I'm looking for a new laptop. Unfortunately I can't consider Apple because I need to use software which is only available for PC (not to mention that even the 17" PowerBook only has a 1440x900 display). Also, there is software which I use constantly which I have tailored for a 1600-pixel-wide display, so it would only be practical for me to get a 1600-pixel-wide laptop display. Widescreen laptops are fine and actually preferable. While the 17" laptops are really nice, I think I'd rather have something a little smaller, so I really can't justify paying extra for one. A 1920x1200 display would also be fine, but things might be a little hard to read unless it was on a 17" screen, which I'm not sure if I'm really interested in.
I'm probably not going to get one until I can satisfy all my requirements for under $1500. Maybe that's just too much to ask. Still, if I wanted to start compromising on my requirements, I would just go get a $699 Acer at Newegg with a Celeron M and a 1280x800 display.
So, my current requirements are:
15.4" 1680x1050 screen preferred, but would consider a 1600x1200 screen or 17" 1920x1200 screen.
It needs to have built-in Wi-Fi, preferably b/g.
Built-in bluetooth is preferred as I will probably end up taking a bluetooth mouse with me.
Needs to have good battery life, preferably over 4 hours, so it will probably be a Pentium M.
Just about any CPU over 1 GHz should be plenty, so that's not much of an issue.
I'm not going to be playing Doom 3 on it, but I still don't want integrated graphics. A regular GeForce FX Go5200 would probably be fine. A Radeon 9600/9700 would be great, but I really don't like ATI's support for them. I don't want to be depending on Dell/Gateway to give me updated drivers, and it's ridiculous to have to use hacked ones. Still, not a big deal I guess.
I want a minimum of 512MB, but memory isn't much of an issue as I will probably just end up paying $80 for an extra 512MB to install myself. Hard drive size isn't much of a concern, either. I will probably upgrade it myself to a 7200RPM drive later on.
A plain combo drive is fine. I burn DVDs all the time but I really don't have any aspirations for doing so on my laptop. I really wouldn't care if it had no drive at all (as long as it was capable of booting from a standard USB enclosure to reinstall WinXP).
The hard drive doesn't matter. I'll probably upgrade to a 7200 RPM drive in a few years.
Things I'm looking at:
Dell Inspirion 9200
This looks like a great deal at $1,484 for a 17" Centrino with a Mobility Radeon 9700 (1.6 GHz Pentium M). The small things add up really fast, though. It comes with a 1440x900 display and costs $113 to upgrade to the 1920x1200. They'll give you a free printer with it, but still only 256MB RAM. The standard 53Wh battery only lasts 3.4 hours, and it is $89 to upgrade to the 80Wh one that lasts 5.2 hours (yet it's only $116 to get an additional battery, so I'd probably keep the 53Wh one and get an extra 80Wh battery). Internal Bluetooth is another $44.
So, we're talking $1,770 for the screen, battery and Bluetooth upgrade and another 256MB from Newegg, which is the minimum I'd get. If I was going to invest that much, I think I'd be wanting it to last a long time, so I'd probably also upgrade to the 1.8 GHz CPU and get the 2-year at-home service plan taking the price up to right about $2,000.
A 1920x1200 display is just huge, and if I was going to try and play some games on it I imagine the performance would be horrible at that resolution. I suppose it probably has the ability to run in 800x600 and then just stretch it to fit.
It's 1.6" tall and 7.71 lbs.
Dell Inspirion 8600
Here's a 15.4" widescreen notebook with a 1680x1050 display available for an extra $68. It has a 1.4 GHz Pentium M, 256MB, 32MB GeForce FX Go5200, 4.5 hour battery life, and you can get an extra drive bay battery which takes it up to 7.5 hours.
That's $1,277 with only the screen upgrade and an additional 256MB. The only real downside is that it doesn't have Bluetooth. Having to buy a Bluetooth dongle and stick it in the back of the laptop certainly does negate some of the convenience of having the mouse in the first place.
It's 1.52" tall and 6.9 lbs.
