General stuff about laptop shopping

Im searching for a some good places to buy a laptop for college(computer Engineering). Essentially im trying to keep my budget under $1500.

DO you all think NOW is a good time to buy? Or should I wait until around july? (when does the new cpu's for laptops come out?)

Ive looked at some dell's, and quite frankly I hate their selection and options...the one i started to like was way out of budget. I somewhat like Ibuypower and cyberpowerinc but they also are somewhat restricting, and neweggdoesnt have enough selection (customization)

The main specs i want are:

1) Dedicated GPU (any!!! not just the latest greatest)
2) Core Duo CPU or turion mt-40 (which do you all recommend?)
3) RAM i dont care too much about...IDEALLY 1GB Single channel so i can add one later? Or even one with 256mb or 512mb that i could just take out and upgrade once i buy it...Or 2GB dual channel.
4) DVD Burner
5) ANything else that is good for laptops? (i dont care about HDD since i have a desktop already)

Help me out pls! Thanks

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Is Ebay a pretty good way to go? Im seein some pretty decent stuff on there (all dells lol) but they have a lot of stuff i want (except for all that gay dell software)

Ideas and opinions still very much needed.

Reply to buckiller

look at these B!tches. They give you the Oomph at the Price of a BOstin Steam roller

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/ [...] 47962.html

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/ [...] uter_store

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Reply to YO_KID37

I really want one with a dedicated GPU (ie Geforce/ATI)

Reply to buckiller

Now is a great time to buy. Intel releases their mobile processors in Q2. The new Core Duo processors out now are the new processors for this year. You really want 2 sticks of RAM so it will be dual channel so I would suggest just biting the bullet now and getting 2 one gig chips. The best thing you can do now is find someone that is an Intel dealer that builds notebooks (and I'm not talking Dell). Intel has launched a new program called Verified by Intel. It is trying to standardize laptap parts. What this means is that you will have a standard battery, keyboard, HDD, etc... This way, if you need a replacement part you aren't spending outrageous money to Dell for their proprietary hardware. Right now there are 11 different models in the program; all with interchangeable parts. There are 3 different brands including Asus. Many of these have the discreet graphics cards. I have built one of these laptops myself and they are NICE! So again, my advice is to find a local shop that is a registered Intel dealer and talk to them about Verified by Intel notebooks.

Reply to techtre2003

i just got a nice dell e1505 core duo for the wife to check email and stuff and you can configure them and get discount codes to make them fairly cheap.go to techbargains.com and find discount codes for dell products.the only bad thing is all the crap software dell loads but you can remove it pretty easily

Reply to big_tuna

One thing about Dell though is like I said they have proprietary hardware. For example, once your battery goes dead (and it will) you will have to spend somewhere between $100 and $150 for a new battery and that is IF the model is not discontinued by then. And as much as they talk about their great service and support, I have NEVER talked to any Dell owner that said that was true. One of the reasons they can sell computers so cheap is because they build with bottom bin and refurbished parts. 3 people I work with (and there are only about 20 in the building) have had hard drives go out on their Dells this past year! I sincerely hope you have better luck big_tuna, but I would personally stay far away from Dell.

Reply to techtre2003

Wow 8O , Congradualtions techtre2003. You'r the first Intel owner that actuall Bashes DEll to this extent. I thought only the AMD Boys bashed it because Dell is the reason most of the New AMDers came to exist.

Reply to YO_KID37

hell no dells are POS and i use Intel but thena gain im not a fanboy i dont pick sides..i pick the best hardware (whhhhhaat at the time it was cheaper...and...the amd 64s wernt out T_T)

anyways go to Abs.com there gaming computers that are pretty cheap (and good from what i hear) for 1502 u can get a
2.0ghz P4 M
1 gig DDR2
80gig HDD
6600 Gt 256Mb

its what im looking it at least :roll: (Customise the G4 Revolution)

of course u can change it and what not to fit your needs

Reply to FatFunkey

I'm not just an Intel owner, but part of a company that is an Intel Authorized dealer. We build and sell computers as part of our business. I hate how Dell has the mainstream just looking at computers from a pure price standpoint. They put crap in a box and sell it to millions of people because it's cheap. Then people come to you for a computer and can't believe it will cost over $299.

Reply to techtre2003

WHAT $1500 :?: 8O
Geez, for my need I would at least imagine to spend over $4,000, but thats just me, You know how we unthusiasts are for gaming and hardware 8)

Reply to bluntside

Are you looking for a laptop that allows you to upgrade the video card?

If so, you can check out the Alienware Area-51 m5500 that allows you to actually choose among 4 GPUs.

Sorry, I don't know of any other laptops off the top of my head that offers you that ability.

