Laptop Goodness

Wait till like july when Intel Core Dou 2 (conroe) comes out. It will blow away anyhting right now.

 

The specs look nice on the HP, main thing I would worry about is longevity. Don't want something that is going to fall apart in a year. I'd highly recommend going out and picking up some laptop magazines for reviews.

I checked out a friend's Dell XPS last weekend, I have to say its very sweet looking.

 

I believe that the Core 2 Duo based on the conroe chip are for the desktop while the laptop processor will be based on the merom chip. I'm not sure if the laptop version will be comming out around the same time as the desktop though.

 

Ok, hubby and I went out and bought laptops last night. I got mine from Gateway. I bought a Gateway CX210S. Intel Celeron M Processor 420 (1.60GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache), 512 MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2-256MB modules)...ok, I could go on with all the stuff I'm getting off the website, but seriously I have no idea what all that crap is...and beside that, I upgraded a few things.

Hubby got a laptop from Best Buy that has a 17" Screen...it's a media pc and I know it has the dual core thing cause he was bragging to Nyara about all that...beyond that I have no idea, lol.

The one I got is a convertible notebook laptop. That means it comes with the special pen, the screen turns a full 360 and I can lay it down and write on it like a notebook. I figured this would be great for class. I can type my notes for most classes, and then classes like math, or one of my science classes or something where I have to write out forumlas and draw diagrams and such I can actually write with the pen, and draw the diagram right in with my notes without skipping a beat and having to grab a paper and pen.

 

After customizing a few laptops at Dell, that HP deal is amazing. The T2600 Core Duo is the top model, 2 GB of DDR2 is excellent (hopefully its 667mhz), 100 gig SATA 7200 rpm is also a nice boost over a 5400 rpm, plus the other goodies would be close to $2700 for a loaded inspirion to match it. The only thing I would prefer is a 7800 or 7900 instead of that 7400. Another $100-200for those cards respectively and that laptop is an awesome machine and incredible deal.

 

I've never run media center myself, so I don't know how it is for gaming compatibility. It may be fine since its just a modified XP though might be a little bloated.

Tuner thing I don't know. I used to have tv tuners in my pc's until I switched to a LCD and got a tivo. I never really liked the recording on my pc, time lapse with video and sound was often off, ate up your HD, put load on cpu, etc. But if your going to have a cable tv hook up in your room, no tv, and don't want to watch whats on in the community den or whatever then it might be useful. I'd rather just game and download any tv shows I want to watch

 

Media center is just XP with some extra stuff installed really. Shouldn't be any impact on gaming unless your running a game that your system could barely run, then with the extra MCE processes running it could cause issues, but overall you should be OK.

 

Check these guys out http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.html

 

HP is moving in the right direction with the new CEO, and is aggresively competing in the many different markets. I work there in a non technical position, and considering the size of the many organizations in a mature industry, I think HP does all right. My last computer was not HP, but my next one might be again. The outscourcing that all computer companies are doing can make the next bad experience one phone call away, but HP is trying very hard to beat their competitions, Incidentally....they are preparing a division just for the gamers hardware....I am sure this is just a coincidence that I learned of this after Dell bought Alienware.