Hi, this is my first post here at Toms.
Anyhow, I'm going to buy a laptop for college real soon, and I want it to last for a while and be good for gaming and all that.  Of the sites I've been to (hp, dell, killernotebooks, alienware, ibuypower), and by far the best price/performance ratio winner is ibuypower(for a $1600-1800 budget).  Does anybody know anything about these guys?  Do their laptops have crappy oem parts(like celestica)?  Can anybody point me in a better direction?  I've never really heard good or bad about these guys.
Thanks

NOOO NOO DONT DO IT!!!!
 
i recently purchased a desktop computer on june 28th it did not get here till august 4th...and during this period i constantly called them as so i can better understand the hold up and they constantly kept passing the ball. It was random reason and it was always to be shipped the next day....
 
Besides getting it late cords where unplugged when it arrived parts where missing the case was scuffed the lcd display on my case cracked? god knows what really goes on in there assembly lines.  
 
Then i attempted to call them back for a refund.  
 
They would put on hold for long periods of time and just hang up on me...
 
Horrible service.  
 
I tagged it and sent it back...still waiting for refund....
 
 
 
By what just about everyone else says ive heard the laptops are even worse....
 
Just do a quick search on the net, and im sure your decision will be obvious.

also might want to look into http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ i heard they are good but the best value I have seen is http://powernotebooks.com/ they are very cheap and powerful, but you may want to wait until the merom core (core 2 duo) notebooks come out, then you can either get those or at lease expect to pay less for core duo's

I would suggest another forum for some additional research....
www.notebookreview.com
 
They seem to have a large user base, and attract a great many of these smaller sellers techs to "help" users. (I have gotten help from such a tech about my whitebook, even though his company didnt sell it to me; sure it was unoffical but the reccomendation fixed my problem)
 
Also, do know specificly what you want? AMD or Intel? Nvidia or ATi?
Most of the smaller company's use either MSI or Asus barebones systems and build them up then are the first line warrenty and service providers.