New laptop time...decisions, decisions!

[hardwareguy]

Isn't if funny....the more you know about computers, the more you agonize about buying laptops!

Anyway after a nip more than 3 years of service, my HP DV9030 has bought the farm. The mainboard is toast (GPU failure), the battery is half dead and I want Windows 7..... all told, that's the cost of a low-midrange laptop.

Here's what I want/need....
At least a 16" LCD with an LED backlight
Beastly hinges on the screen (my HP left a bad taste in my mouth in this regard)
A good GPU....needs to play UT III at native res.
Not too damn shiny....I need power, not bling. It can however look classy... brushed aluminum is good!
A 7200RPM disk, 320GB+
4GB of RAM with the ability to add more.

A 10key num pad would be nice as my old one had one, but it's not required.

Oddly enough Im taking a look at Sony....got one for $1200 that fits the bill.

Anyone know of anything that I need to look at?

[weirdlookinguy]

Re: New laptop time...decisions, decisions!

Have you looked at the thinkpads? They're pretty nice and fit squarely in the "no bling" department.

[ratdude747]

Re: New laptop time...decisions, decisions!

used ones can be a deal... estate auctions can yield results too.

[NxB]

Re: New laptop time...decisions, decisions!

16" screen and you are looking at a desktop. Playing UT you are probably plugging in a mouse. Full size keyboard with num pad... See where I'm going with this.

You are going to be hard pressed to find a GOOD laptop in the monstrosity category. Everything is Sony, HP, Acer and all is consumer grade. I'd try Toshiba or Dell, maybe look at build quality at the store and get a earlier gen model. Sony parts are $$$ and sony quality means it works till the warranty runs out. They do look nice though.