Which laptop is the better one?

fobose · 2 Jun 2008 at 18:08

Hi, I am currently looking for a laptop for my brother - it will just be used for internet/msn/surf and perhaps the odd xvid to his TV. As I am not really sure how good AMD dual cores are, I want to know which laptop is the better?

17.1” 1440 x 900
AMD Turion 64 Mobile Dual Core (TL58? 1.9GHz)
2GB of Ram (667MHz)
Hard Drive: 250 GB 5400rpm
ATI RS690M
HDMI
5 USB
E-SATA port
Vista home Premium
£400

OR

15.4" 1280 x 800
Intel Pentium Dual Core T2330 1.6GHz
2GB of ram (667MHz)
Hard Drive: 120GB 5400rpm
Graphics: ATI X1100
4USB
Vista home Premium
£350

Both have Asus 2 year warranty. Obviously the AMD one has a bigger hard drive and larger screen which is swaying me (esp for £50 more), but will the CPU better than this older Intel dual core (Yonah perhaps?)

pumaz · 2 Jun 2008 at 18:14

The 2nd one..

The CPU is better and imo so is the screen size, I think 17" laptops are just too big and not very portable. Hard drives are quite cheap these days so it wouldn't be an expesive upgrade if you needed bigger.

Maybe you should ask in the Laptop section, I own a Macbook myself but i believe the Vostro's are good value and you may be able to get something in your price range.

pingwing · 2 Jun 2008 at 18:45

Right i have an Acer travel mate about the same specs as the amd one you have mentioned and its plain average. The Turion really is vastly inferior to the core duo series (even if its not core2) as the turion is just low voltage k8 x2 crammed into a laptop. It has poor power usage, creates a lot of heat and above all else is just pretty slow (i have the tl-56 and its only really good for going on the net). Get the T2330 based one, it will be a lot cooler (and if space is an issue you its pretty easy to get a new hdd and replace it).

fobose · 2 Jun 2008 at 20:11

Thanks for the replies guys. Thats all I needed to know really. I dont want to sacrifice performance over a bigger HDD and a bigger screen - although the 17" would have been better as the laptop will be replacing an older 14" laptop which is just a desktop replacement and barely ever moved.

Thanks again