Buying budget laptop, need some help...

[Furuno]

Okay, now i'm planning to buy a budget laptop, which of these three do you think is better? Don't mind about the brands, it's a local brand from my country and i found its quite reliable, so :

1st Choice :
RELION Enduro LM-RL888
AMD Sempron 3400+, 512MB DDR2, 60GB HDD, DVD/CDRW Combo, 56K Modem, NIC, WiFi, VGA Nvidia GeForce Go 6100 128MB (shared), Camera, 15.4" WXGA, Non OS
US$. 485

2nd Choice :
ACER Aspire 5052ANWXMi
AMD Turion 64 MK-38, 512MB DDR2, 80GB HDD, DVD±RW, 56K Modem, NIC, WiFi, Bluetooth, VGA ATI Radeon X1100 128MB (shared), Camera, 14.1" XGA, Non OS
US$. 629

3rd Choice :
AXIOO Neon NVG758P
Core Duo T2080, 512MB DDR2, 80GB HDD, DVD/CDRW Combo, 56K Modem, NIC, WiFi, VGA Integrated 64MB (shared), Camera, 14.1" WXGA, Non OS
US$. 639

Here's my point of view :
#1 :
The only negative point for this one is the processor, but the price is extremely cheap...
#2 :
I like that AMD platform and the specs, it's the only one with DVDRW, and it's Acer...
#3 :
Dual-core, best processor among those three but the screen is bad and there's no graphic card, buw wow, it's under 2kgs!

So now i'm very confused... or maybe theres any other suggestion?

Thanks...

Note : The link is to Indonesian page, but i guess it's OK... Oh, and let the NonOS the way it's so i can install Ubuntu on that...

[TheDarkHaze]

What are you planning to do with this laptop? Is it a desktop replacement? Are you planning to play a lot of high/medium end games on it? If you're going to use it as a laptop (travel around) how long is the battery life on each? These are all semi-important questions to ask to see what you really need in the specs of a laptop.

[jedinat]

You need at least a gig of ram. I don't know much about vid cards anymore, but definitely avoid "VGA Integrated 64MB (shared)" as it is likely painfully pathetic. A friend just bought a $1000+ laptop with a shared graphics card and the thing couldn't even run Warcraft 3 smoothly, though that may have been Vista crap drivers fault.

[Furuno]

Oh yeah i forgot to state what i'll use that for, of course i won't do heavy gaming on those, just want to use it as mobile PC for college tasks, running word processor, website designing, photoshop, browsing, watching anime and such...

Battery won't be a problem for me, since i'll use in my university and there's a lot of AC plug everywhere...

I don't quite like #3 too, 1024x768 is bad for me, most probably will go with #1/#2...

@jedinat
Well i don't think i'll need 1gb of ram for that... $1000+ cannot run WC3 is robbery, whack the dealer...

[Isako]

Originally Posted by furuno

Well i don't think i'll need 1gb of ram for that... $1000+ cannot run WC3 is robbery, whack the dealer...

Oh trust me, you would want 1gig of ram.

XP on 1 gig of ram is the universal standard. Even if your not doing games, I'd say going with 1gig of ram of ram on a xp installation will save you alot of headaches.

I like #1 here.

It doesn't have the power of #2, but my dad's acer has been nothing but trouble. It's personally a brand I would avoid.

[Kazuma77]

I agree.. you should avoid Acer, cause it screams for trouble... i have one.. and after few months of rare use on the cd-rom, it failed ...stop working..

[TakutoKun]

I agree with ACER - just on reputation alone. I would also ensure that your RAM is upgraded to at least one gigabyte. I really think you could run Windows XP just fine with 512 MB, but since you want to use Photoshop, 1 GB would benefit you.

[arcadeplayer987]

The Acer laptop has the best specs. I really don't know about their problems

[Kazuma77]

please do not look at laptops on how they look.. like women do : pretty white plastic - alias apple laptop

[TakutoKun]

Originally Posted by Kazuma77

please do not look at laptops on how they look.. like women do : pretty white plastic - alias apple laptop

I like the shiny blue one..

[neutralizer]

Dell occasionally has deals for their laptops that go as low as $350. They're usually pretty nicely fitted to. I'd keep an eye out for deals like those in tech forums.

[arcadeplayer987]

Originally Posted by Kazuma77

please do not look at laptops on how they look.. like women do : pretty white plastic - alias apple laptop

That is true, the aspect is not important, the specs are.

