Another I need laptop buying advice thread

[lungs]

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!

[Ramzavail]

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

[markprior22]

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.

[rjolley]

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.

[MizzouRah]

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.

[sovereignstar]

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

[Honolulu_Blue]

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.

[sovereignstar]

I saw you viewing the thread.

[sovereignstar]

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).

[Honolulu_Blue]

Here's my original post on the matter:

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I would take a look at Sager laptops. Back in November, I was in the market for a new laptop or desktop. I decided to go laptop simply because I would use it a lot more. I wanted something that could handle the newest games, so I did a ton of research on gaming laptops.

It turns out that Sager laptops (I'd never heard of them before) get excellent reviews. I bought one in December and have been thrilled with it so far. I haven't had any issues with it. I am not sure what you can get at the price range you're looking for, but I'd recommend poking around.

Here are some websites that sell them (I bought mine from powernotebooks):

http://www.powernotebooks.com/

http://www.xoticpc.com/

I'd never heard of either dealer, but they are both incredibly reputable.

I also consulted this site (A LOT) during my research. These people are crazy about their laptops and very responsive. You can post a thread saying what you're looking for, specs, price range, etc. and will get a number of good responses quickly.

Here it is:

Notebook and Laptop Reviews

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.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

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.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

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).

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.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by lungs

What is the benefit of this?

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

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

[sovereignstar]

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!

[Edward64]

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.

[lungs]

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.

[sovereignstar]

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.

[lungs]

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.

[sovereignstar]

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.

[lungs]

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

[sovereignstar]

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.

[sovereignstar]

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.

[Scoobz0202]

I hate these threads

[Comey]

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.

[sovereignstar]

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

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

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.

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.

[MizzouRah]

I have never heard of a Sager..

[Comey]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar

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

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.

[sovereignstar]

Originally Posted by Comey

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.

[lungs]

Got my new machine today. Pretty wicked nice.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by lungs

Got my new machine today. Pretty wicked nice.

What did you end up buying?

[lungs]

Sager 8760

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by lungs

Sager 8760

Sweet.

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

[cartman]

Those new HP Envy laptops look like pretty sweet machines.

[cartman]

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.

[Philliesfan980]

What was the price on that Cartman?

[Scoobz0202]

That does sound like one sweet ass rig, Cartman.

[sovereignstar v2]

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.

[cartman]

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.

[MizzouRah]

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

[henry296]

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

[Philliesfan980]

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.

[sovereignstar v2]

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

Christmas isn't even here yet, but the team at NotebookReview.com can barely contain our excitement as we prepare for the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Keep reading to find out the inside scoop on what you can expect to see in the new year.

CES 2011 doesn't officially open its doors until Thursday, January 6th, but news about the newest laptops, accessories and related technology has already leaked onto the Internet. Although the editors here at NotebookReview.com have to keep a few secrets until after the start of the show, we can talk about the press releases and rumors that are already public knowledge.
The Las Vegas Convention Center will play host to much of the consumer technology industry as manufacturers showcase their latest and greatest -- and possibly even a few not-so-great products. Here's a quick look at a few of the big stories you'll want to follow during CES 2011. We will also be updating this article with links to the rest of our coverage so be sure to check back for more news from the show floor.
Weak economies result in tougher technologies
"Full featured" might be a better description than "tougher" technologies, but the reality is that electronics manufacturers are finally starting to realize that consumers and businesses demand more bang for their bucks when money is in short supply. Sure, laptop manufacturers have been mass producing netbooks (low cost, low performance mini laptops) for several years now, but in 2011, you can expect to see budget notebooks and netbooks offering significantly better performance than anything we've seen in this price range before.
The preliminary analyst reports suggest that holiday shoppers in the U.S. bought more consumer electronics during Black Friday and Cyber Monday in 2010 than they did in 2009, so despite terrible economic times it looks like people still need their PCs, smartphones and tablets. On the other hand, the huge spike in purchases on major sale days like Black Friday shows that people are holding onto their money until they think they can get the best possible deal.
Thanks to this financial environment, you can expect to see a wide range of notebook manufacturers, accessory companies, and even component suppliers talking about real value in 2011. You'll see $500 ultra-portable notebooks that rival or surpass the performance of today's $900 notebooks. You'll see super-fast USB 3.0-powered SSDs replacing standard external hard drives. You'll see new ways to connect all your digital media in faster, more affordable, and more convenient ways. In short, it's no longer enough to sell something at a low price; it has to meet or exceed the expectations of the buyer.

