Thoughts on this laptop?

[dan wask]

http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=251

It's time for a college laptop. I'm looking to be able to play some games and do some photo editing and stuff, and have something that will keep up with how much I use a computer. any thoughts on this?

[blue]

Buying a cheap off-brand laptop with a short to no warranty is just asking for it.

Three options, IMHO:

-Buy a Macbook/MBP with an AppleCare warranty
-Buy a PC laptop from a well-regarded local builder with a warranty (we have one nearby, they're gold for fixing stuff and the like)
-Chance it with a Dell and an extended warranty (my gf went this route. more or less a giant fail. i guess inspirons suck?)

Laptops are not the place to cheap out. If you can't deal with the cost or out-of-warranty unreliability, buy a desktop.

[Tenchiro]

I got an Asus F3F for about the same price w/ a similar spec. Plus it has a two year warranty. It is a good PC for the price. And the native resolution is way higher.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220285

[binary visions]

-Chance it with a Dell and an extended warranty (my gf went this route. more or less a giant fail. i guess inspirons suck?)
Excellent. Now we have a syadasti vendetta against Macs and a blue vendetta against Dells.

That's definitely what we needed, another ridiculous war waged on a brand :nopity:

[dan wask]

Understood. I had some sort of resistance against looking into the Alienwares, but after checking them out, heres what I came up with:

Area-51® m9750

Video/Graphics Card: 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7950 GTX
Chassis: 17" WideXGA+ 1440 x 900 LCD - Stealth Black
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
Memory: 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz – 2 x 1024MB
Operating System (Office software not included): Genuine Windows® XP Professional
Notebook Tuners and Remotes: Media Center upgrade options are not available with Windows XP Professional.
System Drive: Single Drive Configuration - 120GB 5,400RPM (8MB Cache)
Optical Drives : 8x Dual Layer Burner (DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® PRO Wireless 3945 a/b/g Mini-Card
Sound Card : High-Definition Audio with surround sound
Warranty: 1-Year AlienCare Toll-Free 24/7 Phone Support w/ Onsite Service

Area-51® m9750 (http://www.alienware.com/product_detail_pages/area-51_m9750/area-51m_overview.aspx?SysCode=PC-LT-AREA51M9750&SubCode=SKU-DEFAULT)

[Transcend]

Alienwares are ridiculously overpriced.

[Tenchiro]

Alienware PC's are either re-branded Arima, Clevo or Uniwill laptops depending on the model. Do some research to find out which model is which and you can save some cash and essentially get the same PC minus the branding.

[H8R]

Alienwares are ridiculously overpriced.

They are pretty much boutique versions of the Dell XPS anyway.

(Dell owns them)


If you want to play newer games with decent frame rates, get ready to pay out the ass for a laptop.

If you want to play older games and do video and/or graphic editing, you don't need the most bleeding edge machine.

Go with a Dell XPS or an Asus.

[Tenchiro]

No matter which laptop you go with, make sure to buy from an ODM like Asus, you will get more bang for your buck.

[dan wask]

Thats good to know. The only problem with dell xps is the only model they offer that doesn't force me to use Vista costs over 2k.

[blue]

Thats good to know. The only problem with dell xps is the only model they offer that doesn't force me to use Vista costs over 2k.

Buy a copy of XP Pro, nuke the machine when it gets in, reinstall.

[SK6]

Compaq/HP makes some good stuff, and the new Gateways are nice. And if it's in warranty and something happens, Gateway is awesome to deal with. They figured if they wanted to stay in the market, their service should be revamped, and they did.

I like the Compaq/HP laptops, but those are geared towards travel and business. These are the two brands as of late I've had luck with.

[H8R]

Buy a copy of XP Pro, nuke the machine when it gets in, reinstall.

:stupid:


Or just deal with Vista.




Or get smart:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

[Tenchiro]

:stupid:

Or just deal with Vista.

Or get smart:
http://www.ubuntu.com/

I switched to Ubuntu and noticed my battery life grow by almost %100, plus it is a good OS for anything that doesn't involve gaming. Oh and then there is Compiz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Fbk52Mk1w

(Vista isn't so bad though)

[dan wask]

Whats the real verdict? How much of a pain in the ass will it be to strip the OS off of the new lappy?

