A new laptop

[Ellie]

Is this laptop as good as it sounds or am I hamagining it

Fujitsu Seimens Amilo Li3910
18.4'' screen
1690x945
Dual core celeron 1.66ghz
3 gb ram
250 gb hard drive
"up to 1277mb graphics memory" (I have no idea what this means. I assume it means it's shared graphics memory and that you can take up to 1277mb or something.)
3 hours battery

£429

It suits my needs but I'm not sure if it's shit, esp. with the price.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... EAMILO.htm

Or £475 for the same thing but with "up to 1795mb graphics, 4gb ram, 320gb hdd, dual core pentium"

 

[Calibre]

apparently there is some glitch on dells website which means everything is a 100 quid less on laptops when you go to check out. semi irrelevant.

 

[Toams]

why the fuck would you want a 18,4 inch screen on a laptop..
I mean, the whole deal about laptops is that they're meant to be carried around.
just get a 14,5 inch or something, with a wxga+ screen, (1440x900 pixels), (or uxga for that matter, but that's more expensive) so you don't have to drag that big-ass thing around.

edit:
rest of the specs seem ok to me, but i'm not sure about the 'dual core'
I've heard somewhere that there's a huge difference between dual core and 'core 2 duo', though I don't know what, might be a good idea to look into that, because processor architecture is a big factor in speed.
What are you going to use it for, by the way?

 

[Ellie]

I'm moving into Halls at Uni, it's basically a desktop replacement and is going to be permanently in my flat so lugging it around isn't an issue.

They have funny rules about what appliances you can take.

No desktop PC's, but laptops are fine. :|

I.e. an 18.4'' screen would be pretty good

I'm doing "Computer Games Programming" which is basically Computer Science with some added modules. I have no idea what requirements therefore, but I'm assuming that since this is a better spec than the PC's in the Uni's IT labs that it'll do me fine.

 

[bacon]

From what you've told us so far, that sounds like a sexy piece of machinery.

But if you dont feel comfy buyin it...dont. Just follow your heart Wyatt, follow your heart.

 

[Calibre]

Are you bloody joking... what uni has a right to tell you that you can't take a PC into your halls. Surely that cannot be true.

 

[Ellie]

Well a desktop PC takes significantly more power than a laptop - seperate speakers, monitor, base unit; rather than just a charger. It's just like how you can't take white goods into halls bedrooms, fridges and microwaves and shit.

 

[Calibre]

Well i had a fridge, desktop, speakers in my halls room. Never heard of restrictions before. I dunno how much yours cost but for 80 quid a week they can sod off suggesting how much power I can use.

 

[Shizu]

It really depends what you're going to use the laptop for. The specs are very weak when it comes to a 18.4" screen. When it comes to a laptop, the bigger the screen, the more graphics/cpu intensive stuff you're expected to do with it.

A Celeron processor clocked at a relatively low speed (2.0~2.2 is the average performance speed) won't help much with multi-tasking. The Intel GMA 4500M onboard graphics will probably have a hard time playing most graphic games on the market.

Anything beyond 512MB of video memory won't really help its performance. The Ram on the other hand is good, especially if you're going to run Vista on it, though i'd expect these specs on a 14" laptop, which is the most comfortable in size/performance, imo.

 

[Balian]

If it plays Fallout 3 with no error, perfect laptop. lol, j/k.

Really though, from what your saying you need it for, it seems like a pretty good choice. I'd check around the net on some reviews to see how it hold up and stuff.

 

[Ceroscuro]

Honestly, the screen and the vid memory are the only particularly good things about this laptop.

Most laptops nowadays come with 3gb of RAM (or at least have it as an inexpensive upgrade option), 250GB is just above average, and 1.66 GHz dual-core Celeron processor isn't even really "good" (though I don't know what kind of cache it has, but I would only assume that's low as well?).

