Hi guys,

I am buying a 17" Laptop/Notebook soon, i have narrowed down my choices to 3:

-Toshiba P100-209
-HP Pavillion dv8373ea
-Asus A7Jb

My big doubt is should i keep the Asus since it has a higher price but more features, and uses a ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 vs the two others that use a NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7600

What do yo guys think? Any benchmarks that i can look at?

ive been wondering the same thing.

i beleive that the ATI 1600 is integrated into the motherboard where as the nvidia 7600 is an actual card that fits into a slot. I think the nvidia is the stronger card. but i have no proof of that claim

Mobil GPU Comparison Chart

Depending on the games you play too, some games prefer one to the other (ATI to nVidia)

yeah i think i am going to go with nVidia it has alwyas been good to me, and if performance is not that different i think it is the better choice... i don't think either of these cards use mxm too bad it woudl be really cool to be able to upgrade the card if needed.

im using x1600 radeon but why it shipped with 256MB hypermemory?
so i it lame?

n is it normal to be way too hot near the videocard?
i play outside n its lil bit hot
anyways i got my notebook cheap

Do the other two have good screens anf 64bit support.

The screens are all similar, and none has 64bit support, these are core duo not core 2 duo, too bad, but i can't wait for 64bit parts :? Or Santa Clara 800MHz FSB and new chipset, for people that can wait till next year it will be a much sweeter deal with about the same amount of cash and probably allot more mxm cards available.

I am going to go with the HP because it has more storage, faster processor, and faster memory with the same speed as the cpu bus 667MHz, if i had more choice i would probably pick a diff machine, but overall think this will be a good deal, no IBM/Lenovo for me the Thinkpads have been a nightmare in my life, i do love toshiba and i had one good HP laptop before, so i hope this will be a Best Buy that will last me at least 3 solid years.

The one thing I would like to add is for it to last you 3 years, you may want to invest a little more now to get something with a dedicated video card, and 64 bit support.

With Vista coming out, and now that Intel has 64 bit capable machines, I think you are going to see a real push to 64 bit apps. 3 years is a long time in the computer world, and I would hate for you to save a couple bucks now and find you can't stretch the product life cycle another year (or more) making your cost of ownership that much higher.

$1,500 / 2 years of service = $750 per year.
$1,800 / 3 years of service = $600 per year.
$2,000 / 4 years of service = $500 per year.

$300 invested upfront actually saves you a considerable amount of money and a lot of hassles in the long run, and gets you a machine you could really love.

As far as years of service, if the machine is going to be used for everyday things, working with office apps, a little gaming, etc. I don't see why a current system can't last 4 years w/o a problem.

I mean, I am using a Zatoichi right now, and running a couple MS Office apps, and web browsing with a 3 windows open. I have dual 2 Ghz CPU cores at my disposal, but am using 800 Mhz of processing power. The CPU is like having Ronnie Coleman standing in my kitchen incase I need to have someone pour a gallon of milk for me.

Windows Vista Aero Ultimate needs a DX9 capable card, no problem, you can run that w/o any problems whatsoever, ultimately... what more does the average person need? The only thing I can think of is a quality machine with high quality components.

I think people desire to have more power and that will always continue to go up, but the actual need for more power just isn't there for 98% of the people out there because these computer systems right now are so stinking powerful.

Yes I would definitely like to have a 64bit machine right now, but unfortunately where i am these machines are going to be available in mass and at affordable prices around Xmas time, i cannot wait that long

But with the same chipset and a bios update i can still upgrade at a latter time to a 64bit processor Core 2 Duo processor, for the kind of work i am going to do with this machine: programming, programming and more programming (and some 3D modeling/programming)

The problem here is not me trying to save a couple of bucks the problem is that i can't find a 17" Core2 Duo laptop, i have found some 15.4" but no 17" it is very unfortunate, bad timing but i need this ASAP for the 18th i know that if i waited a couple of months i could get a 64bit system at the same price, and with marginal performance increase (4Mb cache, etc...).

Anyway thanks for all the tips, it's good to know that the cards have similar performance that helps balance the equation and look at differentiating factors.

I have always built my own desktop systems, with quality components for over 10years, the system i am using right now is 5years old and it works great for most apps, but latelly it has been missing SSE/SSE2 support and that is necessary for some apps that i use, also i know that buying a 32bit laptop with 64bit right here is risky business, i wish i could build my own laptop system unfortunatly it would be more expensive and i have never built one , if i need the 64bits i will buy a new CPU... i hope HP supports the system i am buying with BIOS updates, i don't like their desktop components, no way to do good overclocking... anyway i am going to test the machines first to get a fell for the screen/keyboard quality and layout.

Well, can you live with a 15.4" system? I have those en mas with the C2D 64 bit right now.

My life would be allot easier if i could, unfortunatly i found that doing any sort of modelling on a 15" screen is very painful, even on a 17" it is not much fun.

Why not just go with an external 19" which you can find pretty much anywhere for $<190

19" LCD Deal

Because this system is for me to carry around, i already have a nice 21" workstation at home and a 24" with two 21" at work, i want to keep mobile but still have the power to model something, i would go with a 20" laptop but they are just to damn heavy 8kg, a 17" is around 3.2-4.0Kg so that is something that you can easily carry around.

If only i could wait a few more months, i just can't get a c2d system built for this month, i tried on alienware, dell, etc... plus i already have a 14" laptop but it is gettting old.

Thanks for the idea anyway

Yea, too bad you don't have a little higher budget. I have C2D's falling out of my pockets.

The problem is not the cash the problem is that you are in USA i am in Portugal... so shipping cost are very high and i also have to pay other taxes, the computer can be stuck for weeks in customs, etc... this happened to me once, so i will never order another computer overseas even though you guys have much lower prices, and many more models and customization options.

It is a really bad situation, alienware and dell have delegations here that is why i considered them, but they don't have the same models available, so i guess the computer i want would only be available in Europe late October/December.