Looking for $2000 laptop

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catalyst29

Junior Member
Oct 6, 2003
4
0
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Alright, another "I need a laptop thread", but my price range is $2000-2100. It will be used primarily for Visual C programming and gaming, with the usual multimedia extras (watching DVDs and playing music) on the side.

Obviously the ATI Mobility 9600 would be great, but until it's in that price range (or at least coupled with Pentium-Ms) I have to discount it.

I've been looking at the HP Pavilion zt3000 released later this month (64MB Mobility 9200 is the best I could do). I'd prefer an IBM T40 but the price hovers a few hundred above a comparable HP machine. At this point, I'm insisting on Pentium-M machines only (the Pentium 4s and 4-Ms just suck too much battery power).

Any recommendations?
 
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mrgoblin

Golden Member
Jul 28, 2003
1,075
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Sagers will sting u for about 2100 with top of the line features. Best buy imho
 
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GnomeCop

Diamond Member
Jun 17, 2002
3,863
0
76
keep an eye on the dell inspiron 8600... maybe they will offer it with a better graphics solution soon.
 
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dnuggett

Diamond Member
Sep 13, 2003
6,703
0
76
The best bang for your buck available is the Dell Inspiron 5150 P4M @3.06 GHZ (533 FSB) upgradeable to 2G RAM 512 standard. Do not go with the HP if mobility is a concern. The battery only lasts about 2 hours with serious work being done. The Dell will last 5. The performance of the HP compared to the Dell 5150 is not even close. The Dell comes with the Radeon 9000 for a vid card. Not a bad card at all and will be fine with almost any game. The only downside is the 40GB hard drive @ 4200 RPM. This is the bottleneck I see in this machine. But the bright side is you can always upgrade.
 
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JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
A P4 3.06 will last 5 hours? I donno about that unless you get dual batteries my 1.3 centrino only gets like 4 hours of battery life.

I suggest www.powernotebooks.com configure a Power Pro C3:16 These guys are awsome they are atleast top 3 on www.resellerratings.com
I just got this same notebook
1.3 Centrino
512 ram
radeon 9000 64mb
40 gig 5400 RPM drive
15" SXGA display
Intel internal Wifi
gigabit lan
intel 855PM chipset
5.5 lbs
about 4 hour battery life
24x CDRW ,8x DVD combo drive
internal SD, MMC, Memory stick, smart media card reader
free carrying case and it is actually pretty nice
1 year parts 3 year labor life time tech for 1714
You can get alot more options too with the exta 300 - 400 you plan on spending too. They also have a bunch more options too
 
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dnuggett

Diamond Member
Sep 13, 2003
6,703
0
76
A P4 3.06 will last 5 hours? I donno about that unless you get dual batteries my 1.3 centrino only gets like 4 hours of battery life.
Click to expand...

Yep.. I'm not asking you to know... I know and I'm telling you. Independently tested in several reviews. Grab yourself a copy of Laptop magazine to verify it for yourself. Or ask someone who owns one.

BTW... one battery. Sorry to hear about your Centrino getting less, maybe you should get a 5150. ;)
 
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catalyst29

Junior Member
Oct 6, 2003
4
0
0
Thanks for the advice so far!

Unfortunately I had pre-orderd the HP zt3000 machine and then tried to cancel upon coming to this board (and seeing the many praises of IBM and Dell). Despite the fact that the laptop from HP doesn't even ship for 3 weeks, they won't let me cancel the order until it arrives on my doorstep and I send it back. WTF??

As for Dell, I checked on the 5150...very impressive battery life for a P4. But I HATE Dell's website. They say "from $1399" for a laptop model, then you click on "Customize" and suddenly it's $1700. Then without changing anything you click "Continue" and the price is now $2200. Also, they don't list the price change when selecting the various components of customized machines. No other notebook manufacturer does either of these (IMO, deceptive) things...
 
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JBT

Lifer
Nov 28, 2001
12,094
1
81
yeah the dell site sucks they only have these specially configured systems that re really cheap then you go to customize and it jumps like 500 bucks WTF? pretty messed up better to find a REALLY hot deal on them then upgrade it once you get it.
 
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Pandaren

Golden Member
Sep 13, 2003
1,029
0
0
A P4 3.06 will last 5 hours? I donno about that unless you get dual batteries my 1.3 centrino only gets like 4 hours of battery life.
Click to expand...

The P4 will clock throttle to 1.6 GHz and if the screen is turned all the way down and the user is not making the system jump through hoops, 5 hours is not out of the question, considering the 5150 has a massive 96 watt/hr battery (compare to 48 watt/hr in most Centrino machines).
 
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catalyst29

Junior Member
Oct 6, 2003
4
0
0
cmdrdredd--very, very nice. The ironic thing is, despite a shockingly affordable price tag, it has a lot of frills I probably wouldn't use. Beyond that, 12lbs and I can only imagine what kind of battery life it gets...but it looks to me like one hell of a value.

Sadly, it looks like the first big manufacturer to launch a Pentium-M + ATI Mobility 9600 is Compaq (nc8000). <sigh> I've seen rumblings of an IBM T41 as well, but I don't think I'll be able to afford it...
 
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dnuggett

Diamond Member
Sep 13, 2003
6,703
0
76
The P4 will clock throttle to 1.6 GHz and if the screen is turned all the way down and the user is not making the system jump through hoops, 5 hours is not out of the question,
Click to expand...

The 5150 was tested using continuous DVD playback, the screen was not turned down. Very impressive.

The link to the article was in a previous post of mine in this forum.
 
cmdrdredd

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
Originally posted by: catalyst29
cmdrdredd--very, very nice. The ironic thing is, despite a shockingly affordable price tag, it has a lot of frills I probably wouldn't use. Beyond that, 12lbs and I can only imagine what kind of battery life it gets...but it looks to me like one hell of a value.

Sadly, it looks like the first big manufacturer to launch a Pentium-M + ATI Mobility 9600 is Compaq (nc8000). <sigh> I've seen rumblings of an IBM T41 as well, but I don't think I'll be able to afford it...
Click to expand...

well, you can't ever have it both ways. Battery life AND extreme speed and features.

if you could you'd buy a powerbook from apple :)
 
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