Tinker Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 My Amilo M1450 has done well here. But time for a replacement. Taking a few weeks to look around for something new. As a starting option! I found this Samsung Q530 This seems a good all round machine. Maybe want to find a 9 cell battery? Options open as always. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 I guess it depends what you want to use your laptop for ... just surfing and watching vids or a bit of gaming, editing photos etc? And then of course there's your budget ... An i3 seems a little underpowered. I wonder if you can get an i5 at a larger mass-production vender like Dell for a similar price? However it is possible the i3 will run cooler and be less noisy, but perhaps that is more dependent on clock speed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krise madsen Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 I have a friend in IT support and I asked him about this recently. It pretty much boils down to "Get yourself an ASUS". They're a tad more expensive than your average Acer or whatnot, but a good deal of additional quality and reliability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted January 30, 2011 Author Share Posted January 30, 2011 Maybe playing a few games, some photo editing and general use I guess. Looked for Asus. Found Asus P52F-SO034X 320GB 4GB 15.6IN Normally £640 Used stock - Condition: opened for inspection, unused. = £486 Just browsing, maybe a few weeks before.. This looks a better system to go from? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 Couple more that caught my attention. Asus P52F-SO034X 320GB 4GB 15.6IN Hewlett Packard (HP) Pavilion dv6-3141ea / AMD Phenom II Quad-Core N930 2.0GHz / 6GB / 500GB / 15.6 inch / DVD-SM / Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krise madsen Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Avoid HP Pavilion's like the plague. The specs may be sexy, but the innards are simply too cheap and they wear out in record time: Life expectancy is less than 12 months. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 I have to agree. Seen many HP's with known issues like bad caps on mainboards that conviently go after warranty. Asus makes some really nice stuff. I have a netbook @ work, and for an atom processor, the thing rocks. Installed Windows 7 Enterprise too it and upgraded to 2gb of ram. 10 hours battery woot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 Avoid HP Pavilion's like the plague. The specs may be sexy, but the innards are simply too cheap and they wear out in record time: Life expectancy is less than 12 months. Yup had the same replies from a few other sources too. Not in a hurry for this, will keep looking around. Seems to be a Asus I will end up with though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
firefly2442 Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I have an older Asus netbook (1000 w/ssd) and while the Atom processor isn't really fast, it's still a decent laptop. Some of the newer ones with Nvidia ION technology look kinda neat as long as they don't drain the battery too much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted February 17, 2011 Author Share Posted February 17, 2011 Problem with my laptop (Amilo M1405) is that I installed WXP including SP3 a long time back. Ever since then I started using it more than I use to. But it was just so slow it was untrue. Now it never had much use previous to that install, so I had no idea what was wrong. Use to using the desktop PC`s, I had assumed it was simply old, low on specs and not worth bothering with. Only had a few basic programs, xfire TS3 [GR] etc. Was up to date and had no virus issues. A freind had mentioned that SP3 is the reason, and after googling I found various topics about this on the MS website. SP3 severely hindered some laptops and was not recommended. And if you install XP with SP3 already included, you are unable to uninstall it. Just installed XP again with SP1, updated it to SP2, installed same programs, and it is an amazing difference. From taking up to 5 minutes from powering on, to being able to use the laptop, it now takes around 20 seconds. All round use has sped up by 10 fold easily. Last little thing I have to do is the RAM. At present has 2 x 256 sticks. Now the specs state it only takes up to 2 x 512 sticks, but I have read on the Amilo forums, some users have used 2 x 1GB sticks and by using the bios to make the changes they have no problems, the hardware can handle it. Little unsure about this at present, have sent an email to Siemens regarding this, before I just get the 2 x 512. Will not be bothering with a new laptop just yet, maybe something down the line when the nice Acer quad cores start to drop in price. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tinker Posted July 12, 2011 Author Share Posted July 12, 2011 I will be buying a new laptop soon for sure. Just waiting for the right model and price. Just looking at this right now Asus P52F Core i5-480M 4GB 320GB W7 Pro Seems a nice price. Video Graphics Processor / Vendor Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0 Hmm Can you fit graphic cards to a laptop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROCO*AFZ* Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 Negative. What you buy is what you get. Most likely that is the intel integrated. It may do GR but not recommended for higher gaming. How much you want to pay? Here is the asus gaming line of note books... http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=576146&CatId=3998 http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=637440&CatId=3998 And here is one not rated as gaming but would do the job. (only thing i don't like is 5400rpm drive but that can be changed) http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=552780&CatId=4935 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeealice Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 no-one suggested toshiba? http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toshiba-Satellite-L755-13K-i5-2410M-Bluetooth/dp/B004XARSJO/ref=sr_1_23?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1310570747&sr=1-23 the integrated card is a 1gb Nvidia graphic card as i am led to believe. prett good value. Can you fit graphic cards to a laptop? i've never heard of it being successfully changed before but i could be wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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