some advice on laptop specs please ;)

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 6:01 am

hi all,

Manage to fry my laptop, need a new one. And I needed quickly so I can't really be too picky, I pretty much need to buy what I can find in the store.

However if you could give me some ballpark specs on what's decent these days.

1) What a good processor? I'm looking for performance. Battery will be dead in a year in any case and battery life on all laptops is always a joke ... so I want Power!

In any case it should always be more like a desktop replacement I can take anywhere than a mobile tool

2) I guess 4 GB RAM our standard these days?

3) What are good mobile graphic cards?

4) Since I can probably only get one of the big brand names, which one would you prefer: Sony, HP, Acer, Toshiba, Packard Bell?

5) If you have a particular model you're fond of, Who knows, maybe I get lucky and they have a chance.

Thanks for any tips as usual!

Cheers

Chris

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:59 am

Need to know what you will be doing with it:

- Gaming? If so, 3D gaming or casual?
- Video editing?
- What size screen?
- What's you budget?

Nowadays I like Acer a lot. Asus is also good. Dell as a third choice. Not a fan of HP, Compaq or Toshiba nowadays. Lenovo if you want the Cadillac of laptops, but they are pricey.

Unless you're on a tight budget I wouldn't settle for anything less than an Intel Core i3 or i5 class (AMD Athlon II X2, Phenom X2).

If you local Walmart has them, a client bought one of these the other day for a good price:

Acer 17.3" Aspire AS7552G-5107, AMD Phenom II Quad-Core N930 Processor & Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition, 4Gb RAM, 500Gb HDD, ATI HD 5650 Mobility. I believe she said it was on sale under $700
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-AS7552G-5107/14575796

Not a high end gaming machine of course, but a decent video chip which should at least run less taxing 3D games.

If you have a Sams Club or Costco card, shop there first. I like the 90 day no questions asked return policy.

wvjohn · Post by **wvjohn** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 9:25 am

I just got the wife a Dell Vostro 35xx refurb. I5, 6MB, 1 GB radeon 6630 3y warranty for about 825 shipped. Very nice build quality and excellent keyboard.

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 10:17 am

No WalMart/Sam's near him in Spain. lol But, the specs are a good recommendation. I'm guessing that stores like Carrefour (Used to be Pryca where I lived) and the likes carry laptops now since they carried computers when I lived there. In fact a quick browse to their site online shows they do. Found a long list of them on their site.. I would just stay away from the ones with dedicated memory if you're going to game with them. Here's a link to one,

http://www.carrefouronline.carrefour.es ... =171501070

Hope you find what you're looking for.

eGo

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:17 pm

Thanks for the tips! Looks like these things are a lot cheaper in the us!

I browsed some today: I would like 17.3" screen. However these seem to be really hard to find with an i7 here. A few models out there with i5.

Some 3D gaming yes, photoshop a lot and otherwise HTML/ design tools . Video editing not beyond YouTube stuff.

How much of a difference would I feel between an i5 and an I7. I only saw one i7 with 17.3" and it cost 400 bucks more than a similar i5. Is that really worth it?

If it's not monumental then I think I'd rather go for an i5 with bigger screen and hi res than an i7 on smaller screen. I find it really constraining to do design work on 1366x768... And it seems only 17" screens also offer the higher res....

Cheers

Chris

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:25 pm

I wouldn't worry about the difference between i5 and i7. i7 adds multithreading but most apps don't make use of more than 2 cores anyway, and and i5 is 4 cores.

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:28 pm

Just checked that Cerrefour link, thanks! Indeed, used to be called Pryca

What do you mean by "stay away from dedicated"? If it says: "ati hd1234 1GB" then thats onboard memory and that's what I want correct? And Whe it says 'ati hd 1234 1gb dedicated" then that's shared with the motherboard's ram and not what I want, correct?

I think I could actually have fallen for that as I thought dedicated meant pure video ram!

