5044WLMI Vs 5002WLMi

Does anyone know why the 5044WLMI is cheaper than the 5002WLMi considering that it seems to have a higher spec?

If someone has either of these can you tell me what you think of your laptop?
Could you also tell me what the screen resolution is as well?

I want to surf the web, watch DVDs, play music, show digital pictures (from my camera) and in the future possibly download files from a PVR so that TV programmes can be burnt onto a DVD. I won't be using it for games (at least graphic intensive ones anyway). If you use yours for similar things does the laptop cope well with these tasks - as it only has 512Mb memory and uses a Sis shared memory GPU.

Have you seen it struggle with any tasks? ie slow running, hardrive thrashing away etc


5044WLMI AMD Turion 1.8 GHz
1 MB L2 Cache
512 MB of memory
80 GB
Shared graphics 64MB

5002WLMi AMD Turion 64 ML-30 processor 1.6 Ghz
1 MB L2 cache
400MHz FSB
SiS M760GX 64MB Shared Graphics
512MB of memory
60 GB

Thanks

 

THose onboard SiS graphics won't manage most games past...Quake 2 engine at a guess. So it'd better be non-intensive gaming ! But for basic tasks such as you mentioned it'll be absolutely fine. 1gb of memory is always useful, but not imperative unless you want to edit photos, do some proper multi tasking etc.

As for why its cheaper, who knows? Special offers, one was built recently with older stock that needs to be sold etc.

 

I bought a 5044 a couple of months ago. No problem so far. It runs very well and very fast. It came with Windows XP Media Edition, but I don't use the media centre. I just like that it's basically XP Pro. Mine came with 1 gig of RAM though. I don't think you can ever have too much RAM, personally. I think it makes more difference for multitasking than hype about the processor or the number of cores. Most of the time, the processor seems to run at 800 anyway, and it's still plenty fast. The display resolution is 1280 x 800. The widescreen CrystalBrite display is stunning when watching video, in my opinion.

 

I have been using a lower end laptop than either of the configurations you specified for a long time. I used it for all the applications you mentioned, plus I used it at work for extensive webdevelopment tasks. These can be quite demanding, and even my system with a quite old AMD XP-Mobile 2ghz had not a single problem or drawback whatsoever.

The only bottleneck I can imagine is when gaming, 64MB shared will not cut it. For anything else however, basic usage, web browsing, multi tasking et cetera, the perfect laptop for your situation was invented many years ago already, no worries there. I would however, suggest 1GB of RAM. The performance gain for nowadays applications between 512MB and 1024MB is much greater than you would expect.

 

Thanks for your replies.

Starling - is the 5044 Vista ready (i.e. is there a sticker on the laptop that says its Vista ready)? I'm not sure where you're from but in the UK, Comet's selling it for £399 but unfortunately all stock has been sold

 

I don't know if this one interests you, but I saw this on Ebuyer the other day and thought it was a good deal

AMD Turion 2.0ghz
512mb of memory
ATI X1100 graphics
60GB HDD
15.4" Widescreen TFT
And all the usual Acer stuf.

£389 inc vat. Cleeeek

It has a faster processor than those ones you linked to, and the ATI X1100 chipset is definitely Vista compatible, and you'll be able to do some gaming on it as well. It has a smaller hard drive than the first model, though same size as the second. Might be worth a look at.

 

Yes, my 5044 has the Vista Capable sticker on it. I ran MS's Vista Upgrade Advisor tool on it, and it says it's fully compatible without any limitations, except for a couple of driver issues which I forget now. Not that I necessarily plan on upgrading though. I have no problems with Win XP. I'm in Canada. From what I can tell, specifications for the same model vary from country to country, and even from reseller to reseller. As I said, mine came with 1 gig of Ram, and also a 120 Gig hard drive.

 

Your link looks interesting, sionyboy so I may have to have a rethink ;-)

Thanks starling for letting me know that the 5044 is Vista compat - but you're right it could be different in the UK so I'll check with the local store.

 

What Graphics has the 5044WLMI got, i know it won't be much but it might be better than the sis stuff?

 

It looks like it is based off of the ATi 200m or ATi X1300. Both much much better than SiS.

 

5044 has ATI Mobility Xpress 200M integrated graphics which uses a PCI-express interface (It is still integrated though)