Buying my first laptop

robinsw89

Distinguished
May 19, 2010
3
0
18,510
Hi, I'm planning on buying a laptop cuz I wish to create space in my room. I want to get rid of my pc and get something portable..

1_What is your budget?
600 Euro's which is 736,20 USD atm

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
12, 13, 14 or 15 inch.. 15,6 being my max size..

3_What screen resolution do you want?
Whatever goes best with the screensize of the notebook

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
A bit of both, I am gonna use it for school and travelling, but when its at home its mostly going to be connected to my network cable until I buy myself a WiFi device

5_How much battery life do you need?
At least 2 hours would be preferable..

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 am going to game with it,
Diablo III will most likely be released in 2011 and it will most likely require similar system specs as Starcraft 2 requires.
I want to be able run it on at least medium. I don't need a laptop that can handle insane Anti Aliasing and the likes, but it has to run games like that and lower pretty nice..
High end games like crysis should also be playable on my laptop.. however since the game looks good as it is, I don't mind running it at lowest settings. Diablo 3 remains my greatest priority though, since I don't feel much for most other new games atm.

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Watching movies, making reports and essays, browsing, downloading, listening music (I need my laptop to have one of the audio holes so that I can hook my z2300 sound system onto it)

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
160GB or more..

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
I don't care where I buy it as long as its reliable, no credit card (I can only pay via paypal, bank transfer or by simply going to a store and buying it with real money/pin)

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
As long as possible, 2 or 3 years seems long enough to save up for a new one.

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD rom/writer (if its rom only it doesn't really matter, I can burn dvd's on another home pc)

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've heared lots of crappy stuff about Dell and Acer, maybe they are just rumours..
I just want a reliable brand with good customer service..

13_What country do you live in?
The Netherlands (Located in Europe)

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.

All my demands are just directions. I'm willing to bend some of them so I can get something else..

Most important for me is:

- It doesn't exceed my Budget
- It's able to run DIII (SC2) at around Medium settings
- It's not larger than 15,6 Inch
- My network cable and audio system have to be inserted into the laptop
- It needs a DVD-Rom
- It needs to be a reliable brand and a reliable product, I want it to last at least 2 years.
 

marcellis22

Distinguished
Oct 20, 2008
49
0
18,590
Do you think people hand build laptops? Punch your specs into the Dell web site, you should be able to select from either a Studio or Latitude model. And yes, spend extra money on a three year on site warranty... As I work on computers for the US Army, Dell has the best warranty/customer support, HP is a VERY distant second...
 
It looks like the best option for meeting your budget and your goals might be a Dell Inspiron 15 (Core i3 model) @ € 569
Core i3 330M CPU, HD 5450 graphics, 15" 1366x768 LCD. Wi-Fi, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD & DVD burner.
If you can find a laptop with the same basic specs but a HD 4670 or 5650 video chip you'd have a lot better chance of running DIII/SC2 well.
 

robinsw89

Distinguished
May 19, 2010
3
0
18,510
I just found a Toshiba Laptop the L500-1ZP

It has an i3 330M, HD 5165, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD

Its priced at 599 where I found it.

Is this a good GPU?, is toshiba a good brand?