Buying a Laptop: the Sequel

By Joshua Erdman
Digital Foundation, inc.

After searching far an wide for the ultimate laptop, I decided on the Toshiba Satellite P15-S479 (you know this if you have read my previous article). This was a good laptop with many good features but I have learned much over the last 6 months. Laptop Manufacturers change laptop models as often as the #1 music star in pop culture today. I am not even sure if you can buy that specific Toshiba laptop anymore.

First lets review the things I liked about my Toshiba. There were many ports conveniently located in the back (2 USB ports, Network, Modem, Power, Parallel, S-video, & VGA). I liked the big screen, the fact I could burn both DVDs and CDs, and definitely the freedom of wireless.

Things I would change include the weird keyboard layout (there was no CTRL button on the right side of the spacebar) and I found it inconvenient that when on battery power it only gave me a percent remaining, not a time estimate of how much power I had left.

The Toshiba was a good laptop. I say 'was' because it took a beating and the HardDrive took a dive. Because it was under warranty BestBuy swapped it out for me (some machines they do not repair, they replace) so now I have an HP Pavillion zx5180. I switched to an HP to try something new and because they did not have a comparable Toshiba laptop in stock at the store.

My New Laptop

I still wanted the 15.4" widescreen. I am spoiled and it is great for multitasking. This new laptop has a 3GHz Pentium 4 w/ HyperThreading so it is supposed to be fast. After using a 2.8GHz HyperThreading laptop, it is my opinion that CPU speed is nice but the real bottleneck that slows your machine down is a slow RPM hard drive. I probably could have gotten by fine with a 1.6GHz Celeron processor. The Celeron laptops are obviously slower but they have 6 hour or more of battery runtime. The choice is not black-and-white here, it is up to the needs of the user. I work where there is always power so I got the speed (because I still want to try out some gaming).

This HP is designed very well, its sound is much better (has harman/kardon speakers) I like the keyboard layout, and it feels more sturdy. It has a convenient mute button and buttons to turn off the touchpad and the wireless card (turning off your wireless card significantly increases your battery time). It is also packed with an 80GB HD and 802.11G wireless. Unfortunately, I have 2 complaints:
It does not come with an infrared port
The common ports are all located on the sides, not in the back.

Cost

Expect to pay $1500 for a decent laptop.

Manufacturer	Average Price
HP zx5180 Notebook	$1800
Toshiba Satellite P15-S479	$1900
HP nx5000 Laptop	$1350

Click the links above for more information.

You might want to read:
Purchasing considerations for the Businessman

Article last reviewed: 05/19/2004

Created by: Digital Foundation, inc.

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