A little Sony (or other) Laptop Advice?

[Ghostwheel]

Folks, my daughter spilled ginger ale all over my old laptop keyboard (Toshiba) and it has shuffled off this mortal coil. We have not killed and eaten her yet, that can wait until she is a teenager. It's OK, though, that Toshiba gave me a lot of life and I have been meaning to replace it for some time. I'm sure it's not worth the cost of a fix anyway.

I would love a little feedback for a guy who does his own desktop builds but knows very little about the world of laptop specs.

This computer will get light-duty office use, and lots of web surfing, writing, a fair amount of Photoshopping, and a bit of gaming (could never do any gaming at all with the old machine, so I'd like to step up here).

I'm just about ready to pull the trigger on a Sony CW-series laptop and would like your impressions of the line. I admit, one reason is I simply like the style and the keyboard feel. I also like the approx 14" screen size -- any bigger and I'd use my desktop.

A couple of specifics: Is it worth stepping up to the P8700 processor with 1066FSB?
Also, how's the GT230 GPU as opposed to the G210? Again, worth it, even if I may have to wait? Finally, I dig the white finish, but worry it will show the dirt and will probably go black. Anyone have a white one want to comment?

Any feedback on this would be very appreciated.

 

[Decembermouse]

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-G-210M.17638.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-230M.17646.0.html

Basically, the GT230m has 48 shaders and the GT210m has 16 shaders. If Notebookcheck is to be believed, the GT230m runs at lower clock speeds. I'm not sure how accurate this is. In any case, the GT230m will be much more powerful.

How much you thinking of paying for this laptop? These specs seem overpowered for what you want to do. Then again it could come down to what games you want to play. But a P8700 and a discrete card in a laptop are a bit high-end for what it sounds like you want to do.

 

[Ghostwheel]

Thanks. The better gfx card is only +$50 so I think it's worth it. I want the flexibility and longevity.

Right now the total specs out at $1129.99, but the two big upgrades are the $150 for bluray player/burner and the CPU which is +$50 from P7450, +$150 from the default T6600.

I'm not 100% of the need for the bluray, but as this will be a once in a long-time purchase, I don't want to leave off anything and regret it a year or two down the line.

 

[Decembermouse]

You can get a laptop with a quad core processor for around that much money, with 4GB DDR3, a 320GB hard drive, and with a 1GB discrete graphics card... either Radeon 4650 or GeForce 230M flavor. You can get these off Best Buy's website or configure them on HP's website.

 

[Ghostwheel]

Many thanks. I'll look into it a bit more. I don't want to go much larger with the screen (14" is good to me) and don't mind paying a wee bit more the Vaio, but I don't want to make any major mistake.

 

[Decembermouse]

Careful not to go overkill on what you spend on a laptop! In 2004 right before I went to college, I got a Voodoo Envy M:860 laptop. It had an Athlon 64 3400+ with 1MB cache, a Mobility Radeon 9700 with 128MB DDR built in, 2x512MB PC2700, and a 7200RPM 60GB hard drive. It cost an absolute fortune. I should have gotten an ok desktop that could play games but not super high end- these days, an example would be a desktop with an Athlon X3 and Radeon 5770 range- and a cheapo laptop for laptop tasks instead of dumping so much cash into one 'uber laptop' that was supposed to do it all. It was very fast for a laptop, yes. And for a time, it could do it all. It was very brag-worthy. But for less than the price of that one laptop I could have gotten a powerful gaming computer and a perfectly adequate laptop. And eventually, it was outpaced, and because of how much I had invested in it, I was without the money to buy hardware to keep up with current games and software.

With the laptop you're thinking about, it would be tougher to fit two machines into this budget. Unless of course you already have a monitor... my laptop cost several thousand dollars *cringe* so it's sort of an extreme example of this expensive Sony you're looking at, I'm just trying to illustrate with something I've gone through.

...so I guess what I'm trying to say is... I know you're paying less than my family did back in 2004, but I just see it as sort of an analog to this expensive laptop for gaminig/photoshop/etc you're thinking about. Just wanted to tell my story, and I just hope you don't end up feeling like you made a mistake a year or two down the road, having spent too much on a desktop replacement laptop, you know? Not trying to sway you one way or the other, but the dent that the Voodoo put in my budget prevented me from gaming for years because I didn't have the leftover money to build something that could keep up with the times.

 

[Ghostwheel]

Heh. I understand, believe me. I wouldn't overdo it. That's for my desktop.

I've had the laptop that's gone kaput for at least five years now, so I know the things I like to do with it, and now can add a little (like video editing if I need to). Anyway, I've pulled the trigger, so we'll see. The only thing I don't like is the 5400rpm drive, but you can't have everything...

 

[Rifter]

5400rpm is better for laptops from what i have been told, generates less heat. Heat is the enemy when laptops are concerned.

 

[aba4430]

http://store.microsoft.com/microsoft/Toshiba-Satellite-A505-S6989/product/3A053E12

Check this one out. Excellent deal - I ordered one for my son today; could not pass up on it due to the price, even though I was looking at a P8700 based model.

 

[Ghostwheel]

That is very nice. 1gig on the vid card! Little bigger with the 16" screen than I want, though. Your son should be happy. My current Toshiba Satellite has been very good to me for years now, including being dropped from a height more than once and still booting up like a champ. Too bad it couldn't survive ginger ale... I've gone Sony. May have overpaid a bit, but now that it's done, I'm not going to overthink it.