Help me to choose a notebook.

[madfrageris]

I'm going to buy a new laptop before Christmas and there are two possible little boxes who captured my sight yet. We have Asus A6T, running on AMD Turion 64, and Toshiba A100, having Intel Core Duo "heart". Everything else is almost the same, both have nVidia GF7600 256MB, 1GB RAM etc, but Toshiba is a bit cheaper, because it comes without a web-camera, mouse and bag, while Asus do.

I want it to be a reasonable desktop PC replacement, possible to play games and overalls good performance.

What do you say?

[PilotJLR]

I would go with the Toshiba, because the Core Duo processors are very good! Before intel released Core Duo / Core 2 Duo, I strongly preferred AMD... but intel really got a winner with this new architecture.

[Kateikyoushi]

I would check if the webcam can be used in linux or not otherwise dead weight, in case you play in linux. You could always add a USB webcam to it which is supported in linux and most likely has better image quality as you wrote it is going to be a DTR.
I have a 17" Vaio Type A core duo for gaming and video editing, I am quite happy with it.

[madfrageris]

I would check if the webcam can be used in linux or not otherwise dead weight, in case you play in linux. You could always add a USB webcam to it which is supported in linux and most likely has better image quality as you wrote it is going to be a DTR.
I have a 17" Vaio Type A core duo for gaming and video editing, I am quite happy with it.

I haven't managed to configure my games right to play under Linux yet, but the Asus I have at the moment has built-in microphone, and Linux recognizes it well.


I would go with the Toshiba, because the Core Duo processors are very good! Before intel released Core Duo / Core 2 Duo, I strongly preferred AMD... but intel really got a winner with this new architecture.

How about Intel Core Duo and Intel Core 2 Duo? Does it have a noticeable improvement?

[Kateikyoushi]

Yes it's a noticeable improvement in games but you will be GPU bound anyway, read here. LINK (http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2808)

[.t.]

What are the differences between Core and Core 2? Why not just wait for Quadro (if you don't mind spending that little extra)?

[krazyd]

I'd recommend not going the ASUS. I've got a A6KT, and a BIOS bug means it doesn't play nice with ACPI in Linux. Also, the camera doesn't work.

[Kateikyoushi]

What are the differences between Core and Core 2? Why not just wait for Quadro (if you don't mind spending that little extra)?

Because there won't be any games which use quad core till early 08 and by that time we get them on 45nm which means, cheaper, faster, less power consumption.

[[h2o]]

I'd recommend not going the ASUS. I've got a A6KT, and a BIOS bug means it doesn't play nice with ACPI in Linux. Also, the camera doesn't work.

I have no ACPI problems on my A6k, and the webcam driver is being worked on.

[madfrageris]

What about AMD and Intel? On my old PC Pentium used to be very stable, but from that time I use only AMD. I do not know about current situation, especially in notebook market. Maybe Turion 64 is better than Intel Core Duo after all?

[madfrageris]

Technical specifications show it's "DC T5600 1.83GHz/2MB/667FSB". In Toshiba web-site it's Intel Core 2 Duo. Well, I believe both AMD and Intel have better and worse points. Although I heard AMD is a bit better for games...

[trash]

Which ever you decide to buy my advice is to get the extended warrany.
After buying a second hand Dell insperon 8500/with a bad motherboard but with a month left on the extended warranty. They repaired it but it burnt out again after 4 months(3 month warranty on replaced parts) of use this time no extended warranty. Will cost a fortune to repair now!

[krazyd]

;1717402']I have no ACPI problems on my A6k, and the webcam driver is being worked on.
At the risk of dragging this OT, that's really weird.. do you put any special switches in the boot command?
http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1035&l1=5&l2=24&l3=134
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=518&l1=5&l2=25&l3=0
They appear to be pretty much identical (apart from the graphics card, ](*,) ATI](*,) )

[happy-and-lost]

Not a Dell.

Exceptionally poor build quality lets them down.

[[h2o]]

At the risk of dragging this OT, that's really weird.. do you put any special switches in the boot command?
http://au.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1035&l1=5&l2=24&l3=134
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=518&l1=5&l2=25&l3=0
They appear to be pretty much identical (apart from the graphics card, ](*,) ATI](*,) )
Yeah, I boot with the "noapic" option. Otherwise dmesg shows a great number of error messages. Other than that ACPI seem to be working.
Before updating to the Nvidia beta drivers I could even suspend-to-ram. Don't remember how well suspend-to-disk works though.
And as noted, there are two projects creating webcam drivers, since Asus obviously uses at least three different chipsets for the webcam :-k .

[chriscando]

Its worth making sure that the wireless card is NOT made by Broadcom which is notorious for not working under Linux.

[Dual Cortex]

Technical specifications show it's "DC T5600 1.83GHz/2MB/667FSB". In Toshiba web-site it's Intel Core 2 Duo. Well, I believe both AMD and Intel have better and worse points. Although I heard AMD is a bit better for games...


oh God!
:-#


For now, forget that AMD exists. Get the Intel laptop, AMD vs Intel can't be argued currently.

[samir85]

I would go with the Toshiba laptop, because the Intel Centrino Duo platform is very well supported under Linux. Things like Wlan will just work out of the box ;)

[chaosgeisterchen]

Intel does a better job at the moment, doubtlessly.

[madfrageris]

Here are technical characteristics you can compare:

Asus A6T: http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=5&l2=24&l3=134&model=1185&modelmenu=2

Toshiba Satellite A100-906: http://eu.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/jsp/productPage.do?service=EU&PRODUCT_ID=120569#0

So far by your comments I'm going towards Intel Core 2 Duo.

[jimrz]

Technical specifications show it's "DC T5600 1.83GHz/2MB/667FSB". In Toshiba web-site it's Intel Core 2 Duo. Well, I believe both AMD and Intel have better and worse points. Although I heard AMD is a bit better for games...

go with the Toshi...Core2Duo is currently easily the best proc out there

[Kateikyoushi]

Although I heard AMD is a bit better for games...

Exactly the opposite... Intel is better and not just a bit. See for yourself. (http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795)

[Dual Cortex]

I'm sure he heard that... some months ago.

[PilotJLR]

Yep... AMD used to benchmark better for games, but that is no longer true. Intel Core 2 Duo beats even the uber-expensive FX series amd chips.

[madfrageris]

You see how much my knowledge is outdated about this now :). So I chose Toshiba after all. I don't need the camera, I don't need the bag, because I'd better buy a separate backpack and I prefer Intel Core 2 Duo rather than Turion.

Thank you guys ;).

By the way, maybe you could recommend any other laptops from other companies, using Intel?

[sandman.enter]

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