread Starter 
I should have added that I also have it quoted with a 2 year warrenty AND 2 year accident protection. I'm a clutz (I've already wrecked one laptop screen from a drop). Thoughts on that are also appreciated.
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post #4 of 9
7/25/05 at 1:28am

bluetooth

gotta have it
for mouse, keyboard, headset ( voip )
very cheap and must have in my book
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post #5 of 9
7/25/05 at 2:51am
with the whole getting a 4200rpm drive. it seems as if they are giving the 5400rpm drives for 9300s now
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post #6 of 9
7/25/05 at 3:09am
Thread Starter 
greasypeanut: 5400...that's good to hear!
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post #7 of 9
7/25/05 at 6:55am

re:

1.Media Center is crap, Pro is for bussiness people who need stuff like remote access, and home is what you'll probably want.
2. 1.73 is good, no need to spend an extra $200 for a little more power
3. Same
4. I would start out with 512mb then go with the stick
5. I would get a 60gb 5400 for around $65 then use the externel
6. Comes in Handy
7. Corperate bussiness mainly use 802.11a, but could be helpful. i'd get it just for the hell of it.
8. I'd get 9 cell battery (x2)
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post #8 of 9
7/25/05 at 10:56am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tcoop924
[list=1][*]OS - Can someone please illuminate me on the reasons for buying Home vs. MCE vs. Pro? This is not going to be a work laptop.[*]Processor - Besides shear processing power, is there any reason to spend the extra $$ for the extra Mhz? I'm particularly looking to gamers who have the 1.6 or 1.73 to speak up here.
From the benchmarks I've seen, the older 1.7GHz, which is 6.25% higher in clock speed than the old 1.6GHz (both with the 400 MHz buses, I believe), doesn't provide any more than that in performance for gaming. Usually it's only around 4% more in fps according to these two articles from Anandtech.com:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...px?i=2342&p=15
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...spx?i=2382&p=7

Personally, I'm thinking of asking my CSR to downgrade my 1.86GHz to a 1.6GHz (worth $200 CDN) and my Win MCE 2005 to WinXP Home ($50) for an upgrade to 1GB of RAM from 512MB (worth $250) or maybe add complete care coverage to my 3yr service ($169). Both the 1.86GHz and the Win MCE came as "mandatory" upgrades in the coupon deal that I spec'd. Does that sound like a good idea to you guys? Because I reason that I wouldn't lose any more than 10% fps max in games, and I wouldn't really need the power in other Windows app usage. Does anyone know about how much performance you stand to lose going from 1.86GHz to 1.6GHz? (I'm hoping the answer is, "not much that you can notice"). Two games that come to mind are Eve-Online (which is quite CPU intensive) and America's Army, but as long as they both can run above 30-40 fps at native 1920x1200 with no AA, I don't think I'd care about or much notice the extra 3-4 fps. But if it was that low framerate wise, than it'd probably be in the GPU-limited range, anyways, right?
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post #9 of 9
8/3/05 at 3:55am
Thread Starter 
Can someone run down reasons why you would want a DVDRW drive? I mean, there is home movie making abilities & DVD movie backups (legally of course )? Anything else to make the extra $99 worthwhile?
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