Sorry guys... Another Laptop Thread

[drew24]

I am looking to buy a laptop.

I am going in to university next year and the laptop will be for study and play.

I'm not a big PC gamer but I play Starcraft, Counter Strike Source and will play Starcraft 2. I will want a machine that will play all of these.

I was convinced that I was going to buy this Acer Aspire... because it had what I wanted in terms of RAM and Storage. It has a blu-ray slot, which is completely unnecessary for me in a laptop, but never the less enticing.

http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product....se=&lang=en-CA#

The price isn’t the issue. The price is right around what I’m looking for. My range is 1000-1500. Obviously less would be okay too.

Right now it’s the screen size. Would the 18.4 inch screen be too much for me to have at school? I don’t have a PC for myself at home. I just have my family computer that I use, so this would be my main computer. It is about 9 pounds.

Also would the video card included be enough to run my games? I dont know anything about video cards.
Video card is listed on Costco.ca as “Up to 2303 MB (shared) PCI Express™ x 16 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9300M GS (512 MB on hand)”

And what is this “2 MB L2 cache”? Is it anything I should worry about?

Thanks.

EDIT: What should seperate the laptops from each other... I'm looking at a ton with 4 g's o' ram and 250-320 g's o' storage and other than that i dont really know what i'm looking for...

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by drew24

I am going in to university next year and the laptop will be for study and play.

.......

Right now it’s the screen size. Would the 18.4 inch screen be too much for me to have at school? I don’t have a PC for myself at home. I just have my family computer that I use, so this would be my main computer. It is about 9 pounds.

My first laptop was a 17 inch monster, with a ~5 lb power supply. To carry it, and the occasional textbook and any notebooks I needed and my bag was heavy.

I am guessing that you want the larger screen at home more than you do at school, especially if you want to pull it out in a class and take notes because the little tables they have on the seats are not enough for a large laptop.

Get a 15 inch laptop with a good video card and it will function for taking notes, and gaming at school. The cash you save will more than let you buy a good monitor for use at home.

EDIT: Also, what is your major? Many people plan on using the laptop to take notes with, but with many classes that is simply not possible ( Read: Any math or science type class ) so you will most certainly not be able to eliminate pen and paper taking notes.

[llama64]

As Rathji mentioned, don't get much more then a 15" if you plan on moving it around. I recently moved from a 13.3" to a 15" laptop and at times I miss the smaller form factor as I do lug it around on a near daily basis. But I do hook it up to an external monitor at home (as well as keyboard and mouse). The setup works perfectly for me.

I'm more versed in Macs (which Starcraft 2 will run on ), but there has to be a PC equivalent to the video card used on the Macbook Pro. I'm able to toggle it between low power usage on battery and high performance when I feel like gaming. That's a difference of nearly 2 hours battery life. So you get the benefits of mobility, but can switch it to be a decent gaming machine when you need to.

[photon]

A 17" or more laptop in most cases is too big to lug around, I had do it for a short while and it was terrible. If it's a super light one then maybe.

[drew24]

Originally Posted by Rathji

EDIT: Also, what is your major? Many people plan on using the laptop to take notes with, but with many classes that is simply not possible ( Read: Any math or science type class ) so you will most certainly not be able to eliminate pen and paper taking notes.

I'm taking Geosciences... So i have Chem, Geology, Physics, Math, Economics (semester 1) and History (semester 2).

EDIT: You guys ripping rule. Thanks. I went to check out the lappy today and it is massive... Sounds like I'm going to want a 15-16 inch screen.

[Da_Chief]

I would even recommend moving down to 13 inch screen. Thats what I have(macbook though) I even stopped carrying that around most of the time. With your books + laptop, you're back will be yelling at you.

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by drew24

I am looking to buy a laptop.

I am going in to university next year and the laptop will be for study and play.

I'm not a big PC gamer but I play Starcraft, Counter Strike Source and will play Starcraft 2. I will want a machine that will play all of these.

I was convinced that I was going to buy this Acer Aspire... because it had what I wanted in terms of RAM and Storage. It has a blu-ray slot, which is completely unnecessary for me in a laptop, but never the less enticing.

http://www.costco.ca/Browse/Product....se=&lang=en-CA#

The price isn’t the issue. The price is right around what I’m looking for. My range is 1000-1500. Obviously less would be okay too.

