£600 Laptop recommendations?

[Rosaline]

What with Intel threatening to bring a whole new CPU line to market next year and nVidia teasing us about new GPUs, it seems that now is not the best time to be building a desktop warhorse.

Instead, myself and my partner have long been considering hers and hers laptops, and since most laptops will be better than our current systems, that seems to fulfil our need to replace our main systems also.

We're looking to spend around £600 each on a laptop. I'm personally concerned about the battery life and portability, since I'd like to actually make use of the portable nature of a laptop. However I also need it to be able to smoothly handle throwing around a few polygons with various modern gaming engines.

I'm currently considering the Dell Vostro 1500 with C2D T7300 and 8600M GT, which comes to £610 including VAT (with warranty reduced to 1 year, tempting fate, I know...). What do people think? Any better suggestions?

[staffsMike]

Go with the vostro..best bang for bucks. Nothing comes close really. There are a couple of AMD toshibas with 8600GT's for a similar price but it won't meet the spec of the vostro.

[TMD]

i would go the vostro route too...the kit you get for the price is very good. If you want good battery life, upgrade the battery to a 9 cell...only adds 11 or so quid more but it lasts another hour or so

[Rosaline]

I thought I'd give an update on this

We placed the order last friday, and managed to get it to £669 including VAT per laptop. That included the 2.2GHz C2D, 9 cell battery, a 1440x900 display, and also delivery.

The first one turned up this morning, and my partner is very happy with it, runs portal and HL2 like a dream Mine shall be showing up on thursday

[lodore]

did you get vista or xp?
i am kind of thinking about getting a dell vostro laptop.
depends if i have somewhere to put a desktop or not.
lodore

[Rosaline]

Sorry, I should have mentioned!

We went for XP professional, since Vista has yet to really shine in my opinion, and the lessened gaming performance in old games didn't seem worth the slight DX10 improvements.

You might be interested to know that my partner actually uses her old monitor as the primary display, with a proper keyboard and mouse hooked up as well! I'll also be using a proper keyboard and mouse when at home, but this CRT I use is frankly ancient and the laptop will have the same display area, so I will be using the funky new screen!

Oh, and we were very impressed by the Dell bios, lots of options including the all important brightness on AC and on battery setting. I only wish there was a way to automatically overclock when on AC power

[lodore]

thanks for the infomation.
i will most likely use my spare 17inch lcd monitor attached to a proper keyboard and mouse at most times.
how is the keyboard on the laptop itself thou?
im still not sure wiether to get a desktop or a laptop.
is the laptop fast at booting and loading programs?
i was thinking of getting xp pro or xp home on my new desktop or laptop since i dont see the need for any of vistas new features.
is there anything you dont like about the dell vostro laptop?
lodore

[Rosaline]

The keyboard itself seems to have nice function, but like I said, the first one to arrive went to my partner, so I'll know better tomorrow when my own arrives.

The laptop seems to boot fairly fast in my opinion, only taking less than roughly 30 seconds (I'll time it tomorrow) from power on to windows login. It could be faster with a 7200rpm hard drive, but those tend to need more power and hence eat more battery.

The only thing I don't like is it's weight. Whilst it makes it feel less fragile and is actually quite pleasant when it use, you certainly would not be juggling it. It certainly is not as heavy as my saying this will make you think, however, and getting a lighter weight with the same performance would cost a lot more.

As for if you should get a laptop or desktop system, you need to consider what you will be getting up to. If you're a student going to and from campus every day, with hours between lectures that need killing, a laptop is ideal. If you want to work wherever you are in your house, access websites from in bed, a laptop is required. If you are a frequent traveller, a laptop means always having your computer with you.
However, if you have a typical 9-5 office day job (or similar), don't travel heavily, and like to keep different rooms for different activities, you will want a desktop system. If you are not bothered about the portability, and need performance on a budget, you will want a desktop. And if you just want raw outright performance, you simply cannot beat a desktop. Also, remember that desktop systems are an utter pain to steal, so they're less prone to vanish for bad reasons.
Look at what you would use it for, basically.