Downgrade from relatively powerful Quad Desktop to Dual-Core Laptop?

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Checked performance difference on 540m. 525m is 6% weaker. The only difference is a 70mhz speed difference to the core clock, 144mhz on the shader clock speed and 1.5GB dedicated video RAM. Other than that it uses 96 unified pipelines which is the same as the 525m. The other ones are the 550m which is the same except a 740Mhz clock and 1480Mhz on the shader clock and 1.5GB video RAM. The 555m has a larger memory bus width at 192 and more shader pipelines, a 590Mhz core clock, 1180Mhz shader clock and 1.5GB of video RAM.

I checked the P750, which has a larger battery life and a re newer compared to the L755 series. It also has Optimus technology, which the L755 doesn't appear to have. It has the hardware for it, both 2410M and a 525m but it wasn't encorporated. That being said, the L755-154 still has a 4 hour battery life. Surely it still down clocks when idle?

Oh, P750 also has Harman Kardon speakers, as opposed to the others which have Onkyo.

I'll check out my options further still. Unfortunately the P750 series is far too expensive for me.
 
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Wow, had no idea 5,400RPM drives were so awful that it was unreal.

Apparently, it takes another 5 seconds to boot to the OS in comparison to a 7,200rpm drive? That's what one guy said.

Even if I did play BC2 on med settings at that res for a while, it'd be too slow because of the drive? Right?

Seriously, everytime. So close, but not good enough.

Even if I don't game at all, 5,400rpm is going to be too slow isn't it? Or will it?

Edit: Screw it. I'll get the Satellite L755-154, best in the L755 series, good battery life. Rechecked Asus website, their ones have some better things such as better speakers, and better video cards but they are way more expensive. The 15 inchers were very similer to this toshiba but were available for 800 or the others about 900, with some of the other series coming in at over £1000, which is quite ridiculous.

I suppose I can use that 5,400rpm drive as positive on the battery? Surely it won't be too bad, right? Better portability? Shame it doesn't have Optimus though. Seems a bit of a waste on some of the 2nd Gen i5.
 
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I'm looking at the SAMSUNG NP-RF511-S01UK. WHich is £700 (google it, first result) and has:
i5-2410M
NVIDIA GT 540M
6gb DDR3
15.6 1366 x 768

I had a look at one in store and it's pretty nice. I would have bought one if it were £600 but I think that £700 is a bit much.

Have you considered the DELL outlet (there are a few threads kicking about with details) there seem to be some proper bargains going, so I think I will try and get an XPS from there myself.
 
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I was looking into Dell, but Dell are cheaper for a reason, an if something goes wrong, I don't want to be the one who has to deal with them on the phone. Their customer (home) support is last in terms of their phone services. I don't trust their reliability either.

As for the Samsung? Is that 540m a over-RAM'd one? I hate these computer builders sticking cards with 2GB of RAM and a low memory bus with a small resolution. Pointless. Hell I even saw a 1920x1080 laptop yesterday with a card, with 3 GIG of RAM. Yes 3. lololol

I did consider changing to a 7,200 RPM drive, but I wouldn't want to because it'd be a waste of money spent on the laptop which came with that drive, I'd have to spend money on a new 7,200 RPM one and the OS is installed on the 5,400 RPM drive which also houses the recovery partition. As with most notebooks, they rely on recovery partitions and do not give you the OS disc. Bit of a con really, but not much I can do.

I'll check out the Samsung one soon.

Got to check my e-mail... see if Toshiba have pointed out to me how much cache their 5,400 RPM drives have and whether or not it is S-ATA.

Peace
 
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Checked Samsung one. 1GB 540m Card which is better, DDR3 which isn't bad I guess. Apparently that laptop has awful speakers though. lol
 
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quite often you can request a disc from the laptop manufacturer , and if all else fails you will have the registration key so would just need the disc. If you rule out better hardware over battery drain but are also planning to have good quality audio that most likely will use more power than most of the components combined you may be going round in circles.
 
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If I bought a laptop and wasn't given the OS disk I would think nothing of downloading a copy of the OS to make my own OS disk. I've already paid for the license so I don't see a problem with it.
 
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I understand that, but I don't want cup and string audio. Seriously, I've heard some of those laptops and they aren't very good at all. Basic music listening is awful, so if I did stay with friends or at my brothers or something, then I wouldn't want to take a big pack full of speakers or headsets etc.

I have a while yet, but sooner the better. Toshiba don't offer resource DVDs. They solely rely on recovery partitions on the included drive.

I'm pretty stuck aren't I?

Just amazes me, bankers get crazy bonuses, football players get paid insane money to dive on the floor and play worse than school children, an £700 these days can't buy you an ounce of quality, in almost anything.

What a disgusting world we live in.
 
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I've looked into it, even though it is a part of Dell, strangely their support for their Alienware is somewhat better than their standard home support for regular systems or their Inspirons. The thing is, to get something fairly decent, the screen sizes often plummet and the M11x has no optical drive. A laptop with no optical drive, to me, is considered a netbook, a very powerful netbook.

