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>>> Official Black Friday 2009 LAPTOP & NETBOOK Discussion Thread <<<

Brad

By Brad
in 2009

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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I am hoping to buy DD a laptop for Christmas. She is a senior in HS and will be off to college next fall. She will need it for homework and Facebook. She also plays a few of the facebook apps such as Farm Town etc. She also watches movies and downloads some music and photos. I am looking for one that is lightweight and has a decent battery time. I don't know much about memory and speed etc. I really don't want to spend over $400.00.

First, it would help if you listed the kind of school work she would be doing -- it takes a lot more computer to edit images and especially video than to edit a term paper and some engineering applications can be pretty demanding.

 

Assuming your daughter is editing term papers, any computer mentioned would get the job done. You mention lightweight and decent battery life without numbers. I think <10# and 2-3 hours are reasonable. What do you think? I ask because you would be hard pressed to find a $300 laptop that didn't meet these specs.

 

As for DVD playback, I think that is a given too. I can only comment on the acer 5516 that sits on my desk. The tf-20 and Ati x1200 play DVDs flawlessly. Netflix too. I would guess that other entry level laptops wold fare at least as well, but I'd be interested to hear from others regarding DVD playback. With so many laptops, so many new chipsets, and so many new CPUs, it might be useful to post a sticky at the top of the thread summarizing the strengths and weaknesses of each.

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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DS is hoping Santa leaves a laptop under the tree. We hit the road today to shop -- look and touch, not buy. First thing we noticed was that almost netbooks were xp. A couple had 7 Starter, one had Vista and one had 7 home premium.

 

The one that had 7hp caught his eye. It was an Acer AS1410 -- kind of a tweener. The specs were notebook except a smaller screen and no optical drive. People shying away from the netbook form factor due to anemic specs may want to take a look.

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Jen8112

Jen8112

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for people who missed on the laptop deal at Wal Mart, Best Buy has a Toshiba on sale for 349.00:

 

Toshiba Satellite Laptop with AMD Athlon II Dual-Core Processor, 3GB DDR2 Ram, 320GB Harddrive, ATI Radeon 4100, Win 7 Home Prem.

Is this a good one?

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len_mullen

len_mullen

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The AMD Athlon will be slow. I would only buy an intel processor. JUST ME 2 CENTS WORTH !!!!!!!!!!

Hardly worth $0.02, conway. You can easily see from this chart that the maker of the chip does not determine performance.

 

AMD Athlon II Dual-Core M300 1320 237

Pentium Dual-Core T4300 @ 2.10GHz 1299 244 2.20GHz 745 410 (officemax bf laptop)

Intel Celeron 900 @ 2.20GHz 745 410

AMD Athlon X2 Dual Core L310 658 429

AMD Athlon TF-20 389 580

 

Comparing the Athlon II to other CPUs in this thread, it is SMOKIN! And, in fact, if you are most interested in performance, I think it is the best laptop discussed to date.

 

Personally, I'm a bit smitten with the AS1410 as I type this. Looks like its passmark cpu is 750.

Edited by len_mullen
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amickeyfan

amickeyfan

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AMD Athlon......Intel Core Processor.... Toyota or Honda... same thing. There are low, mid and upper ends to each. For $349 at Best Buy for an AMD Athlon, how can you go wrong? I had to do two different orders so I can get two since there was a one per order stipulation. I have 2 daughters, one is a Sr. in HS and the other a Jr in a University. I think these will be just fine for them. I am only sorry I didn't get one for me :yup:
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H_Hancock

H_Hancock

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Just remember, historically, typically and consistently, on average, AMD cpu'd laptops get worse battery life than those based on Intel cpus.

 

And part of the problem AMD has in their mobile chipset lineup comes from how AMD derives its mobile cpus. Anandtech summed it up nicely in a power consumption comparison between an Athlon 64 X2 QL-64 mobile processor based laptop vs. an Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 based laptop.

 

The article concluded:

Considering these systems (Gateway NV5214u--AMD, Gateway NV5807u--Intel) are as close as we can get to "identical", AMD takes a real pounding in battery life testing. The closest result (the idle test) has the Intel platform providing 20% more battery life, while the best Intel results (DVD playback and heavy web surfing) give about 35% more battery life. Averaging all five results, the Intel-based NV58 delivered 28% more battery life than the AMD-based NV52. Ouch.

 

Obviously, despite having identical clock speeds there are some real differences between the two processors. For one, Intel's T6500 is a 45nm part compared to the 65nm QL-64 (not that AMD has 45nm parts yet). (In actuality, AMD has released a 45nm mobile cpu, the Turion II Ultra, but it will NOT be in the ultra affordable laptops but be reserved for the much more costly upper end lappies.)

 

When Intel released Banias and the Centrino platform in March 2003, they started a revolution in their approach to mobile processor design. Power and efficiency became the focus rather than pure clock speed, and the result has been much better mobile processors when it comes to performance per Watt. Unfortunately for AMD, they appear stuck with the old way of doing things: build a generic architecture and then optimize it for power requirements on mobile chips. Essentially the same core K8 architecture that launched in 2003 continues to power AMD's mobile offerings, and while the ensuing shrink to 65nm has helped there's still a lot of ground to make up.

 

Anandtech article.....AMD vs. Intel: Battery Life Investigated...August 2009

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smooth3d

smooth3d

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Just remember, historically, typically and consistently, on average, AMD cpu'd laptops get worse battery life than those based on Intel cpus.

