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Searching for a laptop

DixonDixon Screwed...possibly doomedCanadaRegistered User regular
edited June 2008 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
Hey guys, I'm back off to school next year and will need a a new laptop. Not sure if you guys have any place in particular or know what the best tie to buy a laptop is but I'm hoping for something around the $500 range, I have a nice desktop I just built so it won't be for games. Pretty much it will just be for class, surfing and playing some older games to keep me busy :P Like UT2k4. Obviously I won't be able to get something with a dedicated video card as that jacks up the price from what I've seen (understandablt) but I would like something that has an Nvidia or ATI on board card not the generic Intel accelerator as you can't increase the shared video texture memory in vista, and from the laptops I've played with if its a intel accelerator you can't do it in the bios either. Also I'm in Canada so I won't be able to shop places like newegg or anywhere else that doesn't ship up north.

I've checked out Tigerdirect, dell and hp and stuff and have come up with nothing.

So hopefully you guys know of some little gem of a place or know of some sweet deals you can point me to. If there is something really nice in the states I can always get it mailed to someone there and then pick it up, but I would really rather not.

Thanks for your help guys

Dixon on

Posts

  • gneGnegneGne Registered User regular
    edited June 2008
    Get a Dell Vostro!

    gneGne on
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  • powersurgepowersurge Registered User regular
    edited June 2008
    For that price range and use you might consider the Eee pc series. They are very light weight and in your price range but lack heavy hardware power.

    powersurge on
  • limitbreakerxlimitbreakerx Registered User regular
    edited June 2008
    How about 600-800 range?

    limitbreakerx on
  • DixonDixon Screwed...possibly doomed CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2008
    powersurge wrote: »
    For that price range and use you might consider the Eee pc series. They are very light weight and in your price range but lack heavy hardware power.

    Thats a good idea...hadn't really considered that sort of stuff. What sort of OS can you get on those things?

    I might be able to go to like 600 maybe 700 also depends how much money I have left over from tuition.

    Dixon on
  • LocklockLocklock Registered User regular
    edited June 2008
    Dixon wrote: »
    powersurge wrote: »
    For that price range and use you might consider the Eee pc series. They are very light weight and in your price range but lack heavy hardware power.

    Thats a good idea...hadn't really considered that sort of stuff. What sort of OS can you get on those things?

    I might be able to go to like 600 maybe 700 also depends how much money I have left over from tuition.

    The EEE PC comes in Linux (Xandros) and Windows XP flavors. There's an excellent thread on this board with a ton of great info about the EEE.

    The cool thing about the EEE though is that it's part of a growing class of super-cheap super-portable subnotebooks. They aren't designed to be used as a main computer (meaning no gaming unless we're talking about older games), but they're great for hauling around campus to take notes or write papers in a library. From personal experience, I have to say that the EEE has three major weaknesses. One, it's keyboard is really hard to type on, since the right shift key is tiny. I mean it's really tiny. Two, it has a very small amount of hard drive space since it uses a solid state drive. The upside to that however is that it means no moving parts other than the fan. If you're a clumsy person, you may want to think about an EEE since a good fall will destroy many laptop hard drives. Thirdly, Unless you're looking at a 900 model, the screen on the EEE is tiny. Not unreasonable, but it really takes some getting used to.

    If you're really thinking about a subnotebook though, wait till tomorrow. That's when the MSI Wind launches and it looks set to blow the competition away. Bigger keyboard, better screen, longer battery life, more hard drive space etc etc, and it'll be cheaper than a similarly specced EEE.

    Locklock on
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  • DixonDixon Screwed...possibly doomed CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited June 2008
    ooo that sounds very nice I'll have to check that out. The only games I would be playing are older ones like Master of Orion and such. I'm suprised they can get Windows on there with amount of memory those machiens have. Might just stick with linux if I can get some sort of emulation software to run the older games.

    EDIT: I'm also just checking out the dell vostro now as we speak,
    also I checkde out building my own laptop with parts you can buy and it works out to be more friggen expensive then buying a better laptop from dell. That quite depressing

    EDIT #2: I was just on the staples website and I missed this awesome deal, a toshiba 15.4" with a T2450, gig of ram and 160gb harddrive for $249 cdn...it was a refurb but i mean dear god that would of been good, I could of upped the memory myself seeing as its so cheap to...Im sad now

    Dixon on
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