New laptop suggestions please?

[tHe_sTiG]

Not talking about this are you?

ASUS G51J 3D gaming notebook review

Very close, but without the 3D screen and an i5 instead of an i7. Seems that its Nvidea video card is not so recent... there's always something behind these bargain prices, outdated hardware and such...

My cousin recommended an HP Envy 14. Seen it, good specs (among the latest too) and reasonably priced. Not so sure, have you had or heard of anyone's experience with HP? I heard the Pavilions are basically a bunch of crapware in a casing, that's what's keeping me skeptical about HP.

As far as I've heard of Lenovo so far, looks pretty promising. Same goes to certain ASUS laptops. Alienware is generally too expensive, the M11x is underpowered, explained by the lower price. I'm not a big fan of Toshiba. I'm sharing a Tecra A8 currently with the familiy, don't like it, under-powered, painfully slow, hard-drive already crashed once. Is it a different story with the Qosmio??

 

[87RB30VL]

I had a HP until not too long ago, just got it back from the shop with fresh windows 7 and some more RAM installed, oh and also it was stuffed to the guys fixed it too since I didn't have my old CDs so I couldn't fresh install, cost around $500 and after a week my gfx card melted. My mate's HP also f-cked up, they get really hot & I find they are just sh-tty laptops in general

I'm currently running a Toshiba Satellite A660 (Discontinued for a few months now) & my first one stuffed up within about a month, even less (the NUMPAD 4 key was acting as if it was held down) and after I got that replaced I have no trouble playing most games in high quality, good sound, after a bit of tweaking it's super fast & I love it, but each to their own. My mate has the next model up (Qosimo or whatever) and his is roughly the same as mine in terms of gaming etc, I see no real differences except maybe his loads certain screens 1 second faster, which doesn't seem to matter, and the price tag (mine was about $1300 after haggling, his was around $2000 with no haggling).

Both my A660 and his Qosimo have never had HDD issues (apart from when we bump them, the HDD disconnects to protect it from damage but it doesn't really cause problems, just makes music go "dzzrrrr" for bout half a second), never have sound issues, or visual issues etc, massive resolution, decent screen size (I think they're 15.6 Inch), though his came with a bluray player whereas mine didn't since I have a bluray/dvd player & 2 ps3's so I didn't need it for the extra $600.

Some features are turbo cpu, 4xusb ports w/ 1 being a super fast/high speed or whatever it is, tv aerial input, HDMI port, SD card port, touch-buttons for volume & music controls etc, ethernet port & standard monitor port (blue plug with the screws)


Here's my specs:

System Specification---6/20/2011 10:42:16 PM


Windows Windows 7 Home Premium Edition (64-bit) Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)

Internet Explorer 8.0.7601.17514

Memory (RAM) 4027 MB

CPU Info Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 740 @ 1.73GHz

CPU Speed 1729.7 MHz

Sound Card Speakers (Realtek High Definiti

Display Adapters NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M | NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M | RDPDD Chained DD | RDP Encoder Mirror Driver | RDP Reflector Display Driver

Monitors 1x; Generic PnP Monitor |

Screen Resolution 1366 X 768 - 32 bit

Network Network Present

Network Adapters Virgin Mobile | Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller | Broadcom 802.11n Network Adapter

CD / DVD Drives D: HL-DT-STDVDRAM GT30N | E: WJM EFG9YVGX | F: DTSOFT BDROM | I: HUAWEI Mass Storage

Ports COM15 | COM16 | COM17 | COM18 | COM19 | COM20 | COM21 | COM22 | COM23 | COM24 | COM9 | COM10 | COM11 NOT Present

Mouse 16 Button Wheel Mouse Present

Hard Disks C: 451.8GB

Hard Disks - Free C: 284.1GB

USB Controllers 2 host controllers.

Firewire (1394) Not Detected

Manufacturer TOSHIBA

Product Make Satellite A660

AC Power Status OnLine

BIOS Info AT/AT COMPATIBLE | 07/02/10 | TOSCPL - 74

Time Zone E. Australia Standard Time

Battery High

Motherboard TOSHIBA NWQAA

IP Address

MAC Address

Host Name JAKESLAPTOP

 

[tHe_sTiG]

I had a HP until not too long ago, just got it back from the shop with fresh windows 7 and some more RAM installed, oh and also it was stuffed to the guys fixed it too since I didn't have my old CDs so I couldn't fresh install, cost around $500 and after a week my gfx card melted. My mate's HP also f-cked up, they get really hot & I find they are just sh-tty laptops in general

Thanks for the heads-up. But which HP laptop was this specifically, so I'll definetely avoid it. Pavilion? G series?

It seems that now the options have narrowed down to Lenovo and ASUS. Happy to get more advice and suggestions fellas!

 

[MikeCuzzy]

That's interesting, I have a HP (one of the little Compaq budget ones) and is a great machine.

 

[NV-MY-VT]

Hold up.

You guys need to be careful about what advice you are giving out in relation to performance.

A laptop with 4gb of ram and ANY i5 processor, with a 1gb video card recent as of any time in the last 2 years will play ANY game on the market today, hands down, no questions asked.

