Help with buying a laptop

[david432111]

Is the laptop listed below enough for browsing the internet, schoolwork and the occasional game?Cause I wanna make sure I'm not wasting my money.

The laptop:
ACER ASPIRE AS5520-402G25MI

AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK-55
2GB DDR2 / 250 GB HardDisk
15,4" WXGA CrystalBrite Screen
NVIDIA GeForce 8400 896MB
DVD Burner Dual Layer
WIFI BG, S-Video, DVI, Firewire
Built-in WebCam og Cardreader
MS Windows® Vista Home Premium

[PrntRhd]

How much are you being quoted on price?

[david432111]

$1200 dollars

[saphalline]

If you live in the US, you can get a MUCH better deal than that! :eek: I'm shopping for a new laptop myself these days, and my first instinct for a price for that hardware was $1050 tops! :eek:

Shop around, dude! You can get a laptop with those specs for a steal this time of year!

First of all, the 15.4" size is the darn cheapest out there. You can literally get $500 laptops in that size, albeit with much lesser hardware. Secondly, a GeForce 8400M is aiming low for a dedicated vid card - in short, it costs too much for the amount of gaming performance you'd get out of it. Shoot for at least a GeForce 8600M or Mobility Radeon HD 2600. You should easily be able to fit a 256MB version of either of these into a $1200 price tag! Just beware of the dreaded hybrid versions that include 128MB of their own memory and then steal 128MB more from main RAM. It's like having all the performance penalties of onboard video! :rolleyes: Also, I'm not a big fan of the Turion64's. They're just not as good as the Core 2 Duo's when it comes to mobile performance and battery life. It's one thing to get a cheaper AMD desktop CPU with lesser performance, but it's entirely another thing to get a lesser performing mobile CPU that sucks even more battery power than a higher performing mobile CPU! I stick with whatever product works better, and hands-down, the C2D's are better than the Turion64's. Lastly, never ever ever buy a laptop that is already upgraded! They charge an arm and a leg for that sh*t!!

Ok, I suggest something like this:


- C2D T5000 series CPU (details below)
- 512MB of DDR2 RAM (this actually saves you money!)
- SATA-based internal HDD
- demand the Centrino Duo label for compatibility
- Intel 945xM / 965xM mobile chipset
- Intel 3945ABG WiFi, Intel 4965AGN WiFi
- 256MB dedicated vid card (GeForce 8600M, Mobility Radeon HD 2600)
- extras (S-Video, DVI, firewire, maybe the built-in webcam)
- you can get Vista if you want, but keep in mind that WinXP will only install on WinXP-compatible laptops


For the CPU, Intel's T5000 line offers the most cost-effective performance. In particular, the T5x50's and T5x70's (ie, T5250 and T5370) are the most recent versions, giving you increased FSB speeds at roughly the same clock speeds as the older T5x00's. The extra FSB speed directly translates into higher RAM performance and overall system speed, especially when it comes to games!

The RAM is one of those "whatever" components in a new laptop, because the stuff they put in there by default is junk! It's slow, has high latencies, and is generally worse than standard "upgrade" RAM you can by off-the-shelf. And if you do upgrade before you buy, they typically charge 3 times the off-the-shelf price!! :eek: Do yourself a favor and buy it separately. There's an average of 2 screws separating you from the RAM slots in a standard upgradeable laptop these days. Buy your RAM separately, toss the old stuff, and save yourself (and I'm not kidding here!) about $100 per gig!

The HDD should be SATA in every modern C2D-based portable, but I've seen a few that aren't. Here again, HDD size costs a fortune! You can't quite save yourself as much money replacing the HDD with an off-the-shelf choice like you can with RAM, and the extra effort involved in reinstalling is a pain - but the potential is there. Then again, higher laptop specs generally mean a higher capacity HDD. Nothing to worry about too much, but I'm replacing the HDD in my laptop as soon as I get it! Then I can put the original one in an enclosure and use it as portable storage! Plus I get the benefit of picking out my own specific HDD, which I find to be great fun! :D

I mentioned the Centrino label thing mostly for the sake of peace of mind. Intel went out of their way to design and enforce specific platform hardware guidelines for their Centrino label, and darn it all but it worked! The original Pentium M Centrino laptops put portables on the map for reliability and easy wireless connectivity! I fully support Intel's latest Centrino Duo label because they've proven that it works. I'm all about what works...

