Recent content by lightsong

"rather old laptop"... when was the last time you took it apart and blew out all the dust?

Alienware isn't thin or light though... holydarkace if you would like some good answers to your questions I suggest reading the guildelines of the forum and editing your post to actually give us some useful info

Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus (3200x1800) 13.3" screen Acer Aspire S7 (2560x1440) 13.3" screen Asus Zenbook Infinity (2560x1440) 13.3" screen Macbook pro stuff (high res) 13" or 15" Dell XPS 15 (3200x1800) 15.6"

I looked at both of these laptops and my thoughts went like this: Razer (slightly smaller screen than I wanted, and bad resolution), MSI (too big for what I was looking at). Now i'm not sure what kind of games you play but if a 750M will handle what you want, you could look at the new Dell XPS...

I'm not sure about that really (I don't use companies customer service, I just fit it myself). However, here is a link to an ongoing review of the m3800 (basically same computer, different graphics card) it looks quite promising...

Well... the more you spend the better your chances of high build quality (in general). There is a reason Apple does not sell dirt cheap products. Dell's new XPS 13 should be a good fit... I do not believe its actually out right now though. Samsung/Acer (newest models) have had good reviews. You...

ah.. no price point listed which makes recommendations kind of difficult. Dell XPS 15 is rather nice as well (better than that HP but probably more expensive)

if your laptop is not new... take it apart and use compressed air to clean out the heat sink and fans (it will work absolute wonders)

I was looking at about the same situation... I ended up buying the new Dell XPS 15. Its pretty spendy ... was $2067 for the best model with student discounts, but the specs are beast. lightweight (4.4 lbs), high resolution (1920x1080 OR 3200x1800), SSD, lots of ram

Dell m3800 or xps 15 , the base models are going to be right around $1500, maybe a little less with student discount/work discount etc. If you don't need something that is lightweight maybe something other than those models

uh... there is really only 2 operating systems... Windows and mac. I mean you could put a varient of linux on it, but if you can't keep your computer from crashing running windows... i'm not sure that's such a good idea.

hmm... are you stuck with those 3 choices as a particular reason? Unlike the poster above... I do not believe there is anything wrong w/ a mac if it suits your needs. However, you need to make sure it does. "intense simulations" .. make sure those are avail for mac and not just PC

i5 - 8gb -256gb SSD (only because you stress you want long term, its still overkill for how you use the computer). This is listed as $1,499 on apples website... not sure where your finding your prices a simple google search will tell you about i5 vs i7. There is no reason to spend money on i7...

That Razer is way above his budget unfortunately. My honest suggestion is don't play games during college :) . It adds a lot of weight and destroys battery life. I have an alienware 14'' that plays game just fine, Which I did for the first year of college. Now I couldn't dream of playing games...

You will most likely need the original CD of windows 7 or at the very least the Serial Key. And in order to get a price... you should try putting what laptop you actually have in your post