Anything you buy above this is "future proofing" for anything else in the future that requires alot more. Don't buy into the hype that you need the LATEST video card to run the games. As long as it's got a decent clock speed, and a decent amount of memory, you'll be fine.

Tell me fellas, Nvidea or ATI and why?? Also, size isn't all that matters, the newer the better, so I heard. The graphics card is probably the most important when taking high-end games into consideration, so I need a laptop with a really decent one!

As a general rule, Nvidia, simply because they tend to have more stable and reliable drivers. But that shouldn't mean you should discount ATI either, they often produce very good cards for sometimes a fraction of the cost.
Again, don't buy into the hype that you need a brand new video card. Any nvidia card that has a model number of only three numbers (GT250, 330 ect.) will be more than sufficient without knowing the ins and outs of every damn card on the market. It may not be the BEST, but it will do the goddamn job, and do it well, and probably save you 100-200 dollars in the process.

Also, some of the above mention Toshiba laptops. Good brand also, designed for business use.

 

[87RB30VL]

Thanks for the heads-up. But which HP laptop was this specifically, so I'll definetely avoid it. Pavilion? G series?

It seems that now the options have narrowed down to Lenovo and ASUS. Happy to get more advice and suggestions fellas!

It was a Pavillion I'm pretty sure

That's interesting, I have a HP (one of the little Compaq budget ones) and is a great machine.

I guess maybe I abused mine too hard lol, though the only thing I can think of with that is the smaller it is, the less it has to work for, which means less heat?

 

[MikeCuzzy]

I guess maybe I abused mine too hard lol, though the only thing I can think of with that is the smaller it is, the less it has to work for, which means less heat?

You've never seen me near electrical devices Generally rule is if it survives me, it's indestructible. My guess would be since I have a lower end/spec one, and as it lacks a graphics card, much less heat to deal with. I have it on 24/7, on my lap, on my bed, everywhere- never overheated. Probably the best laptop I've played with for the price. PC User gave it a 90-95% rating or something. I really can't speak more highly of it.

Interesting, perhaps you got a dud one? Only I have heard good things about HP before, it may be your series had a fault. Sucks when that happens though, I had a Western Digital HDD, always been fond of them. Mine had a head crash 1 week out of warranty. Wooooooo for me.

 

[87RB30VL]

I guess I should point out that mine was pretty old, well not like Packard Bell old, but I got it when The Burning Crusade expansion came out for WoW, so whenever that was haha

 

[DAKSTER]

Amending my earlier post, when I recommended a net-top it was just for data input and such at school, and I would have foreseen the bulk of the actual work happening at home on the desktop, with such added benefits of cheaper, faster internet thrown in. (yes of course the net top would have been able to use the home internet too but if you are at home anyway why not use the desktop.. )
In my own laptop hating world, they serve a purpose, but its only a very minor part. Laptops have small screens, small keyboards, cost a bomb to fix, have limited expansion possibilities and I find them uncomfortable and awkward to use.

You specified you wanted a gaming computer too. Depending on what you consider that to be, that also limits your choices. If you just want the game to play acceptably, then many laptops have sufficiently good inbuilt graphics for the job.
If you get the bug and start looking for better frame rates and higher res etc.. or start competing with your friends for the best benchmarking score.. then a laptop isn't going to cut it for you.

Keep in mind that laptops are harder to fix and easier to break. If you must have one, buy the Lenovo, just on the basis that its more likely to keep on keeping on....

 

[NV-MY-VT]

Amending my earlier post, when I recommended a net-top it was just for data input and such at school, and I would have foreseen the bulk of the actual work happening at home on the desktop, with such added benefits of cheaper, faster internet thrown in. (yes of course the net top would have been able to use the home internet too but if you are at home anyway why not use the desktop.. )
In my own laptop hating world, they serve a purpose, but its only a very minor part. Laptops have small screens, small keyboards, cost a bomb to fix, have limited expansion possibilities and I find them uncomfortable and awkward to use.

You specified you wanted a gaming computer too. Depending on what you consider that to be, that also limits your choices. If you just want the game to play acceptably, then many laptops have sufficiently good inbuilt graphics for the job.
If you get the bug and start looking for better frame rates and higher res etc.. or start competing with your friends for the best benchmarking score.. then a laptop isn't going to cut it for you.

Keep in mind that laptops are harder to fix and easier to break. If you must have one, buy the Lenovo, just on the basis that its more likely to keep on keeping on....

What he said.

Available from MSY (http://www.msy.com.au/Parts/notebook.pdf) is a Lenovo laptop.

CPU: Intel Core i5 480
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
RAM: 4GB DDR3
HDD: 500GB SATA
Graphic:Nvidia G310M
1GB Dedicated VGA
Screen: 15.6” (1366x768)
WXGA Led Glossy
* 1yr Warranty * DVD Burner * USB2.0
* WiFi * Bluetooth * 6 Cell Battery * Web Cam

It's $749 before cashback, with a $50 cash back incentive.

I highly recommend this laptop.