New Desktop/Laptop.

[Tacoeaterguy]

Alright so my parents have agreed to buy me a new laptop for Christmas. The only problem is, is that I'm not sure if I should get a new laptop, or build a PC for cheaper. I already have 3-4 desktops in my house atm, and I'm running out of space. A laptop would be nice because it is very small, and is also portable. But they kinda suck. Should I get a laptop or build a pc?

Price range: 500$-850$ Is that too cheap? Idk.

 

[Viperidae]

What do you plan to do with it?

 

[Asus]

What do you plan to do with it?

Yeah. Also, what do you do on the PCs you already have in the house?

 

[Krynn72]

And do you need all of the PCs you have? You could just salvage bits from an older one and get rid of the extra parts. Then you have room and save money.

 

[Schall]

In your situation, I would get a laptop.

 

[Robbo]

Are you studying? I've found laptops are great at uni or for surfing the net on the couch but not much else.

If you want to game on it buy the desktop, otherwise a laptop might be a good idea.

 

[Dinnesch]

I'd recommend you to get a decent gaming PC and a cheap basic laptop.
Laptops are horrible for gaming and the video card names are pure bullshit. For example the GTX 280m is just a underclocked 8800GTS.

 

[VirusType2]

Just buy a $400 monitor and a $400 graphics card. Use the leftover money to buy a change of pants.

 

[CptStern]

if you're looking for a small form factor Asus is coming out with 12" $500 netbook that's capable (on low settings) of playing games like CoD MW2 and L4dead2. a regular sized notebook will cost you a little more with slightly better performace

 

[Dynasty]

Yeah. Also, what do you do on the PCs you already have in the house?

This is funny, it seems the only time Asus appears is when a hardware question props up every..few months.

 

[VirusType2]

This is funny, it seems the only time Asus appears is when a hardware question props up every..few months.

You've been here since 2004, and you just noticed this?

 

[Dinnesch]

Yeah, I've also been wondering. Looking at Asus' thread history he never posted in anything but the hard/software forums.

Why oh Why Asus?

 

[Acepilotf14]

You should totally buy a gaming laptop!

 

[Dynasty]

Shot ME down.

I just blurted it out, havent seen him in what feels like years.

AND he has one of the highest post counts. How the...

To get back on track, I would recommend the Acer Aspire series for that price range. Prices were high a few years back but they MUST have plummeted by now. Theyre usually pretty well priced, very well built, have some of the best screens around and will play most games on a mixture of medium and low settings.

Had mine since the start of 2007 and its still able to run games like World In Conflict and Company Of Heroes on a mixture of medium and high settings, as well as today's games, which I havent bought many of, but the Left 4 Dead 2 demo ran very nicely, if a little tacky looking, on medium settings.

For that price, you have to sacrifice gaming quality and fps rates.

Personally Im drooling over a new Asus machine for about £1300 as I cant be arsed to have a desktop PC anymore. The flexibility of a gamer laptop is unbeatable. Although dont expect anything more than an hour or 2 battery life on full load. You'll practically have it plugged into the mains ever time you use it. Which makes the battery life even worse.

My Acer Aspire 5670 is almost 3 years old now, and I can get...20-30mins out of max when I max the power usage to the CPU with the Acer power management software.

 

[Asus]

Why oh Why Asus?

Sometimes I post in other threads but I read them all.

Steady posting from 2003.

 

[Tyguy]

if you have everything you need gaming wise i'd go with the laptop, it's nice not being stuck at a desk

 

[Tacoeaterguy]

I have 3-4 other PCs sitting around that are mostly for school, and very little gaming. I'm leaning towards not buying a laptop now, because I was planning on using it for gaming, so I think its out of the question. I really have no need for a new monitor, so if I built a PC, could I put a nice graphics card in it, and basically make it very nice for like... 900$? I could probably sell some stuff and boost it to 1000$.

 

[Acepilotf14]

I just upgraded my PC, and total it ran me about $600. This is sans monitor(which I already had a really nice one which is rather large, no point in getting a new one), HDD, and DVD drive. $900 is plenty to make a nice gaming PC that can play all the newest games, and more.

 

[VirusType2]

Best bet is to take that 1000 and buy 3 graphics cards with it, one at a time. Save the money and buy one every two years.

also you could get better/more RAM