Help! $800.00 to spend on lap top, What to do?

[G4_Music]

Question: What percentage of the $800.00 should go to the lap-top and what percentage should go for up-grades and future expand-ability in order to get the best bang for my buck (You know doing some home build myself)? I want to get the most powerful laptop for the money. example: speed, hard drive speed and capacity ram speed and capacity for present and future upgrade. processor speed, motherboard screen resolution and any thing you think would be more important. What brand is best bang for buck? etc...

Any help sure would be appreciate. I will be running adobe c6 and have 2 international websites. along with allot of other tech tool software. the total software I have in GB is 150 GB and plan to grow to 1 terabyte within the next year and one half.

I run wireless G and it's fast and would like to keep it that way.

Currently I have an Acer AOA 150 160 Mghz 1.5 GB ram 130 GB HD and 250 external HD. Should I sell any of these or integrate them with my new system?

Thanks.
G4_Music

 

[postmortemIA]

CPU is #1, GPU is #2. That are items you won't be able to upgrade. Hard drive, memory- that is easily and cheaply upgradeable.
Get CPU with highest clock that you can afford and with least 4 cores.
Usually high-end mobile CPUs are orders of magnitude more expensive than mid range ones, so find top mid range CPU, and that one should be best bang for bucks.

 

[Torn Mind]

Your Atom processor is so slow even a 500 dollar i3 laptop or 300 dollar Pentium would be a massive improvement. Performance-wise, the Atom you have is comparable to some Pentium 4s, aka sluggish and lethargic.

Here are some i7 laptops. The QMs have 4 physical cores and offer the best processing performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...740&IsNodeId=1

 

[G4_Music]

Your Atom processor is so slow even a 500 dollar i3 laptop or 300 dollar Pentium would be a massive improvement. Performance-wise, the Atom you have is comparable to some Pentium 4s, aka sluggish and lethargic.

Here are some i7 laptops. The QMs have 4 physical cores and offer the best processing performance.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...740&IsNodeId=1

Could you build the laptop for me with 1920x1080 HD display using you specifications and knowledge trying to keep the price around $800 including tax? I know this is asking a bunch of you but it seems like you really know what your talking about. You have no idea how much I would appreciate it.
Thanks
G4_Music

 

[G4_Music]

CPU is #1, GPU is #2. That are items you won't be able to upgrade. Hard drive, memory- that is easily and cheaply upgradeable.
Get CPU with highest clock that you can afford and with least 4 cores.
Usually high-end mobile CPUs are orders of magnitude more expensive than mid range ones, so find top mid range CPU, and that one should be best bang for bucks.

Could you build the laptop for me with 1920x1080 HD display using you specifications and knowledge trying to keep the price around $800 including tax? I know this is asking a bunch of you but it seems like you really know what your talking about. You have no idea how much I would appreciate it.
Thanks
G4_Music

 

[G4_Music]

Could you build the laptop for me with 1920x1080 HD display using you specifications and knowledge trying to keep the price around $800 including tax? I know this is asking a bunch of you but it seems like you really know what your talking about. You have no idea how much I would appreciate it.
Thanks
G4_Music

 

[G4_Music]

Could you build the laptop for me with 1920x1080 HD display using you specifications and knowledge trying to keep the price around $800 including tax? I know this is asking a bunch of you but it seems like you really know what your talking about. You have no idea how much I would appreciate it.
Thanks
G4_Music

 

[Torn Mind]

You give me too much credit. I'm not that familiar with laptop buying. Just a little about relative processor performance.

So far, after a quick search, I have found only one laptop that has 1080p and under $800. There might be others since I haven't looked that deep.

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SVE1412BC...productDetails
http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/model-home.pl?mdl=SVE1412BCXB&LOC=3#/howtoTab

 

[G4_Music]

Thanks so much, your the best!

G4_Music

 

[Torn Mind]

I'm sorry for the confusion, Amazon has 17.3 inch version going for about 700 bucks. The one in the other link I gave you is for the 14 inch one and that one is not 1920x1080.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...&condition=new

 

[lawlz]

Spend money on the CPU>GPU>Screen as these are components that are either going to be impossible to upgrade down the road or very difficult, depending on what kind of laptop you end up getting. After that, skimp out on easy user-upgradeable parts such as RAM and HDD.

