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Cheap Vista Laptop (needs dedicated GPU)?

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   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 12:45p
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Hello all,

My little sister needs to get a laptop for college and I'd like to get her one that would be capable of running Vista, since that's the next-gen of Windows and the like (I know a lot of people could go on and make this a bashing-Vista topic, but let's not, ok?).

So, with that, I'm looking to spend somewhere hopefully around the neighborhood of $500 or less (I may have to go as high as $600) to get a laptop that can at least do Vista. Preferably would have Core 2 Duo (or AMDx2 -- just multi-core in general) and a decent video card. I saw something with a nVidia geForce 7000M or something like that -- but apparently it was pretty crappy as a video card... I want to avoid this "Media Accelerator" crap. I want a dedicated GPU, even if it's only like 64-128MB on it. I can upgrade the RAM on my own, and the HDD I could upgrade too, if necessary. So I'm really just mostly concerned with the GPU and processor... Anything else good about it would be awesome.

Does anyone know of any deals? I read that BB is closing out on a bunch of laptops, so I may have to stop by a few on the way home to see if I can find any YMMV deals.

Any ideas?

   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 12:45p

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   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 1:36p
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Why is a dedicated GPU so important? I recently picked up a cheap Lenovo T60 with integrated video and games run fine on it.

The processor is probably the least important feature, even the slowest processors available today are way more powerful than what most people will need.

Not to bash Vista, but unless a specific feature of Vista is required I would strongly recommend sticking with XP - it's been my experience that XP runs about 10% faster than Vista on the same hardware.

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   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 1:41p
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I know that XP runs better than Vista, but with Microsoft slowly killing off XP support, it's just not worth it. And dedicated video is necessary to make Vista run sparky enough...

In any case, I talked to a friend at HP, and he got me a deal for $550 for a dual core (2.0gHz per core) AMD64 with a 256MB 8400gs dedicated... Everything else is more or less decent on it.

Thanks!

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   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 2:21p
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Terin said:I know that XP runs better than Vista, but with Microsoft slowly killing off XP support, it's just not worth it.Just an FYI: Microsoft's support of XP has no impact on consumers who buy XP preinstalled, since they get their support from the computer manufacturer, not Microsoft directly.

In any case, Microsoft is supporting XP through 2014.

rated:
   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 3:34p
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Dedicated video will be very difficult at the price point you've set, as a system at the price points ($500-$600) you're talking about, you'd be looking sales on pre-built systems, which focuses on the processor (~T5000), ram (~2-3gb), and hard drive (100gb+). Ofcourse those systems cater to the mass market and will most likely not feature a heavy duty graphics card, since everyday use does not require it.

A couple quick things however: Vista will automatically allocate ~1gb (depending on how much RAM you have) of system dram to use as its graphics ram, and this ram is fast enough to operate the AERO interface. I would suggest one of the aforementioned pre-built systems that are on sale, which have 3-4gb of ram. Vista-32 itself can't utilize 4gb of ram wholly, but since ~1gb of it will be used for Aero it should work out fine. As far as which laptops fall under that in the current timeframe...

This one is a fine example. Pre-built, would cost more, but a 175 rebate puts it into your price range.

This one is slower (T2k processor), but is a VIAO, and will have a nicer aesthetic look/feel to it.

PS. Finally, I would also suggest XP over Vista. Having three Vista systems, I can confidently say I've had enough trouble and subtle errors (Canon SD1000 not working with two of them, had to buy flash card reader, but fine with the third; random localhost permissions crap I had to do to get network connections working, etc.) that I would suggest any laptop that came pre-installed with XP. Key is pre-installed, since installing your own custom XP drivers on a vista laptop would be a PITA.

Ming

rated:
   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 4:14p
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jayK said:Terin said:I know that XP runs better than Vista, but with Microsoft slowly killing off XP support, it's just not worth it.Just an FYI: Microsoft's support of XP has no impact on consumers who buy XP preinstalled, since they get their support from the computer manufacturer, not Microsoft directly.

In any case, Microsoft is supporting XP through 2014.

I second XP over Vista on a laptop.
Still, I think the advice will be more helpful nowadays with a mention of a couple manufacturers that still offer XP on laptops and do not charge extra.

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   posted: Jun. 30, 2008 @ 5:26p
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Again, I pointed out not to bash Vista. I know what I want, I work with Vista daily, it's ok for what I want. Yes, I realize XP will be around for a while longer, but her university is looking to use Vista extensively on computers (don't ask why -- I know XP can work there too -- this is more of a "fit-in" issue), as well as Office 2007. Yes, it's annoying and XP is less hardware intensive, but this was a requirement/heavy guideline.

As far as things go, I did find a computer (as I said) that has discrete graphics already -- 256MB discrete geForce 8400M GS... for $550... It ships with 160GB HD, webcam, microphone, 1GB RAM -- which is very simple to upgrade later for a MUCH cheaper price (and it's not crappy RAM -- it's running on DDR-2 667). $550. That is hot.

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   posted: Jul. 3, 2008 @ 11:59p
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Terin said:I know that XP runs better than Vista, but with Microsoft slowly killing off XP support, it's just not worth it. And dedicated video is necessary to make Vista run sparky enough...

In any case, I talked to a friend at HP, and he got me a deal for $550 for a dual core (2.0gHz per core) AMD64 with a 256MB 8400gs dedicated... Everything else is more or less decent on it.

Thanks!


is this laptop available online?? I'm interested in a laptop in this price range as well and this seems sort of appealing to me..

rated:
   posted: Jul. 4, 2008 @ 12:30a
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DANG $550! I want in on that deal.

The best I could get with dedicated graphics is a Dell outlet item and those are still $750 for something comparable.

rated:
   posted: Jul. 6, 2008 @ 4:02a
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Terin said:My little sister needs to get a laptop for college and I'd like to get her one that would be capable of running Vista, since that's the next-gen of Windows and the like

find out what's supported on her campus. there are still plenty of places that won't allow windows vista on their networks . . .

(vista works fine for me--i have a few different installations at home and it's been trouble-free ... but if you give her a laptop that is pre-loaded with vista and she needs xp to use on the campus network then you have a problem ... )

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