New laptop advice

[tongue_of_colicab]

Hi,

As I will be going to a new school at the end of the summer which might be quite along way from my house and I will need to move out then I decided I might want to buy a laptop for use at school (im horrible at keeping notes on paper, not much better digitally but atleast I cant lose them that way) and for the weekends when i'll be coming home. I looked around a bit but im quite clueless about what does what these days in the laptop world. The following things are important to me.

Price: 1000 euro's most but prefferebly more at the 700 range
Weight: The lower the better as I dont fancy carrying around a ton of weight.
Battery life: As long as possible, though everybody want that I think. The battery life i've seen with the models I looked at said 3 hours max, which I think is useless as it wont even last me all my classes at school that way.
gaming: I want it to be capable of playing games. Doesnt have to be new games, just things like hl2 and cs source, thats basically all I play on my pc anyway.
Design: Function over form, but I dont want to have one of those butt ugly machines you often see. The MSI models looked nice to me.
Size: I think I want a 15(.4) screen, 17 is to big and the others are to small to look at nice for a couple of hourse at school I think but I also want the case to be as small as possible.

Quite a list, but it would be so much easier if you could just pick the parts yourself like your desktop

 

[Sxotty]

I just got a hp dv2700 and it is fairly good.

It cost me<1000.00
has intel core 2 9300
geforce 8400
3gb ram
vista 64
250gb hdd
Supposedly 4 hrs battery life with extended, but not 9cell battery. (So it doesn't stick out the back)

It is a 14.1 inch screen.

I had a 15 inch before and honestly I like this far better for taking notes and school stuff as it is a handier size, but your mileage may vary. Also the 14 inch you can use on an airplane more easily.

I like it pretty well and it has an hdmi port which should come in handy later.

 

[thana]

i just got the MSI Megabook GX600-9333VHP Performance for about 1000EUR, and so far i like it very much, it looks very sleek and stylish and isn't too heavy for carrying around (for my taste). battery lasts about 3hours, but good luck finding one which lasts longer, especially if you want to run games on it. the higher resolution of the screen is really nice too. didn't try to play anything until now, but i guess older games should run well.. 3dmark vantage was a slideshow, though..

here are the specs:

Core 2 Duo T9300 2x 2.50GHz • 3048MB (1x 1024MB und 1x 2048MB) • 320GB • DVD+/-RW DL • NVidia Geforce 8600M GT 512MB • 3x USB 2.0/FireWire/Modem/Gb LAN/WLAN 802.11agn/Bluetooth/eSATA • HDMI • ExpressCard Slot • 4in1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro) • Webcam (1.3 Megapixel) • 15.4" WSXGA+ non-glare TFT (1680x1050) • Windows Vista Home Premium • Li-Ion Battery (9 Cells) • 2.60kg • 24 Months Warranty

 

[suryad]

I would recommend the 15.4 inch screen over the 14 if you can handle the teeny bit in size increase. The reason why I say it is when you are going to be in school and writing papers and stuff and you are going to have to be staring at the screen for long periods of time, you would be better off with a bit more real estate. I have a 14 inch Lenovo T61 brand new given to me by work and its just too small I think.

 

[Davros]

Once again Davros comes up with the ultimate 700 euros solution :

Buy a desktop - you'll be able to play all your games
then buy the Elonex one - for use in class sells for £99 (thats not a typo)

http://www.elonexone.co.uk/

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I would recommend the 15.4 inch screen over the 14 if you can handle the teeny bit in size increase. The reason why I say it is when you are going to be in school and writing papers and stuff and you are going to have to be staring at the screen for long periods of time, you would be better off with a bit more real estate. I have a 14 inch Lenovo T61 brand new given to me by work and its just too small I think.

That are my thoughts exactly. Once i'll get home ill use my 22'' monitor though but at school and at my parents place the bigger size will be better yes I think.

Once again Davros comes up with the ultimate 700 euros solution :

Looks like the asus eee only more expensive. My main issues with that are that the screen is really small. I dont think you want to be looking at that for 3 hours a day. Also it has linux, which I really do not want because im stupid and cant use it I want to create my files with a nice idiot proof gui without having to type 6 lines of code .

i just got the MSI Megabook GX600-9333VHP Performance for about 1000EUR, and so far i like it very much, it looks very sleek and stylish and isn't too heavy for carrying around (for my taste). battery lasts about 3hours, but good luck finding one which lasts longer, especially if you want to run games on it. the higher resolution of the screen is really nice too. didn't try to play anything until now, but i guess older games should run well.. 3dmark vantage was a slideshow, though..

here are the specs:

Is that the black one with the red flamy things on it? I've seen that one online too (only with 2gb ram instead of 3) at about 899 euro's. Specs look good though I'm not to sure about the design but the internet pics are kinda crappy.

