What laptop should I get?

[colin4444]

So, I need a new laptop for college next year. I'm not really sure what type of laptop to get. I'm pretty sure I want to order one from Dell (but that's not a requirement) and be able to run the latest games fairly well, yet I don't want it to be too expensive. One of the hard things for me is deciding which model to pick on Dell's website, and then how much RAM and mHz I will need for the latest games. If you have any suggestions for a specific model or configuration, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ACLeroK212]

Don't buy a laptop if you intend to use it for gaming. I did a few years ago, and even though they have some pretty good specs at the moment, a year or two down the road when you want to upgrade you're going to be kicking yourself in the head for not getting a PC.

 

[$kelet0r]

I have a dell inspiron 9100 for college at the mo
+ plays all good games at the mo well
+ super fast P4
+ its mine!!!
+ dell after sales is excellent as long as you have the documentation
- it weighs a ton - lug 12lb in a shitty shoulder bag all day and you'll know
- it has about 1 hour of battery = useless
- very limited upgradeability

the compromise is that you want a mobility laptop with a pentium M, a 128mb Radeon card ( X something), 512mb ram and a damn good battery
and a wireless card is essential
if you dont want to go the dell route toshiba is your best bet
one of my mates has a laptop with 1.5GB of ram the bastard
but be warned - limited aftersales

if you wanna go cheap =Acer

 

[JellyWorld]

If you want a pretty laptop get an iBook.

 

[DSDchemE]

I got a laptop because I thought I'd take it to classes and stuff. It's gone to class maybe 10 times in 2 years (it's too much of a hassel to disconnect and reconnect all the stuff every few hours). Considering it cost me about $2000 dollars and has about half the functionality of the desktop I'm building (for $1200), I'd definitely think carefully buying another laptop.

ACLero's right. Laptops are extremely difficult and expensive to upgrade as laptop components (RAM and harddrives) cost about twice as much as desktop components. Finally, Pentium 4's suck power like nothing else (mine has about 1 hour of battery life when playing games, 1.5 hours when watching a movie), and require a lot of fans (loud). An extra battery is definitely recommended.

But if you really want a laptop, make sure you get one with a graphics card designed for gaming (and preferrably a replaceable one). It was about 6 months after buying mine (with an integrated Radeon 345M) that I realized it it had the equivalent of a Radeon 7000 with no pixel shader support and shared memory. Needless to say I'm now in the process of building a gaming desktop with a nice card.

Finally, a flux capacitor (aka DC->AC converter) is vital for using your laptop to watch movies on long road trips (when you aren't driving, that is). They're about $30. And FM modulators are good for getting your sound onto the car speakers.

 

[ACLeroK212]

Yes, if you're set on buying a laptop make sure you at least get something with the top of the line graphics card available. RAM and Hard-drives, although expensive, aren't that hard to upgrade. But upgrading your graphics card in a laptop is pretty much out of the question.

 

[Vorac1ous]

Well, what exactly will be you doing with this laptop? If you're mainly going to be gaming then just get a Shuttle barebones kit. If you're going to get a laptop because for whatever reason you need to bring it into class or something, then don't go Dell. I don't know much about laptops so that's about all the advice I can give, sorry.

 

[WhiteZero]

If you want power at a cheap price, I recommend www.powernotebooks.com