 

And part of the problem AMD has in their mobile chipset lineup comes from how AMD derives its mobile cpus. Anandtech summed it up nicely in a power consumption comparison between an Athlon 64 X2 QL-64 mobile processor based laptop vs. an Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 based laptop.

 

The article concluded:

 

 

 

Anandtech article.....AMD vs. Intel: Battery Life Investigated...August 2009

Thats nice and all but that is OLD info on last years "griffin" chips based on the old k8 architecture, the new chips are based on the k10 "stars" aka phenom chips. The Athlon II and Turion II chips are more efficient power and heat wise then last years model! I know the article is recent but things changed in a couple of months since it come out, the new chips just launched last month.

 

Plus on the amd chip sets are a more balanced then the intels chip sets, amd has a better igp for light game playing and decoding hd video.

Edited by smooth3d
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H_Hancock

H_Hancock

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Sorry, it's not OLD info but based in fact. AMD makes a total of 46 mobile cpus and the "new" 45nm Turion II/II Ultras and the Athlon II's comprise only 7 cpus out of them.

 

Link to AMD's list of mobile cpus.....only 7 are the new 45nm parts, all the rest are the older 65nm part.

 

And in the range of laptops most are looking for here, the doorbusters and sub-$500 lappies, you'll never find the new Turion II/II Ultra or the Athlon II's parts. Those "new" parts are much more expensive and are going into the upper end lappies.

 

I'll grant you the IGP on the AMD motherboards are better, but that's about the only advantage the AMD systems have. Battery life is still behind what Intel has, chip for chip, and Intel's motherboards are no worse in any way than what AMD is putting in their systems.

 

I don't get the balanced argument.....both systems are fast, unless you're speaking of the IGP, which is only advantageous when trying to play low-to-mid line games.....as we both know, "real" gamers won't buy a notebook for gaming that depends upon an IGP but will instead buy one with a discrete video card.

 

But the fact is both the Intel and AMD integrated video processors are more than capable of web browsing, playing high def video content, streaming video and non-demanding games.

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smooth3d

smooth3d

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Sorry, it's not OLD info but based in fact. AMD makes a total of 46 mobile cpus and the "new" 45nm Turion II/II Ultras and the Athlon II's comprise only 7 cpus out of them.

 

Link to AMD's list of mobile cpus.....only 7 are the new 45nm parts, all the rest are the older 65nm part.

 

And in the range of laptops most are looking for here, the doorbusters and sub-$500 lappies, you'll never find the new Turion II/II Ultra or the Athlon II's parts. Those "new" parts are much more expensive and are going into the upper end lappies.

 

I'll grant you the IGP on the AMD motherboards are better, but that's about the only advantage the AMD systems have. Battery life is still behind what Intel has, chip for chip, and Intel's motherboards are no worse in any way than what AMD is putting in their systems.

 

I don't get the balanced argument.....both systems are fast, unless you're speaking of the IGP, which is only advantageous when trying to play low-to-mid line games.....as we both know, "real" gamers won't buy a notebook for gaming that depends upon an IGP but will instead buy one with a discrete video card.

 

But the fact is both the Intel and AMD integrated video processors are more than capable of web browsing, playing high def video content, streaming video and non-demanding games.

I feel you, and I agree except one thing, Best Buy just sold out of a laptop for 349.00 that had the Athlon II chip, I believe it was the m320 chip, I could be wrong, I doing this off the top of my head. So they are starting appear in cheaper lap tops now, but anyways thanks for helping this site out, you are a good man!

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mistyinca

mistyinca

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OK, I'm needing to find a deal for xmas too. I also have a teen going to college and we need basically the same as was posted above. I would prefer to avoid AMD's. But what I don't know is how the celeron differs from a Pentium. Can someone explain that?

 

Thanks!

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rn199

rn199

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Ok. I have read all the post and none seem to hit what I am looking for. I am looking for a lap top for my 5 year old. She likes to play her games that I down load from a disc. She does not get on the internet but may once she learns how. So manly I'm looking for something cheap and simple for me to down load all her games on to and maybe some internet use. I am not very computer savy so any info would be helpful. Thanks.
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KoopawnKode

KoopawnKode

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the grandkids are interested in the notebooks as opposed to the laptops because they are cool. I kind of like them myself

I think you mean NETbooks :) Notebooks are laptops (just with a different name) Netbooks are the smaller ones that are w/o a CD/DVD drive.

 

Wow (World of Warcraft) requires at least a dual processor and 2.2 GHz processor and that is just for this expansion. I am on the lookout for something a little better then a 2.2 this BF.

WoW can run off less than a dual-core and 2.2Ghz but I would recommend something of at least those specs anyway to play comfortably.

 

 

 

http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=21054

Minimum system requirements for World of Warcraft

Minimum System Requirements

 

Windows® System XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64/7** OS (with the latest Service Packs or updates):

 

- Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+

- 512 MB or more of RAM (Vista requires 1 GB or more of RAM)

- 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better

- DirectX® 9.0c (included) and latest video drivers

- DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability

- 15.0 GB available HD space

- 4 x CD-ROM drive

- DVD-ROM drive for DVD version (Downloadable Installer also available)

- Broadband Internet connection

- For voice chat, an SSE enabled CPU is required.

 

Recommended Specifications

 

Windows® System XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64 OS:

 

- Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2

- 1 GB RAM (Vista - 2 GB of RAM)

- 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better

- Two-button scroll-wheel mouse

 

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a94

a94

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Any details on the HP laptop for 299 posted in the Staples BF add? Also, if you look under the Desktop section of their add it says Free HP printer with the purchase of any Desktop or Laptop. Wonder if that applies to this particular laptop? =)
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