Laptops?

[Jonno34]

Hey everyone,

Im useless with technology, so far ive owned 2 different netbooks, both have given me the shits since their well near unusable! Lag like mad, even using MS word .. very nice to carry overseas though lol.

I need a laptop that will be more than fast enough to run the basics, and a little bit of gaming - nothing hardcore but a decent range of games would be nice.

Ive been seeing some i5 systems with 4gb of ram go for pretty cheap lately, and thinking of getting that and adding more ram to a total of 8gb. But then I've been reading what other people are using, and it seems like there's more than one type of i5 and i7 etc?

I'm baffled - anybody got any suggestions as to what I need?

So far I'm leaning towards HP and Acer, they seem to be good value for money and I know others who have owned these for sometime and they have been reliable for long periods of time - unlike my netbooks

reliability is probably the key aspect of what I need, and good enough to play some games would be nice

Cheers!

[Hadouken]

If you didnt want to play games then id say this

Mac

/thread

haha jokes

But in all honesty Toshiba for reliability.

[tweety bird]

+1 toshiba

i have a hp atm and i will not be getting another one.

[bozodos]

dell inspiron / XPS, not sure what the go is ATM with i7's and 5400rpm drives being put in everything, buy i5, purchase SSD to put in = profit

[Spurdo]

to be honest im pretty sure the brand of laptop has about nothing to do with reliability. i would have seen models from just about every brand have it's share of problems over the years and if theres one pattern i've noticed its that every brand has it's crap laptops, and they always seem to be the cheap ones. if you aim higher up their model lineup the build quality in general just seems to be a bit more solid IMO. the components are all made by external sources, all the notebook company does is slap them together inside a case.

a lot of people like to drag acer through the dirt but i've had my acer since mid 2009 and it still works as perfectly as it did the day i got it.

regardless of what brand you get though i thoroughly recommend doing a blank install of your OS without all the branded add-on bloatware that the laptop comes pre-loaded with.

i choose my brand based on which laptop i like the layout of. some have weird keyboards that i cant seem to type properly with, and i like a full size numeric keypad. i also take note of where the usb's and power plug etc is to make sure things aren't going to be in annoying places where they will foul something else on my desk etc.

[SoFreshSoClean]

If you can afford it, macs are the best laptops available. For serious gaming not so much, but they'll play most things fine at lower settings.

All people who have not owned a mac laptop be silent from here on

[Jonno34]

thanks for the opinions everyone, I wish I could get a proper PC for gaming etc- im still using a dual core with 4gb of ram but I cant afford both a laptop and PC atm and a laptops more important right now, since I have my PS3 for most games.

I've yet to own a mac, I used them once in computer classes back in highschool, but I couldn't figure out the controls etc at all, and I'm quite slow to learn .. so i'll probably stick to windows for now

I had a good acer laptop for 3 years before these netbooks, worked well while it lasted, and their laptops seem to be good value for money, and i've known a few people with HP's that have lasted for quite some time and worked well.

My budgets around 900 - 1000, if I can't afford a local one I'm going overseas to Asia soon - I've gotten laptops cheaper there before , plus the currency helps out nicely, but ive seen i5s with 4GB of ram go for like 600-700 here (acer and hp - toshiba seems to be more pricey)

I think I'll just look for the best i5 with a faster hard drive and pump up the ram to 8gb?

Does anyone know what the numbers after the i5 mean? I've seen like i5 4500 and stuff like that - it baffles me - I assume higher number = better?

Oh and what kind of specs should I be looking for with the graphics card?

Cheers again!

[Spurdo]

even the best of laptops are still pretty shit for gaming on so i wouldn't get carried away being picky on something like graphics cards. as long as you avoid anything with "integrated graphics" and get something with a reasonable card it should be all good for just about any game your likely to play on it, as long as your not going to split hairs over it. still, cant hurt to get the card's model number from the prospective laptop and google it for some reviews or something. don't get too carried away with numbers on processors either. most i5's will comfortably handle any game you can throw at it, i7's are overkill in most cases. the graphics card is what does the bulk of the work to run games.

and yeah the more ram the better usually. 8gb might be overkill for most of what you get up to but at least it'll be a bit more futureproof.

[89CAL]

Last laptop i bought was a 13" Samsung. Its been the best laptop I've had so far. My last Toshiba laptop was pretty good, but so far the Samsung is performing better

advertised 7 hour battery life (although I can only get about 5hrs out of it, its still pretty good). I use it for tuning every so often and its a good size/peformer for that

Has a graphics card, but dont really remember the specs, didnt buy it for that anyway lol

[ras1983]

Macs are actually really good machines for running windows. The problem with Macs is the high purchase price, the Apple mentality of "you can only purchase our accessories", the lack of drivers for some of their hardware when running windows and the lack of support for OS X when it comes to running more specialised programs like finance-related programs.

