Hi Folks:
1. What is your budget?
$1000.00 to $1500.00, or so. I anticipate getting a serious (2011-3 socket) system this fall/winter for work and gaming.
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
17" would be nice, but I'll mostly use it as a remote desktop with a mouse and full size keyboard plugged into the USB and 21" monitor plugged into the HDMI. So I'm fine with a 15" display.
3. What screen resolution do you want?
I want it to drive a 1280 external display through the HDMI, so I assume it needs to have a 1280 display. Can a laptop with a lower resolution drive an external monitor at 1280?
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable. I'll get a serious desktop for desktop stuff. I do want a laptop I can take to client's sites. When on site a compact and light "Ultrabook" would be nice.
5. How much battery life do you need?
This will spend most of it's life plugged into the wall, even when used as a portable away from the office. I can see sitting in the woods writing C++ code, or whatever, on rare occasions.
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'm not expecting to be able to play serious games, I don't want to spend $3000 on an Alienware hot rod. But it would be a pleasant surprise if it would play World of Tanks with decent graphic settings at a usable frame rate. Ditto for battlefield 3.
But this is not a priority.
That's what my next PC is for.
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Mostly, as a remote desktop to my work computer.
I'm a software developer, C++. My projects are hundreds of thousands of lines of code. My desktop machine will do the heavy lifting, but Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 license allows me to install it on more than one machine, as long as I use only one copy of the software at a time. So I plan on installing it on the laptop. I can then work while I'm not connected.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I'd like a TB or a TB and a half. I'll want a system partition and a Truecrypt partition for my work and personal stuff.
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
This looks interesting:
http
/www.frys.com/product/8119335?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG
The 12 GB of memory, and 4 GB of memory for the graphics processor sound nice. The drive is a little small, but this isn't my heavy lifter.
I like dealing with Fry's, they've always taken care of me when there were problems.
It seems to be on pre-order.
I buy selected items from Newegg too, but their "dead pixel" policy makes me uncomfortable when considering the purchase of a laptop from them.
I'm open to other vendors.
Edit
I've just read a response to a similar question by Iceclock:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231630&leaderboard=1
Holy cow!
This is the ASUS ROG G750 Series.
Ok, not EXACTLY an "Ultrabook", more like an anchor.
17 inch display which is nice for show and tell at client's sites.
$80 bucks more, that's doable.
The i7 4700HQ is much more capable than the 4500U in the Acer.
Same amount of memory, with a 32 GB capacity.
Fast graphics processor. 2 GB of memory, can I bump that to 4 GB?
1 TB of apparently painfully slow disk. Newegg comments recommend adding an SSD. Can I also replace the HD with something faster, perhaps a velociraptor?
Something like this should be able to handle software development.
What do you think?
End edit
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
If it works as planned, several years at least. Or until something new and compelling comes out.
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
I'll want to be able to watch movies on it, so Blu-ray would be nice. The desire to be branded an "Ultrabook" seems to push optical drives out of the PC to external drives. I can live with that. I'd prefer an internal Blu-ray burner even if it made the PC a bit larger.
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.
I'd prefer to purchase my laptop from a company that manufactured them in the USA, LOL. I know, the idea of employing people from the country you are selling into is, apparently, just stupid.
13. What country do you live in?
USA, Portland, Oregon.
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I'm wondering if I can expect to have two monitors available if I plug a monitor into the HDMI port.
I'd like to be able to debug an application that's displaying on the laptop's screen while debugging information is displayed on the external monitor.
I'd like one app running on the laptop's screen and a different app running on the external monitor.
This laptop has an external video card, a GeForce GT 750M. I'm assuming this is an improvement on the i7 processor's on chip graphic processor. Can I select which monitor, internal or external, will be driven by the GeForce?
I don't want a web cam. I work from home and let's just say the dress code is a lot more casual than "Business Casual", or even "Casual Friday". Almost all laptops I've looked at have web cams, so this isn't a deal breaker. As long as I can KNOW the web cam is shut down is with a piece of electrical tape over the lens.
After the warranty is over, will I be able to substitute a larger internal hard drive for the drive that's in the laptop now?
I actually have more questions, but you've suffered enough.
I'm sorry for the length of this post. But I think this gives you some idea of what I'm looking for.
