Somewhat off-topic, need help with a laptop...

[Beefcake]

Hello guys....

Recently I've been shopping for a laptop for storage and portable gaming. I think I've found what I'm looking for but I would like some final input.  My budget is about 1500 bucks and I want one that will last a few years. Right now I'm looking at the Hewit Packard zd8000 series.

[eagl]

Take a look at the cheapest ibm t42s with the ATI 9600.  They run right around $1500-$1700.  newegg.com occasionally has one on sale that I almost got for the wife... $1600ish and it had the 9600 vid card.  Right around 5 lbs too, which is pretty darn light for a lappy that has everything.

Don't get the firegl card 'cause lots of ATI software like their multimedia center won't install on the firegl cards even though they're just 9600s with more memory.  Bastards.

[Beefcake]

Forgive my stupidity but how do I know that the laptop I'm buying has it?

Here's the start page of what I'm looking at. Hrmmm......

[eagl]

That notebook seems to offer choices of ATI mobility radeons, but they're not the 9600 series.  They're x300 or x600 series.  I don't know how fast they are but I'm sure you could research it on the web.

I found that under the specs tab, down by graphics card.  You may have to customize the laptop before buying to get a decent vid card in it.

[Beefcake]

Yeah, the base price is 1200 bucks but when I customize to my liking it comes out at about 1600. Little high, but its a good deal compared to the Alienwear notebook I looked at.

HP I can get: 2.80 ghz processor with HT
1gig of ram
17 inc screen
80 gig hd
256 radeon card

for 1600 bucks....for the same price at alienware I can get a
1.70 ghz processor (no HT)
256 megs of ram
12 inc screen
20 gig hd
64 meg geforce card

So far the HP is the best deal around.

[eagl]

Do NOT go for pure MHZ in a laptop.  A 2.8 ghz laptop isn't using a pentium M and it'll run hot and suck your battery down fast.

I suggest the pentium M cpus, the ones included in the "centrino" branded laptops.  They currently top out around 2.0 ghz if I recall correctly.  It's not the Pentium4 M.  

A 1.8 ghz pentium M will run about as fast as a 2.8 ghz pentium4 M, and use less power.

[Beefcake]

Thanks for all the help eagl, I'm narrowing the search down but I have one problem. The 2.8 ghz processor notebook is still the cheapest and best deal I've seen. (well on these major brand sites) It gives me everything I want but it has the P4M in it which according to you will be a super power sucker, which I can understand. Let me ask this though, this laptop will mainly be used as a second computer at home and will be used at work sometimes as a temp gaming machine, it will rarely be in a place that I cannot plug it up to a wall outlet. Since I'm using it like this would I really need to worry about power?

[JB66]

I would stay away from HP/Compaq notebooks.  I have a Compaq that was a piece of trash.  Constant lockups and crashes.  

I call India...I mean HP/Compaq to get support, and after a week of trying different things, I sent it in.  Those stupid dumba**es reformated my hd without my consent, stating that somewhere in some form that they sent it states that they are going to do that.

 After getting my laptop back, it still would lockup and crash.  I took it upon myself to replace the heatspreader and CPU, which solved the problem.  One of my friends at work has a HP, and you guessed it, constant problems.

This is just my opinion, others may have had a good experience with them. I suggest that you take a look at what kind of warrenty you will get with your new laptop, and take a look at how they handle problems with their customers.

[Beefcake]

Well as far as the compaq / hp issue goes, my first computer was a compaq and I did suffer from alot of crashes and lockups. About 3 years later I bought this HP computer and it has been great. Only about 2 lockups that I can remember in about 3 years of operation. It's really stable and never gives me trouble. (knock on wood) I know HP owns Compaq aren't the computers still built differently?

Thank you for the info though JB66, I'll look into the crash issue. Also do you know of any good, trustworthy sites to get a laptop?

[eagl]

I think the only other problem you'd have with the P4M is heat.  Those suckers get pretty hot compared to the Pentium M.  Hot enough to discolor surface treatments and stain finishes on wood desks.  Consider one of those laptop heat spreader thingies, basically a big sheet of stiffened aluminum and plastic, with or without cooling fans.

[maxxius]

Originally posted by eagl
That notebook seems to offer choices of ATI mobility radeons, but they're not the 9600 series.  They're x300 or x600 series.  I don't know how fast they are but I'm sure you could research it on the web.

I found that under the specs tab, down by graphics card.  You may have to customize the laptop before buying to get a decent vid card in it.

the 300 series card wont play ah2 altho i have played ah1 on it and a bunch of other games
hp laps are good but overprized  when i bought mine 2 years ago it  was top of the line spend 1500 clams and now cant even playAH2 on it  so i gave it to wife ....



and took over the desktop...with some minor modifications:D

[Beefcake]

I'm back with a few more questions that maybe someone can answer.  


First how does the P4 compare to the AMD 64 processors as far as sucking power?

Second are either one of these graphics cards good for a laptop?

Radeon x600 with PCI Express x16 with up to 256MB dedicated memory

64 MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 4 440 Go

And if so which one is better? (I assume the Radeon is but I know that sometimes lesser can be better)

[Beefcake]

Actually while looking around tonight, I realized I had never even checked Gateway's site, and after looking around they have some rather nice deals too. Anyone have any experiance with them?

[humble]

came across this site....no experience with them but interesting possibility.

http://www.geared2play.com/products/laptops/LAPTOPS.htm