please help me find a new laptop

[evilbeef54]

I need a new laptop before i go underway in June, i really want to get one sooner as i am having to send my current laptop (only computer we have) in to get serviced/replaced. I want to say as cheap as possible but dont want some POS that's going to fall apart. Since i am going to be on a ship for about 4 months i really want something i can play some games on. My current laptop does most everything i want it to (plays movies, download porn, internet, etc.) However the most i can do game wise is C&C3 and even then it is pushing it. I dont really want to just go to bestbuy and get whatever is on sale again, but i really have no idea what i'm looking for in a laptop or where to look. Any advice/suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Oh yeah I'm looking to keep the price around the $750-1000 range and want to be about a 15" monitor so it will fit the pocket in my icon milspec vest/backpack
Thanks

 

[Life2PointOhh]

I need a new laptop before i go underway in June, i really want to get one sooner as i am having to send my current laptop (only computer we have) in to get serviced/replaced. I want to say as cheap as possible but dont want some POS that's going to fall apart. Since i am going to be on a ship for about 4 months i really want something i can play some games on. My current laptop does most everything i want it to (plays movies, download porn, internet, etc.) However the most i can do game wise is C&C3 and even then it is pushing it. I dont really want to just go to bestbuy and get whatever is on sale again, but i really have no idea what i'm looking for in a laptop or where to look. Any advice/suggestions would be highly appreciated.
Oh yeah I'm looking to keep the price around the $750-1000 range and want to be about a 15" monitor so it will fit the pocket in my icon milspec vest/backpack
Thanks

Not sure why you haven't received an earlier response; maybe because this is an Android-based site so that's the focus. But I'm happy to give you my 2 cents anyhow...

I've got a Lenovo, which is branded genuine IBM. The model I have is a T60, which came out about 3 years ago. It's very fast with a dual processor & 4 gigs of ram, and it's a widescreen. Lenovo has around 30 or so models of laptop available, and some pretty sweet deals ranging from $500 on up. But the most important things to know about Lenovo laptops vs pretty much any other laptop out there are these:

• Lenovo has "shock airbags". Built into every Lenovo is a titanium protection cage. When a shock is sensed - whether totally on or in sleep or hibernate modes - that titanium cage locks onto the harddrive, protecting it. It is very, very sweet.

• They're built very well. Instead of the shiny colors you see on most laptops, Lenovos usually have a matte black paint, the same kind of non-slip stuff HTC painted onto the HTC Eris droid phones, I don't know what you call it. The screen hinges are steel and they're reinforced. You can feel the quality.

• Security. Built into every Lenovo is a fingerprint sensor, a cryptographic program that makes it very difficult to break in & steal your stuff. There's options to automatically back stuff up or run diagnostics that's even better than Windows 7 or most of the Linux OS.

• Excellent power management. Most laptops being shipped now have Windows 7, which I like and it has a great built-in application to manage the laptop's power settings to conserve battery usage. But Lenovo's built in software goes even further, letting you customize it totally even to the degree that you can control how often the fan goes on, or how dim or bright you want the screen, etc. It's nice.

• Lastly, it's the little things: Hit a button and there's a little built-in light that shines down onto the keyboard, so if you're using it at night you don't have to turn on a light to see what you need to on the keyboard. The keyboard's totally customizable for shortcuts you can create yourself. There's a little red trackball in the middle (no other laptop has that). As a last thing, I really appreciate that Lenovo didn't install a bunch of proprietary software into the BIOS. With Dell, HP, Sony Vaio, etc, even if you wipe the harddrive their proprietary crap is still there because it's built into their chips. Lenovo doesn't do that.

I've had a lot of laptops, but this Lenovo is the best I've ever had, hands down.

 

[SoulTerror]

Most laptops are not designed to play top of the line games. If your looking for something to play most of today's games your looking at some good money. You basically just need to look at the requirements of games that you want to play and then do your laptop search from there.

 

[cgh]

Most laptops are not designed to play top of the line games. If your looking for something to play most of today's games your looking at some good money. You basically just need to look at the requirements of games that you want to play and then do your laptop search from there.

Well, being a computer specialist at Best Buy (don't judge me), I feel qualified to answer this If you are looking for a gaming laptop, Asus is really the only way to go... That's pretty much what they are designed for. If you look into the Asus laptops that are above about 750$-800$, they generally have a dedicated graphics card, which is the most important part for playing games. We just got a new Asus in that has a core i7 and an HD 5870 1GB dedicated-GDDR5 graphics card, 6GB DDR3 RAM, and a bunch of other badass stuff. I believe that one is like 1200$, but there are several within your price range that have very adequate specs... Hope that helps some, feel free to pm me with any questions, and I'll check back here as well.