Thanks
Larry
1. What is your budget?
$1000.00 to $1500.00, or so. I anticipate getting a serious (2011-3 socket) system this fall/winter for work and gaming.
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
17" would be nice, but I'll mostly use it as a remote desktop with a mouse and full size keyboard plugged into the USB and 21" monitor plugged into the HDMI. So I'm fine with a 15" display.
3. What screen resolution do you want?
I want it to drive a 1280 external display through the HDMI, so I assume it needs to have a 1280 display. Can a laptop with a lower resolution drive an external monitor at 1280?
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable. I'll get a serious desktop for desktop stuff. I do want a laptop I can take to client's sites. When on site a compact and light "Ultrabook" would be nice.
5. How much battery life do you need?
This will spend most of it's life plugged into the wall, even when used as a portable away from the office. I can see sitting in the woods writing C++ code, or whatever, on rare occasions.
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'm not expecting to be able to play serious games, I don't want to spend $3000 on an Alienware hot rod. But it would be a pleasant surprise if it would play World of Tanks with decent graphic settings at a usable frame rate. Ditto for battlefield 3.
But this is not a priority.
That's what my next PC is for.
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Mostly, as a remote desktop to my work computer.
I'm a software developer, C++. My projects are hundreds of thousands of lines of code. My desktop machine will do the heavy lifting, but Microsoft's Visual Studio 2010 license allows me to install it on more than one machine, as long as I use only one copy of the software at a time. So I plan on installing it on the laptop. I can then work while I'm not connected.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I'd like a TB or a TB and a half. I'll want a system partition and a Truecrypt partition for my work and personal stuff.
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
This looks interesting:
http
/www.frys.com/product/8119335?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PGThe 12 GB of memory, and 4 GB of memory for the graphics processor sound nice. The drive is a little small, but this isn't my heavy lifter.
I like dealing with Fry's, they've always taken care of me when there were problems.
It seems to be on pre-order.
I buy selected items from Newegg too, but their "dead pixel" policy makes me uncomfortable when considering the purchase of a laptop from them.
I'm open to other vendors.
Edit
I've just read a response to a similar question by Iceclock:
http
/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231630&leaderboard=1Holy cow!
This is the ASUS ROG G750 Series.
Ok, not EXACTLY an "Ultrabook", more like an anchor.
17 inch display which is nice for show and tell at client's sites.
$80 bucks more, that's doable.
The i7 4700HQ is much more capable than the 4500U in the Acer.
Same amount of memory, with a 32 GB capacity.
Fast graphics processor. 2 GB of memory, can I bump that to 4 GB?
1 TB of apparently painfully slow disk. Newegg comments recommend adding an SSD. Can I also replace the HD with something faster, perhaps a velociraptor?
Something like this should be able to handle software development.
What do you think?
End edit
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
If it works as planned, several years at least. Or until something new and compelling comes out.
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
I'll want to be able to watch movies on it, so Blu-ray would be nice. The desire to be branded an "Ultrabook" seems to push optical drives out of the PC to external drives. I can live with that. I'd prefer an internal Blu-ray burner even if it made the PC a bit larger.
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.
I'd prefer to purchase my laptop from a company that manufactured them in the USA, LOL. I know, the idea of employing people from the country you are selling into is, apparently, just stupid.
13. What country do you live in?
USA, Portland, Oregon.
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I'm wondering if I can expect to have two monitors available if I plug a monitor into the HDMI port.
I'd like to be able to debug an application that's displaying on the laptop's screen while debugging information is displayed on the external monitor.
I'd like one app running on the laptop's screen and a different app running on the external monitor.
This laptop has an external video card, a GeForce GT 750M. I'm assuming this is an improvement on the i7 processor's on chip graphic processor. Can I select which monitor, internal or external, will be driven by the GeForce?
I don't want a web cam. I work from home and let's just say the dress code is a lot more casual than "Business Casual", or even "Casual Friday". Almost all laptops I've looked at have web cams, so this isn't a deal breaker. As long as I can KNOW the web cam is shut down is with a piece of electrical tape over the lens.
After the warranty is over, will I be able to substitute a larger internal hard drive for the drive that's in the laptop now?
I actually have more questions, but you've suffered enough.
I'm sorry for the length of this post. But I think this gives you some idea of what I'm looking for.
Thanks
Larry
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