Another I need laptop buying advice thread
 

My desktop is starting to run slower than molasses in January so I figured it's time for a new computer, but I'd like to go with a laptop this time.

I'll just break down the basics:

Budget - $1700 soft limit, $2000 hard limit. If it's well worth spending $2000 I'll do it.

I'd use it for music, internets, and gaming. The extent of my gaming is text sims and Paradox Games like EU3.

I don't want it preloaded with a bunch of stupid shit if at all possible.

I'm not building my own, I'll just fuck something up.

Fire away with suggestions and they are all appreciated!

I'm not sure but I got fingerprint recognition in my new one and its pretty fly to just swipe your finger.

I love my Asus laptop I bought about 1.5 years ago. I'm sure they have new models out now but I'm very happy with my purchase.

I picked up the ASUS G73JH from Best Buy and it's a great laptop. A little less features than the same machine sold on other sites, but it does the job for me at a price that's about $400 less than the other models.

If the games you play don't need a top of the line gaming machine, you should be able to find something for $1500 or less.

From a purely IT view.

Dells have been horrible unless you go with a Latitude E series, stay away from the D series.

HP's have been solid, 6930P elite books have been stellar thus far.

Can get a pretty good laptop for 1500. I'm a Sager/Clevo guy myself, so that's all I'll recommend. Check out the 8690 (15") or 8760 (17"). Powerful machines that are a little bit heavier. Let me know if you have any questions. Can buy them from many different resellers, one being http://www.xoticpc.com/index.html

I'd highly recommend the Sager brand. I bought one about a year and a half ago and have loved it.

They are gaming laptops. They come with great video cards, solid processors, plenty of ram and have nothing other than the operating system, software for the camera and fingerprint ID installed on them. No junkware at all.

In 18 months since I've had mine *knocks soundly on wood*, I've never had an issue. It runs great and hasn't met a game it can't play yet.

You can check them out here:

Custom Laptops by PowerNotebooks.com™ - Custom Built Gaming Laptop Computers (where I got mine from)

and here

Gaming Laptops - XOTIC PC - Gaming Notebooks - Custom Laptops - Custom Notebooks


edit: Solid timing on our part, sov. lungs, you can do a search here for "sager" and there should be a few more posts from myself and others on them.

I saw you viewing the thread. ;)

I'd also recommend getting a solid state hard drive as your budget should allow room for one. Very snappy if you get one of the good ones (like a 2nd gen Intel). Worth the premium price IMO. I have an 80GB SSD as my primary/boot drive and a 500GB drive as my secondary (the 8760 has 2 bays).

Here's my original post on the matter:


That Notebook and Laptop review website is crazy detailed and the folks there are very responsive.

Back when I did my search in late 2008, I obsessed over it for about 3-4 complete days.

Yeah, NBR is a pretty good resource. Pretty hardcore place that can be a little overwhelming sometimes. There are "owners threads" for pretty much every model that exists, so you can find out a shit-ton about any prospective model.

What is the benefit of this?

How about processor and RAM.... Is i7 processor worth the upgrade?

I may end up blowing my budget anyway just because that's what I tend to do.

Payments won't have any interest anyway. And I don't have a wife to answer to when I blow that kind of money.

An SSD has much better access time than a traditional hard drive. It boots up the OS quicker and applications have less load time as well. However, their write speeds aren't quite as good, but the load times outweigh this in my opinion. Having two hard drives is beneficial because it allows me to have an SSD run the OS, but I can still get the storage space in a secondary drive for music, videos, etc. And an SSD with a capicity higher than 80-128GB can get very spendy. You could also get two identical drives (SSD or not) and run them in RAID (google that if you don't know what it is).

I have what used to be the cream of the crop processor - a 920xm Core i7 Quad. Pretty much overkill, but I wanted the best. As far as I know, not too many things can take advantage of 4 cores yet, but I wanted something that was going to be somewhat future-proof. You'd probably be fine getting one of the higher end dual cores. Be aware that not all i7's are quad cores (only the 720/740,820/840, and 920/940 are). The quads run hot and only certain models can accommodate them.

As for RAM, I'd recommend 4GB. You could get more, but you probably wouldn't see much of a difference unless you do heavy photo/video editing. Even the everyday multitasker won't use more than 4GB. All that said, I did recently upgrade to 8GB. lol

Oh, I'd also recommend checking this site as a reference for video cards:

Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M

Even for a casual gamer I'd recommend getting something that at least grades out as a Class 2. Do NOT get an onboard/integrated graphics card!

