Best Laptop

[spazmaster]

yo maestros, i'm looking into abuying a laptop instead of a desktop...and i was wondering which one would be good?

i would want at least 15" (the bigger the better), P4 2GHz or AMD equivalent, max battery life (4 or 5 would be cool!)...and would look cool was well ;)

i now Apple has the coolest ever with its 17" powerbook, but i'm looking into a PC laptop for now...anyone got suggestions or first hand experience?

[boyzdynasty]

i'm thinking of getting the powerBook too.

it looks so cool. But its functionality, I have no clue. Need to read up on more details/specs about it.

But it is very expensive.
:(

....y a PC laptop?

[spazmaster]

well i've been looking at a Dell laptop, but 1. its ugly and 2. its even more expensive than the 17" Powerbook!
anyone say Sony or HP have good notebooks or even a different brand?

[Mortimer Jazz]

I did some research into laptops/notebooks a short while back and here's some info that may help when choosing :)
It's going to be difficult cause you're limiting your choice by stipulating the p4, but bare in mind that even if you have a p4, other factors such as the speed at which your hard disk spins, the type of RAM used and the speed of the front-side bus can dramatically reduce/increase performance of the machine.

Most desktop hard drives run at 7200rpm (+9000rpm for performance drives), but at the moment notebooks only get up to 5400rpm, so this will affect performance no matter how powerful your processor is.

Ram is most likely to be SDR or DDR (single/double data rate), obvisouly if you can afford the price increase go for something with DDR.

The Front Side Bus is the speed the the processor can talk to the other components of the computer. Look for something around 400MHz if possible.

I'm certainly no hardware junky, I picked up most of this info from http://www.epinions.com/ - well worth a look

I also noticed that quite a few businesses trade via the Ebay website, and you can make some fantastic (I mean FANTASTIC) savings on brand new laptops, but beware of sharks - only go for someone who's been highly rated and joined the ebay trust scheme. One guy claimed to be a UK business in his reply email to me. I checked his supposed name and details on Companies House website (UK site that keeps track of all registered companies) and he was lying.

Two laptops that made me raise an eyebrow:
1) Toshiba Satellite 5105-S607 P4 1.7GHz (has built in subwoofer!!). This looks great but it's more of a desktop replacement. It's too heavy to keep carrying around.
2) Dell Latitude X200 Series - ...ugly, but Dell have such a good name

Hope this helps you decide

[spazmaster]

yeah thats great info thx Mort!

yeah i've been delving into all that small details.
its really annoying to find that Dell and Apple are the only ones who have a real decent website...
most manufacturers omit the smaller details like if the hard drive has 4200 rpm or 5400 rpm...or how much L2 or L3 cache a CPU has or if itrs a P4 proc with M tech or not. i just found out that the Apple 17" Powerbook is the only one with DDR memeory for the Apple's. i mean i drool at thinking of having a 17" Apple...but it would mean i'd have to switch over to Mac OS X, and lets face it, the flash player for the Mac sux! (ok, not that important, but software restrictions, performance etc)

there are so many things to consider with a laptop...like screen size and its resolution(!), battery life, weight, proc, hard diks, memory type (even 1 or 2 DIMM's!), what kind of graphics card, warranties....bla bla...

so what did you get finally?


ps. ebay isnt much good i suppose being here in europe

[Mortimer Jazz]

I didn't buy in the end. I decided I can wait a while. I know there's a danger of getting in to that "always something better around the corner" routine, but I just think that the current choice is too limited and too expensive.

I also know what you mean about the Apples. They are lovely, and the only reason I prefer PCs is that I can swap and change my hardware to suit my needs and I feel so much more in control of my machine - I can get inside it and play (plus the whole single-mouse button thing is just a joke to me), but as you can't swap and change parts so easily with laptops I considered getting an apple, and then I remembered that I would need Mac versions of all my software, and I must admit I've read so many mac/flash problem threads on this forum, I don't want to go there.

I know nothing about CPU cache so you've given me something else to look at - darn! :)

[boyzdynasty]

this has been very educational!!!!

hey SPAZ, let us know what you decide in the end and y.

I need to get a notebook soon but i haven't even start researching anything yet. But this thread helps out a lot.

[spazmaster]

something else:
of course screen resolution is one of the most important things as well. when choosing a laptop you need to know what you are wanting to use. An LCD screen is made for a certain resolution and doesnt look as pretty in a different resolution.
personally i think 1600x1200 is too much for a 15" or 16"...its just too small...1280x1024 would be perfect for me, but i've only come accross a few latops with 1280x1024.

also does the laptop have a special mobile cpu? (like a Pentium 4-M) they're much lower in power consumption.

to be honest i'm leaning towards a 17" Powerbook at the moment...i wish i could stick with a pc though :(