$800 laptop dilemma

http://www.nabava.net/prijenosna-rac...-156__19374111

or

I could really use some advice here—I'm planning to head out and pick one up this Monday, but I'm stuck between these two.

The Dell obviously has a more powerful processor, and honestly, it looks like a better value for the price compared to the $1833
Dell. Also, the Dell doesn't have an optical drive—has anyone ever actually missed having one? It feels like a thing of the past, but I don't know.
On the other hand, if I go through Best Buy, I can get the HP with a 5-year warranty instead of just the 2-year warranty you'd get with the Dell.

Which one do you think is the smarter buy?

The specific usage doesn't really matter; I just want to know which deal is better. Is that jump in performance worth trading away three extra years of peace of mind with the warranty?

Dell. It’s a newer platform, way better build quality, much nicer screen... HP also offers a 2-year warranty, and the rest is likely just insurance through an authorized service center, so check out the top thread for details...

DVDs are honestly just obsolete at this point, especially with cheap USB sticks and external hard drives everywhere.

Of course, what you actually plan to do with it matters most. If you're looking at gaming or doing some heavy-duty video editing, then this Dell is probably a pretty logical choice, given that it has a quad-core processor and a decent graphics card.

That said, if the goal is just multimedia or browsing the web, I guess you might want to look at something with a more power-efficient processor and an IPS screen. Having an SSD would also make the machine feel noticeably snappier, and you'd likely get much better battery life out of it.

I suppose everything just boils down to how you intend to use it.

Is this a solid deal for the price?

http://www.dell.com/hp-x554la-xx1...a-xx1887d.aspx

It might be okay, but honestly, it could probably be better... Depends on what you actually plan to do with it.

darkowl72 said:It might be okay, but honestly, it could probably be better... Depends on what you actually plan to do with it.

The focus will be mainly on Adobe Illustrator and light usage of Photoshop. It's primarily for 2D graphics and standard productivity software.

HP's X series is bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, which doesn't exactly scream high quality. You've got standard resolution, a downclocked processor, and integrated graphics—that’s not exactly how you describe a laptop meant for heavy graphic design work. The only decent thing about it is the SSD, but even that is tiny.

Don't get me wrong, it'll work, but if you want a suggestion for something actually decent and fast, I'm going to need to know what kind of hard budget we're working with here.

I appreciate such a detailed response. I was primarily drawn to the value offered by having both an SSD and an HDD included in the package.

My budget would be around $750.

I'll keep digging, but honestly, I don't think you're going to find anything under $800 that actually packs a fast processor, decent graphics, and a FullHD screen. So far, these are my best bets for the price:

Edit:

Looks like the cheapest option is over at Amazon:

darkowl72 said:I'll keep digging, but honestly, I don't think you're going to find anything under $800 that actually packs a fast processor, decent graphics, and a FullHD screen. So far, these are my best bets for the price:

Edit:

Looks like the cheapest option is over at Amazon:

That third HP model looks excellent. Thank you for the suggestion. 👍