Laptop suggestions please...

[CheetoBandito]

I'm looking into getting my girlfriend a new laptop as a college graduation present. I'm limited greatly by my budget, and I currently have two models in mind. Both models seem comparable to me.


Acer TravelMate
That laptop is an Acer TravelMate Tm2480-2779. With an Intel Celeron M @ 1.6



Acer Aspirehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115369

This one is an Acer Aspire A53050-1150. With an AMD Sempron 3500+



They both have 512mb of memory in which I plan on upgrading the moment I get it in the mail to 2gb dual channel. However, the Aspire is listing the ram as SO-DIMM...and I don't know what that is. The travel mate has DDR2-533. My question is...which notebook, after the RAM upgrade would be faster for general applications such as Office, Powerpoint, etc...and the occassional PopCap game and whatnot.

 

[Roguestar]

I'm going to go out on a limb and make the sexist assumption that as a girl she's not as into technical stuff but is impressed by pretty things and therefore say buy her a MacBook.

Wait nm I just re-read your post and saw "budget". This is not a word compatible with Mac hardware. Out of the two laptops you've narrowed it down to I'd say the Sempron would be faster.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: Roguestar
I'm going to go out on a limb and make the sexist assumption that as a girl she's not as into technical stuff but is impressed by pretty things and therefore say buy her a MacBook.

Wait nm I just re-read your post and saw "budget". This is not a word compatible with Mac hardware. Out of the two laptops you've narrowed it down to I'd say the Sempron would be faster.

new laptop as a college graduation present

uhoh...need more info as to what she'll be doing with said laptop ..it's one thing to give a basic model to someone going into college but quite another for someone headed out into the job market to be saddled down with a barebones minimalist machine ... an acquaintance of mine has a dell 1501 w/Turion and a gig of ram it is pretty snappy in responsiveness(does quite a bit of take home work from her employer) but she did note my 2 yr old hp zv6000 had definitely better sound as well as quicker on boot.. gl

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: CheetoBandito
I'm looking into getting my girlfriend a new laptop as a college graduation present. I'm limited greatly by my budget, and I currently have two models in mind. Both models seem comparable to me.






Acer Aspirehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115369

This one is an Acer Aspire A53050-1150. With an AMD Sempron 3500+



They both have 512mb of memory in which I plan on upgrading the moment I get it in the mail to 2gb dual channel. However, the Aspire is listing the ram as SO-DIMM...and I don't know what that is. The travel mate has DDR2-533. My question is...which notebook, after the RAM upgrade would be faster for general applications such as Office, Powerpoint, etc...and the occassional PopCap game and whatnot.

$499 @Staples come 4-15