Need laptop recommendations

[RbSX]

Hey guys,

Time to get a new laptop, battery is dying on this, charger is fvcked, time to get a new one.

Any recommendations?

Ryan

Edit: I forgot to mention 4 hours battery life IS a must.

 

[Oil]

The Asus F3 series with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS graphics (DX 10) looks like a nice choice: Example

 

[RbSX]

Originally posted by: OSx86
The Asus F3 series with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS graphics (DX 10) looks like a nice choice: Example

One thing I'm incredibly worried about is turn around.

This is my school laptop.. so if it breaks I can't be waiting 2 weeks to get it back... so I tend to stay away from Acer/Asus those guys.. unless they have a depot/licensed servicer in the area.

 

[Oil]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: OSx86
The Asus F3 series with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS graphics (DX 10) looks like a nice choice: Example

One thing I'm incredibly worried about is turn around.

This is my school laptop.. so if it breaks I can't be waiting 2 weeks to get it back... so I tend to stay away from Acer/Asus those guys.. unless they have a depot/licensed servicer in the area.

Thats what I'm worried about also (looking for a new 14/15" laptop myself). I would recommend looking at the Lenovo 14" T61 with the Nvidia graphics but it isn't 15" and the graphics are at the low-med. range. I will post more suggestions when I find them

 

[dclive]

The Apple MacBook Pros fit your description, and they have 8600M GTs in them, plus a good CPU (2.2 / 2.4, rather than the older 2/2.13/2.33 series - the MBPs are SantaRosa), and they're light at about 5.x pounds with what I believe is one of the best 15.4" screens in the business.

It also can be serviced at any Apple store, so it's easy to have someone look at it at the drop of a hat.

 

[TheStu]

DClive is right in that the MBP meets most of what you are looking for. Since you are a student, you can get it for $1800 base, so a little more than you were looking to spend, but given the specs, you may consider it worth it. What is your major?

 

[RbSX]

Originally posted by: TheStu
DClive is right in that the MBP meets most of what you are looking for. Since you are a student, you can get it for $1800 base, so a little more than you were looking to spend, but given the specs, you may consider it worth it. What is your major?

Economics, 4th year.

Have my trusty Dell Inspiron 8600 from first year still.

I was looking at the macbook pro and I really enjoy it and want it quite badly but I will be running windows XP and I heard that using some apps emulated through bootcamp can be rather slow.

Summarily, I would be looking to buy one used just to save a few coin but I don't think we'll be seeing any of the new macbook pros used for sale for a month or two, and I don't necessarily mind that wait all that much.

 

[gus6464]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: TheStu
DClive is right in that the MBP meets most of what you are looking for. Since you are a student, you can get it for $1800 base, so a little more than you were looking to spend, but given the specs, you may consider it worth it. What is your major?

Economics, 4th year.

Have my trusty Dell Inspiron 8600 from first year still.

I was looking at the macbook pro and I really enjoy it and want it quite badly but I will be running windows XP and I heard that using some apps emulated through bootcamp can be rather slow.

Summarily, I would be looking to buy one used just to save a few coin but I don't think we'll be seeing any of the new macbook pros used for sale for a month or two, and I don't necessarily mind that wait all that much.

Boot camp is not emulation in any way. You are running windows xp natively when using bootcamp. You actually have a dual boot setup when using bootcamp. But other than that maybe you should look at the Dell Latitude D830s?

My System Details
Intel® Core? 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz) 4M L2 Cache, 667Mhz Dual Core
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition, SP2, with media
15.4 inch Wide Screen WSXGA+ LCD Panel
512MB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 1 DIMM
120GB Hard Drive, 9.5MM, 5400RPM
8X DVD+/-RW w/Roxio Digital Media? and Cyberlink Power DVD?
512MB NVIDIA® Quadro NVS 120M TurboCache?
Dell Wireless? 1390 802.11g Mini Card
Standard Touchpad
My Accessories
9 Cell Primary Battery
90W A/C Adapter
No Floppy Drive
My Software
Resource CD - Contains Diagnostics and Drivers
My Support & Services
3 Year Limited Warranty plus 3 Year NBD On-Site Service
$1377

The warranty that it comes with is next day on site service btw.

 

[TheStu]

Gus is right about bootcamp, it is a dualboot setup. I think that you are thinking about Parallels or VMWare Fusion. Those are virtualization (not the same as emulation) and therefore you won't get quite native speeds out of them. Though the performance you get is pretty decent.

I would second Gus' recommendation, the Dell Latitudes are pretty well put together machines, though you would want to add more RAM to it from the egg.

 

[gus6464]

Yeah I forgot about the ram part. You can upgrade that machine to 2gb for 80 bucks more if you buy 2 sticks from newegg. So all in all you are looking at a pretty stacked system with very good warranty included for less than what your budget is. If you went for the MBP it would be 1799 plus applecare which would put you at around $2000.

If I had 2k to spend I would definitely go with the macbook pro hands down. But if you cant spend that much the latitude D830 is a pretty stacked system for 500 less.

