ARGGH what laptop? i'm completely confused

Soldato
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i need to buy a laptop for max of £1200, i want to watch dvds, listen to music and watch clips from an external hd, work and maybe play games.

i had a look at a few but i dont trust some of the companies.
one is rock direct, the laptop looks good but im just unsure about the company.

i have looked at a dell one, it will have this gfx card 256MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory. will that be ok to run games?

this is an upgrade available to the dell Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD™ Audio- Full Version for £24. i have tried to find out what it actually is and i think its some software upgrade, so i dont think i should get it.

i am going to get an external soundcard for myself then plug speakers into there, so i dont think that upgrade is going to be useful.

oh and also it does not come with a PCMCIA but it has an express card slot, what can i plug into this express card slot?

sorry for the long post but i need help
 
Soldato
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Have a look for the Toshiba P100-429, it has all the bells and whistles plus a 128mb 7600 go graphics and a 1gb of ram, all for £899 online, cant say were from though so you will have to search UK online stores.

Alternativly, there is the Philips X54, it has 2gb of ram and a 256 X1400 ATI. £829.

Both are Core 2 Duo.
 
Associate
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I dont know why buy i keep hearing "dell is good" or "dell are great value for money" i dont know what/where people are looking but i just can't see how the hell a dell is value for money, all there laptops to me seem overpriced & underspeced compared to other's i've seen.
 
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"Maybe play games"

You don't need to spend £1200 to do everything else you want to do, a £500 laptop will those fine. For gaming though looking at £800+.

I've also boycotted Dell for a good reason, they're not interested if their product is faulty.

A 1.6ghz Centrino, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, Intel GMA IGP15.4" widescreen will cost about £450, you don't need anything greater for office/DVD's.
 
Associate
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i scored a real nice HP dv6095ea laptop brand new from another online store for less than 800 quid, Its got a AMD turion64x2 geforce go 7200gt. 100gb hd and 2gb ram.

And it runs Half life 2 like a treat, though dont expect any AA or AF to be enabled and expect no hits on the FPS.

If it has top of the range Geforce Go, It would be a 10/10 for games, its currently 9/10 for me.

Thumbs up from me!
 

Sol

Sol

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I ordered the xps M1710 and I'm sure it will be as reliable as any other high power laptop. Dell are fine, any large company is going to get abuse on their forums - like any product its rare to get good feedback on their forums.

My inital sight was on the Rock XCTX Pro but the dell equivalent has better battery life (pretty much useless for a DTR) and is supposed to be quieter. I also got it for a couple of hundred cheaper than the best Rock could offer. If they don't honor their 3 yr onsite repair service they shall receive a kick in the danglies though.

Just saw the HD audio thing...yeah its a software upgrade.

I would check out Evesham, they seem to be pretty good value for the cash. The Rock Pegasus 665 looks nice too!
 
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Associate
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I might be able to help with this one...

Bought me self a Toshiba Satellite Pro A100 and it has to be the most competitively priced laptop on the market for its spec and speacial features...

Part Number : PSAACE-007002EN

http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe....service=UK&PRODUCT_ID=115714&toshibaShop=true

Satellite Pro A100
Intel® Centrino® Duo Mobile Technology featuring Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2300- Genuine Windows® XP Professional- 60 GB Hard Disk Drive- 512 MB DDR2 RAM (533 MHz)- 15.4" Toshiba TruBrite® WXGA TFT display- DVD Super Multi drive (Double Layer)

Graphics you get the ATi X1400 128 MB
Bluetooth
DVD-RAM
Harmon/Kardon Speakers with HD
TV-Out - VGA

Can be had for £622

I've been using it for the past month for uni and genral use and im well chuffed wth it! The only thing I will be upgrading is the RAM to 1GB :D
 
Soldato
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Video Memory
Max Allocated RAM Size
256 MB

Video Output
Graphics Processor / Vendor
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1400 with up to 512MB HyperMemory

does that mean it has an independant gfx?

its a toshiba Satellite A100
 
Caporegime
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the_one_deep86 said:
Video Memory
Max Allocated RAM Size
256 MB

Video Output
Graphics Processor / Vendor
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X1400 with up to 512MB HyperMemory

does that mean it has an independant gfx?

its a toshiba Satellite A100

Its an independant graphics card with a crippled memory bus, so it uses "Hypermemory" which allows the card to use its own memory and a chunk of system memory to try and achieve some usuable memory bandwidth (which it doesn't manage that well compared to a proper dedicated solution).
 
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