Recommend me a new Laptop

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Hi. can anybody recommend me a new laptop around the 500-700 price bracket please?

The following things i will use it for are:

• Bit of gaming(Rift, Pro evo 2011, fallout new vegas)
• Programming
• Photoshop
• watching HD movies
• Video chat using skype
• Web browsing

so far i found this from samsung http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptop...-6in-Laptop/p1 and this from toshiba http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.c...ibaShop/false/

both look decent for my needs. I am trying to stay away from acer as i have had two acer laptops and both suffered from various reliablity issues.

i have heard both samsung and toshiba offer better reliability?

thanks in advance.

[Behemoth]

Avoid the Tosh like the plague. They have one of the worst failure rates once they hit 18 months old of any laptop I have ever seen. Also the build quality I found with them was very poor, they always feel very hollow to me.

Much better off the Samsung Feels like a better built laptop, feels solid.

[MSIC]

Since you mention photoshop, it's worth asking you if you need a really good screen which can display Adobe rgb etc, or do you mean that you are simply using photoshop for personal?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at the Dell Inspiron 15 or the Dell XPS 17:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/...codes-coupons/

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/...-evalue-codes/

The Inspiron 15 has the AMD Mobility Radeon 5650 graphics card and the XPS 17 has the Nvidia GeForce GT435M graphics card.

This laptop from pcspecialist also has an AMD Mobility Radeon 5650 graphics card:

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/form-v...gma-i7-laptop/

Here is some more info about the graphics cards:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mob...0.23697.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-...M.35836.0.html

The AMD Mobility Radeon HD5650 should have slightly lower performance when compared to a desktop HD5570 DDR3 or GDDR3 graphics card:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2935

The Nvidia GeForce GT435M should have slightly lower performance when compared to a desktop GT240 DDR3 or GDDR3 graphics card:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2906

[Molotov]

What cat said
I did a lot of research recently - dell xps's seemed like the best options

[j.o.s.h.1408]

nice one. i saw this one from dell http://www.trustedreviews.com/laptop...Dell-XPS-15/p1

looks really good. nice battery life. dell have good build quality?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Both the AMD Mobility HD5650 and Nvidia GeForce GT435M are faster graphics cards than the Nvidia GeForce GT420M.

[MSIC]

If a good quality screen matters, and you are willing to consider lightly-used 2nd hand:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Sony-VAIO-VGN-...ht_6481wt_1139

The only concern for me would be his description of being willing to "warp it well"

[j.o.s.h.1408]

Since you mention photoshop, it's worth asking you if you need a really good screen which can display Adobe rgb etc, or do you mean that you are simply using photoshop for personal?

personal.

my current laptops screwed after i tried applying new thermal paste on it! it is a acer 8202 which i have had for over 4 years now.

went down hill 2 years ago when laptop kept killing my battery(i replaced and bought 3 times and all 3 died) and then the laptop cant survive without a laptop cooler below it now as the fans ramp up if you watch youtube videos and gets quite hot too.

crap laptop. keyboard is pants also. rubbish. never acer again. my dad has acer too and that switches off by its own(BSOD) every 10mins. even tried a brand new fresh install and still the same crap.

anyways i think i may go with the dell. not sure if i will go with a dell xps 17 though because it may be a bit too big and heavy to carry around?

[MSIC]

I also think that xps is the best bet. I just threw that eBay job in to mix it up

[j.o.s.h.1408]

17inch one? how portable is it? i dont mind if its a bit heavier then a 15 inch one. just want one thats decent enough to carry around. especially as hand carry in planes

how long does delivery take? i see that only a selected few are under the "fast shipping" option form the dell website

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you are going for a more portable laptop perhaps an Alienware M11x is worth considering:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/...-evalue-deals/

You can also get cashback on Dell purchases from TopCashBack and Quidco:

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/dell/

http://www.quidco.com/dell/

[Molotov]

Travel wise
I had 18.5 inch acer juggernaut before
If you have one of the decent made hand luggage wheely case things which is exactly the maximum size this is what 18.5 fits into snugly.
So basically either 15 and 17 will be fine they are however a bit chubby (still shouldn't be an issue but amount of hand lugage is obviously compromised).
If you need better GPU like cat said (yet again) cheapest 17 has better gpu than any 15 (stupid, I heard in US they get to have an option to upgrade it - we don't)

Another thing to consider is that neither has 1080p screen and 17 one would show this issue about more than 15.

I was originally going to go with cheapest 115 since 100 pound differences for processor upgrades looked ridiculous.

Also worth keeping an eye on the dell student page - they had some very nice deals on xps's on there - even if you are not one yourself I'm sure you could find some1 you know who is.

P.S. Student thing - http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home...IR&lid=SHP_BK1 I know they are crap now but they change all the time

[j.o.s.h.1408]

i wouldn't go for a 1080p screen. not on a 15 or 17 as the etxt size will be far too small. my acer is a 1680x1050 on a 15inch and its awful. hard to read text. bad for my eyes and wished it was lower res.

[Molotov]

orite orite !
just giving a bit of info - I personally prefer 1080 on above 15s -.-
still hope the rest helped

[j.o.s.h.1408]

If you are going for a more portable laptop perhaps an Alienware M11x is worth considering:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/...-evalue-deals/

You can also get cashback on Dell purchases from TopCashBack and Quidco:

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/dell/

http://www.quidco.com/dell/

is that website reliable?