 

[RbSX]

Originally posted by: gus6464
Yeah I forgot about the ram part. You can upgrade that machine to 2gb for 80 bucks more if you buy 2 sticks from newegg. So all in all you are looking at a pretty stacked system with very good warranty included for less than what your budget is. If you went for the MBP it would be 1799 plus applecare which would put you at around $2000.

If I had 2k to spend I would definitely go with the macbook pro hands down. But if you cant spend that much the latitude D830 is a pretty stacked system for 500 less.

Slightly concerned about the Quadro in the Dell though.

 

[luminousmidnight]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: TheStu
DClive is right in that the MBP meets most of what you are looking for. Since you are a student, you can get it for $1800 base, so a little more than you were looking to spend, but given the specs, you may consider it worth it. What is your major?

Economics, 4th year.

Have my trusty Dell Inspiron 8600 from first year still.

I was looking at the macbook pro and I really enjoy it and want it quite badly but I will be running windows XP and I heard that using some apps emulated through bootcamp can be rather slow.

Summarily, I would be looking to buy one used just to save a few coin but I don't think we'll be seeing any of the new macbook pros used for sale for a month or two, and I don't necessarily mind that wait all that much.

Actually, I think you're thinking of Rosetta, which is an Intel Mac application under the hood of Tiger that emulates PowerPC-based applications. Anything that's not univeral or designed specifically for Intel Macs requires emulation (Office for Mac 2004 is a big example of this, along with Photoshop). Because these programs are being emulated, they run more slowly than native ones.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: luminousmidnight

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: TheStu
DClive is right in that the MBP meets most of what you are looking for. Since you are a student, you can get it for $1800 base, so a little more than you were looking to spend, but given the specs, you may consider it worth it. What is your major?

Economics, 4th year.

Have my trusty Dell Inspiron 8600 from first year still.

I was looking at the macbook pro and I really enjoy it and want it quite badly but I will be running windows XP and I heard that using some apps emulated through bootcamp can be rather slow.

Summarily, I would be looking to buy one used just to save a few coin but I don't think we'll be seeing any of the new macbook pros used for sale for a month or two, and I don't necessarily mind that wait all that much.

Actually, I think you're thinking of Rosetta, which is an Intel Mac application under the hood of Tiger that emulates PowerPC-based applications. Anything that's not univeral or designed specifically for Intel Macs requires emulation (Office for Mac 2004 is a big example of this, along with Photoshop). Because these programs are being emulated, they run more slowly than native ones.

You are probably right about that luminous, though the newest version of PhotoShop, CS3, is UB (Universal Binary for the un-initiated). Now if Microsoft can just release Office 2k8, I will have no more major Rosetta apps.

 

[gus6464]

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: gus6464
Yeah I forgot about the ram part. You can upgrade that machine to 2gb for 80 bucks more if you buy 2 sticks from newegg. So all in all you are looking at a pretty stacked system with very good warranty included for less than what your budget is. If you went for the MBP it would be 1799 plus applecare which would put you at around $2000.

If I had 2k to spend I would definitely go with the macbook pro hands down. But if you cant spend that much the latitude D830 is a pretty stacked system for 500 less.

Slightly concerned about the Quadro in the Dell though.

Whats wrong with the quadro in the Dell?

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: gus6464

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: gus6464
Yeah I forgot about the ram part. You can upgrade that machine to 2gb for 80 bucks more if you buy 2 sticks from newegg. So all in all you are looking at a pretty stacked system with very good warranty included for less than what your budget is. If you went for the MBP it would be 1799 plus applecare which would put you at around $2000.

If I had 2k to spend I would definitely go with the macbook pro hands down. But if you cant spend that much the latitude D830 is a pretty stacked system for 500 less.

Slightly concerned about the Quadro in the Dell though.

Whats wrong with the quadro in the Dell?

It's basically a rebadged low-end consumer grade card. Improvement would be seen in professional applications, but little would be seen in games. You'd also see a nice drop in battery life over going with an integrated chip.

 

[gus6464]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: gus6464

Originally posted by: RyanSengara

Originally posted by: gus6464
Yeah I forgot about the ram part. You can upgrade that machine to 2gb for 80 bucks more if you buy 2 sticks from newegg. So all in all you are looking at a pretty stacked system with very good warranty included for less than what your budget is. If you went for the MBP it would be 1799 plus applecare which would put you at around $2000.

If I had 2k to spend I would definitely go with the macbook pro hands down. But if you cant spend that much the latitude D830 is a pretty stacked system for 500 less.

Slightly concerned about the Quadro in the Dell though.

Whats wrong with the quadro in the Dell?

It's basically a rebadged low-end consumer grade card. Improvement would be seen in professional applications, but little would be seen in games. You'd also see a nice drop in battery life over going with an integrated chip.

Yeah but the low end integrated chips whether from nvidia or ati are still just as bad as the intel one. Unless you get something with an X3100 which will fare much better in the integrated arena as well as DX10 support.