The Future is Fusion ... or Building a Sandy Bridge to the Future
We will see some major changes from the two biggest CPU manufacturers in 2011. The team here at NotebookReview.com showed you a hands-on preview of AMD's new "Brazos" platform: the first "Accelerated Processing Unit" (APU) that combines a CPU and a GPU on a single processor die. AMD has been promoting that "the future is fusion" when it comes to processor microarchitecture for several years now, but the new Brazos APUs actually may deliver on that promise.
Based on our initial tests with pre-production samples of AMD's new line of APUs, notebooks with the Brazos platform might indeed deliver longer battery life, less heat, discrete-level GPU performance at entry-level prices; and the accelerated internet, video, productivity and gaming performance that consumers don't currently get from systems priced under $500.
It's the "under $500" part that you should pay attention to here. AMD's Brazos APUs aren't extremely powerful processors, but they deliver fantastic multimedia performance and low power consumption at a low cost. This will make it possible for manufacturers to release numerous low-cost laptops in 2011 with much better video streaming and 1080p playback performance than what we currently see in this price range. We may even see the death of Intel Atom-based netbooks in 2011 if AMD's Brazos platform really takes off.
Over in the Intel camp, every notebook manufacturer around the globe is preparing for the release of high-end notebooks based on Intel's new Sandy Bridge platform. Without getting bogged down in technical details, Sandy Bridge is the code name for Intel's next generation of Core i3/i5/i7 processors. While Sandy Bridge doesn't have the same low-cost appeal as AMD's Brazos chips, Intel is leveraging high CPU performance with an all-new embedded graphics processor. Intel's solution isn't the same as AMD's APU, but much like the AMD solution, the new Intel chips will offer vastly superior video and gaming performance compared to current generation integrated graphics. It's safe to say we'll be seeing a lot of notebooks with Sandy Bridge inside during 2011.

Graphics: They're not just for gamers anymore
While we're on the topic of improved graphics performance from notebooks with both AMD and Intel chips, it's important to understand what this change means for consumers and businesses. Throughout most of the history of the personal computer, graphics performance only mattered to people who wanted to use their PCs for playing video games. While this is still largely true today, average consumers and business professionals alike are now able to leverage the technology inside graphics processing units (GPUs) in order to have a more satisfying experience both at work and at play.
Anyone who has actively browsed the Internet during the last two years knows that online video is an essential part of the modern web browsing experience. Whether you're checking out funny videos on YouTube, catching up on the latest episode of your favorite TV show on Hulu, watching your favorite Star Trek film on the NetFlix website, or having a video conference with your co-workers, video playback is as important to PCs today as a power cable or a battery.
Unfortunately, if you've used an older laptop or even a newer netbook with an Intel Atom processor and integrated graphics then you know that watching video online isn't always easy. High-end notebooks with dedicated GPUs have always managed to handle video without any problems, but no one wanted to pay for a high-performance graphics card in a low-cost laptop ... until now.
While the entry-level graphics chips inside the latest AMD and Intel processors still don't have the gaming performance of high-priced gaming PCs, the entry-level graphics we'll be seeing in 2011 promise to deliver video streaming and playback performance that is virtually identical to higher-priced multimedia notebooks today.
You might just remember 2011 as the year you could buy a cheap laptop and not regret the horrible performance immediately after your purchase.
More news and video from the road
NotebookReview.com and the entire TechnologyGuide.com team will be out in force covering CES 2011. We'll bring you more information about products as they're announced, commentary, photos and video from the show floor, and all the information that we're allowed to share with you.

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

[stevew]

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?

[Logan]

Reading this thread for the first time...

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

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.

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.

[Ajaxab]

Originally Posted by stevew

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?

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/

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Logan

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.

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.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by stevew

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?

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

[stevew]

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.

[Galaxy]

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