A budget of $1,700 is pretty good for a non-gaming machine. I'm partial to Lenovo Thinkpads and you can find the low end T410 i3 for about $800-$900 now and then. I do my research at the Notebook and Laptop reviews site above but monitor deals at

Hot Deals - SlickDeals.net Forums
Dell Coupons, Best Deals, Discount Cheap Laptops, Computer Sale, Codes

In Lenovo's case, get into the shareholder program (SPP) and you will generally save about $100 over what is advertised. They do load ti with a bunch of stuff but you can always delete/reformat the drive. Also, get the 2GB RAM and buy another 2GB at Newegg.

I would go SSD if money wasn't an issue but it is still relatively expensive. Instead, you may consider buying the Seagate Momentus XT "hybrid" HD has a 4GB SSD in it to help speed things up.

Went with the Sager 8760 and customized it to blow my budget pretty severely :)

Go big or go home. For something I use so much, I'll pay a premium if it means I don't have to buy a new one in two years.

lol

I do hope you did your research. While I *love* my 8760 and don't regret my purchase one bit, it is not for everyone. It's been called loud and bulky and the battery in it is almost non-existent so as to accommodate a 2nd hard drive and prevent it from sizing up as a monster. It would definitely be classified as a "desktop replacement". Just hope I didn't mislead you into buying something you weren't really looking for. I'm pretty sure you can get a full refund within a certain amount of days, so either way you should be covered. Would be curious to see what specs you ended up going with.

No, it's almost exactly what I'm looking for. Desktop replacement is exactly what I'm doing. It doesn't need to be that portable, that's what my Droid is for.

Glad to hear that, because your typical laptop user would probably hate this thing. lol

It does the things it's meant to do very, very well though and I'll probably stick with Sager for life.

Basically I was looking for a desktop computer that I could use from my recliner :)

You may want to look into getting a laptop stand/table then as you might not want to keep it on your lap for long. Something to ponder after you try it out. It has superior cooling, so it really just depends on how much you work it.

And if you ever need to do some venting, as a Sager/Clevo user, your natural rival is Alienware, so feel free to direct your hate that way. :)

I hate these threads :(

I was going to go the route of Sager, in all likelihood, until I went with my Sony Vaio Z. Expensive, but goddamn, it's worth every cent.

There are a lot of solid 13" solutions for excellent portability. Even the Vaio Z, at the base cost, fits into your price range. You can find good deals, and get the price lowered a bit by Sony.

A lot of people frown upon 1080 on a 13" machine...but oh man, it's just the greatest to me.

As far as Sager...very reputable company, make great machines. I don't think you can go wrong there, unless you want long battery life. Even then, most Sager products get roughly 1:30 to 2 hours of life.

Like the Z, but it's got a fairly weak video card. Not meant for any hardcore gaming - not like any 13" is. :)

This is a good point. I got a cheap little cooling pad. It's not one with fans or anything else. Just a piece of plastic with some raised sections at the corners and a felt bottom. I keep the laptop on it and then rest the pad on a pillow or what not. Definitely helps with the heat.

I think I got it for something like $19.99. Perhaps less.

I have never heard of a Sager..

The 330 isn't bad...much better than I thought it'd be. I can play NBA2k10 and MLB2k10 on here with zero issues. Granted, they aren't powerhouses, but I've seen information from others who play demanding games on the Z is very little issue.

Yeah, I didn't mean to imply that you couldn't play games, just that you won't be able to play them at very high settings. The other problem is that there isn't much breathing room in those smaller laptops. That said, if I was getting something more mobile than my current machine, I'd be very tempted to buy a Z.

Got my new machine today. Pretty wicked nice.

What did you end up buying?

Sager 8760

Sweet.

Got my Sager 8660 back in Dec. 2008 and still loving it. I hope your experience is the same.

Those new HP Envy laptops look like pretty sweet machines.

Just got my new HP Envy 17 laptop set up. It is FRIGGIN AWESOME! Here's the specs:

17.3 inch 1920x1080 screen
Core i7 quad core CPU with Hyperthreading
8GB of RAM
1GB ATI Radeon video
Slot load Blu-Ray drive
64GB SSD boot drive
320GB data drive

The case is aluminum, and takes quite a few styling cues from the MacBooks.

