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I Need Help With Buying a Notebook

H

htmlmasterdave

Golden Member
My budget is in the $1100-1400 Canadian which is about $850 to 1150 american. This is mainly what I'm looking for...

I need basically a Windows XP machine with no caring what so ever about games or 3D performance. Just good performance in basic programs (doesn't have to be stellar) I don't really care about Intel vs. AMD as long as the one I pick runs well 🙂.

CPU:

Basically anything, but I would hope for something performing atleast decently, like the equivalent of an athlon 2000xp or something around there. Lower power consumption / more battery life is always great. (What are these mobile low mhz celerons about? They are like 1.5ghz, while other mobile celerons are 2.8 etc.)

RAM:

It would be running Windows XP, so I need probably about 384-512 for it to run nicely.

HD:

Any hd really, size isn't really important at all, but I'd prefer a faster one, like the 5400rpm 8 meg cache ones.

WIFI:

Something built in, preferrably 802.11g.

Anything else I'm not too concerned about.

So does anyone have any recommendations, like which cpu to go for, brand etc.? Also when would be the best time to buy before the beginning of the new year? Should I try and wait for boxing day, etc.? I just need it before the next term starts 🙂

Thanks for reading it all and you help 🙂
 
Celeron "M" is based on P-M / Centrino / Bananas core not on P4, so they are good performance with much less heat and power use than a P4 or P4-based Celeron.

In your price range a celeron M is a decent choice if you can't find a real centrino laptop. The next thing is to plan to bump memory up to 512 MB, since then less power-sucking / speed killing virtual memory is needed.
 
Ok, I'll take a look. I'm definately buying a laptop with at a bare minimum 384 of ram, but I'm going to try for 512. How are the regular celerons compared to the P-M based ones in terms of performance?
 
You really want a centrino or a Celeron-M.

Even if you don't want the extended battery life the reduced heat will extend the lifetime of your notebook a lot, especially if you work in the sun, read email in your bed or something.

Here's an Acer for $1000:
http://www.newegg.com/app/View...DEPA=3&Order=price

However, be warned that the Intel Extreme Graphics don't even have hardware T&L. Older games and mass gmes like the sims will run, everything else will be disappointing.

My usualy recommendations: don't get a Sony, don't get ATI graphics, get 3 years warranty if you can.
 
Yeah just keep scouring the Hot Deals forum and also check over at Fatwallet too.

They almost have weekly deals on notebooks.

There was a very good deal recently for a Compaq R3000Z for under $700 which would more than impress you!

I'm using an Emachines M6810 but that's a few hundred $$'s over the upper end of your budget.

Have a look at www.notebookreview.com as well to check out the ratings of notebooks and any protential problems as well

😉
 
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