I'm in the market for a laptop right now, and since I've been out of the loop on the computer market for a while (and have only really cared about desktop parts anyway), I thought I'd ask for a little advice on a good laptop to buy.

What I'm looking for:

Price: I have a pretty big budget; anything $2000 or under is fine. So no freakily decked out Alienware, but most anything else does. Also, no Macbooks please. Sorry Apple fanboys =/

Performance: I don't plan to do any heavy gaming, but I would like something that will run Starcraft 2 with ease and still be a viable machine 3 or 4 years from now. I'm currently on a socket 939 desktop with an Athlon 64 4000+ (originally on a 7900GT), and it works now the way I would want my laptop to be in 3 years. One important thing: I do not care about sound quality. I have had onboard sound and $7 speakers (albeit Logitech ones) that have suited me just fine, so if there's an option with less fancy sound, offer that please.

Size/Weight: This is what is going to run up the cost. I would like a nice stylish laptop in size specs: a decent sized screen (15" or bigger, 17" or better would be nice) that isn't an elephant. I can deal with a heavier laptop, but if there is an option that's a pound or two lighter for $300 more, I'd like to see that one.

Features: All the standard ones: bluetooth, wireless card, etc. Having a CD/DVD +/- RW drive would be nice. Also, if anyone can hook me up with a wireless rechargeable optical mouse for $50 or less, I will be eternally grateful.

Non-Factors: Things I don't care about include sound card/speakers, presence or absence of a webcam, hard drive space (within reason; as long as it's 100GB or more I'm good), operating system shipped with it (I get free OSes anyways).

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

From a quick search, I'd say either
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117941
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152103

First has more memory and a better CPU, second has a better GPU. I couldn't really find one I was happy with on all fronts either way.

Just curious, why aren't you interested in buying a Macbook? You're not going to find quality such as a unibody aluminum chasis, glass multitouch trackpad, etc. on many other laptops, if any.

Two things:

1) Would you speak on behalf of the Vaio? I've generally had a bad experience/bad opinion of Sony computer products and there are no Newegg reviews of it.

2) Would you ever be happy with a laptop with an NVIDIA GPU?

Quote from ~:Deathawk:~

Just curious, why aren't you interested in buying a Macbook? You're not going to find quality such as a unibody aluminum chasis, glass multitouch trackpad, etc. on many other laptops, if any.

I've always held Macbooks for being a little overpriced, and I want to dual-boot Windows and Linux and have never liked Mac as an OS. It's good for some things, but not what I use computers for.

http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/qosmio

Just putting this out there.
It fits nicely with your budget, you have a few models to choose from and you have an oppurtinity to upgrade to Win 7. Oh, and it comes in a really hoy red colour.

This is pretty much the only laptop I've heard of that's a lot stronger than my desktop.

1. Never used any Sony products, so I can't say anything.

2. I am not a fanboy for either side. This is about price:performance. A 4650M will outdo the 9600M, and the 4850M will outdo the 9800M. NV just isn't winning on this one.

Unibody design allows for easy dents, scratches, and can't hold the weight of a person without buckling.

My thinkpad won't easily scratch or dent (it may crack), and I can easily stand on it without it breaking. They typically run 2/3 the price of an equally equipped macbook.

Macs are stupid and are all about ''looking pretty'' than actually being sturdy. I've been looking at Sager myself for my next laptop - seems to give me more options for customization, and the prices seem legitimate. I think that you might want to check out this model for your wants. It starts at $1500, has a GTX 260m GPU (pretty comparable to the HD 4850 in the MSI), and gives you some more options for extra Ram, a faster processor, and whatever else suits you. For the money, that MSI seems pretty solid though, and you couldn't really go wrong with either of them.

Just wanted to say I've been burned with DOA MSI motherboards twice. However I can't speak for their laptops or anything.

Anything for or against the slightly more expensive 17" version (NP5797)? Also, is there a weight spec on their laptops? I couldn't find one. Looking at Newegg in general though, it looks like I ought to settle for a laptop that is going to be decently heavy. It will be moving around, but I certainly don't plan on always having it on me.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220538

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220536

These two laptops are 9 pounds they both have geforce GT 130M which is almost at the same level as the 4850M

(i cant find any notebooks with 2XXM)

Please cite a hardware source that a 130M is near a 4850M, as if a GTX260M = 4870M then that definitely isn't correct.

Its a typo I ment the 4650M

Still hard to believe, but definitely more plausible.

The two laptops I'm considering right now (and favoring one very strongly) are the ASUS elephant and this Sager.

Price: $1399.99 / $2119.00 (the difference is so great I almost stop right here)

Physical: 18.4", 9.3lbs / 17", 8.35lbs (about the same.. tradeoff each way)

CPU: T9550 / T9600 (as close as possible for comparison purposes)

RAM Clock: ?? (I assume 800) / 1066 (the DDR2 versus DDR3 is somewhat of a compelling difference. Sort of)

GPU: GT 130M / GTX 280M (the only really big thing going for the Sager)


The more I look at it though, the more I feel that the price difference makes it crazy to pass up the ASUS notebook.

Thoughts? Is losing DDR3 RAM (and probably a GDDR3 card..) the end of the world?

The card should be GDDR3 regardless of which you choose actually. The thing is, I'm really not sold on something that seems as low as the GT 130M does. And unlike RAM or HDD, you can't update a laptop's GPU. That being said, the ASUS is quite a deal at that price. I'd say it's all about:
A. how much you're willing to pay
B. how long you want this machine to last

I can promise you as good as that GT 130M may be, it is no GTX280M, and it will find its limits much sooner.

That is incorrect. You CAN upgrade a laptop's gpu if it is the MXM slot type which most 17+ laptops have. Smaller laptops don't have mxm slots and have their gpu embedded because it makes them lighter.

Me neither. However, I don't really expect to be doing a whole lot of gaming; I just want to not have a laggy computer when I do. NVIDIA specs the 130M at both GDDR2 and GDDR3 speeds, so I'm not even really sure what's in the ASUS.

Another question though; the running resolution is listed at 1.78:1; how many full screen applications support a resolution this wide versus making me play with vertical bars on a smaller screen?

EDIT: In reading reviews carefully, one said the VRAM is actually just a dedicated 1GB piece of the standard system memory.. so it's 3GB of RAM and the card is running on DDR2-800..

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 20 2009, 6:41 pm by DT_Battlekruser.

In that case I really can't support the 130M.

I checked out Alienware for the heck of it, and I actually managed to spec an M17 (17") with Radeon HD 3870 (512MB / GDDR3 256b), Core 2 Duo T9600, 3GB of DDR3 RAM, and a 250GB HDD for $1949.. not bad actually.

EDIT: I came back around and actually have purchased the MSI from the first post. The processor is a little disappointing, but it has separate 512MB of DDR3 VRAM and the mobo supports DDR3-1066, so it's about a $50 upgrade whenever I feel the need. I decided that I really needed to settle for something cheaper than $2000, and it was a great deal for the price.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 21 2009, 7:12 pm by DT_Battlekruser.