New laptop

[Warlord Zsinj]

Well, this is loosely related to Spring... My laptop died (about half way through my thesis) at the end of last year and I've been making do with a shitty one that can't really run spring.

I've finally worked up the money and get-go for a new one, but after doing some basic research I quickly realised that it's been a looong time since I've done this and I know just about nothing.

Anyone got any suggestions, either in terms of specs or brands that I should look for / avoid? A successful and reliable laptop purchase will bring IW closer to fruition

My budget stretches to about $2000AUD (AUD~=USD), and I need something that will handle reasonably high end multimedia and rendering (and explosions). I think I'm going to go for a 15" screen, my last laptop was 13" and while the transportability was great, the amount of hours I spent staring at that tiny little screen was pretty ridiculous. I think any bigger than 15" pretty much defeats the purpose of a laptop.

My last laptop was a dell and I had mixed results with it. It had heavy, heavy usage for 3 years - I had some problems with it while it was under warranty. It did die after about 3 years but it made it through four continents and a hell of a lot of use. I think this time, though, I will get the extended 3-year warranty. I understand that can stretch to about $300 but it's something I think needs to be paid.

Thanks for any advice!

[aegis]

I'd recommend a fast dual core (i7 or i5, but make sure it's dual) with an nvidia card (I like my 460m)

[koshi]

I suggest having a look at Lenovo's ThinkPad W510 series

[HeavyLancer]

If you want grunt and don't care about weight or battery life then you can't go wrong with the Clevo P151HM1:

• Core i7-2630QM (one of the new Intel quad core CPUs)
• Nvidia GTX460M
• 15.6" 1920x1080 resolution screen (much better than the current crop of 1366x768 screens)

Those are the vital statistics, the rest is generally upgradeable.

http://www.logicalblueone.com.au/store/ ... ebook.html

http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8130-cle ... -2973.html - This one has a Matte-type screen option with a 95% colour gamut, if you want to do some serious photo/graphics work.

Both of those will go for around $1800AUD (XoticPC does ship to Australia, but the warranty will require you to ship it back to the US)

As for general suggestions, just follow those sort of specs. The GT540M is a smaller graphics card that should be fine for most jobs too.

If you are concerned about warranty issues though, go for a Dell business model like the Latitude or Vostro series (not the consumer models, they have crap warranty and build quality for the price) or a Lenovo Thinkpad. They'll be under-specced compared to those Clevos, but the warranty is infinitely better (same-day courier pick-up etc.) and the build quality will be better too, particularly with regards to the keyboard and screen.

[MidKnight]

Is there any reason why you need a laptop?

My personal philosophy is that, unless you're someone who moves often, it's good to have a powerful desktop for most of your real work and a cheap, light laptop for portability.

[Neddie]

ASUS G Series G53JW-XN1 NoteBook

My primary computers are both desktops, but when I need to develop offsite or am at a LAN party, this is what I use.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834220921

Battery life is the primary weakness here, topping out at about two and a half hours with the default battery. Otherwise, it seems to handle itself well regardless of load or use. There are four RAM slots if you want to upgrade for any reason, and it supports 16 GB of DDR3.

[aegis]

I will say again - I really don't recommend a quad i7 in a laptop for gaming :) a dual core i7 will give you much better battery life and general performance, a quad will either be slower at dual-threaded things or totally ruin your battery life (if you got one of the really high end ones). the higher-clocked dual i7 has good battery life+price to performance ratio.

[SirArtturi]

Is there any reason why you need a laptop?

My personal philosophy is that, unless you're someone who moves often, it's good to have a powerful desktop for most of your real work and a cheap, light laptop for portability.

Exactly.

Buy a good desktop and it will last years, mine has lasted almost 10 with minor upgrades and even today It's doing fine with new games and tasks.

Investing 2000USD to laptop, that most probably will start collapse after a couple of years is imo just silly, unless you really need it to be portable and keep it always with you.

[aegis]

+1

the only reason I have a laptop for gaming is I have no desk (I play games on the couch or in bed)

my desktop was much more capable (awesome surround system, three video cards, quad core, four 23-24" monitors) for under $2k...

[Beherith]

What artturi said :)

Thats the whole reason netbooks are a viable option. Noone likes to lug around a 10 pound massive weight all day, for 2k, you get an excellent desktop far surpassing any laptop AND a decent netbook for all your travelling needs.

