What laptop would be a better value overall considering the features, and the price, and the memory.?

Question

I am looking to get a laptop in a month or a little more and have narrowed my search to two laptops. I will use it for working on some websites for my affiliate program, and also for fantasy football and chatting and such.

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5007576
or
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5007283

Answer 1

The Top one would be my pref but i wouldn't recommend either of them if i where you i would check out dell they have the best support for there products you may not think you need it but if anything ever happens with you comp trust me you will regret buying it from walmart

Answer 2

Firstly, you have got to know that both of these laptops are no where near current state of the art. That's why the prices are what they are. If I were to purchase either of these two, I certainly would go with the $900 one.

The first thing I noticed was that the hard drive is only rated for 5400 rpm. Most all hard drives today spin at 7200 rpm. The problem with the lesser one is that it will be slower regarding seek times, read/write, etc.

The second thing that bothered me is the RAM. Although it has 1G of RAM it is accomplished by their installing two 512Mb RAM sticks. What this means is if you ever want to increase the RAM in the PC you are going to have to throw away 512M to make a slot available (only 2 slots in most laptops) to be able to install additional RAM.

The CPU is a little on the slow side: 1.8 GHz but should suffice unless your into complex games, etc. For example, I have one PC that has a 2.2 GHz CPU (that's clock speed, not what it really runs at once in a PC) but actually runs at 1.49 GHz. I tried running Microsoft Media Player 11.0 in addition to Windows XP and it uses up between 70 to 100 percent of the processors capability. So on that PC I have great difficulty in trying to listen to some music and accessing the internet at the same time.

I'm not trying to belittle either of the laptops you're interested in, but am trying to point out some things that most folks don't think about when the buy. Good luck.

Answer 3

Your needs sound pretty basic. I don't know about fantasy football, if it's a fast video game or text oriented like my son plays. But otherwise, this stuff sounds pretty much like simple stuff you can do on the cheapest computers.

Most people spend a lot more on a basic computer then they really need to, then in two years it's worthless already. The cheaper computers today can do most basic computer stuff, except professional graphics or high speed gaming for the game nuts.

The only thing in the bottom line stuff make sure to get USB 2.0, at the bottom end of the desktops they still use 1.0 and then you can't run good external stuff.

Answer 4

I would do custom builds at Gateway, Dell, and Compaq. Once you have built the machine you want for the common tasks that you do, you can make a determination that will fit your life the best and cheapest. To save on money switch out RAM for a lower setting or a smaller, weaker monitor. Keep the higher processor and Hard Disk.