Advise on laptop purchase

matrim

Hey,
I've to choose a laptop for my brother and would like some advise on which one to choose.

The criteria are

Price - Up to 800 euro

It will be used for surfing, email, word etc. It would also be used for music, movies and mabye some oldish games (Maybe something like an old version of Championship Manager, strategy games)

A minimum of 512 ram is needed but I'd perfer 1Gb if possible. A DVD RW is needed as well as wireless.

From my checking I've come across a few but would like some advise on which one, of if there is a better one for the price

1) dell inspiration 1300. This one with the HD upgraded to 80GB. Price is 720

2) Advent
Price 740. Spec is slightly better but I'm just not sure how good advent laptops are.

Webmonkey

I would rather go with this http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Aspire_Aspire_5101_AWLMi_Laptop_LX.ABH0J.083/version.asp

tbh...

That advent, I think that ws a miss print putting processor speed 3GHz

Tom Dunne

I'm not so sure how good the Dell 1300 would be for older games, depends on the games really. Strategy and turn-based stuff would be ok, but any kind of first person shooter wouldn't be too hot. Other than that, it would be fine for what you want.

The Semperon processor runs at something like 1.8Ghz, the 3000+ is supposed to give an Intel equivalent speed (i.e. a 1.8Ghz AMD is supposed to be as powerful as a 3Ghz Intel processor). So I would agree with webmonkey, the 3000 Mhz is a mis-print.

matrim

Thanks for the replys. That aser looks perfect webmonkey, are laptops direct ok to buy from

Tom Dunne

matrim wrote:

are laptops direct ok to buy from

Oh, here we go...... keep the replies civil, people.:rolleyes:

I ordered from them and I didn't have a problem. It's a mixed bag, really. Some had good experiences, others didn't.

I personally would recommend them.

Webmonkey

Yeah mixed opinions on them though i believe everyone actually received their laptop - they not a scam or anything if you are worried that way, might be a bit slow in delivery.

mad m

the Aspire laptop the graphics card "Graphics: ATI Radeon® Xpress 1100 integrated 3D graphics" is it any use?

TerrorFirmer

mad m wrote:

the Aspire laptop the graphics card "Graphics: ATI Radeon® Xpress 1100 integrated 3D graphics" is it any use?

It's more or less then same as the X200. Previously, you did have the X200 integrated, then the dedicated x300, x550, x700, and x800. Now you have the integrated X1100, then the dedicated X1300, x1600, x1650, x1800, x1900 etc etc.

It's perhaps slightly better then the X200 but still considerably worse then even a basic low end X1300 dedicated card. I couldn't find any benchmarks for the X1100 but check out these pages about the X200, which is almost exactly the same, for reference.

http://3dgpu.com/archives/2004/11/08/ati-radeon-xpress-200g-review/3/
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2427&p=1

I suppose it all boils down to what you want it for? Because if you don't play games its perfectly fine....