Hardware v Hardware on Laptop - Advice Welcome

Hi folks,

My < 1 year old Dell 9100 laptop has sustained water damage to the motherboard (according to Dell). So they won’t repair under warranty. They quoted me £365 plus VAT. Way out of my price range. So I asked my insurers and they don’t deal with Dell. They have offered me a Sony VGNA517B, spec detailed here.

However, my Dell has a 1GB RAM, an ATI Mobility Radeon 9800 (256 MB RAM), 8 x AGP. The processor is Pentium 4 (DT) (3.4GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB).

I'm not very techy but suspect I'm being offered a lesser machine. Can anybody offer advice?

Many thanks folks.

BigLad.

Considering RAM, yes, it's obviously less :D. I dont know what is the difference in peformance between the X600 and the 9800 mobility but i think it will be huge. Also the Pentium is generally faster or on par with P4, although it runs @ slower FSB. It's less hot and power hungry so more battery life. So i dont see a problem with that Sony, it looks good IMO.

Get them to order it with more RAM and youre onto a winner, but otherwise it should be a relatively cheap job to do yourself if the insurers wont budge.

Dave

Thanks guys. Is the RAM standard size/fit. Could I just talke two RAM sticks out of my Dell before sending it to the insurer?

Cheers.

BigLad.

I dont know whether Dell has stopped using their own RAM or not. But i guess they did so you probably can do that.

You will need to be carefull with DDR2 vs DDR depending on which each has. How bout taking the mobo, cpu, graphics, hdd out as well, and the screen, oh wait, the mobo is broke, they can have that then ;)

Thanks for all your help folks. I presume it will be written on the RAM stick whether it's DDR or DDR2?

I'm guessing it was 1Gb of DDR as the Dell is over 1 year old. Is the Sony's 512mb DDR2 equivelant to that or should I hold out for the full 1Gb?

I did ask for the next model up (click here for spec.) but the guy said 'nope' because:



"The laptop we are intending to supply matches most of the specification of your previous.

-Processor speed is 1.74 but you need to double this figure to get the correct processor speed as the processor is now Intelpetium M

-ATI MOBILITY RADEONT X600 with 256MB HyperMemory is the same graphic card as in previous unit.

In regards to the RAM size, we need to see some proof of the RAM on previous unit. The email from DELL doesn't contain RAM speed."



It occurs to me that I also paid for a 3 year warranty from Dell (that came in useful!) so I should maybe ask for the same on the replacement Sony....

Unless anyone has a strong opinion to the contrary I think I'll just take your advice and accept the lower spec Sony that they are offering, but ask for it with 1Gb RAM and extended warranty.

Right thing?

Incidentally I tried twice to get ATI to confirm for me whether the Sony's X600 256 MB GPU was equivelant to or poorer than the Mobility Radeon 9800 256 MB. They managed to direct me to a 'comparison tool' that didn't list either component and then second time around they again avoided the question and advised me to download a driver (relevant huh? - I guess they must have chimpanzees typing random responses).

Thanks folks...

BigLad.

As for the CPU - the pentium-M series are nice cpus, don't be fooled by the low clockspeed, I would say that the insurance guy is correct - double the speed and you get roughly the equivalent power to a desktop P4. It won't be as good at certain things (encoding etc) but I don't think you will notice much difference there, except for the much cooler operating temperature, extended battery life, quieter operation and reduced weight :D

GFX wise the X600 is roughly equivalent to a 9800mobility, but it's even slightly better iirc, my friend has one in his laptop and it copes admirably with Half-life2, quake4, fear etc.

Ram? Well DDR and DDR2 have different sockets for desktop versions, but I don't know how this translates to so-dimm sticks (or maybe full ram sticks are now used? I don;t know about latest lappys) But i suspect that your Dell has normal DDR. If you can prove to your insurer that you have 1gig tho (shouldnt be hard, photographs? invoice?) they will get you a vaio with 1gig from what you say above :)

In short, if you can get the ram upgraded it will be a nice laptop. Plus vaios are pwetty as :)

Spud1, thanks a lot man. You've helped me make up my mind. I'll give the guy a call tomorrow and take the Sony!.

Cheers mate.

Jon.

nps man, hope it works out for you

Well - the good old insurers finally came through with the new Sony so everything is hunky dory.

My final query - is there much point in trying to sell the old Dell on e-bay etc. even though it has a broken motherboard? Other than that it's fine. But I'm just not techy enough to fix it...

I noticed that there was a Hexus Classifieds forum but it has no posts....is it defunct?

Thanks

BigLad.

It would be worth either selling it as a whole on ebay or taking the parts out and selling them seperately. I'd take some of the ram off you if it was a reasonable price.

As for the classifieds forum, you need 50 posts before you can see the posts inside it so no, it isnt defunct, you just cant see it yet :)