Help me buy a laptop!!

posted on June 11th, 2012, 9:30 am

Looking to buy a new pc soon, and I know you all are pretty in with whats the best route to go.

So what im looking for is a laptop, basically best bang for my buck. I dont want to buy a crap machine, I want a quality laptop that doesnt break the bank, and I can actually use for the next few years...

Requirements.
At least an I5 processor
I would like a dedicated graphics card
9 cell battery
good battery life
ability to play flops (duh) and other games
under 1200 american dollars (or close)
4-8 gbs of ram, (more? you tell me)
And whatever else you guys think is necessarily

Basically I know a bit about laptops, but I know there is more knowledge on this site, and Id like to spend my money well. So best brand? Usb 3.0? 3rd gen intel proccesors? blue ray player?

Thanks for any help

posted on June 11th, 2012, 10:28 am

i'm not in the usa so i can't give you purchasing advice on specific retailers/items. but i can give you some general points.

gaming on your laptop will seriously cut its life time down, the heat from an integrated graphics card/under load processor will take a toll on your hardware. in the long run you'll have to buy another gaming laptop far too soon.

buying a desktop for gaming is cheaper (for same performance level) and will upgrade more easily and last longer, meaning this laptop will last you longer.

buy a non gaming laptop for web browsing/office work etc.

about some other points:

able to play flops: you'll be able to do that on today's most budget hardware. a core 1 duo with intel 945gm integrated graphics was enough for fleetops.

ram: 4gb should be minimum these days. ram is dirt cheap (consider buying and fitting it yourself, it's the easiest upgrade for computers), and benefits are clear cut up to 4gb. after 4gb the benefits aren't as huge, but there are still some of them, and as i said, ram is dirt cheap, i got 8gb of medium spec ram for £35. programs are finally able to revel in vast amounts of ram, firefox particularly loves having room to expand in ram when ram usage is low.

so 4gb is adequate, 6gb is almost perfect, and 8gb would be the max i'd say is reasonable to want in your laptop, anything more any you will see very little benefit for the extra money. 8gb will future proof you for quite a while. win7 x64 (firefox/thunderbird running) uses less than 2gb of ram on my 8gb system.

Usb 3.0? 3rd gen intel proccesors? blue ray player?

usb3 is optional, will you use it? do you have (or plan to buy) usb3 gear? if not then usb3 isn't a priority. usb2 is still acceptably fast. especially if your board manufacturer/oem provides a software solution to increase speed.

ivy bridge processor: for a laptop i'd say yes, a highlight of ivy bridge is that it's frugal on power. if you only care about performance, then it's still ahead of sandy bridge, but not by lightyears. sandy bridge is still available in shops for a reason, it's still good by today's standards, which isn't saying too much as AMD's offerings have been weaksauce recently.

bluray: why? do you have bluray movies? because that's the only practical thing you can do with a BR drive. you won't use BR discs for storage, other storage media are better for various reasons. bluray hasn't really flown as high as they'd hoped it would. also you can get hd sources of movies over the internet, whether that's by pirating them or by paying for it. i'd say this is lowest priority.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 11:18 am

Call me old fashion, but i never understood the frenzy about laptops.
A laptop should have enough juice to do what it was originally supposed to: a mobile workstation for reports.

Go beyond that (games, movie editing etc) and you should stick with a trusty desktop.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 1:36 pm

I went through this about 2 years ago. I got a laptop because the internet at my home is very slow and with a laptop I could take where the internet speed is better. My laptop is an Acer with an AMD dual core and a dedicated graphics card. Mostly used for internet, music, photo, video playback, and gaming(Fleetops and Civilization 4 mostly).

With this experience in mind, I would recommend getting a desktop unless you NEED the portability of a laptop. With the option of tablets now, you may consider getting a desktop to be your main system and have a tablet for your on the go needs(if you only need web access and other light tasks when away from home). This is easier if you already have a desktop and can use your current peripherals.

As Myles said, Fleetops can plays on the basic hardware(my brother plays on a Single core 2ghz with 512 ram, 128 video card, 6+ years old XP system), so you may consider what else you will be doing. Lots of programs running simultaneously - ram, Video conversion - processor will need an upgrade, gaming with newer games - graphics card. There is a lot to consider. http://www.pcmag.com has a lot of information you may find useful.