[Tenchiro]

Whats the real verdict? How much of a pain in the ass will it be to strip the OS off of the new lappy?

It will take about an hour, it is very simple with XP.

[binary visions]

Whats the real verdict? How much of a pain in the ass will it be to strip the OS off of the new lappy?

Is there any particular reason you want to do this, or are you following the sheeples who all bleat about how terrible Vista from third hand anecdotes?

[dan wask]

Is there any particular reason you want to do this, or are you following the sheeples who all bleat about how terrible Vista from third hand anecdotes?

Not really. Just from reading articles about how much vista sucks etc. etc. Can you put my mind at rest?

[Tenchiro]

Not really. Just from reading articles about how much vista sucks etc. etc. Can you put my mind at rest?

It doesn't "suck" but it is a lot slower and has a lot more background tasks running that XP does. It may be better with SP1 but I haven't used that yet.

[binary visions]

Not really. Just from reading articles about how much vista sucks etc. etc. Can you put my mind at rest?

I've done about a dozen Vista installations now, including three on my home computers that I've used extensively. 4 have SP1 on them.

They all run quickly and with no bugs.

My friend who is a sys admin for a racetrack has another dozen machines with Vista, 5 with SP1, and they, too, all run very well.

It's not a guarantee, but my experience is a lot of the bitching about a new OS has nothing to do with actual flaws in the OS.

[dan wask]

Hmmm... well either way. I think I'm just gonna go with vista and if it sucks hard enough, I'll get xp.

[Mike B.]

In general, Vista on my XPS has been good. I did have several crashes which were referencing a USB issue when I hadn't even plugged anything USB into it yet. Somewhere in the last few updates, it seems to have been fixed as it's not been a problem for a while.

Haven't gone for SP1 yet, taking the wait and see approach on that.

[SK6]

There are flaws. Drivers being a big one. As to who is to blame that would be up to the device manufactures or MS, and let them fight it out. And for the processes in Vista, unless you know what to shut down, and the basic home user does not, the OS is cumbersome and bloated.

[dan wask]

There are flaws. Drivers being a big one. As to who is to blame that would be up to the device manufactures or MS, and let them fight it out. And for the processes in Vista, unless you know what to shut down, and the basic home user does not, the OS is cumbersome and bloated.

ugh. I'm not the basic home user, but I do screw sh!t up every now and again. We'll see how it pans out.

[binary visions]

ugh. I'm not the basic home user, but I do screw sh!t up every now and again. We'll see how it pans out.

Your laptop would be running Vista out of the box, so all the drivers are going to come built right in. SK6 found a couple driver problems with a vendor releasing some incompatible drivers, but they are not the majority.

The background services are not that significant, either. We're talking about a difference of maybe 50-60mb of RAM freed up if you turn off all of the unnecessary services. I've done it both ways (turning off services or leaving them running) and no install has shown significant improvement either way.

Vista is fairly memory hungry, though. 2gb of memory is good, but you may want to just go ahead and pick up the 3-4gb, either when you buy or afterward as an upgrade.

[Tenchiro]

I would say that 2GB is a bare minimum for Home Premium. I would go 4GB though. Don't be fooled by Readyboost either, it does make a difference but just barely.

If I were you I would go no lower than Home Premium, and the upgrade to Ultimate or the Downgrade to XP Pro should cost about the same. If you buy a PC w/ one of the business editions or Ultimate on it already, then you get a free downgrade to XP though.

I still think XP has a huge performance edge over Vista so if you are a serious gamer you will want to downgrade.

[SK6]

ugh. I'm not the basic home user, but I do screw sh!t up every now and again. We'll see how it pans out.


Didn't mean to imply you were. My bad.

[dan wask]

Didn't mean to imply you were. My bad.

I didn't feel you were implying I was. If that makes sense haha

[SK6]

I didn't feel you were implying I was. If that makes sense haha

:think:..Ahhh....the correct answer is...........BEER! :thumb:


:D

;)