Laptop Shopping

MikeybobMikeybob Middle o' Farmer Land
edited October 2005 in Hardware
Hey guys,

Sorry if this thread is in the wrong forum but I couldn't find anywhere more appripriate to put it.

I'm looking at buying a laptop. I'll mainly be using it for Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Directer etc. I've been looking around for some time now and I can't make up my mind which laptop to buy. I've been told to buy Macs or if I go with PCs to get Centrinos. The other main part of my criteria is a widescreen laptop.

I've found a few which are cheap and value for money.
  • Acer TravelMate 4601 LCi Linkage

    This one is a Centrino but not widescreen, or so the shop tells me. I looked into it on the Acer website and it tells me that it has a:

    "15.0' SXGA+ TFT LCD 1400 X 1050 Pixel resolution or
    15.4' WXGA TFT LCD with 1280 X 800 Pixel resolution: 16:10"

    Does anyone know what that means exactly? I've looked around and haven't found anything that states that this model is a widescreen.
  • Acer Aspire 1694 WLMi
    Linkage

    This one is a bit of a bad boy, my original choice but a bit pricey which is my only quip with it. What Laptop gaves the previous model (Aspire 1691) a 9/10.
  • Acer Aspire 1362WLMi Linkage

    This one has an AMD CPU which makes me wonder. AMDs are notorious for running hot and usually noisy too. But the plus side is that this laptop is that it has a widescreen, it's cheap and according to the reviews lots of people like it.

The only trouble is that none of the Apires (not that I have seen) come with XP Pro but instead XP Home which doesn't have IIS which is kind of essential. Would it be hard to find drivers for these laptops? If so I can install XP Pro myself.

Can you guys give me some pointers for laptops or recommendations. Ty :)

Comments

  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    15.4" WXGA is widescreen. If it says "W" in the resolution it means it's a Wide ratio.
  • MikeybobMikeybob Middle o' Farmer Land
    edited October 2005
    I thought as much. But after looking at several places no-one seems to stock the 4601 with a widescreen. Is there then a special model that has the feature or does it have a 4:3 display that can run 16:10 resolutions?

    Also, the 1362 is a bargain for specs with price. My only concern is (apart from the AMD question) whether the HD, Battery and GFX card are upgradable.
  • GHoosdumGHoosdum Icrontian
    edited October 2005
    I wouldn't worry about the AMD chip (my own laptop has one, and it is neither noisy nor very hot) - but while the HD and battery are usually upgradeable, the graphics is most likely not. :(
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited October 2005
    One other thing to consider is how reliable those Acer lappy's are. I don't know personally about them but I seem to remember some people posting about a lot of problems with some Acer laptops. You might find some answers doing a google search on them. :)

    GH pretty much nailed the upgradability question too. Very few laptops have upgradable video capability built into them and the ones that do are usually the gamers edition types that are uber expensive to start with.

    EDIT: Any laptop that uses a P4 or netburst type Celeron are to be avoided if you want quiet and cool and long battery life.
  • gibbonslgibbonsl Grand Forks AFB
    edited October 2005
    www.notebookforums.com

    here is a good place to see some hands on for the laptops you are look at
  • MikeybobMikeybob Middle o' Farmer Land
    edited October 2005
    Thanks for the help guys and thanks for the link Gibbons, I'm still awaiting activation.

    While that's happening can you guys help me with some other laptops I've found. Unfortunately the uber budget laptop from eBuyer went (they only had one left lol). I've been looking around and found some deals on DigiUK.

    Acer Aspire 5001 WLMi | Linkage

    This one looks really nice (but then the Aspire series all look similar). The price is really low (lower than the price of the other one on eBuyer). It's running a Turion 64 at 1.6GHz.

    Aspire 3613 WLMi2 | Linkage

    This seems to be an upgrade of an older model. That fact aside the specs are really good. 1mb cache, longer battery life (so it says, I know a lot of machines differ from what it says on the box), DDRII, it has a DVD writer and a better graphical ability (which is integrated however which makes me warey).

    This machine's let downs are the integrated graphics and the Celeron (1.5GHz) which I have been warned about in a previous post.

    Are the Celerons worse than Turion 64s? I've been weighing these two latops against each other for a while and still am no further for a decision. Which one would be better suited for media production and maybe games.
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