Hey Filippo, fantastic post. Cleared up quite a bit for me. I have a question though. Would bumping RAM up from 1gb to 2gb save me much battery power, or should I just save the money? I'm not looking for a DTR notebook. Just something portable that I can do some microsoft word and excel stuff on, maybe a light game or 2, and surf the internet with ease. Also, something that i hopefully wouldn't need to get rid of for a while as I know notebooks don't really have a long shelf life, but for what I want it for I am thinking it should last somewhere around 3 years or more. What do you think? I was looking at either a Dell E1505 or Alienware Area 51 M5550. Any suggestions?

P.S.- I've never owned a notebook before, so this is my first venture into the mobile computing world...

hey shadz,

You wont see any difference in battery time when you upgrade the ram from 1 to 2gb... so if you dont need 2GB of RAM, save your money.

For your needs, what you really have to decide on is how much "light gaming" are you planning to do, and how light they are... if you dont need a discrete GPU, go for the lenovo suggested on the main post, or a dell E1405/E1505 (wichever screen size feels better).

If you do need a discrete GPU, choose between the E1505 and the Asus S96j. It'll come down to price, if the E1505 isnt much cheaper than the Asus, dont go for it.

Hi.
What do you think about Dell ins. 6000?

Can somebody help me out here? I am contemplating purchasing a high-end laptop, and have my eyes set on 2 specific ones at about the same price.

One has an NVIDIA Quadro FX 2500M 512MB Video card.
The other has an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GTX 512MB Video card.

I'm mainly interested in gaming, and all the reviews I can find seem to be with the 7900 video family. But the Quadro family of video cards normally cost more, so common reasoning would seem to indicate the Quadro is faster than the GeForce.

I know the 7900 GTX is more than enough for my needs, but if the Quadro is actually better and faster, and I can get it for the same price, why would I not go for it?

the Quadro FX 2500m is just as fast gaming wise as the 7900GTX. The reason why its more expensive, is that for 3d modeling/rendering etc. it does a better job, but if you don't do that type of professional work you should just go for the cheaper one

To expand on what Flippo said above... and sort of ask a question I've been wondering about...

Unless the Quadro can use the same drivers as the 7900, you may want to if you're "gaming" to go with the 7900 because the 7900 is more common as a "gaming" card and is more likely going to be better "supported" by persons who create custom made drivers.


I'm thinking since the Quadro is a "business" card there are going to be less custom drivers, hacks... things like that... Compared to a "gaming" card.

well I agree but the quadro got pretty popular for gaming, so there are mod drivers for them aswell:

http://www.laptopvideo2go.com

There's also a thread about this:

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread174812.html

Hey I love this post. This has slowly solved a lot of my problems in my research for a different laptop. I currently use an Alienware Sentia 3450. I've been having troubles with it (only owned for about 2 weeks). The CPU fan is just so loud. It seems to constantly spin on high (when I'm running nothing more than a word document or even nothing at all), and when I am in class, my professor gives me funny looks . So I've been on the phone with them for hours and they keep telling me to spray it with a can of air. . That and the fact that I didn't realize how poorly the Accelerator 945 would perform on games. Shoulda done my research.

But anyway. I have been looking at some other laptops and I have come down to two that I might be looking at:

Dell M1210(12.1'') or the SonySZ (13.3'')

I have some questions:

1) The Dell I hear is pretty thick. How thick is it really? I've seen some compact and small 12'' Dell's and I don't think it's too bad, but then again this one has it's own GPU. So I was just curious as to the size.
2) The Sony (just one of the general, comparable 13.3'' SZ's, there's so many I get confused haha) I heard has a really loud fan (problem which I am NOT going to deal with again haha). Is it that loud? My hallmate has one and I don't think his fan is loud at all. In fact it's near silent. Is that just a few of the fans or are all of the fans "loud"?

Just in general, what are the true pros and cons? I've read plenty of the other threads, but they all seem to contradict each other. You seem to know what you are talking about so if there are any pointers, what could you give me as a comparison for the two? If you could give me some more suggestions as to other laptops that would be great too. The specs I usually look for are 1.83-2.0ghz duo, 1024ram, harddrive doesn't really matter,but the screen I don't really want to be more than 14ish, maybe 15ish at most. Pricing around 1600-1900 is also preferred. If you could give me some more suggestions as to other laptops that would be great.
Thanks again.
Chris

The sony SZ110 should be very quiet, as this review says:


About the thickness of the XPS M1210, here's a pic comparing it to the McBook 13.3":



Take a look at these great reviews for the XPS:

http://www.notebookreview.com/defaul...S+M1210+Review

And the Sony:

http://www.notebookreview.com/defaul...GHz+%2D+13%2E3

They should help you out. However, if you don't mind getting a 14", I suggest taking a look at the more powerful Asus W3j:

http://www.notebookreview.com/defaul...eview=Asus+W3J

thanks for the quick reply and thank you for the recommendations. I do love the asus w3j. it actually reminds me of an ibuypower laptop that i use to have...a lot actually. my ibuypower was a 15.4'' 2.0ghz amd turion, 1024 ram, ati x1600. it was really smooth and nice, just slightly too bulky and battery life was dismal =\. i still have it...little sister does haha. she has an awesome laptop and all she does is....myspace... but the thing that bugged me about that laptop (minor) was also the heat and the swap between the control and function key positions (identical to the problems with the ASUS). i might actually begin looking at the ASUS laptops. they seem to be top quality.

thanks again

Fillipo, wich one you suggest: Compaq 2575 or Toshiba A105-4024?

answered your PM

I'm looking for a laptop with 1 GB of RAM, I don't need a big HD, integrated graphics is fine, and 14.1" screen size is good too, and a Core Duo Professor that's at least 1.63 GHz. Where can I find one for a cheap price or at least find one that's reasonable that has a coupon available to use. I really want to spend less than 1000 with the warranty and hopefully a lot less than 1000. I'm not online often so if anybody could give me any suggestions or websites to check out it would be greatly appreciated. You can email me at ipleadthefizzif@yahoo.com and also any available coupons for the suggested notebook would be great too. Thanks a bunch for anyone who tries to help me out.

Also I'd like to add I'm only buying a laptop for word processing assignments for school, web surfing, and IM. Would those numbers I listed be too much? What numbers would you recommend? Thanks a bunch.

Go for the Dell E1405, it's a great value for the money. for coupons, click here: coupons


you should be able to get a very well configured E1405 for $800.