As it sits, my home computer has essentially turned into a glorified file server (than can play Battlefield 3, Diablo 3, etc. quite easily) but with my current LIFE schedule, it's hardly ever touched. Anyways, as part of the ongoing changes in my household, I'm going to re-locate my home PC into the crawlspace under my main stairway, leave it connected to my home entertainment unit (in the event I get time to play some Diablo 3 on the 46" tv) and continue to have it serve as that glorified file server. With that said, I'm thinking I would like to get a laptop. As long as it has a 15" screen and can play games decently (WoW, D3, SC2, etc). Any suggestions? And it's probably premature for me to be looking right now as I'm planning down the road. BUT...if a good deal comes along...why the heck not, you know?
I really like ASUS laptops. You've got lots of models, but for around 800-1000 you get a machine that will run these games, but for around 1200, you can get kickass rigs. Just check their site!
Yeah, Asus has a lot of bang-for-the-buck. Check out Toshiba too. Avoid Acer, HP, Compaq, eMachine, and Gateway.
Yeah. I bought my wife an refurbished HP with a 17" screen. Nice laptop w/ lots of juice to it for what she needs it for (picture editing), but...yeah. The CPU fan inside rattles like a bugger WAY too much for my liking and I'm having to blow the sucker out with compressed air every couple of weeks. Asus seems to have the best bang for buck when it comes to something with RAM, hard drive space, and dedicated graphics. I've already found one with a 17" screen, for that $800 price range I was looking at, that would probably more than suite my needs. BUT...I'm looking for something a little more portable. 17" would be nice, but I'm looking for something I can pick-up in my house, slap on my coffee table, and play while "watching" a movie or hang with my wife while she edits stuff. The price then jumps, but for being just dedicated to games, maybe some movies...understandable. I think by the time I'm ready to buy one, price is going to be super decent. Ultrabook would be nice, but intel graphics...blah.
I was checking out Alienware. For $1400, I can get a pretty sweet, kick ass notebook. OR...even for $1100, get something still really good.
I haven't priced anything recently, but I thought you always pay a major premium for Alienware over what you could get from Asus or someone like that. Is that not true, or do they offer something specific (better graphics card maybe?) that you are looking for?
Well...I priced out a similar Alienware to an Asus, and the pricing is about the same for all the specs, EXCEPT the Asus has 15.6" screen doing 1080p, where the Alienware has a 14" doing 1600x900. What's an extra inch? Oh...and the Asus has a 660M video card w/ 2GB versus the Alienware which is 1GB 650M. And to bump up the alienware, is an extra $100. Hmmmm...Asus FTW....for now. Not buying anything yet. BUT...keeping my eyes open, to get an idea, can't hurt.
I have only had 3 laptops in my adult life. My first, was a Dell netbook. It served me quite well, but CroweBaby took it (gladly gave it to her in order to make her leave faster). I have no clue if it still runs anymore, but it worked quite well. Next, I bought my wife a Dell Inspiron. Got a great deal on it through Dell's Outlet Center (~20% off, plus I had a 25% off coupon from buying the previous laptop. Next, I bought myself a newer Dell Inspiron than my wife had. It worked out perfectly for me, and was used extensively for our business. This past week, I did a ton of work and figured that I deserved an upgrade. I bought an ASUS G73JH. I then gave my old Dell Inspiron laptop to my business partner so he could help support more of the business's work load. The specs of the new beast are as follows: Intel i7 processor (1.73GHz) 6Gb of memory ATI Mobility Radeon 5870 video card 640Gb of hard drive space (divided up between two drives) 17" monitor Lighted keyboard Some sort of an integrated webcam (haven't even tried it yet) Three speaker sound system (2 + 1 subwoofer) This thing runs pretty damned smooth. Got it fro $625 shipped, in immanent condition (and with an Alienware computer case). It runs Starcraft 2 on max settings, and is very well built. Only downside I have discovered thus far is that it weighs a metric ton, and the battery life isn't that great. It is covered in a rubbery coating, which is quite nice (very comfortable to use, and grips your hands pretty well). I honestly couldn't imagine needing anything more. This thing is awesome! ~Will Courtier~
A few guys have owned Dell laptops at the office and the battery has always been the weak point. Either it would fail completely or after a year it would only hold a 30 minute charge. I've had an HP since 2009 and still get a good 90 minutes out of it. I'd buy HP again, the quality has impressed me. I'm hard on my laptops.
