Buying a notebook: Choosing what you need

Since I'm having a hard time using our firm's computers (too many viruses, very old computers, unoptimized performance), I bought a notebook using whatever savings me & the wife has. When I was shopping around at Gilmore, I checked out all the available models within my budget range (PhP 24,000 max). I am not particular with the manufacturer (remember, all notebook brands have their machines built by Taiwanese manufacturers who in turn are creating second-and third-tier brands. Also, at that price range, no Windows installation software is provided.

As I went around, my budget will only fit notebooks with either a Celeron and Core Solo processors. The former was designed to be very limited while the latter was a manufacturing flaw (only one core is working). I decided to go with Core Solo since it was certain advanced features (Intel SpeedStep technology and larger L2 cache).

I wanted to have a notebook with more than sufficient memory, DVD RW drive, and Wifi. A sales personnel pushed ECS Elitegroup D25. No use looking at ECS website since no information is provided there. My theory is that Intel sold processors with manufacturing flaws (like Core Solo) at bargain prices to Taiwanese manufacturers which in turn produced otherwise relatively cheap notebooks.

Going back to the notebook, the current form of ECS D25 being peddled to me has 512 MB DDR2 RAM running at 667 Mhz, 80GB hard drive, modem/WiFi and DVD RW drive. It costs about PhP 22,000. I added another 1GB of RAM for PhP 1,000 and bought the notebook. It came with additional Creative Technology freebies such as USB mouse, 2.0 speakers and webcam to sweeten the deal. I also bought a keyboard protector and network cable.

It was hard installing the OS since there were 2 CDs without any direct written instructions. But I nailed it after two days. So far, the notebook is running superbly fine. I run various large programs while watching at YouTube without any glitch. More on that later.