I prefer hard copies of games, or other media, such as DVDs and CDs, because where movies aren't so big, games are, an although I plan to do most of my future gaming on my PS3 + 1080p telly, the UK has awful broadband and nasty bandwidth caps. Downloading 1.5gb after 3pm will see you capped by 75% on a 10MB package for 5 hours on Virgin Media Fibre Optic.

I really don't mind having a lack of super laptop power, really I'd just like it spread evenly between performance, reliability and build quality. Since listening to music, watching net videos, streaming and watching DVDs is going to be a common thing for me, it's partly the reason why I wish to have better than average laptop speakers. My current games will also sound better, of course.

I still can't get my head around the prices though, they don't seem to be declining much. I figured after all these years with Laptops being around that the low power parts they have designed would fall down in price for manufacturing too. Guess I was wrong.
 
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That Toshiba Satellite L755-154 (best in the L755 range, I think) with Core i5 2410m, with 6 gig of RAM @ 1066Mhz, 640GB 5,400HDD (not sure of cache or interface), 1GB Nvidia GT525m DX11, Shader 5.0 support, etc etc, Onkyo laptop speakers (probably worse than JBL ones though), 1366x768 WLED HD screen, multi touch pad, card reader, USB 3.0, Wifi b/g/n/, gigabit ethernet, available in June 2011 for £570. Built in Webcam (only VGA though) and mic, extermal mic in and stereo out plug. It has NO OS disc, only a Recovery Partition and obviously, like many laptops, a **** ton of bloatware. Although it has the hardware to do so, i5-2410m and Nvidia Geforce GT525m... the hardware has not been set up to support Optimus from Nvidia. Battery life is 4hours, probably be more like 2. Probably end up replacing the battery every 2 years, assuming it spends time being used unplugged. Chances are, it'll be used mostly plugged in. Probably 70% plugged in, 30% mobile.

Probs end up getting it for £600 though, saving about 60 quid.

Worth it for £600? Pros and Cons worth it the price?

Opinions please?

Thanks, I'll check back.
 
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I've looked into it, even though it is a part of Dell, strangely their support for their Alienware is somewhat better than their standard home support for regular systems or their Inspirons. The thing is, to get something fairly decent, the screen sizes often plummet and the M11x has no optical drive. A laptop with no optical drive, to me, is considered a netbook, a very powerful netbook.

I prefer hard copies of games, or other media, such as DVDs and CDs, because where movies aren't so big, games are, an although I plan to do most of my future gaming on my PS3 + 1080p telly, the UK has awful broadband and nasty bandwidth caps. Downloading 1.5gb after 3pm will see you capped by 75% on a 10MB package for 5 hours on Virgin Media Fibre Optic.

I really don't mind having a lack of super laptop power, really I'd just like it spread evenly between performance, reliability and build quality. Since listening to music, watching net videos, streaming and watching DVDs is going to be a common thing for me, it's partly the reason why I wish to have better than average laptop speakers. My current games will also sound better, of course.

I still can't get my head around the prices though, they don't seem to be declining much. I figured after all these years with Laptops being around that the low power parts they have designed would fall down in price for manufacturing too. Guess I was wrong.

I'm on your level with hard copies and broadband - I'm lucky to get 400 kilobyes/s!
 
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Fortunately the speed I receive is not an issue, since I get about 9.8Mbps Down and 1.02Mbps Up, for a 10Mbps Fibre Optic line. It's just the traffic management. Most ISPs are unfriendly in that regard. Digital downloads for games will only work when every single ISP on the planet stops being a tight bunch of ********.

Anyway, £600? That laptop worth it guys? Please check the Toshiba Spec-Sheet. It is more accurate than Amazon's. It is the L755-154. 15.6" screen. No Optimus tech, but a Core i5-2410M and a 1GB Geforce GT525m. I could get more powerful hardware, but unfortunately it misses other things, such as piling on extra pointless video RAM, larger screen sizes and **** speakers. Oh, an less than ideal build quality, reliability and shabby support.

Best in range? - http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/family/Satellite/2326/ - I can't afford the P series.
 
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:'( Anyone taken a look at the Toshiba Satellite Range? Opinions?

Can I get better for £700?

I can get the L755-154 for £560, but it'll likely be £600 if I get it. Worth it?
 
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Yes you can do better for £700... Namely the samsung that I mentioned. If graphics is important to you then the 540M would be much better than the 525M because it has higher core and shader speeds.
 
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Which Samsung was that? Can't remember which, although I'm pretty sure something put me off it.

£700 vs £560/£600 tho :S

Is the small bump in core and shader speeds really going to make such a difference? They still have the same pipelines and memory clock... it looks like a small upgrade. How much of a difference is 72Mhz on the Core going to do? :|

Tough choices.
 
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Dell support has been excellent in my experience, for a Vostro laptop and a Inspiron desktop which both developed faults within a week of each other. They came out within a few days and fixed them at my house.

Just another opinion for you.
 
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