picking a laptop, help

[the_ultimate_evil]

well with the way my college work and hopefully job is shaping up i cant put off getting a laptop any longer

i've seen these two which are just in my budgit but wanted to get some general opinions

i'll be using it for stuff like art, photography, web based stuff,  games basiclly a load of photoshop style stuff


option1
[spoiler][/spoiler]

option2
[spoiler] [/spoiler]

what do you guys think

[Panther_Gunn]

ugh.  No offense, but picking between those to is, for me, like having to choose between a kick in the teeth and a kick in the junk.  Packard Bell computers have been considered crap for years, consistently coming in at the bottom of customer satisfaction surveys (for reliability, phone service, etc.).  They have a bad rep for breaking often, usually in major ways that require replacement of critical parts, many times the HD, if not the whole thing.  If you *do* go with one from them, back up your work to removable media *OFTEN*!

That said, if you are essentially stuck with them because of price (one of the few areas that they look better, but folks tend to find they get what they pay for), you're going to need large amounts of the important, expensive bits due to what you do (or plan to do) for a living.  A large screen, a honkin' video card, huge amounts of RAM, a good-sized cache, etc.  A big HD is good, also, since you might be manipulating large graphic files (at least until you finish the project, & make it into a much more portable (and marketable) size).  Is portability a factor?

I'd recommend the AMD one over the Intel, if just because of the screen size and video card (something I found out with my laptop.....vid card drivers don't always get updated.....the reason I *still* can't play  :ffvstr: with my NVidia card due to the warp effects).  I'd trust an NVidia card over an Intel one, though.  I don't have current info on how the AMD chip stands up to the Intel one, but they do run at the same speed (theoretically).  The Intel machine has 4x the cache and a slightly bigger HD, but I don't know if that's enough to make up for the screen & vid card difference.

*looks at the choices of operating systems*  ouch.  Talk to Stumpy on that one.  I'm under the impression that neither of them plays well with FF.

[the_ultimate_evil]

from what i've seen they dont sound great, i thought about getting a custom one built but i went to 4 seperate places and was the cheapest i was quoted was around £800

[afterburn]

I have a laptop currently with similar statistics, 1.6 GHz and 1 gig of ram.  It will run photoshop but for large resolution files, this comp just doesnt cut it.  I would seriously consider getting more ram, like 2 gigs.  You will bang your head against the wall waiting for layers to flatten and files to save.  You're gonna think it's not worth it, but im glad i have the gig i have because i almost went with 512 and my modelling programs cant run on 512, 3dmax quits at 512 and runs okay at a gig.  Just my 2 cents.

[stumpy]

I have heard the same things about Packard-Bell, though the anecdotes I heard are several years old.

The larger screen size is an important thing when doing graphics work. I would weigh that pretty heavily in favor of the 17" over the 14". Of course, larger doesn't always mean higher resolution, but I would pick the easier-on-the-eyes larger LCD even if the resolutions were the same. Of course, usually, the larger displays are heavier, have shorter battery endurance, etc. If serious portability is an issue (e.g. your laptop will be in your backpack everyday or you have to get real work done on a plane or train often) then it's a tougher call.

If you are planning on game-playing on your laptop, I would seriously consider the OS. Obviously, we have our doubts that FF will run on WinXP MCE (I don't recall that anyone ever confirmed that when the thread was available) and some other games are in the same boat. Personally, I have resolved not to run a system with Windows Vista, period, but the reasons for that go well beyond gaming. Despite my general satisfaction with my Dell laptop (except the keyboard == total pants) and desktops, the difficulty in getting Win XP Pro on their more affordable Dimension systems means that I will probably not buy another new Dell.   :thumbdown:

Another important consideration for a laptop which I don't spot in the summary specs is the battery charge capacity and life. Generally, you want a good battery and my experience is that it is usually worth ponying up for the higher cell battery, if there is an option.

[the_ultimate_evil]

yeah after looking into them, getting either of these is definatly a no go

i seen one which is a SONY N21M/W LAPTOP - SONY N21M/W INTEL CORE DUO T2350 PROCESSOR 1.86GHZ LAPTOP, its priced around 700 to 750 pounds

# Intel Core Duo T2350 Processor 1.86GHz
# 533MHz FSB
# 2MB Cache
# 1024MB RAM
# 100GB Hard Drive
# Dual Layer DVD ReWriter MultiDrive
# 15.4" Widescreen X-Black Display
# Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
# 256MB Intel GMA 950 Shared Graphics
# 1 Year Free Warranty

sadly from what i've seen everything is now going to have vista, i've seen a few with xp but they come no where near the others in specs.

one thing i can say is i dont actully play freedom force anymore( unless its the occianal mod) and only use the CT for my skins

[stumpy]

There are still plenty of XP notebooks here. Maybe that's not true everywhere. E.g. this Fujitsu (from Frys)

*  Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7200 (2 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB)
    * Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005 with Microsoft® Works and
    * Microsoft® Office 2003 60-Day Trial (Student/Teacher Edition)
    * 17" Color-Enhanced Crystal View wide XGA+ display
    * ATI Mobility™ Radeon® X1600 graphics with 512 MB HyperMemory (256 MB dedicated and 256 MB shared memory)
    * 1 GB DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM memory (1 GB x 1)
    * 200 GB S-ATA, 4200 rpm hard drive
    * High Definition HD DVD-ROM Drive also works as a Dual Layer DVD Writer
    * Integrated Fingerprint Sensor (also works as Scroll Button)
    * Remote Control for XP Media Center Edition
    * Multinational? 56K? V.90 modem and Gigabit Ethernet LAN
    * Integrated Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (Tri-mode 802.11a/b/g),
    * 5 USB 2.0, IEEE 1394, Memory Stick®/SD/xD slot, PC Card slot, ExpressCard™ slot
    * Main battery: Lithium ion (6-cell, 10.8V, 3200 mAh)
    * One-year International Limited Warranty
    * M-Code FPCM60981

I would go in that direction. That's something of an upscale model (2 Ghz Intel Duo, 200GB HP, 17" screen, lots of ports), but more affordable systems are around, too. (E.g. some of these.)

[Edit]Go to HP's site and look at their small business notebooks. Pretty good systems and it's easy to get XP Pro. BTW, looking at PCs targetted at business custoers may be a good way to go for people who don't want to get locked into Vista, since most companies don't see any advantage to it and are standardized (for IT and training) around XP.