What was the price on that Cartman?

That does sound like one sweet ass rig, Cartman.

I'd consider getting a laptop cooler for that thing, especially if you do any graphic-intensive gaming. The Envys have had issues with overheating.

With the SSD, it was right around $1600.

As for the heat, I was aware of the overheating issues. However, HP did a redesign, and that appears to have taken care of it. I was playing Civ 5 while watching the Cowboys-Giants game, and while the lower left side is definitely warm, my surface thermometer is showing 99 degrees. Early adopters were reporting in the 120-130 range.

I went shopping for a laptop for my daughter yesterday since my wife has pretty much taken hers over the past two months when she discovered Big Fish games.

All the HP's I liked at Best Buy were sold out and they HP rep said, "You can't even get these online" as he tried to sell me one for $549. (I don't remember the one I bought on display at Best Buy though)

I left and decided to hop on the net this morning and was very happy to order this one, which is a little bit better than the one I was going to purchase yesterday. I even had a $25 reward zone credit, so the total came to $405.. I'm very happy!

The intel core i3 processor alone makes this a great buy.. imho.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....egories&ks=960

My current laptop is an Inspiron 1720 but about 3.5 years old. I've been looking for a new one. Primary use is games (CIV5, FM, other text sims). I priced out this XPS 15 from Dell at a little under $1,250. What do you think?

Software & Services
COLORS Silver Anodized Aluminum 15.6" HD (720p) WLED Display with 2.0 MP webcam edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English edit
Dell Recommends
Get everything you need for work and home. Windows 7 Professional offers the features you need for business along with the great media and entertainment features of Home Premium.
Upgrade to Genuine Windows® 7 Professional, 64bit, English [Add $130.00 or $4.00/month1]


PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ i7-740QM (1.73GHz, 8 threads, turbo boost up to 2.93GHz, 6M cache) edit
VIDEO CARD NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 435M 2GB graphics edit
MEMORY 8GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory edit
HARD DRIVE 640GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive edit
BATTERY OPTIONS 92 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery edit
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE Tray Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD) edit
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1000 edit
MOBILE BROADBAND No Mobile Broadband Selected edit
KEYBOARD Standard Keyboard - English edit

The specs sound good, but to be honest, I've always had bad luck with Dell's. They can never seem to get the cooling part down, and while the components are great, the machine runs so hot, it ends up being a very unstable machine while gaming.

To me, it sounds like you're a person that keeps a laptop for a little while. If you can, I'd recommend on spending a couple hundred more and getting a Sager.

I'd hold off on buying something for a little while if you can. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is right around the corner and the latest and greatest tech follows it in late January/February.

I'm a Sager/Clevo guy myself and would only recommend them to someone that doesn't keep it away from the charger for more than an hour at a time. For the most part, they are powerful desktop replacements and not your typical laptop. I can barely get an hour on the battery with my 8760.

CES 2011 Preview: What's New in the New Year


CES 2011 Preview: What's New in the New Year

I want something lightweight, screensize of 12-14 inches. Made of metal if possible. And a good battery life. Is there anything other than either the macbook air to consider?

Reading this thread for the first time...


As I read this thread at work (I have a Macbook at home), I read your second line and slowly looked down at my laptop looking for the Dell model type...forgetting that they got rid of our Dells last year.

Then I read the third line, looked down and saw "Elitebook 6930p" and now I know that you should be heading our IT dept if you can get this to run stellar. Whoever is in charge fucked these up royally, agency-wide.

You might try asking over at the Notebook Review forum. There seem to be a lot of knowledgeable people over there. http://forum.notebookreview.com/what...-should-i-buy/

That sucks.. our best laptop, although we just started receiving the 8440's and are finally putting a Windows 7 image on the new pc's.

The cousin laptop to mine sounds like it might fit the bill. Check out the HP Envy 14.

The Envy 14 is kind of on my radar. But I had that major issue with my DV7 laptop by HP and I don't know if I want to give them money again. I like the look of the Dell Adamo, but I may as well buy apple for that money.

Are the cheaper laptops okay for the basic functions? Internet, Excel, and Word?

