laptop for the girlfriend

rjk

rjk

rjk

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8 Aug 2007
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hi guys
normally i would avoid a spec me thread but needs must

tbh i know very little about laptops other than the business ones i order for work
so im after some advice for a home/personal solution

basically my girlfriend has had a gateway machine for about 4 years
its been reliable and she hasnt had any problems with it

the power cable is starting to become tempremental and she is looking at a new machine with her 21st round the corner

initially she has been looking at one of the low end XPS models from dell

the machine doesnt need to be super portable as it is only used for her uni work.

budget is in the region of £500 or thereabouts


i have seen a dell studio machine for £500 with a T5750 core 2 duo and 3gb of ram on the dell site

it seems to outspec the low end xps models and would be better VFM in my opinion

would this be the ideal machine for the money or is the xps worth the investment [basically does it offer any features i have overlooked]

or would a sony vaio or other brand offer better bang for buck

any opinions are welcome and would be really helpful
 
I think the XPS simply has slightly better build quality and allows for higher specs - especially with regard to graphics cards.

You might want to stay away from XPS for a little while because they come with 8-series Nvidia cards which have all recently been found to have a manufacturing fault causing them to overheat after certain period of use.

The studio is a newish laptop from Dell and has many of the design features of the XPS and is generally cheaper, doesn't come with waste of space fingerprint reader.


Here's a quick review you might wanna read: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2321796,00.asp

Quote: "The Dell Studio 15 inherits many of the XPS 1530's strengths and almost none of its weaknesses."
 
yeah i read that

cool

well i dont htink she can justify an xps to be honest
the studio uses an ATI gpu which i thought was alright as i wasnt keen on the idea of one of the 8 series mobile gpus for her
pretty much because my brother has an asus *ahem* "gaming laptop" and his nvidia gpu in that is abysmal

by the looks of it i think this is what she is going for
is it worth looking at sony or other brands before she commits?
 
People here have been recommending the acer aspire 5920g
but it has a nvidia 8600m, £450 ish

I was thinking of buying this for my brother but am put off because of the 8xxx series problems in laptops
 
Herojuana said:
I think sony has less bang for buck and apparently you're paying more for the brand and the aesthetic casing
Click to expand...

i've always thought this, but, they do look nice :p

What are the main front runners, what are the ones to steer clear of?

From what lots of people have been saying anything with 8xxx gfx is a bad choice, any other useful info?
 
This looks pretty sweet!

May consider it myself
<link removed> the model number is VGN-FW11E


(hope it doesn't count as competitor)



edit: just compared this to Dell Studio of similar spec and this wins with value - why so cheap??
 
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