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Forums - PC Discussion - Laptop selection assistance!

Nightwish224 on 25 January 2011

So I'm currently in the market looking for a new laptop. I've had a Dell laptop for 4 years now, and I really see how over the years it has deteriorated. I'm tired of a slow laptop, and I really do NOT want to experience something like this again that I intend to spend $1000 plus for.

What I intend to use my laptop for:

Graduate studies / other school related assignments - *most important

General online surfing - music, video, etc

I've always wanted to get back into PC gaming, yet it's not a requirement. I really want to play that new Age of Empires game coming out! :) I've always been a fan.

 

Alienware aka Dell:

Though Alienware come with some nice features, I really am put off by some of their customer reviews and of course their Dell ownership. Has anyone else had any negative or maybe even positive experiences? I'm really attracted to how unique they are though.... :)

HP:

Based upon my interaction with HP, I can say they are much faster and just look to be of a better quality PC than Dell.

...I've also looked at Asus, yet I haven't really seen anyone else with them?

 

 

My other senario:

My friend works at Apple, which ultimately means I can receive his discount ;) I'm honestly not a big fan of Apple, yet I really do see how they are quality. Your assistance / reviews?

 

Thanks!

 

 



Everyone needs to play Lost Odyssey! Any opposition to this and I will have to just say, "If it's a fight you want, you got it!"

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PullusPardus on 25 January 2011

Whatever you do, avoid Toshiba and MSI laptops.



mchaza on 25 January 2011

Dell and HP dont make there own computers 

they buy the shells and deck them out themselves same with sony, samsung. 

What are you going to do for your school. Are you doing media assignments, involve heavy resources programs. 

Alienware isn't an laptop you can around out side your house. Its way to big and overpriced. 

And alienware type laptop would be the Asus G53jw-a1, that is an gaming laptop, priced around 1400 USD and will do what you ask. 

you got to set out your requirments for example 

multitasking: Core i7 

Gaming: core i5 

media programs: mid range gpu n

gaming: high range gpu 

taking away from home: 15" screen max

home pc replacement (get an pc if the case save tonne of money): up to 17"

see thats just an example from me, make your own list of needs then find an laptop your need, and there are alot of places that allow upgrades to laptops which is always good. 



Of Course That's Just My Opinion, I Could Be Wrong

dlist on 26 January 2011

Just visited amazon.com and they dropped the price for ASUS G73JH-X5 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop to $1,399.99. The screen is big, there are 2 HDDs, 8GB RAM and Intel i7 CPU. What more is there to desire?

This one is a good, solid machine. Especially if You want to get back into PC gaming ;)



Laptop Reviews

pacman91 on 26 January 2011
PullusPardus said:

Whatever you do, avoid Toshiba and MSI laptops.

Interesting. My Toshiba has treated me well.  Fairly cheap and depending on the model can handle quite a bit of gaming.



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xeroxm3 on 26 January 2011

I picked up an m11x R2 on Black Friday and it's a really nice computer. I was looking for something to play games on with good portability and it's doing the job just fine. I know IBM/Lenovo notebooks are really solid machines however I'm not sure if they have any cost efficient ones for gaming right now. 



Baalzamon on 26 January 2011
pacman91 said:
PullusPardus said:

Whatever you do, avoid Toshiba and MSI laptops.

Interesting. My Toshiba has treated me well.  Fairly cheap and depending on the model can handle quite a bit of gaming.

Yea, he doesn't know what he's talking about.  Toshiba is the 2nd most reliable laptop brand there is:

http://blog.squaretrade.com/2009/11/study-finds-one-in-three-laptops-fail-within-three-years.html

Plus, for $900, you can usually get a really nice Toshiba.  In August, I got one with 1.6 GHz i7 and a 1 gb geforce 300 something graphics card which has done nothing but impress me, 4 gb ram, 500 gb hard drive for $900.  Now, the new model is out with a 2.0 GHz i7, a little better graphics card, 6 gb ram, 750 gb hard drive for $900 around here...I would suggest nothing but a Toshiba.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

Soleron on 26 January 2011

You should probably wait for Sandy Bridge-based laptops to appear sometime this quarter.

Don't go for a current quad-core i7 because the battery life will be abysmal.

For gaming you need a discrete graphics card, preferably a Mobility 5650 (AMD) or GT 335M (Nvidia) or above, but not too good or battery life will again suffer. Fine balance there.



Baalzamon on 26 January 2011
trasharmdsister12 said:

I've had an Asus laptop for 3 years and it has been on for weeks at a time (not sleep mode... but actually ON and running). I also had the screen crack in my bag and a hard drive failure at one point and ASUS's warranty and customer service was actually really good on timing and service. It was honestly the least hastle I've ever had getting a piece of tech re-worked by a major company (well.. tied with my RROD'd 360).

I'd recommend ASUS for sure and tell you to stay away from Acer, Dell, HP, MSI and Toshiba. I'd also recommend Lenovo. Although the Thinkpad brand has diluted since moving from IBM to Lenovo, they're still very well spec'd machines with excellent damage prevention measures and great design (well.. I'm a really vanilla guy so I like the design) for reasonable prices.

I don't get why everybody says there is something wrong with Toshiba, what is wrong with it?  If you read the article I linked in my previous post, you will see Toshibas are actually very reliable machines.



Money can't buy happiness. Just video games, which make me happy.

xeroxm3 on 26 January 2011
Baalzamon said:
trasharmdsister12 said:

I've had an Asus laptop for 3 years and it has been on for weeks at a time (not sleep mode... but actually ON and running). I also had the screen crack in my bag and a hard drive failure at one point and ASUS's warranty and customer service was actually really good on timing and service. It was honestly the least hastle I've ever had getting a piece of tech re-worked by a major company (well.. tied with my RROD'd 360).

I'd recommend ASUS for sure and tell you to stay away from Acer, Dell, HP, MSI and Toshiba. I'd also recommend Lenovo. Although the Thinkpad brand has diluted since moving from IBM to Lenovo, they're still very well spec'd machines with excellent damage prevention measures and great design (well.. I'm a really vanilla guy so I like the design) for reasonable prices.

I don't get why everybody says there is something wrong with Toshiba, what is wrong with it?  If you read the article I linked in my previous post, you will see Toshibas are actually very reliable machines.

I think the only problems I've heard people complain about are heat issues. My friend got an ASUS notebook because his Toshiba always ran too hot when he was playing HoN.