1st Laptop Owner - Need Suggestions

[cash415]

1) What is your budget?
$1300 Max (with Shipping and Tax)

2) What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15-17inch. I'm really torn between a 15 or 17inch monitor. On one hand, a 15inch monitor is more mobile and light, but a 17inch monitor will replace my desktop.

3) What screen resolution do you want?
Nothing less than 1280 but prefer the best for my budget. I definitely want something vivid.

4) Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Desktop replacement

5) How much battery life do you need?
Anything decent. This laptop will most likely stay at home. I'd say 90% at home and 10% mobile.

6) Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
I hardly play PC games anymore since I own a PS3, but if I do play games it's most likely strategy games likes Ages of Empire or sports games like NBA 2K9.

7) What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing, surfing the web, playing music, watching movies, Etc.)
I mainly surf the web, listen and watch movies, play some games. I don't do much photo or video editing but I always use PShop for their features. I often use MS Office for work and school when necessary. Might learn some Adobe products like Dreamweaver.

8) How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
Not sure. I don't save many movies in my computer but if I did, I would probably use a dedicated external hard drive. I do want a quiet hard drive though.

9) If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
Anywhere reputable. I prefer using the Bill Me Later method because they currently have a 6 month no finance fee.

10) How long do you want to keep your laptop?
5+ years. Will likely get a desktop in the future when I move to a bigger place and replace the laptop I'm buying now with a more mobile one.

11) If you would like to mention some other things about purchasing your ideal laptop, post them.
I would love to own a back-lit keyboard if possible, and I would prefer to have the 9 keyboard thingie on the right hand side so I can quickly type in the numerical numbers. A slide-in CD-rom would be great too. Last thing would be an expansion slot like what Lenovo Y730 has for their laptops. Stylish shell, thinner than normal, and nothing over 8lbs.

12) Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Brands doesn't impress me, what I'm interested in are the components and hardware inside the laptop.

13) What country do you live in?
United States. California

 

[sbgamer]

for about $100 more, you can get a really great new macbook. I have one and i strongly recommend it. Although the screen is only 13.3 inches, it is very well put together, and Mac OS X is much better than Vista or XP.
the hard drive is 160 GB minimum, the graphics card is a GeForce 9400, so it should run your games, processor speed 2.0 GHz, 2 gigs RAM.
go to apple's site to see it
MS office is available for Mac, and so is Photoshop (i believe)

 

[cash415]

Thanks for the input but I want something with a bigger screen.

 

[sbgamer]

well you can get the macbook pro with the 15 inch screen, but it starts at $2000 unfortunately. Thats why i bought the regular old macbook, and i love it!

 

[cash415]

I prefer sticking with a PC laptop for now. I'll probably get a Mac in a year or two.

 

[wonderingwhatis]

16 inch PH HDX These are really nice laptops. good build quality not the fastest or best res.

18.4 inch Qosmio These are really nice again ibuild quality wise. Great speakers too for a laptop. A little on the slower side but huge screen.

Acer 18.4 Similar to the toshiba, but a better vid card and plays blu ray

Sony 16.4 FW These look rerally nice and have awesome keyboards (think new mac laptop exactly). Blu Ray player but the screen isnt up to the full res but it does have HDMI out.

I think only a couple of those are on sale right now though.ay

 

[wonderingwhatis]

Oh and I would avoid a slot loading drive unless you really have to have one. They are generally a good bit slower and much make more noise. Plus if you ever for some random chance need to use a mini CD/DVD you are out of luck.

 

[cash415]

Are integrated video and sound card any good? I'm wondering if they're serviceable while watching movies and such, even playing games.

 

[cash415]

I really like that Sony laptop. What about this Sony VGN-FW290JAB model wonderingwhatis? It's the same price as the Sony VGN-FW270J/B. The Sony FW290JAB doesn't have a Blu-ray reader but it does have a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 (512MB) video card. Since the Sony VGN-FW270J/B isn't a true 1080p it doesn't make sense to get the Blu-ray reader. The FW290JAB provides a 1600x900 XBRITE-ECO technology, which should provide similar resolution to the FW270J/B.

 

[vochtige]

you never know if you don't play games. so seek a ati hd 3650 mobility, or a nvidia 9600gt. those can handle games. it's a pitty that you can't buy the hp pavilion hdx18. they look nice! have blue ray and full HD.

that acer looks nice. 2.0ghz sounds slow, but for a laptop it's enough. my dad still uses a 1.4 intel single core. and he's getting to his 4 years i guess.

and for cpu: go for cpu's starting from the intel centrino duo 7xxx series to the newest 9xxx series.

good luck! take a look at dell or hp sites


for your search: go for 4 gb ram, enough HDD space! you can always buy an external hdd (like i did), but that what you don't have inside the machine, you don't have i regret my 80 gb hdd.

if you get blueray=> full had 1900x1080 res.
if you don't want it, for a 17 inch is 1650 almost standard.