The chipset thing is something that's included in the Centrino Duo label/platform anyway, but I thought it beared mentioning. Just so you know what it is and why it's important. The newer i965xM mobile chipsets are the most desireable, of course, but the slightly older i945xM will do just fine. Especially if you aren't using the lesser onboard video!

The wireless modules I listed are also included in the Centrino Duo label/platform, but only as it applies to an Intel-based wireless module. The ones I listed are specifically the latest & greatest and it won't cost you but $5-10 to have one of them! The 802.11a/b/g-based 3945ABG will certainly do everything you need, but... the newer and more expensive 4965AGN also does Intel's version of pre-N/draft-N. In the past, Intel has been quite good about firmware and driver updates, so the fact that 'N' will evolve is not necessarily a down point here.

I have seen many laptops with the extras that you've listed, but finding all of them on one unit may be a problem (other than your quoted laptop). Unless of course you don't actually need all of them but were merely quoted those. It's up to you on those.

As for the OS thing, the latest Vista-only laptops have been shipping with the new EFI (vs the old BIOS) and are incompatible with WinXP and many distro's of Linux (as they currently stand). Simply put, the older OS'es don't know how to handle the new EFI (Linux will constantly get better in this area but WinXP may be stuck). If you're fine with Vista and only Vista, this is a non-issue. But if you have any ideas of installing Linux or WinXP on your new laptop now or in the future, make absolutely certain that it is WinXP compatible!! There are some laptops that are but just have Vista installed because it's new (Vista has no issues with the old BIOS) but it's always worth checking on that!

Final words: At this time of year, the smart way to shop is to contact a person from whom you will buy this new laptop. That ensures you get the best customer service and most flexible buying experience. Working with a specific sales person also helps their bottom line, because the way I suggest buying a laptop and then upgrading it is better for their numbers! They lose money and/or end-of-month sales numbers for every computer system they sell with no extras. So if you go into the buying experience expecting to throw in some extras, you'll be amazed at what you can get! :D Get enough "extras" and you may even be able to slip a free extended warranty out of them! Or at the very least, get $50-100 off the bottom line. It happens all the time...

[david432111]

Well I live in denmark and this laptop is the best you can get for 6000 krones($1200).

[saphalline]

I live in denmarkOh...

Well nevermind then! :D

If you get good prices on RAM over there, though, at least consider what I said about upgrading the RAM yourself. The cost savings here in the US for RAM upgrades is astounding! It should be worth your while in any other computer-oriented country in the world, too. ;)

[david432111]

I'll eventually upgrade to 4gb ram.But is it good enough to play counter strike on as it is?

[saphalline]

The first Counterstrike? No problem! :D CS: Source? It will have performance problems.

That 8400M isn't very powerful, but it is at least better than any onboard video. You should be able to play games pretty well at 800 x 600, maybe even up to 1024 x 768, with low/medium settings. More intense games will be slower, older games will be faster.

[RedEye]

Oh...

Well nevermind then! :D

If you get good prices on RAM over there, though, at least consider what I said about upgrading the RAM yourself. The cost savings here in the US for RAM upgrades is astounding! It should be worth your while in any other computer-oriented country in the world, too. ;)

i know this may be a really silly question but you can buy upgrades from America to fit into a computer you bought in England?

hey and remember.........you was a newbie once :P

[saphalline]

Industry standards are world-wide, whereas warranties and product codes are regional. But usually the shipping costs are enough to persuade most people to stick to local suppliers. :p