Buying a new laptop.

[Elian]

Well, I'm on a boardingschool and I'm only at home in the weekends. i can't move my desktop and everything so i am buying a laptop.
I need a good and fast laptop. I will be doing school work and photoshop but ALOT of gaming too.
Now at first I wanted to buy an Alienware m17x but that was a bit expensive and people keep telling me Alienware is over-priced.

Can anyone help me find a good laptop (which can be shipped to the netherlands)?
I get around 323$ a month so 1200$ would be the maximum i gues

 

[Eureka7]

TOSHIBA Qosmio X775-Q7380 Notebook

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[Rishwin]

Are you going to be using it on-the-go, or is it simply going to be moved occasionally from one table to another? Do you require portability and battery life, or size and power?

 

[Elian]

Well, i will move it everyday upstairs and down stairs I think. Battery doesnt really matter tho.
I like big laptops, 17 inch was fine

 

[Rishwin]

Do your due diligence first; read lots of reviews and carefully consider how you're going to be using it.

When i replaced my desktop with a laptop, i figured i'd get a huge laptop with a big 17.3" screen and beefy specs. After 3 months, i hated having to pick it up and move it + the huge charger + the mouse between tables or from my room to the living room. It wasn't at all portable in the slightest. That's why when i brought it to the US for holiday, it was the worst thing to bring along as even though it was a laptop, i still required a full-sized table + a power source to be able to use it anywhere.

If you have a "gaming" laptop, you won't even be able to take it to class and run off the battery for taking notes or using it for coursework. The battery will last 1 hour if you're lucky.

Things to consider:
1. Get a laptop with "Optimus" technology - It uses an integrated GPU for general use and only activates the dedicated GPU when you need it for games. In some cases, it can give you an extra 3 hours of battery life.

2. Get a laptop specifically for what you want to do with it. Don't get the i7 or faster GPU upgrade if you're not going to actually need it. All of these things reduce your battery life. You simply don't understand how important portability is until you start using a laptop as your main machine.

3. Screen size isn't everything. I went from a 17.3" screen to an 11.6" screen and i don't see a difference at all. Sure at first it looks small, but you adjust to it VERY fast. And don't forget that games will perform better on a small resolution, so a faster GPU @ 1920x1080 will perform worse than a slower GPU @ 1366x768.

I "downgraded" from an ASUS G73JH to an M11x R2 and couldn't be happier.

Asus G73JH:
i7 740QM quad-core with Hyperthreading
8GB DDR3 1333MHz
1GB Ati 5870
17.3" screen

Alienware M11x R2:
i7 U640 dual-core with Hyperthreading
4GB DDR3 800MHz
1GB Nvidia 335M
11.6" screen

 

[Elian]

Hmmm, that brings me back to Alienware. M14x or M11x.

Tell me, you are an Alienware user... do you feel ripped off? Loads of people tell me not to buy an Alienware because they are overpriced and I can get a simular laptop but not from alienware for a lower price.

I've always dreamed of getting an Alienware, but I am in a doubt.

M14x with a few changes inside final price: 1,188.99
I gues it isnt to big to move around a bit? (i will always be close to an power supply, sockets etc)

 

[Rishwin]

People who complain about Alienware prices are simply following what they heard from other people, who were in fact referring to the desktops. Sure, the M17x and M18x are expensive, but people fail to realize that they have DUAL graphics cards in crossfire/SLI.

Alienware desktops, absolutely no doubt about it, are overpriced as hell.

Alienware laptops are quite reasonably priced, have options you won't find from any other laptop vendor, are VERY sturdy, and hold their 2nd hand value VERY well.

I picked up my M11x R2 for a little over $800 USD including tax & delivery. If i wanted the newer model with a better GPU, faster RAM & 2nd gen Intel i-series CPU, it would have cost another $200.

Unique Alienware features:
- Best keyboard i have ever used on a laptop
- The ability to change your backlight & color theme to ANY color at any time
- Specialized Alienware support technicians
- The mixture of small form factor & high specs
- Visual aesthetics
- The novelty of owning an Alienware
- Personalized laser-etched name plate on the underside of your laptop (mine says "The Rish")

The M11x is unique. There is absolutely no other laptop which fills the niche market of being both a netbook & a gaming laptop. None at all.

 

[Elian]

M14x, here I come!
(in 3- 4 months xd)

 

[JewSanta]

I was with rish till the words alienware came up.
Alienware is made by dell, their average life expectancy (after 05) cut it half. Since then its dropped a little more. My best friend's alienware is going back for its 3rd repair soon. The hardware they put in these are absolute poop. While, yes those specs are good, you risk a crappy comp by buying from them.

