I'm in wondering whether I should buy a
travelmate 803cib (Centrino 1.6GHz, XP Professional , 15TFT, 512MB DDR RAM (2x 256MB), 40GB HDD, DVD&CDRW, Wired & Wireless Lan, Bluetooth, 64MB VRAM)

or an aspire 1605lm (P4-3.06GHz, XP Home, 15TFT, 512MB DDR RAM (2x 256), 60GB HDD, DVD-RW, LiIon, 56K modem, Lan, 64MB VRAM)

I know the aspire is heavier and bigger but its also faster. I will be carrying it every day but i also want to play games on it.

any idea's?

I'm open for other suggestions but I haven't seen any other notebooks with this sort of configuration at a comparable price. (and YES that's VERY important!!)

the 803. For one thing, the 1.6 Centrino will perform as well as a 2.5GHz P4, for another, you will actually get "BATTERY LIFE" out of the Centrino model and you get all those cool extras like Wireless Lan and Bluetooth. I am assuming, though, that the HDD is 5400rpm, otherwise the aspire might not be so bad. It does have the DVD-RW, and the HDD may or may not be better (depending on how fast the one in the Travelmate is - i.e. rather go for speed than size). They will both be able to play games more or less the same (assuming they both have the same graphics array as your information seems to indicate). But the other thing is that the Travelmate will be so much lighter, cooler and quieter.

That is quite a toughy, but I think I would still go for the Travelmate if I was given the choice between the two. But then again if it was MY choice, I wouldn't get an Acer. Have you looked at Dell or Compaq's offerings? The Dell Inspiron 5100 is very, very similar to the aspire, and the Inspiron 600m / Latitude D600 is comparable to the Travelmate. I would recommend looking at other manufacturers before you decide.

RaPTuRe

Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?

If you want to play games on your laptop, pay close attention to the graphics card. You'll find very quickly that there aren't many laptops available with top of the range graphics cards.

I've been scrounging around for ages looking for ones with an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (M10), they're not easy to find.

Thanks for the replies,

I have looked at Dell and HP/Compaq, especially as I could probably get some discount with Dell via the uni. However for some absurd reason they are way more expensive than Acer is here in holland. (~2000 for an acer =~2800 for a Dell or HP/Compaq which are more or less comparable) and I don't think I can get that much discount.

Thanks anyway, I think I'll go for the smaller centrino based laptop As for the ati 9600 hunt: good luck, I gave up looking a while ago.
R.

Ya, I found the same thing with Dell prices. Watch out for their RAM especially. I think they're getting it made out of moon dust - it's the only reason I can see for it being so expensive

Dell is overpriced way up to there, otherwize they wouldn’t be that big, they charge $100+ just for 256MB upgrade, which in reality is only $50 at the most expansive retailer. Anyway, now days any laptop would do much more better than any that was a year ago, so the cheaper the better i guess

I just found out that the acer aspire 2003 will be available from week 46 (thats next week). its more or less the same as the travelmate 803 with a few exeptions:
centrino 1.6 512MB 15.4" WXGA tft 64 mb 9200 ati videocard and either 40 or 60 GB hard disk (5400) and a DVDrw drive
It's a bit bigger than the 803 but thats the screen and the thickness is the same. By comparison of canadian sites it should cost about the same as the 803 costs, although the 803 might go down in price.
Now all i need to do is wait
R.