New Laptop, SSD or not and which

Hello people,

I am looking to buy a new laptop, and I found a nice looking model.
Its a XXODD laptop, which is a reseller of Clevo.

to summerise some of the specs:

Intel Core i7 720QM (4 cores, 8 threads, 1,60GHz, 2,80GHz Turbo, 6MB)
CHIPSET Intel PM55
VIDEO ATI Mobility Radeon 4570, 512MB GDDR2 VGA
Memory 4GB DDR3 1333Mhz (2x 2GB)

with a 6 cell battery

Website with full specs (Google Translate)

The machine will need to be able to run a couple of Virtual machines

Now my issue is, SSD or no SSD.

I can get

120GB Serial-ATA Solid State Drive G1
64MB cache buffer
260MB/s read, 180MB/s write

for 312 euro (~460,- USD)

After informing I found out its from Team Group
I have never heard of this group and for some reason am unable to find any benchmark or review.

Now I wonder, is this a good idea, or should I get a normal disk and order an SSD myself (suggestions please, heard intel one is populair currently)

Or do you say, skip SSD entirely

This laptop only holds one 2.5" drive and it will have to do as my system drive and some storage.
It does have an ESATA port to I could get an external hard disk should I run out of space for Virtual Machines and what not

I hope I can get some help here, searching the internet for 2 days without finding results is demoralising

First of all, thanks for the reply

I would say a budget of about 1500 euro

With that SSD the laptop would be 1388 so within budget

Most people tell me an SSD is the best upgrade you can get for any PC or notebook which sounds very tempting
As said before, if storage becomes an issue I can always attach a E-Sata (or even USB) hard disk its not really my main concern

Sadly, I can't easily get my hands on a 80 Gb model (without importing, silly country this is)

I can however get the Intel X25-M SATA II, 160GB | SSDSA2MH160G2R5

That's the non boxed version

I would assume the performance should be the same?

The 160 gig vs the 80 gig is sligthly faster (mainly on the less important Seq writes with the new Firmware (WHEN INTEL GETs it Fixed) . Boosts the 160 more than the 80 gig version.

Anadtech Quote
Alongside TRIM there’s one more surprise. If you own a 160GB X25-M G2, Intel boosted sequential write speeds from 80MB/s to 100MB/s:
End Quote


??? The R5 is for a "Boxed" Version

Yes, I just noticed

Assumed it was not, the website I will order it from has two versions listed

The R5 and the C1, the C1 is 40 euro more expensive.

Guess they mass bought R5's

As for webshops, yes can't get SSD's in normal stores, and if you could it would be way more expensive than the webshops.

Thanks for the replies, I think I will order my laptop with a 500 Gb Sata II drive, put in the intel 160 gb and put the 500Gb in an ESata enclosure.

Got any enclosure you recommend?
In worst case I'll have to take it with me a couple of times a week in my backpack

Been looking at http://e3wwwtest.newegg.com/Produc [...] 6817198042

But once again, can't get it anywhere (have to import Amazon is the only store I found that can sofar)