Laptop advice

[monkeybutler]

Hi all

I could do with some advice on buying a new laptop. I’m looking to spend around £700 on a laptop, which will be able to play world of warcraft, and also oblivion reasonable well. I’ve narrowed down my options to two laptops, detailed spec below.

Studio 17, T5750, vista, 17” 1440x900 screen, 3GB ram, ATI 3650, 160GB HDD, 9cell battery, £689.
XPS 1530, T5750, vista, 15” 1440x900 screen, 3GB ram, nvidia 8600GT, 250GB HDD, 9cell battery, £709.

I can’t decide between the two so I’d like to hear if anyone here has had experience with these laptops. I’d go for the XPS as reviews I’ve read give it better benchmarks but considering all the problems nvidia has been having I’m not sure if I trust the graphics card not to die on me. It doesn’t have to be dell of course so I am open to other suggestions.

Thanks in advance

[Will404]

I think that the XPS will do better, cos I thinks that the 8600GT is better

[staffsMike]

For that sort of money I would go for the studio 15 with 1440 x 900 LED display and HD3450. I'm sure that has enough grunt for WoW. At that price you would almost certainly get the a blu ray drive as well and since the studio's have an audio/visual HDMI out then you will have a pretty nice setup for play HD on your TV (as well as the laptop)

THe 8600GT in the xps is a DDR3 model (possibly affected by the problems but they should have sorted it for all new shipments) so it does perform very well in games, far better than the HD3450 would and probably a little better than the HD3650. The xps also has the same HDMI out (no audio though) and can house a blu ray drive so it would be an option later anyway im sure.

If it has to be out of the two I'd get the XPS, the 17" studio is bulky as hell.

[monkeybutler]

Thanks for the advice.
While i was searching i also came across this laptop from pcworld (I hate the place but they have a good deal every now and then)
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/109052
Seams like a very good laptop for the price and I found an online voucher that brings the price down 5% to £665 which makes it even better, but I've heard good and bad stuff about acer. Whats your opinion?

[staffsMike]

I'm not acer's greatest fan but it's a nice spec for the money. Just pray nothing goes wrong with it.

[Boon72]

i took my acer x71sr back to pcworld 2 days after i got it as it wouldnt play jumper bluray - i got the Dell studio 15 £699 version instead n it played it 1s go (it was better speced too) i love it

[monkeybutler]

Thanks for the advice all.
In the end I got an Asus G1SN T8300 3GB GF9500GS 512 Video memory, 15.4" 1680x1050 res for £700.

[staffsMike]

Good laptop for the money

A bit gamer fussy in looks for me but still it's what inside that counts

[nix2811]

good choice mine is the same combp business/game system and pretty stable

[monkeybutler]

Good laptop for the money

A bit gamer fussy in looks for me but still it's what inside that counts

Yeah, the flashing lights on the side are pointless but you can turn them off at least.