Laptop recommendation

[stevo1210]

I'll put it in simple terms without the mumbo jumbo just to make things easier.

My friend wants to buy a laptop. He has $1000AU to spend on a laptop. What's a good one to buy brand wise?

He will use the laptop mostly for homework and most likely in uni again at the end of the semester. He wants to play some games very occasionally such as The Sims 2 or NFS Carbon once in a while.

I recommended the Dell Inspiron 1525 which is exactly $1000 and comes with a Pentium Dual Core CPU, 3GB DDRII 667MHz RAM, a 160GB SATA HDD, 15.4" Truelife screen, Intel X3100 graphics card and a DVD burner which is perfect for his needs.

I think it's the best deal around due to the features and also I've been using Dell laptops for years because they are virtually indestructible and also cheap to fix if something does go wrong, but I dunno.... what do you guys think? Should we shift camp over to HP/Compaq, Lenovo or Toshiba?

Thanks.

[stretch0069]

Well....I just bought a Gateway laptop from Best Buy for $1050.

-Core2Duo Processor2 P8400 (2.26GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 3MB L2 Cache)
-4096MB 1066MHz DDR3
-320GB 7200RPM SATA hard drive (I installed a second one)
-NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS Graphics card w/1GB of GDDR3 Discrete Video Memory

It has Vista, but I'm getting used to it.

The beauty of this laptop is that the specs say it has a 1440x900 screen, but the one I have is 1920x1200.

Not sure if you can get it where you are, but I think its worth a look.

[370forlife]

Watch out for pentium dual cores, they are old desktop processors. Basically two p4's smashed together, very power hungry and get hot.

[NxB]

Those giant laptops that get hot also end up with BGA issues on the graphics chip.

[stevo1210]

Originally Posted by 370forlife

Watch out for pentium dual cores, they are old desktop processors. Basically two p4's smashed together, very power hungry and get hot.

But I thought Pentium Dual Cores were stripped down Core 2 Duos built on the Core architecture. I believe they had a smaller L2 cache, no speedstep and that was about it. My brothers desktop runs off an Intel Pentium Dual Core E2180 and that thing runs really quick & cool at only <30c idle and this is with the OEM heatsink included. I believe the Pentium Dual Core is only 65W TDP or so... even lesser I think wheres a P4 alone is higher than 65W TDP anyway.

I think you might be confused with Intel Pentium D... that one is completely different to the newer Intel Pentium Dual Core "E series". The Pentium D is indeed made of 2 P4 Prescott chips smashed together into one die package... I own one (look at my sig and see what I mean) and it runs so bloody hot. I don't think Pentium D's were ever put into laptops either because they were so hot.

[NxB]

No, they were. So were Turion X2s. Then people run them with fans covered and wonder why they lose video.

[stevo1210]

Originally Posted by NxB

No, they were. So were Turion X2s. Then people run them with fans covered and wonder why they lose video.

Ok, I guess I'm wrong then. Looks like I need to update my knowledge yet again.

[stevo1210]

So I'll put it simple. Give me a list of laptop manufacturers which you think are good and reliable based on your experiences. For now I can only say Dell & Toshiba and that's probably about it. Please tell me if you agree or disagree with my choices.

[bgavin]

My experiences with client laptops are:

No - Lenovo, hard to support with drivers, DOS kludge for system restore
No - VAIO, ditto, proprietary
No - HP, over heats
Yes - Toshiba, somewhat decent support for drivers, proprietary
Yes - Dell, excellent driver support

I own a Dell laptop for sound system testing.

[stretch0069]

well...this Gateway of mine has been running the GPU client 24/7 since I bought it.

i keep the screen closed so it shuts off the display. no problems so far.

Gateways drivers for XP and older kinda suck, but I have not put much effort into looking. Besides...(i can't believe i'm about to say this)...Vista isn't bad as long as i let it sit or just putz around on the net. Office works just fine.

[370forlife]

My sister just got a gateway not too long ago, those are pretty nice. Good pricing and their laptops are suprising well built. Very sturdy and tight hinges.

Has the centrino 2 duo 2ghz, runs very cool. She has a little leopard skin carrying case and left it running all day in her black leather interior car when she was at college, and the fan didn't even turn on.

My brother's girlfriend has a Lenovo thinkpad, it is really fast and is built like a tank with its titanium hinges and anti-scratch surface, but drivers are terrible to find and support, what support?

