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Dmar posted:You should get a laptop because it's portable, not because you need one to take notes with in class. Think long and hard about your notetaking style before you get a laptop because you need it to take notes with. Most classes, especially in the natural sciences, aren't suited to notetaking with a laptop. I'm getting my masters in political science and applying to PhD programs in the same. The reason I've taken to long to finally drink the portable koolaid is because I thought it wouldn't be helpful with my note-taking style. Most of my notes are bullet-points, lists, subcategories, etc and I type much faster than I write. I'll look into this one though. Thanks very much!
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 00:38 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 14:25 |
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LorneReams posted:Some mico atx cases literally have a handle on them, and possibly weigh less and will cost 1/3 as much for a faster system. Maybe less. Yeah but the monitor. I sometimes go outside to smoke a cigarette too. I want to get the laptop soon too. I actually am almost set on this now http://cgi.ebay.com/ASUS-G73JH-B1-i...4#ht_2828wt_905 Is the graphics card going to bottleneck that CPU? I'm just curious. I want to get it on Ebay because I don't want to wait a month for it to get built. I was also considering a SSHD + a regular HD, which this has. Are solid state drives worth it for a OS + Games HD?
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 00:42 |
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The Valuum posted:Yeah but the monitor. I sometimes go outside to smoke a cigarette too. I want to get the laptop soon too. I actually am almost set on this now If you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY need the most powerful laptop imaginable, wait a few months for the new Sandy Bridge processors to come out, since it's looking like they'll be much better than the current generation. If having the most power imaginable isn't the single most important thing, then you're paying way too much there and you'd probably be better off with one of the stock models instead, or going all out with a Sager. The G73JH is great because it's pretty much the best value for a gaming laptop out there, but at this rate you're quickly negating that by paying exponentially more for what are going to be fairly minor gains.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 01:11 |
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sethsez posted:If you ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY need the most powerful laptop imaginable, wait a few months for the new Sandy Bridge processors to come out, since it's looking like they'll be much better than the current generation. The problem is I'm getting this as a Christmas present, so I kind of need it now. From your advice I think I won't be going with that one though, and instead getting a Sager. The 18" one seems to fit my needs. I basically just need something I can move upstairs, downstairs, other houses, at will. I'm thinking http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np8120...?wconfigure=yes With upgraded 840QM CPU, and 8GB. I figure I need those upgrades or else the dual GPUs would bottle neck it. I appreciate all the advice, I believe my situation is unique as I need mobility, but not THAT much mobility. I have a question though, what does LED, dual lamp, FHD and all that stuff mean. Which would be the closest to a macbook pro display?
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 01:22 |
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freeforumuser posted:Used to have a MSI CX420. Build quality is terrible; crooked touchpad and palmrest right out of the box, a plastic strip sticking out of the chassis, removing that hugeass sticker leaves behind a gooey mess and the LCD is really bad. From what I heard their netbooks are full of quality issues too. I find budget Acers are much better in build quality and better specced than MSI at a similar price. That would explain the price then, might give it a miss. The search continues.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 02:06 |
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I was trying not to do this, but I guess it won't hurt. I'm looking for a laptop for my mom. Her only requirements are a fast processor and a nice bit of memory. Graphics wise, she might be playing Diablo III (I know, my mom is cool and trying to get into gaming), maybe some WoW, so nothing to crazy. I'm trying to find laptop specials. Right now i'm looking at the Ideapad Y560, which is composed of: System components Intel Core i7-740QM Processor ( 1.73GHz 1333MHz 6MB ) Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5730 1GB 8 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz 15.6" HD LED Glare 1366x768 Industry Standard Touchpad 500GB 7200 at about a $960 pricetag, tax and shipping included. But this is fairly time sensitive so I might need an answer fairly quickly. Seems like a pretty good deal to me, but like any good son, i've been doing my research and have discovered a few issues. The first being bloatware, which is easily fixable. The other issues include a poor display, from a bad resolution for the screen size to issues with the quality of the panel, a "plastic" feeling build quality, and overheating from the sheer power this thing needs to run it's quad-core processor and graphics card. My questions are: does anyone know anything about this model? Are the issues exaggerated? Is there a better laptop out there? Is this thing too much for my mom, who basically just spends time on the internet, including facebook and WAY too much time playing farmville. She is interested in getting more into basic gaming. I'm trying to not spend more then $1000, and for what she needs I think she could get by with a $400-$500 laptop.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 02:48 |