DOLA.
Wanted to add that I have the office package already. My 6-year old laptop crapped out this morning. Looking at my needs, all I need is basically the net and some of the Office programs. Wireless as well. I save my music and saved documments on my ubs sticks.

I've been very happy with the Envy 17. The only issue I had was a strange, high pitched, morse code sound while the thing was running. It was incredibly aggravating when I used it in quiet places. Turned out there was a simple software fix to cure it, as it was related to the microphone in jack. Also, I found out that when using it on planes, it pulls more power than the seats can supply. :)

I am looking at the HP dv7t and my customized setup will run me about $1250.

It seems cartman has been really happy with his Envy17 and for a few hundred more bucks (about $450 to be exact) I may go for that? Anyone had a dv7t? The resolution will be higher on the Envy but not much else changes from my maxed out setup on the dv7t...

I have a dv7, but I think it is 2 generations old. Mine basically melted although they replaced it quickly. Now my blu ray drive isn't working and I probably will have to wipe/reinstall.

And just in case you didn't know, a 17" notebook is not very portable.

Supposedly new intel chips come out soon, so maybe wait to see how it plays out? Sandy Bridge chipset.

I have an old dv7t. It's still running fine after 5-6 years. Have had to replace the fan a few times but overall, it's been a good machine. It was my main personal box until I picked up my current one last year.

Sandy Bridge is fucked for the time being.

http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...c969af815715bf

I have a dv7 that's a couple years old. Not the most portable thing in the world (although it's okay to take on business trip and all, but it is heavy and unwieldy), but it's still running perfectly fine.

Thanks for the help guys. I ended up ordering the Dv7. It should be here in a couple weeks.

Anyone heard anything about or seen an Alienware m11x?

The m11x seem to be fairly popular laptops. I've never quite understood the market for tiny laptops that can only play new games in low settings, but whatever. I know they had some hinge issues early on as well.

Anyone have any thoughts on the Macbook Air? I've never owned a Mac before, but am thinking about making the switch. Is it worth the price compared to a netbook?

Well I ordered myself a new HP laptop the other night.

I know people rag on HP and love their Sager's, but I've had my HP for 4 years now, and it's still chugging along.

Basically wanted a new one that was a)lighter, b)beefier RAM/processor

Work is paying for it, so that's nice. Managed to spec it out at about $1,300 after a nice coupon I found online, only changed one or two things from the stock DV7. Could have jacked up the processor a bit, but I think that one ought to be fine for the next couple years, and I was being cost-conscious (god knows why...my business partner isn't).

dv7t Quad Ed
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• 2nd generation Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 2.9 GHz
• 1GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
• FREE Upgrade to 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 1TB 5400RPM Dual Hard Drive (500GB x 2) with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
• 17.3" diagonal Full HD HP Anti-glare LED Display (1920 x 1080)
• FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader
• Intel 802.11b/g/n WLAN with Wireless Display Support

Not the most portable thing in the world at all, but I looked at slightly smaller screens and realized that as much as I multi-task on it I "need" the extra screen real estate. Considering maybe picking up a netbook for business trips now that the prices on them have come way down (tablet's not really useful given the type of work I have to do - lots of MS office work). But I can travel with the 17inch guy, and i don't travel all that much, so I dunno.

What kind of difference is there between an i7-2630qm and a i5-2410m. I'm looking at getting either the Envy14 with 6630 graphics, or an XPS15 with a 540m chip. I really like the look and feel of the 14, but the XPS15 seems to have much more power. I don't game much, but I'm pretty sure that either will do well with the games I play. Does anyone have an XPS15?

Okay for those of you who know more about computers than me (most everyone) I need some advice on two different laptops. I am looking for something to replace my 7 year old laptop which is on its last leg. I need the laptop for internet surfing, Microsoft office (word and excel primarily), some work software which is very light computer usage and gaming like Puresim, OOTP, FOF etc. I do not play any newer games with fancy graphics. Here are the two options I am looking at right now.

Newegg.com - ASUS A53 Series A53E-XN1 Notebook Intel Pentium B940(2.00GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel HD Graphics

Newegg.com - TOSHIBA Satellite L755D-S5250 Notebook AMD A-Series A4-3300M(1.9GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 6480G

Thanks in advance for any help.

Okay here is a new entry into my computer options. Dumb question of course, quad core good or bad in a laptop?

