New laptop suggestions--less than $800

[dude_56013]

I would def have to say NO to dells....sorry but everyone I know that's had one (friends and fam and myself) have just had a heck of a time with them..and it always seems like they go kaput after the warranty runs out....HP, Toshiba, and Sony are all very good brands as well as ASUS..not sure about Acer though..I have a friend that has one but I haven't asked him about it and he's not a gamer...

 

[01001010]

Dells are alright.

It's common sense that once you control a larger market share, you're going to have more complaints.

 

[tibug]

I would def have to say NO to dells....sorry but everyone I know that's had one (friends and fam and myself) have just had a heck of a time with them..and it always seems like they go kaput after the warranty runs out....HP, Toshiba, and Sony are all very good brands as well as ASUS..not sure about Acer though..I have a friend that has one but I haven't asked him about it and he's not a gamer...

I hadn't considered ASUS.

What do you think of this...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220286

and why is ^^that^^ one the same price yet has better specs?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220225

2.0ghz core 2 duo processor? 512mb dedicated video memory? 200 gig hard drive Seems good to me...is it REALLY just the ATI/AMD spec that makes it so much cheaper than the less well spec'd nVidia/Intel one? The first one looks really nice on paper...can anyone vouch for ASUS or tell me of problems it is notorios for, if any?

I know I'm kind of skipping back and forth on things, but I'm just trying to get a good idea of what's good/what's bad.

Thanks,
Tim

 

[01001010]

Asus has been improving. They've had some problems with some of their notebook lines, but who hasn't?

AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-60

That's why it's cheaper. Right now, Intel is the leading manufacturer of CPUs for notebooks. Better performance along with decreased power usage make the Intel Core 2 Duo a great processor.

 

[dude_56013]

personally, I don't ever like to overclock..I feel companies should give the best performance out of box, so i prefer Intel over AMD cpus and ATI over nVidia..yes that's kind of odd because amd aligns with ATI but, that's just my personal opinion..I've always had great luck with both Intel and ATI..and as a previous poster said, AMD uses more power..therefore you battery life may not be as long as opposed to an Intel cpu...

 

[GusBus]

I bought an Acer Travelmate 530 2GHz pentium 4-M for $400AU off ebay last year and i love it. No troubles and plays a lot of games and movies with ease. And it holds a battery charge for ages.

 

[tibug]

personally, I don't ever like to overclock..I feel companies should give the best performance out of box, so i prefer Intel over AMD cpus and ATI over nVidia..yes that's kind of odd because amd aligns with ATI but, that's just my personal opinion..I've always had great luck with both Intel and ATI..and as a previous poster said, AMD uses more power..therefore you battery life may not be as long as opposed to an Intel cpu...

Well, I'm not that concerned with battery life at the moment. Of course more life is better, but this is going to be more of a desktop replacement that is easily portable-not a mobile workstation. So do you guys think the 512 mb dedicated video card in this makes it worth it, even if the processor isn't quite as good? Are there any comparisons of the AMD Turion X2 and the Intel Core 2 Duo online (charts, etc.) that are reliable and trustworthy? I've seen a few, but I'd like to find which one is the most accurate. Personally, I wouldn't mind overclocking if I can get performance closer to that of a stock Intel, but as I said, I am a noob, so I trust you guys.

Thanks,
Tim

 

[dude_56013]

well you wouldn't want you cpu to bottleneck your graphics card performance...and that cpu just isn't going to cut it..it actually only falls into the mid range category here and in a laptop, whereas the intel falls into the high category..you can't really add much cooling so I don't think you will be able to push it (the amd) up to it's intel counterpart but I'm not a lappy expert..someone else can speak on that matter....If it were me, I would look at a for a laptop that has the ATI graphics and an Intel C2D CPU...but that's just me....check around some actual manufacturer websites and see how much it is when you select the parts yourself...if you do that tho..always go with the min. ram..it's cheaper upgrading through newegg..A LOT cheaper...

For a hundred bucks more, just get this..man this is almost what I was going to get from sony for 1300 bucks....it's got a WAY better intel T7500 and an ati hd 2600 for only a grand!..that's not bad..and then the memory is already at 2GB!!!....that's a steal if you ask me

 

[tibug]

well you wouldn't want you cpu to bottleneck your graphics card performance...and that cpu just isn't going to cut it..it actually only falls into the mid range category here and in a laptop, whereas the intel falls into the high category..you can't really add much cooling so I don't think you will be able to push it (the amd) up to it's intel counterpart but I'm not a lappy expert..someone else can speak on that matter....If it were me, I would look at a for a laptop that has the ATI graphics and an Intel C2D CPU...but that's just me....check around some actual manufacturer websites and see how much it is when you select the parts yourself...if you do that tho..always go with the min. ram..it's cheaper upgrading through newegg..A LOT cheaper...

For a hundred bucks more, just get this..man this is almost what I was going to get from sony for 1300 bucks....it's got a WAY better intel T7500 and an ati hd 2600 for only a grand!..that's not bad..and then the memory is already at 2GB!!!....that's a steal if you ask me

Thanks a lot! I'll definiteley consider paying a little more for what I want. That laptop you linked to seems like a killer deal, but I'm restricted by how much I'm gonna make this summer (1/2 of whatever I make is going to college fund is what I decided)....ah well, maybe I'll be able to save up the extra ~200 by summer (I'm in school and only get to work at the bike shop on fridays for 2 1/2 hrs....damn). I didn't think there were any computers that strayed from the Intel=nVidia and AMD=ATI route, but I guess that just goes to show how much of a n00b I am.

Thanks a lot dude!
Tim

 

[dude_56013]

yeah...well when you have big differences in price/performance that tends to happen...just like in my build in my sig...I have a C2D with an ATI card and I wouldn't trade it up for an nvidia of the same price point anyday just because ati to me, is a better bang for your buck!...but hey, whatever you feel is you price limit..ATI just happened to be mine...I can play whatever I feel like playing on this thing most on high setting with crysis surprisingly on medium...and it only cost about 150 bucks a year ago..idk what it's at now....hmmm....

you should look for another job!!! haha