Toshiba Laptop Comparison

Hello every one. I was going to post this at the What Notebook Should I Buy forum, but it looked a bit inactive, and I figured 1) It's a forum for people who don't know what laptop to get, as opposed to already having more than one laptop in mind and not being sure which one to get, and 2) the posters at the Toshiba forum would know more about Toshiba laptops anyway.

Well, here's my request: Could someone compare these two laptops for me?

Toshiba Satellite A500-1DN
Toshiba Satellite L505-13W

I'm talking about a detailed (if possible for every thing, but most importantly for the graphic card) overview/review of the CPU, graphics card, hard disk, screen/display, and every thing you can think of.

PS: This is the first laptop's graphic card, and this is the second laptop's. The HD 5165 is apparently better, but how much better? And the GT 230 has a Shader Speed of 1100 MHz, compared to the HD 5165's 600 MHz. What does this mean?

PPS: If this is in the wrong section, please feel free to move the thread to the proper forum.

Thanks in advance.

 

L505: Core i5-430M (2.26GHz) CPU; 3MB RAM; 500GB 5400rpm HDD; ATI 5165 1GB graphics; 15.6" 1366 x 768 display; DVD burner; 3 x USB ( 1 including eSATA); HDMI; Win 7 Home Premium; 2.94kg.

A500: Core 2 Duo T6600 (2.20GHz) CPU; 4GB RAM; 320GB 5400rpm HDD; nVidia GT 230M 1GB graphics; 15" 1366 x 768 display; DVD burner; 4 x USB (1 including eSATA + sleep'n charge); HDMI; Windows 7 Home Premium; 2.76kg.

You can compare the GPU performance at notebookcheck (number #49 and #62 on the list at the moment). The ATI GPU appears to be about 20% faster, which would be barely noticeable in real life.

The biggest difference between the computers is that the L505 uses the new Intel CPU. Some technical details here and an indication of relative performance between the CPU types here. The turbo mode and the hyper-threading can help boost non-graphical performance.

Of the two, I would prefer the L505 since it is new generation hardware (so I would also expect the A500 to be less expensive). I also consider having 1366 x 768 on a 15.6" display to be a waste of space, and the same resolution on a 16" display slightly more so. Personally I would be looking for 1600 x 900 @ 15.6" but such displays are hard to find.

Hope this helps,

John

 

Thanks, John, that was helpful.

 

Sorry to bring up the thread, but I was wondering if you could explain what you meant here:

Does that mean the L505 won't be... "full screen"? That would be a deal breaker.

 

Well?

 

I'm really sorry to bring this up again, but I have one important question. What does this mean:

size : 39.6cm (15.6”
type : Toshiba TruBrite® HD TFT High Brightness display with LED backlight with 16 : 9 aspect ratio
internal resolution : 1,366 x 768

Does that mean it won't be full screen? In other words, will the screen cover the entire display, or just a portion of it, with black spaces on the top and below? I mean, will it be like this:



Or like this:

 

16:9 Aspect Ratio is basically 720p which is the format used for HD. It's also the same format that Blu-Ray uses. And yes you will get full screen. If the movie is in letter boxed mode then you'll get the standard black bar above and below the picture.

Note: LCD mfg. have switched to the 16:9 format. So it's becoming harder and harder to find a laptop in another format. My favorite has always been 5:3 and a good compromise is 16:10. I really hate 16:9.