zergberg
February 13th, 2007, 05:40 AM
I'm buying my first laptop soon, and wasn't entirely sure what was the best deal. I'm poor, so both of these are pretty low-quality regardless of how you look at it.
My first choice is a Dell Inspiron 1501. My configuration has a Sempron Mobile 3500+ (1.8GHz/512kB cache) with 512MB of 533MHz RAM, an 80GB/5400 rpm hard drive, and some sort of ATI card (Radeon Xpress 1150) that uses system memory. It also has a 24x CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, a 15.4" WXGA screen, and a free recycling kit--not entirely sure what that is, but it's free. The battery is a 29WHr/4-cell Li ion. This laptop costs $604 total.
My second choice is a Compaq V6000Z with a Mobile Turion 64 MK-36 (2GHz/512kB cache,) 512MB of RAM with unspecified speed, an 80GB/5400 rpm hard drive, and an nVidia card that I'm pretty sure uses system memory as well (GeForce Go 6150.) Optical drive is the same, I'm assuming, though speed is again unspecified, as is the screen. Battery has 6 cells, wattage unspecified. This costs somewhere around $580.
Each comes with a copy of Vista Basic that I might use from time to time to Photoshop stuff, assuming it's not so horrible that I install 2k over it (the non-Aero theme is pretty damn ugly.)
I also intend to add another stick of 512MB from Newegg for about $40 if possible.
As far as I can tell, the Compaq is a better deal, and it looks like other people have been able to install Ubuntu on it, albeit with some difficulty--unless I'm missing something important here. Any suggestions/comments?
My first choice is a Dell Inspiron 1501. My configuration has a Sempron Mobile 3500+ (1.8GHz/512kB cache) with 512MB of 533MHz RAM, an 80GB/5400 rpm hard drive, and some sort of ATI card (Radeon Xpress 1150) that uses system memory. It also has a 24x CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, a 15.4" WXGA screen, and a free recycling kit--not entirely sure what that is, but it's free. The battery is a 29WHr/4-cell Li ion. This laptop costs $604 total.
My second choice is a Compaq V6000Z with a Mobile Turion 64 MK-36 (2GHz/512kB cache,) 512MB of RAM with unspecified speed, an 80GB/5400 rpm hard drive, and an nVidia card that I'm pretty sure uses system memory as well (GeForce Go 6150.) Optical drive is the same, I'm assuming, though speed is again unspecified, as is the screen. Battery has 6 cells, wattage unspecified. This costs somewhere around $580.
Each comes with a copy of Vista Basic that I might use from time to time to Photoshop stuff, assuming it's not so horrible that I install 2k over it (the non-Aero theme is pretty damn ugly.)
I also intend to add another stick of 512MB from Newegg for about $40 if possible.
As far as I can tell, the Compaq is a better deal, and it looks like other people have been able to install Ubuntu on it, albeit with some difficulty--unless I'm missing something important here. Any suggestions/comments?