Sorry, "which laptop?" question - but ONLY 2 to choose from!

[Tim Horton]

Any thoughts greatly received! Just PLEASE don't recommend another laptop!!

Option 1 - Toshiba L450D-11W with the AMD Athlon Dual core processor, 320gb hard drive and 4gb of ram... £399 from Dixons

OR

Option 2 - Toshiba L500-1XC - Intel Core i3 processor, 2GB and 320gb. £429 from Tesco plus Clubcard points!

I guess option 1 has more RAM (does this make a big difference?) and the second laptop has a new type of processor.

From what I have read though the processing speeds are similar(??????) There may be some other minor differences. The laptops are going to be for our 11 year old children, and I would like them to last a few years!!

Thanks in advance
Phil

Edited by Tim Horton on Saturday 3rd April 17:05

[Man-At-Arms]

i'd go with the i3 processor

you can always add more rams later from Crucial

[MMTWRX]

I have never used a PC with an AMD processor I do have a laptop with an Intel i5 processor and can assure you it is very quick and I can recommend it.

[Tim Horton]

Thank you.

[annodomini2]

While the I3 is a better processor, it has integrated graphics, where the AMD one has external graphics, this can have a huge impact on performance as with the integrated graphics the two units are permanently fighting for the memory bus.

As an example at work we have 2 dell laptops, same processor, same RAM etc, but one has external graphics, the other integrated, the external graphics units is at least twice as fast in normal use.

[MMTWRX]

My i5 laptop has a seperate graphics card but when I was looking on the Intel site at the new i processors I thought they were designed to work better with built-in graphics cards. I think they are HD as well.
link to Intel i3

[V]

Intel i3/i5 are the latest and greatest mobile processors and represent the best buy at the moment.

[lestag]

[quote=Tim Horton]Any thoughts greatly received! Just PLEASE don't recommend another laptop!!

Option 1 - Toshiba L450D-11W with the AMD Athlon Dual core processor, 320gb hard drive and 4gb of ram... £399 from Dixons

OR

Option 2 - Toshiba L500-1XC - Intel Core i3 processor, 2GB and 320gb. £429 from Tesco plus Clubcard points!

I guess option 1 has more RAM (does this make a big difference?) and the second laptop has a new type of processor.

From what I have read though the processing speeds are similar(??????) There may be some other minor differences. The laptops are going to be for our 11 year old children, and I would like them to last a few years!!

Thanks in advance
Phil

[quote]

Comparing the two
L500-1XC
L450D-11W

The 500 has better RAM (Faster) and a larger cache (Faster)

I would pick the 500 and upgrade to 4GB RAM (preferably on the 1 stick, leaving 1 spare memory slot)
and install win7 64 bit