Right now it’s the screen size. Would the 18.4 inch screen be too much for me to have at school? I don’t have a PC for myself at home. I just have my family computer that I use, so this would be my main computer. It is about 9 pounds.

Also would the video card included be enough to run my games? I dont know anything about video cards.
Video card is listed on Costco.ca as “Up to 2303 MB (shared) PCI Express™ x 16 NVIDIA® GeForce™ 9300M GS (512 MB on hand)”

And what is this “2 MB L2 cache”? Is it anything I should worry about?

Thanks.

EDIT: What should seperate the laptops from each other... I'm looking at a ton with 4 g's o' ram and 250-320 g's o' storage and other than that i dont really know what i'm looking for...

I wouldn't hope for much gaming-wise with a 9300. It's got about a half step on your run of mill the integrated chips.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ is a great resource for comparing laptops. They've got an excellent comparison of all mobile graphics chips broken down into classes. Check it out.

I just picked up a 17" Gatway P-7805u from tigerdirect.ca for $899. It's 17" and might be a bit big but it's got a 1GB 9800GTS in it and it kills any game I've thrown at it so far. 4GB Ram, 7200rpm hard disk, and 9 cell battery don't hurt either. Not sure if it's still there or not...

[Phaneuf3]

I realize this isn't what you asked but its my 2 cents. if you've got $1000-$1500 to spend i would consider doing something like the following:
~$600 on a decent desktop setup for home use, games, movies, etc.
http://www1.ca.dell.com/ca/en/home/desktops/desktop-inspiron-537s/pd.aspx?refid=desktop-inspiron-537s&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&~oid=ca~en~70702~desktop_insp n_537s_en_feat_2~~
~$300 on a netbook for class/portability.
http://www1.ca.dell.com/ca/en/home/Laptops/laptop-inspiron-10/pd.aspx?refid=laptop-inspiron-10&s=dhs&cs=cadhs1&~oid=ca~en~70702~mini_10vx_en_f eat_1~~

If you're not huge into the latest and greatest graphics extravaganza games, that desktop will run anything you'll throw at it (including SC2). There's probably some better deals elsewhere, I just picked dell cause its so fast to find examples of what I'm talking about on their site.

You can use what you saved on hookers and blow.

[drew24]

Originally Posted by MickMcGeough

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ is a great resource for comparing laptops. They've got an excellent comparison of all mobile graphics chips broken down into classes. Check it out.

I just picked up a 17" Gatway P-7805u from tigerdirect.ca for $899. It's 17" and might be a bit big but it's got a 1GB 9800GTS in it and it kills any game I've thrown at it so far. 4GB Ram, 7200rpm hard disk, and 9 cell battery don't hurt either. Not sure if it's still there or not...

So this website is really nice... Thanks for the link...
And your gateway sounds really nice.

This computer is currently what is in first place, although I'm going to look for a 15-16 inch screen of something that is similar to your computer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...834115540#spec

Everything about it looks good but I'm unsure about the processor... Do I have anything to worry about?

[MickMcGeough]

Originally Posted by drew24

So this website is really nice... Thanks for the link...
And your gateway sounds really nice.

This computer is currently what is in first place, although I'm going to look for a 15-16 inch screen of something that is similar to your computer.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...834115540#spec

Everything about it looks good but I'm unsure about the processor... Do I have anything to worry about?

Nope, that's a great machine too. The graphics card isn't as powerful but a 9600GS should still be adequate for moderate gaming. The chip itself is better than the one on my gateway. The P8600 has a 1066Mhz FSB which helps in everything (lots of machines still run on 800Mhz FSB, or even 667Mhz). You'll get plenty of life out of that CPU.

I was looking at that same machine but I couldn't find it that cheap and I just couldn't work with such a low resolution. If you're ok with 1366 x 768 that's probably a really good buy.

[drew24]

Right now I just have to find a place where I can buy this computer...
Thanks a lot every one... You've all been helpful.

[Vulcan]

Here's some gaming machines at NCIX

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=1323

for some reason Newegg.ca doesn't carry many notebooks, strange because everything I've ordered from there is shipped from California anyways.

http://www.newegg.ca/Store/SubCatego...tops-Notebooks