Need a laptop recommendation.

[Frag]

Tori has been wanting a laptop for some time. I cured my addiction of them in the 90's and haven't looked much into them since. I had a $1400 disaster happen at BestBuy last night (I should have known... <_<) that's left me with firstly a desire to have an online purchase as well as secondly need to wait until they refund my money (10ish business days) in order to go ahead with one.

So! What I'm hoping for is recommendations from people who have used them about what the pro's & con's of their favorite has been.

I'm dreaming of something in the sub-2k range that has a beefy (ha!) gfx card, vista, 3ish gigs of ram, a 9 cell lith-ion and 13.3 or 15.4" screen, and that runs cool (less than 100 degrees on the lap, I still have a burn mark from falling asleep with my Compaq running D2 on my legs :lol:) Is all that even possible? :rolleyes:

From the little I've read, it seems that if you want a cool laptop you're going to need to shell out serious money for a SSD and the ilk.

Thanks in advance,
~Frag B)

[Lissa]

If you don't mind Dell, XPS M1530, the Best listing might be what you're looking for with the big savings on it.

If you want HP, Pavillion, can do a lot of customizing

But what I opted for recently, Advanced Techonology. Final price tag for me was 3k, but it's got SLI M8700s. I'm able to run WoW at 16x AntiAliasing, 16 Anisotropy, 1920x1200 at 40 FPS in Shattrah with absolutely no jaggies, gorgeous colors, and no stuttering even with tons of people around. The machine should be good for 3 years or so.

[Concillian]

If you take note, no major computer company officially call them "laptops"

Instead they are called "notebooks"

There is a reason for this... they are not actually designed to be used in your lap =P

I'm afraid I can't be of any more help. I don't really do laptops or notebooks. Among other things, I virtually cannot function without a keypad.

I'm a strong proponent for if you need a notebook, get a cheap one and if you need to game on it, find a way to not need to game on it outside of low demand games that you enjoy passing the time with (D2, for example. ADOM / Angband / Nethack if you're hardcore oldschool, MAME or other Emulator like NESticle, even a tetris-like game). Then do your real gaming on your home computer. The highly proprietary and non-upgradable nature of notebooks is something you can't avoid. So is the triple digit marekup over comparable desktop upgrades.

I have a notebook, it was free, but it's decent (1GB / Sempron / ATi inbuilt graphics that are good enough for crappy gaming). If I need to go somewhere I can take that thing with me and keep myself entertained enough that I am fine. It would probably even play WoW, it would just take me 2 hours to set up my UI =P

[TheDragoon]

I bought a Dell Inspiron about a year and a half ago. It worked great (60 Fps everywhere) for a year, but then it started slowing down a lot (now it gets 20 Fps after a while). I think it is probably a cooling problem. I tried to talk to Dell but they were very unhelpful and I eventually gave up. If I were to look for a new laptop I would definitely make sure I got one that isn't going to wear out so much, if possible. The XPS from Dell might be better but you should do some research before buying from Dell.

[Frag]

Well, this is a closed thread now. Neonugs pointed me towards Slickdeals.net and there was a Drake level deal on XPS's from Dell. Picked up a XPS1330 decked out, including an LED for 1200 +$70 GC.

Thanks everybody,
~Frag :D

[kandrathe]

Well, this is a closed thread now. Neonugs pointed me towards Slickdeals.net and there was a Drake level deal on XPS's from Dell. Picked up a XPS1330 decked out, including an LED for 1200 +$70 GC.

Thanks everybody,
~Frag :D

Congrats... I also noticed Alienware is offering their Area-51 m9750 notebook starting at $1,699.

Tech Specs

[VinnieJones]

Woo! Grats Frags and Tori! I've been playing on an xps m170 that was tweaked out for almost two years now and it's still going strong. ANd I love their customer care warrenty.

*pours pop on laptop*
*calls Dell, tells them I poured pop on my lappy*
*Dell gives me a new laptop*

[Frag]

Congrats... I also noticed Alienware is offering their Area-51 m9750 notebook starting at $1,699.

Tech Specs

Yeah, we looked over that as well as the 1530's and such and decided that we really didn't need or want a gaming laptop as much as a "balanced" one that was easy to transport. Those 17" SLI monsters, as cool as they are, don't fit that category.

Appreciate all the feedback though, will update after we've had it for a bit and see how she works.

Cheers,
~Frag B)

[VinnieJones]

Hey, I port my 17" behemoth to and from work every day. On a side note, make sure you call dell for a replacement battery the moment yours dies *and it will, if you use it lots*, since they are only warrentied for a year. Also, I suprised the tech by destroying my ac adaptor through overuse. It was actually so out of sorts every time I would plug it it it would start beeping alarmingly like it was going to blow up shortly. The tech wasn't even aware that a/c adapters were capable of beeping.

[rotguter]

Tori has been wanting a laptop for some time. I cured my addiction of them in the 90's and haven't looked much into them since. I had a $1400 disaster happen at BestBuy last night (I should have known... <_<) that's left me with firstly a desire to have an online purchase as well as secondly need to wait until they refund my money (10ish business days) in order to go ahead with one.

So! What I'm hoping for is recommendations from people who have used them about what the pro's & con's of their favorite has been.

I'm dreaming of something in the sub-2k range that has a beefy (ha!) gfx card, vista, 3ish gigs of ram, a 9 cell lith-ion and 13.3 or 15.4" screen, and that runs cool (less than 100 degrees on the lap, I still have a burn mark from falling asleep with my Compaq running D2 on my legs :lol:) Is all that even possible? :rolleyes:

From the little I've read, it seems that if you want a cool laptop you're going to need to shell out serious money for a SSD and the ilk.

Thanks in advance,
~Frag B)

[rotguter]

Try costco online at costco .com they have very nice laptops and regular computers with great prices and geared really good for games,good warrantys