Which laptop would you take?

I'm with the group of "Sell both of them"

Buy something more worthwhile, like an ASUS laptop.

or even better. Build a desktop, you'll get so much more performance for less and you don't have to worry about it overheating a majority of time if you have a case with good airflow. Laptops get HOT.

 

The HP without doubt.
Currently own a similar spec model and it's rock solid (with Windows 7...no place for Linux on this device), looks great, and feels well built.

 

The laptop I'm typing this on matches the Vaio almost to a T. I've got a 1.6ghz CPU instead of the faster one listed and a GeForce GT 320m for a GPU.

I find it extremely pleasing myself. Plays Dead Space maxed at 1600x900 as well as all Source engine based games. Doesn't do GTA IV worth a damn but whatever I have a desktop with a 24" display for that. I do encode a lot of video with this thing and it flies, however due to the i7 being in a laptop format the battery life is at best about an hour and a half. Perhaps a bit more if you turn off the wifi/bluetooth radio as well as turn down the screen's brightness level as low as it'll go. I've also found that booting into Linux or Windows XP can increase battery life by a bit more but nothing to write home about or enough to make you want to wipe the hdd and install a bare bone linux install.

 

How does the whole Wondows 7 & XP thing work? I've seen ads where they show both operating systems. Is it just a partition or something more?

Battery life isn't that important to me since it's mostly a desktop replacement. But the HP has a 9-cell battery just in case. I don't often travel but when I do it's a real challenge to stay on top of everything when I'm using my other laptop as a bridge (piece-of-shit Toshiba Vista).

I'd love to own a Mac someday but I'm often in a situation where I need to download new software at a moment's notice to get something done, and the last thing I ever want to do is be in a position where I can't get something working on a Mac when I really need it to. Maybe that doesn't happen as often these days but it just needs to happen once...

 

But then he'd have a shitty overpriced laptop and be a douchebag.

 

I wouldn't call something expensive that loses ten times less of its value in three years than something you'd probably call "reasonably priced".

 

All ASUS laptops I've had the misfortune of working with have been absolute rubbish. Never again!

 

Not sure about how the ads work honestly. The more expensive editions of Windows 7 come with "Windows XP Mode" which is essentially a VM that Microsoft bought and integrated with Windows 7. It works pretty well on my i7 honestly.

I installed XP onto a second hdd and slid it into the second bay my laptop has. Now I have OSX on that drive and XP running in VMWare for whatever I need it for.

 

He could always make a dual boot with Freedos on it, just for shits and giggles. I played around with freedos on my Linux mini pc, and it worked swell. But a mini pc (without a numerical keyboard) is a bit of a bummer, yeah I know you can buy an external numerical keyboard. But never mind the bollocks. But seriously, since I have zero knowledge of Vaio vs. The Other, then I think you should sell them both. And get a better laptop, and if you are a cheeky fellow, then you could dual boot the new beast with Windoze and Freedos and if you are even cheekier. Then you could always install Linux