Toshiba Satelite or Compaq Presario

J

jack.687

New Member
Hi, im in the market for a 'basic needs' laptop until i can afford a descent one. The only conditions are that i need to be able to run Sibelius 6 along with Microsoft office without too much fuss, cant spent anything over $1000 and i need a half descent Battery life (Somewhere around the 3 hour mark min). Iv therefore narrowed my selection down to two computers, but am unable to decide as to which one to buy. Any comments or advice would be greatly apreciated... and if you have any other suggestions about better models than the ones listed here, (in terms of my conditions) then id be happy to hear from you too. Cheers

Compaq Presario CQ41-226 $850

Battery Type: 6-cell Lithium Ion
Cache Memory Size (M): 3
Hard Drive Speed (rpm): 5400
Graphics Card Brand: ATI
Graphics Card Memory (MB): 512
Graphics Card Type: Radeon HD 4350
Networking: Ethernet 10/100
Modem: 56kbps modem
Optical Drive Type: DVD Super Multi with LightScribe
Processor Model: intel 430M
Processor Speed (Ghz): 2.26
Processor Type: Core i5
Installed RAM (GB): 4
Disk Drives Hard Drive Size: 500GB
Screen Screen Definition: High Definition
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Screen Size: 14.1"
Audio Microphone: External
Speakers: Stereo speaker
Networking and Internet Wireless Networking: IEEE 802.11b,


Toshiba Satelite L510/030 - $680

Processor - INTEL Pentium T4500 2.3GHz 800
Screen Display- 14" HD 200 CSV LD
Memory - 4GB DDR3 1066 (2GB x 2)
HDD - 2.5 SATA 320GB 5400
Graphics Controller - Intel GL40
LAN - 10⁄100Mbps LAN
Web Camera⁄Mic - VGA⁄Mic
Speaker - Standard
Connector - RGB
OS - Windows 7 32⁄64bit Home Premium
ODD - 12.7mm 8x DVD-SuperMulti +-R DL(SATA)
Battery - LI 6-3700
Warranty - 1yr Warranty
 
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You're going to have to organize those specs better if you want anyone to read them. And while I try not to be so brand-biased, I would lean towards the Toshiba just because it's a Toshiba. Plus, I've worked inside a CQ41 before. Aside from being a total pain in the ass, they have very poor hinge designs.
 
I had a Presario laptop before (C700) and I must say, I loved every bit about it, except for the HP-esque pre-installed bloat (but, I ended up running Linux on it anyway). The only bad thing about it was -and the exact same thing happened with a Presario desktop I had before too- is that it suddenly died just like that, absolutely without a warning; it was two years old at the time. These two machines are the only presarios I've ever owned, and the experience has been great for as long as it lasted - it just didn't last too long.

Having said that, the general consensus seems to be that Presarios are garbage, so you might want to take my praises with a grain of salt.

I've only had experience with one Toshiba, my grampa's equium (now ~4 years old), and while it's still running strong and it gets everything done no problem and has never had a significant problem other than those that can be attributed to the old age, I can't say that I actually like it. I can't really put my finger into it...

OK I'm done with the wall of text. Purely looking at the specs, your needs and prices, I'd go for the Toshiba.
 
jack.687 said:
Hi, im in the market for a 'basic needs' laptop until i can afford a descent one. The only conditions are that i need to be able to run Sibelius 6 along with Microsoft office without too much fuss, cant spent anything over $1000 and i need a half descent Battery life (Somewhere around the 3 hour mark min). Iv therefore narrowed my selection down to two computers, but am unable to decide as to which one to buy. Any comments or advice would be greatly apreciated... and if you have any other suggestions about better models than the ones listed here, (in terms of my conditions) then id be happy to hear from you too. Cheers

Compaq Presario CQ41-226 $850

Battery Type: 6-cell Lithium Ion
Cache Memory Size (M): 3
Hard Drive Speed (rpm): 5400
Graphics Card Brand: ATI
Graphics Card Memory (MB): 512
Graphics Card Type: Radeon HD 4350
Networking: Ethernet 10/100
Modem: 56kbps modem
Optical Drive Type: DVD Super Multi with LightScribe
Processor Model: intel 430M
Processor Speed (Ghz): 2.26
Processor Type: Core i5
Installed RAM (GB): 4
Disk Drives Hard Drive Size: 500GB
Screen Screen Definition: High Definition
Screen Resolution: 1280 x 800
Screen Size: 14.1"
Audio Microphone: External
Speakers: Stereo speaker
Networking and Internet Wireless Networking: IEEE 802.11b,


Toshiba Satelite L510/030 - $680

Processor - INTEL Pentium T4500 2.3GHz 800
Screen Display- 14" HD 200 CSV LD
Memory - 4GB DDR3 1066 (2GB x 2)
HDD - 2.5 SATA 320GB 5400
Graphics Controller - Intel GL40
LAN - 10⁄100Mbps LAN
Web Camera⁄Mic - VGA⁄Mic
Speaker - Standard
Connector - RGB
OS - Windows 7 32⁄64bit Home Premium
ODD - 12.7mm 8x DVD-SuperMulti +-R DL(SATA)
Battery - LI 6-3700
Warranty - 1yr Warranty
Click to expand...

i would take the toshiba. i have had the worst experience with compaq/hp. they break to easily, and the customer support isnt very good. just being very biased, stay away from hp/compaq if you can
 
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