Buying a laptop...

[Dragster]

Ok so I decided I'll get myself a laptop within the price range of 1200 - 1500 US$ and I'm stuck between these two:

Core 2 Duo (1,441.00 US$) & Dual Core (1,162.00 US$)

Is Core 2 Duo really worth the price difference? Keep in mind that I'd be using this laptop for AutoCAD and Catia drawing mostly, and older games like Neverwinter Nights, Diablo 2, Photoshop, music etc. etc.

Would these perform better than my current PC, as in plain data processing:

Barton 3200+, 1gig DDR1, Radeon 9000pro 128MB, WD800C parallel ata

Also, if you have any other recommendations, I'd be glad to hear them!

Thanks in advance

[vellu]

Either of those laptops shoud outperform your reference system (in raw processing) simply because of the double threading capability. Core2 is indeed slightly faster than plain Core (all other things being equal), but not sure if the price difference between these two is worth it (this particular Core 2 isn't that impressive, entry level model allthough so is the T2310). In fact, the price difference is such that I'm wondering if there is something else better on it, though the specs provided don't seem to point to that.

Other specs seem to be pretty decent, except for the mediocre gfx but I suppose you're not looking for a 3D monster laptop.

[Dragster]

I called the shop, and I discovered that the Core 2 Duo also has a built-in video camera, leaving all other specifications exactly the same. Not to mention that the Core 2 Duo has that horrendous, narrow 'Enter' key...

Thanks for your reply, vellu!

Any other brands, models within the price range I mentioned?

[snoopdogg879]

can you get a Core 2 Quad?

well probably not but the Core 2 Duo is good

[Andre_online]

can you get a Core 2 Quad?

In a laptop??

[snoopdogg879]

*clears throat* read what I said after that

[Dragster]

Ordered the Dual Core after some thinking and consulting with the shop guys... Hopefully I'll post my impressions this tuesday

[Dragster]

Yay got it home finally At the moment it's charging the battery up, giving all that money away made me read the instructions carefully...I'll post my impressions asap

edit: btw the exterior looks highly classy, smooth, soft, it's pretty robust too, not too plastic... great great great

edit: got it set up, looking great so far, nothing to complain about! Boots up very quickly, tried BMW M3 challenge, just for the sake of it, ran without ANY lag on 800x600 so I guess I'll be playing on it too... Off to explore it some more

some lame pics off my cellphone:

[taz947]

Looks nice!
Nice buy,Dragster!

[snoopdogg879]

HP?

or no?

can't really see the logo

[powerof1000]

Looks like a HP to me , nice.

[Dragster]

Yes, HP Compaq 6820s:

link

[snoopdogg879]

nice although I can't read anything but what kind of laptop it is



I've decided to save my money and buy this laptop.

the $1799 american dollars one

[Dragster]

Notebook HP 6820s GR852ES / DualCore T2310 1,46 GHz
DVDRW
2 GB DDR2
160GB
ATI Mobility Radeon X1350 128mb
17''
W-Lan
Bluetooth
Win Vista Home

Supposed to be a small business laptop, though that's relative because for me it's a gaming rig also

About your Apple laptop, not too sure about that. You could get alot better laptop (non-apple) hardware-wise in that price range... but hey, if you need all that Apple software...

[snoopdogg879]

I don't really want a laptop for the hardware
I want it for the fact that it is going to be virus and pop-up free and that I can transport it very very easily

0.76" thick

I would get another laptop but I can't use photoshop on it because I only have photoshop for mac and I am not paying $700 for a program when I already have the CS2 program right now

[Stereo]

If you want easily transportable then you can get the new ASUS laptops, they're REALLY tiny.
And considering your sig, you look like an Apple fanboy...

[snoopdogg879]

well kind of only because my sister has a mac powerbook G4 laptop and we haven't had a problem with it yet and it has been 2 or 3 years.

no popups or viruses

but the only thing that I don't like about it is

you can't play games like nfsps or crysis
and the sig was just something that I came up with and I said I should make it a sig just for the heck of it

[Jmac-]

I get pop-ups all the time on my Mac when I use Safari (not when I use Opera, though, although that goes for my PCs, too). :shrug:

[Stereo]

Is opera better than Firefox?

[Jmac-]

I prefer it to Firefox ... My GF doesn't like Opera, though ... She uses Camino on OS X (same engine as Firefox, but made specifically for OS X).

[snoopdogg879]

Opera is much much slower than firefox even if you have a really fast internet

I prefer firefox over Opera, Camino, IE7, Safari, and any other internet

[Stereo]

YAY! I got my laptop. Lenovo ThinkPad R61i. I loooove it. I think I'll keep this for working and make my main PC a gaming machine. I love all the features and it's quite speedy. Lenovo makes incredible laptops. /me finishes the rant

[Jopuma]

I find the HP Pavilion 9000 series to be pretty good for all around office/game/internet stuff.

My laptop even was able to handle Pro Street which really amazed me.