[eatingrich]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently choosing between two laptops and I'm not sure which will offer the best overall performance.

One is the ACER Aspire 4820T and the other is the 4810T.

They're nearly identical except the former has a better CPU - 2.2ghz dual core, 3GB RAM but shared graphics.

The latter has a weaker CPU - the energy efficient SU4100 or something, 1.2ghz dual core, but has 4GB RAM and dedicated 512MB graphics.

It's a trade-off but which is best?

The 4820T can relatively cheaply upgrade it's RAM to 8GB, but I can't find info on the 4810T to see if it does the same.

But what would your advice be?

For the record, I don't really have much interest in gaming for modern games, as I play my Xbox 360 for that - so it'd mainly be for office, maybe some basic and general Photoshop use, films and so on.

I have a feeling both would be fine for that - but the idea of a dedicated graphics card is appealing (and I'm happy with a lower power CPU if it extends battery life) - but would the drop of 1ghz in the CPU make a lot of difference?

Anyway advice appreciated!

PS - I've seen both refurbished but keep hearing horror stories - is it worth it to save an extra £50 if I get a 12 month warranty on top or am I always better buying it brand new?

Thanks in advance!

[Judas]

typically i got for dedicated graphics OVER more power cpu with shared..

but that seems like 2 very great extremes.... why would they produce a laptop like that...

it's like acer hasn't a clue what it wanted to do..

What kind of dedicated graphics is it?

[eatingrich]

Cheers for the reply. I think it was an AMD Athlon one.

In the end I went for the more powerful CPU as there was quite a difference. I spoke to other people and to a man they all recommended the more powerful CPU for various reasons - namely that the difference in CPU power was so great and that the graphics card, even though it is dedicated, would probably be not up to much anyway.

We'll see how it goes!

[Judas]

yeah i think under that circumstance i'd end up going cpu power...

although i would have gone with an intel i3 or i5 equivilent... as those intergrated gpus are pretty damn good

[eatingrich]

Well this one is Intel Core i3 so it should be pretty nifty for the price (£430)!

[Judas]

yeah the intel i3 laptops are damn nice...

i've managed to run numerous Unreal 3 Engine games on those igpu and cpus..... they aren't amazing.. but they work...

[eatingrich]

Yeah it's more than enough for what I need - people always laugh when I point out I doubt I'll be playing any games released before 2004 on it anyway!

[Judas]

well with many games today using pixel shader 3.0 and up..... at least the i3 or i5 igpu does the job..... so you'll be happy