$2500 Laptop Dell 8600,MSI 510C,ASUS A2K

[ozgutiarhero]

I'm in the market for a replacement for my desktop PC and want something of similar or faster specs.

Current specs:

P4 2.6Ghz 800 Mhz FSB 512K/L2
2x256MB DDR Ram Geil DDR400 Double Data Rate
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 256MB Card
Gigabyte Ga-s655FX MB
120 MB Maxtor SATA HDD
DVDRW
ViewSonic G90F 19" CRT Monitor.

I can't decide between these three notebooks. Can you guys help?

ASUS A2000K $2300 approx.
Athlon 64 3200+
512MB DDR Ram
9700 ATI Radeon 64MB
80GB HDD
15" XGA Screen 1280x800 (some reviews say poor screen).

or

MSI 510C
Intel Pentium 745 2.0 GHz 2MB Cache
1GB DDR Ram
9700 ATI Radeon 64MB
80GB HDD
15" XGA Screen (unsure of screen quality)

$2300 approx

or

Dell Inspiron 8600
Intel Pentium 725 1.7 GHz
1GB DDR Ram
9600 ATI Radeon 128MB
80 GB HDD
15.4" WXGA

$2500 approx

heard poor quality building and dodgy plastic.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME?

[Yoda-Entropy]

well i just bought the dell 8600, $3600 one with $100 off, so i'll let you know how that laptop goes when it arrives

[zeltra]

It sounds like you want a desktop replacement notebook - not one you would want to carry around, yet you posted Centrino (or similar) based notebooks A little clarification on this would be great, along with your uses for the machine, e.g. gaming, office work, etc.

For gaming, and less portability I would chose the Asus. For office work I would go with the Dell but that's only because I haven't heard much about MSI's notebook reputation.

[ozgutiarhero]

Thanks heaps.

I plan to use it to replace my desktop PC. Use it mainly for surfing the web, downloads, music playback, some games, burning cd's and dvd's, word processing.

Use it for university so would need to take to university and when I'm visiting places. I have worked with PC's for so long and kinda sick or reconfiguring everything all the time and bits breaking and having to replace them so kinda wanted an all in one pc that i could take to uni and people places maybe the occasional lan but largely not used for games more web browsing, organisation and university assignments and research.

Max budget is about $2600.

Any other suggestions?

[zeltra]

Have you looked at the Apple notebooks? They're a bit pricey but they're definitely one of the best you'll ever find. Just get one with a smaller screen if it's too expensive as it'll be much easier to carry around anyway (trust me, you don't want to be carrying a bulky 3kg object around all day)

If you want a cheaper machine (and heavier!), just go with the Dell. I've got one and I absolutely love it, no problems whatsoever.

[silencer13579]

Originally Posted by ozgutiarhero

I'm in the market for a replacement for my desktop PC and want something of similar or faster specs.


MSI 510C
Intel Pentium 745 2.0 GHz 2MB Cache
1GB DDR Ram
9700 ATI Radeon 64MB
80GB HDD
15" XGA Screen (unsure of screen quality)

$2300 approx

I'd get this. Where are you getting this price? Site?

Thanks in advance

[ozgutiarhero]

Hey,

eBay actually.

They also have an online store.

ITBox.

Just search MSI 510C it should come up. If you get it let me know what you think of the screen.

I think it's $2299 and the upgrade to the 2.0 Ghz processor is extra $140.

But 1 GB Ram and 80 GB HDD with a ATI 9700 64 MB is impressive.

I'm tossing up between this and an ASUS 2000k which is similiar but with small HDD and an AMD 64 3200+ processor.

Plus the ASUS comes with 2 year warranty and bag and mouse and software (which I don't want) but only 512 MB Ram in two 256 sticks which means its kinda hard to upgrade. But the MSI seems more portable so you can see my dilemma.

[zeltra]

I would go with the MSI notebook, mainly because it has better stats and is more portable. The P-M 2GHz is also better than the 3200+ in every way including performance, heat, and power so that would be my choice.

[ves]

Originally Posted by zeltra

I would go with the MSI notebook, mainly because it has better stats and is more portable. The P-M 2GHz is also better than the 3200+ in every way including performance, heat, and power so that would be my choice.

Im looking at getting a laptop soon too, particular an ASUS
Why would a p-m 2ghz perform better than an athlon 64 3200?

edit: actually looking at bench marks, the p-m 2ghz is a kick arse cpu, but the a64 3200 is probably faster, but it would suck down the power much harder im sure.

[meggala]

I have a aus m6r 1.6 cent 1gig ram they are a great box the 2 year warranty got me a well its a desk top replacement works great.
the card reader and other bits make it pretty good.
mine has the 15.4 screen its fine I wish I went smaller cause I use a 19" most of the time
meggala

[zeltra]

Originally Posted by ves

Im looking at getting a laptop soon too, particular an ASUS
Why would a p-m 2ghz perform better than an athlon 64 3200?

edit: actually looking at bench marks, the p-m 2ghz is a kick arse cpu, but the a64 3200 is probably faster, but it would suck down the power much harder im sure.

No, the P-M 2GHz actually performs nearer to the A64 3800+ mark as shown by this thread: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...d.php?t=339134

The P-M is a great performing CPU that would probably be the best by a long margin if only it could support the 64-bit architecture.

[Varuna]

I would recommend you get the MSI laptop, its solidly built. Infact, this particular model was OEM'ed for medion to sell in their european chain. I got my 510c from i-Tech in ultimo, excellent service.

I would however not recommend you buy it from a vendor on ebay, unless that vendor happens to be operating a well established business in your local area. Warranty service from a fly by night merchant could be 'difficult' as the laptop may not have come through the australian distributer.

For IT Box, finding an operating address proved 'difficult'. If they dont do local pickup from their registered office in gordon, i'd recommend you avoid them.

[Narcoticx2]

how exactly does one customize the 510c to purchase it?

i'm in the same category as this thread and i need to have the laptop within 7 days... :S

EDIT: also what warranty does the 510c have? and who retails it?!!!!!

[JDee]

i'm also considering the 510c... but i have doubts about the build quality compared to acer/hp/toshiba. its a big pain when keyboard and touchpad start to wear down and become unusable after a year. what about the noise levels? how big is the power pack?
if anyone has has the 510c for a while could they post some answers to my question! thanks.

[banshee]

A shop called DigitalStar has a rebadged MSI510c here. They also allow customisation. (So do Dell.)

When I started looking for a notebook, I was told by a couple of retilers that the majority of notebooks come from only 4 producers who build to specs supplied by vendors. ( This would be part of the reason so many look the same under all those different yum-cha names, then ) BTW, this is second hand info so use with a grain of salt, several people I spoke to said that they didn't like the Dell notebooks supplied by their employer, as they had to return many due to faults, where the previous brand was more reliable. Unfortunately I cannot remember which ones they mentioned.

I still haven't got around to buying one yet though.