New laptop for college

[ChocKoa]

1. What is your budget?

Under $1200

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

Around 15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?

Doesn't really matter too much to me

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

I'd want it portable enough to fit into my backpack and take it with me if I need to.

5. How much battery life do you need?

Hoping for over 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)?

I wouldn't be playing that often but I would like to play some. Diablo III and possibly SC2. Maybe some other shooter games but I'm not concerned about those.

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

Watching movies

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

Don't really need over 500GB but the more the better.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

I'd hope it would last for at least 4 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.

Don't really want HP. My brother got one and he had lots of problems with it.

13. What country do you live in?

USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I'm not sure if it'll help but I'm majoring in computer science.

 

[cbrunnem]

Yea I was looking at xoticpc.com and I saw some pretty nice laptops but the battery life did look a bit low. But I do have a netbook so I might be able to deal with it. Do you think the GT 540m will be able to handle SC2 and diablo iii?

yes it will give you about 4 hours with power savign mode on and the screen dimmed. i would know as i have a 540m and a 2630qm.

to give you a performance idea, it will play crysis 2 on medium setting in the low 30's overclocked to 800-850/950 and thats from the stock 672/900 settings. overclocking the gpu is really really easy just download nvidia's overclocking program. it will play crysis at max at about 20ish fps

 

[dalauder]

The HP 6770 is better than the GT 540M and comes with a copy of Windows. But the Sager can have a better resolution screen, which I like. The CPU comes with thermal compound anyways, but IC Diamond premium compound will shave a few degrees off of your temps if you're concerned.

Personally, it's a tough call between the Sager and the HP for me. Whatever it is you decided, you made a good choice with Sager's options.