To buy or not to buy?

First post, this is a great site for notebooks so far and I'm hoping you friendly folks can help me out Lately I've been on the go more often or not, and I'm seriously considering purchasing a laptop for my computing needs. As a programmer and a gamer especially, my performance requirements are a little higher than most. Unfortunately as a student that limits by choices somewhat

Luckily, some of the laptop recommendations posted on this site seem like good deals. In addition I do have disposable income, so I can afford to spend a bit. After much deliberation I've settled on either the v4000t or the dv4000. Here are the details of a custom machine I've configured (v4000t):

hpshopping price $1,274.00
student discount $1,197.56
instant savings − $300.00
mail-in rebate − $50.00
price after rebate $847.56
you saved 33.5%

plus free shipping, but before tax.

Processor Intel(R) Celeron(R) M 380 (1.6 GHz)
Display 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800)
Graphics Card 128MB ATI MOBILITY(TM) RADEON(R) X700
Memory 256MB DDR2 SDRAM (1x256MB) (i'll add more later)
Hard Drive 40 GB 4200 RPM Hard Drive
Primary CD/DVD Drive DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
Battery 6 cell

Here are some questions I have in regards to this configuration:

1) Is this a good deal?

2) Should I get this or wait a little for a better deal to come along? I have no idea when the best time to buy laptops is.

3) Is a Celeron M sufficient? The only advantages I see for the Pentium M is its lower power usage (unimportant to me) and slight performance boost with its larger cache.

4) Are there any other discounts I can apply to my order to make it cheaper?

5) Are there any other recommendations for good laptops that are roughly equivalent to my choice? (e.g. matching GPU)

Thanks in advance!

 

it's a good deal IMO.

now for the answers to your questions:

1. Yes it is.
2. um, if you are really in need of a laptop now; go ahead and get one right now, if you can wait for the prices to go down (or the holiday rush to settle) its also OK.
3. yes, it's fairly sufficient enough a Celeron M 380 @ 1.6GHz is almost at par with benchies from a P4 based machine that clocks around 2.4GHz - 2.6GHz
4. scour around retail stores, and you might get a large rebate plus a promo to boot (like a free printer or wireless router)
5. an IBM T43 with dedicated graphics but it's a lot expensive though.

also you might want to upgrade the RAM and the hard drive. 512mb is good, but if you can go for a full 1GB. plus, go for atleast a 5400RPM drive minimum if you can get hands on 7200RPM notebook drives go ahead and get it. just delegate the old drive as a backup media / portable storage.

 

The dv4000 is about the cheapest gaming notebook you are going to find. Celeron is fine, but battery life won't be great. I'd agree on the hard drive.

 

Looked around the retail stores but couldn't find a deal on the specific specs I wanted...oh well. Anyways I've pulled the trigger already, so it's TOOLATENOOO. The online deal already comes with a free printer (AR), so I guess that's good enough for me.

In the end I upgraded the hard drive to a minimum of 5400, which is sufficient for me. All for 903 AR. Not shabby? All i need now is RAM, so if anyone knows of any good deals...

Thanks for all the input, and I'll put up the first review of the v4000t when I can

 

Deals for RAM? You want the cheapest possible? Goto Newegg. I think they're selling Transcend 1gig sticks for $70 and then you can get use a $10 mail in rebate(Personally, I wouldn't count on the rebate though, so call it $70 instead of the more theoretical $60).

You want a brand that's pretty well known? Get some Kingston memory from zipzoomfly.com for $82 w/ free shipping. I'd personally go w/ the Kingston mem cause of their lifetime guarantee.

 

5400RPM is a wise choice.

 

Stay away from Celeron. Celeron M is the slowest type of processor right now. A AMD Spempron configured at the same price as a Cleron M laptop outproforms the Celeron by 10% or more. I would sudgest getting a Pentium M, or a AMD 64 Turon, or a Semperon if your on a tight budget. Also, I noticed the the upgrades on the HP site is much cheaper. For example from 40GB to 60GB its only like $25. With a laptop configuration that I was messing around with it was only $5 more to upgrade from an AMD Sempron 2800+ to a 300+ and only $50 to upgrade to an AMD turon.

Hope this helps!

= )

 

Yeah I would agree on the Celeron, but there is nothing with the Sempron and x700 available at the moment. The $100 upgrade to the Pentium M is a good choice since they run cooler and have much better battery life.

 

Hmm. I'm not as concerned with battery life per se as I intend this to be more of a desktop replacement. In addition, from benchmarks and anecdotal evidence, it seems like the Celeron M is only marginally worse than a comparable Pentium M. Last but not least, as zazonz mentions the v4000t does not offer any AMD alternatives (which is a pity since I use an Athlon 64 at home).

All this is a little moot however, since I've already pulled the trigger I don't believe they've assembled it yet though, so:

1) Would be it be possible to still change the configuration after ordering with hpshopping?

2) More importantly, what incentives would I have to upgrade to a Pentium other than cooler running and longer battery life?

 

Could call them and ask. You could cancel your order and re-buy.
You'll get a little better performance with the Pentium M in addition to the battery life and less heat.