new notebook

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:30 am

pikeh wrote:at the moment its a toss up between dell and acer. is Centrino good or should i search for pentium4 or even an AMD etc?

Everything i have read says the centrino > p4, dell's i think ship with just centrino's anyway, you don't get a p4 option iirc.

Shi · Post by **Shi** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:37 am

wooooo Mojo, that's a nice looking baby you got there

pikeh · Post by **pikeh** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 9:55 am

I kinda like this one, but its a Turion and i have no idea what they are like.
Acer

AMD Turion ML34 1.8Ghz Processor
1024MB RAM
100GB Hard Drive
DVD Dual Layer Multi Drive
15.4” WXGA CrystalBrite TFT display
ATI Mobility Radeon X700 128MB
10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet & 802.11g Wireless
6-in-1 card reader
1 Year Collect & Return Warranty (Including International Travellers Warranty)
Microsoft Windows XP Home
£879

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:08 am

ShiShi wrote:wooooo Mojo, that's a nice looking baby you got there

It's not mine :< my friend has one and i hope to get one to replace the inspiron that got robbed from my appartment tho

Tare · Post by **Tare** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:16 am

Of course XPS laptop is better than Inspiron, but I just simply couldn't convince myself that it was worth the extra money when an Inspiron suits pretty much all my needs.

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:35 am

Tare wrote:Of course XPS laptop is better than Inspiron, but I just simply couldn't convince myself that it was worth the extra money when an Inspiron suits pretty much all my needs.

Not to mention the fact that you prolly got your inspiron before the xps was available? i don't think they have been available for that long? not much more than 6 months, at least not in the UK.

Mojo · Post by **Mojo** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:40 am

pikeh wrote:I kinda like this one, but its a Turion and i have no idea what they are like.
Acer

AMD Turion ML34 1.8Ghz Processor
1024MB RAM
100GB Hard Drive
DVD Dual Layer Multi Drive
15.4” WXGA CrystalBrite TFT display
ATI Mobility Radeon X700 128MB
10/100/1000Mbps Gigabit Ethernet & 802.11g Wireless
6-in-1 card reader
1 Year Collect & Return Warranty (Including International Travellers Warranty)
Microsoft Windows XP Home
£879

Spec seems decent enough except for the cpu but i dont know anyone who uses acer so don't know how reliable they are can you get that lappy with a centrino?

pikeh · Post by **pikeh** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 10:49 am

[quote="Mojo"]Spec seems decent enough except for the cpu but i dont know anyone who uses acer so don't know how reliable they are can you get that lappy with a centrino? ]

not afaik, but 1.8 ghz for an AMD is not as bad as a 1.8 ghz Intel. The pc im running atm is a AMD 3500+ , which runs at about 2.2 ghz. However, it still runs faster than a 3 ghz Intel.

Tare · Post by **Tare** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 11:11 am

Mojo wrote:Not to mention the fact that you prolly got your inspiron before the xps was available? i don't think they have been available for that long? not much more than 6 months, at least not in the UK.

got my inspiron about 3 months ago

Got two actually, one for my sis aswell

Post by **Xest** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:44 pm

I've phoned Dell tech support for two things - once for advise on using my laptop abroad with regards to power ratings, checking the standard Dell power supplies with laptops worked on 110v electricity networks okay, which they do only Dell told me 3 times they don't, I had to go to 3rd parties to get the correct answer. Secondly, just last week my old Inspiron, which has a 3 year warranty had it's graphics card give up, I'm guessing the video ram on it is fried as you just get random garbage on screen, same with an external monitor, I diagnosed it myself, phoned Dell up to get it returned (it's only got 2 months left on warranty - moral of the story? 3 year warranties = good

) yet I had to spend 3hrs on the phone total running through diagnostics they wanted me to do before they'd accept it back and trying to explain over and over to some guy in India who didn't understand much English, all at my expense of a national rate number - about £6 total. Their final diagnosis after I spent all this time on the phone with them was exactly the same as the diagnosis I gave them in the first place - faulty graphics card.

To be fair though, other than that everything about Dell is excellent, the spec/quality of the machines is second to none and when they do accept a repair they're pretty fast about it, and sometimes offer to just send the replacement part to you to fit yourself if it's say, a faulty hard drive for example. Most companies tech support is just as shoddy and as for my encounters above, I have no doubt any other company would have been just the same.

For performance laptops that you want to play games on it's Dell or Alienware, no one else really deserves a look in, if you're just using office/photoshop then you can just buy any old £500 laptop and it wont really make a difference which as long as the specs are identical.