[Dkong1026]

I disagree with 1gb ram.
I've been using a laptop with 512mb ram for the past 2-3 years now as a desktop replacement.

I don't play games on it, so nothing else really NEEDS 1gb ram. Sure it's nice, but I've been getting by without it.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Dkong1026

I disagree with 1gb ram.
I've been using a laptop with 512mb ram for the past 2-3 years now as a desktop replacement.

I don't play games on it, so nothing else really NEEDS 1gb ram. Sure it's nice, but I've been getting by without it.

I support this as well. For two years I used a Toshiba with 512 MB of RAM. I considered upgrading the RAM to 1 GB, but it wouldn't have offered me any benefits: battery life is very important to me, and I frequently put the laptop into sleep/hibernate as I move from class to class. More RAM increases the power draw on the battery - although it's a fairly negligable amount, as far as I've read. What was more worrying to me was the fact that more RAM = more data to dump to the disk when entering hibernate mode. If you never use hibernate, then it doesn't impact you. If you do, that's extended time that your computer is on and working, draining both the battery and your time.

Either way, with 512 MB I was perfectly fine. The HD was very slow and meant that the computer wasn't a joy to multitask with, but I wouldn't attribute it to the RAM.

Now I'm using a Macbook Pro with 2 GB of RAM, and I wish I had more. I frequently virtualize Windows (and occasionally Linux) and for virtualization, the more cores and RAM, the better. However, if you're not looking to virtualize, game, or render in 3D, more RAM may actually be more of a hinderence on what you're trying to do. Word processing and basic web browsing doesn't need a lot of RAM. Windows XP behaves perfectly well with configurations under 1 GB of RAM. If you want Windows Vista, go for 1-2 GB for sure.

[Gundam Master]

DELLS fail too much on me. I've had optical drives not work as well as drives not being detected by the bios and all sorts of problems. I aviod DELL when possible.

[TakutoKun]

Originally Posted by Dkong1026

I disagree with 1gb ram.
I've been using a laptop with 512mb ram for the past 2-3 years now as a desktop replacement.

I don't play games on it, so nothing else really NEEDS 1gb ram. Sure it's nice, but I've been getting by without it.

I will support this too. I have a laptop that has 512 MB of RAM. I use it to work away from home to process documents. I can play a couple of older games on it like "Unreal Tournament." I also have Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Linux on it - so it serves its purpose.

Originally Posted by Gundam Master

DELLS fail too much on me. I've had optical drives not work as well as drives not being detected by the bios and all sorts of problems. I aviod DELL when possible.

I have not really had a problem with DELL. I mean, I have seen quite a few GX 270's and 280's fail, but the Optiplex 620s and 740s seem to be doing fairly well. I worked for the Canadian Government for a while and all they deal with is DELL. However, no computer really is as great as the one you build yourself!

[Dkong1026]

Yeah, the laptop I've been using for a few years as a desktop replacement is a Dell. It's never given me and problems.

[Furuno]

Personally i'm also agree with 512MB instead of 1GB. I'll rather use my PC for heavy task instead of using that laptop.

So, #1 is the better choice, right? I'll choose that. My wallet seems happy too With the extra budget i guess i'll buy a laptop cooler pad and hardcase...

I'll preorder it with Ubuntu installed...

Thanks for all of your suggestion...

[Irvine]

Windows XP runs fine with 512 mb of RAM. As long as you disable useless programs from starting at startup and aren't planning to launch nuclear missiles while simultaneously downloading anime off of uTorrent with 20 tabs open on Firefox you should be fine.

Yeah, but you get my point. I have a computer that has been running on XP since early 2002 with 512mb of ram (and mind you, this is PC 2100 speeds), and a Pentium 2.4 Ghz processor. Let me tell you, that thing was a beast; and is still more than capable at running tasks like music, internet, and some other multi-tasking quite efficiently.

Originally Posted by furuno

I'll preorder it with Ubuntu installed...

And if that's the case, RAM shouldn't be a problem at all. I enjoy Windows XP (you just have to tweak it, and remove unnecessary programs) but I have tested Ubuntu before. Very fast.

[TakutoKun]

If you are savvy, perhaps I can suggest Black Viper? Black Viper has listed all the services that can be turned off safely in Windows XP. Have a look at Black Viper's website - Black Viper