Video Card Need

I am pricing a Dell 9300 and I do not plan to use any video games on this laptop. I do plan to use it heavily for DVD viewing and TV (which I plan to get the TV Tuner).

Do I need a better Video Card than the standard ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X300 64MB HyperMemory if I will never use games but just want the best for DVD/TV viewing?

Also, is the 60 GIG 7200rpm HD enough if I occasionally record some TV?

Last question, anybody use their 9300 for everyday TV and DVD Movie watching (heavy usage)? Are you happy so far?

Thanks

 

for dvds/tv, you don't need anything higher than an integrated solution. dvds/tv aren't 3d which is where a dedicated powerful vid card is required.

if you're ripping to your HD, i would recommend the biggest one you can afford; or get the smallest one and then get a big external drive.

i use my 6000 for lots of dvd/tv viewing and am quite happy. i imagine the experience is even nicer on a bigger screen.

 

IF you are buying a 9300 I would strongly urge you to go ahead and get the 6800go card from nvidia, it is far superior to the ati x300 and while you dont necessarily need it for watching dvd's, you may find down the road you'll appreciate having its power should you play any games and newer operating systems from microsoft will be needing the more powerful graphics card anyways as vista will speed up windows by throwing more work to the graphics processor. Since the upgrade isnt that expensive if you order your system with the 6800 go card, I would go ahead and do so which will also add significant resale value to your laptop and meet any future needs you may have that you havent anticipated at this time, more than you need now is less that you'll regret later that much is certain.
Personally, I have used both the x300 and 6800go card on the 9300 and I feel that DVD's play alot better on the 6800 card.
I dont watch TV on my laptop and would recommend you use a television for that anyhow, why use your lappy for something the television is gonna do better anyhow but with a tv tuner card you can do this if you so desire.
I only watch dvd's on my laptop when im traveling as it is always better to do this the old fashioned way with a tv and dvd player. To each his own though.

As for the hard drive, I wouldnt get the 7200 drive, get an 80 gig or 100 gig drive with a 5400 rpm speed, the performance between these two drives is pretty much the same and the 5400 is alot quieter than the 7200. You are more likely to appreciate the extra 20 to 40 gigs of harddrive space more than the slight and I mean slight, performance increase associated with a 7200 laptop drive. Unlike Drumfu I wouldnt recommend the smallest sized hard drive in favor of an external because I wouldnt want the hassle of lugging the external drive. HOWEVER, they do have small laptop sized external drives now which are more convenient but these drives generally cost alot more than putting an 80 or 100 gig hard drive inside the laptop at time of purchase.
Please note that when buying a laptop its always much more cost effective to buy the stuff you want on it at the time of order as the upgrades are quite expensive after you have purchased your laptop. Its a bit different from upgrading a desktop computer where cost is concerned.
IF YOU ARE GOING TO ORDER YOUR LAPTOP WITH A WUXGA SCREEN......I would again strongly urge you to purchase the 6800 nvidia go card. The wuxga screens have extremely high resolution for a panel that is only 17 inches widescreen and your video card will have to work ALOT harder to render all of those extra pixels which would be quite a handicap for the ati x300 card. After playing around with some inspiron 6000d laptops, one with wxga and one with wuxga lcd panel, both with ati x300, I could notice a significant performance hit when viewing dvds and playing low res games on the system with a wuxga panel over the same model with a wxga panel.
I believe the 6800 go card is 100 dollars more than the ati x300 card and after upgrading this card for other 9300 owners I can tell you they very much regretted not purchasing the 6800 card upfront even if they werent using the system for heavy gaming. To buy the card AFTER purchase would cost 300 dollars. It's one of the best upgrades you can do at time of purchase.

If you plan on recording television programs to your harddrive, then I would definitely invest in an external hard drive and not waste your laptops harddrive space for these big files.

At the end of the day, an extra 100 to 200 dollars on the price of your laptop is not going to have any significant bearing on your monthly payment for a better video card and larger capacity 5400 rpm hard drive, usually these drives are the same price as the 60 gig 7200 drive, possibly less.

 

conghelach - thanks for the info..

I hear what your saying aboout the TV and DVD, but this is what I will mainly use the laptop for. I have a desktop at home that I use for work. But what I'm looking for is mobility to get away from the wife and little girl and play some of my instruction music DVD's. That's why I was concerned about the durability of the laptop and the DVD drive. I would be using it daily for a few hours. Lots of rewinding and pausing trying to figure out guitar riffs. I hope the laptop can handle this.

And regarding the TV Tuner, how does it work. Does your regular TV with cable have to be on? Does the tuner pickup all the cable channels?

 

think of your tuner as a cable box. you plug the cable line into it, the same one you plug into your tv or cable box. you install an app that allows you control the signal/change channels/etc.

 

im sure it could handle this, just use a good dvd software player. I use the nvdvd player from nvidia and have had no problems with it, I got the software wtih my desktop 6800gt, maybe you can download this at nvidia???