Buying a new Notebook

[Hariz]

Hi guys,

I have been researching in the last few days inorder to get sufficient info and offers before buying myself a notebook. I want to make sure it is a good one, as upgrading these things is a lot difficult if not impossible in some cases. I am mainly going to use it for gaming (not very high-end but mid range graphics), basic needs sufficient ram and harddrive space. I am opting for a 15.4 inch screen. My price range is around 1500 euros. Below are some of the notebooks I found and you guys can point out the pros and cons kindly.

hp (german site)

dell

sony

alienware

You guys can get a basic idea with these notebooks about the thing I am looking for. If any other notebook is better and cheaper in the market would be glad to hear.

Thanks, awaiting replies.

 

[FreddieFan]

It really depends on where you're going to use it. If its a gaming laptop based at home, and can run off mains most of the time, then you can go for better specs. If you want to run it off battery on the move, I'd go for worse specs (and therefore worse performance in games) but an increased battery life - top hardware is very power hungry.

 

[Skater]

I can tell you that I'm currently using a 'notebook', and I mainly use it on mains electricity. It has the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 graphics card which can be openly changed at any time, but it runs games like EA SPORTS Cricket 2004, EA SPORTS Cricket 2005, Brian Lara International Cricket 2005, World Championship Snooker 2003 and EA SPORTS FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 smoothly.

 

[Hariz]

I can tell you that I'm currently using a 'notebook', and I mainly use it on mains electricity. It has the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 graphics card which can be openly changed at any time, but it runs games like EA SPORTS Cricket 2004, EA SPORTS Cricket 2005, Brian Lara International Cricket 2005, World Championship Snooker 2003 and EA SPORTS FIFA World Cup Germany 2006 smoothly.

That sounds nice, can you name the brand and model.

@ freddiefan: Mate as Skateboarder said, I will be using it on a mains electricity line, so no problem with the battery life.

Would some one give some suggestions on the notebooks I listed above.

 

[FreddieFan]

If battery power isn't an option, I'd go for the Alienware. Looks and performance are both superb, and I hear their customer service is excellent.

 

[siddharth2002]

Hi guys,

I have been researching in the last few days inorder to get sufficient info and offers before buying myself a notebook. I want to make sure it is a good one, as upgrading these things is a lot difficult if not impossible in some cases. I am mainly going to use it for gaming (not very high-end but mid range graphics), basic needs sufficient ram and harddrive space. I am opting for a 15.4 inch screen. My price range is around 1500 euros. Below are some of the notebooks I found and you guys can point out the pros and cons kindly.

hp (german site)

dell

sony

alienware

You guys can get a basic idea with these notebooks about the thing I am looking for. If any other notebook is better and cheaper in the market would be glad to hear.

Thanks, awaiting replies.

Go for the DELL one as thats what I purchased. My Laptop-
DELL Inspiron 6400-
Intel DUO core TM2400 2x 1.83 GHz
1 GB 667MHz RAM
ATI Radeon x1400 256 MB
100 Gb hard-drive
other bells ands whistles
cost - $NZ2900.00 including $300 insurance.

And it ran most games at good settings. Especially Direct X 8.0 games on full settings.

 

[Hariz]

Well yeah siddharth2002, I was also interested in the dell inspiron 9400 more. How would you rate the ati x1400 graphics card. Dell used to have the nvidia geforce go 7800 cards but for some reason unknown to me they changed them to ati.

 

[siddharth2002]

Well yeah siddharth2002, I was also interested in the dell inspiron 9400 more. How would you rate the ati x1400 graphics card. Dell used to have the nvidia geforce go 7800 cards but for some reason unknown to me they changed them to ati.

Well the card is kicking ass, ran doom 3 at high settings fairly well and currently I m running UT2004 with max settings at 1024x768 on 60-80 frames per second which is quite amazing. But Nvidia 7800 is obviously better if u can get it.

 

[Hariz]

pretty nice to hear that. Just one final thing is how do you rate a Pentium dual core 1.83 Ghz processor with an AMD sempron 3800+ (2.0 Ghz). The amd processor uses the integrated ati 200 graphics, how good is that.
Moreover is their a possibility of upgrading the graphics card in the dell inspiron 9400 later on.

 

[siddharth2002]

pretty nice to hear that. Just one final thing is how do you rate a Pentium dual core 1.83 Ghz processor with an AMD sempron 3800+ (2.0 Ghz). The amd processor uses the integrated ati 200 graphics, how good is that.
Moreover is their a possibility of upgrading the graphics card in the dell inspiron 9400 later on.

AMD is slightly better with lower power consumption and lesser heating but the ATI 200 is quite low end graphic chip. And I think Graphics can be upgraded, u may want to check that with the company u buy ur laptop from.