Dell, now dells. They are really nice. My machine tool instructor bought a dell precision laptop with a 2.66 dual core, 4 gigs of ram, and the 9800gtm quadro equivalent, and that thing is fast. Drivers are really easy to find on their website, and they have drivers for almost every computer they have made. Dell phone support is a joke like it always has been, takes years to get through.

Hp seems to think its ok to stuff a fast, hot processor into a extremely thin laptop and keep fan speeds to a minimum. (umm, lets see. 90C good enough for 30% fan speed? I think so.) ->see hp pavilion zd7000 series. Used desktop socket 478 processors up to 3.4ghz w/HT in a laptop.

[NxB]

Thinkpads/Lenovo have rocked it for me. I've never had problems finding drivers. They pretty much use standard intel drivers or have everything up on the site. What kind of support do you want? If it breaks they fix it? Or do you mean, click here, click there support; I've never needed to use that kind so I could care less what they do.

[i4004]

370 probably has something there when it comes to lenovo:
i had issue with audio driver making the mouse pointer stall.

i've found the tip on their site and new drivers(for realtek audio, from realtek site, offcourse..lenovo hosted old drivers...) fixed it, but what i don't understand is this: you bundle os and particular drivers with particular piece of hardware and there are problems with that combination.
how can that happen?
it means nobody really tested how xp works with that laptop and particular drivers they bundled.

[stevo1210]

Now my friend has a question he'd like to ask you guys through me of course and it's to do with Windows on the new laptop.

This is his question:

"New laptop, Windows XP or Vista?? and are SOFTWARES in the future only going to run VISTA?

Getting a new laptop. I heard there are so many problems with Vista and i currently use Xp on my desktop which is perfectly fine and basic to use. I will use my laptop for moderate and basic gaming and schoolwork.
However i'm scared that if i choose XP, softwares in the future will only run Vista. Is this true OR is it going to be a small percentage."

He posted this question on Yahoo answers here: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...8182748AARMI3D

So what do you guys think? XP or Vista? I'd opt for XP because it's just better in many ways.

Thanks.

[NxB]

>>are SOFTWARES in the future only going to run VISTA?

Kinda. You can usually bypass the install check. Its only a problem with some games (Mostly "games for windows"; wonder why?) at this point. I don't know how much gaming your friend will do on a laptop anyway. Microsoft is going to be releasing windows 7 relatively soon too.

32 bit XP is the most widely supported OS as it is. I doubt developers will alienate everyone still using it. I doubt they upgraded themselves.

[stevo1210]

The biggest problem that I can see right now is drivers. Since MS released Vista some drivers for Vista won't work with XP or something like that from what I've heard.

[stevo1210]

Well he was raving on to me about some sale he saw on television yesterday. A Compaq laptop with an AMD processor, 4GB RAM and whatever it was. His budget is now $1500. I said no to the Compaq but he said something along the lines of "That guy across the room uses a Compaq and it's OK".... I was like "but he's only had it for 3 months or so". I have heard and seen quite a lot of Compaq laptops die prematurely due to overheating or broken DC jacks so I never step feet into that territory. Also their driver support is just insane.

Now I fix all his computers and I really don't want to end up fixing a Compaq because I can't get spare parts for them or either they are too expensive compared to a Dell. He said he will buy a Dell or Toshiba if I can prove that they are reliable in which I haven't figured out how to yet.

So what are the main issues with Compaq laptops that i should know about?

[swartz]

I recently got a Dell Studio 15 (1555 model) with T6400, 4Gb ram and a Radeon HD4570. And 1920x1080 screen, which I admit is a bit too small on 15.6in screen. I should've gone for only 1400x900, but 1080p screen was only $30 more.

Total was CAD$850 before taxes, enviromental fees, etc. I plan to upgrade the CPU in a years time when they come down in prices (to get P9x00 it would've cost me another $450). Also the backlit keyboard is a nice touch, but I did not get it ($40 extra).

What I didn't like about the Studio is that it looks cheaper than its previous generation and the Inspiron line. The bezel around the keyboard just looks like a cheap plastic. It has no harddrive, wifi, bluetooth led indicators, which I find very unhelpful. Another thing I hate are the media control buttons which are now part of the keyboard (you have to hit Fn + whatever). Brightness is no longer Fn+Up or Down arrows which were very convenient to use, but alas not anymore. It is also a bit on the heavier side being a 15.6in laptop.

On the bright side the trackpad is more advanced now and understands gestures (like pinch to zoom out, etc). It is a very nice laptop inside and runs cool even at full load. You just gotta make sure the vents are not obstructed (dont put it on pillows, sheets). The video card is more than enough for recent DX10.1 games, which is why I got it.