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Zero VGS
Aug 16, 2002
ASK ME ABOUT HOW HUMAN LIVES THAT MADE VIDEO GAME CONTROLLERS ARE WORTH MORE
Lipstick Apathy

Bigbillthaboss posted:

I'm looking to buy, against better judgement and reasoning, a gaming laptop. Yes, I said it.

Back in 2009 I bought an ASUS Laptop, the one I'm currently using, for 800$. It's still running fine, playing Dota 2 at just about peak graphics as well as EVE Online and Guild Wars (with fps at around 40). I have definitely gotten my 800$ worth out of it seeing that 2-3 years is suppose to be the expiration date on these things. I have never upgraded any hardware parts, they are still all stock.

I noticed the lack of discussion in OP regarding ASUS laptops and was curious as to a reason why? Are they poo poo computers (although mine has lasted a good while)?

Also I poking at the idea of getting a new gaming laptop (I believe my portable battery has finally taken a crap after 4 years, and the cooling design on this laptop just isn't cutting it any more). What's the go-to laptop right now?

I own the Asus G72G with the 260m in it, and after a couple years all my games were overheating and throttling the GPU down. Finally I unscrewed the laptop and there was a veritable carpet of lint stuck in the heatsink fins and fan. Pulled that out and it's been fine since.

My ASUS laptop has developed a bunch of awful flaws over the years, including:

- If I don't reboot the entire computer after waking it from sleep, games will throttle to a couple frames per second if the GPU reaches - wait for it - about 100 degrees Fahrenheit. So like in 30 seconds.

- If it is unplugged any point, then has to wake from sleep later, it will bluescreen on boot until I pull battery and AC.

- The LCD ribbon cable has some kind of bad ground solder that makes the the screen backlight cut out completely if the brightness is set below maximum, I keep a folded up postcard wedged into the hinge to fix it.

Still, I can live with some quirks. Some old independent survey showed ASUS had less warranty claims than any other brand over 3 years, and I'd believe it considering the bullshit I've put up with through every 1st-Gen Apple laptop model. These have pretty great build quality, if less than awesome firmware support.

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OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

Goodpancakes posted:

Well I got my T530, and first impressions are really positive. The only downside so far has been my inability to uninstall Norton Internet Security. God what a piece of poo poo that software is. You basically need a malware tool to get rid of it. Speaking of does anyone know of one?

The Think OOBE used to give you an option to not install Norton during the initial setup. Has this changed recently? A friend has asked me to set up a laptop for them once it arrives and I'm curious if it's changed.

etcetc
Apr 22, 2013
Okay, new budget:

Moderate gaming on it (LoL, Civ V, moderately demanding FPS's), but mostly focused on ergonomics. I'll be doing developer work on it and would like a lot of utility. I would like the ability to draw things on it for note taking. Nice keyboard, battery life, speakers (optional) etc. Any suggestions? $700 is my budget.

Oh, and I might need to dual boot or run a virtual machine on it, so I'm hoping for some decent hard drive space (at least 500 gb to work with).

Thanks. I do not know much about laptops, but there appears to be all this hype about haswell and stuff. Suggestions are appreciated.

JRay88
Jan 4, 2013

Bigbillthaboss posted:

I'm looking to buy, against better judgement and reasoning, a gaming laptop. Yes, I said it.

Back in 2009 I bought an ASUS Laptop, the one I'm currently using, for 800$. It's still running fine, playing Dota 2 at just about peak graphics as well as EVE Online and Guild Wars (with fps at around 40). I have definitely gotten my 800$ worth out of it seeing that 2-3 years is suppose to be the expiration date on these things. I have never upgraded any hardware parts, they are still all stock.

I noticed the lack of discussion in OP regarding ASUS laptops and was curious as to a reason why? Are they poo poo computers (although mine has lasted a good while)?

Also I poking at the idea of getting a new gaming laptop (I believe my portable battery has finally taken a crap after 4 years, and the cooling design on this laptop just isn't cutting it any more). What's the go-to laptop right now?


EDIT: Would it be easier to update my graphics card or would this cause a colossal shitstorm with my ASUS inner-workings?

I just bought an Asus q550 and I love it. Granted I've only had it for about two days, but it seems like a great laptop. The screen is awesome (1920x1080). It's got a haswel i7, 8 gigs of ram, and a GeForce 745m graphics card. It runs Eve at 30 FPS maxed out settings. I haven't had a chance to try to many other games though.
I will say that if you get something with windows 8 you really need a touchscreen. Also, this thing has a cd drive which is becoming less and less common now. If you have any questions about it let me know and I'll be glad to answer them.