[Jonno34]

even the best of laptops are still pretty shit for gaming on so i wouldn't get carried away being picky on something like graphics cards. as long as you avoid anything with "integrated graphics" and get something with a reasonable card it should be all good for just about any game your likely to play on it, as long as your not going to split hairs over it. still, cant hurt to get the card's model number from the prospective laptop and google it for some reviews or something. don't get too carried away with numbers on processors either. most i5's will comfortably handle any game you can throw at it, i7's are overkill in most cases. the graphics card is what does the bulk of the work to run games.

and yeah the more ram the better usually. 8gb might be overkill for most of what you get up to but at least it'll be a bit more futureproof.

thanks for that mate, cleared up most of my questions!

Unfortunately most laptops will not be the best for gaming as I have previously experienced, but for now I can't afford a brand new PC

Thanks for your help everyone! I think I have a rough idea of what to look out for now

[bozodos]

If you can afford it, macs are the best laptops available. For serious gaming not so much, but they'll play most things fine at lower settings.

All people who have not owned a mac laptop be silent from here on

until they break, or overheat excessively. Unfortunately I have to support a small number of them.

[bozodos]

If you can afford it, macs are the best laptops available. For serious gaming not so much, but they'll play most things fine at lower settings.

All people who have not owned a mac laptop be silent from here on

until they overheat excessively and die.

DW about graphics card and i7, i5 + SSD is what you want. Unfortunately it can be hard to spec a laptop with one at a reasonable price

[75coupe]

Ive used a fair few HP and Dell's and not had any major build or quality issues...

whatever one you get though get an extended warranty of atleast 3 years....

I currently have a DV7 6014tx

[bozodos]

If you can afford it, macs are the best laptops available. For serious gaming not so much, but they'll play most things fine at lower settings.

All people who have not owned a mac laptop be silent from here on

until they overheat and die.

[SoFreshSoClean]

until they overheat and die.

Third time's the charm hey?

Mine has NEVER overheated. A few of my friends have them, same story.

Dunno why I'm saying it since the OP doesn't want a Mac, but anyways...

[bozodos]

trying to spread the gay? they are the epitome of aesthetics over practical design, having to support a small number of them in our work fleet makes me loathe them and OSX users more and more.

Would not touch an ACER / Compaq / HP laptop again because most i've seen are cheaply made pieces of shit, same goes for the cheap Toshiba's, I had a HP DV2000 go through 3 hard drives due to inadequate cooling, also crappy Atheros wireless chipsets that refuse to work with Cisco AP's properly.

Have also found Dell to have the best warranty support, ESPECIALLY Pro Support.

[oweban]

hah, after being in a 70% mac environment (210-odd machines) for 3 years, i f**king HATE fixing PCs now, at least for other people (my own problems are ok, because I've caused them and it's not some finnicky bullshit thing like Endnote being stupid).

But you're right, Dell support is frigging brilliant, they're the only PC manufacturer we'll go with.

edit: hooray unknown errors on forum

[Spurdo]

trying to spread the gay? they are the epitome of aesthetics over practical design, having to support a small number of them in our work fleet makes me loathe them and OSX users more and more.

Would not touch an ACER / Compaq / HP laptop again because most i've seen are cheaply made pieces of shit, same goes for the cheap Toshiba's, I had a HP DV2000 go through 3 hard drives due to inadequate cooling, also crappy Atheros wireless chipsets that refuse to work with Cisco AP's properly.

Have also found Dell to have the best warranty support, ESPECIALLY Pro Support.

i've found the ones that i would describe as "cheaply made pieces of shit" all seem to be the ones in the bottom half of the price range of any given brand's lineup. thats why i say buy the best one you can afford, because you get what you pay for. usually anything in the middle-upper half of the range is built a lot better and dont seem to have the strange issues that the cheapo's develop, from what i've seen over the years anyway.

from what i've seen, this is true for pretty much every brand there is.

[Jonno34]

Would not touch an ACER / Compaq / HP laptop again because most i've seen are cheaply made pieces of shit

oops - i was mainly considering HP or Acer lol

I dont think I could afford a mac :\ with the budget at about 900 ish?

I'm too old fashioned anyway

Don't think I could afford a SSD At that price range either :\ I'll settle for the highest speed hard drive I can find

More importantly though it seems I should probably find something in the middle ranges of the i5's that whatever company I end up with make?

I forgot about dell!! From what I've seen they seem to be quite good value for money. - not quite the most important thing but I think they look pretty nice lol <br class="Apple-interchange-newline">