Laptop for uni - when to buy?

[staffsMike]

3Kg (typical for 15") isn't bad to lug around but if it's all day then it does become a burden. I don't notice the xps at all

[richieuk]

Half life 2 and CSS can run quite happily on integrated. Puma doesn't do a great job with battery life from what I've seen so far. Better than dedicated but worse than most other integrated solutions.

please show my how, i got Intel GMA x3100 on mine, i cant get it to pork, a Pr600 from MSI with 2 gb of ram

[staffsMike]

On the lowest of the low settings I've seen it working.. looked ugly as hell though.

PUMA laptops should be getting an external graphics solution but news of it seems to have gone a bit cold.

[richieuk]

haha man you dont even want to imagine the load-times either haha. CS-Original is only 20fps. COD2 is like 10... its horrific man, scary bad.

If you want gaming, you need a little bit of onboard graphics, The ATI 3450 is on laptops atm and that would be great on these games were talking about.

My laptop even hates settlers FFS...

[richieuk]

The asus eee arent bad for typing on actually, takes a little getting used to, but i mean with the £500 you got, you could put £200 toward a desktop and build it yourself, using a couple of hundred from your loans too you could have a nice budget PC there (night need to scavenge a monitor but thats easily done)

[richieuk]

Qty Link No. Description Ex VAT Inc VAT
LN15073

Gigabyte GA M57SLI-S4 NF570 SLI, S AM2, PCI-E (x16), DDR2 400/533/667/800, SATA II, SATA RAID, ATX £38.79 £45.58
LN8233

Scan 2013 Black Silver ATX Midi Tower Case 400W pFC PSU £22.49 £26.43
LN23630

AMD AM2 Athlon 64 5000+ AM2 , Brisbane Core, Dual Core 2600GHz, Retail £34.99 £41.11
LN12200

2GB (2x1GB) Corsair TwinX XMS2, DDR2 PC2-5400 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 4-4-4-12 £24.78 £29.12
LN20493

LG GSA-H55LBL 20x DVD±R, 16xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, PATA,Lightscribe, Black, OEM £14.16 £16.64
LN23286

400GB Hitachi HDT725040VLA360 Deskstar T7K500, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ £30.09 £35.36
LN21876

19" Hanns-G HW191DP Silver/Black Widescreen LCD, 1440x900, 700:1, 300 cd/m², 5 ms, Speakers, VESA £84.49 £99.28
LN10713

Colours IT UN-9800 3 in 1 Office Desk Manager 2 + Speakers Wired Keyboard, PS2, 400dpi Optical Mouse £9.99 £11.74
LN16395

AKASA AK-860SF AMD S754/939/AM2, Low Noise Aluminium Heatsink with AM2 retention clips and 92mm fan £3.98 £4.68
LN17168

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic SP1* 64Bit 1Pk OEM (DVD) £45.89 £53.92
LN20310

256MB HiS HD2600 PRO IceQ Turbo, PCI-E (x16), 1400MHz GDDR3, 700MHz GPU, 120 Cores, 2xDLDVI/ HDTV £34.00 £39.95


£400 build including a £100 monitor, if you didnt need it and got a cheaper one, then your sorted. If youwere interested that is. Also, i'm sure staffs mike could make that alot better

[staffsMike]

I would go for the laptop lol

But If I were to do a build,

Antec NSK3480 + 380W earthwatts ~£55
2GB PC6400 ~£30
Asus M2A-VM ~£35
AMD X2 ~£50
320GB Western Digital AAKS ~£35
Optical ~£15
8800GT ~£90
19 - 20" montor ~£100

Thats £400, but no OS or keyboard etc..

[Lanky123]

Thanks for the ideas, but if I go for a desktop I'll do it properly when nehalem arrives I think.

It sounds as though if I want any gaming performance I will have to sacrifice battery life for a discreet card. At the moment I'm wavering between a Studio and a smaller Vostro but I think I'll wait a couple of weeks to see what crops up. Mid-August should be a safe enough time to buy shouldn't it - even with a lot of demand it shouldn't take more than 6 weeks or so to be delivered?

Just a thought, are refurbished laptops like these worth buying or not?

[staffsMike]

Just a thought, are refurbished laptops like these worth buying or not?

You do get some good deals from MCS but of course you will be getting old stock all the way past september so no nice new CPU's.

Note that prices are all ex VAT and del as well

[richieuk]

For your budget, i'd personally go for

DLV030 Vostro 1500 Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0GHz 2048 160 DVD-RW 15.4" WXGA 256mb GeForce 8600M GT Vista Home 1 £420.00 with 3 years on site dell warranty.

Yeah definatley, its within budget and would do everything you need it to

[Lanky123]

Bump. I had decided to wait a bit and see what happens with back to school deals etc. However, I had another look at the 13.3" Vostro and the 15.4" Studio and I was wondering if the current deals are likely to get any better - there's about £50 off each atm (and I just don't like waiting ).

For similar prices I could get either but the main difference would be an 8400gs vs hd3450. Anyone know if either is significantly better or significantly more power efficient? Also, I'm still a little worried about the Nvidia 8 series midrange parts failing - is this still the case?

The battery in the Studio can be upgraded to the 9-cell one for free. Is this worth it - can it still fit in laptop cases and be carried around easily with the 3cm sticking out or whatever it is? Also, from experience is this deal likely to stick around for very long?

Sorry for the longish post, any answers much appreciated.

[staffsMike]

At this time of the year you get a new deal each month pretty much. You win some/lose some on which deal you get when you are ready to buy.

It generally amounts to the same money off in the end though. You say you get a free 9 cell which is about £100 upgrade usually so next month it would be 6 Cell with £100 off etc..

[Lanky123]

So do you not think there would be much to gain in waiting a couple of weeks? I won't hold it against you if they knock £200 off the day after I buy.

If the 9-cell really doesn't cause a problem as far as aesthitics/fitting laptop case goes (?) then I may just buy now. I've had a google and there are conflicting reports regarding the relative performance of the 8400gs and the hd3450. Any help here would be great but if you don't know I'll probably just err on the side of caution and steer clear of the 8400gs.

[staffsMike]

Well since I actually have 8400gs I can tell you I have had no problems thus far but i do always use my notebook cooler so that might be why lol

I'd probably do with the studio tbh. Although the form factor of the 1310 is more appealing the studio seems to be the best package with it's HDMI out etc.. which coupled to a blu ray drive will give you a nice little HD setup later

[Lanky123]

Ok, I may just take the plunge tomorrow then. (well, later today, whatever)

Thanks for your help, loads of informative posts as always.