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The Valuum posted:The problem is I'm getting this as a Christmas present, so I kind of need it now. From your advice I think I won't be going with that one though, and instead getting a Sager. The 18" one seems to fit my needs. I basically just need something I can move upstairs, downstairs, other houses, at will. You're wrong about the bottlenecks. Most games are still 32-bit, and so they can't even see more than 2 gigs of RAM. 4 gigs should be plenty for the near term, and it's going to be cheaper to upgrade later. As for the processor, almost all games bottleneck on the video card (and often, even on the monitor) well before they hit the CPU. That can change with a really powerful graphics setup, but two Mobility 5870s on a 1080p display aren't powerful enough to see a major CPU bottleneck. "FHD" is short for "Full HD," marketing-speak for 1920x1080 resolution. Dual lamp means it's got two cold cathode fluorescent lights as the backlight. "LED" means it's backlit with white LEDs, which are brighter, draw less power, and don't have a warmup time. RGBLED is the latest big thing; instead of blue LEDs with a phosphor coating to make white, it uses individual red, green, and blue LEDs matched to the panel. That allows for a wider color gamut, even less power draw, and a generally nicer display. Also, don't smoke around this thing. It's likely running right at the ragged edge of its cooling capacity already; high-end parts draw a lot of power. Tar and dust make an unholy amalgam on heatsink fins, and you'll have no end of overheating problems. Even before you see critical problems, you'll suffer from reduced CPU performance when it doesn't hit the higher turbo mode multipliers
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 03:40 |
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Has anyone in the world ever bought a 17 or 17+ inch laptop and not regretted it?
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 04:13 |
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Space Gopher posted:You're wrong about the bottlenecks. Most games are still 32-bit, and so they can't even see more than 2 gigs of RAM. 4 gigs should be plenty for the near term, and it's going to be cheaper to upgrade later. As for the processor, almost all games bottleneck on the video card (and often, even on the monitor) well before they hit the CPU. That can change with a really powerful graphics setup, but two Mobility 5870s on a 1080p display aren't powerful enough to see a major CPU bottleneck. Wow, thank you for all the info. So RGBLED is the best? I can't find any laptops with that. Any suggestions. And for the smoking thing, I smoke 2 packs a day so that might be a problem. Bob Morales posted:Has anyone in the world ever bought a 17 or 17+ inch laptop and not regretted it? Just because of the size? I just want something I can bring up to my bed, to the TV, to my moms, etc with minimal stress. How about this mother http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np7280...?wconfigure=yes With the 480m Nvidia card. No other upgrades (maybe the HD) It has a desktop CPU (lol), and one of the best GPUs. I'm reading that the one i posted before has some crossfire problems. One GPU just seems easier. The Valuum fucked around with this message at Dec 14, 2010 around 04:19 |
| # ? Dec 14, 2010 04:16 |
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ShowTime posted:I was trying not to do this, but I guess it won't hurt. I'm looking for a laptop for my mom. Her only requirements are a fast processor and a nice bit of memory. Graphics wise, she might be playing Diablo III (I know, my mom is cool and trying to get into gaming), maybe some WoW, so nothing to crazy. I'm trying to find laptop specials. It's not a bad option. You won't find much anything capable of basic gaming below $700-800 anyway. If you are looking for portability at all, I would recommend against the quad core. With your stated usage, there is no advantage to a quad core. If you don't need portability at all, maybe you should look into desktops? A desktop capable of basic gaming would only run you about $600-700 depending on the monitor.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 04:24 |
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Just went to the computer stores to try out various keyboards to see if a netbook can match my large hands. Most of them were 10 inches and too small. There was one 11 inch one and that was better. I was fine with 13 inch laptop keyboards. Would a 12 inch netbook like the before-mentioned Asus 1215N have a keyboard that fits a place in the middle or should I be looking for a netbook + external keyboard or regular smallish laptop? I guess what I want to know is: Are there any netbooks with full-size keyboards? Asus's website claims the 1215N's is, but talk is cheap, especially online. AlmightyPants fucked around with this message at Dec 14, 2010 around 04:50 |
| # ? Dec 14, 2010 04:41 |
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Ok I have yet another idea http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np7280...?wconfigure=yes I posted this before. The 18 inch laptop I was looking at had a nice crossfire setup, dual 5870s. However I've read there are a lot of stuttering problems with crossfire enabled. If you could look at the above link, I think this might be better. I read that typically the GPU limits the CPU. The SLI 460Ms get higher marks than the crossfire 5870s, plus this has a desktop CPU. Am I correct in thinking the one above is better than what I mentioned? Not to mention it doesn't have the stuttering problems
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 06:08 |
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AlmightyPants posted:I guess what I want to know is: Are there any netbooks with full-size keyboards? Asus's website claims the 1215N's is, but talk is cheap, especially online. What about the 92% keyboards like HP (and some other vendors) have? Compare the two:  'regular':  The Valuum posted:WJust because of the size? I just want something I can bring up to my bed, to the TV, to my moms, etc with minimal stress. Laptops do not generally do well on soft surfaces like beds/blankets.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 13:56 |
