New laptop advice

I've read that not all apps work in VMWare though when using XP under Vista.  A dual boot would be the best way of doing it.

Anyhow, I'm slowly going off the idea and I think I'll end up getting an XP machine.

Only problem is, the ones I am looking at only have 120 Gb drives, which I guess is big enough for my requirements, but I'd prefer a 250 Gb.   I will of course have an external drive (most likely 1 Tb -- if XP doesn't have issues with it, of course), but I don't want that plugged in all the time and of course, the main applications should be on the C:

I'm also sure they have Intel GMA cards in and as I said, I'd rather an nVidia or an ATI.

I don't think I have a full XP install anyhow.  I'm completely frustrated now.

I'm at a loss.


Edited by James - April 23 2008 at 16:04

James wrote: That's what I'm going to go for (Intel Core 2 Duo), Mike.  I've been convinced. I've been reading about dual booting from a Vista pre-install and it's not straight forward at all! I might actually be better off sticking with an XP installation and avoiding Vista for ages.  Dual booting is possible though, but it's fraught with issues, especially as early XP doesn't recognise SATA drives and my new laptop will likely have a SATA drive in it.   There's also the issue with XP only being able to recognise a 150 gb partition. So I'm not sure what to do. I also have a sneaky suspicion the XP disc I have access to is an update disc, rather than a full install, so I might not be able to dual boot.

One thing you could do ist to use Vista 64 and 4GB of RAM. Then you can install VMWare Server (it's free) and install your old copy of WinXP in a virtual machine. It's relatively straight forward to set up and use. You can also run most apps in Vista if you configure the compatibility mode correctly.


Edited by MikeEnRegalia - April 23 2008 at 11:00

^ the 150g partition issue with XP has been fixed - the Maxtor website has the patch.

James wrote: Because I prefer AMD.  All my machines, except my very old 386, have been AMD and they've never let me down, so I want to stick with them. Besides, I've found a laptop that has an nVidea graphics card and an AMD chipset. I would wait for the quadcore AMD for laptops, but that could be a while yet.

That doesn't make much sense to me. AMD on a laptop ... that's a bit experimental. Intel Core 2 Duo is the way to go IMO.

Well, unless you intend on spending more than you said,
 you're probably not going to find any great performing graphics card on a laptop.

So there you have it.
Although I'd ask around a bit more, do a  little Google search, catch my drift?

Lol, I think since it's just me, Siam and James, we might as well take this back to the Velvet Room.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-Xpress-X1250.6946.0.html
not so much of a graphics card.

What's your price range?

Here we go, this is more like it.  This is the one Siam was referring to and it has a GeForce card.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4XW8&CategorySelectedId=11105&NavigationKey=11105,50220000,42880000,50240


Edited by James - April 23 2008 at 02:54

king of Siam wrote: James wrote: Oh I know that, but I wanted an AMD/GeForce laptop and that's one of the few available.  The new Pavilion series doesn't have a replacement for it. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Entertainment+powerhouse&series_name=dv9700z_series US version. BTW, most people say that Intel is better than AMD for laptops.