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Which Laptop Would You Pick?

SG-17

SG-17

Commodore
Commodore
I am going to be buying one of these two laptops (I am mainly going to use it for school work and light gaming, {mainly older games like Civilization 3, Star Wars Battlefront II, and Jurassic Park Operation Genesis. Maybe Star Trek Legacy too.}), but which one would you pick? Which brand is normally more reliable, Dell or Toshiba? What is a Satellite Laptop (or is that just the model name)? Which one has the better processor (yes they are both 2.0 ghz dual cores, but I have never heard of a mobile processor). I plan to upgrade the RAM to at least 4gb. The HDD is not an issue, but which one has the better graphics card?
Thanks for your input.


http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9352513&type=product&id=1218089774715
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9371477&type=product&id=1218093383615
 
The processors sound about equivalent. The Toshiba has 1GB more RAM. The ATI card is also superior to the Intel one, although probably not by a whole lot. Either one will be sufficient for school work and "light gaming."

I'd say pay the extra $20 for the Toshiba.

The expression "mobile processor" is there because there have been laptops that actually contained desktop-class CPUs. You don't want to know what having a Pentium 4 in a laptop was like, in terms of battery life and heat dissipation. :lol:

Generally speaking, a "mobile processor" is going to be slower than a desktop one but it will use less power and ensure longer battery life.

"Satellite" is just the model series for Toshiba laptops.

Dell makes good business machines but I've had a couple of their consumer-level laptops and they were poorly-built pieces of crap. My $300 netbook has been more reliable than any consumer-level Dell I've owned. I've owned a Toshiba and one of my coworkers has one, too. No issues.

Just make sure it has a decent warranty and you should be fine.
 
Both laptops in question feature integrated graphic cards.
Legacy might be too much for either of them to handle.

Dell ... is not a bad company ... the only fault I notice there is that it has a Intel graphics card (integrated one of course).
The Ati counterpart in Toshiba is a better option, yet the AMD cpu is not such a good option (they are sorely lacking behind Intel solutions as they produce more heat, are less powerful overall and consume more energy).

What exactly is your price range?
Perhaps we can help you in getting something better for the money.

If you are in US, check out www.newegg.com
That website usually has good deals in terms of computer equipment.

But if it would be between those 2 notebooks ... hm ...
Ask yourself what's more important to you ... battery life or performance?
The Dell one has more battery life and is more efficient in what it does ... the Toshiba comes with a slightly better gpu, but the trade-off here is that is has a weaker/less efficient and more power hungry CPU, but more HDD space and RAM.

So ... Toshiba has a better graphics card (though not by much).
Overall though I think you should also look at other things such as heat emissions and battery longevity (especially if you will be taking the laptop with you and won't be near a power socket when on the go and use the thing for say work ... forget gaming on battery since it will drain it in about 30 mins or so if you attempt it).
:D
 
I love my Dell, but then I bought a business model (home business). I've never used Toshiba, so it might be great.

But I would never buy a computer at Best Buy. Hell, I wouldn't buy an ink cartridge at Best Buy.
 
The Toshiba. Definitely the Toshiba.
You'll know why in the long run.

The Toshiba. Pick it.

J.
 
Robert Maxwell said:
The processors sound about equivalent. The Toshiba has 1GB more RAM. The ATI card is also superior to the Intel one, although probably not by a whole lot. Either one will be sufficient for school work and "light gaming."

I'd say pay the extra $20 for the Toshiba.

The expression "mobile processor" is there because there have been laptops that actually contained desktop-class CPUs. You don't want to know what having a Pentium 4 in a laptop was like, in terms of battery life and heat dissipation. :lol:

Generally speaking, a "mobile processor" is going to be slower than a desktop one but it will use less power and ensure longer battery life.

"Satellite" is just the model series for Toshiba laptops.

Dell makes good business machines but I've had a couple of their consumer-level laptops and they were poorly-built pieces of crap. My $300 netbook has been more reliable than any consumer-level Dell I've owned. I've owned a Toshiba and one of my coworkers has one, too. No issues.

Just make sure it has a decent warranty and you should be fine.
Click to expand...

This is exactly right. Dell business models (like the Latitude) are far superior to the Inspiron (which, in my honest opinion, is a train wreck). Plus they tend to preload those damn things with a bloated Vista installation.

I think you'll be slightly happier with the Toshiba, but it's a bulky laptop.

I will say this, I'm in perfect shock about how inexpensive both of those computers are at those specs... but it's been 3 years since I purchased a new machine. Seconded about the graphics card--
 
EVERY larger company will preload bloadware with the OS.
It ensures that the customer get's the 'free OS' to begin with.
Of course the easy way around this is to do a complete re-install of the OS ... or just remove the bloatware and clean-up the start-up processes (reducing them to only 1 or 2).
The speed increase will be noticeable.

I also cringe about the prices of some of the laptops given their specs.
I cannot simply fathom why do people persist being ill-informed about technology before getting it and end up having old tech for loads of money.
 
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