Solved! Need advice for new laptop

[hellite]

1_What is your budget?
Under 1500$

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
between 14 and 16 inch

3_What screen resolution do you want?
Any

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Desktop replacement

5_How much battery life do you need?
At least 2 hours

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 portals and left 4 dead

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Principally for University but I also need it for Video Game Development

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
Over 250 Gig

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
www.dell.ca

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2-3 years

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

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.
Dell, because I already owned one and was really satisfied with it
Asus and Gateway cause I've heard they have some great products

13_What country do you live in?
Canada

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I need a new Laptop cause mine, a Dell XPS m1210, died lately. The video card stopped working properly. I need a good replacement that would let me do everything I was doing before which means use Microsoft office, Visual Studios and play video games. I was looking into a Studio XPS 16 but saw it had heating problems. Now I'm looking more into a Dell Studio 15 with i5 core and 4-6 Go of RAM

Thanks

 

[WR2]

hello hellite;

The top Studio 15 video card is the HD 4570. Mobilty Radeon HD 4570 review. Stepping up from the 1366x768 LCD to the 1600x900 LCD is good for productivity but might make the video card struggle a bit with your games.

I'd heard the Studio XPS 16 overheating problem was mostly solved with a cooler running video card and a new BIOS update. And replacing the 90W power brick that got hot with a 130W power brick. It's been a couple of months since I last checked that issue so you want to be sure to find out what going on with the latest versions.
If you want to look at the $1300 Studio XPS 16 you can get Core i7 720Q and the HD 5730. Mobility Radeon HD 5730
They also have $1200 Studio XPS 16 with Core i5 540M and HD 4670. Mobility Radeon HD 4670

Do you have any other laptop brands you want to consider?

 

[hellite]

Well, I have no problem with any other brand except maybe Acer. I know a lot of people who owned Acer and they did not even last one year. Asus and Gateway seems like good alternative I might be interested into.

Thanks for your answer, I'll take a look at it.

 

[parkinson]

I recommend Asus. Good relation between price and performance.

 

[hellite]

Any specific models?

Right now, I,m looking at a Dell Studio 15 :

Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Quad Core Processor 1.6GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Mode, 6MB Cache)
15.6” High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife™
4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 at 1333MHz
500GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5470, 1GB
8X Slot Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
85 Whr Lithium Ion Battery (9 cell)

1050$. I was wondering if upgrading to 6Gig of RAM worth the additional 150$. If their is other similar models I can look at, please let me know.

Thanks

 

[hellite]

I also have a question. Since my last laptop's graphic card just 12 days after my warranty expires (that's how lucky I am hehe), is there some way to buy a new cheap graphic card and repair the laptop? Would be nice if I can repair repair it for under 200$ and give it to my sister.

The laptop is a Dell XPS m1210. It had a nVidia go 7400. I opened the laptop 2 days ago and after a windows patch, blue screen of death with this message : NMI Memory Parity error ! After a restart, I noticed that at the very start of booting, with the Dell logo, their are many red vertical lines. So I tried changing the drivers and reinstalling Windows, nothing worked. If I disable the GPU, it runs well but the graphics REALLY sucks hehe.

So anyone if their is a quick and cheap way to fix this?

Thanks

 

[WR2]

I don't favor going the 6GB RAM upgrade route. There isn't enough of a performance improvement for that $150 price increase.

Dell XPS m1210 nVidia go 7400 video chip is soldered to the motherboard. The only realistic solution is a complete motherboard swapout.
I saw one estimate of over $500 to fix that problem.
Doesnt hurt anything to get a free estimate.

 

[WR2]

Lenovo Canada has a $850 IdeaPad Y560 with Core i3 330, 4GB RAM, 15" 1366x768 LCD and HD 5730 graphics.
NCIX has $1150 ASUS N61JQ-A1 Core i7 720Q, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD 16" 1366x768 LCD, HD 5730