Laptop Questions

[sanddrag]

If it isn't a ridiculous amount more, go for the faster hard drive. I have a 10,000 rpm drive in my primary tower and I'd never build another for myself without one. The faster drive will definitely be a noticeable improvement. As for RAM, how much more does the manufacturer charge? You could get the baseline, then pick up some pretty cheap from MWave and install it yourself.

Personally, I'm a budget laptop owner. I have a $500 Acer laptop. It isn't really fast, but it does everything I need to well enough. I don't game (so I have no idea how well that works), but it plays music, handless Office documents, goes online, plays DVDs, runs SolidWorks just fine, which is all I need. And it has a keyboard I can type faster on than a desktop. I can get 2.5 hours out of the battery on medium performance settings, and over 3 hours if I crank the CPU and brightness all the way down. And if I drop it, I didn't just lose $1500. The only real limitation I've met with it so far is it's inability to decently run all the desktop composition effects in Vista (transparency and whatnot). But, I don't need all that eye candy anyhow.

Anyway, I understand your desire for a good fast laptop with enough specs to last you a while. Good luck in your search, let us know what you decide.

[Branden Ghena]

Thank You guys very much! I was working on the same decision when I saw this post on CD. It helped a bunch. I didn't know about the max RAM or how much RPM mattered.

[Guy Davidson]

Thank you everyone who replied.

So from what I gather, right now, there's no reason to get over 3GB of ram, since I probably won't be running a 64 bit OS.

Here are two reasonable deals I see online now - I probably won't buy either this week, but both seem pretty good:

Gateway M-152XL: http://www.gateway.com/systems/produ....php#techspecs (in short, T8300 / 3GB RAM / 160GB 7200RPM HDD / ATI Moblity Radeon HD2600 w/ 512MB GDDR3 / 15.4" WXGA 1280x800 screen for $1050).

Or, XPS M1530: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...=DYDWHE2&s=dhs (Same specs as above, other than a 256MB 8600GT and a 1440x900 LED LCD for $1325, or $200 less without the LED LCD).

Does anyone have any experience with LED LCDs? Any idea which of the graphics cards is better, or if it even matters? Any thoughts about either deal? (Cory, thank you very much for that extensive review of the XPS M1530)

EDIT: Looking around for more deals, I ran into two on the costco site:

Toshiba A305: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11280108&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eC at=BC|84|56670|29722&N=4017753&Mo=9&pos=7&No=4&Nr= P_CatalogName:BC&cat=29722&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDes c1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&ec=BC-EC10590-Cat56670&topnav=

Asus F8SN-C1:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11281360&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eC at=BC|84|56670|62881&N=4018582&Mo=7&pos=6&No=2&Nr= P_CatalogName:BC&cat=62881&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDes c1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&ec=BC-EC10590-Cat56670&topnav=

Both seem pretty reasonable to me, and I'm still weighing my options. Any thoughts about either of them? Anyone with experience buying a laptop from Costco?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by Guy Davidson

Thank you everyone who replied.

So from what I gather, right now, there's no reason to get over 3GB of ram, since I probably won't be running a 64 bit OS.

Here are two reasonable deals I see online now - I probably won't buy either this week, but both seem pretty good:

Gateway M-152XL: http://www.gateway.com/systems/produ....php#techspecs (in short, T8300 / 3GB RAM / 160GB 7200RPM HDD / ATI Moblity Radeon HD2600 w/ 512MB GDDR3 / 15.4" WXGA 1280x800 screen for $1050).

Or, XPS M1530: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...=DYDWHE2&s=dhs (Same specs as above, other than a 256MB 8600GT and a 1440x900 LED LCD for $1325, or $200 less without the LED LCD).

Does anyone have any experience with LED LCDs? Any idea which of the graphics cards is better, or if it even matters? Any thoughts about either deal? (Cory, thank you very much for that extensive review of the XPS M1530)

EDIT: Looking around for more deals, I ran into two on the costco site:

Toshiba A305: http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11280108&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eC at=BC|84|56670|29722&N=4017753&Mo=9&pos=7&No=4&Nr= P_CatalogName:BC&cat=29722&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDes c1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&ec=BC-EC10590-Cat56670&topnav=

Asus F8SN-C1:
http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11281360&whse=BC&Ne=4000000&eC at=BC|84|56670|62881&N=4018582&Mo=7&pos=6&No=2&Nr= P_CatalogName:BC&cat=62881&Ns=P_Price|1||P_SignDes c1&lang=en-US&Sp=C&ec=BC-EC10590-Cat56670&topnav=

Both seem pretty reasonable to me, and I'm still weighing my options. Any thoughts about either of them? Anyone with experience buying a laptop from Costco?

Nvidia is ahead of ATI in graphics right now. I'm not sure how the 2600 correlates directly with the 8600 GT, but the 8600GT is a very good card.

From reading up on all the troubles with my screen, the LED is brighter, as well as the display actually being thinner, and lighter. It also gets better battery life. Whether it's worth an extra $200, who knows. I wish they had WSXGA+ in LED when I bought mine. I'd have gotten it.