Ok, great, thanks! So if I get memrom, will I be able to upgrade my graphics card down the line in a few years? I always thought it wasn't possible or very difficult to put new hardware into a notebook.
=[ No, you most probably will be stuck with the graphics solution you get. Basically it comes down to your personal situation. If it will be very inconvenient to find a temporary laptop until Merom comes out, go ahead and purchase a laptop now - you won't be beating yourself up about its slow performance when merom is released or anything like that. If you are able to wait then wonderful, you'll be getting more for your money.
Hmmm...I'm always a little sceptical of ebay. Used to do a lot of business on there, then ran into trouble. It's for Germany, anyway. Does anyone know if I can order a laptop (e.g. Asus) with an American keyboard? Do the manufacturers let you specify? That, for instance, is something I couldn't do on eBay.
You might have to buy it out of the country and get it shipped. If you directly contact the company you're ordering from, they might be able to get you one. It's unlikely you will be able to when ordering online.
I think Dell offers a custom keyboard. Just for my information, when would Dell start producing GOOD Memrom notebooks. Or am I better off with a direct brand? I assume I should return and ask which model is suggested when Memrom is out, right?
Any answers to my above question? Also, I think I've decided to just get a notebook and not to wait, though I'm still not sure. I need to order a notebook in the next 5 days, that's the absolute limit, so now I'm really stressing. Are there any newer models out? Right now the XtremeCTX looks good, but is there better? Thanks guys!
Hey Omeguz, I see you're just as new to laptops as I was a few weeks ago. I decided to order a laptop last week and I went with the following ASUS A6T: # AMD Turion II TL 60 2.0 Ghz (L2: 512KB*2) # 100GB Harddisk 7200RPM # 2048MB DDR2 667 (2 x 1024) # NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7600 256MB dedicated # 15.4" WXGA Color Shine TFT (1280 x 800)/ Interne Webcam 1.3 Megapixel # 8* DVD+/-RW Dual Layer/ 4-in-1 cardreader # 1 x Headphone-out jack, 1 x Microphone-in jack, 1 x Line-in Jack1 x RJ11 Modem jack for phone line, 1 x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert, 4 x USB 2.0 ports, 1 x IEEE 1394 port, 1 x TV Out (S-Video), 1 x Type II PCMCIA 2.1 compliant, 1 x DVI Port, 1 x VGA Port # Windows XP Home NL/UK/FR # Interne W-LAN 54Mbps # 354 x 284 x 35.2 mm (W x D x H) 2.80 Kg (15", 8 cell battery pack) For around 1600 euro's. Now, if you want to buy a laptop the coming days, no way it'll be a Meron. I'm concidering waiting myself but from the looks of it, it'll take another month or two. Now the big question you want to ask yourself is: What do you want to spend? I'm sorry if I'm blind but I couldn't find that here. The only thing I could see is that you want to spend a fair amount of money because you're concidering alienware, right? Well when I started looking for a laptop, I looked up Alienware as well but came to the conclusion that they are very overpriced. Also the SLI solutions and stuff are fun if you have a great amount of money, but not very practical. These laptops are pretty bulky and the battery doesn't last long in such a configuration so that's why I didn't go for that. Also, in my opinion, even in these configurations they're overpriced(Read: Outta my budget). Besides that, my laptop has to be well portable for school, so I went with a 15.4 inch screen. One of my first demands was that this laptop should have a nice vidcard so that's what I searched for at first. THe thing is, Videocards are intergrated on the MOBO in laptops so they're not upgradable. You shoud either get a laptop with a geforce 7600 go, the MR x1600 or something higher. Make sure it has 256MB of dedicated ram. So no turbocache or stuff like that which virtually makes it up outta ur system RAM. I went for 2gigs of DDR 2memory..more=better . And with the turbocacing option in mind I thought that it might come in handy. The processor was a hard one for me but I went with this 64bit processor to be at least a bit vista ready. Not that I really care though. I decided not to wait longer for the Meron, seeing that i'll need a laptop before it comes out. If I were u, i'd look at the DELL XPS series: http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/nb_xps?c=de&cs=dedhs1&l=de&s=dhs As for the Merom processor. Some manufacturers already said that they're Core duo notebooks will be upgradable, so I assume they will have a fitting BIOS. Note that warantee expires after opening laptops most of the time, I don't know how they'll offer the upgrade.
