Dell Vostro 2.4ghz or Acer Aspire 2.0ghz both with nVidia 8600GT

Hi guys

I've posted before about getting a new laptop and whether it can run certain games and I just need a bit more advice before I invest £600+

I'm about to buy either a Dell Vostro 15" with a 2.4ghz CPU C2D or an Acer Aspire 15" with a 2.0ghz CPU C2D both for <£650 (just)

Both have 2gb of RAM, Windows XP (at least will have once I've made them dual boot with Vista) and the nVidia Geforce 8600M GT 256MB - yay

What I'm wondering is this - I'm dropping down (in terms of size) from an Acer Aspire 9302 17" AMD 2.0ghz Turion 64 CPU with an nVidia Geforce GO 6100 - so what should I be expecting in terms of the size and permformance compared to my older Aspire.

I play a number of FPS - most notably Call of Duty and Medal of Honor series (and I have MoH Airborne and would like to be able to play it - it doesn't support the nVidia GO 6100 )

I also play a couple of racing sims, most notably GTR2 and Race 07.

Along with a few RTS games - Dawn of War - Soulstorm, Company of Heroes (just about)

And 1 RPG - Oblivion (again just about)

So does anyone have any advice on how these games would run with regards to the size of the screen, am I going to have difficulty spotting enemies at a distance, seeing the track, stuff like that because I've lost a couple of inches in screen size.

Would the games run better on a 15" compared to a 17" with the same GPU/CPU - I have the option of saving a bit more $/£ and getting a 17" instead...

Thanks in advance for any help/advice

 

I think the Dell 1500 is a better choice, mostly because it´s 2.4Ghz vs the 2.0 Acer.

About the 15" or 17", i think it only depends on you. I do prefer the 15", because of the portability, but it´s your call.

Anyway, i think you will have a huge increase of FPS from 6100 to 8600GT, surely.

 

The vostro looks sexy, and the 8600m GT will do wonders with those games, dont worry...

but if its the size you want, yes, the 15 inch looks very pretty, but if you get the 8600m GT on your 17... then dont, you can get an 8800 there... which does not fit on a 15''

 

Go for aspire

 

Vostro for sure, the 400Mhz can make a diffrence and Dell is at least a known quality company.

 

Go for Acer ignore all prejudiced views.

Acer imporved lots in a few months.

 

Also, both of them have the GDDR2 version of NV8600GT.

But check out notebookjounal.com, they rate the Acer no2 , the no1 in this class was the ASUS M51 SP.

The build of the acer is excellent.

Dell is ok but , but I think the Acer has much better LCD.


http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/436/4

I think these are very honest reviews cause they are EU based site.

They have no big PC makers there so they are pretty fair, lesser biased.

 

easy answer, go for higher specs..
you can tolerate 15.4inch screen from your past..

 

I love my 17" screen and numeric keyboard, the bigger screen lets you be more immersed in the game. The 15" you will probably get a lower resolution screen, so there will probably be more games that you can play at your native resolution.

 

Get the 15" if you don't want to lug a brick around. That said, Carrying my 17" dell around is not a problem for me, it's lighter than some of my textbooks.

 

Arrrgghh I hate buying pc's. So far the advice has been kind of half and half... Much appreciated though.

As far as lugging around a 17" brick - that's not a prob as my Acer Aspire 9302 is a 17" brick and I carry that to and from work...

I still don't know which to get. I might even scrap the idea of the 15" ones and go for a 17" Vostro (17" Acer Aspires all seem to have the Geforce 8400 for some reason)...