Laptops - What to know when buying?

[Excessiv]

Hiya

So recently mine has gone to shit really, was a poor design and had problems from the start.

So it's time for a new one.

Note: The budget im going with is anywhere between $1,000 - $1,500 (NZD)
- Raid 25man wow but also a uni student so it needs to be a mix of practical and fun.

Essentially, performance is desired but not crucial, like I said it's also for work. I just want one currently that isn't having 24/7 problems with chrome, handling multitasking like its got 1gb of ram and a dual core processor (when really, it has 4gb of ram and a quad core. But acts slow as hell).

My question regarding is though:

- What do I look out for?
- What do I want?
- What brand do I avoid?
- What rating ?

etc etc.

Help on this would be much appreciated.

[Cyanotical]

well, for starters, you need to decide what size, common are 15" and 17" with smaller 11", 13" and 14" sizes being in the ultrabook range, and larger 18" and 22" being in the workstation/production range

for gaming you want something with a discrete graphics card, most are using Nvidia cards, and of them, you want to make sure it's a GTX model and not a GT

brands to avoid generally are based on customer support, of those, Asus and MSI, that being said, Asus and MSI both make some of the best notebooks, but if there is a problem you will not be having a fun time dealing with their support lines

[n0cturnal]

You want an Intel I5 or I7 CPU of the 3xxx series.
AMD Radeon 76xx, Nvidia Geforce GT 640 or higher. You can go for something less but your gaming will suffer.
I personally dislike HP laptops, always had issues with them overheating or having really bad batteries. (Mostly the Pavilion series)
Don't really know what you mean about rating.

[Excessiv]

well, for starters, you need to decide what size, common are 15" and 17" with smaller 11", 13" and 14" sizes being in the ultrabook range, and larger 18" and 22" being in the workstation/production range

for gaming you want something with a discrete graphics card, most are using Nvidia cards, and of them, you want to make sure it's a GTX model and not a GT

brands to avoid generally are based on customer support, of those, Asus and MSI, that being said, Asus and MSI both make some of the best notebooks, but if there is a problem you will not be having a fun time dealing with their support lines

I'd prefer around 15'' as this is what I've had in the past.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 03:20 PM ----------

You want an Intel I5 or I7 CPU of the 3xxx series.
AMD Radeon 76xx, Nvidia Geforce GT 640 or higher. You can go for something less but your gaming will suffer.
I personally dislike HP laptops, always had issues with them overheating or having really bad batteries. (Mostly the Pavilion series)
Don't really know what you mean about rating.

Bad bettery and overheating. Damn right. Mine's an HP, the plastic between the hardware started coming apart from me treating it really well! No dropping, no smashing, nothing. Just simply started coming apart.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 03:21 PM ----------

You want an Intel I5 or I7 CPU of the 3xxx series.
AMD Radeon 76xx, Nvidia Geforce GT 640 or higher. You can go for something less but your gaming will suffer.
I personally dislike HP laptops, always had issues with them overheating or having really bad batteries. (Mostly the Pavilion series)
Don't really know what you mean about rating.

As for the rating my friend mentioned the system rating. You know on the scale of 1-7.9?

[majinsnake]

laptop fan?

[Excessiv]

laptop fan?

The way my HP runs it may aswell not even have one.

[Crackleslap]

I also going to be buying a new laptop soon. I am also curios and bump.

[n0cturnal]

I took a look at http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?l=s112467827 and the prices are very high.
You should be happy if you can find a machine running a GT 640M within your budget
http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=1237143 looks decent, but there is a huge price difference between the stores and I know nothing of New Zeeland stores.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 03:34 AM ----------

As for the rating my friend mentioned the system rating. You know on the scale of 1-7.9?

I guess that is Windows built-in "benchmark" and it means nothing pretty much.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html List of notebook GPU performance.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...st.2436.0.html List of notebook CPU performance.

[Auberdeen]

8+GB Ram
i5 3570
SSD

[n0cturnal]

8+GB Ram
i5 3570
SSD

At least read the thread before posting.
There is no 3570 for laptops and a SSD is way out of budget.

[Excessiv]

I took a look at http://pricespy.co.nz/category.php?l=s112467827 and the prices are very high.
You should be happy if you can find a machine running a GT 640M within your budget
http://pricespy.co.nz/product.php?p=1237143 looks decent, but there is a huge price difference between the stores and I know nothing of New Zeeland stores.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 03:34 AM ----------



I guess that is Windows built-in "benchmark" and it means nothing pretty much.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...ist.844.0.html List of notebook GPU performance.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...st.2436.0.html List of notebook CPU performance.

Nice, looking at this aswell

http://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/co...rod119202.html

thoughts?

[n0cturnal]

Nice, looking at this aswell

http://www.noelleeming.co.nz/shop/co...rod119202.html

thoughts?

Well the 7670M is less powerful than the GT 640M as you can see in the list I posted before. Also I find it weird that they are only using 1 RAM stick, I'm not sure how important dual channel is for laptops but I find it odd.

[Asphyxiate9]

Check out digital storm, they dont ship to NZ though you can make a support ticket and ask them if they will do so, however they require a wired transfer for over-seas purchases. Their laptops are fairly cheap and are defiantly cheaper than major brands such as HP and Acer most of the time.

You wont be getting a 17 inch with that budget though, look for 15 inches.

[PhoenixC13]

Budget and video card what I say are most important.

[Excessiv]

Interesting. I will definitely go in and haggle and screw them as blind as possible.

---------- Post added 2013-01-18 at 04:24 PM ----------

Budget and video card what I say are most important.

Yes I can imagine a prime video card will be epic for my lecture note taking...

[songokou16]

Here is what I purchased. I have been completely satisfied with it so far. And yeah, I know it's a refurb, but thats why I bought the extended warranty through squaretrade. Paid less than $1000 with the warranty.

(www) ebay. (com)/itm/251201787835?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649

Here is a link to Lenovo

(www) lenovo. (com)/products/us/laptop/ideapad/y-series/y580/

The reason I ended up going with the one I did get was because the Blu-ray drive. That was a must for me. Plus the 1920x1080p screen was a nice added bonus.

Sorry for the broken links. But apparently I can't post links yet...