Computers & Electronics

Is it worth the extra $30?

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Feb 16, 2003
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Is it worth the extra $30?

I want to get a laptop for mainly internet use but want it to be powerful for whatever I might need.

I am undecided beteween this two:

Gateway 15"
and this Toshiba that is on sale:

Toshiba Satellite

I dont care for the bigger hard drive so is the extra $30 worth the processor upgrade?

I think the gateway has better graphics card which would make up for the lower processor in the WIN7 environment, am I correct in my assumption?
I am not too familiar with laptop hardware thats why I am unsure which laptop to get.
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Jul 26, 2006
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neither have 'discrete' video card, which makes it hard (not impossible) to play games in decent quality.

I checked, and again, many laptops now adays don't provide that.
I would chose the Gateway over the Toshiba.
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You shouldn't pick a laptop just because it has X amount of RAM, X amount of hard drive space, etc. All of those parts are easily user-serviceable and you can upgrade this on your own.

Focus on the BUILD quality of the laptop, its screen and the motherboard features - in other words, things which are hard to upgrade / replace by yourself.
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Interesting reply... Thanks, I am just wondering thou how would I find such thing about a laptop without taking it apart?
I have not seem any advertised laptop that mentions what kind of motherboard it has and stuff??
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HammerJoe wrote: Interesting reply... Thanks, I am just wondering thou how would I find such thing about a laptop without taking it apart?
I have not seem any advertised laptop that mentions what kind of motherboard it has and stuff??
No, I don't mean the motherboard model. They all use proprietary versions anyway. I mean to check for how many USB ports a laptop has, what kind of video out, what kind of audio, firewire support, 10/100 or gigabit LAN, etc...

Everything else such as processor, hard drive, memory, wireless network card, bluetooth card, optical drive, keyboard, touchpad, etc are easily replaceable.
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Interesting pickle I found myself in. :)

I stopped at Staples to look at the laptops and they had on clearance the same model but with a Turion II M500 (2.2GHz) and 320GB HD and it has a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 video card for the same price.
So I bought it and took it home and it seems to be hotter than the M300 and I cant decide if the better specs is worth the extra heat it generates if you know what I mean. :)
I havent used it that much yet but I dont know how comfortable it will be having it on your lap for any extended period of time...

Another thing that bothered me is that I went to the Gateway Download section to look for updates and it offered a bios update. So I downloaded it and while it was running the set up I noticed that the current bios version was 1.05 and it was installing 1.04. ooops and of course there was no way to stop it so I hope this new bios will be up soon. :)
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Feb 11, 2004
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HammerJoe wrote: Interesting pickle I found myself in. :)

I stopped at Staples to look at the laptops and they had on clearance the same model but with a Turion II M500 (2.2GHz) and 320GB HD and it has a ATI RADEON HD 4650 video card for the same price.
So I bought it and took it home and it seems to be hotter than the M300 and I cant decide if the better specs is worth the extra heat it generates if you know what I mean. :)
I havent used it that much yet but I dont know how comfortable it will be having it on your lap for any extended period of time...

Another thing that bothered me is that I went to the Gateway Download section to look for updates and it offered a bios update. So I downloaded it and while it was running the set up I noticed that the current bios version was 1.05 and it was installing 1.04. ooops and of course there was no way to stop it so I hope this new bios will be up soon. :)
It's possibly warmer cause of the use of the external video (which is a very good lappy gpu btw).

Sorry I can't offer you more help on the laptop bios thing you just did, I have little to no experience with them as I've only worked on a few over the years.

As OR pointed out to you, what you need to know the most is the compatibility thing in reguards to upgrading, that is why there are some low end lappy's out there that can be goldmines cause of cheap DIY (do it yourself) upgrades that are very " user friendly " as long as you follow the instructions .. :D
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terrybear wrote: It's possibly warmer cause of the use of the external video (which is a very good lappy gpu btw).
I misquoted, its a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 video card and not 4650. Not sure how big of a difference that makes?
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HammerJoe wrote: I misquoted, its a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 video card and not 4650. Not sure how big of a difference that makes?
That's a big difference. The 45XX series cards are about the same as the integrated HD 4200 graphics in terms of performance.

If it was a 4650, that's a whole different story - that would have been over twice as fast as integrated.
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