My girlfriend got a 15" laptop that has 4 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive, a 2.0 GHz Pentium dual-core processor (again, I don't know what kind of cache), and built-in bluetooth for under $600 USD. That's under 367 GBP. It admittedly probably has crappy onboard graphics, and I'm not sure what kind of upgrade options there are, but still... there's gotta be SOMETHING better, ya know?

EDIT: I also agree with the notion that an 18" laptop is not the best idea... my roommate this past year had a 17" laptop he intended to use for gaming and basically it kept crapping out on him. Basically these things come with great specs and work great for a while, but when you actually put them through real-life, everyday use (even as a desktop replacement), they can't handle it. Just my two cents.

 

[rey meustrus]

Don't get something with a 'dual core' processor. What that really means is that you're not getting any of Intel's fancy engineering from the last several years. A 'dual core' Celeron processor is the equivalent of having two Celerons (which are ancient by computer standards). A 'dual core' Pentium is slightly better, but still bottom of the barrel. You really want Core 2 Duo.

I would also suggest getting something with an ATI mobility graphics card. It can still have shared graphics memory and everything, but ATI is better than Intel (I would say the same for nVidia, but the only good nVidia mobile chipset I know of is the 9400M, and I think only Apple is making computers with that).

3 hour battery is above-average for most laptops, so if you look for something else, try to find something that good or better. I can't tell you how annoying it is to have less than two hours of battery, especially since battery life decreases as a computer gets older.

 

[DeM0nFiRe]

As meusterus said, a dual core celeron is pretty cheap as dual core standards go. A dual core celeron at 1.66ghz is going to be better than a single core P4 at 2.6Ghz, of course, but since the de-facto standard today is multi-core processors this dual core today is a pretty cheap one. (As a matter of fact, you can get the proc for like 40USD).

Also, as meusterus said, run away from Intel GMA's If you want to do game programming, that is not the laptop you want. The whole "Up to 1277mb graphics memory" is bogus. I mean, yes the GPU can access that much memory, but it's not going to be fast enough to use that much memory. You are much much better off if you can get a 256MB or 512MB ATI Radeon Mobility. (A while ago, I had a laptop with an ATI Radeon 7700 Mobility. It was great for playing games of the time period.) Of course, either way with a laptop you are not going to get blazing speeds, but you will at least get decent performance.

Also, don't bother going for the upgraded version. We've already explained why the graphics memory does not matter. For RAM, loading up your computer with a lot of RAM does no good for the same reason loading it up with Video RAM does no good. If your CPU is slow, it's not going to be able to utilize the extra gig of RAM. You would be better off spending the extra money on finding a computer with a better processor and GPU chip.

 

[DoctorChaos]

I have a HP Compaq 6710b and it works GREAT! But only 3 hours battery isn't mush but it has a good processor...

It's a dilemma!

 

[Ellie]

So, I just ordered my new laptop. :cheers:

I went with the smaller screen advice. 15.6''. Went with a better graphics card, nvidia something something, not in-built or anything.

Dell Studio 15

15.6'' screen, 1380x768 (I think) which is fine for me
2.0ghz Intel Pentium, 2mb cache, 800mhz

4 GB ram
512 MB graphics
250 GB hard drive (again, fine for me)

Windows Vista Home Premium + free Windows 7 upgrade in October

2 Megapixel webcam; mic

The price?

£479 after postage and VAT, which I thought was damned good.

 

[kip]

poor you wyatt dell are crap my best friend got one a year a go and he basically wants to throw it out of the window now should have gone with hp or ibm (lenovo)

 

[Guest]

;D

 

[Gray]

Because after a year of not cleaning/defragging the registry it gets really slow.

 

[Ceroscuro]

So just reformat it?

 

[Velocir_X]

lol, angry at dell??
I've used dell all my life, find it much better than any other comparable comps...
Furthermore Dell was the cheapest (since it bought parts individually not because it was crap) computer you could buy back when the only other company out there was ibm, these guys have a long track record
beyond that Alienware which is considered a standard for high-end comps
(and is mine too heh, heh) is a Dell brand