help me decide between two laptops please.
 

ok so I have been looking for a laptop recently and I found this brand Averatec which apperantely is pretty good. They have these two laptops

Averatec 6210

and

Averatec 6130

the 6130 has a lot of power but from reviews it can only run on the battery for like 1-1.5 hours. Thats not even long enough to watch a DVD. I love this one except for the low battery life. The only time I would probably even have it run off the battery is when I watch DVD's somewhere where there isn't access to AC power. This one however has excellent power (Radeon 9600, pretty good for a laptop)

the 6210 has a battery that lasts longer, is thinner, and can play DVD's without the computer itself being on (even has a remote). I think it can run up to 4.5 hours with just using the DVD player and not the computer on and up to 3 hours with the computer on. The thing is that it has much less video power (64MB shared memory on a 4xAGP card)

I would be getting a laptop mostly so I could type lab reports and such on the weekends when I am visiting my girlfriend and do not have access to a computer. I would however like to be able to watch DVD's without having to have the computer plugged into the wall.

I guess my biggest question is, would the 6210 (the one with less video power) be able to run Warcraft 3? That is the most demanding game that would go on the thing. And of the two which would you choose and why? And about the 6130, if you know of any solutions to the low battery life, I would love to know. Thanks in advance.

Honestly, I would go with the higher power GFX card, but being away from the wall isn't a concern of mine. I would say that the 6210 would be fine to run WC3. I ran WC3 on a Compaq Presario 2110 Notebook 2 years ago on a 64MB GFX card, so this should run it with no problems.

One reason the 6130 tears the battery life in half is the fact that it is a 3GHZ HyperThreaded chip. That requires power alot of power. AMD 2400 runs at 2Ghz, requiring less power.

Most mobile processors are capable at running at lower speeds than the chip can run at. 3Ghz can drop down to say 1.5Ghz and kick up to a higher gear *IF* the running applications require it. So, run both processors at 100% and yes, the AMD will win, the Intel will lose. Watch a DVD on either of those, and I 'd bet you'd have no problems with battery life with either machine.

ok i am leaning towards the one with the better graphics card but does anybody else have any input?

I'm a fan of the p4 one specs wise, but that's more a desktop replacement then a laptop. It seems like it would be more versitile to you.


I'll just give you my story though and hopefully you can relate. 1 1/2 years ago I bought a dell laptop that was killer at 3.06 ghz and 1 gig of ram, but a lousy on board video card. Well I told myself "Nah I'm not going to play games". Well I ended up selling the thing in less then 3 months. It was an amazing laptop, but I ended up getting an Emachines for all things because I realized I played just enough games to require a hardware 3d accellerator.

I would go with p4. A buddy of mine had an Athlon and it wasn't a good experience. The P4 sounds like a better machine, a workhorse in a laptop if you will.

Are you basing the 1-1.5 hour battery life on that one person's review? If so I'd look into it more, because that kinda sounds too bad to be true. Could very well be that they reinstalled XP and never installed the power management drivers, or something along those lines.

You can't base an opinion on *1* friend having a bad experience. Was it recently? Was it 3 years ago? I have had nothing but AMD's (at home) for 4 years and only had 1 bad experience out of 2 laptop and 4 desktop systems in that time. I have a mix of p4/p3/AMD MP/AMD XP at work and haven't had 1 issue with any of them.

Ok thanks for all the input. I realized how good the p4 was and just bought it. I have a friend whose friend bought that same exact laptop and he said the battery didnt last 1 hour so thats really good. Thanks again for the input

im currently using the Averatec 6120, love the battery life and the weight. But for hardcore gaming its not worth it to get a laptop.

On the other hand WC3 isnt considered graphic intensive so you should be fine.
(I hve WC3 installed just havent run it yet)

You're right, I agree. (though the P4 in this case has more added features)

It was a couple of years ago. I know that if AMD continued to have issues with them, they wouldn't be in the position they are in.

only problem I've ever had with the p4 notebook I had was that it got hot as hell
hopefully they fixed that in the last couple years.

Thanks for the input guys, I ordered the 6130 yesteday. I found out a friend of a friend bought the exact same laptop and she said the battery lasted at least longer than a DVD so I am pleased. Again thenaks for the input.

And about the laptops getting hot, isnt there some sort of pad that you can just place under the laptop to disperss the heat and cool it down?