I sold my 2 and a half year old Compaq 4118AP notebook. Its hinges were broken and battery was also worn out. The costs for repairing/replacing them was excessive – Rs. 7000 for battery and 4000 for battery. Instead of appending 11000 (approx. $275) on an old notebook, I thought it would be wise to sell it off and buy a new one since new ones are available for as low as 20000 Rupees ($500). SO I sold the old one and now I am looking for a new one. I have short listed two – Acer Aspire 4520 WXMi and Compaq Presario V3749AU. Both are AMD x64 Dual core and both have 2 GB of RAM and NVIDIA graphics. Something that I always wanted in my notebook. Although it won’t be able to run any latest games (I don’t want to either) it’s better than Intel’s on board graphics!

Now I am thinking which one to go for.

Acer one is bit cheaper at 34000($850) than Compaq one at 35500($887.5) but is better looking and has Dolby digital surround sound. The Compaq is bit faster than Acer. Below is the comparison chart of the features that I feel are important for me.

The Acer wins in looks and multimedia with its Dolby sound and 0.3 MP web cam, the Compaq is better in terms of CPU (2 GHz as against 1.90 GHz) and better graphics chip. But the most important factor for me is Windows Experience Index. I wasn’t able to run Windows Aero on my last notebook because it had low end Intel onboard graphics. The Acer Aspire 4520 WXMi has Windows Experience Index of 3.0. I haven’t had a chance to see the same for Compaq Presario V3749AU. Microsoft recommends a score of 3 to run Windows Aero. Tomorrow I am going to buy one of them, and before finalizing I will check the Windows Experience Index. If both have the same index then I will go for Compaq.

In fact when I am writing this post, I am thinking if both are going to be same then I should just select Compaq because it is better in terms of performance. With its specs Compaq one can sure not have a score below 3, so it looks like I have made up my mind!

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