"which laptop should i buy, buchanan?", "er, i'll look around"

**buchanan** · #1 2nd Sep 2007, 18:16

Hello again guys, wonder if you can help.

my friend asked me to choose him a laptop, but i know nothing about them, never had one and only used a i-book g4, and he doesn't want a mac

he wants to spend £500, but could be persuaded to go £600/650 (didn't think he'd get much for 500).

i looked around for couple of hours and found a couple i liked but i am very unfamiliar with laptop cpu's.

He doesn't need it for gaming, so onboard graphics may be ok (obviously i'd like to get him the best possible so i'd like a good graphics card but not essential), but it must be a good, quick machine which will last him a while, he would like at least 2gb ram

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127193

(may be too expensive for him though)

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/127867

here are the two that i chose (which is better cpu the t5300 1.73GHz 533 mhz fsb or the t5500 1.66GHz with 667 fsb? i havn't got a clue).

these are just what i found on one site, what laptops would you recommend?

thanks a lot as always,

buchanan

**alex** · #2 2nd Sep 2007, 22:56

Hey.

Is he going to be travelling with it? Using it off the mains a lot? I ask because an integrated gpu will allow more battery life.

Any preference on screen size?

**buchanan** · #3 2nd Sep 2007, 23:09

so an onboard gpu will use less battery?

i think he does want to carry it round with him

i did ask him about the screen size and he wasn't too bothered, obviously the bigger the better i reckon though, because 15" is pretty small

**alex** · #4 2nd Sep 2007, 23:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by buchanan

so an onboard gpu will use less battery?

i think he does want to carry it round with him

i did ask him about the screen size and he wasn't too bothered, obviously the bigger the better i reckon though, because 15" is pretty small

Regarding the onboard gpu using less battery, that's a big, fat yup.

Have a look at This one

I believe you still get £40 off as well should you register prior to purchase. So that's £459 in total for the spec you see. I've a 14.1" widescreen I bought from the same site. Superb build quality. The cpu is in no way a bad one either, not for that money. And not in general, it only draws 31watt.

Or there's this base spec one from Dell. Better cpu, half the ram.

Once again with Sony you pay for the name: hmph Cheapest I've seen this model Sony.

**buchanan** · #5 2nd Sep 2007, 23:40

alex

of the two in my original post, which has the better cpu, the asus or the sony, (5300 or 5500).

whats more important, ghz or fsb?

one of the things he said to me was "i don't want a dell", he said he had heard it was bad if you needed support or to return the item if it went wrong

**alex** · #6 2nd Sep 2007, 23:53

Out of the two, I'd be going for the faster fsb, considering the very slight drop in mhz between the two cpu speeds.

Apologies, quoted Dell because they're pretty much like marmite: You either hate 'em or love 'em. Didn't know which camp your friend fell into.

**buchanan** · #7 3rd Sep 2007, 00:02

no apology needed, should've explained his brief to me better,

hadn't considered an amd cpu (no experience of them), but i will try to broaden my horizons

we may go out today to shops to get a better idea, are there any specific cpu's you would highly recommend?

just out of interest, how do you rate the 2 from my 1st post?

**mr_miller** · #8 3rd Sep 2007, 05:11

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=126333

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/343517...k/Product.html

Two i've seen recently, my preferred being the ACER, reasons being its 2GB, a proper C2D and not the Pentium cut down version and non-integrated grfx.

**buchanan** · #9 3rd Sep 2007, 22:37

cheers mr_miller.

which laptop cpu's are the best, i mean can you get quad-core yet?, is core 2 duo the best, better than core 2?

where does centrino fit in?

whats the pecking order for laptop processors?

**mr_miller** · #10 4th Sep 2007, 01:06

I personally wouldn't consider anything other than a Core 2 duo, beware those that are labelled Pentium Core Duo or Pentium Dual Core (model numbers here http://www.intel.com/products/proces..._dual-core.htm) they have half the cache of a proper C2D chip. Apparently that acer doesn't ship with the core duo part in the specs but the T5xxx C2D cpu, hence the reason i recommended it, out of stock now though.

Personally, I would look for a laptop with at least a T5xxx series chip as these are far quicker than the T2xxx series cpu. Forget AMD for the moment, they are far behind in the mobile market on this generation of chips.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...3&category_oid=

Centrino is a definition of a platform, not a processor, at the moment it means that it will have wireless, graphics etc provided as standard.