Dilemma At Sam's

Hi everyone! As you may know, Sam's Club has the L2000 for $999 with very good specs, except a Turion ML-37 processor. Instead, it has a ML-34 and no lightscribe and no 12-cell battery. But, it's $999. If I configured it on the hp website with the ML-37, with the lighstcribe, and with the 12-cell (with student discount of course) the total price would be around $1175 (512 1 stick ram, 80gb 5400 rpm hd) Sam's has a 6 month return policy and a $80 3-year warranty. HP's three-year plan is $180. Do you think it's worth it to buy it at sam's with lesser specs and a lesser price or go with hp which is bit more expensive but better specs. Does the perfomance difference (ML-34 vs. 37) and added features justify the added expense?

 

There's one on Amazon for $999, but I forgot the specs.

 

Well, I'm not sure, do you need any of the stuff the Sam's unit is misisng?

 

I don't really NEED lighstcribe or the 12-cell battery but would like them and I am still unsure of the processor difference. The thing that makes it so hard is the fact that Sam's has a 6 month return policy and a much cheaper warranty, and I would instantly get it opposed to waiting a few weeks for HP to build me one. I am in need of help, please advise! Thanks

 

HP sells the 12 cell battery for $179, way overpriced if you ask me. You can get it at CompUSA right now for $99, they regularly sell it for $150.

What are your needs? If you'll be only doing things such as web surfing, writing document, simple stuff like this, then a faster processor will not help you. I'd go with the one at Sam's Club with their liberal return policy and cheaper warranty so you can have peace of mind.


Generally, I think the L2000 is well built, but I have heard of some not being happy with it with issues such as a contantly running loud fan, excessive heat, etc. So if in the unfortunate case you have any problems with it, you can return it. Good luck to you on your computer purchase!

 

thanks for the advise! are you saying that the small processor difference will affect things so great that I am restricted to web surfing, or writing a document with the ML-34? I don't see how a high grade processor like the ML-34 could only perform basic tasks. Although I will be playing some light games such as rts (AOM, Warcraft 3, etc) or somehting like UT 2004, do you think i would see a speed difference in those games as far as the processor goes? I just don't want to get the lower processor and maybe regret sometime in the future that i should have gotten the better one. (maybe when vista comes out) i won't be doing any massive photo editing, just maybe making some DVD's from my camcorder footage.

 

The only difference between the Turion ML-34 and the ML-37 is .2 ghz processing power...so it's entirely up to you. I know with lightscribe you can label directly to the CD using the optical drive...other than that I don't know what other advantages it might have over just a regular DL DVD RW drive. (I'm still new to laptop technology). I went out and got the laptop from Sams after I found out about it because it was more or less exactly what I was wanting in a laptop.

The 5400rpm HD does make the system run hot but not to the point of being uncomfortable, for me anyway. And as far as the fan is concerned, it only cuts on every now and then to cool the unit off for me (I've had it running for 3-4 hours now continuously on the ac adapter). My only disappointment with the sam's configuration is the 2x256 ram, which is easily fixed.

 

You won't see much of a difference if any, with those two processors. Besides, a faster hard drive and more ram is much more important in performance than a slightly faster processor. Go with the slower processor, for your needs, you won't regret it. You can always upgrade the ram and hard drive later.

Lightscribe right now isn't that great and most will say it isn't worth it. It only burns black and white images, it burns them very slowly, and you need to buy special lightscribe disks that are more expensive.

 

The MPEG2 encoding you'll be doing to make the DVDs will be helped by the faster processor. For everything else you listed a faster CPU won't be too noticible. Gaming is GPU-limited. Again, it's more of a "why not?" expense, depending on your budget. The slower CPU won't prevent you from doing anything, it'll just take a bit longer.

 

Wouldn't a faster hard drive make a bigger difference than a slightly faster processor??

 

Yes, but do both if you can. RAM is important too, 1GB is a good baseline. Lots of RAM, fast HD, fast CPU, in that order. CPUs are the hardest to upgrade later though and a CPU change will void your warranty (if they notice).

 

I may get the L2005 at Sam's as well. It comes to $1143.62 with the 3 year warranty and after taxes. I haven't found a better deal for it anywhere else. I also havent found a V2000Z that's cheaper once you add in the warranty.

In regards to the Amazon price of $999, it's an additional $300 for the 3 year warranty so Sam's is still a better deal, especially with a 6 month return policy.

I ordered the Compaq V2312US at Circuit City last week which came to $997 after tax, rebates and a 2 year warranty, but that is only for the ML-28 chip and a slow 60gb 4200rpm drive. I'm going to cancel this.

Anyone else find a better deal?

 

I think that Sam's is the best deal that's going to be out there, esp. with the 6 month return policy, and the cheap warranty. I'm pretty sure I'm going with that. Thanks everyone for your input!