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ConfusedUser
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Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:18 am

Hi guys,

My hp laptop died after its 5 year lifespan and I am hunting for a new one. Can you help me choose which laptop is the best buy. Ideally i want something that can handle my multitasking tendency like picture/video editing, programming, surfing the net and sometimes watching various movies. In line with this, memory, cpu and video graphics should be considered. In addition, the laptop should also handle running 3 or 4 days without shutting down because of the nature of my work. I have 2 laptops in mind but i don't know which is better. For complete specifications of the laptops see below links.

1. dv4-5012tx
Link: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu ... itle_r0001

2. dm4-3107tx
Link: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/docu ... itle_r0001

Can you guys tell me the reason why #1 is better than #2 or vice versa? Is AMD Radeon HD better than NVIDIA GeForce GT? What is the best way to measure cpu and video graphics?
 
hp9000
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:35 pm

From what I can see, the dm4 has double the ram (8gb vs 4gb) and a larger hard drive (1tb vs 750gb).
I'm not sure what you mean by "3 or 4 days without shutting down". I imagine that you're not talking about battery life.
 
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 12:38 pm

hp9000 wrote:
I'm not sure what you mean by "3 or 4 days without shutting down". I imagine that you're not talking about battery life.

Yup. Any system that isn't outright defective ought to be able to handle 3 or 4 MONTHS without shutting down (reboots to install security updates excepted).
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 1:19 pm

I'd look at their business line. You couldn't pay me to use their poorly designed consumer laptops.
 
Walkintarget
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 1:28 pm

Dashak wrote:
I'd look at their business line. You couldn't pay me to use their poorly designed consumer laptops.


Agreed. This was like a trick question I assumed :lol:
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 2:28 pm

Walkintarget wrote:
Dashak wrote:
I'd look at their business line. You couldn't pay me to use their poorly designed consumer laptops.


Agreed. This was like a trick question I assumed :lol:



Business line all the way; the rest is junk IMO.
 
ConfusedUser
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:56 pm

pfntn wrote:
Walkintarget wrote:
Dashak wrote:
I'd look at their business line. You couldn't pay me to use their poorly designed consumer laptops.


Agreed. This was like a trick question I assumed :lol:



Business line all the way; the rest is junk IMO.



I would also like to get the business line however, the business line is much more expensive than the consumer line here. The 2 laptops above falls under my budget range. Let's say you ONLY have two options and that options are the 2 above. Which would you choose?
 
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:44 pm

The answer might partly depend on what you want. The dv4 has a 45W processor, dm4 has a 35W, which means it should run a little cooler and maybe have a little better battery life. It is also 200 MHz slower. Either graphics card will be ok (unless you want to game much), but the dv4 looks like it has a better one (despite the Radeon sporting GDDR5). And the dv4 has a little bit better connectivity (USB 3 and USB 2, so you get more ports; separate mic and headphone jacks, if that matters to you).

So it depends what your priorities are...
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ConfusedUser
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:26 am

swampfox wrote:
The answer might partly depend on what you want. The dv4 has a 45W processor, dm4 has a 35W, which means it should run a little cooler and maybe have a little better battery life. It is also 200 MHz slower. Either graphics card will be ok (unless you want to game much), but the dv4 looks like it has a better one (despite the Radeon sporting GDDR5). And the dv4 has a little bit better connectivity (USB 3 and USB 2, so you get more ports; separate mic and headphone jacks, if that matters to you).

So it depends what your priorities are...



Hi swampfox

I would just like to confirm your choice which is the dm4? Is it much better to get 200Mhz slower laptop than the faster one to delay the laptop from overheating immediately? In terms of CPU, I read that although the 3612QM has a higher model number than the 3610QM, it offers slower clock rates and therefore performs worse. if this is true then 3610QM is much better but in terms of graphics, I am still at lost on how to compare the two but both are from class 2 video cards. I am leaning towards the dv4 but is this really the best to buy laptop?
 
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:53 am

ConfusedUser wrote:
swampfox wrote:
The answer might partly depend on what you want. The dv4 has a 45W processor, dm4 has a 35W, which means it should run a little cooler and maybe have a little better battery life. It is also 200 MHz slower. Either graphics card will be ok (unless you want to game much), but the dv4 looks like it has a better one (despite the Radeon sporting GDDR5). And the dv4 has a little bit better connectivity (USB 3 and USB 2, so you get more ports; separate mic and headphone jacks, if that matters to you).

So it depends what your priorities are...



