Getting a new laptop for uni... quick question.

[Zell]

I'm thinking about getting this laptop. At a glance it's:

 

-AMD Turionâ„¢ 64 X2 Dual-Core TL60 4096MB of RAM. 2GHz

-250GB HDD

-Nvidia® Geforce® 9300 256MB VRAM

-Vista Home Premium

 

Seems a good deal for £499 (plus I'll get 10% off with my staff discount), but A lot of similar ones have higher prices so I'm a bit scepticle. What I'm not sure of is the processor. I don't know enough to know if it's a good one or not. I heard that AMD ones aren't as good Intel. Do you think it's worth splashing out on a bit more cash to get a better processor?

 

Thanks in advance.

[DCK]

Turions aren't quite as good as Intel Cores, but it's fast enough for anything but heavy gaming (which is impossible with that GPU anyway).

 

It having 4 gigs of RAM and a seperate graphics card that doesn't eat away your CPU and memory make it quite a good deal, especially for uni work. What's the closest Intel laptop you can get?

[Jackster]

Looks like a decent enough spec for the money although personally I'd stay away from Acer. Everyone I know who has had an Acer has horror stories.

[Goron_3]

Hmm mate i'd be careful with an Acer. They're not, from what i've heard, the most reliable piece of kit..

Also I swear you'd already left for uni lol.

[Raining_again]

My sister has an acer, a bit like that one (think it may have been a cheaper model) from Tesco. She hasn't had a problem with it at all. ^^

 

I really like it apart from the lack of keyboard numberpad, but that's just being picky :P

[Zell]

Turions aren't quite as good as Intel Cores, but it's fast enough for anything but heavy gaming (which is impossible with that GPU anyway).

 

It having 4 gigs of RAM and a seperate graphics card that doesn't eat away your CPU and memory make it quite a good deal, especially for uni work. What's the closest Intel laptop you can get?

 

Well what I'm really looking for is something with 4GB of RAM and a large enough hard drive, since my last laptop gave me nightmares with its 40GB HDD and 256MB RAM. Tesco don't have an equivilent Acer one with an Intel Core 2 Duo, there's a couple of excellent Sony ones, but they're bloody expensive. I'm kinda attracted to this HP, but I don't think it's worth the extra money.

 

Looks like a decent enough spec for the money although personally I'd stay away from Acer. Everyone I know who has had an Acer has horror stories.

 

Hmm mate i'd be careful with an Acer. They're not, from what i've heard, the most reliable piece of kit..

Also I swear you'd already left for uni lol.

 

Well my mum has had an Acer for a couple of years now and it's still alright so I'm not too worried about that.

 

I'm heading off next Saturday, so I need to hurry up and get this sorted.

[DCK]

Well what I'm really looking for is something with 4GB of RAM and a large enough hard drive, since my last laptop gave me nightmares with its 40GB HDD and 256MB RAM. Tesco don't have an equivilent Acer one with an Intel Core 2 Duo, there's a couple of excellent Sony ones, but they're bloody expensive. I'm kinda attracted to this HP, but I don't think it's worth the extra money.

The HP one is quite awesome and'll actually allow you to do some gaming. The big advantage Intel has is that they're not only faster, the Centrino 2 platform is apparently quite a bit more energy efficient.

 

If you're just going to use the laptop for some office use, and general internet stuff, I really wouldn't bother though, especially considering the huge price difference. The Turion is really not that fast, but I doubt you'll need much processing power at all.

[Caris]

Get a refurbished Dell from the Dell Outlet, i wouldn't pay £499 for a Acer.

[Zell]

The HP one is quite awesome and'll actually allow you to do some gaming. The big advantage Intel has is that they're not only faster, the Centrino 2 platform is apparently quite a bit more energy efficient.

 

If you're just going to use the laptop for some office use, and general internet stuff, I really wouldn't bother though, especially considering the huge price difference. The Turion is really not that fast, but I doubt you'll need much processing power at all.

 

After a bit of contemplating, I've decided the only games I'd actually run on it would be games like Peggle. So while the HP would be awesome, I really could do with the extra cash and am going with the Acer.

 

Get a refurbished Dell from the Dell Outlet, i wouldn't pay £499 for a Acer.

 

Well I'm actually only paying £450 because of my Staff Discount. I've always thought of getting a Dell though, perhaps in the future if I do end up getting gaming desktop.

 

Thanks for all your help guys.

[DCK]

Never under any circumstances buy a Dell desktop. Ever.

 

Great pick though.

[Ike]

Never under any circumstances buy a Dell desktop. Ever.

 

Great pick though.

 

I bought two different laptops from Dell and they both had the exact same problem. It's a shame since I liked the laptop. Don't buy from Dell.

[nightwolf]

How much do you have to spend? I'd recommend hp, but not directly for hp itself. I found this on play.com:

 

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/-/654/861/-/5890823/Hewlett-Packard-DV6910EA-Core-2-Duo-T5750-2GHz-3GB-250GB-15-4-DVD-SM-Vista-Home-Premium-Laptop-Notebook/Product.html?searchtype=genre

 

As far as I can see the only issue is that it's 32 bit rather than 64 bit vista, which could be a problem if you want 4gb ram, but for now it has 3gb ram which isn't bad!

 

I found that acers are deemed as reliable rather than not, definately more so than dell (although dells tend to only go up in your face if you start tinkering with them).

 

I can't see anything hugely wrong with the acer you've picked, for what you've got there I thought it was pretty cheap myself!

[Raining_again]

That one nightwolf linked is pretty similar to my dell except I have a t7250. It does a pretty decent job. And a nice price.

 

On the dell topic, I've had mine for maybe 6 months. I haven't had a single problem yet, and i haven't even had to format. But then i'm pretty careful with my laptop. =)

 

Don't expect to play intense process eating games on that, but moderate ones should be ok.