One good thing to get that will really boost the speed of a computer is solid state storage(SSD). If you only need 100GB of hard drive then going that route will be a big help to your computer. If you want to store lots of files(stay 250GB and more) then you may want to look for some type of Hybrid drive. Having solid state storage is one of the best ways to boost the speed of your computer.

I would be happy to keep providing feedback, keep us informed as you look for your dream computer. Don't rush, take time to do research and think about what you really need. Talk to ya later.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 2:03 pm

Nooo don't buy a Desktop and a Tablet. A tablet is the most useless invention ever. You can't even use office properly on it. Try typing a 15 page report on a tablet! Pure waste of money especially since Ipads are pooped out every 2 years and those things cost a fortune. They are just for people who don't have smartphone who needs a bigger screen to play games or look at social media.

Buy a desktop if you don't need the mobility of a laptop

posted on June 11th, 2012, 2:34 pm

Buy a desktop if you don't need the mobility of a laptop

In general, I agree.

Nooo don't buy a Desktop and a Tablet. A tablet is the most useless invention ever. You can't even use office properly on it. Try typing a 15 page report on a tablet! Pure waste of money especially since Ipads are pooped out every 2 years and those things cost a fortune. They are just for people who don't have smartphone who needs a bigger screen to play games or look at social media.

I guess I should clarify - I agree that tablet is not designed for any kind of office work and should not be used as such. It was not my intention to recommend a tablet for that purpose. Ipads do cost more than I would like to spend, but there are several lower cost options.

I was trying to point out that if he wants to do some light tasks (web browsing, picture viewing, playing angry birds, etc) on the go that a laptop would not be the only option. He could get a desktop cheaper than a laptop of comparable power for the office work and gaming. Then spend the money he saved on an used ipad, or a lower end tablet - like a Kindle Fire.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 3:15 pm

i agree about SSDs, if you take any computer bought (new) within the past year, an SSD will almost surely give the biggest gain. windows loads much faster, programs load faster. ssd affects load speeds (eg loading next level in a game). and greatly improves these.

problem is they are still expensive and need to have space for windows system files, future updates, most often used programs and games. consider gta IV, a great game, but takes up ~31GB of space, and you don't want to uninstall it because it's a game you're likely to revisit.

also some people think they are only for laptops, they work fine in desktops too (you'll probably need to buy cables for this). you can shell out for a bracket to fit it in a standard HD slot or you can just tape it to something in the case, i taped mine to the underside of my dvd drive. the dvd drive almost never gets used and the ssd doesn't vibrate or get very hot, so the tape is secure.

my example system was a core i3 2120 @ 3.3 ghz, 8GB ram, no dedicated graphics. installing the SSD cut load times by way more than half. an SSD is one of the most sensible considerations if you have some money to spend. i recommend around a min of 120 GB for the SSD, and you can leave a standard HD in your build for big files that don't need rapid access (lets be honest this is either gonna be pirated stuff or porn or both ).

posted on June 11th, 2012, 3:46 pm

I'll just add my $0.02.

Your target hardware sounds good.

Regarding RAM - Personally, I'd go for 8 GB of RAM for the longevity factor. Be careful about doing it yourself though, some companies may construe cracking the case as grounds for voiding warranty.

Regarding SSDs - Although they do make your system blazing fast (as in close to 0 boot time) they are quite pricey still. More than 100 GB can easily run you up a couple hundred. Also, SSDs will fail eventually, so if you do get one, keep very regular backups. If you intend on storing lots of large files on your drive, a platter drive is still the way to go. Or, as Myles said, get an external platter drive and store big stuff on there.

Regarding Blu-Ray - As Myles said, unless you have a lot of BD movies or use them for storage as I occasionally do, it's not really worth it yet. A laptop BD player will cost you a good $50-100 and a burner is still a good $150. That said, I think there is a push towards switching to BD, so you may want one just for the sake of future-proofing your machine.

Regarding USB-3 - Again, not strictly necessary, but many machines are starting to come with it by default, so you may get it "for free". Also, it's usually a case of, either they have it or they don't, there usually isn't an option.

Regarding Processors - An i5 should be plenty unless you plan to do some heavy video work. If you plan to play newer games, though, (say, anything from within the last two years) consider going for an i7. Also, you may have to hunt around for 3rd Gen processors, not all vendors may be using them yet.

Regarding GPUs - Personally, I'd go for a nVidia card if you can get it, but they do tend to be pricier. If you want something a little cheaper go for an ATI. I prefer nVidia, also if you're in to GPU computing nVidia is a bit ahead of ATI in that regard. Either way though a 3rd party card will be a good $100-200.

