[mr56k]

I had purchased a Lenovo Ideapad less then a week ago. I had some issues in the last day and ended up returning it "had 14 days". I'm now looking at a Toshiba Satellite that looks like a really good deal. Only question is I usually go with a AMD 64x2 or a Core Duo/ Core 2 Duo and this model has a "Pentium Dual Core" processor. It looks like it benches in lower then both the 64x2 and core duo chips but it should still be fine for "web surfing, iTunes listening and ripping, watching movies, Right ? Just curious where it ranks. I have heard a little of everything. Here are the specs

Intel Pentium Dual Core 1.73GHZ
2GB DDR2 5300
160GB Sata
DVD+-RW

Office Depot has this right now for $499 only! Only $40 for extended warranty since its clearance too.

Thanks for any help

 

[Apocalypsee]

Basically its the same architecture as the Core, but with less cache and lower FSB (front side bus). I think it should be fine on whatever you doing

 

[mr56k]

Thanks Apocalypsee. Tomorrow I will probably end up getting that Toshiba. Because of the clearance as well would mean I will get $200 credit back after the swap out.

 

[floydenheimer]

Check out this deal, it's quite hot!

 

[mr56k]

Quote:

Originally Posted by floydenheimer /img/forum/go_quote.gif Check out this deal, it's quite hot!

Thanks. My Office Depot store didn't have that one in stock. They did have a 17" model in stock but they said it had been one that was used sent back and then was being re-sold. Call me crazy but I like brand new

They also had a Gateway that was great specs but had a super bright red case that I didn't care for lol.

 

[Equus]

Web surfing, iTunes, and ripping music aren't really all that intensive, depending on if you try to do too much other stuff at the same time, so the benchmarks shouldn't make THAT much of a difference in your enjoyment. In my experience, videos can be a little hard to tell though, since a lot depends on how it's encoded. My poor 2.3 gHz Athlon 64 that's overclocked is usually fine and dandy, until one day I ran across a 1080p mkv file that made it choke lots. After some research, I found that the particular format was hellish on the CPU, but if you avoid stuff like that you should be golden.

 

[nick_charles]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr56k /img/forum/go_quote.gif I had purchased a Lenovo Ideapad less then a week ago. I had some issues in the last day and ended up returning it "had 14 days". I'm now looking at a Toshiba Satellite that looks like a really good deal.

I have a Toshiba Satellite A105 and an Ideapad Y710, both are good machines , though the Ideapad is a faster machine. It took me a while to stop fuming at Vista on the Ideapad, surely MS's most patronising OS ever and I did have some issues installing software.

My big gripe about the Tosh is that the optical drive is just plain awful (slow - burns CD at 16x, noisy - play a DVD back through headphones and you get a constant interference pattern of clicks, how bad is this - bad enough that I had to decrypt my DVDs to hard drive to watch them on the laptop, and not region hackable).

 

[mr56k]

Well I ended up getting the Toshiba Satellite. I paid $549 and got the Core 2 Duo model instead of the Pentium dual core. It was only a $50 difference so I figured why not. They had just got 7 of them in yesterday which was good timing. Performance plan "warranty" is only $59 on any clearance notebook @ Office depot as well. Good deal.

 

[craiglester]

good move - core 2 duo is much more efficient than pentium dual core