Dr. Fraiser Chain
May 18, 2004

Redlining my shit posting machine


Cream_Filling posted:

The Think OOBE used to give you an option to not install Norton during the initial setup. Has this changed recently? A friend has asked me to set up a laptop for them once it arrives and I'm curious if it's changed.

I made sure to indicate when I purchased it I did not want any of their lovely virus protection software. Then when the first time setup happened I told it to suck a dick and don't use Norton to protect me (maybe I misclicked?). Regardless, its on my system and I hate it. I ran the uninstall tool it comes with but it just hangs.

dorkanoid
Dec 21, 2004

Have HP changed their power connector recently? All my HP laptops (+ retired work laptops) use this large circular connector that's exactly as wide as a micro-USB plug - is this still the current standard?

If I remember correctly, both Lenovo and Dell used connectors that looked exactly the same, but were slightly different so the chargers didn't work.

Aphrodite
Jun 27, 2006

Is taking the i5->i7 4gb->8gb upgrade on the XPS12 worth it for the $200?

(If no, what about the $100 it costs right now?)

Eduardo Vasquez
Oct 19, 2005

Even the funkiest brothers must buckle down and get a job. Who knew that tomatoes had such a rich market on Earth? Now, I drink wine worth more than your soul.
Has anyone gotten the extended warranty with Lenovo and is it easy to file a claim with them? I just work in a place and there is a huge chance a liquid will get spilled on my lap top at some point or another. So getting the extended warranty is pretty necessary. Also, should I get the y410p or wait for the T440s, they should be comparable in price whenever the T440s comes out, right?

Zero VGS
Aug 16, 2002
ASK ME ABOUT HOW HUMAN LIVES THAT MADE VIDEO GAME CONTROLLERS ARE WORTH MORE
Lipstick Apathy
^^^

Check your credit cards, some offer extended warranties and/or accident protection for free. I generally don't think extended warranties are worth the money, I'd rather invest in things like quality phone cases, or in this case a TPU keyboard cover. Here's one for the y410p, for example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/14-Anti-Glare-LCD-Cover-Keyboard-Skin-Protector-IBM-Lenovo-IdeaPad-Y410p-/231001434556

You'd save more money in the long run by protecting your equipment vs. insuring it, even in higher risk scenarios.

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

The T series has a self draining keyboard, while the Y410 does not, if that helps sway you towards purchasing a particular laptop. If the liquid you're referring to is an industrial quality corrosive that may not help very much though, depending on where you work.

Zero VGS
Aug 16, 2002
ASK ME ABOUT HOW HUMAN LIVES THAT MADE VIDEO GAME CONTROLLERS ARE WORTH MORE
Lipstick Apathy
You could also set the laptop out of the way or behind some plexiglass and use a wireless mouse and keyboard. Sounds silly but I work at a psychiatric hospital and we do that kind of thing on units where patients will fling sodas around or intentionally try to destroy stuff.

mugrim
Mar 2, 2007

The same eye cannot both look up to heaven and down to earth.
So I really love the y410p in what it does and everything, does anyone know if these sale prices will come back thanksgiving? In general it used to be that around the holidays cheaper computers would drop drastically in price but newer current gen ones would not, is that still typically the case?

Meydey
Dec 31, 2005

Eduardo Vasquez posted:

Has anyone gotten the extended warranty with Lenovo and is it easy to file a claim with them? I just work in a place and there is a huge chance a liquid will get spilled on my lap top at some point or another. So getting the extended warranty is pretty necessary. Also, should I get the y410p or wait for the T440s, they should be comparable in price whenever the T440s comes out, right?

I have a personal affects rider on my homeowners insurance that is $18 annual per $1000 declared. No warranty needed.

DrDork
Dec 29, 2003
commanding officer of the Army of Dorkness

Eduardo Vasquez posted:

Has anyone gotten the extended warranty with Lenovo and is it easy to file a claim with them? I just work in a place and there is a huge chance a liquid will get spilled on my lap top at some point or another. So getting the extended warranty is pretty necessary. Also, should I get the y410p or wait for the T440s, they should be comparable in price whenever the T440s comes out, right?
Filing a claim with them isn't particularly difficult, but note that you'd need the Accident Protection plan to cover you for spills. As that coverage is rather expensive relative to the cost of the laptop, I'd say you're probably better off finding some way to mitigate the potential for spills and trusting the engineering.

