Deciding between 2 laptops

C

campbellst87

New Member
I don't own a desktop, but I need portability. I usually only do fairly light gaming these days, but I'd want to be able to run current games at low resolution. I also run 5-6 programs at a time, including Firefox, Excel, Word, a media player, sometimes itunes, sometimes a game, etc. My budget is no more than $1200 (less is obviously better). Hard drive space is not really a concern.

I've sort of narrowed down my search to these two computers:

A 13.3" HP:
-Operating system: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
-Processor and Graphics: Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor SP9300 (2.26GHz, 6M Cache) with 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G 105M
-Memory: 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
-Hard drive: 320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
-Display: 13.3" diagonal WXGA High-Definition HP LED BrightView Widescreen -Display (1280 x 800)
-Networking: Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth
-Primary battery 6 Cell Polymer Battery
~$1200

Or a 14" Lenovo
-Intel® Core™ 2 Duo processor P8700 ( 2.53GHz 1066MHz 3MB )
-Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64
-NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M 1024MB
-4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
-14.0 " HD Wide LED 1366x768
-320GB 5400
-DVD Recordable (Dual Layer)
-6 Cell Lithium-Ion
-Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 5100
-Bluetooth Version 2.1 + EDR
~$850

Obviously, the Lenovo is around $300 cheaper, and it has the 1GB GPU. The HP is more expensive, but it has the better processor, 8GB RAM, and a 7200 rpm HDD. It's also a bit smaller, which is a plus, but I realize that is sort of a personal choice. Basically I'm wondering about the processor/GPU/memory combinations; would you expect better performance from the SP9300/512MB GPU/8 GB RAM/7200 rpm HDD or the P8700/1GB GPU/4 GB RAM/5400 rpm? Which would you buy if price is not a factor, and which would you buy if price is a factor? Other model suggestions are welcome too, although I've looked around quite a bit.
 
I personally won't get HP as exteral DVD drive is needed. And you probably won't need 8GB. 4GB RAM usually be enough. I have a look through at that HP, if you drop 4 GB, price come to $1000, which is a more reasonable price.
Do you know what is the battery life?? I think the SP9300 has low power.

Have a look on this $1000 Asus. It has faster CPU with 14" + build in DVD burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220603

Also, is size mean a lot to you? with your budget, you could afford core i7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146613
 
Wow, thanks for the response. You're right, the SP9300 I believe is a lower-voltage processor. Those are both a bit bigger and heavier than I was thinking about, but that ASUS might be doable.

Can you tell me a bit about the i7? What makes it better than the T9600? Also, is the Radeon card in the ASUS better than the NVIDIA in the Lenovo?
 
i7 vs T9600 - First of all, the i7 720QM is a quad core processor. The T9600 is only a dual core CPU. Second, the i7 chip has the ability to self overclock up to 2.8GHz (usually only under a two thread load at most). It may have a lower initial clock speed, but it can compete handily with the T9600. Also, the i7 720QM is hyperthreading capable meaning it can execute two threads on one core. So, it essentially has 8 virtual cores as seen by the OS. Compare that to the T9600 with only 2-cores and 1 thread per core. The new mobile i7s are no slouches.

The Radeon HD4650 is more powerful than the nVidia 240M.
 
That depends on what you are doing. Multi-threaded applications will have the advantage on the i7/nVidia rid - and so may single threaded apps. Games that are shader intensive and GPU bound will fare better on the T9600/Radeon. Games that are processor intensive/bound will probably fare better on the i7/nVidia rig.
 
Interesting. Apparently my current laptop is ~6.5-7 pounds, so 5.5 lbs and 14" will probably be a pretty significant difference. I'm not sure if I need the quad core, especially since it's bigger, more expensive, and has a lesser GPU. Anybody have a quad core in a 14" laptop? I've looked around a bit but haven't found much.
 
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