preyingrazor

Either the Toshiba Satellite A300D-15B (AMD Processor 2.1GHz)
Price: £679 + 2 yr free warranty support

Toshiba - Satellite A300D-15B

found at: Toshiba Satellite Laptop, A300-15B, 2.1GHz with 15.4 Inch Display - John Lewis

or

Toshiba Satellite P300-150 refurbished (Intel Processor 2.4Ghz)
Price: £680 + 1 yr manufacturers warranty

Toshiba - Satellite P300-150

found at: Currys - Shop for Recon Laptops - TOSHIBA P300-150 REFURBISHED INTEL 2 DUO T8300 PROCESSOR


I am more interested in gaming performance. Does anyone have any reviews or benchmark tests for these laptops? Are there any other laptops in the 600 to 700 pound price range that have better gaming / application performance?

I've already done a little evaluation of my own and would really appreciate any comments suggestions on the following:

Initially I was inclined to the 17 inch Intel laptop but the manufacturer's warranty (1 year as opposed to 2 years on the AMD machine) seems to be putting me off. Plus I've heard that the resolution of 1440x900 on a 17 inch isn't exactly state-of-the-art.



the intel one is refurbished and it's 17 inches so as a result 3.35kg too (compared to 2.7 kg). The extra weight shouldn't be that big a problem cos i usually leave it on the desk. 17 inches is pretty whopping big and not sure how unwiedly that might be. the fact that it's refurbished isn't too appealing but considering a brand spanking new laptop costs £849, it sounds reasonable.

I'm concerned about the graphics processing units in both. Although they are the same the Toshiba site shows different types of memories and maximum available shared RAM. Which one is better? And do both use Crossfire? How much does crossfire improve performance?

for the AMD:
size : 15.4 "
type : Toshiba TruBrite® WXGA+ TFT High Brightness display
internal resolution : 1,440 x 900
for the intel:
size : 17.0 "
type : Toshiba TruBrite® WXGA+ TFT High Brightness display
internal resolution : 1,440 x 900

they've got the same physical resolutions, but the 17incher being bigger means the same number of pixels would be spread over a wider area resulting in lower detail. but considering normal 15.4inch laptops come with only 1280x800, that doesn't seem too bad. lemme do the math. ok so it turns out if u have a 15.4 inch laptop with 1280x800 u get 4317 as the value of 'spread' (the lower the spread the better). with a 17 inch laptop at 1440 x 900 u get 4484 as the value of 'spread'. which isn't much different from 4317. so the detail should be the same as that on a 15.4 inch 1280x800 except 17 inches instead of 15.4. u have a 1280x800 truBright screen right? sahi lagta hai na? just out of interst, the 15.4 at 1440 x 900 would have a spread index of 5464. looks pretty impressive. i saw this laptop in the shop and the impression i got was that the icons and text and everything though extremely sharp were cluttered TOO close together. so a 17 inch should sort that out. [edit: i've heard the 17 inch screen doesn't look that good at 1440x900

the amd one writes to dvds a lil faster. but i don't do that much so not a prob.

the intel one's got a 2.4 Ghz intel core 2 duo with 3mb level 2 cache instead of a 2.1 Ghz AMD with only 2 mb cache
same amount of ram : 4 GB (except the intel one is clocked at 667MHz, and the AMD one at 800MHz. i'll have to read some reviews to see how much of a difference that makes)

500 gb hard drives (250 + 250) on the Intel instead of x1 250 gb. so if it crashes you really lose quite a LOT of data :P

the intel one is so HUGE it even has the standard numeric keypad that u find on regular keyboards. not sure whether taht's a pro or a con. lol


Both have pretty crappy battery lives. 1hr 10 min for amd. and NOT TESTED for the intel, but with all the beefier components, i doubt it'l be even last 1 hour; unless they used the extra space for a bigger battery too. now i really need to read reviews comparing the two of them.


I would really appreciate if someone could point out some reviews for these laptops especially the A300D-15B.

Thanks.