General

[komodo]

For games...you littery have to know someone to get stuff done right, or else just suck it up and shell out a butt-load of money for an Alienware or something.

Hit Chad up at www.bigsystems.biz for anything you need. Nicest guy around, and will get you stuff for dirt cheap. Just tell him Shibble sent ya. He'll understand. We go a ways back...

*EDIT* Hmm...seems his toy branch of the site has taken over...I havent talked to him in a bit, Ill have to find out what happened tot he site for his computer store...

[respiegel]

we all have laptops at work, i'd stay away from the HP/Compaq if you can. out of six or so we got only two are still working, and both of those are used as desktops and not moved around much. Dells are very much midrange, nothing over the top but the price tag is much easier to swallow than some of the gaming rigs out there. never had any trouble out of Dell support, but we have a service center take care of all our claims. the video card end is where most laptops fall short, don't expect anything that great for less than $2000, but for $1000 Dell can get you something pretty good.
Core Duo is the way to go for sure, i'm never building another machine without it

[mike31c]

'd stay away from the HP/Compaq if you can.

I second that... I had 2 Compaqs in three months... The first one lasted 3 months. The second one lasted 1hr and 30 minutes. And 40 of those minutes was racing BACK to the store to get a SONY. That one lasted 3 years.

[Firestorm]

I third it I had a laptop from Compaq and the screen just doesn't work any more.

Honestly get an extended warrety with any laptop, even if it cost an extra 300 (mine did) It cost so much if something breaks to get it fixed. If anything goes wrong with it once, it pays for itself.


(Futureshop has/had a thing if my laptop has 3 major break downs, they give me a new laptop) I have 1 blown laptop speaker so far.

[Wycke]

*cough* *cough* MacBook *cough* *chough*

[Frontier_Bill]

Originally Posted by Wycke

*cough* *cough* MacBook *cough* *chough*

But, its a Mac!!

Actually, the Dell Inspiron E1705 with core 2 duo processor and Nvidia card and SATA hardrive would be a good buy. Last time I priced it out, it sat at about $1,500. My dad has an inspiron laptop from about a year or 2 ago, got an amazing deal on it. I am not too sure about thier tech service, we do all our own, and haven't had any problems we cannot remedy.

I will be buying that inspiron e1705 if/when a great deal pops by on it, say, half price.

[respiegel]

Yeah, i'm sporting the E1705 right now... i like it, but the screen is a little bit too big to use in my lap, i just can't see the corners very well. the 15.4 inch screen is really fine if its the high res version with a good video card... when i got mine it had a $650 instant rebate...

[Frontier_Bill]

Yep! Thats the deal I'm holding out for!

Now, you say the 17" feels too large for a lappy screen?

I would be using mine as a desktop replacement for when I move to a bigger college. I want it to handle games (hence my looking at the 1705), but you would suggest a smaller screen?

[respiegel]

Originally Posted by Frontier_Bill

Yep! Thats the deal I'm holding out for!

Now, you say the 17" feels too large for a lappy screen?

I would be using mine as a desktop replacement for when I move to a bigger college. I want it to handle games (hence my looking at the 1705), but you would suggest a smaller screen?

if i'm using it as a desktop unit (like 90% of the time) the large screen is nice, but if i'm using it on the go, or in my lap then theres just too much area to see without having to change focus. its great for movies, i wish i would have gone with the higher res screen like some of our office units, but 1440x900 is really not that bad (1600x1280 gave me headaches on my old Dell) one thing i can say about the Centrino, even the dual core stays ALOT cooler than my old P4m. and i get really good battery life off the stock small unit (like 3.5 hours or so of web surfing)
if you're planning on taking it anywhere just know that the 17" Dells are huge! the uber-big bag Targus makes:
http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=TCG200
and its just right, i could fit two of the IBM 14.4" T43s in there!
its a really nice bag BTW, protects my compy well, and if you shop around you can find them for like $30...

[Greywolf]

I am awaiting an Acer Ferrari 5006WLMI...should have it by Castle. The specs seem pretty good, although I think it's overpriced if you pay retail.

The 4404WLMi Travelmate seems like a decent deal, though.

A friend of mine is an electronics retailer so I got a bunch of goodies at cost from him...including a digital camera, camcorder, 27" LCD monitor, Acer laptop, some desktop parts, speakers, and a color laser printer. We've been planning this for a while, though.

Ben