 

[SoulTerror]

Well, being a computer specialist at Best Buy (don't judge me), I feel qualified to answer this If you are looking for a gaming laptop, Asus is really the only way to go... That's pretty much what they are designed for. If you look into the Asus laptops that are above about 750$-800$, they generally have a dedicated graphics card, which is the most important part for playing games. We just got a new Asus in that has a core i7 and an HD 5870 1GB dedicated-GDDR5 graphics card, 6GB DDR3 RAM, and a bunch of other badass stuff. I believe that one is like 1200$, but there are several within your price range that have very adequate specs... Hope that helps some, feel free to pm me with any questions, and I'll check back here as well.

I wasn't saying they don't exist, they are just expensive like you have listed for $1200.

 

[cgh]

I wasn't saying they don't exist, they are just expensive like you have listed for $1200.

Oh I wasn't even responding to you... I just read the OP and then responded

Here is that 1,200$ one...
Asus - Laptop with Intel® Core™ i7 Processor - Black - G73JH-RBBX05

One for 999.99$
Asus - Laptop with Intel® Core™ i5 Processor - Blue/Black - G60JX-RBBX05

One for 729.99$
Asus Laptops

Definitely other places to get them too, I just know how to navigate BBY really easily.

 

[evilbeef54]

Thanks so much for your help and responses, I'm at work right now but I'll check them out tonight

 

[evilbeef54]

here's one that was recomended to me on another one of my forums, what do you guys think, looks like a good deal to me, i know it is a reman but new egg seems to have a good rep

Newegg.com - Recertified: ASUS G71GX-RX05 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo P8700(2.53GHz) 17.1" Wide XGA+ 6GB Memory DDR2 800 500GB HDD 5400rpm Super Multi DVD RW NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260M=

 

[El Blacksheep]

ASUS is the only way to go for gaming laptops? I was under the impression that Dell XPS and Alienware were king-of-the-hill.

 

[SoulTerror]

That seems like a good deal to me. New Egg is a great company. I buy all my parts from them. I almost bought a refurbished laptop from them, but for the same price I was able to go to Best Buy and pick up a similar speced laptop, just had a little smaller screen.

 

[evilbeef54]

Do they have any with compareable specs in the same price range?

ASUS is the only way to go for gaming laptops? I was under the impression that Dell XPS and Alienware were king-of-the-hill.

 

[vandyblackandgold]

what about some of the midrange sony laptops? i know some of their high end models can run upwards of 2 grand, but sony seems to be pushing out some decent spec notebooks including blu-ray and best buy always seems to have the on sale.

 

[vbetts]

i5 with hd 5730
Newegg.com - MSI GE600-002US NoteBook Intel Core i5 430M(2.26GHz) 16" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730

i7 with GTX 360m
Newegg.com - ASUS G Series G51JX-X1 NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M
With the i7, you get not only 4 cores, but 2 threads per core as well as turbo boost.

 

[cgh]

ASUS is the only way to go for gaming laptops? I was under the impression that Dell XPS and Alienware were king-of-the-hill.

The XPS and Alienware (both built by dell) are good laptops for sure, but for the price, ASUS can't be beaten. Also, I'd rather a high-end ASUS than an XPS or an Alienware machine.

 

[vbetts]

It's not highend, but the M11x is a pretty solid little notebook. Strong for what it is too.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-m11x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

 

[cgh]

It's not highend, but the M11x is a pretty solid little notebook. Strong for what it is too.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-m11x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

We just got that at Best Buy... Sucks that the base model doesn't come with any cd/dvd drive... It's a mix between a netbook and a notebook. Very solid computer though.

EDIT:
Small screen though, also only 2GB ram standard... Only the DVD/CD drive is available as an external. Also that base price of 799$ is the Pentium su4100, you would want to go to the core 2 duo, and that would be an extra 100$... In order to make it a viable option, I would say it would end around 1,050$, still more than others w/ better specs standard.

 

[vbetts]

With that small of a screen that supports up to 720p though, it'll run games high settings just fine. And with the 2, the only difference is 1mb of cache. Which would make a difference, but not too much. Both overclock pretty decent. As for DVD/CD goes, I don't use one too often but I don't know how much other people do. 2 gn is fairly decent, when the most the games will run is 1280x720. But the build quality of it, and all the sparks and whistles of it are amazing. Buddy of mine has one, and it's just great for the screen size. It was just a suggestion though, I would still go for a higher end model with a bigger screen.

 

[evilbeef54]

okay guys, getting down to the wire here, about to ship out, im still concidering that ASUS but what do you guys think about this one

iBUYPOWER Computer :: Battalion 101 CZ-11 Ultra Gaming Notebook

 

[SoulTerror]

Never heard of that brand before.