notebook advice

[splintitan]

looking into buying a notebook but do not know where to start. looking to spend around 600, and i prefer a 14" over a 15", the upgraded screens, and bang for buck. dont realy need a gaming pc.
what company (accounting price and build quality)?
is cor 2 duo so much more (in price) than core duo?
is the new bluetooth aspect a must have?
thanks

 

[Ruptga]

Core 2s have the same MSRPs as Cores, though it doesn't take a genious to see that there's going to be some markup. Anyway, it seems that it doesn't cost much more, and a C2 at 1.86 will perform about as well as a Core at 2.00 in media encoding, F@H, games, and other floating-point things. You do take a bit of a battery life hit with C2, but I understand it's nothing major.
The first place I'd check is Dell Outlet, where they sell their returned and otherwise "damaged" goods. Their three categories there are previously ordered new, refurbished, and scratch/dent if I remember correctly. You can get a big discount on a nice machine, you just need to check once a day for a week or w/e because you're getting the "leftovers" and they don't have a steady supply of any specific configuration.

 

[splintitan]

are you saying that the perfomance boost isnt really much, and not worth the difference?
thanks man, thats graet info!

 

[Ruptga]

No, I'd love to have a C2D, but you may not notice a difference if you only use it for office work or email etc. The Dell thing is from personal experience, but the C2 stuff is from here http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808&p=17

I'd recommend waiting for Santa Rosa and the better FSB and wireless N and all that, but it doesn't seem that you really care about all that so I'd say to get a C2 either now or once all the holiday price drops start kicking in.

The performance boost isn't anything insane, but if you're looking to keep this machine for a while, definately look for C2. And make sure you check the FSBs, I don't know if they've done it with C2 as well, but there's a couple Cores that have a 533 bus. That doesn't matter much right now, but again if you're looking at this from a long-term view, stay away from those cut-down chips.

 

[Ruptga]

Just remembered this, again with long-term in mind, I've read on this forum that ATi's lowest current IGP (integrated graphics processor) is the X1100, and it performs about twice as well as the standard integrated Intel GMA950, and it seems that they suck the same amount of juice. You'll need to go to the video section of the forums for specifics, but I can say for sure, you don't want GMA950 graphics if you can avoid it, they're bottom-of-the-barrel.

 

[splintitan]

which notebooks use the x1100 (i think you meant the Radeon Xpress 1100)?

 

[splintitan]

revised- what kind of chip is the santa rosa, when will it come out and will they be expensive? is it something i can just add later?
waiting till after the holidays isnt a bad idea either.
thanks again.

 

[Jeffwo]

Check this page here for the best current laptop deals.

Or here.

BTW...I bought a Dell 1505 a couple months ago. I really like it.

Jeff

 

[alimoalem]

it's always good to get opinions from as many people as possible so i'll chip in

Core 2 Duo has BETTER battery life, not worse. it may be insignificant and within margin of error (<1% more battery life) but it certainly is not worse.

if you're looking into getting 64-bit vista (or another 64-bit operating system) then get C2D. Core Duo is 32-bit, wheras Core 2 Duo is 64-bit. C2D is also about 5-10% faster, on average, clock-for-clock.

the CPU can be replaced so if you find a good deal on a Core Duo, go for it, and if you need 64-bit/faster processor, you can drop one in down the line.

the GMA-950 isn't a bad igp; you just need to have more ram. if you have 1gb of ram, you shouldn't have any problems with it. especially seeing how you won't be gaming.

i'm typing on a hp dv2000t and really like it. the build quality is pretty solid, it's portable (14" widescreen, i like the way it looks, and the keyboard is perfect. my dad has a lenovo thinkpad t60 which i think is an amazing laptop but i don't think a new one would be in your price range. i've heard good things about apple's and the ones my friends have look good too. again, your budget probably won't allow for one.

what i think you need is any core duo (you really won't see much performance difference between the 1.66 and 1.83 or 1.83 and 2.0), 1gb ram, 5400 rpm sata hdd, good appearance, 14" (for portability), and integrated graphics.

you never mentioned what you'll be using this for, btw.

EDIT: you don't need bluetooth either...what are you gonna use it for?

 

[splintitan]

anyone else have any feedback about whether to go dell, hp, gateway, or other?
still very interested in which notebooks have the x1100.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: splintitan
anyone else have any feedback about whether to go dell, hp, gateway, or other?
still very interested in which notebooks have the x1100.

The X1100 is an integrated graphics part and you'll only see it on ATI chipsets meaning, you'll only see it paired with Turion 64 X2 Processors. You would be better off going with a CoreDuo or C2D notebook since the T64X2's aren't as powerful.

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: splintitan
anyone else have any feedback about whether to go dell, hp, gateway, or other?
still very interested in which notebooks have the x1100.

The X1100 is an integrated graphics part and you'll only see it on ATI chipsets meaning, you'll only see it paired with Turion 64 X2 Processors. You would be better off going with a CoreDuo or C2D notebook since the T64X2's aren't as powerful.

