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First Laptop, to Replace Desktop
Incenjucar
VChatterSeattle, WARegistered User regular
VChatterSeattle, WARegistered User regular
The time has finally come for me to move on to my first laptop, after a decade or so of big giant desktop machines, but I haven't been keeping up with the technology for a few years and bloody hell a lot has changed lately.
First off, my current computer is a Compaq 5420 US with an AMD Athlon 1700 (1.47GHz), 512 RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200. It's actually a pretty nice computer, and works very well, but it's showing its age and will be given to my sister -- which also means I have no backup computer in the equation.
What I need it to do:
- Run most modern games smoothly (Such as, say, Mass Effect or Age of Conan)
- Whatever -Fi lets me use coffee shop internet connections
- DVD-R/W
- Work with medium-large hands. I do not have malnourished Asian school girl fingers.
- Expand with desktop-sized equipment (monitor, speakers, keyboard, etc.)
- Function well with online socializing/meetings (I may be doing teleconferencing, and I will definitely be doing long-distance DMing with voice-over software)
- Last. (I don't have a very large or dependable electronics budget)
- Have decent battery life (I would like to be able to type in the park without having to bring along a car battery)
What isn't important:
- Ginormous amounts of space. I've never been able to fill 60 gigs, and if needed I would use an external drive.
- Playing crazy cutting edge future games (Being able to play Crysis is not required)
- Audiophilia. I have good hearing and all but it's just not that big a deal to me.
- BluRay and Friends. I own like 10 DVDs.
- Weight. If the thing weighs less than twenty pounds then I'm happy. If it weighs more it had better be an Autobot.
- Sex Appeal. It's a tool.
--
So, basically, I want a laptop that will let me type in the park and play games without having to overclock AND use minimum graphics for at least a few years.
I would really like for it to not get very much higher than $1,000, and ideally less, and I can't get myself to consider above $1,500, warrantees and junk included.
Local shops are Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, and, like, Office Max/Depot.
Help me Tech Tavern you're my only hope.
First off, my current computer is a Compaq 5420 US with an AMD Athlon 1700 (1.47GHz), 512 RAM, and an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200. It's actually a pretty nice computer, and works very well, but it's showing its age and will be given to my sister -- which also means I have no backup computer in the equation.
What I need it to do:
- Run most modern games smoothly (Such as, say, Mass Effect or Age of Conan)
- Whatever -Fi lets me use coffee shop internet connections
- DVD-R/W
- Work with medium-large hands. I do not have malnourished Asian school girl fingers.
- Expand with desktop-sized equipment (monitor, speakers, keyboard, etc.)
- Function well with online socializing/meetings (I may be doing teleconferencing, and I will definitely be doing long-distance DMing with voice-over software)
- Last. (I don't have a very large or dependable electronics budget)
- Have decent battery life (I would like to be able to type in the park without having to bring along a car battery)
What isn't important:
- Ginormous amounts of space. I've never been able to fill 60 gigs, and if needed I would use an external drive.
- Playing crazy cutting edge future games (Being able to play Crysis is not required)
- Audiophilia. I have good hearing and all but it's just not that big a deal to me.
- BluRay and Friends. I own like 10 DVDs.
- Weight. If the thing weighs less than twenty pounds then I'm happy. If it weighs more it had better be an Autobot.
- Sex Appeal. It's a tool.
--
So, basically, I want a laptop that will let me type in the park and play games without having to overclock AND use minimum graphics for at least a few years.
I would really like for it to not get very much higher than $1,000, and ideally less, and I can't get myself to consider above $1,500, warrantees and junk included.
Local shops are Best Buy, Circuit City, Costco, and, like, Office Max/Depot.
Help me Tech Tavern you're my only hope.
Incenjucar on
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Or one of those XPS thingies from Dell.
Otherwise an XPS M1530 with an 8600M GT will hit a lot of those bullet points, there's usually some decent vouchers floating around to get 20-25% off.
I can pretty much guarantee it will blow your current computer away. It's $1,299 though, so you'll have to decide if you're willing to spend that much.
I dunno if it'll run them smoothly with max settings, but it'll be pretty decent for gaming. I'll tell you now though, generally speaking, laptops are pretty awful for gaming when compared to a similarly priced desktop.
Check. This laptop has the full spectrum of a/b/g/n wifi. If you need something even more long range you can get a mobile broadband card.
Done.
Full sized keyboard. This mother fucker even has a numpad.
Check, although all that is pretty standard for laptops. (VGA for an external monitor, audio out for speakers, etc.)
This laptop has an intergrated 1.3 MP webcam, but no microphone as far as I can tell.
This laptop should last you a long time. All the components are fairly cutting edge, save the GPU which is still no push over.
This is probably this laptop's biggest weakness. But I think you'll have to make some sacrifices. You're not going to get a laptop that can play Conan and Mass Effect and still get great battery life. However, if you find the laptop lacking in battery life, you could buy a larger battery and swap it out.
250 gig HDD.
Just from my own experience, size does matter with laptops. I played around with a friend's 17 inch laptop and it was just way too big and heavy to be portable for me. Go to a store like bestbuy and play around for a bit. Which screen size seems right to you? A 9 pound laptop might not sound that heavy, but lug it around for a day or two and you may change your mind really fast.
No one seems to have that 6831 anymore. Froogle only turns up eBay and Dealtree (used), and it's long-gone from Best Buy. The "new" version, the P-172S FX, has a faster CPU (2.0GHz vs the 6831's 1.67), but gives up 90GB of hard drive space and N wifi. Still has the 8800m GTS, which absolutely smokes 8600m GT.
