Hi, just new here. I caught a link in a sig after browsing the pc pro message board.

Have £800 to spend on a laptop. Ideally want at least 4gb of ram, a multi core, HD screen and a large drive. Will be mainly used for internet, word processing, some graphic and photo work, quite a bit of video editing and playing WOW and Eve Online. I already own Office 2007 and adobe photoshop elements so don't need that.

I have narrowed the search down to these three laptops,

Macbook Pro 13 inch, which is on sale today, save £71, but the spec seems very poor for what you pay, but...all the reviews are rave ones, so I am considering it.

For £828 you get a Core 2, 2gb ram, Nvideo 9400m graphics, 160GB hard drive,but the case is all metal, which is a plus.



Sony VAIO CS11Z which is in Ebuyer, Sony VAIO CS11Z/T Laptop, Core 2 Duo P8400, 320GB HDD 4GB RAM, 14.1\" TFT, Blu-Ray/DVD?RW, so the spec is higher than the Apple as is the screen and the disk is bigger but the graphics seem lower, 9300 not 9400 like the Mac. It is cheaper at £742


then one off the Dell site, which is the cheapest, there is a review as of today on PC Pro and they says its recommended, I just saw this today and thought it looked ok, but the speed of the chip is just 1.6 and the Mac and Sony are a lot quicker. The hard drive is 500gb on the Dell site and the graphics (according to Notebookreview) are better than the other two with 4570 mobility.

here :

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/ ... tudio-1557

The most obvious thing to me is, if one laptop has a faster something, another will have a slower one, but a faster something else if that makes sense, making them difficult to compare.

Sorry for the long post and any help appreciated.

Boz.

The Dell is, on the Dell site £699 with a plain lid and the PC pro price is wrong ?

I spent £500 on mine and got

T6500
4gb RAM
Nvidia GT220M graphics card (equivalent to a 9500gt/9600gt)
320gb hard drive
dvd-rw
16" screen
Windows vista (now 7 through upgrade) home premium 64 bit


If you shop around you can get a really good deal, under £700 should be possible for what you are looking at.

Considered a dsr returned dell? mcscom sell them for a LOT less than dell, but no customisation, but you usually get the full warranty

Friends don't let friends buy Dell, and there's nothing built quite like the MacBook Pro. I know where my money would go.

Me too, a nice, new custom stainless exhaust.

Hmm. Actually, I need a new one too. Or I will shortly. Dammit.

I've been recommended somewhere in bristol that comes highly recommended and is very cheap. Can't remember the name but the details are at work. will send them to you when I get back to work. I asked them for a quote, it was very good, but a bit too pricey so I ignored it. They sent me a few emails until the quote was about a quarter of what they originally said. Worked out cheaper than a normal replacement.

Ooh, back OT. Get a macbook.

Cool, good to know! I might be changing the motor in the next few months anyway, so maybe it can wait.
Have you done my quote yet, btw?

I might be going with the Macbook even though the screen is the smallest at 13 inches. The Macbook Pro and the Sony both have better processors, 2.26 Core 2 Duo, which the Mac review sites say is good. The Dell has a slower Core i7 1.6 processor, but more ram.

People have said the Macbook is the best quality, the processor, ram and hard drive and other parts will be better quality than the Dell, and those things are important I suppose. I asked on a Mac forum they also said the Macbook Pro is quicker if you run Vista and is in fact the quickest Vista laptop made.
The 9400 graphics aren't too bad, good for games, the only thing i read is of lit keyboards failing and hard drives failing on older models.

How much quicker in real terms would the Macbook Pro be over the Sony and Dell ? How much better would the graphics be for games ?

Thanks for hijacking my thread.

Is it a Macbook ?

Hey, anytime, it's a pleasure.
Get the MacBook Pro.

I would take your advice, but I fear that a village near you is missing an idiot.

Brilliant.
Buy the MacBook Pro.

No.

Don't buy that overpriced old Mac Book Pro. Get a refurbed IBM ThinkPad off ebay. [/troll]

Seriously, buy something like the thinkpad. They last forever, and are really nicely built.