Silkroad Online Forums

I decided to buy a new laptop for uni but can't decide between these two:

http://www.harveynorman.com.au/product/ ... -tx-laptop

http://www.harveynorman.com.au/product/ ... e-l-laptop

So can u tell me what would be pick to be better and why ?
Much help is appreciated.

First, do you want to play games, or just word processing,powerpoint,photoshop, anything else we should know?

Well, its gonna be mainly used for uni, so i guess word processing, word browsing etc.
i wouldn't mind gaming from time to time though, prob dota and black ops ( i dont mind low settings)

oh and which one would be better for battery life.
doesn't say on the specs

both of those won't have great battery life (3 hours max with the best of power savings)

If you want word processing and web browsing then get yourself a $300 netbook or a $400 laptop if you can't deal with a small screen.

You wont be gaming on those 5400 rpm hdd :/ unless you replace it with a SSD

........................
why do you give advice about computers when you don't know what you're talking about at all?


@op
Both will play most games on medium/high settings. I have the same GPU with a core i3 and I can play SC2 on medium/high, Crysis on medium and most other games on medium/high. Technically the HP is better because it has an i7 over the Toshiba's i5 processor but that may affect battery life (not sure how much, probably not a lot). But both won't have great battery life anyway. You'll be looking at 2-3 hours depending on what you do (less if you game).

They seem like a bit overkill for mostly note taking/web browsing with light gaming.

I agree. For the purposes you described, I'd settle for something with a low voltage Core2Duo (e.g. the SU7300, SU9400, SU9600 or whatever) a relatively small display, and, definitely, a 9 cell Battery. This gives you a lot of battery life, and might get your gaming jobs done too.

IDK. For battery life, you need to consider either low voltage processors, or exceptionally big batteries (9 cell). Also, I don't like the idea of having just 768 vertical pixels on my display. I'd get at least 1440 x 900 resolution, if I were you.

I can't suggest any concrete model, the ThinkPad X301 (1440 x 900, SU9400, 9 cell) is discontinued, and it's the only laptop I can think of that fulfills the requirements I've just laid out.

For the same $1000, you can, however, get the ThinkPad T410. The display is 14,1'', you can get either the i5 or the i7-620M, and the battery lasts for 5-6 hours on normal (not gaming) use. It's really small and nifty, I really like it.

I own its bigger brother, the ThinkPad T510, with a 15,6'' 1600 x 900 display, and the i7-620M. It's kind of bulky and a little bit harder to carry around than the T410 (my best friend owns the T410), but the resolution feels very good. Plus, they're VERY reliable, high-end machines.

Anyways, look around the Lenovo site, there are a number of great laptops there: the ThinkPad T and X series, and even the SL series. They're great machines, I highly recommend them.

However, they don't come with graphics accelerators adequate for high-end gaming, like the laptops you posted to. They usually come with buisness-grade nVidia Quadro GPU's, which are more CAD-orientated, rather than gaming-oriented. If you really want to game on the laptop frequently and proficiently, don't get a ThinkPad. For any other purpose, IMO, ThinkPad's are the best machines you can get, as far as laptops go.

EDIT: another piece of advice I'd like to give you is: don't get a laptop with a numpad. It's 99,9% useless, and it costs you a lot of space. Plus, your hands won't be centered around the keyboard when you're typing, which makes it very unpleasant.

Also, between the two you posted, I'd definitely pick the HP. You've got Gigabit Ethernet, a very good processor, and, as far as I can tell, a good keyboard layout (as opposed to the Toshiba's keyboard, which just looks awful to me, also given the fact that it has a NumPad). The i7 doesn't damage your battery life sensibly. It would be advisable to buy a 9 cell battery, and replace the 6 cell one. A 9 cell battery will guarantee you three-four hours of battery life, if you're not gaming, and maybe one hour - one hour and a half, if you're gaming.
Also, the i7-720QM @ 1,6 GHz is quad-core, which is great. It benchmarks around the same as the Dual-Core i7-620M @ 2,66 GHz (which I own) in standard applications, but the four cores are really handy when it comes to multitasking. It's a great, great processor, even though the frequency might appear to be low.

Thanks guys, awesome advice.

I'll look around for the Thinkpad series. Thing is i need to decide at the end of this week as those laptops go back to there original pricing.