Preserved Topic: laptop

I was wondering if anybody could suggest some good laptops. I won't be getting one for a little while, but I want to get some advice ahead of time. It needs to be pretty good, I'm gonna be using it for lots of gaming, lots of coding, photoshop and other stuff. It also can't cost a ton, definitley under $2,000. Any suggestions, or good links?

Maninacan Cell #471
kewl
Mad Scientists

Well I can't suggest any good ones for that cheap, but stay away from compaqs. I got mine from radio shack the week before college in a panic, 1200 dollars, I could have gotten a car that ran better for that much.


(Yes I know they're outta busniess)

Maskkkk




- Face the Present

Well, I've had a really good experience with my Toshiba. Granted, it was about $2500+ when I got it, I really liked the brand. Especially since they started shipping with geforce's.

I really try to stay away from compaq, hp, gateway, and other mass market brands. However, you really can't go wrong with a Dell or a Toshiba, IMO.

The most important thing is to check out the manufacturer's website and look at all the specs so you can get exactly what you want. Also, if it's not listed, you can still call and custom order it. Dell only has WinXP listed as an OS, but we called them and they agreed to install Win2k instead.

Also, if you want to do anything to it once you buy it, it's a good question to ask first. The Toshiba I bought came with WinXP, but as we all know, XP is the work of the devil, so I called their support line and asked if I would be having any problems installing Win2k Advanced Server. They recommended flashing the BIOS. So, I got my laptop, flashed the BIOS, and cleansed of the demonspawn that is XP, and I'm a "happy camper".

The school I work for just prchased four brand new Toshiba Laptop's...WinXP, DVD/CD-RW Drives, 1.1 GHz processors, 512 meg of ram, 20 Gig HDD, Geforce 3 MX400 Video. Sweet little machines for a sweet little price tag, $4000

Face it, the only place you're going tobe able to get a Laptop for under $1200 is second or even third hand, and it won't be the top of the range.

Try E-Bay, or other online auctions...you can get real lucky on one of them.



Koan 63, written on the wall of cell number 250:
Those who Believe
Can
Those who Try
Do
Those who Love
Live

$4000 ?!!

I got a 1.7 GHz Pentium IV, Geforce4 440, 40 GB HD, CD-R/RW,DVD, and 512 M of RAM for $2700. In fact, the price dropped to $2500 a little while ago. Methinks your school got ripped off.

thanks for the advice, this gives me some good places to start looking, any more advice? Also to Skaarjj I said under $2,000 not $1,200.

Maninacan Cell #471
behmer

umm compaq just got bought they're not outta business.

ibooks's kick ass. Otherwise I've heard good things about Sony Vaio's and I've always found Dell to be one of the better computer manufacturers



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum1/HTML/004829.html

Silence: My school's in Australia...think of the exchange rate...now think of the price difference...

Koan 63, written on the wall of cell number 250:
Those who Believe
Can
Those who Try
Do
Those who Love
Live

Is Compaq outta business!!?
Yeeees!!!
I have an Compaq! I hate Compaq! Compaq will burn in hell!

Skaarj: Ahh, I didn't think of that. Yeah, $4000AUS sounds about right.

And as far as Vaio's go, they're decent machines, but as far as gaming or 3D apps go, their video card is somewhat underpowered. Any video adapter that "borrows" from your main memory doesn't cut it in my book.

Another thing you want to check into when buying is RAM upgrading. Make sure you can add more SODIMMs later.

Also, the DVD/CD-r combos are usually slow when it comes to CD burning. Usually something like 8x4 or 4x2 R/RW. So you have the choice of getting the combo or sacrificing the DVD capability for faster burning. Personally, I took the combo and bit the bullet with the burn speed.

if you are gonna game you better get the GeForce 2 Go or a Quadro 2 Go chipset. There's actually very few 3d accelerated video cards for laptops. (As far as I know skarjj there's no GeForce 3 series cards for the laptop.)

ATI has thier moblity series but I'd go with the Nvidia



.:[ Never resist a perfect moment ]:.

well for the stuff that you say you're going to be doing on it i think you should invest s'more money and get a powerbook G4...they OWN!!

*chuckle* Whatever you say likuid.

All I can say is good luck finding games support for any Apple computer. Or massive software support either. Don't get me wrong, the powerbook is a nifty little computer, but I prefer robustness and compatibility.

About the only Apple product I can heartily recommend is the iPod. Now THAT is a nice piece of hardware.

sorry but I'm really not interested in a mac. I want to be able to easily network with other pc's and mac's unfortuanatley have a lot less software, especially games, for them.

Maninacan Cell #471
behmer

sorry silence i'm just obsessed with them. someone asks me which laptop to get, and i automatically reply powerbook