New Laptop

[kane]

Time has come to buy a Laptop but i am unsure of all that computer jargin even though i use one all day every day.

I will be using it for word processing playing a Few games and burning and playing Dvd's

It will need to be able to plug into the LCD tv

So my questions are as follows

Which Brand.?? Toshiba, Dell, HP, compaq, Benq LG sony

How much ram? I would like it to be pretty quick??

How big a processor??

Size Screen? I don't want one to big 14.1 or 15.4?

Any other recomendations would be much appreciated

Kane

[wettingaline]

Hey Kane,

I recommend DELL or Toshiba depending on how much money you want to spend..

Dell are alot cheaper than toshiba, you can pick up absolute bargains if you go to the DELL site.

If you are looking at something just for general use and the occasional game, and looking to spend no more than 1500 you could get yourself something pretty good from DELL, check out the link below.

http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/f...;l=en&s=dhs

Stay clear of HP/Compaq, nothing but trouble, renowned LCD problems...i had a mate that went through three of them...

Toshiba is other good option, and in my opinion make the best laptop, but they are VERY costly...

anywayz good luck shopping, feel free to PM me any questions you might have..

[Flightmanager]

G'day Kane ,

What games are you looking at playing? Some of the newer 3D games are real resource hogs , couple that with XP's appetite for RAM , and you should be looking at a minimum of 512MB of good quality RAM , 1 GB would be better. The key to success as far as gaming is concerned , is matching your 3 key components , CPU (Processor) , RAM and GPU ( Video Card ). There is no point in having 1 GB of RAM , a top of the line 512 MB video card , and a small CPU. The CPU will " Bottleneck" the system , because it wont be able to transfer the data quickly enough to feed the other two components. For your application , I would go for a Mid Range machine , 2.8 GB CPU , 1 GB Ram and a 256 MB GPU.

Ross

[Bucket]

Hi Kane,

Flightmanager has some good points and you should take note of them.

My only concern is if you plan to play the high intensive graphics games like Half Life 2 or Quake 4 a laptop is not the way you should be heading. As you start playing these fast moving games the amount of work the CPU and the Graphics card has to do increases, which increases the amount of heat that is produced.

Laptops just don't have the cooling power or the necessary ventilation that is required t keep both the CPU and the Graphics card cool. When these components get hotter the more errors that are produced.

In saying all that if you are just after a machine to watch movies, do some word processing and occasionally play some games then Flightmanager's post will point you in the right direction.

Stephen

[Guest crow]

Huh?

i was lost after - here's the plan........

[bmar560]

I agree with Haraka.

Don't bother with DELL they use cheap components and that article shows it all

get a Toshiba they're excellent machines, Samsung notebook is fairly new but they have excellent LCD display.

HP is not too bad I recently bought a HP machine and been quite happy with it. If you have a bit of money get a Fujitsu machine.

You might want to get something that's ready for Windows Vista, so dual core processor, 1gb ram, at least 80gb hard drive, independent graphics card instead of shared. I heard Vista is very high demanding operating system.

If you want to play games, an independent graphics card is a MUST. Have a look at the Toshiba Tecra A6 or A7.

Feel free to ask more questions, I sell computers for a living so I should be able to answer them

Edited July 4, 2006 by bmar560

[wettingaline]

I work for OPTUS, i do internal dekstop support for the employees, all our employees use HP/Compaq....believe me i fix about 10 LAPTOPS a day, they are nothing but CRAP.....

nothing wrong with DELL's mate, they are cheaper, but for general use for someone like your self, they are ideal, I have bought 3 of them over the last couple of years and havent had a problem....

All you want is a 1.8ghz centrino processor or 3.0Ghz P4 (you will get better battery life out of the centrino). and 512MBRAM and just a simple on board video card, 80GB HD. This is an entry level setup that would be perfect for your self and be affordable also.

However if you are a big gamer, you will need to get something with balls and a video card with on board RAM, but from what your original post says you arent looking for something like this. and this setup will also be costly.

Edited July 4, 2006 by wettingaline

[mottyman]

Hi Guys,

My work laptop is an IBM ThinkPad. It has a 60gig hard drive and 512meg RAM (I think). I'm not sure about the video card driver and stuff as it's a work supplied one, not for gaming I'd have to have a look and see what sort and size of CPU it had but I'm at home today on my home PC and the laptop is at work.

I only mention it because its 2 years old now and its never had a problem and performs as good as the day I got it. I burn DVD's and make movies on it etc etc and it does the job fine. I mostly use it for desktop publishing running InDesign and PhotoShop etc.

I'm no techie and don't know that much about them though, just thought I'd mention it.

Cheers,

David.

[macca]

[TailorNut]

I'd go with a dell. Currently using one at work.

If you buy a laptop, suggest you go with an Intel Duo CPU which has quite a lot of grunt. Speed in Mhz not so much of a problem if you get a Duo. 1GB or more of RAM is recommended if you can afford it. Disk size depends on how much stuff you want to store on it.

[hooked]

I bought a refurbished satellite M30 directly from Toshiba about 18 months ago. I got it for around $2000 when it was retailing for around $3000 and it's been fantastic. great screen heaps of memory and fast as.

You can probably tell I'm not an IT wizz but its been great for me.

Check out the Toshiba's