Good thing is I just learned that I can get a 600 euro tax rebate if I say I need it for school. Will get it back over a 5 year periode but hey its better than paying it yourself.

 

[Davros]

Looks like the asus eee only more expensive. .

No the e-pc is twice the price

 

[Blazkowicz]

Once again Davros comes up with the ultimate 700 euros solution :

Buy a desktop - you'll be able to play all your games
then buy the Elonex one - for use in class sells for £99 (thats not a typo)

http://www.elonexone.co.uk/

Holy sh.. I like that trend of smaller==cheaper, like yesterday such microlaptops or UMPC or whatever you call them cost ten or twenty times as much.
an effort on the battery life would be welcome though, the Olivetti Quaderno allegedly did 8 hours and that was more than 15 years ago with a hard drive.

I'd probably be interested in a 12" VIA Isaiah + MCP79 laptop though

 

[Sxotty]

That are my thoughts exactly. Once i'll get home ill use my 22'' monitor though but at school and at my parents place the bigger size will be better yes I think.

If you haven't tried both I suggest you do. I thought the same at first, but in the end disliked the 15" display.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

No the e-pc is twice the price

Sorry, I misread the 700 for the price, not the 99. Though its very cheap it doesnt fill my requirements I think. Its very small, but I think to small to work comfortably for a couple of hours. Also it will be useless when I go to my parents in the weekends (cant watch decent porn on such a small screen ).

If you haven't tried both I suggest you do. I thought the same at first, but in the end disliked the 15" display.

Havnt tried either one. But I dont think shops will offer me the possibility to try both screensizes out.

 

[Freak'n Big Panda]

I've always really liked the Lenovo T60/T61s. Very professional looking and from my experience very reliable as well. You could get one with discreet graphics for about 700 euros I think and it would run CSS and HL2 just fine. Personally I'd just go with darvos' suggestion with the 99 euro laptop and get a desktop for gamming and more intensive apps. When I'm at my parents place I just use my moms/dads laptop for porn anyways lol

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

But my parents/brothers computer is in the middle of the living room, I think that goes a bit to far

I already have a decent desktop pc with 2gb ram and a q6600. The gpu isnt that good but I dont care because I only play css anyway. So that isnt the problem. I want something that I can use at school but also in the weekends when I go back home to do a little bit of gaming if I want because I will probably take my wii with me.

Personally im not to big of a fan of lenovo. Their design is even worse than alot of japanese manufactuers. Those just make ugly laptops, lenove makes ugly laptops that like like they came from the 80's imho. Though that is personal ofcourse.

 

[Sxotty]

The lenovo laptops are built very well though. I almost got one, but I wanted a digital out for video so I could connect it to an HDTV/LCD etc... and none of the LEnovo had it unless you bought a docking station.

 

[Davros]

/Davros gives colicab "the moon on a stick"

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I've seen 2 Dell laptops at work today. Dont know about the screensize but I think they were 15,4 (widescreen). The design looked pretty neat and they actually looked fairly small. Dont know about the specs, probably not much in the video department. Maybe I should have the sales department look up some models for me, they dont do anything most of the day anyway. Though you'll never know what they end up with. Ask for a thin client and they buy you a fat client with 2gb's of ram, 250gb hdd etc...

 

[Blazkowicz]

Personally im not to big of a fan of lenovo. Their design is even worse than alot of japanese manufactuers. Those just make ugly laptops, lenove makes ugly laptops that like like they came from the 80's imho. Though that is personal ofcourse.

I love the 80's look! (similar to the dinosaur umpc I linked to)
Give me sexy, angular black plastic with little touches of red any day.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

If it was sexy angular black plastic I wouldnt have mind. The nintendo DS is like that and that looks kinda nice I think (I always wonder how ''designers'' manage to make rectangle look ugly) but the IMB/lenove thing the main problem is that 80's look that looks just so not right. I dont know the right words, but for some reason it makes me think of the plastic used on the old atari 2600. Which was a great machine without a doubt but I do fancy a bit more quality casing these days

 

[Sxotty]

Only problem is the lenova is orders of magnitude higher quality than most of its competitors.

So apparently the looks are deceiving.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Then they should make it look good and sell tons more.

Anyway, i'me now looking at the dell xps models. I though they were too expensive but if you buy it as a company (which my work can do) you can already get one for 800 euro's with a core 2 2,1ghz, 3gb ram, 250gb hdd and a 8600m gt. Pretty sweet if you ask me only downside is the 1280x800 screen reso. Which isnt too bad I think but maybe a bit higher would be better. Downside is that the same model with a higher reso is 130 euro's more expensive (and if you toss in a 2.4ghz cpu its 1050 or so which would be nice for games, I dont know how usefull a 2.1ghz cpu is these days).

 

[musictime]

You can have a look at the Dell XPS M1530, there are some promotions from Dell now, they are good gaming machine.