Re: Laptop choice

One thing no one mentioned is that the Dell is a dual-core CPU; the
mobile equivalent to have 2 CPUs in the laptop.  Multitasking and
operations in general will be much faster/smoother with >1 cores.

We buy Dells here at work and the Latitude D6xx series is our main
offering to employees.  We probably buy over 1000 of them a year.  The
Intel video is just so-so but it will suffice.  Weight-wise, the
Latitude 4xx series are the lightweights at around 4ish pounds, 6ish
pounds for the 6xx series, and 7.5+ pounds for the 8xx series; I
currently lug around a 2 year old D800 (PentiumM 2GHz, 1GB RAM, 60GB
7200 RPM disk, 1900x1200 LCD, DVD burner).

Tweaks I would make to either config:
- Bump the hard drive to 7200 RPM.  It's a speed boost that will help
everything.  You probably don't need more space; just more speed.
- Bump the RAM to 1GB minimum.  Laptops generally have 2 RAM slots: 1
hard-mounted on the main board & 1 expansion slot.  If the 512MB comes
on the main board Using 1 slot), I'd seriously consider adding a 1GB
stick to the 2nd slot to bring it to 1.5GB total.  Don't buy the RAM
from Dell or the school; check kingston.com, crucial.com, or
pricegrabber ( http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=43
; specifically
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_attrib.php/page_id=43/popup2%5B%5D=12
:210/popup1%5B%5D=40:207/popup3%5B%5D=20:208 ).
- Get an external hard drive or a stack of blank DVD-RWs so you can make
backups. (DVD-RW would require tweaking up the CD-RW/DVD to a
CD-RW/DVD-RW)  The external HD is probably the most convenient.  They're
fast & cheap.
- Consider a second/longer life battery or a travel power adapter.  The
Dell travel charger I have runs off of wall current or plug in to a car
auxiliary power plug a.k.a. cigarette lighter.

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Michael Jacobsen
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 12:17 PM
To: pctech@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [PCTECH] Laptop choice

I am going to be purchasing a laptop for graduate school and the school
is offering a couple choices through them.  I was wanting to know what
you guys think.  Here are the choices:

IBM Lenovo Thinkpad T43
Intel Mobile Pentium M760 2.0 Ghz
512M RAM
60GB Hard Drive
CDRW/DVD Combo Drive
64MB ATI Radeon X300
14.1-inch 1024X768 LCD
Intel 802.11 a/b/g Wireless
Integrated 56K modem and 1GB ethernet
Secure Chip and Fingerprint Reader
6-cell Li-Ion Battery
Windows XP Professional
Three year Warranty/One year Battery
4.9 lbs
$1,534.00

OR

Dell Latitude D620 Intel(r) Core? Duo T2300 (1.66GHz) 667Mhz Dual Core
Genuine Windows(r) XP Professional, SP2, with media Standard Touchpad
14.1 inch Wide Screen WXGA LCD Panel
Internal English Keyboard
Intel(r) Integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 950 512MB, DDR2-533
SDRAM, 1 DIMM 60GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM No Floppy Drive Dell
Wireless? 1390 802.11g Mini Card 24X CD-RW/DVD w/ Cyberlink PowerDVD?
6 Cell Primary Battery
3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3 Year NBD On-Site Service Weight unknown
at this time.
$1,133.00



What would you choose?  I'm leaning toward the IBM mostly because of the
brand name, but the Dell being $400 less is tempting, too.  I've never
owned a laptop before either so that's why I'm looking to see what you
guys think.

-Mike
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