Im a BRIT, what can i do?!

Hello everyone!

Im looking at laptops now although I dont really intend on actually buying one until september. I very much like your reviews on laptops ... very handy!

Im thinking about buying an HP zd series as they seem to offer a lot for the money (you can prove me wrong here if you like!)

2 things :: why can you only customize ure laptop in the US and not on the hp.co.uk site?
and :: why are the education coupons for only those in US?!

I will be a University student in september. This sucks. because even before the coupons i was able to customize a zd8100 to around the same price offered in a price list i have with twice as much memory, faster CPU, faster HD and more gadgets and gizmos (not to mention to wacky free printer! "FREE" ... as you have to buy the £50 printer cartridges!!! [ ])

can anyone help me on solving these? or could someone recommend a way i can customise but get delivered to the UK?

Also (as a separate question):

Chose between Acer Ferrari 3400LMi and HP Pavillion zd8185ea and a sentence why! Thanks! [8D]

--Chris

'rm -fr /bin/laden; kill all'

 

Go with an Acer Ferarri 4000, when they're available, versus the 3400 (unless you get a good deal on the older model of course). Better GPU and widescreen, the Turion CPU should only be a minor improvement over the Low Voltage class Athlon 64 though.

zd8000 series: bigger screen. Otherwise, you're stuck with an inferior and extremely hot Intel CPU. Probably cheaper than the Ferarri. Almost twice as heavy. Lousy battery life. There should be more AMD 17" widescreens coming out, they were shown at Computex Taipei (from MSI, Clevo, etc), no word on shipping dates though. HP is tough to beat on price.

Dunno why HP doesn't let you customize notebooks, especially when they all ship direct from Shanghai anyhow via FedEx.

You might find some Acer Aspire Turion models with Radeon X700 GPUs in the UK. They don't appear to be available here, just the lame shared memory GPU versions.

 

<blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by brianstretch

 

In the future, you'll see other manufacturers offering desktops and laptops with HP's LightScribe technology.

 

Hmm, looks like you may get Clevo's new 17" dual core capable notebook with Radeon X800 XT soon:

http://www.digitmag.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=4926

No word of it showing up on this side of the pond yet.

GeForce vs. Radeon: nVidia's Linux support is first-rate. They're probably ahead of ATI in WinXP x64 support. Otherwise, take what you can get. When given a choice I'll pick nVidia.