laptop advice!

astroworpastroworp Northridge, CA
edited September 2003 in Hardware
hey guys!

well, my girlfriend is having me research laptops for her, and since i've never owned one, i really don't know what i should be looking for.

i'm thinking the intel centrino setup is pretty sweet.. long battery life and buil-in wireless are attractive.

but amd-based laptops are way cheaper, but i haven't read any reviews of mobile athlon XP systems.

she wants the standard stuff... dvd/cdrw, good screen, 30gb or so hdd, reliability, basically some good bang for the buck.

she's hoping to spend around $1200.

so, can you guys sort of guide me in the right direction? please ask me if i haven't specified something that is important, as, like i said before, i've never owned one so i dont' know what's good and what's bad.

thank you guys!

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    I bought my wife a Dell Inspiron 600m - the centrino equipped version with a 1.3ghz Pentium M + 2100+/Pro wireless. It has a 15" screen and a mobility radeon 9000.

    I love it.

    I play games on it.

    The battery lasts forever.

    I fold on it.

    It folds fast.
  • ClutchClutch North Carolina New
    edited September 2003
    I have heard good things about IBM laptops, as well as toshiba. Have you looked into a sager? laptops?
  • astroworpastroworp Northridge, CA
    edited September 2003
    yeah, sager's a bit too expensive, though they seem to be pretty dang nice machines.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited September 2003
    If weight and battery life aren't major concerns, then you can't get much more bang-for-the-buck then Sager offers. If weight and battery life are concerns, look into PowerPro.

    Both can be found at www.powernotebooks.com
  • astroworpastroworp Northridge, CA
    edited September 2003
    battery life and weight are actually two things i should have mentioned in my original post. she wants light weight and good battery life.

    thanks for the link!
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    You are right, the Centrino is multipiped like other P4s and can SMP, while being lower voltage so the battrey lasts longer. For a wife, depends on if she is a gamer.

    Quite a few folks make Centrino based lappies these days, ranging from desktop replacements with very high capacity video throughput and larger LCD panels (EXPENSIVE LCD panels rolled into the cost) teamed with the very latest video mobile chipsets (look at the specs for a Sager very high end lappie, drool, then say probably not for wife if she needs a lappie all for herself-- one reason wives like their own machines is data privacy).

    The Dell is a good high but not any longer extreme end choice now that new mobile video chipsets are coming out, RAM is cooler, and the newest video chipsets can be on daughter boards and have dedicated graphics RAM on the video daughter cards.

    If the wife is not a gamer, you could go to a lesser costing laptop because right now the single most expensive part of laptop is the video subsystem unless you get into things like Peltier variant cooling in a laptop which almost no-one does yet in which case the cooling subsytem is more relatively expensive than anything but video due to LCD panel costs.

    If you have a family business, nothing says the lappie cannot officially be your wife's business machine if she participates, and that gives you an entre into the core of Dell's Business sales strategy. Not only do you get access to a semi-dedicated rep for accounting and support with communications hooks to engineering if need be, you get lease options that include trading up and lower monthly payemnts than you would have buying all at once. So, could she really use a better LEASED laptop of the desktop replacement type well???

    John.
  • astroworpastroworp Northridge, CA
    edited September 2003
    heh, girlfriend, not wife... i'm only 20 years old, man! heh.

    she's no gamer, she doesn't need anything high end, though she does want a quality screen to look at.
  • Geeky1Geeky1 University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA, USA)
    edited September 2003
    Well, the Sager NP8890 is lightweight and has great battery life... compared to a Dual Athlon full tower with 4 15k rpm scsi drives on a 150va UPS... ;D

    I'd look into the following comps. from Powernotebooks:

    PowerPro C 3:23, which has a 14" XGA, a Centrino, shared graphics, and weighs 5.25lbs. It starts at about $1300

    PowerPro C 3:16 which has a 15" SXGA, a Centrino, a Mobility Radeon 9000 64MB and weighs 5.5lbs. It starts at about $1500.

    On a side note, I've done business with Powernotebooks.com before, and they're excellent, and both the Sagers and the PowerPros are outstanding machines (I've got one of each.... or rather, my mom has a PowerPro and I have a Sager...)
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