Thread: Looking for new laptop

I'm looking at getting a laptop within the next month. I don't know anything about laptops. So, would like to know if you guys have any good suggestions on manufacturers and maybe specific laptops.

About all I know right now is my budget will be no more than $700... I might be able to do a little more than that, but not much.

Custom Laptops by PowerNotebooks.com™ - Custom Built Gaming Laptop Computers

if you can swing it this month, newegg has a Asus g53sw-xn1 for $793 after a mail-in rebate. Granted there are some lemons in the bunch, so if you need it need it, it probably is worth skipping. The rebate requires you purchase by 9/30. The wireless cards in them are said to be pretty mediocre at best though =/. Plus at the moment its been a pain to catch them when they are in stock (should be monday though, just a matter of what time). and $90 over budget.

Newegg.com - ASUS G Series G53SW-XN1 Notebook Intel Core i7 2630QM(2.00GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M

Lenovo is pretty good, mine has taken a decent beating without too much issue. Not sure how they are now. The screen are supposed to be pretty iffy (in quality, they run fine). The tech support was quite good the last couple times I dealt with them, and yeah extended warranties are a good thing to get, I think mine on my last computer end up only saving me $20 net (it was $100 dollars, and the repairs I had done would of cost me 120 probably to do myself) but still.

The clevo/sager resellers are good as well if you can find something decent in your price range, try to contact them and see if you can work out a deal. What I have heard they are pretty good about discounts and stuff, but usually have to talk to them to get any (like military, school, etc.)



In terms of some hardware, since I had to go through a long search for laptops as well. Off the top of my head, the 6770M and GT 555M are the top of the midrange cards, with the 540 the next best (on the Nvidia side) and 525 the worst. as for the ATI's I'm not really sure the scaling on them. The GTX 460 is the current lower end of the high performance GPU card bracket. here is the whole breakdown:
Comparison of Laptop Graphics Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech

Check to make sure the specs of the card in the laptop are the same as the ones listed. Some are throttled down (Lenovo's GT 555M is about the same as a normal GT 540M, one asus has a throttled down gtx560).

As for i3/i5/i7, as long as it is Sandy bridge, supposedly you won't see a big difference in fps on mid-range GPU's with a i5 instead of an i7 (possibly an i3 but can't remember off hand). Of course it depends on what you want to do as to which CPU is the best

Thanks everyone! That'll give me a good start.