Need advice on buying a notebook

[akshay]

Hello friends,
I am planning to buy a Notebook and need some help from you experts.

Best buy is selling Medion - 2200+ Notebook for 899 with about 265 in mail in rebates.
Has anyone used this brand before. It's new in US but has been around in europe for quite some time.

This notebook with te three year performance plan will be about 850.


The other option is Compaq - Presario Notebook with Intel® Centrino™

This one will be close to 1100 with the three year performance plan.

Planned use:
mostly to be used by my wife when I am using the desktop at home. But I woul be doing presentations and graphics intensive work on it as well when I am using it.

The medion has the following things less than Compaq:
AMD Vs Centrino
30 gig Vs 40gig
PCIMCI card neede Vs wireless ready
14.1" Vs 15.4"

128KB L1 cache + 512KB L2 Vs 1.0MB on die Level 2

S3 Savage 8 GFX (UMA) Vs ATI Mobility RADEON 9200

Everything else is pretty much identical.


128KB L1 cache + 512KB L2 Vs 1.0MB on die Level 2 What exactly does this mean in speed and multi tasking.

Thanking you all in advance.
Akshay

 

[Krugger]

personally, i've seen nothing but nightmares from compaq presarios. now granted its a very very small scale, but it's enough to keep me away. their support has been atrocious in the past, haven't had the displeasure in the last 6 months so i don't know if it's improved. I'd recommend a dell myself, as their service and support is wonderful. you can usually get a similar computer after rebate/promotion from Dell for the same price, you just have to keep and eye on their deals. hot deals forums like http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/categories.cfm?catid=18 are great for that. sorry i couldn't be of more help, but i saw you didnt get any responses and thought i'd share.

 

[RealBlackStuff]

The larger the Level 2 cache, the faster your data is processed.

I agree with Krugger, Dell laptops are super. Check out the Dell Inspiron 8600 Powerhouse, Pentium M Centrino 1.4, 256MB 333Mhz DDR sdram, 40GB HD, 15.4" wide aspect screen (1280x800), nVidia Geforce4 4200 Go 64MB graphics, integrated 8x DVD/24x CD-RW combo drive, integrated 56KB modem, 10/100 ethernet, Intel ProWireless 2100 802.11b wireless Lan card