Regarding Tablets - If you find you don't need to do a lot of office work on your laptop, then the tablet-desktop combo could be viable. There are Remote Desktop apps for tablets so there's the possibility of just using the tablet to remotely access the desktop. Although you're right back at the issue of typing on a tablet.

Now as far as where to buy. You can go though places like NewEgg or TigerDirect but they usually don't offer many (if any) options, what you see is what you get. Likewise with buying in store (although they might be able to do RAM/CPU/HDD changes). If you want third party graphics you'll probably have to look at mid-high end systems as most low end machines only come with stock graphics. If you're set on a laptop there is a smaller company calledSager which does "gaming laptops". I haven't tried them, but I'm considering them for my next laptop. They look good and solid and have a good range of options.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 4:21 pm

Looking to buy a new pc soon, and I know you all are pretty in with whats the best route to go.

So what im looking for is a laptop, basically best bang for my buck. I dont want to buy a crap machine, I want a quality laptop that doesnt break the bank, and I can actually use for the next few years...

Requirements.
At least an I5 processor
I would like a dedicated graphics card
9 cell battery
good battery life
ability to play flops (duh) and other games
under 1200 american dollars (or close)
4-8 gbs of ram, (more? you tell me)
And whatever else you guys think is necessarily

Basically I know a bit about laptops, but I know there is more knowledge on this site, and Id like to spend my money well. So best brand? Usb 3.0? 3rd gen intel proccesors? blue ray player?

Thanks for any help

Good specs. I just helped a friend buy a laptop, so maybe I can pass on some of those ideas. I have blurray on my laptop, and it is cool, but there is no free software available that allows you to watch bluray movies, so it is somewhat useless. don't pay extra for it. USB 3.0(or SS USB) usually comes on modern laptops. sometimes its not even advertised. As for intel 3.0, I would to agree with Myles on that point.


For all of those specs, you can get a laptop more like $800 so you might consider increasing some of them. You also didn't mention what size screen you wanted, or HDD space. Going off of what you have posted, I would recommend HP because their laptops seem to have more extra features that are left out of, say, a dell. ASUS is also a good brand but I havent seen any of their laptops at a good price recently.

This is the same laptop I recommended to a friend. It fits all of your specs and more.
http://www.staples.com/HP-Pavilion-DV7- ... uct_722683

$800:

Second Gen i5
6GB ram
750GB HDD
17 inch screen
bluray reader
Beats audio with subwoofer and quad speakers (My experience with these is very good. )
Bluetooth
Gigabit ethernet
Radeon 7470M with 1GB dedicated GDDR5 VRAM and up to 3GB shared + Intel 3000 HD Graphics.
HD webcam
9 cell battery with ~10 hrs of life.
Aluminum casing
Back-lit touchpad
Biometrics(fingerprint reader)
2 x USB 3.0


I recommended this laptop, not only because its specs were the best I could find for that price, but because it is an HP and a larger model of the laptop I have. (DV6-6140US) I have had great experiences with HP customer service and the quality of HP laptops. I have bought Toshiba, ASUS, DELL, and MSI laptops and products and though MSI makes a good mobo, ASUS internal hardware and toshiba a decent screen, HP seems to be the best of these at making laptops if you don't count alienware, which I have no experience with. Though HP, DELL and ASUS all come with bloatware, Dell comes with wayy too many redundant programs. Asus is hard to judge, but HP seems to come with just enough that some is useful form me and others I know would be useful for other people. MSI doesnt come with any programs installed(which is not always a good thing) and Toshiba comes with 3rd party stuff which is generally useless.


My $.02

posted on June 11th, 2012, 7:43 pm

gaming on your laptop will seriously cut its life time down, the heat from an integrated graphics card/under load processor will take a toll on your hardware. in the long run you'll have to buy another gaming laptop far too soon.

Could you elaborate on this? Im not thinking about serious gaming like battlefield 3 or anything, but some sto maybe, or eve, you tube vids and that sort of stuff.

Also the ssd why do they die sooner, and how much sooner?

Im looking for a 15inch laptop, and while desktops are probably better and cheaper, I dont have the space for a desktop, and would like the portability of a laptop. Thanks for all your advice!

posted on June 11th, 2012, 7:45 pm

Ray is also looking for basically the same machine. However I would like to know what will help me record more smoothly, with better quality, and compress the files faster? Also on some models I see upgrades to the wireless system, are these upgrades worth it? There only 35 dollars or so.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 7:57 pm

gaming on your laptop will seriously cut its life time down, the heat from an integrated graphics card/under load processor will take a toll on your hardware. in the long run you'll have to buy another gaming laptop far too soon.