Cheers

Chris

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 3:32 pm

FlyingPenguin wrote:I wouldn't worry about the difference between i5 and i7. i7 adds multithreading but most apps don't make use of more than 2 cores anyway, and and i5 is 4 cores.

Aha! Then the Attendent was bs ing me cos he said that mobile i5s where not the same as desktop i5s and only had 2 cores! I thought that sounded strange! He was really pushing me for the i7, said I would notice in gaming ... Which ialso thought was bs...

Cheers

Chris

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 4:15 pm

Actually he's right. I forgot that some (if not all) laptop i5's are dual core. They're lower power use that way. I'm not sure if there are any 4 core i5's for laptops.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core#Core_i5

There is a 4 core Phenom II for laptops.

Again, not an issue. Most apps cannot make use of more than 2 cores. If it was a desktop, yeah, I'd definitely get 4 cores.

Most games certainly don't make use of more than 2 cores except really high-end games, but you're not going to be able to play high-end games on a laptop, unless you get one of those ridiculously expensive gaming laptops.

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 5:26 pm

Ok, apologies to the attendant then

Looks like I'll settle for 17,3" i5 with 1 gb gfx card. That should come in just under 1000 euros here. I'll try to find a model with those specs from one of the manufacturers you recommend.

My problem really is time, I need to have it beginning of the week so I just have to go for whatever I can find in a local store...

Thanks again

Chris

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 6:26 pm

Ack! I meant INTERGRATED! i.e. The Intel graphics chipsets.. Most of the AMD/NVidia chipsets now days have dedicated memory.

eGo

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:12 pm

Yeah, avoid an Intel integrated graphics if at all possible unless you care zero about any kind of gaming.

KiLLerCloWn · Post by **KiLLerCloWn** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 9:07 am

No, it needs to be gaming ready, even if I have little time these days.

I even saw an i5 with a 2GB nvidia yesterday. Unfortunately only a 15.6" screen.

Thanks for clearing that up!

I5, 1gb gfx, 4gb ram ( many come with 6 or 8, ram must be cheap), 17.3" screen, 1900x1200 res ( min 1080 for full hd) - I think that should fit into 1000 euros. I just need to find a store where they have one of these to grab and take away immediately...

I'll go shopping on monday and let you guys know what I found.

Cheers

Chris

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 9:24 am

Just be aware that no laptop for under $1000 is going to be any kind of high-end gaming system. That said, my brother plays Black Ops on an $800 HP laptop with a Radeon 4350 chip and it's playable for him. I'm sure the graphics are turned way down, though.

GuardianAsher · Post by **GuardianAsher** » Sun Jun 26, 2011 11:03 am

I just picked up a 17R on the Dell Outlet last week. Sandy Bridge Core i5, 2.3GHz, 4GB of RAM (in a single stick, will be upgrading shortly), 500GB HD, and a GeForce 525m 1GB card for a little less than $600. The screen is only 1600x900, but that's a lot better than the 15" laptops. It plays everything I've thrown at it thus far with med to high settings with decent framerates.

And it has nVidia Optimus technology, which switches the laptop between the integrated and dedicated video cards depending on the load. The new version of this tech is seamless, with nVidia's drivers and excellent profiling system taking over the process. Definitely good if you intend on looking at using the laptop away from the cord on occasion, as it drastically increases battery life. AMD has a similar tech, but it's still a bit glitchy and the drivers are not sorted out, where nVidia has had a lot of time to do this (Three generations)

As for the Core i series breakout, at least for the Sandy Bridge generation ( Core iX 2XXX) the breakout is a bit strange. The Core i3 is a dual-core, with hyper threading (so four threads) but no turbo-boost feature, which overclocks one core when you're not using both. All Core i5 series are dual core, with hyper threading, and turbo boost. The lower end Core i7 series are dual-core, with hyper threading, turbo boost, and a little more cache. And the higher end Core i7 are quad core, with all the goodies, and designated by a Q in the name, e.g, Core i7 2630QM. I'm not going into pre-Sandy Bridge, because it's even more confusing