HP Pavilion zt3000 / Compaq Presario X1000
With a 15.4" 1680x1050 display, Pentium M 1.6 GHz, Mobility Radeon 9200, Bluetooth and 256MB, it's $1,303 before a $30 mail-in rebate (for the Compaq; the HP is $1,474 before a $50 rebate). Seems like an OK deal, but I've never heard many good things about HP, and the notebook actually has a parallel port on the bacK. It's 1.3" thick and 6.5 lbs.
HP Pavilion zv5000z / Compaq Presario R3000Z
It's an AMD system, but you can get it with a 15.4" 1680x1050 display, 12-cell battery, GF4 420 Go, Bluetooth and 256MB for $1,004 before a $30 main-in rebate (for the Compaq; the HP is $1,149 before a $50 rebate). There's a P4 version which is about $150 more and uses Radeon integrated graphics. It doesn't list battery life, but I don't suppose even the big battery can last that long in an AMD. It seems pretty large -- 1.8" thick and 7.8 lbs.
Gateway doesn't have anything even close to what I want. The only thing they even have with decent resolution is the $2,000 450XL and the $2,800 P4 3.4 GHz which weighs 9 lbs. and has a 2-hour battery.
Toshiba doesn't have any displays better than 1440x900 even on their 17" laptops.
VoodooPC's notebooks start at $1,865. The ones with decent resolution start at $2,655.
Alienware's Area-51's are available with a 1680x1050 screen. They start at $2,054 without wi-fi. They don't have Bluetooth and aren't available with a Pentium M.
Everything by eMachines has 1280x800 resolution.
ABSComputer's notebooks are 1280x800.
The only thing Newegg has with resolution over 1400x1050 is the ASUS W1N, which is a great laptop, except it doesn't have Bluetooth and it's $2,399.
Micron has nothing over 1400x1050.
Those goofy shiny notebooks you see all over the place (like ibuypower.com) don't seem to ever have bluetooth included, and even the ones that say Centrino don't list wi-fi.
Eurocom is $1844 for their M375E Milano with a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth and a 12-cell battery. That's for a Pentium M 1.5, a 4200 RPM hard drive and no OS. That's just sad.
There's just nothing that's sticking out as a really nice laptop. Anybody have any ideas?
I'm probably not going to get one until I can satisfy all my requirements for under $1500. Maybe that's just too much to ask. Still, if I wanted to start compromising on my requirements, I would just go get a $699 Acer at Newegg with a Celeron M and a 1280x800 display.
So, my current requirements are:
15.4" 1680x1050 screen preferred, but would consider a 1600x1200 screen or 17" 1920x1200 screen.
It needs to have built-in Wi-Fi, preferably b/g.
Built-in bluetooth is preferred as I will probably end up taking a bluetooth mouse with me.
Needs to have good battery life, preferably over 4 hours, so it will probably be a Pentium M.
Just about any CPU over 1 GHz should be plenty, so that's not much of an issue.
I'm not going to be playing Doom 3 on it, but I still don't want integrated graphics. A regular GeForce FX Go5200 would probably be fine. A Radeon 9600/9700 would be great, but I really don't like ATI's support for them. I don't want to be depending on Dell/Gateway to give me updated drivers, and it's ridiculous to have to use hacked ones. Still, not a big deal I guess.
I want a minimum of 512MB, but memory isn't much of an issue as I will probably just end up paying $80 for an extra 512MB to install myself. Hard drive size isn't much of a concern, either. I will probably upgrade it myself to a 7200RPM drive later on.
A plain combo drive is fine. I burn DVDs all the time but I really don't have any aspirations for doing so on my laptop. I really wouldn't care if it had no drive at all (as long as it was capable of booting from a standard USB enclosure to reinstall WinXP).
The hard drive doesn't matter. I'll probably upgrade to a 7200 RPM drive in a few years.