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AS5552-7803 Notebook AMD Phenom II Quad-Core N970(2.2GHz) 15.6" Wide XGA 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 640GB HDD 5400rpm DVD-RAM/±R/±RW ATI Radeon HD 4250

cubboyroy, I wonder if you'd be interested in taking a laptop off of my hands. Basically, I bought a Sager a couple of years ago and started upgrading parts in it very quickly. I went from a 720qm quad core to a 920xm, 4gb to 8gb ram, and also upgraded my wireless card. Instead of selling the parts I bought a barebones laptop and put this extra stuff in it. It's a nice laptop, but I just don't have the need for it. Been wanting to sell it but am hesitant to sell to strangers.

It's a Compal NBLB2. You can read about the company here -- Compal Electronics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

--i7 720qm processor
--4gb RAM
--ati 5650 mobile gpu
--500gb 7200rpm hard drive
--intel 5300 wireless
--would include a fresh install of Windows 7

Basically, it knocks the socks off the other laptops you linked to above. Downside would be there is no warranty left. I could sell for 425 including shipping.

Let me know if you'd be interested or have any questions.

Mobile CPU Benchmark/Comparison List -- Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Mobile GPU Comparison List -- http://www.notebookcheck.net/Compari...rds.130.0.html

I will have to give that one some thought. With my luck I would definitely lean to the no side because i seem to have the kiss of death with electronics.

Haha, I understand. I'd consider spending a little bit more and getting one of the Sandy Bridge i5 processors. Getting a dedicated video card isn't such a bad idea either. Not sure if you play Football Manager, but I wouldn't recommend anyone do so without a dedicated card.

I can't speak to this particular laptop, but it meets both the criteria above.

Newegg.com - Acer Aspire AS5750G-6824 Notebook Intel Core i5 2410M(2.30GHz) 15.6" Wide XGA 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD-RAM/±R/±RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 520M

No Football Manager for me, love the game but just do not have the time to play it. Not sure how much I want to spend the extra $100 either since I am such a cheap ass...lol.

Sovereign based on the models listed which one would you choose?

Out of the ones you posted? The Acer Aspire AS5552-7803 with the quad-core AMD. What exactly is your max budget?

Since I started this thread, and it's bumped, I figured I could ask for my mother.

She just needs a simple laptop for internet and such. Probably a budget around $600. Any suggestions on brands? I love my Sager but that might be too hardcore for her with a lot of unnecessary stuff. Looking more for reliability and not necessary bells and whistles.

Most brands are pretty similar when it comes to reliability. From Consumer Reports.

Thanks

This might be a good place to start to get acquainted with some of the more mainstream laptops. I don't really know or seek out too much info on the popular brands nowadays.

Most Popular Laptops for September 2011

I really don't want to go over $500.

How about $527? :)

ASUS K53E-A1 15.6" Notebook. ASUS K53E-A1

$550 at newegg

I bought this one for my daughter last Christmas at a special sale price for $430.. it's been STELLAR.

Amazon.com: Used and New: HP G62-373dx 15.6" Laptop / Intel Core i-3 Processor / 3GB DDR3 Memory / 320GB Hard Drive / Webcam / HDMI (Biscotti

Okay one last entry. This is a 17.3 which is what I have now. Comments?

Newegg.com - lenovo G770 (10372MU) Notebook Intel Core i3 2310M(2.10GHz) 17.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 750GB HDD 5400rpm BD Combo Intel HD Graphics 3000

Good stuff. I need a new one. One to write a paper for a Masters degree and it also needs the ability to play a lot of leagues in FM

Shoot just noticed the 17.3 model is out of stock go figure.

Some other deals

Toshiba Satellite P755-S5270 Laptop: Core i5 2410M 2.3GHz, 6GB DDR3, 750GB HDD, 15.6" 1366x768 LED, GeForce GT 540M, 6-cell Battery, Win 7 Prem $599 + Free Shipping - Page 3 - Ebay.com Deals, Coupons and Promos

HP Pavilion g7-1235dx Laptop: AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M 2.3Ghz, 17.3" LED-Backlit (1600x900), 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Radeon HD 6520G, WiFi-N, 6-Cell Battery, Win 7 Prem $450 + Free In-s - Slickdeals.net


The question is....which one can run FM2012?

Toshiba Satellite L775D-S7340 17.3" Laptop | Staples®

Anyone have any thoughts on this computer?