satellite m40 vs tecra s2

mainly considering toshiba....want for gaming and also for university...going to uk to study for a year

mainly confused between m40 and tecra s2....price is the same Rs. 80000
and configuration is similar

tecra s2
1.73 ghz
512 mb ddr ram
dvd/cdrw combo
60 gb
3 year international warrenty
geforce 6600 64 mb
xp pro
15.4 inch widescreen


m40
1.86 ghz
512mb ddr
dvd/cdrw
60 gb
1 year international warrenty
geforce 6600 128 mb
xp pro
15 inch...no widescreen

advantage of tecra is that the optical drive can be removed and replaced with dvd burner or hard disk or extra battery if and when i need
i think battery life is also better...also 3 yrs international warrenty....but it has 1.73 compared to 1.86 and also 128 mb graphics card on the m40
but i prefer the looks of m40...the widescreen..not too sure if widescreen is better or not

i've heard the tecra series is better.....how much of performance diff b/w 64 and 128 mb graphics card...
so overall which 1 of the two u wud recommend considering the pros and cons...have to decide by monday...so plzzz let me know!!

 

I guess it depends on your screen preference. You may want to check the specs again because the Tecra doesn't have a widescreen LCD option, while the M40 comes with widescreen as a default.

1. You will not notice the difference between CPU performance.
2. You won't really see a difference between the amount of video memory. All the extra memory will allow is more textures to be stored in video memory. This prevents swapping to the HDD and therefore will see a performance increase because of no HDD swapping, but not in overall frames/sec.

-Vb-

 

yup...sorry for the error...tecra 15 inch....m40 15.4 widescreen...i dont mind any...the widescreeen or normal

what are the advantages of tecra over satellite and vice versa??
does tecra have much better battery life and reliability than the m40??

 

People have complained about the M40's battery life, but they do have a 12cell option I believe. The Tecra is only 6 cell and I don't know if they have an upgrade option. I do know you can get a MultiBay (can't remember what Toshiba calls it) where you can swapout the optical drive with an extra battery.

Generally, the systems seem equally matched for graphics except for the memory difference and also the widescreen LCD. The warranty of 3years is of course a better option, but you can purchase an extended warranty from Toshiba. I personally like the wide screen with the TruBrite technology. It's a lot brighter than a regular LCD, but I have heard of issue with light leakage and unevenness of the backlight as well as flicker when the brightness is lowered (not all related to Toshiba, just "enhanced" LCD's in general).

-Vb-

 

so u suggesting i should go for the m40??
are the build quality and battery life the same in both???

 

Well, it's really hard to say which is better since they're both pretty much equally matched. You really need to see which one fits your needs/wants better.

Do you need a TruBrite LCD (high-gloss)?
Do you want Wide screen or 4:3 ratio'd screen?
I warranty an issue for you (do you want more or do you care)?

People say that the Tecra's are built better than the Satellite notebooks bacuse it's their Business line, but after repairing the Toshiba notebooks, I can safely tell you, the Tecra and Satellite are currently equal in overall quality.

The batteries will probably run at approx the same amount of time. If you upgrade the M40 to a 12cell and add the Multibay (swappable battery) in the Tecra, you'll probably end up with the same runtimes. Maybe a bit better with the Tecra S2 because of the slower CPU (draws less power than the 1.86).

Personally, I have an HP nx8220 and I really like it. They've improved their business product lines in a lot of ways (design/quality) and they also offer a lot of features for the money. I don't know if I can make a decision knowing that there's an equivalent HP notebook out there. I'd probably go for the HP. Sorry if that's wasn't any help.

-Vb-

 

thanx...but the prob here is that no hp notebooks available in india...only compaq and they dont have graphic cards ....

secondly i also have the option of 1.73 on the m40 but with dvd writer......prob is that it has xp home....but i can probably buy xp pro for Rs. 6000 and then i can probably get some partitioning done ont he hard disk as well.....what do u think??

 

guys plzz gimme a final verdict on this...
also can some1 post the 3dmark scores of the 64 mb card on the tecra s2 and the 128 mb geforce 6600 on the m40....wanna c how much of a diff it is

also i hope none of these laptops have the 6600 TE card?? i heard the m3 has the TE which is slower than a normal 6600

 

also wanna know between two models of the m40...
have to decide by tommorrow!!

1.86 ghz... dvd combo drive...( no writer) with winxp pro
1.73 ghz ....dvd writer with win xp home

for uni i need win xp pro!!! but was also keen for a writer....so i have two options....plzzz tell me which 1 would be better

either i gett he xp pro 1 and buy an external 40 gb hard disk for my backups....and then after a year i buy a dvd writer ...hard disk will come for Rs. 5000
or
i get the xp home 1 ....buy an xp pro license..comes for Rs 6000...that way i get the dvd writer and get to partion the 60 gb disk for my backups .....but no external hard disk which might be useful at uni coz i wont have to take my laptop everytime

also i get 5122mb ram...should i upgrade to 1gb?? if 512 is sufficient for gaming dont wanna spend more

 

If you need XP Pro for school, find out how much it costs for XP Pro from your school as it might be a cheaper option.

You might want to get the 1.73GHz model and get XP from your school. The speed difference in the CPU may not provide much of an increase that's noticeable.

By a faster notebook drive (7200rpm) and also get a 2.5" USB 2.0 external enclosure for your old HDD. This way, you have a faster HDD in your notebook and also have a small external (portable) drive for backups when needed.

512MB will be enough to start, but 1GB might be recommended for a later time. Additional memory will help in overall system performance.

-Vb-

 

finally getting my laptop tomm......i'm getting the m40 from india...buying a separate win xp license coz the m40 comes with home here......so i'll tell the engineer to install win xp pro straight away...now i'm gonna create 2 partitions 20 gb on c and 40 gb on d......and i'll download all the drivers from the net....now is there any way i can make a similar recovery cd myself the way toshiba has made it which will install win xp pro and all the softwares from toshiba and not touch the d drive so that i can use that as the backup???