Replacing My 6 Year Old Macbook

timaeustestified

Honorable
Sep 9, 2013
2
0
10,510
Yes, you read that correctly. I'm sitting here on my lawnmower calculator of a machine, typing this response to you in amazement that it hasn't keeled over and died yet (though I'm sure it's close). So having long put this off and wanting a computer that is from this decade, here I am.

1. What is your budget? Roughly 800-900. I can over budget, but I would prefer not to break the $1,000 mark.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? Preferably bigger than 14", but considering this thing is 13", I really am not picky at all

3. What screen resolution do you want? Again, this is just preference, but something like 1920x1080, but again, just something that looks nice would suffice (this thing has 1280x 800)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable replacement.

5. How much battery life do you need? Considering this laptop literally must be plugged in to be on, battery life can be low. Even an hour to simply move to another outlet would be fine.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Yes. I'm a gamer at heart and it kills me to see titles like D3, SC2, and the glory that is Steam come out and I am unable to play anything at all. I would really prefer High settings, to spoil myself a little.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? Skype, Internet browsing, light streaming, maybe office.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? Um...considering my current storage is 2 GB running at a blazing speed of 667 Mhz...anything better will suffice.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Newegg Amazon, but I'll buy from any reliable, A rated dealer.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? I'd like to get a good 2-4 years out of it.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? I rarely use my OD as is. I have a 360 and PS2 to watch movies with. So I don't NEED one per se. At most, just a bare minimum DVD ROM/Writer

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

I've heard a lot of people recommend Lenovo, which I'd be ok with, though I've heard people have issues with their bloatware and some support. Also a few horror stories about the GPU not functioning properly?

MSI is in a similar boat, where I've heard people recommend it but I've also seen people shy away from it as well. Concerns with bloatware and some slow HD speeds.

I've seen Acer recommended as well, but I've also seen a lot of people dub it unreliable.

Sager is weird for me, because it just feels like it's all over the place and really hard to pick out which route to go because the amount of options is ridiculous and the pages are always really cluttered.

I've read enough to know I do not want a Dell. Garbage all over that.

Other than that, reliable hardware, solid bang for the buck, and good customer support and I'll go with any company.

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Honestly, anything would be an upgrade compared to what I have now, but I really would like to pick something specific to my needs (gaming) since I'm now out of school and don't really need to worry about running random programs or what not for school work. Heat is a concern, but I believe my legs are used to the temperatures my laptop hits now since the sawblades that are my fans seem to be giving up. A cheap but effective cooling pad will work for me.

Thanks for your time!
 

unksol

Distinguished
Sep 12, 2011
473
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19,210
Some things to clarify. Question 4 is portable or desktop replacement. "portable replacement" is not a valid answer. What this question is getting at is do you mind lugging a few extra pounds and bigger
screen, or do you want something really light. From your other answers I think you're prepared for a relatively beefy gaming laptop? I personally never get the people who cry about 5 vs 10 lbs... Its a MINOR difference.

Question 8 is about harddrive space. I.e. how much data/install space at you looking for. This would be several hundreds GB. Not 2. You gave your memory size. as far as that goes you'd want 4GB minimum and 8GB as optimal. We still need to know your storage needs though
 

timaeustestified

Honorable
Sep 9, 2013
2
0
10,510


To #4, No I really don't mind lugging around some extra pounds. I don't understand this either, considering 10lbs is really not a lot to haul.

To #8 uhhhh...anything from 750GB-1TB should be good