Oh I didn't know about that Turion thing. Yeah, Turions are a hair better than Cores, but not as good as Core 2.

EDIT: But Turions are generally cheaper
EDIT again: Yeah I meant the radeon express. You'll probably want to look into nVidia's counterpart as well, I have no idea how it performs.

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: splintitan
revised- what kind of chip is the santa rosa, when will it come out and will they be expensive? is it something i can just add later?
waiting till after the holidays isnt a bad idea either.
thanks again.

Santa Rosa is a platform, you definately cannot upgrade your laptop to it unless you replace the mobo, but then you have a new laptop. Here's the wikipedia page about what exactly will be in Santa Rosa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrino#Santa_Rosa_platform But the big things are the higher FSB, wireless n, a new socket (meaning old CPUs can't be plugged into the new platforms), and Robson technology (fancy codeword for putting programs and stuff on flash to let the juice-sucking HDDs sleep, then the HDDs turn on only when you need to access something not in the cache, ups battery a ton and makes the system a bit faster.)

 

[alimoalem]

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
Oh I didn't know about that Turion thing. Yeah, Turions are a hair better than Cores, but not as good as Core 2.

EDIT: But Turions are generally cheaper
EDIT again: Yeah I meant the radeon express. You'll probably want to look into nVidia's counterpart as well, I have no idea how it performs.

core duo beats the turion...and has much better battery

the 800MHz FSB ones do only come in the new platform but i mean i don't know if it's worthwhile recommending the OP to wait. i mean what's the chances of the first releases of the new socket being under $600?

 

[splintitan]

so far i think im ganna try go for: sxga, core duo, gig ram...
from what i can tell the e10405 is best since they are most common, and probly cheeper too.

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: alimoalem

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
Oh I didn't know about that Turion thing. Yeah, Turions are a hair better than Cores, but not as good as Core 2.

EDIT: But Turions are generally cheaper
EDIT again: Yeah I meant the radeon express. You'll probably want to look into nVidia's counterpart as well, I have no idea how it performs.

core duo beats the turion...and has much better battery

the 800MHz FSB ones do only come in the new platform but i mean i don't know if it's worthwhile recommending the OP to wait. i mean what's the chances of the first releases of the new socket being under $600?

Those chances are frankly crap. I said it doesn't sound like he'd be interested in doing that, but felt like mentioning it anyway.

On the Turion/Core thing, I dunno what you're talking about.
"Second, AMD's low-power state seems to require less power than Intel's low-power state (we would need "identical" configurations to say for sure). Related to the power draw, battery life appears to be slightly better with Turion X2 than with Core 2 Duo, at least if the system is generally idle. The flipped side is that Turion X2 under full load uses more power than Core 2 Duo, so if you intend to run CPU intensive tasks while on battery power it will have less battery life."
"If Turion X2 had become available at the beginning of this year, around the same time that Intel launched the Core Duo platform, it would have been much easier to recommend. There are almost certainly areas where Turion X2 would show a performance improvement over Intel Core Duo. If you're trying to decide between a Core Duo laptop and a Turion X2 laptop, overall we would say it's pretty close to a tie, so you should focus on features and other extras that might be important. If you are more concerned with performance, you will either want a better CPU, GPU, or both."
Those quotes are from here http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=2856&p=11

 

[Ruptga]

Originally posted by: splintitan
so far i think im ganna try go for: sxga, core duo, gig ram...
from what i can tell the e10405 is best since they are most common, and probly cheeper too.

Did you mean E1505 or E1405? I think you just stuck an extra 0 in there, if so I'd say that sounds good for what you're looking for. I have basically the same thing in a larger/widescreen form factor and I'm pretty pleased with it.

 

[splintitan]

yea e1405, they arent very common with the upgraded sxga screen though. all points still lead me to dell.
by the way this would be replacing a pc of mine so the nice screen is almost a must. sound cards im not familiar with either when it comes to labtops but i dont know what would in some way live up to my x-fi platinum.

 

[Ruptga]

The only sound options that I know of on Dells is the "Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy? HD Software Edition." I do have that on mine and the sound is quite good. Granted, I'm not a crazy sound techie or anything, but my music does sound pretty good even with the regular laptop speakers, and they're not wimpy speakers either.

 

[Jeffwo]

Originally posted by: ADDAvenger
The only sound options that I know of on Dells is the "Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy? HD Software Edition." I do have that on mine and the sound is quite good. Granted, I'm not a crazy sound techie or anything, but my music does sound pretty good even with the regular laptop speakers, and they're not wimpy speakers either.

Same here.

For the money this Dell E1505 is hard to beat.

BTW....mine is almost same as yours (in your signature)

Jeff

 

[andrewbabcock]

Dell e1505 is a good deal go for it.

 

[splintitan]

my bro has the 15inch and i think that 14 will be perfect for me. what do you guys think of the sxga screens?