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Bob Morales posted:Laptops do not generally do well on soft surfaces like beds/blankets. Especially 10+ pound 18 inch screen dual video card quad core i7 laptops. A beast like the one that guy wants is going to need all the cooling help it can get.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 16:53 |
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Bob Morales posted:What about the 92% keyboards like HP (and some other vendors) have? Only one picture is showing up. I tried using the keyboards on the 10 inch netbooks and they all felt cramped. I'm not sure if I should just get one of those and a portable keyboard or what. I'd prefer to have to only carry around one thing though, which is why this isn't as straightforward as I'd like it to be.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 19:13 |
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AlmightyPants posted:Only one picture is showing up. Other one: 
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 22:15 |
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I went ahead and pulled the trigger on that Lenovo I mentioned earlier. I just couldn't find a comparable laptop at that price point. I'm a little concerned with how hot it might get, but as long as it's vented sufficiently, I don't think it will be a problem. She might use it to play a modern game for 2-3 hours every couple of days. I think the resolution will be less of an issue because she has been using a lesser resolution on roughly the same size screen for years now, so it will actually be a slight improvement visually.
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| # ? Dec 14, 2010 22:21 |
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rumspringa57 posted:I just bought my first Mac (Macbook Air 11"), though I've used them off and on for years, and my work machine as of the past year has been a MacPro. Before that I used Windows almost exclusively, with the occasional Ubuntu and Redhat servers. I'm a grad student in software engineering, and I strongly recommend the MacBook Pro. In the technical fields it's really really nice having a useful command line and easy access to lots of Linux-y software packages. Just wanted to say thank you for a great response. I'm gonna try and make the MBP happen. Cheers! 
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 01:14 |
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Edit: Wrong topic. Apologies.
Shadowhand00 fucked around with this message at Dec 16, 2010 around 03:58 |
| # ? Dec 16, 2010 03:52 |
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Shadowhand00 posted:So I pulled a trigger on a Best Buy auction. I bought an Alienware Area-51 with the following specs: Is that a desktop? I think it's a desktop? edit: I'm so amused though that after a whole thread's worth of people saying that if you want a "gaming laptop" that you should get a desktop, someone finally did!
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 03:57 |
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Dmar posted:Is that a desktop? I think it's a desktop? Yeah, sorry about that. I had a bunch of tabs opened and returned to the wrong one. Apologies.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 03:58 |
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My roommate is wanting a business / internet surfing / printing laptop for MS Word, email, and various net surfing. He's looking to spend under $500 and, according to the OP, Sounds like a netbook would be a good option but he kind of wants a larger monitor. Is this viable for this price range? I'm looking at this list on Newegg - perhaps any recommendations here (in the 400-500 price range)?
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 04:17 |
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I've got an outdated Sager gaming laptop and I've come to the realization that I no longer need a 10 pound beast (which is falling apart) for what I do. I am looking for something with a really nice screen, a lot of ram so I can have many tabs/ programs open at the same time, a 500g-1tb hard drive, set up for portability and internetting. I don't need huge overheating monolith, I need something with good ergonomics, interface, speed and capacity. Good battery life is a plus. Basically I want my Evo phone but a laptop.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 07:19 |
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Money Walrus posted:I've got an outdated Sager gaming laptop and I've come to the realization that I no longer need a 10 pound beast (which is falling apart) for what I do. You are describing a Macbook Pro. I'm sure others will chime in with similar laptops that don't break the bank nearly as bad as a MBP.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 08:02 |
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I'm apparently looking for something that doesn't exist. Maybe someone here can help me. Needed: Resolution higher than 1366x768. Prefer 1440x900, a little higher would be fine. 4GB memory pretty good processor (don't need an i7, but better than a dual-core Pentium. AMD is fine) <17 inch screen. I don't want a huge machine. g/n wireless Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit Would be nice, but can do without: matte/smooth screen (rather than glossy) dedicated graphics card My wife and I are looking for a laptop to share. She complains about my work laptop's resolution (1920x1200) because "text is too small." For her, 768 vertical lines is fine. But I want to do some development on this machine as well, and that just isn't enough for me. Some middle ground would be nice, but I just can't find it 
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 15:23 |
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_aaron posted:
Why not use different logon profiles with different res set? You can also change text sizes and icons...