Hi, I'm looking at spending around 2000 EUR, not much more. Obviously, the cheaper the better, but I figure that if I'm getting one, I might as well get a good one. I am now looking at the Rock Extreme CTX which looked nice, but isn't it a bit heavy at 3.8 kg? I'm not sure what's normal. Truth is, I won't be lugging it around all the time. Mainly dorm use. Then I came across the Dell XPS M1710. Isn't it practically identical? I would be getting the Xtreme CTX with the GO 7900 GTX anyways. Can someone please help me out between these two? Thanks!
Hmm wouldn't know, never heard about the CTX, heard that DELL is an alright laptop vender. But i just noticed both have a 17" screen. In my opinion a bit too big. Where does ur prefence go out to?
I say it depends on the price. If they are about the same then go for the CTX. If you're considering the XPS, then I suggest the 1705 instead. It's exactly the same except it's cheaper, and I think the case looks less cheesy. The top end 7900GS is very good; it has at least 20 pipelines. You can upgrade to the even faster 512MB Geforce 7900GTX later if you want to, even though Dell says it isn't supported (it is). I'm not sure if Dell's Bios has Merom support, so you may not be able to upgrade that. Note that Dell has high memory prices. You can get ram much cheaper on newegg.
They are about the same price. I won't be getting anything off of Newegg since I will be ordering from the UK. At this point it isn't even about saving bits of money here or there, I just need to decide on one and order in the next 2-3 days! Which one to chose? The Dell has Intel Core Duo T2600 2.16 GHz, the Rock has Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83GHz. Does that make a significant difference? I'm also thinking that 17 " is REALLY big, I mean, it's enormous, isn't it? Or will I be stuck with 17" if I want good gaming, etc.? Like I said, I need to decide so soon
Well I have to be hounest, I haven't seen any laptops with a 15.4 inch screen with a better card then a RM x1600 or 7600go. I myself would love to have a better vid card and a 15.4 inch screen but couldn't find it. I don't want 17" because it's too bulky and drains too much battery life. Really it's your choice, but you gotta decide what you want exactly before ordering.17", 15.4". If it's 17" you have 2 good choices there, if you want 15.4" or smaller then you need to search all over again I guess. I think it would be a good idea for you to go to a computershop and see how big these 17" laptops really are, maybe you find them great, it's personal preference really.
Well he did say it's mostly dorm use, meaning, the thing will be running off a wall outlet, so batt life isn't an issue. 17 inches is nice for viewing games and movies.
On a laptop you usually wont notice much of a performance decrease percentage wise between those two processor speeds. For gaming a 15.4 " will work perfectly fine, a 17" isnt necessarily a bad thing but if you need it for portability which I'm pretty sure you do the size could be an issue for you.
Thanks for all the replies. It is mainly for dorm use, but I will be flying with it every couple of MONTHS. Not sure about class, though. Is a 17" too big to take to class? Can anyone detect a difference between the Xtreme and the Dell? Thanks everyone! I appreciate it!
A dell laptop with a core duo CPU is the perfect choice. I think their core duo laptops start at 699.99.
You could take a 17'' to class, but you probably will get too lazy to after you do it the first couple of times - rather cumbersome, especially in a lecture hall set up. However if you wanted to you could, a 17'' will fit comfortably in a standard back pack. The specs for the XPS and the CTX seem to be the same, making price and style the differentiating factors. Choose the cheaper one or the one that is more aesthetically pleasing to you.
I cannot remember From where i read a person did a mod on a Dell E1505 by replacing the X1400 with a 7900GS. I remember such mod but i cannot find it. Hmmm have to google it and report back.
IMO, a small computer that is also made for gaming is kind of like a quiet heavily overclocked system. They don't really exist. You have to pick which one is more important to you and go for that. I'm going to go with my personal experience and say that 15" is about the largest I'd carry around with me. 17" is too large. Gaming in college is tough. You should be focusing on your studies and not get sidetracked. Time spent gaming is probably time you should have spent studying. I know I certainly regret playing so much my first year. Screwed that up a bit more than I should have. For a university machine, I recommend getting a light laptop, sacraficing on the graphics. But, if gaming is really that important to you, you'll have to suck it up and lug around a pretty significant weight. But my advice, a light laptop with a long battery. There will be times where you'll be staying late, working long hours, and you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. Sorry, but I don't have any specific models to offer to you. But I think small and light with a long battery runtime is what you should be looking for.