It goes for ~$1250 at Gateway. Take off the extra warranty/Office/Norton to get it to $1300, the use coupon AFF08Q2 for $75 off. Shipping is $20, bringing you to ~$1250+tax.
Also - benchies for the 6831
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=217805
They're likely more expensive than what you're shooting for ($1k), but the build quality and performance is unmatched.
I also suggest visiting http://forum.notebookreview.com/
Look at the "what notebook should I buy" top sticky, copy/paste the pre-formatted questionaire, and reap the advice of thousands of people that live and breathe notebook systems.
The Thinkpad T61p has a Quadro 570, which is equivalent to a 8600m GT. Unfortunately, they only seem to be sold through 3rd party retailers and not directly from Lenovo, so you can't get one with the huge discounts Lenovo regularly has.
If you want an 8600m GT, make sure you get GDDR-3 RAM on it. The speed bump from GDDR-2 to -3 allows a 256MB DDR3 card to beat a 512MB DDR2.
The Dell XPS codes are:
- 20% off XPS M1330 & M1530 $1249+ w/code 7J7G9TP6Z52FS3 (exp 5/28) - brings you under $1k (barely) before tax.
- 25% off XPS M1330 & M1530 $1499+ w/code 8Z6RJW85KQF60Z (exp 5/28)
Aren't Quadros meant for CAD work though? I didn't think they were that good for gaming.
Notebookcheck says
GeForce 8600m GT
3dMark 01 - 25284
3dMark 03 - 10024
3dMark 05 - 6086
3dMark 06 - 3314
Quake 3 Arena 1024x768 - 361 fps
FEAR 1024x768 - 30 fps
Doom 3 1024x768 - 77
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8600M-GT.3986.0.html
Quadro FX 570m
3dMark 01 - 26908
3dMark 03 - 11958
3dMark 05 - 7790
3dMark 06 - 3862
Quake 3 Arena 1024x768 - 501 fps
FEAR 1024x768 - 34 fps
Doom 3 1024x768 - 90
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-FX-570M.6938.0.html
There is no hardware-based reason that a new Quadro card can't take GeForce drivers, although there might be a restriction placed on driver updating by Lenovo. I have a Thinkpad with a Quadro NVS140m (8400m GS equivalent) card, but when I go to the nVidia site and run their Driver Widget app, it tells me to get drivers from the manufacturer.
Yeah, I don't need to go Max settings or be playing actual games in the park (which I assume use up more power than Word), I just don't want to be stuck with just RTS games for the rest of the decade while at home. :P
Is there any reason to wait right now, or are we in a pretty stable situation price-wise, now that 3G-4G is fairly standard?
As for Apples, I have nothing against the hardware, I'm just not their market of choice at the moment.
It's kind of over the edge of the price range I was aiming for, but I never managed to stay within my price range before anyways. :P
That ASUS looks pretty great, but I'm a little wary of relying on a company I've never heard of for my only source of contact with people I don't want to set on fire, also some comments on the graphics card kind of worry me.
So, would there be any flaw in me aiming for the $1,499 XPS M1530 without any extras?
Do you mean the pre-configured one listed at Dell Home for $1499 after a $599 discount? Keep in mind that if you use those coupon codes, they will invalidate the automatic $599 discount.
I would start with the base M1530 and build it to $1499, then use the coupon.
Base price $999
+ $300 Intel Core 2 Duo T9300
+ $50 1440x900 screen
+ $50 250GB hard drive
+ $100 GeForce 8600m GT 256MB
That should put you at $1499 even, $1125 after coupon. If you don't feel you need a CPU as strong as the T9300, I'd downgrade it to a T8300 and upgrade the screen to the LED-backlit one. It's more power-efficient, brighter, and is lighter and thinner.
Traditional CFFL LCD (left) vs LED backlit (right), using Macbook Pro
More at http://www.engadget.com/photos/macbook-pro-backlight-comparison-led-vs-ccfl/266113/
RAM is definitely something that should be purchased aftermarket. Dell charges $100 to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB, while at Fry's or Buy.com you can get 4GB for $50, plus whatever you sell the original 2GB for.
As for whether you should wait, prices are always going down. Dell was supposed to launch a new line of Inspirons on May 26, but so far they're MIA. Don't rush just because coupons are expiring, Dell and Lenovo put out new ones every 2 weeks.
I'll definately wait until the next set comes out, thanks.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
The RAM is upgradeable on most every laptop. Some makers used to solder in the first chip, but I haven't seen that in a while. The hard drive should be upgradeable too, and probably the disc drive - although there can be different sized drive DVD bays on different models.
Processor and GPU are trickier to upgrade, and quite possibly will void your warranty. Asus has an external graphics card solution, called XG Station, that connects through the ExpressCard slot and uses a desktop graphics card. Laptop CPUs and GPUs carry a hefty premium pricewise, though, and are not as widely available as RAM and hard drives. Sound is usually handled by the motherboard, though Creative offers a plug-in card if you want something better.
I don't recommend upgrading the screen, barring out-of-warranty breakage.
I'd say get the CPU, GPU, and screen you really want at time of purchase. Hard drive depends on price - buying a 320GB drive aftermarket will run you about $140, so measure that against the manufacturer's upgrade price. RAM is definitely an aftermarket purchase, get as little as you can from the manufacturer (free upgrades notwithstanding).