Things I'm looking at:
Dell Inspirion 9200
This looks like a great deal at $1,484 for a 17" Centrino with a Mobility Radeon 9700 (1.6 GHz Pentium M). The small things add up really fast, though. It comes with a 1440x900 display and costs $113 to upgrade to the 1920x1200. They'll give you a free printer with it, but still only 256MB RAM. The standard 53Wh battery only lasts 3.4 hours, and it is $89 to upgrade to the 80Wh one that lasts 5.2 hours (yet it's only $116 to get an additional battery, so I'd probably keep the 53Wh one and get an extra 80Wh battery). Internal Bluetooth is another $44.
So, we're talking $1,770 for the screen, battery and Bluetooth upgrade and another 256MB from Newegg, which is the minimum I'd get. If I was going to invest that much, I think I'd be wanting it to last a long time, so I'd probably also upgrade to the 1.8 GHz CPU and get the 2-year at-home service plan taking the price up to right about $2,000.
A 1920x1200 display is just huge, and if I was going to try and play some games on it I imagine the performance would be horrible at that resolution. I suppose it probably has the ability to run in 800x600 and then just stretch it to fit.
It's 1.6" tall and 7.71 lbs.
Dell Inspirion 8600
Here's a 15.4" widescreen notebook with a 1680x1050 display available for an extra $68. It has a 1.4 GHz Pentium M, 256MB, 32MB GeForce FX Go5200, 4.5 hour battery life, and you can get an extra drive bay battery which takes it up to 7.5 hours.
That's $1,277 with only the screen upgrade and an additional 256MB. The only real downside is that it doesn't have Bluetooth. Having to buy a Bluetooth dongle and stick it in the back of the laptop certainly does negate some of the convenience of having the mouse in the first place.
It's 1.52" tall and 6.9 lbs.
HP Pavilion zt3000 / Compaq Presario X1000
With a 15.4" 1680x1050 display, Pentium M 1.6 GHz, Mobility Radeon 9200, Bluetooth and 256MB, it's $1,303 before a $30 mail-in rebate (for the Compaq; the HP is $1,474 before a $50 rebate). Seems like an OK deal, but I've never heard many good things about HP, and the notebook actually has a parallel port on the bacK. It's 1.3" thick and 6.5 lbs.
HP Pavilion zv5000z / Compaq Presario R3000Z
It's an AMD system, but you can get it with a 15.4" 1680x1050 display, 12-cell battery, GF4 420 Go, Bluetooth and 256MB for $1,004 before a $30 main-in rebate (for the Compaq; the HP is $1,149 before a $50 rebate). There's a P4 version which is about $150 more and uses Radeon integrated graphics. It doesn't list battery life, but I don't suppose even the big battery can last that long in an AMD. It seems pretty large -- 1.8" thick and 7.8 lbs.
Gateway doesn't have anything even close to what I want. The only thing they even have with decent resolution is the $2,000 450XL and the $2,800 P4 3.4 GHz which weighs 9 lbs. and has a 2-hour battery.
Toshiba doesn't have any displays better than 1440x900 even on their 17" laptops.
VoodooPC's notebooks start at $1,865. The ones with decent resolution start at $2,655.
Alienware's Area-51's are available with a 1680x1050 screen. They start at $2,054 without wi-fi. They don't have Bluetooth and aren't available with a Pentium M.
Everything by eMachines has 1280x800 resolution.
ABSComputer's notebooks are 1280x800.
The only thing Newegg has with resolution over 1400x1050 is the ASUS W1N, which is a great laptop, except it doesn't have Bluetooth and it's $2,399.
Micron has nothing over 1400x1050.
Those goofy shiny notebooks you see all over the place (like ibuypower.com) don't seem to ever have bluetooth included, and even the ones that say Centrino don't list wi-fi.
Eurocom is $1844 for their M375E Milano with a 15.4" 1680x1050 screen, 802.11b/g, Bluetooth and a 12-cell battery. That's for a Pentium M 1.5, a 4200 RPM hard drive and no OS. That's just sad.
There's just nothing that's sticking out as a really nice laptop. Anybody have any ideas?
