New Laptop from the US...... 2200$ budget

N

Nikhil

Skilled
Hi all,

My dad wants to get a laptop from the US through my uncle.

I had settled on a SONY VAIO S380 with 1.86GHz + 1 gig DDR2 533 + 80GB + 6200 TC(32MB + 96MB) + a/b/g Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. + DL DVD+- RW

But the screen is only 13.3 ". My dad wants at least a 15".

With more or less the same features. But the main problem here is the battery life. He needs minimum of around 3 hrs.

Any other suggestions ???

I am now thinking of the FS 690. We saw it in Bangkok and fell in love with the white model. It looks awesome. And it has some very cool features also but I want to know abt battery life.

MY main confusion is because the battery life is something that can be got only by reading some reviews on the web. The manufacturers always inflate the battery life.

And with the VAIO FS 690 I have configured, I have chosen the extra life battery.

But again, the RAM is DDR1 333!!! WTF!!!

SONY VAIO FS 690

Will it be enough for 3-4 hrs??

Does anyone here have personal experience with any of these notebooks???

And if you have any other recommendations, please share them. I have looked at Toshiba also but the models which have good features do not have good battery life and some of the Satellite and Tecra model run on DDR 2700!!! Which is PATHETIc and it does not have an option to upgrade.....

Will this DDR 333 make much of a difference???

and the FS series also has onlky a 4200 RPM hard drive.....

MY dad will mainly use it for MS Office, Tally, net(obviously), and the occassional game of Freecell.....

And he will also be using some heavy software which is custom made.... no name to it....mainly graphical and demos and stuff like that......

almost no gaming to talk abt.... so, a 6200 will be more than sufficient.

MY only query is abt the battery life and what difference the DDR333 makes.....

Me off to look at some Dell Latitude now...

But he will be uysing this for the next 3-4 yrs at least.....
 
Looking at ur Dad's needs a Cheap Dell (pentiun M + Centrino Chipset) will be a better option. you can configure the laptop as per ur requirements and it should cost around or below US $1000.

Fujitsu also make very robust and good quality laptops. have a look there too.

Avoid Compaq / HP at all cost.
 
@ DJ --- I am definitely keeping far away from HP/Compaq.... heard too many horror stories.....

Thanks bottle..... will almost go for that.... .but the main reason I did not consider Acer was because I didn't think it was as good as the others out there......
What do you guys think of Acer ??? Battery life??? Quality??? Reliability??? Performance??
 
What abt the Ferrari laptop??? My only reason against it is that it has a 9700 graphics card and thus the battery liufe will be very poor.....

But I LOVE the features and the colour....
 
Forget that, check this out !

Man Nikhil, this is just what you need ! Fits you budget perfectly, $2100 on Newegg, the Acer Ferrari 4000, it has a X700, what more do you want ?

Click here

I bet you can find a better config for that price !
 
DELL XPS GEN2

Less than 2200$

Find it here

Pentium M 2ghz, 915 PM chipset, 17" Wide-Aspect UltraSharpTM TFT, 256MB NVIDIA® GeForceTM Go 6800 ULTRA with PCI Express x16 interface, DVD RW, 80 gig hdd

Wish i had one :p :p
 
Battery life??? That is my main worry.... and the AMDs are still not as good as the Centrino when it comes to battery life......

I love the Acer Ferrari(the 3400+ as it is in the RED colour). But the battery life is not satisfactory.....
 
Ok... guys we are going waaaay out.....

My dad is not a gaming freak.... and battery life is important..... you don't get that with the XPS.....

And the Ferrari has DDR333..... I can get DDR2 533 in the Acer which Bottle recommended

@anand ---- I don't have anything against MACs, so I will not start flaming :bleh:

But no ibooks this time....
 
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Thanks Techhead.....

But now, I have almost finalised on one of the Ferrari models. They have decent enough battery life. The 3400+ gives around 2.5 hrs. The 4000+ gives 3hrs + (according to pcmag review).

this much is more than enough for my dad....

And afterall, it does have the Ferrari prancing horse on the front :bleh: But it is a bit expensive compared to others.... depends on whether my dad want to spend for that.......
 
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