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- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"No better Laptop for the money!"
Pros: Excellent performance, Quiet, Beautiful Screen, Good DTR choice as long as youre not a high end gamer
Cons: PC2700 memory, No dual channel support, weight
Summary: I did alot of research before making a choice on which laptop to get. I primarily looked at the processors and made comparisons at other sites. The Athlon 64 is an excellent processor, so I chose the 3800+. I also got the 12 cell battery, 80gb 5400rpm HDD, 8x DVD RW/CD-RW drive, 128mb dedicated video card, wireless card w/ bluetooth, and 512mb Ram ($1162 USD).
First things first, you should upgrade your RAM to atleast 1GB (1.25 if you're going to push that video card to 256mb). I recommend aftermarket memory because upgrading through HP/Compaq is alot more expensive than it needs to be. If you're not comfortable with that, you can configure it on the site with what you need. Though the processor supports PC3200 ram, it's a bear tryig to find any that is compatible with this laptop. It ships with PC2700 and as long as you're using that, no worries.
After you get that squared away, you'll be impressed with it's performance. Some folks are a bit distressed about the lack of dual channel support, but it appears to be the norm in laptops as a battery saving measure. I've also read that the lack of support makes a minor difference in performance (approx 10%). Regardless, this thing soars! You're not going to find any laptop out there that outperforms this puppy at this price!
The screen is as bright and beautiful as everyone says it is. WOW! GO to your neighborhood electronics store and check out any laptop with a bright screen option (all the same technology) and you'll see the difference.
It is a bit heavy, but not too bad (about 8 pounds). How light can a 15.4" screened laptop with the larger battery be? The dedicated graphics card is ok. It has the option to double the amount of video ram to 256 using a shared configuration, but you better not do that unless you have sufficient system memory installed (as mentioned earlier) or everything will slow down. It plays all of the latest games, but being a moderate priced PC you're going to get a moderate video card. That means no DOOM3 at the highest settings.
Overall, I'd say this is definitely the best laptop you can get for the money!