 

[postmortemIA]

for $800 you can't have it all: good CPU, GPU and full HD display
Best I've found are these two:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834200696
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834127831
for little more you can get 4 cores CPU:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834200695

 

[lawlz]

Question: What percentage of the $800.00 should go to the lap-top and what percentage should go for up-grades and future expand-ability in order to get the best bang for my buck (You know doing some home build myself)? I want to get the most powerful laptop for the money. example: speed, hard drive speed and capacity ram speed and capacity for present and future upgrade. processor speed, motherboard screen resolution and any thing you think would be more important. What brand is best bang for buck? etc...

Any help sure would be appreciate. I will be running adobe c6 and have 2 international websites. along with allot of other tech tool software. the total software I have in GB is 150 GB and plan to grow to 1 terabyte within the next year and one half.

I run wireless G and it's fast and would like to keep it that way.

Currently I have an Acer AOA 150 160 Mghz 1.5 GB ram 130 GB HD and 250 external HD. Should I sell any of these or integrate them with my new system?

Thanks.
G4_Music

The best bang for the buck lies in Sager/Clevo laptops. These are well-known brands (they are the same, just different branding) in the notebook community, acclaimed for their great performance per dollar ratio, which is the best in the industry most of the time. Their designs are simple and sleek, but still have some of the best cooling designs.

You can check out their models/customize them to your liking based on your budget at two very reputable resellers:

XoticPC.com
PowerNotebooks.com

 

[dagamer34]

CPU is #1, GPU is #2. That are items you won't be able to upgrade. Hard drive, memory- that is easily and cheaply upgradeable.
Get CPU with highest clock that you can afford and with least 4 cores.
Usually high-end mobile CPUs are orders of magnitude more expensive than mid range ones, so find top mid range CPU, and that one should be best bang for bucks.

I'd argue that #1 should be CPU, #2 should be screen (1080p). If you're buying a laptop, you're already handicapping yourself on the GPU front, and will almost never "win" at that game, but a 1080p 13" screen will always look good 3-4 years into the future (and I still doubt they will be on all computers then sadly).

 

[kdskamal]

I would suggest getting a used Vaio Z. It has 13.3 inch screen and packs full HD display. You can easily get it for under $1000.

 

[Fox5]

Go for a 15.5" Sony Vaio S Series, if you can spend a little more. Has a 1080p IPS display and good specs.

http://store.sony.com/webapp/wcs/st...10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666441791

 

[Slammy1]

Get a nice clearance item (if you don't mind installing your own SSD)

HP Pavilion dm4-3170se - $750 Shipped

It's what I've been looking for I think.

 

[uberman]

Here's my suggestion based on my experience. I have 8 or 9 laptops. I have 6 T61 Thinkpads running WIN XP, one Toshiba with WIN 7 and one HP 17 inch with a separate 1 gig of memory video card.

The T61's are great. I have tons of software for WIN XP and I upgraded them to 750 gig HDs and replaced the DVD players with DVD burners. The Toshiba is a Black Friday buy, $600 computer for $300. My HP is the hot rod with the great video card, Intel processor, 2 USB 3.0 connections, 6 gig of RAM and other bells and whistles.

IMHO the following is true. ThinkPads used to be awesome, but I believe that Lenovo is producing crap nowadays. I believe that the quality of the Toshiba is pretty darn good; however the battery has always been defective. I believe that the laptops were too old, based on the condition of the battery and the paperwork that came with it. This was a Black Friday deal and they had some old laptops to get rid of.

The HP laptop is junk based on my experience and for the reason I'll explain. I carry all my laptops in padded cases. I have many bags, some are briefcase style while others are laptop backpacks. They range in price from $60 to $90 for the SwissBags. The HP Laptop was selling for $1,000 and I purchased online from HP for $799. It really works great, except for the onboard camera and everyone online has problems with theirs. A 2 year guarantee from HP costs $200. If I bought this model at Costco I would have got a 2 year guarantee for free.

The reason I think the HP is junk is because of the thinness and poor manufacturing of the unit. Although it is always carried in a padded bag, even when it sits in the closet, the screen is cracked and completely useless. I've had to go out and purchase a monitor and a 2 TB external hard drive to copy all my data from it. After I complete that I'm going to have to argue with HP. It has never been dropped or bumped, the case looks perfect, maybe they just give poor supports for the screen.

I hope this is helpful. I really like the 2 USB 3.0 connections and the separate video card is great for games. Even watching movies produces a 3D effect. Toshiba might have a good model with a separate video card.