Laptops

[Conor Ryan]

Ok, Funny thing here. I'm also in the market for Laptops and i'm looking at if not the same but similar ones. My choice is the HP zv6000 for several reasons:
-Cheapest
-Fastest RAM (the sony is slower)
-Most Up to date Video Card
-All the Reviews I have read really like it
-A person in my Architecture class has it already, and I got to use it, its an amazing laptop everything about it is pretty good. She said her average battery life is around 3 hours, and she can get 3.5 if she turns the Brightness on the display down.

Mike, have you also considered buying a cheaper laptop and then add more RAM in yourself? It may work out to save you a few bucks, plus you can probably find a 80 gig 7200 rpm HDD which will signifigantly increase your performance.

Also I went on to the HP/Compaq site to compare the laptops, the R4000 and the ZV6000 are exactly the same if you don't count the case they are in. I heard something online that I find to possibly be true, HP is the Flagship line and the Compaq is the "Budget" line. But from my research they are exactly the same.

[Mike]

Thanks for the help guys.

As far as the DVD drive, I'd like to keep that. I would hate (in the event I have to reformat) to have to make backups on 10 CDR's, I'd much rather use DVD's. Plus, I'll probably watch some movies on it too. It's more convenience than priority, so I'll look into getting just a CD-RW drive and a faster HDD.

Battery life isn't too much of a concern for me, most of the work i'm going to be doing on it will be at school, home, or competitions. 2 hours is more than enough battery life for me.

Weight is also a minimal issue for me, I won't be traveling much with it... it's mostly a desktop replacement.

Originally, I was questioning how good a 4200 RPM would be... but on some sites I found they were saying 4200 RPM is normal for laptops to keep down heat/noise. I'll look into a 5400 RPM.

Thanks again for the help guys


EDIT: Starting to lean towards the Pavilion, from your guys requests. I toned down the DVD drive, and upped the HDD. Here's what I came out with:
Pavilion ZV6000
Processor: AMD Athlon(TM) 64 3200+ (2.0GHz/512KB L2 Cache)
Screen: 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800)
Graphics Card: 128MB ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M
RAM: 1.0GB DDR SDRAM
HDD: 80 GB 5400 RPM
Optical Drive: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Price: $1,253
HP has a 1 year parts/labor warranty on their Pavilions.

[MrToast]

If there's any way you can get an extended warranty for it, GET IT!

There are two things in life you should absolutely without question buy extended warranties for: cars and laptops.

My iBook doesn't have an extended warranty, and I greatly regret not having one.

I can't stress enough how useful they are.

Dave

[Ashley Weed]

Originally Posted by MrToast

If there's any way you can get an extended warranty for it, GET IT!

There are two things in life you should absolutely without question buy extended warranties for: cars and laptops.

My iBook doesn't have an extended warranty, and I greatly regret not having one.

I can't stress enough how useful they are.

Dave

Actually, for the price of extended warranties, they just aren't worth it and the hassle and what they cover. I have mine covered under my homeowners insurance. So, if ANYTHING EVER happens to it, as long as I am paying insurance on it, I get the full purchase price back - no questions asked. This includes things like theft, spills, me getting angry and throwing it, or running over it with my Jeep.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Ashley Weed

Actually, for the price of extended warranties, they just aren't worth it and the hassle and what they cover. I have mine covered under my homeowners insurance. So, if ANYTHING EVER happens to it, as long as I am paying insurance on it, I get the full purchase price back - no questions asked. This includes things like theft, spills, me getting angry and throwing it, or running over it with my Jeep.

I'd be very interested in reading the terms of your homeowners policy and riders, as well as knowing how much it costs to insure against intentional damage. Does it cover manufacturers defects as well?

[team222badbrad]

How about a Dell?

I personally have a Inspiron 8600 series, which I got in January.

The 8600 is no longer being produced, but 6000 might be in your price range, depending on how you build it.

I have not had any major problems with it so far, besides some keyboard keys popping off, which I simply popped back on. It's no wonder that all of them are not off from all of this CD forum stuff!

[Conor Ryan]

Originally Posted by team222badbrad

How about a Dell?

I personally have a Inspiron 8600 series, which I got in January.

The 8600 is no longer being produced, but 6000 might be in your price range, depending on how you build it.

I have not had any major problems with it so far, besides some keyboard keys popping off, which I simply popped back on. It's no wonder that all of them are not off from all of this CD forum stuff!

I looked heavily into dell, since my dad gets an discount from work there. But the problems I found with them were, 1. more expensive processor upgrades and 2. hardly any Video power, very few models had dedicated memory for the video and even those that did got pretty expensive

If I had the money I'd look into Toshiba and Fujitsu, they have great notebooks that start around 1200. Also Acer usually has some hidden deals in its notebooks too. Gateway is also a worthy mention too.

[Cory]

Originally Posted by cdr1122334455

plus you can probably find a 80 gig 7200 rpm HDD which will signifigantly increase your performance.

Those 80 gb 7200 drives are ultra expensive. They just started appearing in laptops, and even the 60 gb 7200's are a lot more expensive than their 5400 counterparts.

Originally Posted by Ashley Weed

As for the power connectors on HP, they have been known to be weak, but that all depends on the user

I know this happened to Bill Gold recently, as well.

Dell really rips you off on RAM upgrades. When I was looking at laptops, it was like $800 for 1 gig of ram, vs $200something on the laptop I eventually got.

Dells which are actually meant for multimedia/gaming use have plenty of graphics card options. They're going to have a lot more than any other mainstream brand.

[gobeavs]

Yeah, the upgrade to 5400 RPM will be helpful, that is pretty much now the standard for laptop HDD's. Although it has already been decided...the A64 is the better processor. Even w/o a 64-bit advantage, the on-die memory controller makes it a winner (and it really comes through in games compared to the Pentium 4). The one concern is the vid card - if you are going to do gaming, but for that price I doubt you could get much more.

[Mike]

Just came back from Best Buy and got a good deal on a Pavilion.
- Windows XP Home SP2
- DVD-ROM/CD-RW
- WXGA 15.4" w/ BrightView
- AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (2.0GHz, 1MB L2 Cache)
- 512MB DDR SDRAM (Single stick)
- 80GB 4200 RPM HDD
- NVIDIA GeForce 440 (64MB Dedicated)
Got it for $1,150...

I don't have that much to spend, so I ended up lowering down the RAM/HDD. When I do get the money, I'll probably end up upgrading those.

PS: Anybody know how to get it so when you tap the touchpad it's the same as clicking the mouse button? Thanks =)

[Clark Gilbert]

Look under Control Panel -> Mouse Settings, then there should be a special tab for your touchpad settings (if you have them).

[Mike]

Originally Posted by Clark Gilbert

Look under Control Panel -> Mouse Settings, then there should be a special tab for your touchpad settings (if you have them).

I checked there, I think I might have to download another driver to enable it.

[Jay H 237]

Check to see if HP has it's own settings separate from the control panel built into Windows.

I know that with both my Toshiba Satellites if I want to change certain things I have to use Toshiba's power managment settings and not the control panel settings. The touch pad settings on one of my Satellites is found on a tab under power management. If I attempt to make changes in the Windows control panel I will get an error message.