$850 CAD (excl. taxes) Gaming laptop

[evilracer]

1_What is your budget?

$1000 (includes tax)... almost $850 without tax

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

15.4 to 17"

3_What screen resolution do you want?

Anything equal to or above 1366x768

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Desktop replacement

5_How much battery life do you need?

anything over 3 hours but not important

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)?

yes, games like Gears of War, Devil may cry 4, need for speed carbon (and above), ashes cricket 2009, fifa 10, Assassin's creed 1 & 2

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)

Photoshopping, might do 3D stuff (not sure about this one), watch HD (>720p) movies, programming etc.

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?

atleast 320GB (> 400 would be great)

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.

No specific sites, must just be in Canada

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?

atleast 2 years

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

DVD RW

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.

not HP: the Case Action lawsuit thread is putting me off from buying HP right now
not Acer: general public opinion about their buil quality and heating

13_What country do you live in?

Canada

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I can't import from the US as I am an international student, I can't even go there...my uncle lives there but he can't come here and the last time he tried shipping me a laptop...duty was very high

A num pad is absolutely necessary...and media controls would be great too but not more important than actual processing/graphic processing power
I am looking around for a gpu better than Ati HD 4570, mainly GT 130M or ATi HD 4650M is what I want but might even be happy with GT 220M
also I'm hoping to buy on boxing day

thank you very much
PS: loved the quick registration!

 

[evilracer]

anyone?

 

[evilracer]

ok so this is still Pre-Boxing day price but here's the shortlist, I'm sure I'm missing some good laptop but this is the final list as far as my brain tells me:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5546803&CatId=4938
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5557209&sku=M452-17001 CA
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicati...?EdpNo=5250511&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

The problem with the highest speced laptop in this list is that it's refurbished with only a 3-month warranty...due to this I would need to purchase an extended warranty separately

There's a GT 130M, 9600M GT and a mighty GTX 260M (the only one with GDDR3 and Physx, but it's refurb! but many people are happy with refurbs....i am so leaning toward it but I just need advice, oh and did I tell you that said laptop has had overheating issues due to the inadequate cooling for GTX 260M, then nVidia released a BIOS fix to increase the fan speed, increasing the noise...underclocking it is a possibility though)

So what do you think I should go for?
Remember, the new Asus do come with 1 year of Accidental warranty coverage but after this hard-learned lesson...I doubt It'll be undergoing any more accidents

First off....I am not a hardcore gamer right now, I just play casually but I have started to play AC and DMC4 now, and will definitely play AC2

so opinions please, the only thing holding me off the refurbed one is the price + extended warranty, which makes is something like $1239 (incl.tax)...and if I don't get the extended warranty...then It's $1017, all others are > $1000 (or equal)

If you say I should go for the GTX 260M laptop, please also tell me what should be my second choice, I'm a university student so my budget is not so flexible
please help!

 

[evilracer]

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5546803&CatId=4938
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5557209&sku=M452-17001 CA
http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicati...?EdpNo=5250511&csid=ITD&body=MAIN#detailspecs

ok, narrowed down to 3...really confused now

the Asus G51-RX05 is in a different league altogether but the other two,
is the performance gain of the GT 130M compared to a 9600M GT isn't worth the extra $57??
I just checked my balance and I have only $960 !!! and won't be getting any money since after christmas (will take atleast 2 to 5 business days after my dad sends it)
also, if I get the MSIs, they're 17" and I would need a bigger backpack for it plus I am also trying to get a $35 3.5" eSata enclosure

lol, I am trapped and I need a laptop which can handle Assassin's Creed 2 at medium/medium low atleast!

 

[Canuck1]

I'm interested in the same kind of laptop, OP!

The only difference is I would like a laptop equipped with eSATA! I would like to replace the stock HDD someday with a SSD drive to make it lighter, faster and increase battery life. But, the capacities are of low storage so I'd use a 1TB drive for storing my data so the eSATA port would really help!

I don't know if you are interested in that but I also like VT so a P8400 cpu would be ideal but laptops in that price range rarely have such a powerful cpu.

Anyways, here are some laptop suggestions and I am hoping people read it and comment!

Toshiba A500-02J 16 - 2.13GHz Core 2 Duo Processor P7450 1GB nVidia N10P (GT230M?) - $950

Gateway P-7803H-CA - Core 2 Duo P7350 2.0GHz, 17" WXGA+, 4GB DDR3, 500GB SATA, NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 1GB - $800

HP PAVILION DV7-2270US - Core™2 Quad Q9000 - ATO Mobility Radeon HD 4650 - $1200

Asus laptop with Core 2 Duo P8700 - no eSATA (Nvidia card) - $999 (approx.)

Note: these are in CDN prices and at Canadian stores or vendors.

Please recommend and/or suggest other laptops!

 

[evilracer]

hey
I bought the Gateway P-7803H-CA just yesterday...someone on notebook review forums pointed out the deal to me

Toshiba A500-02J is a fingerprint magnet and I'd rather stay away from HP at this time
The gateway has an extra harddrive bay too!

 

[Canuck1]

How do you like the quality of the Gateway? You got it at CC, right?

I was considering that one except I wish it had the next level of processors so that I could enable virtualization but I guess it's not a biggie considering the price of that one.

How do you know about the Toshiba? You prefer the Gateway over the Toshiba? By a lot?

 

[evilracer]

yeah, i got it for $799, it's going for $699 on boxing day only

so at that price, you can't go wrong...this one's good, the adapter is emitting a very low volumed low freq hiss...but it's only noticeable under extreme quietness and the fan is a bit erratic...under Win 7, it's better

I owned a Toshiba A500-025 before this one...spilled water on it, thus the reason behind buying this one

still need to recover the data from it, the HDD from that one isn't working in this one....I'm hoping an enclosure might do the job or atleast tell me the prob

and also hoping to get my $100 back tomorrow

 

[Canuck1]

Interesting! That's a good price! Tempting! Don't forget your receipt. I don't see why they wouldn't refund $100 since you just bought it.

I'd definitely use Windows 7 on any recent laptpo I buy. I dual boot Linux, too, though.

Not sure what to say about your power adapter. You could check whether it means any difference if you're near electronic appliances but it still shouldn't hum, I don't think.

It would be good if some of the Asus laptops went on sale, too, so I could compare some other laptops but the reduced price on the Gateway is intriguing. It's even low enough that one could consider adding a SSD later on!

Good luck on getting some money back and figuring out your power adapter issue although seems minor.