Solved! Help Picking Out New Laptop

mrmark27

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Apr 15, 2007
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I've been doing some research into picking up a new laptop during the upcoming holiday season. Dont need anything to fancy, mostly it will just be used for general internet use, some light gaming, watching movies. Any assistance would be very helpful.

1_What is your budget?
Hoping to keep it under $800, however for the right machine could probably bump up to $100

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
prefer a 15-16", however could go larger. definatly not smaller though

3_What screen resolution do you want?
true-hd would be nice but not a necessity. seems like the standard is 1366x768 which would probably be fine. however, i would like something which has a video card that can output hd via hdmi which i'd like to hookup to my 52" samsung for watching movies.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
either. im a big guy so the different between 5 lb's and 7 lb's wont be that noticable

5_How much battery life do you need?
would like 3+. figure most of the time i use it, i will be close enough to an outlet if needed.

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)?
some light gaming but nothing to crazy. can survive with medium settings. i have my desktop for any of my heavy gaming needs.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
mostly just internet, some light gaming, and will probably watch movies. as mentioned previously, would like to hookup the laptop to my 52" tv for watching movies so would like a graphics card that can handle the true-hd output.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
250 or 320 is probably enough. i have an older 500 and 250 gig hds that i was planning to put into external cases and turn them into external hd's for any major storage. would like 7200rpm

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
I will probably end up buying from Newegg or Bestbuy, however open to other options

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
preferably 3 years

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
blu-ray would be nice but not essential. can probably do with just a standard dvd-rom drive

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.
from what i've read, sounds like HP and Asus are solid, maybe Lenovo. open to suggestions as I haven't followed laptops that much and built my desktop so not sure on which brands are still good/bad

13_What country do you live in?
US

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.
open to any and all suggestions. my needs for the most part are basic, just internet, some light gaming, and movie watching. the only thing that makes it difficult is wanting to get the true-hd output and having trouble determining which video cards would be good for those needs.

Here are a couple of models that I was checking out
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+...24204092&skuId=9556072#tabbed-customerreviews
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220566

 
Solution
well, since you have the desktop, I'd guess you would do stuff like video encoding and heavy duty gaming on that machine. In that case, I'd probably go for the dual core to save on battery life. do they have any CULV chips with good graphics? some of those claim to get 8 hours of battery life. even if you only got 75% of the claim, it would still be fantastic. We're also in the market for a new laptop for my son- his top 3 choices are the 15.6" Asus gaming one with a GTX260M, a thin and light sony, and a Dell with a CULV chip with great battery life. All at best buy. budget is also about $1000. He really want my macbook pro but it's out of his budget.

mrmark27

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I noticed the $500 off coupon for HP laptops listed in the main page. With that coupon, I started messing around a bit on the HP site and came up with this config with the HP dv6t line. For $900, how does this config look?

Espresso Black
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo Processor P7550 (2.26GHz, 3 MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
1GB ATI Radeon(TM) HD 4650 Graphics
15.6" diagonal High Definition LED HP Brightview Widescreen Display (1366x768)
Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
Webcam Only
Intel Wireless-N Mini-card with Bluetooth
No TV Tuner w/remote control
HP Color Matching Keyboard
High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
No Modem
Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
 

mrmark27

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I also just threw this unit together with the quad core.

Espresso Black
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz, 6MB L2 Cache, 1333MHz FSB)
FREE Upgrade to 4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm) from 2GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
FREE Upgrade to 500GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive from 320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive
1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 230M
15.6" diagonal High Definition LED HP Brightview Widescreen Display (1366x768)
Lightscribe Blu-Ray ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer
Webcam Only
Intel Wireless-N Mini-card
No TV Tuner w/remote control
HP Color Matching Keyboard
High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
No Modem
Microsoft(R) Works 9.0
HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

Its about $20 more but has the quad core vs dual core processor and NVidia 230M rather than ATI 4650 video card. How do these cards compare?

While im sure either of these units are probably overkill for my needs, im finding it hard to turn down getting the extra features for basically the same price as some of the units i've been looking at with lesser processors and w/o the blu-ray drive.

Really interested though in what people think of the ATI 4650 v NVidia 230M.
 

bliq

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well, since you have the desktop, I'd guess you would do stuff like video encoding and heavy duty gaming on that machine. In that case, I'd probably go for the dual core to save on battery life. do they have any CULV chips with good graphics? some of those claim to get 8 hours of battery life. even if you only got 75% of the claim, it would still be fantastic. We're also in the market for a new laptop for my son- his top 3 choices are the 15.6" Asus gaming one with a GTX260M, a thin and light sony, and a Dell with a CULV chip with great battery life. All at best buy. budget is also about $1000. He really want my macbook pro but it's out of his budget.
 
Solution

mrmark27

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thanks. yea, most of my gaming will be done on the desktop, however i might do some light gaming on the laptop while hanging around the house or on a trip. I really wish HP offered the 260M, but for some reason even their "high preformance" line only comes with the 230M. At this point, it really comes down to which graphic card would be better, the 230M or the 4650. Either processor would be well more than enough for my needs.
 

bkc2006

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Dec 13, 2009
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the 4650 has better benchmark, check it on notebookcheck . In fact, I face a similar decision from HP: better CPU(i-7 730QM) with weaker graphics(230m) or weaker CPU(Core 2 Duo P8700) with better graphic(4650). But I think I might go with the ATI because I game more than multi-tasking.