Building your own laptop may offer some better choices, but maybe at higher prices. The do-it-yourself laptop market is really big at the moment. But I intend on building my next laptop instead of buying if I should ever need another one.

Reply to jaguarskx

Hey guys...as much as i hate dell, I think I am going to go with them because they are the only ones that offer a good GPU/CPU combination for cheap. I also put a bunch of premium parts on it in the the configurator, then applied a very nice rebate to all of it to come into a price that no one else can touch...Dual core, geforce 7800, 100gb, 2 batteries, creative audio, true display to name a few all for an insanely great price....Im gonna upgrade the RAM later so i only got 512MB, RAM seems to be a place where dell makes a lot of money.

Thanks for everyones help...and i hope there are more websites that allow you to build decent laptops at a decent price (with more options)

Reply to buckiller

I really do hope you have better luck than most with Dell. BUT, if you do have bad experiences, let others know (not just about Dell either, that goes for anything). Remember, in the end you get what you pay for :wink:
By the way, I could build a similar system (buying parts from a distributor) with a gig of ram for about $1400; and I am guaranteed quality, interchangable parts with a no hassle free 2 year warranty. Of course, as a seller I would mark the price up some, but I just want people to see you can build a quality computer for the same price or in many cases cheaper than Dell.

Reply to techtre2003

Yeah... I dont think I would have bought the dell if wasnt such a markdown (it was a $750 off coupon for purchases $2000 and up)

I plan on getting some new RAM once i really start using it in september.

Now im kinda hoping 64 bit stuff wont eat the t2400 alive....although that would be sweet for my desktop!

Reply to buckiller

Quote :

Is Ebay a pretty good way to go? Im seein some pretty decent stuff on there (all dells lol) but they have a lot of stuff i want (except for all that gay dell software)

Ideas and opinions still very much needed.

Ebay aint bad and I have a friend that has had bought many off ebay and it was great deals. But I would say buy with caution

Reply to sandmannight

I got a acer

centreno duo 1.66
1gb of ram
100gb hard disk

I payed $1,000 when they came out and I have a 4 hour battery life.

Remember this on Laptops.

Higher power cpu like 2.0ghz and better grapics card and higher Ram and Larger Hard disk. Means less battery life.

If I was your shoe.

I would go for 1.8 ghz duo
1ghz Ram
80 to 100gb hard disk (note they have them up to 160gb hard disks)
128 mb grapics card

You pay around $1300 and you might want the extra warrntee so that about $200

And you have about 3 Hour battery life depending on the battery.

Reply to Vampire_Lestat

Acer probably offers the best value in notebooks, but I'm still partial to Toshiba as they have simply proven very reliable over the years for us. Whatever you do, don't do Dell dude, most especially the Inspirons, which are truly bad news.

Reply to INeedCache

Acer build cheap feeling, poor quality computers and should be avoided like the plague.

The screens and keyboard are especially bad quality, and seeing as they are the two main points of interaction between the user and the computer that makes the laptop especially bad.

I know that me saying how terrible they are and the guy above saying they're good isn't especially helpful, but I have come into contact with a lot of them (local schools are provided exclusively with Acer laptops, and I am the one who fixes them, so I've got a lot of experience with them)

Reply to mesarectifier

Quote :

Acer build cheap feeling, poor quality computers and should be avoided like the plague.

The screens and keyboard are especially bad quality, and seeing as they are the two main points of interaction between the user and the computer that makes the laptop especially bad.

I know that me saying how terrible they are and the guy above saying they're good isn't especially helpful, but I have come into contact with a lot of them (local schools are provided exclusively with Acer laptops, and I am the one who fixes them, so I've got a lot of experience with them)

You've obviously never worked with the travelmate or aspire series then. We've sold over 350 of them in the last year and haven't had to fix a single one. But guess what, we've had an overwhelming number of hp, dell, comcrap, averatec, emachines, toshiba, sony, and even a few alienwares to fix, but not a single acer *which we provide the warrenty for* has come back with problems. Your school needs to learn how to purchase. The screens are exceptionally good quality *crystalbrite ones that is*.

Reply to Levium

Hey, it's not my responsibility to buy these heaps'o'junk, I'd have them all with iBooks personally.

I've worked with both those series - I'm not talking about hardware faults, I'm talking about software faults (not saying Acer cause software faults but that's the reason they come to me).

And I really do disagree with you, some of the screens have been perfectly fine - not great, but acceptable - but some have been dead bad...dead pixels after only a few weeks, never any good in the first place.

I stand by my points about the low quality keyboards, they just feel very very cheap.