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 16:22 |
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IBentMyWookie posted:Why not use different logon profiles with different res set? You can also change text sizes and icons...
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 17:17 |
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_aaron posted:LCD screens running at non-native resolution look like poo poo. With the ppi of a laptop screen with native 1920x1200 it doesn't. But you could still deal with it by adjusting fonts and icons. If you want to buy a whole other laptop to get a smaller res screen just so you can run it in native there are a lot of options. Dell and Sony both offer what you're looking for.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 18:04 |
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_aaron posted:LCD screens running at non-native resolution look like poo poo. Instead of changing the resolution, can't you just adjust the dpi scaling? I may be wrong, but I thought this was the proper solution to that problem. You stay at native res and it makes the text larger.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 18:48 |
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Jameson- posted:Instead of changing the resolution, can't you just adjust the dpi scaling? I may be wrong, but I thought this was the proper solution to that problem. You stay at native res and it makes the text larger. Works for text but breaks a lot of other stuff.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 19:43 |
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dpi scaling works much much better in Windows 7 than it does in Windows XP. As long as you're using modern programs you shouldn't have any issues at all with it. On my 15" 1080p laptop I have dpi scaling set up at like 140% because I need new glasses and get eye strain on smaller text at that resolution.
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| # ? Dec 16, 2010 20:11 |
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Pulled the trigger on this bad boy gaming laptop Third Hard Drive None Standard - Second Hard Drive ~ 640GB 5400RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 8MB Cache)~ Primary Hard Drive ~ 80GB Intel X25-M Solid State Drive (SSD2 Serial-ATA II) Optical Drive ~Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive w/Softwares Exterior Finish Standard Finish Ram ~ 6,144MB DDR3 1066MHz Memory (3 SODIMMS) External Display Video Adapters No Video Adapter Graphics Video Card SLi ENABLED DUAL (2) 1536MB PCI-Express nVIDIA GTX 460M's (3072MB Total) w/GDDR5 DX11 Video Cards (User Upgradeable) Thermal Compound Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU Processor Intel® Core™ i7-950 (3.06-3.33GHz) 8MB L3 Cache, 4.8 GT/sec QPI, LGA 1366 Current Promotion 5% Student / Military / International Cash Discount + Accessory Bundles for Students - Up to 50% OFF! Dead Pixel Warranty Standard Dead Pixel Policy Display 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen (1920x1080)- Hope its better than the 18" one with dual 8750s.
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 02:40 |
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The Valuum posted:Pulled the trigger on this bad boy gaming laptop Can I ask what you paid for this? It looks like a beast. Does it come with a portable gas generator to run it?
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 03:03 |
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ShowTime posted:Can I ask what you paid for this? It looks like a beast. Does it come with a portable gas generator to run it? $2.5k, gets like an hour battery life. I almost got the 18" one. I needed something between a micro case and a portable laptop, so this fits me well.
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 04:56 |
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mobile GTX 460s are actually slower than mobile 5870s, so I hope you can find some decently cheap mxm modules later on to replace those.
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 15:09 |
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"Display 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen" This is ridiculous. Why would you advertise that the display has glare? Are they really using "Super Clear Ultra Bright" as branding now? I guess it's more honest than some abstract poo poo like "Radiance" or "True Life". FHD (assuming this is full-hd 1080p) is also dumb. My desktop monitor has 2560 x 1440. What do you call that, Beyond HD? Mu Zeta fucked around with this message at Dec 17, 2010 around 17:22 |
| # ? Dec 17, 2010 17:05 |
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I didn't realize you could use that many adjectives to describe one display.
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 17:13 |
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Need something for work (postdoc/grad student doing numerical work). Serious computations will be done at a cluster, but I will do data processing on my laptop, as well as running test code. Laptop because I want to bring my work home sometimes, and I will be going to conference presentations. I have an external keyboard as well as a separate monitor at work. So I want a fairly powerful computer, loads of disk space, and quite portable/sturdy. Graphics cards and ergonomics not of primary concern. I was looking at this: http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=492119 Does anyone have recommendations for something similar?
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 18:58 |
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rscott posted:mobile GTX 460s are actually slower than mobile 5870s, so I hope you can find some decently cheap mxm modules later on to replace those. Yeah I know, they scale better though. The FPS for WoW were higher too.
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 19:13 |
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| # ? May 18, 2013 14:25 |
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Anyone ever bought a redurbed G73? Best buy has them on sale for $850 right now and I really want one. Should I be worried about buying a refurbished ASUS?
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| # ? Dec 17, 2010 20:20 |
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