Looking for a notebook!

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

Guys, I'm looking for a notebook. I'm kind of a n00b when it comes to notebooks (this will be my first) so I thought what the heck, lets ask around.

I have my eyes set on 2 notebooks, both Acer's, the Aspire 2000 and Acer TravelMate 800. My budget is around the price of these 2 notebooks.

What do you guys thinks? Is Acer oke? It seems they arent well know compared to Dell. And what about differences between these two notebooks. Would I be better of with the travelmate or the aspire 2000? The aspire 2000 seems to have a bigger screen (15.4inch) which I think might be better then the 15inch on the travelmate. Downside of the travelmate I was looking at in the same price range of the aspire 2000 is that it only has a 40gb harddisc instead of the 60gb the aspire 2000 has. Plus the travelmate's got a 9000 videochip instead of a 9200 the aspire 2000's carrying.

What do you think? aspire 2000 or travelmate 800? or Dell better? or Gateway? Everything is welcome. Thanks!

 

[stingygrrl]

office depot has the HP 4610 trhis week with free MS Office Student version. $700 AR I think. No rainchecks also so check it out soon, if you're interested. I set 3 of them up a few weeks ago for some folks on a strict budget and they weren't so bad. No firewire or USB 2. I can't remember if they have wireless. They weren't very sleek looking but the price was right!
AMD Mobile Athlon 2500

 

[Abhi]

What are u willing to spend?

How much battery life do you require ? In hours...

Is weight and size an issue for you, or you want the best performance for ur buck?

What wieght is acceptable?

Answer these before we can help you ..

Also... i prefer my dell to the acer laptops i have seen....

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

Thanks stingygrrl! Thing is I live in the Netherlands (europe), so no office depot here (I think) or I had to fly over and do some shopping :]

Abhi. The Acer's are sold for around 1600-1800 euro over here, thats around 1900 USD I believe, so thats the budget I be willing to spend on the notebook. The battery life is another thing, the longer the better, thats why I went with the Acer's. According to CNET they have very good battery life (longest in some classes). And for weight, the lighter the better ofcourse (The Acer's come in at around 6.6 lbs, not bad I personally think).

Im currently studying the IBM website for their notebooks. They seem pretty sturdy.

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

I don't think it will be an IBM, price and cpu are out of my price range, bummer.

I'm currrently surfing Dell again. Looks like I hadnt looked good enough before. At the moment I got the following system I really dig: Inspiron 510M, with a 1.7 Intel pentium cpu, 512mb, 60gb harddisc, Dell TrueMobileTM 1400 Wireless Mini-PCI card 802.11 a/b/g, 6 Cell Primary Battery for maximum battery life for around 1700 euro!

What do you think?

 

[Abhi]

dell inspiron 600m...

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

They dont seem to sell the 600m over here?!?!

And what about the inspiron 8600?

By the way I'm looking for 1 with a centrino cpu! This is best choice right? Speed and longer battery life? Compaired to the pentium 4 notebooks?

 

[Abhi]

Pentium®M, Processor 1.4GHz,
14.1 inch XGA
ATI 32MB Video
DVD/CD RW Combo Drive
512MB Memory
30 GB Hdd

This is for 1200 $ ... free shipping

This machine is 5 lbs... and 1.3 inches thin...

Get two batteries, and you are lookin at almost 5 hrs ...

 

[Abhi]

Light weight + high battery = cetrino

8600 is an excellent machine...

3 hrs + battery life... and awesome screen. Get the 9600 pro turbo graphic card ....

Only problem might be the weight. Can u live with 7 lbs?

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

The 600m's got only a 14inch screen I see on dell.com, I need a 15

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

I'm strong, so weight isnt really that big of a deal. I'm liking the 8600 atm

 

[Abhi]

Then you can go for the 8600...

Also refer to this thread, where i recommended an acer to this guy.... because he wanted 15 inch + sub 6 lbs...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=51&threadid=1265491

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

Sweet! Thanks for the help. I'm gonna do some more reading and post what I've bought.

 

[Abhi]

Originally posted by: IntelInsideIdiotOutside
I'm strong, so weight isnt really that big of a deal. I'm liking the 8600 atm

I have the 8500 .. that is that 8600 with a P4 M processor,

The machine is good. Opt for the WSVGA+ screen, its worth the extra $$$...

As i said before, get the 9600 pro turbo as ur graphic card...

 

[IntelInsideIdiotOutside]

Man, after lookin up some pics of the dell, I got to say the Acer looks much better. I might a bit dumb to go for looks, but I just placed my order for an Acer 2000. Its like catherina zeta jones vs jennifer lopez, I'm going for cahterina today! :]

 

[Abhi]

Let us know your impression bout the machine when u get it..

 

[Abhi]

dp