Could you elaborate on this? Im not thinking about serious gaming like battlefield 3 or anything, but some sto maybe, or eve, you tube vids and that sort of stuff.

Also the ssd why do they die sooner, and how much sooner?

Im looking for a 15inch laptop, and while desktops are probably better and cheaper, I dont have the space for a desktop, and would like the portability of a laptop. Thanks for all your advice!

if you don't have space for a desktop then the point is moot, you have to get a laptop. laptop parts will wear quicker when put under the stress of games like sto. you may find you'll need to take it in for repairs in a few years. i don't believe any laptop should be used for 3d gaming.

i'd consider reconsidering if you have space for a desktop. you might be able to plug it into your TV with HDMI cable.

SSDs die sooner just because they are less reliable, we've heard many stories of SSDs dying. and while they've made large improvements in reliability recently, they still arent' as reliable as normal magnetic HDDs. also they get slower over time by the nature of flash memory. depending on how you use it, i would suspect it would be 3-5 years before you notice too much speed loss.

watching youtube can be done on even the cheapest hardware, youtube is easy to run, it's not a consideration.

@ray: sadly for replay making you need an all round stronger computer, no part can be weak. fraps will need a fast HD to write large amounts of video to disk (i somehow always got away with a budget laptop magnetic disk at 720p), video editing and transcoding will need a good CPU and good amounts of RAM. some gpus can help with video transcoding too. basically make sure the whole thing is up to scratch.

I'd focus on making sure the CPU is good, as that's the hardest thing to change. RAM is dead easy to install on desktop or laptop, and graphics cards are easy to install on desktops, not on laptops.

recording while gaming will add even more stress to laptop components, so i definitely recommend using a desktop for gaming/replay making.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 8:15 pm

@Adm. Zaxxon ~ sigh :- I wish that pricing was around when I bought my laptop. An aluminum case would have been nice. Although I have had some recent problems with HP computers, but those were desktops.

Could you elaborate on this? Im not thinking about serious gaming like battlefield 3 or anything, but some sto maybe, or eve, you tube vids and that sort of stuff.

Also the ssd why do they die sooner, and how much sooner?

Im looking for a 15inch laptop, and while desktops are probably better and cheaper, I dont have the space for a desktop, and would like the portability of a laptop. Thanks for all your advice!

From what you are describing the basics should be just fine for you. A solid state offers a nice boost, but is not required - more of a luxury. The laptop that Adm. Zaxxon posted about looks pretty good. You may be able to find a computer that fits your requirements cheaper if want to save as much as possible.

@Ray ~ Myles nailed the point. A solid desktop is really needed for HD video processing. A lower end computer may be able to do some but will be slow and may be prone to errors.

As for the wireless upgrades - What is said about the upgrades? Do they mention 3G or 4G?

posted on June 11th, 2012, 8:28 pm

Crap, well a laptop is kinda my only option too.

Im running this right now:


Manufacturer Dell Inc.
Model OptiPlex 755
Total amount of system memory 4.00 GB RAM
System type 32-bit operating system
Number of processor cores 4
64-bit capable Yes

Storage
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total size of hard disk(s) 74 GB
Disk partition (C:) 13 GB Free (72 GB Total)
Disk partition (D:) 1 GB Free (2 GB Total)
Media drive (E:) CD/DVD

Graphics
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Display adapter type NVIDIA Quadro NVS 290
Total available graphics memory 1662 MB
Dedicated graphics memory 256 MB
Dedicated system memory 0 MB
Shared system memory 1406 MB
Display adapter driver version 8.17.12.5981
Primary monitor resolution 1280x1024
Secondary monitor resolution 1280x1024
DirectX version DirectX 10

But you think that flops recording will put alot of strain on a laptop?

posted on June 11th, 2012, 8:42 pm

playing/recording fleetops/any more modern game will put stress a lot of stress on a laptop, the heat is in a much smaller space with laptops.

this will make the parts last less time compared to if you don't game on it.

i used my laptop as my primary gaming computer and now it runs slow as shit. if i hadn't gamed on it, then it would probably run faster. i don't really care about the laptop any more, as long as it plays video i'm happy.