Laptop advice

[karkas]

A co-worker asked me to recommend a laptop for her to buy for her husband's B-day since I tend to know more than anyone else around our office about computers.

Her husband does a little gaming, though nothing too hard core and she isn't really looking to hook him up with a kickass gaming laptop.

Neither of them really knows anything about computers, so having that in mind I was thinking of a manufacturer who puts less bloatware than others since I doubt they could uninstall it, but having said that I don't really think its a make-or-break deal.

She is willing to spend $500-1000 but would prefer to stay closer to $500 range.

Battery life is also really important to her so I was curious if many laptops CPU's can be easily undervolted to save a bit more juice, but I really don't have any experience OCing/underclocking laptops so I dunno if its a good option.

Two I'm considering for her now are...

Gateway T-6836; $800, 2ghz 65nm cpu, 4gb ram, vista 64, 250gb HDD, >3hrs batt life; X3100 graphics
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...&ref=06&loc=01&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=8892861

HP D5T; $800, 2ghz 45nm CPU, 2GB ram, 250GB HDD, little less batt life, X4500 graphics.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/s...4AV&aoid=20715&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=KQ574AV

Thanks for advice in advance

 

[Know Nuttin]

the HP is better, already has a cooler running CPU (45nm), and the x4500 is a better graphics chip than the x3100. Look here for the x4500 vs x3100 comparison

http://www.notebookjournal.de/praxis/79/2

not that it is a screamer by any standards though.

why not upgrade the HP to 9cell for $29 more?

CPU is definitely better in the HP (Gateway has a 5750, pretty old CPU).

laptops can be underclocked but i haven't really noticed much in the way of extra battery life by underclocking the CPU though I don't really use my laptop at full load often.