Laptop for 1k

cheersthanksbye

Am looking to spend 1k on a laptop which 80% of the time will be spent as a home computer (using wireless internet connection) and 20% traveling with work.

Saw this on pc world - does this seem a good deal? it looked good to me?

PcWorld


Any thoughts would be very much appreciated.

EDITED TO EDIT TITLE AND SHORTEN LINK

redfox

Ahhh, 1k! I thought by your title that you must be looking for a gold plated one ;D

gibbajabba

The spec sounds good but the processor isnt very good for a grands worth of system,id shop around more.

pluk

You pay more for the Pentium M processors. Something to do with improved wireless etc? So thats why the speed of the processor is slower compared to a mobile Pentium 4 or celeron. The deal is not bad. You wont be able to play many recent games tho if you do.

vdub_2

I use a Dell 5150 with a 3ghz mobile P4, 512ram, 30gig HDD, 64mb FX go5200 graphics card, 15" (1600x1200res) display, 802.11g wireless. The CPU has speedstep so it will throttle back 50% on battery if required.

Ive had this for about 6months and use it about 80 % at Home 20% on the move. It cost less than £900 and it a very capable machine either playing games, office apps or the web

webhamster

Thats without any sort of waranty after year one , check out rockdirect.com , I wouldnt touch dsg shops with a bargepole for anything other than a carrier bag.

cheersthanksbye

You say it won't play the latest games - have to say the only thing which I see as a downer is the processing power.

However, I do know the Centrino/'M' processors are designed to produce great performance at lower clock speeds (and less battery power).

Command and Conquer Generals - Deluxe Edition for example has a system requirement of:

Win 98/2000/ME/XP
PIII 800 Mhz
Minimum Spec
128mb Ram
1.8GB HDD
32mb Graphics Card
Requires a 3D Accelerator

Does anyone out there know if this HP laptop with a 1.6Ghz Petium M processor could run this sort of game?

pluk

You say it won't play the latest games - have to say the only thing which I see as a downer is the processing power.

However, I do know the Centrino/'M' processors are designed to produce great performance at lower clock speeds (and less battery power).

Command and Conquer Generals - Deluxe Edition for example has a system requirement of:

Win 98/2000/ME/XP
PIII 800 Mhz
Minimum Spec
128mb Ram
1.8GB HDD
32mb Graphics Card
Requires a 3D Accelerator

Does anyone out there know if this HP laptop with a 1.6Ghz Petium M processor could run this sort of game?

Command and conquer generals isnt really what I was thinking. Really the sort of benchmark game for seeing how good the graphics are would be the PC version of say Halo. Currently the best graphics card for a laptop is the mobility radeon 9800 and that can play halo but is a bit choppy with frame rate. But its just a thought to consider if you wish to play graphics intensive games. Either way I just like to have a graphics card compared to onboard, something like a radeon 9700 atleast since I tend to play games.

But from what I see you should be able to play Command amd Conquer:Gen on that laptop. But keep in mind that the graphics card on a laptop do not match the desktop even though they may have the same name. However in the next couple of years I expect laptops to be able to have the same graphics power of a desktop

£$&*"($£&(

Note - link not working.

This is the new version of the Pentium-M with the 2mb of cache. I would expect a performance similar to a 2.4 - 2.6 ghz Pentium. These newer Pentium-M's don't provide a great performance boost over the older ones but provide even better battery life.

Personally I'd look around for something with at least a 1.7ghz Pentium-M for that price. There must be better deals. What graphics card does it have -I noticed one of the PC World laptops at that price only has intergrated graphics which is a key blight on games performance. After all I just bought a laptop with a 1.5ghz Pentium-M and seperate 64mbs Radeon 9700 graphics card for £600.

cheersthanksbye

The Graphics card on board is 64mb Intel Extreme Graphics.

I read on some forums that this is the same performance as an 128 ATI Radeon graphics card I think??? Anyone know the performance of the Intel?

Generally, the laptops seem to have the intel or radeon at this price (from what I have seen).

£$&*"($£&(

Well....no way. The Intel Extreme graphics are on board and share system memory. Although they have improved recently they don't compete with seperate graphics cards like the Mobility Radeon with 64mb. A 128mb Radeon would be far better than onboard shared graphics.

I wouldn't pay £1000 for a laptop unless it a proper graphics card - at least 64mb and preferably more.