Purchsing a new laptop - would love some advice!

savergal

Hello,

I am looking to purchase a laptop for a relative (21st birthday present - lots of people chipping in!!).

He has sent me two "possibles" and I wondered whether any of you would be able to advise me which one would be a better buy.

He mainly wants to use it for surfing the web - and also he loves playing action games (not sure if he links up with people over the web for these games...)

The first one is:

HP 530 Core 2 Duo T5200
1.6Ghz
2GB RAM
160GB HDD
GMA 950 Dynamic Video Memory Technology 3.0
£330

This sounds like a nice one - but I am a little worried that the integrated graphics may not be up to the kind of games he plays ...

The second one is:

HP 6735s Laptop
AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core QL-60 1.9Ghz
4GB memory
250GB HDD
Graphics:
Graphic card 01 Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Graphic subsystem video card memory 01 Up to 384 MB DDR2 shared system memory
£399

The second one sounds like quite a lot for the money, although I am not sure how the AMD 1.9Ghz processor compares with the Core 2 Duo 1.6Ghz ... and also not sure I entirely understand the Graphics options on the second one - is that a dedicated graphics card or integrated?

If anyone is able to shed any light - or has any pearls of wisdom to share, then I would be most grateful!!

Many thanks in advance!

melstin

£399 is far too little for a top notch laptop.

Googling "graphic media accelerator x3100" I found this answer:

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If you value gaming then you will not want any Intel GMA cards.

The X3100 is probably ranked somewhere under an ATI Mobility Radeon X600 and also under the Go 7200. I haven't seen great numbers from the X3100; I've never seen great numbers from Intel graphic cards.

Edit: I tried to find good benchmark test for Intel cards but all I could find was this http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Grap... which compares 3DMark tests.

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samhale

Make sure it has a 3 year warranty, thats the most important thing for a laptop.

coolagarry

If he plays any kind of serious games than a laptop under £400 will not provide acceptable graphics. If you want an acceptable graphics card imo you will need to pay at least £600 and even double that for high end games.
There is some good information on this site http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/gaming_laptops/page.asp

savergal

Hello!

Thank you for your advice - I have found out that the type of games he plays are mainly football manager games and roller coaster tycoon - he plays the other types of action/shoot em up games on his xbox!

So would that mean that we could bring the two suggested laptops back into play? Not sure if we will be able to collect much more than about £400 between us!

Which would be the better option - the Core 2 Duo or the AMD?

Thanks in advance!