 Decisions For A New Laptop, What should I add? |
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 Mar 12 2008, 05:29 AM
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#1
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Privileged Member  Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 521 Joined: 9-February 07 Member No.: 38,519  |
Well, my mom is buying me a graduation laptop and my budget is about $2500. This is the laptop I've found to be the biggest bang for the buck, but as I'm not great at this stuff I figured I'd ask for help. The speed and memory of the laptop is pretty much set at the speed it's at (2.5GB L2 6MB, 4 GB RAM, 640GB HDD). Also I don't want to lose bluetooth either.
So, if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know, if you find better offers for the same machine I'd be happy to know about them as well. Thank you for your time! QUOTE SYSTEM COLOR Ruby Red edit
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache) edit OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition edit DISPLAY Glossy, high contrast, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900) edit VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT edit MEMORY 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz edit HARD DRIVE Dual: 640GB (2x 320) 5400RPM Hard Drive edit OPTICAL DRIVE CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive) edit WIRELESS NETWORK CARDS Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N Mini-Card edit BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Built-in Bluetooth capability (2.0 EDR) edit BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Dell Bluetooth Keyboard and Optical Mouse edit BLUETOOTH AND WIRELESS USB Dell Bluetooth Stereo Headset (w/built-in Mic) edit INTEGRATED WEBCAM Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam edit BATTERY OPTIONS 9-cell Primary Battery and 9-cell additional Lithium Ion Battery edit SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy™HD Software Edition edit My Software & Accessories ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE No Security edit OFFICE SOFTWARE No Productivity software pre-installed edit POWER OPTIONS 90 Watt Spare AC Adapter edit POWER OPTIONS 4-Port Hi-Speed USB 2.0 Pocket Hub & Travel Surge Protector Bundle edit My Service WARRANTY AND SERVICE 1Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor,24x7 Phone Support edit DATASAFE ONLINE BACKUP Included 3 GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Yr edit DIAL-UP INTERNET ACCESS No ISP requested edit ENVIRONMENTAL OPTIONS Support Reforestation: Plant a Tree for Me edit ALSO INCLUDED WITH YOUR SYSTEM Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1 Labels Windows Vista™ Premium Processor Branding Intel Centrino Core Duo Processor DOMS Camera Mod Premium Deep Rich Red with Soft Touch LCD back color w/ 2.0M pixel Camera Miscellaneous Inspiron 1720 PHOTO AND MUSIC SOFTWARE No Entertainment software pre-installed |
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Mar 12 2008, 05:38 AM
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#2
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Administrator  Group: Admin Posts: 1,448 Joined: 11-June 04 From: Somewhere in Time & Space. Member No.: 1 |
Check out offers from Toshiba in that price range :-) I m sure you will get something great! $2500 is good budget.
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Mar 12 2008, 06:16 PM
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#3
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Super Member Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 395 Joined: 8-January 08 From: UK - Kent Member No.: 55,950 |
I sell you mine for $2500 or £1250 it has 192 mb ram 18gb HDD and no idea bout anything else because I don't care about it but if you wanna take the offer let me know b pm
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Mar 12 2008, 11:15 PM
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#4
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Super Member Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 436 Joined: 3-January 07 From: The West Side Member No.: 36,424 |
See if you can get a better battery, 9 cells seems a bit weak for that kind of cpu, ram and video card. However, if you don't plan on doing any multimedia/games or lots of wireless while using battery, then don't sweat it.
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Mar 12 2008, 11:35 PM
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#5
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$p4m 0n j00 $h4m3 m3 0nc3 $p4m 0n m3 $h4m3 m3 7\/\/1c3 Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 6,305 Joined: 21-September 04 From: 9r33|\| 399$ 4|\|D 5P4/\/\ Member No.: 1,218  |
If I didn't know any better I say the specs you have are for a Dell XPS Desktop computer because it is impossible to dual hard drive a laptop without making the case a whole lot bigger. Of course if you plan to go with a Dell brand then the XPS laptops are just as good but of course you don't have much room for upgrading them, although get the stock is just as good as you can customize them later with memory and hard drive space. However, another recommendation I would make based off OpaQue's post and check out newegg's website on laptop.computers because you can get a some good one's at a cheaper price.
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Mar 13 2008, 01:24 AM
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#6
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Advanced Member Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 110 Joined: 18-January 08 From: Redmond, WA Member No.: 56,417 |
Well, I spent about $1600 on a laptop a few months ago, and the best deal I found was from some company called M-Tech. http://www.m-techlaptops.com/
Don't know if you'll be able to find a better deal there or not, but I spent a lot of time trying to find the best quality/price ratio, and that's where I found it. I'm quite happy with the laptop I have right now, and I've had no trouble running newer games on it such as Gears of War and Crysis (the demo at least). |
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Mar 13 2008, 05:01 AM
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#7
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Privileged Member Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 521 Joined: 9-February 07 Member No.: 38,519 |
Opaque: I checked toshiba, they don't quite offer the hardware I'm looking for even in a higher price range, but I still appreciate the suggestions.
Kobra: .. I hope your kidding  Dre: I actually upped the battery, default is 6-cell and 9-cell is the biggest and I got two of them, but even then I normally don't plan on using it off the cable anyways, but there are times when I want to. Saint_Micheal: Yea, I was looking for an XPS style laptop, but they were too expensive so I built an insperon which actuallly proved to be cheaper with more hardware in it, I never could get the 640GB HDD in the xps laptops, especially for $2500. I never thought about Newegg, but when I went to check, they didn't offer anything over 320GB HDD and that's one thing I'm not going to back down on  Thingcubed: I checked that site out, it's kind of neat, but it doesn't offer anything on the level of this for the same price unfortunatly Thank you everyone for your replies, I am still open for more though, I may make my decision by this weekend. |
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Mar 13 2008, 09:54 AM
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#8
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NERVE: Interception Group: [HOSTED] Posts: 525 Joined: 14-April 07 From: Holy Terra Member No.: 41,610 |
consider some ASUS ones, they are ultimate at multimedia, and also dell laptops, I remember seeing a laptop with 19" screen at full HD resolution...
That CPU sounds really good, but the 4GB of RAM is totally unecessary! especially if you are using a 32bit (86x) operating system it will only detect (and use) about 3GB which would waste the 4th GB. And does the DVD RW+- drive have dual layer and/or lightscribe technology? I assume that you are using American dollars, US$2500 seems pretty good for this offer, but you'll get heck of a lot better if you Made (hand built yourself) a desktop... |
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Mar 13 2008, 09:31 PM
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#9
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Privileged Member |