sunnyman12

i just got a 14" Hp....1gb ram 160 hard drive for $889 CDN..i love it...the last Hp i had was 14" aswelll that had 7.5hr battery life...14" is great for my because i use an ibook slip cover and toss it in my school bag...i hate those laptop bags cause they hurt my shoulder

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Osnabrueck

Gateway was an obnoxious, crap-tacular brand that popped up like a contagious wart in the heyday of the 90s .com bubble. Their calling card was faux grass-roots marketing and pile of junk PCs. It's a wonder that the company is somehow still alive and kicking, a shadow of its former self.

People would get pulled in by thinking "Ohh wee, that thing is $150 cheaper than the HP." A couple months later they'd realize that they mind as well have bought a paper weight.

Gene

As I said, my opinion on HP is based on what I've experienced only. I realise that HP is growing, in fact they beat Dell on sales Q4 of 2006, but based on all the HP machines I've tried I've never liked them for various reasons.

Centurion

The only problem I've had with my laptop so far appeared after I installed Vista. After the Vista installation my sound output has been significantly lower than before and that's very annoying. Especially considering that my computer is Vista capable.
I hope HP are working their asses of to fix the audio issue because there are thousands of guys out there who have installed Vista on their capable computers and have various problem with microphone input and getting their sound to work.
The whole thing is ridiculous because if one buys a laptop with a Vista capable full working drivers should be available. Vista has now been out a few months and the issue is still not resolved.
BTW Notebookreview.com has a big is very useful forum covering everything single laptop out there. Great resource for help or information about what laptop to avoid buying.

Gene

I guess thats a perfect example of where I feel Dell outclassing HP (in my opinion and experience only). I own an XPS M1210, and for work I have a D620. Dell had released all their Vista drivers for both notebooks one week after the release. In fact I had vista RTM in October 2006 when it was released to businesses, since I get it from MSDN, and Dell were dribbling out drivers for these notebooks every so often.

Giannis

IMPORTANT QUESTION:
To begin with at home i have a 2001 or 2002 computer with P4 2.0GHz CPU and 512 Ram which is my main PC and a really old one with a P3 733MHz and 128 Ram which i use only for typing - word processors.

The first one works pretty fine, but it's just slower compared to the latest models and i can't update it since i can't find spare parts any more. It's just ok, but i need to update.

So do you think that the laptop i posted in page #1 will be good enough in 5 years time, compared to what will be offered at that time, or it is not worth spending a nice 3.000eur on it and will be not enough in two years and i should buy something cheaper? I mean that i want to use the laptop as my primary PC for at least 5 years, so will it be enough for all this time? I hope you get my point...


--Please reply, because i don't want to spend such an amount of money for no good!

PS. At work i use a desktop with an AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor and it's really good. The one that laptop uses is faster than that?

Gene

5 Years in computerland is effectively eternity. Meaning in 5 years time, based on Moore's law, computers could potentially be 10 times faster than what is top notch right now. Does that mean you'll be outdated - yes, thats guaranteed... Does that mean you won't be able to do your everyday things like wordprocessing or surfing the web - not at all, those tasks are not processor/disk/memory intensive. In fact, I still run a pentium 3 1Ghz, purchased in 2001, to do alot of things. Its just as capable as my super fast machines, it just doesn't do well when heavily loaded. It'll just be things like games/new OS etc that'll get your 5 year old computer's knickers in a knot.

If I were you, I wouldn't spend 3000Eur (~NZ$6000?! thats insane pricing on a notebook) on a notebook. I'd buy a cheaper one. Sell it later, then buy a newer one etc etc. I generally change my notebook twice every year though, so what do I know about keeping notebooks long term?

Heres a tip for you: If your ever in Malaysia, buy a notebook from there, particularly Dells. They cost pittens. I purchased my Dell XPS M1210 for NZ$2000/EUR1000 last year in Malaysia when it came it. It was completely specced out. If I were to buy the same here in NZ, it'll cost me $4000/EUR2000.

Giannis

Hm, i'm thinking the same the last days. 3000eur is insane, but is it worth it? I'm not sure...

So you suggest i should move to a cheaper model?
I want it to be a Sony (screen reasons), 17' monitor, 2GHz processor, with >200GB HD, 2GB RAM and 256 GeForce, which means something from Sony AR series and only AR31S offers those... which means pretty much 3.000eur.

I am STUCK...

Gene

The reason the price is so high is because your choosing a Sony. Try look around for other notebooks with Sony LCD screens if you really want a good screen but still a cheap notebook. I think that Sony screens are very good, but there are better screens out there still. When it comes down to it, you can only tell by searching, and if your willing to spend EUR3000, I would do alot of research because assuming that Sony have the best screens. On a model per model basis I know they don't necessarily have better screens, and sometimes you might be able to compromise for a slightly worse screen for a significantly cheaper price.

Other things you could consider doing is make use of cheaper external components. For example, get a external USB 3.5inch hard drive/2.5inch drive for that extra storage. These generally will be cheap because your not buying from the manufacturer who put their 100% market up on the price. You could even configure down some compoents like the ram or hard drive, and purchase ram cheaper from a local computer store. This again bypasses the huge manufacturer markups.

In case you don't realise how much the manufacturer marks up their bits and pieces, at work we have a Toshiba notebook with no CDRom. We needed to purchase a Toshiba DVD-RAM for a staff member. The quote for a toshiba optical drive was NZ$800/EUR400. On the other hand, I found a perfectly good optical drive from a local store for Nz$100/EUR50, and that was completely compatible with the notebook.

Gene

Not to be kicking a dead horse, or reiterating my liking for Dell, have you considered the Dell Precision M90? You stated you wanted the notebook for graphics etc. Well the Precision range is designed for CAD etc (Quadro 512mb graphics card etc). I personally have never used a precision notebook though. Plus the screen is not a glossy screen like the Sony ones (its got a matt finish, which is better when using it outdoors), although it comes with a UXGA screen. I've had one of these high-res screens and I can tell you first hand that they are very good... only problem is that the text is so tiny cos of the high res. It comes out around EUR2000. With the same specs you specified above, except 160gb HD only. You can solve this easily by getting external storage.

I looked on the Greek Dell website. I'm shocked at what limited range computers you have. Thats my 2 cents. Hope it helps you somehow.

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