Fastest laptop available

[maserati3200gt]

Can anyone suggest a high spec laptop which is also very compact please ?

We are looking for the usual e.g a fast processor with decent Ram and an external DVD Drive.

Ability to surf the net and store high quality pictures (100's of 8 meg pics on average) and video clips with the afterthought of the odd game e.g maybe half life 2 !

can anyone suggest any links worth checking out for uk retail ?

many thanks guys

Pete

[Jinx]

www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=59177

Fast enough for you

[mr_yogi]

Alienware specialise in the high end, but I think they are centerd around gaming, so my be quite large, but have a look anyway.

Dell are always first with the latest and greatest processors - they now have the Centrino Duo processors (Dual core Pentium M). Just like the new Mac Books so Apple also

[deckster]

maserati3200gt said:

Can anyone suggest a high spec laptop which is also very compact please ?

In general, high spec != compact. You can have big'n'fast, or small'n'slow. However:

maserati3200gt said:

We are looking for the usual e.g a fast processor with decent Ram and an external DVD Drive.

What does 'fast' mean? You can get dual-core laptops using either Intel or AMD these days, but I wouldn't fancy carrying them around. For pretty much any application apart from video editing and games, a bog standard Centrino processor is more than ample. RAM is easily upgraded so ignore that. And do you really mean an 'external' DVD drive? Many high-spec laptops come with built-in DVD burners these days anyway, and only the most ultra- of ultra-portables won't have a DVD drive.

maserati3200gt said:

Ability to surf the net and store high quality pictures (100's of 8 meg pics on average) and video clips

Nothing too earth-shattering here, although you'll be struggling to get more than 120 gig in a laptop - the hard drive technology just isn't there yet.

maserati3200gt said:

with the afterthought of the odd game e.g maybe half life 2 !

Ah. Now laptops suck at games, there's no two ways about it. Yes, you might struggle by for a while but if you really want to play the latest stuff then a laptop just won't cut it. However - if it's just an afterthought then, as ever, check out the specs and go for the best graphics card out there. Both nVidia and ATI do good laptop chipsets which will play most games as long as you're not too fussed about image quality and frame rate. To be honest I'd skimp on the gameplay and buy an XBox instead.

Laptops these days are a commodity item so it comes down to brand name, spec and price. There's very little to choose between manufacturers so decide what you want, pick a few brands and see what they cost. Personally, I avoid Sony as they're well overpriced and fragile, even if they look pretty. Dell are the biggest player out there with all that implies, ie generally good enough but if it goes wrong then don't expect to be treated like a person. Some of the smaller players - Rock, Pegasus - get consistently good reviews, and many people like Evesham.

[futie]

Just bought a Vaio S5VP which is 2.13GHz Pentium M, 120GB SATA disk and 1GB RAM standard (now 2GB). Pretty fast, and it only weighs about 2kg. Sony are releasing a new one in March though with a dual core CPU which looks pretty posh - £100 more expensive though - mine was £1400 or so.

Ta,
Marc

[maserati3200gt]

Many Thanks Guys for the Advice.
Much Appreciated.

[Plotloss]

Alienware

[Mr E]

Plotloss said:

Alienware

Alienware.

But, as pointed out by previous posters, desktop spec laptops are just that, desktops. They're huge.

If it helps, I do some fairly hardcore processing on a 1.8Gig Pentium M in a 6lb laptop.

New Apples might be worth a look.

[flossythepig]

If you want fast and know Solaris look at Tadpole BullfrogTM Dual Processor
www.tadpolecomputer.com/html/products/mobile/bullfrog-dual/

Twin UltraSparc processor, up to 16GB memory, etc., etc.

Hugh

[Nacnud]

I'm writing this on my fully fledged 3.2G Hyperthreaded P4 Inspiron 9100.
I love it, it's still a good spec even though its 18months old!
Standard battery life is only 40 mins
I've also got the 'consultant special' battery which replaces the subwoofer with extra batteries and gives about an hour and a half.

Dell no longer supply 'proper' P4s in their laptops.
They say it's driven by customer demand, but battery life was a comprimise I accepted when I went for ultimate performance instead of portability.

Shame.......

[Nacnud]

Another thing to think about is disk spin speed.
A lot of jobs are disc intensive and a faster processor won't yield the expected gain becasue it transfers the bottleneck to the disc.

We held out for smaller discs (only 60Mb) with 7.2K spin speed and short access times.
It was absolutely worth it.

Standard laptops are 5K rpm
Fast laptops are 7.2K
Decent desktops are 14K !!!!

Duncan