dammit.

The video card determines the speed that the computer can write to the screen. For games it will effect frame-rate and how many special-effects are possible (like transparency or smoke). For 3D work, it will make no difference to rendering speed. It will however, effect the refresh rate of the active viewport. If you grab your model and turn it around, the graphics card has a say in how smooth this is. The geforce go isn't anything special (i don't think), but it should do if you're on a budget. It will mostly effect games.

If the geforce adapter is using shared memory, then you want to get as much ram as you can afford. 1GB is absoutely minimum. For the programs you list, you could easily use 2GB. Ram determines how much your computer can do at once.

Hard drive: if its faster (7200rpm is the fastest laptop drive) it can open and save files faster. 5400 is fine for a budget. It isn't that hard to change a HDD (or get it changed) when you fill it up.

That processor is fast. That is the primary determining factor for rendering. Because it's dual-core, its like having two processors, so you can keep doing things while one program is rendering.

Thanks Agfa8x.

From what i understand, a video card makes a definite impact on productivity, if the refresh rates are dictated by it. Rendering is not that important, I'd do most of mine on a desktop anyway. So I guess I should prioritize RAM and the GPU.

Right now I'm trying to compare this laptop with a Lenovo R60, which comes with a duacore 1.66 ghz and just 512mb ram but a better GPU (if the benchmark tests that I've found are to be believed), the ATI Radeon X1400. But the HP comes with a 3-year warranty and a lot of nice bells and whistles. Hmm...

In a perfect world...

The trick with the GPU is that from what i understand, there won't be that much difference between laptop graphics cards. The biggest difference will be between integrated graphics with shared memory, and a separate graphics card with its own memory. You want the latter. Apart from that, ram, ram, ram.

That alienware is just an ugly dell. A huge ugly dell. A huge ugly dell that would get you about thirty minutes battery life. I would take the HP over that thing. It's designed for playing F.E.A.R at lan parties, not for working on.

Agree with agfa8x. Alien ware are definitely over rated. A friend at work bought one and is really disappointed with it. And all the flaws described above are true (huge, heavy, no baterry life...)

i recently bought a new laptop with duocore. 1.66 Ghz 1Gb ram and an ati mobility radeon graphics card/thingy...i needed it quick when my last computer blew and ended up getting a gateway of all things, cuz it was cheap and no waiting for customisation...

anyway, it is surprisingly good... the specs are similar to yours and i do a fair amount of 3d work, with no complaints at all. i prefer nvidea to ati, but the machine runs fast enough. and the duo core is nice for rendering...i use cinema 4d, mostly, and was happily surprised to watch the render scene split into two pieces, each part running on its own chip (i assume). so it renders super fast. open gl and so on are more than adequate...i don't play games so have no idea about that, unfortunately. but assume it is enough for a bit of fun now and then..

is there any difference between AMD and Intel dual core processors of the same clock rating?

Intel's are the best for a while. Buy Intel, no question.

Agreed. For the first time in a while, Intel leaves AMD behind on the desktop, and wipes the floor with them in laptops.

I would check these guys out before you send your money to Mike.

Biggest plus = their assembly is awesome and if you need technical assistance you don't have to talk to someone in India who you can't understand.

Also they use strictly retail parts versus OEM.

Manu,

I just went laptop shopping for grad school sitting here in Bombay. I'm assuming you're buying this in bangalore? I was looking at the HP you mentioned above, but dropped them because of their prices here. I just wanted to tell you that Dell gave me a really good price on their Inspiron 6400 with better specs than the above HP. Their specs were:

T2500 2.0GHz Core Duo
80gig 5400rpm HDD (would have liked better, but couldn't afford it)
1x1024 DDR-II 667MHz RAM (leaves a slot free for later)
15.4" TrueLife WSXGA 1400xsomething screen
256MB ATI Radeon X1600
and some other bells and whistles

their quote on their website for these specs went upto some 82,000 + taxes. But i discovered that if you ask for a quote, when they call you back, you can haggle and haggle as much as you like, AND THEY WILL DROP THEIR PANTS FOR YOU. the guy i spoke to dropped the price, waived the taxes and octroi charges etc etc and went down to 72-73000 (all inclusive). dell india is desperate to sell anything right now, so try and take advantage of it...

the only screwup is that if they quote so low, they take longer to deliver for some reason. it has something to do with those discounts on VAT & octroi, i didn't quite understand it. but i didn't care, as long as it was cheaper. what is your budget exactly?

alas, in the end dell couldn't deliver on time so i had to go with a barebones Asus S96J. its not a bad machine by any means, but if i had the time on my hands, i'd rather have gone with the dell. their support is better...

TickerTocker: Dell support in India is non-existent, they have no servicing available in India yet. They get all their work done thru Wipro, which is why I was hesitant... also, I've heard that construction and finish on Dell laptops are really poor. My budget is <70k, so this is the best I can get at that price I think. Toshibas are overprices, Lenovos are nice but I couldn't get a dual core+dedicated GPU combo for the right price. I was ready to go with the HP, but it turns out that every piece in the country has been bought out by the govt, for some reason. Apparently HP is releasing a Core2Duo equivalent by the 22nd for just 2k more, I'll be going with that most probably.. ps., yeah I'm buying this in Bangalore. Thanks for the headsup on the pants-dropping, I didn't know haggling was an option.

Just got a Dell M90. Build quality is the best I've seen on any laptop (even the home 1505 is built well, at least as good as anything else).

So far, the machine is perfect. Gold Tech Support (for the biz side, an upgrade I highly recommend) is all US people with almost 0 wait time, 24/7 (I've waited about 5-10 minutes for my workstation, once).

That, to me, is the done deal and why I stick with dell. But the M90 is the best looking laptop short of an Apple, built well, great options, etc.

Was not cheap, though, especially with all the upgrades.

Oh, yeah, you can negotiate with them too. I ended up with about 20-25% off. Pretty good, considering there are no coupons for the business side.

Manu,

its funny you say that, because the dell support in bombay has always been pretty good. after reading your post, here's a couple of comments:

1) for <70k, the build quality you're going to get on any machine will not be 5-star anyway, so don't let it be a huge factor in your decision. The dell will be as good/bad as any of the others.

2) i personally wouldn't be swayed by the Core 2 Duo's yet. yes, there's maybe a 20% performance increase over the Core Duo's, but the lack of 64-bit software etc etc as of now makes them a little redundant i think. i made sure the laptop i bought had a Merom-ready motherboard though, so that i could pop one in after a year or so.

3) if you can manage it, buy this in america, and ask someone to carry it down for you. more options. cheaper.

4) haggling is not only an option, its expected of you.

well, all the best. let me know what happens.

anyone got a hold of the Sony AR190 laptop yet? the M90 trace mentioned is similar but def. not a bargain by any stretch.

be careful about relying on putting a Merom in a single core motherboard. From my understand, there are problems with the power supplies on these upgrades (possible, but I've read they run twice as hot as they are supposed to because the single Cores use a different power supply than the Core 2s).
Just make sure you really, really know what you are doing. For me, taking off the side of my desktop is something I avoid. I would never attempt it on a laptop.

Price for the Meroms should be identical for the Cores they replaced - there was no price increase, as there usually is with new chips.


I think Sony's screens are by far the best, but their tech support is close to the worse. I value 24 hour parts/technician at my door support. Most others, like Sony/Apple/etc. don't offer this - you have to mail it in. Depends on how important tech support is.