Whats the best bang for buck i cand find for a Laptop?

[enyce2k9]

hello peeps,
this monday i would need to place an order for a laptop, and clueless on where to FIND the best bang, i've got too many options and dont know where to go.

basicly im looking for a decent mediocre laptop,
not some Integrated VGA laptop with 16mb.

ill say some musts,
at least 40GB hd, at least 64MB vga with good chip (R9600 & higher or equivalent)
and at least 512MB ddr ram.

great pluses would be widescreen, wireless G, card reader.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications...tails.asp?EdpNo=1576795&Tab=0&NoMapp=0

i found that and if someone believes i can get a better bang please let me know,
and if someone has had bad experiences with Tigerdirect's shipping please let me know also because i MUST have this by THURSDAY the ultimate latest,

*ill be placing the order early this Monday, and will pay for 2nd day air*

also if you yourself have a laptop that you might want to sell just pm me.
thanks peeps, any comments will be appreciated.

 

[deathwalker]

Check this one out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834224028

 

[cheesehead]

Don't worry about RAM. It's very easy (and much cheaper) to add it yourself later.
The Mayhem XG1, as shown above, is a very nice laptop. Both NewEgg and ABS (it stands for "always better service") have WONDERFUL reputations as vendors. (I have bought stuff from them, and intend to do so in the future.) TigerDirect, however, has abysmal service; also, they're very bad about dealing with rebates.

 

[Mike01]

That Gateway redefines the expression "bang for buck".

btw...I believe Tiger Direct messed up...that MR9600 is not integrated graphics and the 64MB is dedicated, not shared. I could be wrong about this...there are MR9600s with shared memory, or at least there are supposed to be, but I've never actually seen one.

 

[Hacp]

Looks like a good buy.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Price range?

Gateway MX7515: A64 4000+, 128MB X600, 100GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.4" WXGA, ~$1000 on sale @ Best Buy

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Price range?

That Gateway seems like one hell of a deal.

 

[cheesehead]

That seems almost too good of a deal, even for a Gateway. An A64 4000+ is at least 400$ or so.
Also, take into account that this is a Gateway laptop. Gateway laptops do not have reputations for quality; I have owned Gateway computers, and never really thought much of them.
Also, I'd be willing to bet that it weighs a ton.

 

[The Linuxator]

Originally posted by: Cheesehead
That seems almost too good of a deal, even for a Gateway. An A64 4000+ is at least 400$ or so.
Also, take into account that this is a Gateway laptop. Gateway laptops do not have reputations for quality; I have owned Gateway computers, and never really thought much of them.
Also, I'd be willing to bet that it weighs a ton.

If you are looking for a DTR who cares about weight ? heat . then if you want a nice gaming laptop with good quality check out ASUS. other than that you either have to pay too much or get too little.

But when you buy stuff like Gateway, make sure you have a heavy warranty backing you up. , if you want to get something without a warranty and feel good about it then go get a Thinkpad, otherwise it's a warranty that will make you feel safe about a crappy brandname.

 

[undeclared]

I'd get a powernotebook (http://www.powernotebooks.com), they are centrino (which means battery life), whilst having some really nice graphics cards available.

I have one, a Centrino 1.7, 512mb of ram, 15" 1400x1024 I think (not widescreen), an older model with an ATI 9000 64mb card, and I can push about 4 hours battery life (approx) websurfing/chatting/etc.. to 1 hour gaming or watching movies (take much more power).

It's also ridiculously light compared to other laptops I've seen.

I'm pretty happy with it, and the price wasn't bad..

You CAN get a laptop with a desktop cpu, but don't expect to be able to go anywhere with it (you will have to plug it in )

This is where you really have to choose what you want.. battery life or desktop strength.. I would also keep in mind that you can get one with battery life and also a good GPU (powernotebooks has a centrino w/ a geforce 6600 I think, dell also offers something similar but I remember the price being better at powernotebooks)..

Either way, good luck

Best advice: look around. I suggest you go for a decent centrino though.

 

[andrewbabcock]

Go dell and get a big warranty w/complete care and all is good. 600m or any of those...

 

[unfalliblekrutch]

a dell with lots of coupons might be your best bang for the buck. The x300 should be similar to a 9600, IRRC. You might even be able to get a i9300 w/ 6800 if you get a really good coupon.

The gateway is refurbished...which is why it is so cheap.

 

[mparr1708]

Originally posted by: unfalliblekrutch
a dell with lots of coupons might be your best bang for the buck. The x300 should be similar to a 9600, IRRC. You might even be able to get a i9300 w/ 6800 if you get a really good coupon.

The gateway is refurbished...which is why it is so cheap.

Actually x600 is closer to the 9600 (Almost identical to the 9600 with the exception that it is a pcix part instead of an agp card). I forget exactly where the x300 lands in comparrison to the 9XXX series of radeons, but if I had to venture a guess I would say its closer to the 9200 class of cards.

Its direct competitor is the 6200 from nvidia. It tends to out perform the 6200 slightly because most the time the 6200's are turbo cache models (Meaning part of the video ram is dedicated and the other half is borrowed from system memory)....that is as long as you dont buy a turbocache model of the x300. Dell uses dedicated memory in theres for the most part though.

If you are wanting to game on a notebook the x600 is pretty much the minimum unless you want to sacrifice resolution and visual goodies. I won't game on anything less then a 6600 or x700 card. I have an X800XL in my desktop and I just cant stand to give up all the visual goodness when playing on these weaker cards. Thats just my opinion though .