I recommend asus as a well known brand.
My brother has had a good experience with his iBuyPower laptop (I have extended warranties thanks to a contact there)
Ive heard great things about Falcon (out of my laptop budget so I havent had one yet)

I strongly recommend against AW though

I have 2 dells from 02 and 03. They were great and I love them. I was in computer sales for about 5 months and I was actually paid to know what I am talking about.

Just my thoughts.

 

[Rishwin]

I was with rish till the words alienware came up.
Alienware is made by dell, their average life expectancy (after 05) cut it half. Since then its dropped a little more. My best friend's alienware is going back for its 3rd repair soon. The hardware they put in these are absolute poop. While, yes those specs are good, you risk a crappy comp by buying from them.

I recommend asus as a well known brand.
My brother has had a good experience with his iBuyPower laptop (I have extended warranties thanks to a contact there)
Ive heard great things about Falcon (out of my laptop budget so I havent had one yet)

I strongly recommend against AW though

I have 2 dells from 02 and 03. They were great and I love them. I was in computer sales for about 5 months and I was actually paid to know what I am talking about.

Just my thoughts.

There's his first mistake - Never, under any circumstance, send your laptop back to Dell for repairs. They are famous for their in-home repairs for a reason. At the Dell service depot, it's full of immigrants who are paid to follow procedures, they don't actually need much technical knowledge.

And working for "computing sales" means nothing. When I'm bored, i go into department/electronic stores and "test" their PC sales staff. I have yet to find a single person who legitimately knows what they are talking about, across 3 different countries. Quad-core with hyperthreading? I have never found a single Sales staff who hasn't marketed it as having 8 cores.

The Asus G series is good. But they have issues. The thermal paste needs to be re-applied, they usually have other heat related problems, and they have horrendous battery life. If you get a refurbished unit you should be fine, but that's because they've already done the repairs. As far as "gaming" laptops go, the G series is all Asus has.

 

[JewSanta]

Haha I quit working where I did because I was sick of working with people who talked out their butt (that and the pay sucked... the idiots i worked with made it worse)
Sad situation, staples pays their employees to lie and then hypocritically uses the programs they pay us to say are viruses.
I actually know what I am talking about and doing with pcs.
I have 3 of them open on my work bench now (soldering power supplies cause their power ports are broken is the easiest way to pick up free laptops ROFL)

None the less, his warranty only covered ship ins and I have fixed issues 2 and 3... now his video card just went bad... They no longer have his though so he may be getting an upgrade xD

Dell hardware is down the shitter. They used to make a great product. my old desktop out lasted anything from 05-07 that was used for more then word processing.

 

[Rishwin]

Dell doesn't make hardware, so i have no idea what you're trying to say. The manufacturers who make Dell's hardware are industry leaders who also make hardware for HP, Toshiba, NEC, Sony and Acer.

All of those things happening to 1 person? Regardless if you know the person or not, anyone who has ever troubleshooted anything will know that most likely points to a user caused issue. Most likely overheating due to using it on a bed or anything else which covers the air vents.

 

[JewSanta]

Dell uses refurbished parts A LOT
His audio drivers fucked up. I reinstalled
his video card fucked up, i'm not touching while its warrantied
He is using a desk in my room and has been for 4 weeks now. He hasnt been anywhere else. in a month (moved in), his video card went bad... comps not even a year old and the hardware is crapping out on him. speakers died last weekend too.

 

[Hejula]

Dell uses refurbished parts A LOT
His audio drivers fucked up. I reinstalled
his video card fucked up, i'm not touching while its warrantied
He is using a desk in my room and has been for 4 weeks now. He hasnt been anywhere else. in a month (moved in), his video card went bad... comps not even a year old and the hardware is crapping out on him. speakers died last weekend too.

Well if the issue is actually as bad as you are making out, I am sure you can get a refund from Dell, or the product exchanged for one of the same value. When my laptop was over-heating all the time, no questions asked I was asked to pick a replacement product for the price I bought my laptop for.

 

[Elian]

Why would Dell be such a succesfull company if they fail as hard as they as you say

 

[Sardaukar]

Because Dell is a corporate company, standard dealers cant beat the contracts they can do to places. Many places will place an order for 100+ computers, and get nearly 70% off list price for all of them.

 

[Rishwin]

I love huge manufacturing giants like Dell, i really do. They have such huge orders of parts, that not only are their prices cheap, they have no problem handing out spare parts for repairs. Sure sometimes their assembly line isn't perfect & you end up with dodgy parts, but then you get sent out a professional technician (unlike the people on the assembly line) with fresh replacement parts, and everything is peachy. Hell, sometimes they'll give you a free upgrade.

But not many other vendors do that.