VAIO FE41Z - worth buying?

Hello,

I am looking for some advice about this laptop as I want to buy it but am not very knowledgeable about tech matters.

The laptop is the vaio FE41Z, it has core 2 duo T7200 processor, 2GB RAM and a 200GB hard drive. The full spec is here:

http://vaio.sony.ie/view/ShowProduc...41Z&site=voe_en_IE_cons&category=VN+FE+Series

I will use this computer for office stuff, internet, photoshop and some video and audio editing, some gaming but nothing too intensive, and often have several applications running at once. The huge hard drive is a very big plus for me because I'll have a lot of large files stored.

What I am worried about is the hard drive speed (4,200 rpm). I gather from what I've read here that a faster hard drive would be preferable. What I don't know is how much difference this would make. Would the processor and 2GB RAM make up for a slower hard drive, or would I end up sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for photos to load or documents to save or windows to minimise? I'm not looking for absolute lightening speed, but one of the main reasons that I want to get a new computer is that I'm getting really frustrated sitting around waiting for the one I'm using at the moment to do what it's supposed to be doing, particularly if I have more than one programme running at once. My current computer (desktop) is a piece of junk though, with only 192 MB RAM and a Celeron processor. So I suppose I'm wondering whether I will be blown away with how good the vaio FE41Z if it only has a 4,200 rpm hard drive.

I'm sorry if this is a completely dense question, but I would really appreciate any advice from someone with more knowledge of these things than I have or from anyone who has used the FE41Z themselves.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Maz

 

A 4200rpm drive would be a total bottleneck in loading programs, try at least to get a 5400rpm ones. Oh, more RAM and faster processor cant do anything to make up for the lost of a 4200rpm drive, but these drive do have high capacity thou.

 

Thanks for the response - I feared this would be the case and that the extra capacity would need to be sacrificed for the sake of performance. I can always add an external hard drive. Thanks again, you may have saved me making an expensive mistake!