Lenovo 3000 N100 Versus Dell Inspiron 1501 (customised)

johnnypc

Hi folks,

I'm looking at two laptops at the moment, both around the same price. Both have advantages. From what I know the Core Duo processors are superior to the AMD Truion 64 X2 processors. Both laptops are more or less same size and weight. More battery life and Ram (though slower) with the second, but I'm thinking that the processor in the Lenovo is better value for the money, and better performance?

What do you think?

Laptop1 €850
Lenovo 3000 N100
Intel Centrino Core Duo Mobile 2300e (1.66Ghz, 667 FSB, 2MB L2 Cache)
512 DDR2 Ram 667 Mhz
80Gb 5400rpm HD
Dual Layer DVD
15.4" 1680X1050 LCD Display
nVidia GeForce Go 7300 (256mb) graphics card
Lan/Modem/Wireless a/b/g
Integrated Bluetooth/Camera/4in1 Card Reader
XP Home Ed
1 Year Warranty
6 Cell Battery

Laptop 2 - €861.67
Dell Inspiron 1501
AMD Turion 64X2 Mobile TL50
1Gb 533Mhz DDR2 Ram
80Gb 5400rpm HD
Single Layer DVD burner
15.4" 1280X800 LCD Display
ATI Radeon Xpress 1150 256mb Graphics Card
3 in1 Card Reader
XP Media Center ED
2 Year Warranty
9 Cell Batter

thanks

Johnnypc

TempestSabre

I go with the Lenovo myself. Where did you get that price?

johnnypc

Laptops Direct.ie - It's actually €790, but the price includes a bag/mouse and delivery. The Dell includes delivery also (no bag/mouse).

johnnypc

Actually the Lenovo Graphics cards is only 128Mb, but the display is better than the dell (WSXGA+).

thebman

You'll need more RAM with the Lenovo. 512MB is rather low. The graphics card is also obsolete at this point if the Google search I did was correct as this card was designed to compete against the ATI X300.

The ATI card in the Dell is newer than the X300 but is based on it I think from reading this: http://laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=45

If your going to play games, neither is much use for modern games.

The only reason I'd buy the Lenovo is because of the Intel processor instead of AMD, I'd upgrade the RAM and I don't like only a one year warranty but Lenovo's are essentially IBM Thinkpad's (I think) so built well.

The ATI card in the Dell would also turn me off because (from personel experience) ATI's driver support is terrible (putting it nicely). Sometimes the drivers just don't work at all that you get from them and others I've used have had odd effects on simple things like playing video. I contacted ATI for driver support for Linux and as it turns out they don't make their laptop cards themselves and refuse to take responsibility for them.

I've had one two nVidia graphics cards aswell. Never had a problem and on my laptop that had nVidia grahpics, I had it before my current ATI one where they refused to give me drivers for Linux and nVidia had drivers for Linux with full instructions on how to install them that worked perfectly.

Basically I'd go with the Lenovo. You should get a free upgrade to Vista with it and it should be capable of running it if you upgrade the RAM to 1GB.

Ghost Train

the high res screen, processor (even though the 64bit would be nice to have) and to a certain extent brand of the lenovo would probably make me choose it over the dell

kaizersoze

Have no experience of Lenova so I can't comment on it but I own an Inspiron 1501 with similar spec to yours (I have the TL52 Turion). It's a great machine and I'm very happy with it. No problems like mentioned earlier with graphics.

BTW you can but the 1501 cheaper on the Dell EPP site (Employee Purchase Program). www.dell.ie/epp
€805.55 as-is or €771.80 if you reduce the warranty to 1 year or €715.53 if you reduce it to 90 days.
Because the Dell comes with MCE, you'll get the FREE upgrade to Vista Home Premium. XP Home (on the Lenova) only upgrades to Vista Home Basic and costs around €40.

johnnypc

Thanks guys.

Turns out the nVidia card in the Lenovo is integrated? according to Laptopsdirect, which can use up to 128mb of memory. Haven't heard of this before (I though only intel interated the graphics cards). How does this affect the overall performance? Won't be good for (any) games at all really?

Also was looking into the TL50 chip, and it has only half the L2 cache of the Core Duo. This has a significant impact on performance. But probably a more balanced machine?

Conumdrums and money. Hate both of them!!!

BostonB

Neither of these machines are any good for gaming.

johnnypc

Hi folks,

Thought I'd add some feedback. Went with the lenovo from Laptops Direct, and am very happy with my purchase. Found Laptopsdirect easy to deal with. ordered it on a Friday, and got the laptop on Monday, so happy days.

As for the laptop:
Pros: Lovely screen, Figerprint security is excellent, keyboard nice to type with, and has ample processing power... most things fly! Haven't tried any heavy games on it, but bar the higher graphical requirement games, I'd say she'd handle a fair majority. Price!! In built camera is sweet, but don't move too much.
Cons: No Home or End keys (accessed using Function and left or right... or is it up and down....), but you get used to it. Function key itself is to the left of the Ctrl button, so for all you Ctrl+ people, this takes a bit of adjusting to.

In summary, excellent laptop for the price, and well worth considering.

TerrorFirmer

Just worth mentioning if you have the 7300, then it's not integrated.