might be getting me a laptop

aenemic

aenemic

Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
I'm considering getting a laptop. never owned one before becuase I just haven't felt the need to. but I'm starting to feel like I have more use of one now, both for work and for entertainment.

I'm still not sure exactly what I want to use it for though... I pretty much have two options: either I get a really light and power-efficient one that I can easily bring with me everywhere and which will mainly be used for work, surfing the web and listening to music. and as mobile storage in general. the other option is a bigger and more powerful one that I can use for all the above but also have the ability to play games and watch films. this one won't be as light and easy to bring/use everywhere, but it might still work.

so any advice in general from people who are used to laptops? what should I look out for? anything I should really stay away from? also, what graphic cards are good/bad for laptops these days?
 
I would just say get a laptop rather than a desktop replacement.... you can get something light and relatively powerful for cheap and in two years just replace it for a new one or maybe upgrade it, depending on if you can or not.

Still as long as you can run simple games and older games, watch movies, manipulate documents then you are all set. Maybe you would even be fine with one that does not have a dvd drive.
 
you have to make up for yourself if you want a netbook / an ultraportable or a heavy gaming motherfucker.

btw, watching movies on netbooks is fine. don't understand why you added that to the game laptop.

as for the gaming laptops... remember that they age faster than a desktop...
i play Fallout, Arcanum & PS:T on my netbook. pretty neat. too bad the touchscreen doesn't work for the games. :(
 
that MSI looks nice, but it doesn't seem like it's available here in Sweden yet.

the thing is also that my selection is a bit narrowed down because I will preferably order from one specific store. not gonna care to explain why, but it limits my selection, that is all.

like you say, SuAside - I really need to decide what kind of laptop to get... which is hard. and you're right on the watching movies thing. I'm just thinking that I'd preferably have a bigger monitor than say 11" when watching movies on it. and that immediately means a bigger and heavier laptop.

I'm pretty interested in this one - price is good, it looks pretty powerful, and still not humongous or too heavy: http://www.inwarehouse.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=477536 (page is in swedish)
specs are:
15,4" screen
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 - 256 MB
2 GB RAM @ 667MHz (with option of having 4GB)
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 / 2 GHz (dual core)

not a gaming monster exactly, but definitely enough to play older games and probably some more recent ones.

what do you think?
 
I just picked me up a G71G-Q2 for work (and play).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220511&Tpk=ASUS+G71G-Q2

It took a while to make a decision on this. Lappys can be difficult and you REALLY want to be sure you fully trust the vendor.

DONT BUY FROM: CyberpowerPC, iPowerPC or xoticpc

The first two are for the most part scam companies. The last, doesn't like to tell folk when they are out of stock on a particular item and make it very difficult to cancel an order. :x

I arrived at my decision based on my three largest wants in a notebook. 1.) A full numpad 2.) Style 3.) Overkill on resources

I would have preferred an AMD/ATi rig but there are not any that really match my three wants.
 
I'm loving my T61 from Lenovo. Bought it second-hand, tore out the 80GB drive, put in a 250 one, also added 4GB of RAM that was amazingly cheap. Running Windows 7 RC on it now, playing LOTRO with no trouble, played Quake 4 and Doom 3 on it as well. Compact, enough horsepower, long battery life, excellent IBM keyboard and overall ergonomics.

But I'm biased towards ThinkPads.
 
whatever you do, don't go Dell. my company used to work with Dell and the old ones were pretty reliable. but my god, the past 2 years we've had about every new pc fail in some way (hardware failures). just totally shitty built quality.

Acers are generally ok, but their service if you have a problem can be rather slow. fine for you probably, but for companies it can be an issue.
 
About the acers, my friend has one and it was just paaacked with acer bloatware. I don't know if that's common practice or not, but it's pretty gnarly.
 
I am using an Acer currently and they're okay but Stag is 100% correct about the bloatware.
I have all this space and shit taken up by stuff I don't even use. But it was cheap and does what I want it to do I suppose.
 
I've never really had any luck with any laptops I've had. Then again I want a PC solely for gaming music and internet browsing and nothing more so I guess you'll be fine. My laptop is an ASUS X58L and it's probably the best one I've had yet. Low storage though but it works like a charm.
 
bloatware can be removed just fine. that's hardly an issue.

i'd pretty much never want to use the OS "as is" from a pc i'd buy with the shit preinstalled. the only exception to that rule is netbooks. often they come packed with handy netbook oriented software. the rest? i'd always scratch them before using them.
 
thanks for all the responses, I'll have to do some more research on your suggestions.

I'll just state again that I'm not looking for a monster of a portable gaming rig. I want a laptop that I can easily bring with me and don't require a whole table to put it on. and I guess battery life is kinda important too, but I'm not sure how picky you can be with that in a laptop with a powerful video card.
 
Speaking of monster... Mine arrived at my home yesterday (thank you UPS for leaving it on the porch). WOW, this thing is frackin' HUGE! I had the same experience when I purchased my old oversized Thermaltake Xazer III case. First astonishment, then laughter and a moment of silence while I contemplated the sheer size of the thing.

Good luck to you.
 
aenemic said:
that MSI looks nice, but it doesn't seem like it's available here in Sweden yet.

the thing is also that my selection is a bit narrowed down because I will preferably order from one specific store. not gonna care to explain why, but it limits my selection, that is all.

like you say, SuAside - I really need to decide what kind of laptop to get... which is hard. and you're right on the watching movies thing. I'm just thinking that I'd preferably have a bigger monitor than say 11" when watching movies on it. and that immediately means a bigger and heavier laptop.

I'm pretty interested in this one - price is good, it looks pretty powerful, and still not humongous or too heavy: http://www.inwarehouse.se/k/ki.aspx?sku=477536 (page is in swedish)
specs are:
15,4" screen
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 - 256 MB
2 GB RAM @ 667MHz (with option of having 4GB)
Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 / 2 GHz (dual core)

not a gaming monster exactly, but definitely enough to play older games and probably some more recent ones.

what do you think?
Click to expand...

Looked pretty OK, except for the battery life (up to 2 hours)
 
I just got a Toshiba Qosmio X300 and I am pretty happy with it. It's not like I am going to move it that much. Once 2-3 months? The specs are good, and there doesn't seem to be any major problems except for a more personal preference..., this type of keyboard is more sensitive but less easier to clean and keep clean. It at least has a full keyboard.
 
Bumpety-bump.

I'm looking for a laptop to serve as my student rig, as I'm starting a new study next month. It will mostly be used for standard office work, nothing heavy, no programming or gaming. I can do all that on my heavy-duty desktop.

The most important qualifications are portability and battery-life. Secondary would be the ability to watch movies smoothly, including 720p and possibly 1080p videos.
I'm looking at 12"to 14", I think 15" is slightly too large and unwieldy, while below 12" it gets too cramped and the resolutions get ridiculous.

What I don't want is a true netbook. I feel that they're too small for what I want to do, although the Samsung NC20 does look interesting.

Also, I'm looking sideways at a MacBook Pro 13", as even though they're slightly pricier they're interesting, and the user-friendliness is a real plus.
 
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