Reply to mesarectifier

Quote :

Hey, it's not my responsibility to buy these heaps'o'junk, I'd have them all with iBooks personally.

I've worked with both those series - I'm not talking about hardware faults, I'm talking about software faults (not saying Acer cause software faults but that's the reason they come to me).

And I really do disagree with you, some of the screens have been perfectly fine - not great, but acceptable - but some have been dead bad...dead pixels after only a few weeks, never any good in the first place.

I stand by my points about the low quality keyboards, they just feel very very cheap.

Cheap compared to what though. I mean look at dell, my keyboard is actually splitting in half, and it's like 60$ on ebay to get a new one. Acer sends you a new keyboard for 5$...I do agree with the bloatware though, we do a fresh install on all acer laptops because the software is completely useless. They are a bang for the buck though. I probably won't buy one, because they don't have anything for enthusiests *my spell sux today!!!omfg*, but I don't really know who does .

Reply to Levium

The only laptop I've ever not found any problems with is my PowerBook - great keyboard, even better screen, fast, quiet (95% of the time), and a great hinge mechanism....the whole package.

But this guy wants a PC, so that's largely irrelevant :wink:

I'll list my good experience and bad experience companies instead:

GREAT: Apple, Sony, Toshiba
GOOD: Compaq, HP
OKAY: Dell, Fujitsu
BELOW AVERAGE: Acer, Packard Bell

Reply to mesarectifier

I have seen a lot of laptops and the worst I have seen was a dell, the next an Acer. When you have a trouble with Acer you have to wait weeks.

HP/Compaq have 2 lines of notebooks, home and bussines. Home are reali crap done to sell at the low prize that they can, the same way Dell.

Get a bussines Notebook from IBM/Lenovo, HP or Toshiba if you want a good laptop. If you want the cheapest go Dell and cross fingers

Reply to Topota_madre

I couldnt resist getting the Dell worth $2000 ($2700 and more other places...hyperpc) for only $1300. It was a great deal, and i plan on totally reinstalling windows as soon as i get it so all that BS software they put on isnt an issue... and I got the cheapo RAM to save money and able to upgrade to some OCZ later.

Nowhere could i find i laptop with these kind of specs for this price

1 Intel Core DuoProcessor T2400 (1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)
1 17 inch UltraSharp TrueLife Wide-screen WUXGA,
1 512MB, DDR2, 533MHz 2 Dimm for Inspiron 9400/E1705 $0.00
1 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 for Inspiron 9400/E1705 $0.00
1 100GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive for Inspiron 9400/E1705 $0.00
1 Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, English without Media, for Inspiron $0.00
1 Integrated 10/100 Network Cardand Modem, for Inspiron $0.00
1 8X DVD+/-RW Drive, for Inspiron 9400/E1705 $0.00
1 SoundBlaster Advanced Audio for XPS M1710 $0.00
1 Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps) for Inspiron 9400/E1705 $0.00
1 Primary Battery 6-cell
1 Extra-Large Nylon Deluxe Carrying Case
1 80 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Additional Battery

I wish dell gave you a choice to have no OS on it.....all this for $1300

Reply to buckiller

Like I said before, if you get lucky and your purchase with Dell lasts as long as you would hope for that would be great! But where Dell makes a lot of money is when their stuff goes bad and people don't buy their warranty so they charge an arm and a leg for replacement parts. Laptop parts are much more prone to go bad, so you will most likely experience some of this. Like you said, you couldn't pass up the price. This is why Dell sells so many computers. But I always say Quality > Price when I buy a high dollar item and I don't think Dell can deliver here.

Reply to techtre2003

Yeah i guess thats the case maybe...hopefully if anything goes bad i can just newegg it (dvd burner, HDD)

Im getting very interested in how well the 7800 Go will perform...it has all the same stats as my 6800GS...will be interesting.

Reply to buckiller

That's what I'm talking about. If something breaks you can't go to Newegg and get a part. Most of the time for desktops that is true, but laptops are proprietary! This is why Intel is pushing so hard to create a standard in laptops; so you can just go to Newegg and pay decent prices for parts

Reply to techtre2003

Could it be error of the person who uses the Laptops. Is why your fixing them. Last one I had to fix was a Toshiba, dell and ibms. I hardly see Acer. Let me point out People make mistakes on computers it why we make money repairing them. People spilling drinks on there machines To deleting or droping there Laptops. And you have to take the laptop apart and let it dry out or replace parts.

Reply to Vampire_Lestat

If you need it, get whats available now...

If you wait for another 6 months.. I am sure there will be few other better models coming out after that and the cycle repeats..

As someone has said -

And I waited and waited and waited.. what an Idiot am I?

Reply to AshyN

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