Your views are required

[HR2]

As you lads know I have been looking around for a new PC for my music collection. My local PC whizzkid is now back from holiday and has two brand new laptops in stock that I am rather keen on. I have the notion to keep the O/S and other vital stuff on the laptop hard drive and the files on external hard drives of which I can have up to 2 the other USB slots being for my printer etc. I have never heard of the make before but they look quite nice. I want you lads to halp me make a decision please? Here are the specs >> [Easynote S4 specs in red]


Name Easynote E2532 Price £420 Easynote S4 802 Centrino Price £525
Operating System = XP Home
Processore = Intel premium M725A
Cache memory = 2048k
Motherboard = Chipset intel 915GM Bus speed = 533mhz
Installed memory = 256MB DDR [upgradable] 512MB
HDD Size = 40GB 50GB
CD-RW / DVD- RW = Optical drive DVD+/-R9
Graphics = Chipset Intel 915GM Integrated on motherboard or on AGP slot = Integrated
Size of shared memory 64MB DVMT 128 MB DVMT
Screen size = 15 Diamond view TFT Sound chipset Realtek AC97
Communications = RTC Modem 56kps data/fax (V90)
USB Ports 4 X USB 2.0
Keyboard and pointing device = Synaptics Touchpad 90key Qwerty
Accessories 1 = 802.11B/G
1 year warranty.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
So you see, virtually the same. Let me know please lads.

 

[Dave A]

The rather obvious thing about laptops is that you can't easily upgrade most components.

Things you shouldn't look for are RAM & HD size, because that's what you can upgrade, so you're fairly future-proofed there.

Buy the laptop with a fast CPU & graphics card because once you've got those, you're stuck with them for the life of the laptop.

£525 is a good price for the S4802 laptop, but you probably could get it for £500 if you push them! You should note that he graphics are inbuilt, which basically means rubbish, and the processor speed, is only 700Mhz!!

The E2532 is better, with a 1.4Ghz processor, but again its inbuilt graphics. £420 is over-priced for this laptop. £350 is probably what you should be paying for it.

But my opinion is neither. You are paying for the make (Packard Bell), and not the specs, which aren't great. I think if you want a laptop, Dell is your best option, as they also have cheap upgrade options!

 

[Nick W]

Sorry but I wouldn't say that a laptop over a few months old was brand new.

I'd buy a laptop still sold online by the manuafacturer.

 

[Tom]

I would personally recommend if you're going to go for something that price is to get something along the lines of my new one.

It's Packard Bell, don't go for it.

Buy a custom one off dell.co.uk when they're doing a deal.

 

[compsci]

Thanks to Intel's silly processor naming scheme, the processor is in fact what used to be a 1.6Ghz Pentium M. I've got the 1.5GHz version in my 3 year old laptop, and its never had a problem running everything I could throw at it, excepting newer games.

512MB of RAM is a must for XP if you plan to run many things at the same time. When one of my 256MB sticks failed I was getting out of memory errors after starting only a couple of applications.

Packard Bell isn't exactly my favourite make, but neither is it as bad as much of what you'll find in whatever Dixons is called this week.

You can get the same or better for less elsewhere e.g. Dell, but in most cases you'll have to send it back to the factory if it breaks. Even then they might not find the problem, as was the case with my Evesham laptop which developed intermittant (and hence not found in the factory) memory errors as a stick of RAM wasn't clipped into its socket properly. You'll pay a premium for buying something around the corner, but for you it will probably be worth it.

 

[HSTfan!!!]

never had one problem with our packard bell pc except the usual windoze xp rubbish you get....
I have an Acer travelmate and besides the absolutely rubbish graphics card its been a good laptop to me for the past.... well just under a year.... although it could do with some more RAM I thoroughly recommend acer... except instead in future if i were to buy one i'd go for an AMD model instead of a Intel Celeron model.

 

[HR2]

I keep telling you lads that all I want ANY computer for is mostly multemedia but NOT graphics games. I do play some games like scrabble and monopoly etc and you don't need graphics much for those. All I want to know is do these two models suit my purpose?

P.S. Who makes Easynote?

 

[Dave A]

All I want to know is do these two models suit my purpose?

The E2532 does, although I'd upgrade the RAM and HDD!

Also, I persume its 1.4Ghz speed, but double check that!

And Packard Bell make EasyNote!

 

[compsci]

Do you plan to use it for watching DVDs? If so do bear in mind that this is reasonably graphics intensive.

Shared memory means that the graphics card takes away a certain amount of your main memory (not actually sharing at all in the literal sense). Other programs won't be able to use this, even if the graphics card is displaying nothing but the desktop.

 

[Nick W]

The cheaper macs are designed so that the graphics card is just enough for DVDs and Front Row.

Perhaps you could look at the Mac Books.

 

[HR2]

The cheaper macs are designed so that the graphics card is just enough for DVDs and Front Row.

Perhaps you could look at the Mac Books.

I will now.