Work lappy is a Dell and I'd have to agree that the battery life isn't too great. It's docked most of the time. Home lappy is an Asus I bought as a Best Buytme refurb and no complaints so far (knock wood).
Asus is a great route. I ordered a few 17" Asus republic of gamers laptops (ivy bridge cpus and mobile gtx680 video cards and 16gb of ram) at work. Those things are extremely nice, you can even run 2 SSD's in RAID0 if you want. The 15" version is the same thing but you can't do RAID on it. I think it still has two hard drive bays (dont quote me on this) but no RAID support.
I'm working on killing my 3rd HP in less than 3 years. They get hot. First thing that went on the first 2 was the wifi. In this one they moved the wifi chip and it fried the HDD. Well its limping along at the moment but its dying fast. Bought my girls dell inspirons, they are dead now. Got a year and a half out of them at the most. Power supply, HDD, and where you plug them in all dead.
Well, still keeping my eyes open. My wife has had her HP for almost a year now and other than a rattling fan, it's not bad, even for a refurb. I've had Acers through work and they've been pretty decent. As it sits, plans have been delayed which is fine. BUT I'm a little worried with Windows 8 on the horizon and being the OS of choice for manufacturers.
Anyone have any experience with Samsung laptops? They look pretty sleek (lol copied from Apple) and I've been debating picking one up for class and more mobile computing outside of my iPad.
Well, I bought almost 10 various ASUS laptops for my work team. All kinds.. gaming rigs for the people that wanted ligthning fast computers (calculations, heavy load, and some games while at home) and Pro models for work only and docking options. Each purchase was a success. One of the main advantage of buying from ASUS is the solid warranty. You get 2 years by default and if you register, you get +1 year of coverage, which includes accidents. You spill coffee on the laptop during the 1st year? No problem, repairs/replacement for free! Also, stock installation are almost usable. You just have to uninstall 4-5 shitty programs and you are ready to go. I also bought 3 Acer laptops for work. Two worked okay, and one was a pile of shit with intermittent problems (getting service was hell). So yeah, Acer machines are "decent". When the ASUS laptops broke, everything was repaired without any hassle. Ans since it was managed by ASUS Canada, we would be on the same boat.
So, after doing some research, I'm now leaning towards a Lenovo. Weird, I know. But after doing some comparisons, I can get one with a better video card, less RAM initially (can be upgraded), with a 64GB SSD AND a 750GB hard drive, 15.6" screen but NOT Full HD, for $150 cheaper than the closest Asus. Going to do some more reading tonight but it looks like a good possibility.
Amen Lord Kain, those Acers are pretty shitty. I have 3 (two netbooks and a Gateway gaming laptop) and all three had to go back to be repaired under warranty. I actually had two out for warranty repair at the same time...
Didn't we have a thread on here a month or so ago praising the virtues of Vizio? I don't have any hands-on experience with any of their products, but the laptops sound interesting.
Oh god a MBA clone for $599. Super tempting. When is the next generation of Intel chips supposed to hit? Might pick up one then.
Haven't heard about their laptops, but Vizio's other consumer electronics get a lot of praise. Their $200-ish sound bar w/ wireless subwoofer just won Sound And Vision's soundbar shootout, beat out and embarrassed some established speaker companies.
Vizio is the non-Apple Apple. Open, standards compliant and building for design and experience. Everyone should check out that thread Sparky was talking about, Vizio is pretty awesome.
Haswell comes after the currently released Ivy Bridge, it wont be out till middle of 2013: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haswell_(microarchitecture)
