New Laptop

RuStudent99

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Mar 13, 2011
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So, its now been a few years since you guys recommended i get the MSI Gx620, and recently upon improperly applying thermal paste, i think its gone for good. idk whats wrong exactly besides the probable short, but when i turn on the computer no boot screen, no nothing, just a black back light screen that gets slowly overtaken by white as if frosting over. if this means the computer is gone, ill need a new one

1. What is your budget?
~1000

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
about 15.4 inches

3. What screen resolution do you want?
a good one (sorry, don't know much)

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable which will replace my desktop

5. How much battery life do you need?
id like to get through a lecture or 2 without worrying about it dying, so 5 hours or so would be nice

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, i want to play games, but not sure which ones for sure, so lets say Assassin's Creed Revelations or Med/High

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Word processing and Games.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
something respectable, like 300 to 500GB

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

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
Another 3 - 4 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD Burner, maybe a blueray burner but not necessarily

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.
after using the MSI GX620, im biased against them. i had the same stupid metal hinge problem which many people reported and i want something that feels more solid. id want to avoid Dell because of what i've heard of their customer service.

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
the Cheaper the better.
 

RetiredChief

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Asus Notebooks are probably the most reliable.
CPU is good, unless you have applications that make use the extra cores in a i7 cpu.

The 540m is a mid level class 2 GPU
Ref (Web site is slowww loading) http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-540M.41715.0.html

If you scoot to the bottom on the left side it will give you the benchmarks for many games, if Exceptable then GO for it.

For laptops (SB), nvidia is probably a better choice as AMD driver is on the poor side when switch between the internal IGP (for 2D apps) and the GPU, for 3D apps (games). All my desktops have AMD GPU, so not a Nvidia fanboy!!

I have the Samsung RF711-SO1, 17" I5-2410 w/540M GPU, Plus Bulray Rom/DVD-RW drive and am Happy with it, but not a gamer. I did up the 4 gigs Ram-> 8 Gigs and replaced the HDD with 2 128 gig M4 SSDs.
 

RuStudent99

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im looking at the negative reviews on newegg and they have me worried... i like the site with the benchmarks, but this graphics card seems a little under powered, so i'd be open to suggestions for other laptops with greater power. if anyone could tell me that'd be great
 

RuStudent99

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im looking around im getting more confused as i do. i don't fully understand the difference between i3, i5, and i7 and whats worth the money to get. particularly, i used to think that dedicated graphics cards were always better than integrated once but i feel like that isn't the case. if anyone could clear those things up it'd help.
 

RuStudent99

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im somewhat stuck with Newegg unless theres a significant price different at some other store/site (dad has a credit card there) and i like the G74, but im weary of refurbished products, especially after reading the 1 egg reviews. the 1 TB of storage also seems like drastic over-kill and i know its one of the things im paying for, so i'd rather go with out to drop the price some.

Primarily, i want a computer that runs fast (i.e. a CPU and graphic card/GPU which won't be viciously outdated in a year) and looks nice (decent screen Res) . i don't care for Storage, i had a 300 GB HDD in my old laptop and it did just fine, but it seems like the standard is now 500 GB. i would want something with 4 - 6 hours of power on it when not gaming, ill never be playing games unless its plugged in. Windows 7 is non-question for me.
 

RuStudent99

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thanks for the help, theres a good chance i go with this one, i like it. would you say most recertified laptops turn out alright? im looking at the one you linked over again and i have this dread about ending up like the one egg reviews. i need this for school, so im just somewhat paniced about it. do you think its justified?
 

Pyree

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It is hard to say about new laptop reliability let alone re-cert reliability. The hardware die on the time they want to and it is out of your control. The only difference is warranty. If you get extended warranty for the G74, then the Sager is a better deal since it is new and cost the same. Otherwise if you are really going to keep it under $1000, get the HP.
 

RuStudent99

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so i just placed the order on this one, i really appreciate the help. if im not happy with how it preforms in a year or 2 ill try to resell, if its viable to do so. i feel bad that my 1000 dollar laptop died in 3 years and i can't do anything with it now. i may send it to MSI for a repair and try to resell, but a perfectly new one is 600 on amazon and i doubt it would be worth the repair. hope to avoid the same situation with this laptop. thanks a lot for your help Pyree.
 

RuStudent99

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so ill be getting the laptop tomorrow, i had a question concerning upgrades. do you know of any upgrades that would be worth while? i've read things about the hard drive being on the slow side and obviously the RAM can go higher, as well as changing the BIOS to automatically switch to the dedicated card anytime the device is plugged in. are you aware of any other tweaks in hardware i could pursue to speed the machine up?