Need help deciding what laptop to get

[currahee440]

Hey guys, I'm in the market for a new laptop. Graduate school is 1.5 years away for me but I think I'll get a new laptop pretty soon.

I don't plan on getting one immediately, because I know Ivy Bridge is going to come out later this year. And I will probably pull the trigger when Ivy Bridge chips trickle down to the mobile world.

In the meantime, I am deciding what laptop to go for. I'll give you guys two examples I looked at, and hopefully the laptop I choose in the future will be of similar/better specs.

I'm looking at an ultraportable (Macbook Air) and a gaming laptop (ASUS). I can't decide if I want either one. I would LOVE to have an ultraportable because my toshiba laptop was quite heavy to carry around. It's a standard 15.4" screen and average laptop size, but after awhile it got tiring to carry. If I jammed a book or two in there it really sucked.

Keeping this in mind, it makes me want to go for the Macbook Air 13". Weight is kind of a big deal for me. If I'm going to haul a laptop around it better not kill me in the process!

But, I look at the Macbook Air. It has a 1.7GHz dual core ULV i5. Then I look at the ASUS gaming laptop, which has a quad core i7. Not only that, but the gaming laptop has a GTX 560M, 8 gigs of RAM, AND a terabyte hard drive! Talk about packed! And the thing that makes me want to shy away from the MBA? The ASUS is $100 cheaper!

But the thing is, the ASUS is a 17" laptop and it's probably designed to be a desktop replacement. It has top-tier hardware so it's probably going to weigh several bricks. Not too sure if my shoulder will be happy about that.

So what do you guys think? I'm not going to lug my desktop around with me because it will take up quite a bit of space in my car and the grad school I'm thinking about going to is pretty much like 1,300 miles away so space will be a premium. I probably won't play games all that much but... I would like to squeeze in an occasional game of ragecraft II or battlefield 3, and I know I would much rather have a GTX 560M rather than an Intel HD 3000.

So opinions? thanks :biggrin:

TL;DR Version: Should I get an ultraportable or a desktop replacement laptop?

 

[ScottAD]

You are looking at two very different ends of the spectrum.

What will you be using the laptop for? That needs to be the main concern. Looking nice is a consideration but consider what you will use it for before wanting something packed with hardware you won't use to it's full potential and end up carrying around a laptop that weighs 15 pounds.

 

[yinan]

Macbook Pro, best of both worlds. Mine has an i7 Quad, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD . It is nice.

 

[Zap]

My recommendations:

1) Ask again a week before you actually will be placing your order.

2) If you actually need the portability, you need something portable. You will NOT want to carry around a 17" gaming laptop in your backpack day in and day out.

3) If you actually want the performance with reasonable value for gaming, you will want a desktop computer.

Here goes - For portability (as in you absolutely need a computer with you in class) get something cheap, thin, lightweight and with great battery life. For that, get something with an AMD E-350/E-450, or a low end Sandy Bridge. For instance, the Dell Vostro V131 I have weighs 4 pounds with a 13.3" screen, gets 9 hours battery life, doesn't look like a tiny plastic toy netbook and has a dual core Sandy Bridge CPU. Oh yeah, starting price is $500. For around $400 or less you can get an E-350 with 11.6" screen. Alternately if you don't mind the smaller keyboard and are only using it to take notes/surreptitiously chat/facebook/web games during class, spend under $300 for a netbook. Heck, you can score some for $200-250 on sale at times.

For your desktop you can use your existing keyboard/mouse/monitor/Windows (depending on version) and your best HDD. Then, build a small form factor (SFF) gaming rig. Here's one possible build.
Silverstone SG05-450 case/PSU $120-140
Core i5 of some kind $180-220
mini ITX motherboard $80-120
8GB RAM $30-50
120GB SSD $120-200
mid range graphics card (Radeon 6870, GTX 560 ti) $180-220
your existing HDD/monitor/etc.

There! You will have a rig more powerful in games than just about any notebook at triple the cost, plus it will be the size of a shoe box. See this pic of the SG05 case next to a gaming tower:

source

 

[Topweasel]

I am with Zap on this, its probably better and cheaper to find two lower cost products that fit your needs then one product that does everything. That's why tablets are becoming the new laptops. Lots of people have been getting laptops because they have fallen in price and are looking for something they can browse the web on in the living room.

Figure out besides being lite you need out of the laptop and whether or not you need a portable gaming system, and how portable it needs to be.

As for laptops themselves. A small gaming laptop to look at might be the alien-ware M11x. But if you need the laptop for browsing and lite productivity work (office) and really are just looking for gaming at your desk at home, you can get a better and upgradeable machine at home and a minimal net book for school for a lot less, or depending on the desktop, better situated for gaming.

 

[mfenn]

Macbook Pro, best of both worlds. Mine has an i7 Quad, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD . It is nice.

And is probably 2-3 times the OP's budget.

 

[currahee440]

Thanks Zap, I have a friend who actually got the XPS 14z, and apparently the Vostro is the business version of the XPS/Inspirion. It looks pretty neat.

EDIT
Got it. Gonna get the XPS 15Z and load it with a quad core i7.

Thanks