Help on Laptop choice, shortlist

Axeboy

Axeboy

Axeboy

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Scotland
Hi Guys

Im looking for a new laptop for the following things:

1. Use in the garage, mainly for music/movies etc in the background as well as todo pages for working on my car
2. Use in the house for Movies
3. Use every week or so for some gaming, mainly L4D2 and BF:BC2.. but happy on low/medium settings as long as it runs
4. Doesnt need to be 'future-proof' upgrade wise, but may be a benefit if I can upgrade RAM/HD

With the above in mind (plus I have a good home PC) I have the following 4 laptops in mind... but open to other suggestions. Budget isnt entirely set, but up to £700 would fit the bill. The first two here are older tech, but appear to be quite well featured, whereas the other two use the newer i3/i5 processors but possibly not a well featured.

Looking for advice on whats best out of the 4 below, plus real alternatives that fit my requirements:

Option 1

ASUS G70S-7S007C
Processor Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Penryn (T9300 - 2.50 GHz, 800MHz FSB, 6MB)
Screen 17" WXGA (1440x900 Color Shine)
Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
RAM HIGH (4096MB 4GB)
Hard Drive 640GB (2 x 320GB HDD)
Optical Drive Blu-Ray Writer (Blu-Ray HD Writer + DVD-RW & CD-RW)
Graphics Dedicated (2 x NVIDIA® GeForce® 8700M GT with 1GB Dedicated Memory with NVIDIA SLI Technology)

For £699... older tech but SLI cards. Maybe lower res, but shouldnt matter on a laptop.



Option 2

Acer Aspire 8935G
Processor Intel Quad Core (Q9000 - 2.0 GHz, 1066FSB, 6MB Cache)
Screen 18.4" (Acer CrystalBrite, Full HD 1920 x 1080 resolution, LED Backlit, high-brightness, 8 ms high-def response time, 16:9 aspect ratio)
Operating System Windows Vista Home Premium Edition
RAM HIGH (4096MB 4GB)
Hard Drive 500GB
Optical Drive Blu-Ray (Blu-Ray HD Play back + DVD-RW & CD-RW)
Graphics Dedicated (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4670XT with 1024MB Dedicated RAM)

Again, £699 with older tech but Blu Ray, big screen etc


Option 3

Acer Aspire 5740G
Processor Intel® Core™ i3 Dual Core (330M, 3MB Cache, 2.13 GHz)
Screen 15.6" (Acer CineCrystal, 1366x768 HD, High Brightness, LED Backlit)
Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium Edition
RAM 4GB (DDR3 1066MHZ)
Hard Drive 500GB
Optical Drive DVD Rewriter (Records DVDs 8x & CDs 24x & Dual Layer Super Multi)
Graphics Dedicated (ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 with 1GB Dedicated DDR3 RAM)

£599 and with the i3, is it better than the two cpu's above? DDr3 memory and appears to be a decent GPU... is it better than the two above?


Option 4

Dell Vostro 3700
Processor i5-520
Screen 17" 1600x900
Operating System Windows 7
RAM (4096MB 4GB DDR3)
Hard Drive 320GB (1 x 320GB HDD)
Optical Drive (DVD-RW & CD-RW)
Graphics Dedicated NVIDIA® GeForce® GT330m

£750, newer tech but light on the HD and overall features being a business laptop, but still appears good value..


So guys, any advice, im semi tempted by the older tech ones at the top:confused:
 
Its quite a tough choice to choose, the Q9000 in option 2 would have the most outright cpu power if needed for encoding, but it is a beast of a laptop size wise.

The T9300 has the fastest clock rate so guess would feel faster in general use, but has the slowest graphics of the 4. The 5650 is the best graphics followed by the 4670 and the 330m comes in 3rd.

If size is not an issue my choice would be the 8935G, follwed by the Vostro 3700, and then the Acer 5740G, the Asus come in last due to the the lower graphics, edit have just seen these are SLI, even so these chips did have problems with overheating and I would steer clear.
 
i can also get an i5 430 version of the smaller acer for 699...

So, better cpu but still with the 5650...

Does this sway it at all?
 
If I was looking into getting a new laptop right now, I'd pay serious attention to the ThinkPad X201.

Shame gaming is a necessity for you, since I doubt it could handle much more than HL2. Other than that, it looks rock solid.

Of those on your list, though, I'd be leaning towards the Acer Aspire 5740G, just because it has the most reasonably sized screen. I have a 14.1" laptop right now, and it's pushing the limits of portability as far as I'm concerned.
 
Last edited:
found a Dell studio 15 with the 720 i7 on the outlet for £450... thought it was a decent buy and bagged it...

Only got a 4570 gpu, but for the money i thought it was a decent deal... should still play BC2 on low settings hopefully
 
Axeboy said:
found a Dell studio 15 with the 720 i7 on the outlet for £450... thought it was a decent buy and bagged it...

Only got a 4570 gpu, but for the money i thought it was a decent deal... should still play BC2 on low settings hopefully
Click to expand...

Good choice. I have a DELL Studio 15 (1558 version, see specs in sig for more info) and I'm very pleased with it. It handles modern games on medium settings with no problems which is good for me. I also have a decent gaming pc and so all out power for me in a laptop is not needed. :)

I was about to suggest a DELL Studio 15 aswell. Be warned though, with DELL's install mihne kept freezing randomly, so I wiped it and reinstalled Windows from scratch. No freezes since...
 
Nice one, glad to hear its a decent buy, i pounced on it when I seen it...

I'll do a fresh install when it arrives, it thought it would need it
 
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