[Forboding Angel]

What artturi said :)

Thats the whole reason netbooks are a viable option. Noone likes to lug around a 10 pound massive weight all day, for 2k, you get an excellent desktop far surpassing any laptop AND a decent netbook for all your travelling needs.

^^ +9001

Also, when buying a portable computer. Stay away from anything with an intel sticker on it. If you absolutely have to have an intel cpu, make sure that it does not have an intel chipset on it.

Hmm, let me phrase this in another way. Don't buy a laptop that doesn't have either an ATI or NVIDIA sticker on it.

[aegis]

you only need non-intel if you're playing games.

if you're using it as a semi-primary gaming computer, get an nvidia 400-series card and a fast dual-core.

if you're not playing games, get something with high reviews, probably a slower or dynamically-clocked dual core, and long battery life.

[Warlord Zsinj]

Thanks for the responses, all.

The reason why I'm going for a laptop is that I'm probably going to be moving around a bit, having the intention to head overseas in the next 6-8 months, and from there I don't know how much moving around I'll do. So I really need to be able to stick my life in a bag.

I'm not primarily buying it for games, I'll be primarily using it for a combination of modelling, rendering, photoshop and other design work (I'm an architect). But I still want to be able to run decent games. I think those two goals don't exactly demand greatly divergent systems though.

And yeah, I'm aware that laptops are not particularly reliable, which is why I think the 3 year warranty is essential.

[Forboding Angel]

I'm not primarily buying it for games, I'll be primarily using it for a combination of modelling, rendering, photoshop and other design work (I'm an architect). But I still want to be able to run decent games. I think those two goals don't exactly demand greatly divergent systems though.

Get nvidia or ati, as Photoshop uses your gpu for extra oomph, and I imagine an integrated intel gpu won't help out much (I could be wrong considering that I dunno exactly in what way PS uses your gpu).

[Warlord Zsinj]

Excuse the bump. Finally got around to picking the laptop.

Looking at the Alien M14x
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-m14x/pd.aspx
Apparently I can annihilate from anywhere
PROCESSOR Intel┬« CoreÔäó i7 2630QM 2.0GHz (2.9GHz w/Turbo Boost, 6MB Cache)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
MEMORY 6GB DDR3 at 1600MHz
VIDEO CARD 3.0GB DDR3 NVIDIA┬« GeForce┬« GT 555M using NVIDIA OptimusÔäó technology
HARD DRIVE 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3Gb/s
LCD PANEL 14.0" High Def (720p/1366x768) with WLED backlight
WIRELESS CARDS Intel® Wireless-N WiFi Link 1000 a/g/n 1x2
WIRELESSHD None
INTERNAL OPTICAL DRIVE 8x SuperMulti DVD┬▒R/RW Slot Load Optical Drive
SOUND OPTIONS Internal High-Definition 5.1 Surround Sound Audio

One of the big sellers for me is that I can buy it from the US for about $500 cheaper then the aussie version but still have my warranty honoured by australian Dell.

Anyone got any experience or recommendations with that set up?

[HeavyLancer]

• The 3GB GT555M is a waste, the 1.5GB version will be sufficient
• Upgrade to the 900p monitor, you'll want the screen real-estate
• Get 4GB of RAM, if you want more then just upgrade it yourself to 8GB or something on the cheap.

Also, remember that Alienware is a ricer brand, opening one of those when you're at a job interview will get you laughed out of the building.

[Forboding Angel]

Moreover, you pay out the asshole for the brand name.

I agree with lancer except imo go for 8gb of ram. You'll thank yourself later.

[Warlord Zsinj]

'ricer brand'?

[HeavyLancer]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ricer
Alienware laptops have flashy lights (multi-colour backlit keyboards, pulsing alien head on the back of the screen) and unnecessary protruding angular pieces of plastic on them. They're a little bit juvenile, is all.

[Jazcash]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Ricer
Alienware laptops have flashy lights (multi-colour backlit keyboards, pulsing alien head on the back of the screen) and unnecessary protruding angular pieces of plastic on them. They're a little bit juvenile, is all.

My friend used to have one and it just sort of attracted everybody to it so he had people sitting round him every lunch time wanting to look and have a go which really pissed him off. You'd be silly to get one of these.