Hi swampfox

I would just like to confirm your choice which is the dm4? Is it much better to get 200Mhz slower laptop than the faster one to delay the laptop from overheating immediately? In terms of CPU, I read that although the 3612QM has a higher model number than the 3610QM, it offers slower clock rates and therefore performs worse. if this is true then 3610QM is much better but in terms of graphics, I am still at lost on how to compare the two but both are from class 2 video cards. I am leaning towards the dv4 but is this really the best to buy laptop?


I compared the graphics card by looking at notebookcheck.net and finding their page "comparing notebook graphics" (you could Google it). Spec-wise, the dv4 looks a little better. It only has 4GB of RAM, but that is generally enough, and you could add more yourself if you like, according to the spec sheet. For the dv4, it looks like the drawbacks are: smaller hard-drive, worse battery life (maybe not much), a bit larger and heavier. The advantages are: faster processor and graphics, more USB ports (which matters to me, maybe not to you), what looks like better speakers (though hard to tell; maybe they're the same). I also think I probably wouldn't like the red backlighting on the dm4. But they're very similar, and what makes the difference might be different for you than for me. (E.g. you might love a red-backlight on your keyboard and not really care about having a third USB port.)
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Sun Sep 23, 2012 11:06 am

The faster one isn't going to "overheat immediately". But it'll probably run a little warmer, and the battery life may not be as good.

As swampfox has explained, one isn't automatically "better" than the other, it depends on what *your* needs are. He's spelled out in detail what the differences are, and what their impacts will be.

Aside from the clock speed difference, those CPUs have nearly identical specs. The only other difference I see is that the 3612 has VT-d support, which is not something you're likely to ever need. (Both have the older VT-x virtualization tech, which may come in handy if you want to run virtual machines for your programming.) If you spend a significant percentage of your time editing video, you'd probably be better off with the faster CPU. Otherwise I'd go with the lower powered one.
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ConfusedUser
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Mon Sep 24, 2012 8:05 pm

Hi guys


Thanks for the recommendations. I value all the arguments. I am still weighting the pro's and con's. I still have till tomorrow to decide but I think I will choose the dv4 laptop but I will have to upgrade the memory to 8GB to fully maximize the CPU and graphic card. I am not familiar with the red backlighting on the dm4 but i have to check that out i think.

I have a side note question in terms of battery, what do you mean by fully discharge? do i have to disable the automatic shutdown and use the laptop till the battery runs out and the laptop is dead before i charge it again. I've tried this once and when I check my battery life, the meter lost almost 30 min of its life. how do I make my battery last longer? I read here that you can store with 30-40% charge remaining and in the refrigerator when not in used but is this really true?
 
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Re: Which HP Laptop is the best to buy?

Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:05 pm

I have a side note question in terms of battery, what do you mean by fully discharge? do i have to disable the automatic shutdown and use the laptop till the battery runs out and the laptop is dead before i charge it again. I've tried this once and when I check my battery life, the meter lost almost 30 min of its life. how do I make my battery last longer? I read here that you can store with 30-40% charge remaining and in the refrigerator when not in used but is this really true?

Yes and no.

When a battery is being stored, it has a self-discharge rate, which is a tendency to lose charge by internal chemical processes. Self-discharge is affected by both age and ambient temperature, so a battery in storage can be preserved longer in a cold environment (but not freezing, which can damage the internal chemistry). A typical laptop battery that is stored at ambient temperatures may lose a few percent (like 2-5%) per week.

When a battery is charged, it permanently loses a fraction of its ability to be recharged. In general, that fraction is dependent upon how much the battery was discharged, and whether it was slow-charged or fast-charged (your laptop charger won't give you a choice). For example, a lithium-Ion laptop battery that is fully discharged during each use might only survive 500-800 charge cycles, but the same battery used at just 50 or 60% of its capacity might survive a couple thousand or more. If the battery is used with AC power most of the time, then it will self-discharge slightly when not in use, and take a slight recharge during the next use, over and over again. It may survive many thousands of these cycles but eventually it will wear out.

The long term lesson, IMO, is don't even worry about it. If you buy a laptop, then the battery is there to serve you, not the other way around, and pulling the battery while running on AC power doesn't make sense because you lose the benefits of having an uninterruptible power supply. Good-quality lithium-Ion cells are fairly robust. The worst battery behavior was in the old days when laptops still used Ni-Cad cells, which would tend to develop a "memory" effect when partially discharged and then recharged, reducing the usable capacity. With modern lithium-ion batteries, the worst behavior usually comes from low-rent Chinese replacement cells that sometimes fail suddenly or swell up from overheating, or IOW, if you want to pick up a spare battery for your laptop make sure you trust the source.
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