Lap Top Suitable for AV shows using Pictures to Exe

[stearman65]

I have specced up a laptop which matches my desktop in performance which I will be using to connect to a digital projector or TV to show or edit my productions. Any comments welcomed, my budget was £500 which I have exceeded so any suggestions to upgrade would have to be very very inexpensive. Finally, do I have to have the trials for Bullguard & MS Office pre installed, is the warranty dependent on Bull Guard being used. I use MSE on my desktop & am very happy with it.
Chassis & Display
Optimus II: 15.6" Glossy Full HD LED Widescreen (1920x1080)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Celeron® Dual Core Processor B840 (1.90 GHz) 2MB Cache
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
nVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M - 2GB DDR3 Video RAM - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SERIAL ATA II 2.5" HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (5,400rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
2 x USB 3.0 PORTS + 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Optimus Series 6 Cell Lithium-ION Battery (48.84WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 90W Adaptor (GT 540M) / 120W Adaptor (GT 555M)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Keyboard & Mouse
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12)
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £680.00 including VAT and delivery.

[vanthus]

Looks good to me.
You dont need to take the trials if you dont want them,
It wont affect your warranty.

[mantadog]

Do you really need a dedicated GPU? I would think you would benefit more from a stronger CPU than spending quite alot of cash on a dedicated graphics card.

Opting to go for an i3 processor would give you very strong onboard graphics which would be more than plenty to connect to a tv or projector. Obviously depending on exactly how much more power you need you have the option to upgrade the processor quite alot by removing the dedicaed GPU.

Here is my take on a spec somewhere arround your £500 budget.

Chassis & Display
Genesis III: 15.6" Glossy HD LED 16:9 Widescreen (1366x768)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i3 Dual Core Mobile Processor i3-2350M (2.30GHz) 3MB More powerful CPU with decent onboard graphics
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG 1333MHz SODIMM DDR3 MEMORY (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
Intel® HD Graphics 3000 Video Memory Technology up to 1.7GB
Memory - Hard Disk
500GB SEAGATE MOMENTUS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (7200 rpm)Faster HDD for only a few pounds more it is worth it for sure.
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x SATA DVD±R/RW/Dual Layer (+ 24x CD-RW)
Memory Card Reader
Internal 9 in 1 Card Reader (MMC/RSMMC/SD: Mini, XC & HC/MS: Pro & Duo)
Sound Card
Intel 2 Channel High Definition Audio + MIC/Headphone Jack
Bluetooth & Wireless
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N CARD INC. BLUETOOTH 3.0
USB Options
3 x USB 2.0 PORTS AS STANDARD
Battery
Genesis Series 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (48.84WH)
Power Lead & Adaptor
1 x UK Power Lead & 65W AC Adaptor
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)Only worth it if you need a specific feature, otherwise get the home premium
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIALCan skip this, wont have any effect on you warranty
Keyboard Language
INTEGRATED UK KEYBOARD WITH NUMBER PAD
Notebook Mouse
INTEGRATED 2 BUTTON TOUCHPAD MOUSE
Webcam
INTEGRATED 1.3 MEGAPIXEL WEBCAM
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Dead Pixel Guarantee
30 Day Dead Pixel Guarantee Inc. Labour & Carriage Costs (£12) Again if you on a budget a dead pixel isnt really the end of the world, i would skip this myself.
Insurance
1 Month Free Laptop Insurance inc. Accidental Damage & Theft
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £554.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/GenesisIII/

[Music Guy123]

Yeah, agreed with mantaDog, if you can afford it I would upgrade the CPU.

[stearman65]

The reason for chosing the Nvidia graphics card is to take care of the animation that can be used in the software for Pictures to Exe my AV software. I have that card in my desktop & know it copes well. W7 Professional is backwards compatable with XP so is suitable for some older hardware, Home Premium isn't
Thanks for the suggestions.

[TheKeir]

The reason for chosing the Nvidia graphics card is to take care of the animation that can be used in the software for Pictures to Exe my AV software. I have that card in my desktop & know it copes well. W7 Professional is backwards compatable with XP so is suitable for some older hardware, Home Premium isn't
Thanks for the suggestions.

There is no difference between Premium and Professional in terms of backwards compatibility, so Premium is fine for that.
You don't need a dedicated graphics card to do what you're doing, trust me you only need a GPU for gaming and high-end multimedia. So get integrated graphics and save yourself a lot of money.

You need to change your processor aswell, the Celeron is very old now and an i3 would be better in every way.

I wouldn't bother with the dead pixel guarantee, waste of money in my opinion, but make sure you get silver warranty for a fiver.

Look at Mantadog's spec, he has got it spot on (but remove the dead pixel guarantee, it will be useless if it's only one month (and probably a year) and get premium not professional).

If you do what I said, you can just about get it down to £500

[stearman65]

I'm afraid we beg to differ re W7 Professional compared to Home Premium. See attached pic from PCS's own spec page.W7 Prof.jpg

[mantadog]

Home premium has an xp compatability feature built in, i have used it to get mostly old games running fine i cant see how the professional version is going to help you to be honest.

The dedicated GPU you had selected originally would be be a good thing to have with a higher budget as it will help out with your intended uses. I am thinking you have a 550ti in your desktop? the 555m is like the mobile variant of that, but significantly slower than a 550ti. I would say with your budget just concentrate on the processor an i3 is going to be a better investment than a 555m for your intended uses.

Out of interest what are the specs of the desktop we are comparing to here?

[stearman65]

The spec of my desktop is as follows, it was built by Fantasy Computers Stockton.
Case - Thermaltake LanBox VF1000BNS.
CPU - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 / 1333 FSB, Retail Boxed with Intel ball-raced cooler.
Motherboard - ASRock (by ASUS), G41MH-GE socket-775. Four DDR2 DIMM slots.
Features - 1333FSB, 6 x USB2.0, Gigabit 10/100/1000 LAN port, DVi, HDMI, 7.1 audio
Graphics - Discrete graphics card, 1 Gb Nvidia Geforce GT 220 (PCI-Express x16) by XFX
Sound - Hi-Definition 7.1 premium quality audio chipset
Wireless - Wireless LAN card
Memory - 8 Gb PC6400 DDR2 800Mhz. (4 x 2Gb modules in total, matched pairs).
Hard-Drive - 1 Tb 7200rpm S-ATAII hard-drive, Large 32Mb buffer. Partitioned 50/50.
DVD-RW - Samsung SH-223 multi-format dual-layer drive, black, with Nero9 Essentials
PSU - 750W Quiet ATX Power-Supply by CIT
Keyboard - Logitech UK Windows keyboard
Mouse - Logitech scroll-wheel optical mouse
OS - Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit, DVD & Licence supplied. Also installed.

Stearman65

[mantadog]

So if you would simply be happy matching the performance of your desktop i think you would need a combanation of my spec and yours. The 555m you selected to help out is approx twice the speed of your desktop GT 220, but the processor would be very very much slower.

If you still want to get down to the £500 budget then i would go with my spec minus the dead pixel cover and the windows pro upgrade. That would be a slightly slower machine than your desktop but not too bad. If you are happy to spend the £680 of your original spec then you could get a very much faster machine than your desktop including a dedicated GPU and a quad core i7 which would blow your desktop away.