Getting a New Laptop

[alexander]

Hello.

At the end of this August, Early September I am going to be buying a laptop. I have £1000 to spend but am probably going to buy a cheaper laptop which has a good CPU and graphics card and then upgrade the RAM and hard drive myself.

So probably a laptop around the £800 mark and then £200 worth of upgrades that I would do myself.


My first thought is to go with Dell, looking at their site, the laptops do seem to be fairly bulky.

Anyway, here are the things I need in order:

1) Portability - I'm going to be moving it around quite a bit so it needs to be fairly thin and light

2) Power - Maybe a bit of gaming but not going to be a gaming machine, just the odd game like Pro Evo 4, Rugby 2005 with friends.

3) Battery Life - Don't like having to charge it up stupid amounts of times

4) Quietness, I like my PCs to be silent.


I know that is asking alot but I have seen the Dell X1, that is too small for what I need and not powerful enough.

I will be buying a 3 year warranty with the laptop as I don't know how to take them apart, I will be getting someone else to add the HD and RAM.


Oh yeah, if any of you have Dell Laptops such as the Latitudes or Inspirons please could you post pictures of a side on angle with something to draw it to scale such as a CD or pound coin?


I was originally definately going with Dell but I couldn't decide between Latitude or Inspiron, now I am open to other WELL KNOWN makes.


Any advice would be appreciated.

[Dougal]

If you're going to be playing games and want a long battery life you aren't going to get it for sub £1200.

Gaming is CPU intensive.

Try to look round on ebay for 2nd hand units if you do want it.

Or get a laptop that does the bare minimum of stuff you need it for (couple of hundred) and get a SFF for gaming with a TFT.

[tiggerai]

I've got an NEC versa 940s which is fantastic...

I've upgraded the RAM from 256 to 768 which cost £60

It's got everything you could possibly need all built in, and it's lightning quick too.

Just my recommendation (i've got a bad back, which means I couldn't have anything too heavy or bulky, this is the ideal size and weight for feeble little me)

[alexander]

Hi, Perhaps I should move gaming down the list, it isn't essential.

Its only going to be the odd game, not games like BF2 but just simple ones.

[mosherben]

Dell seems to have a bad customer service record. You might want to have a read at http://www.grohol.com/computers/dell99.htm.

I wouldn't recommend IBM as I had a rather irratating exprience with them (laptop won't turn on and there was a dispute over liquid spillage. In the end I convinced them it was down to the motherboard's resistors leaking). I had a friend check the laptop after they said there was liquid spillage and we came to the conclusion that this was very unlikely to be caused by me due to the location of the damage. By the time I got my laptop repaired, my laptop had been unusable for 5 months by which time the laptop had lost have it's value. I am stil considering to ask for compension due to lost time.

My friend is getting a turion laptop, and is getting this: http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4...crc=3156822727

The lowest is 1049 quid but it is a good buy I would say. It fits all of your requirements.

[alexander]

Hi, thanks for the reply.


My brother actually has a Dell and got the 3 Year warranty, I was very, very impressed with their support. His laptop broke twice in 3 years and the engineers came out the very next day and sorted everything out, even when we were in another country. They swapped out the motherboard straight away and got everything working.

[Marcos]

If you're going to be playing games and want a long battery life you aren't going to get it for sub £1200.

Gaming is CPU intensive.

I'm pretty sure he wants to do gaming at home/friend's house, and work on the laptop on the go, but i very much doubt he wants to play games on-the-go running off the battery. Don't think anyone does

So a laptop that can provide the power when plugged in, but provide the battery life when not would be what he is after.

[alexander]

I'm pretty sure he wants to do gaming at home/friend's house, and work on the laptop on the go, but i very much doubt he wants to play games on-the-go running off the battery. Don't think anyone does

So a laptop that can provide the power when plugged in, but provide the battery life when not would be what he is after.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Any more recommendations, I've seen the Asus V6V which looks absolutely great:

http://www.gdhardware.com/hardware/n...us/v6v/001.htm


But some places quote it as 25mm thick and other 36mm thick?

Any different suggestions, or is a Dell just a thin as this?

[Marcos]

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Any more recommendations, I've seen the Asus V6V which looks absolutely great:

http://www.gdhardware.com/hardware/n...us/v6v/001.htm


But some places quote it as 25mm thick and other 36mm thick?

Any different suggestions, or is a Dell just a thin as this?

Btw, I have a Sony Vaio S-Series, it's an ultraportable at under an inch thick and weighs 1.89kg total. Built-in DVD-/+RW and 13.3" widescreen X-black display.

Reason i'm mentioning this is because its an ultraportable that can also handle games, I play Call of Duty on it no problems at all, and at decent settings (i think it can do max). It will also handle BF2 at lowest settings and i've even played online on it and kept up .

I got it for £900 in absolutely brand new unused condition from ebay so it was an incredible bargain considering it has what would have been considered desktop-replacement spec a year ago in a tiny 13.3" body at under 2kg.

If it wasn't for the retail price (£1300+) and the horror stories i've read about sony customer support i'd whole-heartedly recommend it

[alexander]

Has anyone any Dell laptop pictures from the side?

[Rabs]

Get an Acer laptop as recommended by me in this thread...Clicky

Basically, its small, light, has good battery life, plays games nicely and has good warranty options. Everything you could ask for

[Tobeman]

Asus baby. Got my Asus Z71V from AJP Computers a couple of months ago. Plays Battlefield 2 at 1440x900 at medium settings, and World of Warcraft at 1680x1050 with settings I haven't changed but it looks amazing

It hasnt got one of those nasty glossy screens either. Has ALS (ambient light sensor) and will change the screen brightness dependant on the light in the surroundings. Its really quiet, even when under load.

It weighs under 3kg, and with Pentium M Dothan processor, DDR400 RAM, SATAII drive, dual layer burner.. do I have to go on? You'll suspect me working for Asus otherwise, lol

Doing office tasks the battery lasts well over 3.5hrs, and you can remove the optical drive and insert a second battery to almost double your battery life ^_^

Hope this is of some help

[alexander]

Asus baby. Got my Asus Z71V from AJP Computers a couple of months ago. Plays Battlefield 2 at 1440x900 at medium settings, and World of Warcraft at 1680x1050 with settings I haven't changed but it looks amazing

It hasnt got one of those nasty glossy screens either. Has ALS (ambient light sensor) and will change the screen brightness dependant on the light in the surroundings. Its really quiet, even when under load.

It weighs under 3kg, and with Pentium M Dothan processor, DDR400 RAM, SATAII drive, dual layer burner.. do I have to go on? You'll suspect me working for Asus otherwise, lol

Doing office tasks the battery lasts well over 3.5hrs, and you can remove the optical drive and insert a second battery to almost double your battery life ^_^

Hope this is of some help

Wow sounds like a great laptop.

How much did you pay?

Do you have a digital camera to take a side on picture?

[Tobeman]

I forgot, its powered by a 128mb nvidia 6600 Go GPU, I'll post some pics when I can find my digi camera It cost just over a grand.

[Shmee150]

Please don't ever get an Acer. To summarise - "you get what you pay for" - they are cheaper... yes, they do seem to offer a lot... yes. But is it worth it when it breaks down 6 months later, then needs to be sent back to Acer repairs who are useless, so away for another month or two ... and I could go on....

ShMeE

[Marcos]

I forgot, its powered by a 128mb nvidia 6600 Go GPU, I'll post some pics when I can find my digi camera It cost just over a grand.

What size screen?