Need advice on (possibly) purchasing notebook

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
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My wife and I are thinking about purchasing a notebook for her so she and I can be online at the same time.

Here are the two notebooks we're looking at:

Toshiba Satellite® A215-S7428 15.4" Widescreen Notebook Computer With AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-55 - http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=459575 - price through 11/3

Toshiba Satellite® A215-S4697 15.4" Widescreen Notebook Computer With AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TL-52 - http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=548810 - price through 10/31 !!

My main question is: What are the major differences between the Turion 64 X2 and the Athlon 64 X2? We can always upgrade the RAM later, but I want to make sure I don't end up with a crippled "value line" processor.

EDIT: Click Compare on both pages after they load to get a detailed comparison between the two notebooks.
 
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hmm, The higher priced one has more ram and a different CPU. You may want to look up the power consumption between turion 64s and mobile 64s.

Article on the TKs (Mobile Anthlon X2):
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile/display/20070927063727.html

The power consumption looks to be about the same between the procs.

I personally don't like toshiba laptops much, you may want to mess around with the store display (if there is one) because I absolutely hated the trackpad on them.

Realtek 802.11b/g wireless LAN <- YUK!
Atheros® 802.11b/g wireless LAN <- FTW!

I would go for the turion, the realtek wireless chips are peices of crap and the drivers suck for them. Spend the difference on a ram upgrade and it would likely perform better then the mobile 64 (due to it having 1/2 CPU cache) despite the 200mhz speed difference.
 
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vibrokatana said:
I would go for the turion, the realtek wireless chips are peices of crap and the drivers suck for them. Spend the difference on a ram upgrade and it would likely perform better then the mobile 64 (due to it having 1/2 CPU cache) despite the 200mhz speed difference.
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Aye, the research I've been doing points to the Turion as the better of the two chips as well.

Any other opinions? I need as much information as possible before Office Depot closes tomorrow.

Even if we make a choice, it's not a sure thing that we'll get it (money is not exactly in abundance right now), but it would be good to know that we're picking the right notebook if we do buy one.

EDIT: One more question: Is the Athlon going to be able to do things that the Turion won't? The Turion may be better now, but will it be obsolete in a few months? There must be some reason AMD pushed the Turion to the side to make way for the Athlon.
 
I HIGHLY suggest staying away from Toshibas. My girlfriends 1st computer was a Toshiba Satellite. It has a ridiculous amount of heating and cooling problems that it just fried. In addition, there seemed to be internal hardware issues, as the computer would heat up, stop working and require a reinstall of XP in order to work again.

Once again -- STAY AWAY.
 
tjguitarz said:
I HIGHLY suggest staying away from Toshibas. My girlfriends 1st computer was a Toshiba Satellite. It has a ridiculous amount of heating and cooling problems that it just fried. In addition, there seemed to be internal hardware issues, as the computer would heat up, stop working and require a reinstall of XP in order to work again.

Once again -- STAY AWAY.
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There's really no consensus on a best brand for notebooks. I chose a Dell for my graduation present, mostly because I could customize it. My wife read that Compaq is one of the worst brands out there. My dad has a HP, which he likes, but the deals on the HPs aren't as good and money is a concern. Sony is right out, because (1) price and (2) it's Sony. The last decent product Sony put out was the Playstation 2, and even that had overheating issues.

That leaves Toshibas, which, I admit, have a mixed reputation.

So, while I understand your hesitation, I'd still back my wife's decision to go with a Toshiba.
 
Apple laptops are the best :p

For laptops it doesn't really matter much if the CPU becomes "obsolete".

1) You will pay 35+% of the cost of the laptop just to upgrade the CPU
2) You can't really beef up the system much so it is pretty much a waist of money.
3) Replacing laptop parts is an annoying task (depending on what parts).
 
tjguitarz said:
I HIGHLY suggest staying away from Toshibas. My girlfriends 1st computer was a Toshiba Satellite. It has a ridiculous amount of heating and cooling problems that it just fried. In addition, there seemed to be internal hardware issues, as the computer would heat up, stop working and require a reinstall of XP in order to work again.

Once again -- STAY AWAY.
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/agree
 
Actually, what he is saying is Macs are maxed out already, so upgrades aren't needed for years...unlike when you buy a PC at a discount price and have to upgrade it every month, and deal with windows updates every week that usually just cause more issues...sorry, off on tangent... I wanna Mac so bad, but I cannot afford one at the moment...
 
go with the tk-55. It is the newer mobile cpu..has slightly better battery life but has a much larger l2 cache which will mean better performance. It is also clocked higher than the other notebook while retaining a one watt lower max thermal dissapation.
 
Hescominsoon said:
go with the tk-55. It is the newer mobile cpu..has slightly better battery life but has a much larger l2 cache which will mean better performance. It is also clocked higher than the other notebook while retaining a one watt lower max thermal dissapation.
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The tks have 1/2 the cache.
TK: dedicated 512K L2 cache
TS: dedicated 1M L2 cache

Also the wireless card on the tk model is a realtek wireless card, which suck. I used to have a card and the drivers were the worst thing ever, I was lucky if that thing stayed connected half the time from 1 room over.
 
personally if your local store has this Acer Aspire™ AS5570-2609 that's what I would get... I am not a huge fan of mobile AMD's. while I have never owned an acer I have heard decent reports and in my opinion all computers purchase at the these big name retail outlets are potentially JUNK. spend less $$ on the computer that will do what you need it to and put the extra cash into as much extended warranty and as you can afford! upgrade the RAM as soon as possible, especially when sharing with your video card.

/done
 
vibrokatana said:
The tks have 1/2 the cache.
TK: dedicated 512K L2 cache
TS: dedicated 1M L2 cache

Also the wireless card on the tk model is a realtek wireless card, which suck. I used to have a card and the drivers were the worst thing ever, I was lucky if that thing stayed connected half the time from 1 room over.
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my experience has been quite the opposite..:)
 
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