Help me choose between 2 laptops (£500 budget)

Chronictank

Chronictank

Chronictank

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12 Jan 2006
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Ok i cant choose between them any advice is very much recommended, i have £500 to spend and have narrowed it down to the following because i really want to make sure it has dedicated graphics to play some lower end games (highest spec probably CSS/Battlefield 2 ish sort of thing)

So i am down to
Dell Studio 15
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5550 (1.83 GHz, 667 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2 Cache)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1- English
15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™
256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450
3072MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [1x2048+1x1024]
250GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Slot Load Drive including Software

for £499

or

Toshiba Satellite A200-244
# rocessor - Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 / 1.66 GHz ( Dual-Core )
# RAM - 2 GB (installed) / 4 GB (max) - DDR II SDRAM - 667 MHz ( 2 x 1 GB )
# Hard Drive - 200 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 rpm
# Operating System - Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium
# Screen - 15.4" TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ) - 24-bit (16.7 million colours) - TruBrite
# Optical Drive - DVD�RW (�R DL) / DVD-RAM
# Graphics - ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400 - 128 MB dedicated, HyperMemory up to 895MB <- not sure what that means, shared ram?
£399.97
Now i was going to buy the upgrade to 4 gb of ram which will bring it to £494.97

I am looking for a good solid laptop which is why i went for known brands, but other suggestions are welcomed

Thanks in advance
 
Definately the Dell in my opinion.
Better graphics chip with a half decent amount of dedicated memory
Better CPU and larger hard disk, more RAM (although 'tis pennies to buy, don't buy any RAM upgrades from Dell/Toshiba direct).
From experience of owning & working with lots of laptops from various manufacturers, Dell almost always has better build quality and reliability than toshiba, unless you look at the business lines from both manufacturers where the difference is much smaller.

Hope this helps :)
 
I have a Toshiba a200-1A9.

And it is, without doubt, the biggest pile of mechanical ***** I've ever had the misfortune of owning. It's just about one year old now, this month, and it's been back to the manufacturer twice (motherboard, speakers, speaker port and other problems). It's just outside the warranty now and the CD/DVD drive is going (refuses to open quite often requiring restart) and the battery often doesn't recharge.

Steer clear imo.
 
I just picked up this from the Dell Outlet.

SYSTEM SPECIFICATION
Studio 1735 Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 (2.1GHz)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Operating System: English Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 (32Bit OS)
Memory: 3.0GB MB (1X2GB + 1X1GB) 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
Hard Disk Drive: 250GB HD (5400RPM)
Video: Graphics 256 MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3650
NoteBook Screen: Display 17in Widescreen WXGA+ Truelife LED
CD Read-Write Drive: 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
MISC: Network Card 1397
Keyboard Internal UK English Qwerty
Cover Jet Black Matte Finish
Vista OnLine Getting Started Guide (WW
Image Restore - Vista
MS Vista Premium Logo Label NB (small
Battery 6Cell

£487 inc delivery

was looking for a 15.4 XPS system but couldnt get anything under £500 with decent graphics and the whole nvidia mobile chip problems right now are scaringme a bit, so went for the radeon instead.

How does the mobile HD3650 compare the 8600GT?

Cheers,
Matt.
 
Smudge said:
How does the mobile HD3650 compare the 8600GT?

Cheers,
Matt.
Click to expand...

Good choice, just ordered the same thing but you've got the LED screen..........you lucky sod! :)

I was also worried about the nvidia situation but the 8600m GT is so widely used and there's so much info/benchmarks about that its hard to ignore. Having looked around I'm fairly confident the 3650 is as good as, if not *slightly* better than the 8600m GT.

Anyone know the procedure for getting a 64bit Vista disc from Dell? Is there an online form or do you have to phone up and ask? Am i more likely to get blood from a stone? ;)
 
Smudge said:
How does the mobile HD3650 compare the 8600GT?
Click to expand...

pretty much the same, plus or minus 10% depending on what game your running.

But there are other advantages, better mobile drivers, superior image quality when using the TV out option.

Its a very good card for the price.
 
Thanks for the replies & sorry to hijack the thread some what!!!! work just said I could get myself a cheap laptop, under £500 and I wanted something I can sit in the office and play warhammer on when it comes out :) I dont think warhammer is too taxing, so should be ok?
 
MTA99 said:
Are you sure? I've just looked and there are 17 Studio 15's and 4 Studio 17's available :confused:
Click to expand...
I've only seen 2 "Inspiron Studio 1735" 's, how are you finding all these Studio notebooks? I know the stock shifts, but what did you select and what were they called etc...
Edit- found them, made the same mistake as ChronicTank... some seriously good deals :eek:

A lot of Pink XPS 1530's about too... dunno if I could put up with a pink lappy though, even if they are great value....
 
Last edited:
WolfR1der said:
Edit- found them, made the same mistake as ChronicTank... some seriously good deals :eek:

A lot of Pink XPS 1530's about too... dunno if I could put up with a pink lappy though, even if they are great value....
Click to expand...

As I said to Chronic, watch out for that Tangerine Studio 15 :eek: ;)
 
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