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



Hadlock posted:

Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus is announced for August 18th (next saturday)

It's basically a 13" macbook air with Windows 8 driver support. And a 3,200x1,800 pixel QHD+ screen. So it's basically a windows native 13" macbook air retina.

With touch. With IPS. I mean, look at that sexy viewing angle. It's a macbook air with all the new improvements.

$1300

Several people in here post about Samsung 7, 9 series, buy them, and never return, that's a pretty strong recommendation for a device.



http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/pcs/NP940X3G-K03US

I'm a senior in college looking for a laptop that I can use for writing papers, doing some GIS work, some light research/stats work with programs like NodeXL, and the usual video watching, gif making, playing video games on Steam type of stuff. Right now I have a 2009 Sony Vaio all-in-one desktop that has been chugging along pretty well, but it's starting to slow down and lag a lot in the past few months. While I was planning on waiting for a Haswell laptop, but I really like the looks and specs of this one. Would I be better served waiting for the Haswells to get released or would this be a worthwhile purchase?

Mu Zeta
Oct 17, 2002

Me crush ass to dust

That Samsung is a Haswell

Duck and Cover
Apr 6, 2007

MatCauthon posted:

I'm a senior in college looking for a laptop that I can use for writing papers, doing some GIS work, some light research/stats work with programs like NodeXL, and the usual video watching, gif making, playing video games on Steam type of stuff. Right now I have a 2009 Sony Vaio all-in-one desktop that has been chugging along pretty well, but it's starting to slow down and lag a lot in the past few months. While I was planning on waiting for a Haswell laptop, but I really like the looks and specs of this one. Would I be better served waiting for the Haswells to get released or would this be a worthwhile purchase?

It has a Haswell. Also yes no maybe. What kind of video games?

Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Aug 15, 2013

Inspector_666
Oct 7, 2003

benny with the good hair

MatCauthon posted:

I'm a senior in college looking for a laptop that I can use for writing papers, doing some GIS work, some light research/stats work with programs like NodeXL, and the usual video watching, gif making, playing video games on Steam type of stuff. Right now I have a 2009 Sony Vaio all-in-one desktop that has been chugging along pretty well, but it's starting to slow down and lag a lot in the past few months. While I was planning on waiting for a Haswell laptop, but I really like the looks and specs of this one. Would I be better served waiting for the Haswells to get released or would this be a worthwhile purchase?

That thing is Haswell powered :ssh:

Hadlock
Nov 9, 2004

The chugging may be caused by an aging drive. You can pick up a 2tb rotational drive or a 128gb ssd for $100 which combined with a reinstall of windows will get you through the end of the year.

That said, the laptop pictured is one of the best laptops you can buy, period. You'll probably have to play games at less than native resolution though.

Hadlock fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Aug 15, 2013

Chocolate
Jun 27, 2011
I currently have a hp dv6 with a i7 that gets an hour and half of battery lofe that has a broken screen. Im trying to get something that is more portable with better battery life. What's the best spotify/word/porn machine with hopefully an ssd that can maybe play cs:go at under $500? I've glanced at the op and done a little searching on amazon. I'm seeing a lot of dell Inspiron stuff in my price range. I was one of those idiots who bought a "gaming laptop." I even read this thread two years ago before I made my purchase. I would be willing to sacrifice the ability to play games to stay in this price range. I'm Doug research on my own just wondered what you guys had to say as well. Also what's the best place to dump a laptop (almost undoubtedly eBay right?)

etcetc
Apr 22, 2013
Anyone have experience with the S431 Lenovo Ultrabook Thinkpad? http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/s-series/s431/

I'm looking at the $800 one, with the discrete graphics. Are the graphics worth the upgrade?

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

e: My resolve is seriously wavering; I've been wanting to hold out for more HD5000 laptops so that I could enjoy better battery life will still being a mediocre gaming laptop, but the 410p is looking really nice. The $829 deal for the 1600x900 model goes on for another 7 days, so plenty of time to make up my mind I guess. Are we still looking at late September/October before we start seeing more HD 5000 laptops?


etcetc posted:

Okay, new budget:

Moderate gaming on it (LoL, Civ V, moderately demanding FPS's), but mostly focused on ergonomics. I'll be doing developer work on it and would like a lot of utility. I would like the ability to draw things on it for note taking. Nice keyboard, battery life, speakers (optional) etc. Any suggestions? $700 is my budget.

Oh, and I might need to dual boot or run a virtual machine on it, so I'm hoping for some decent hard drive space (at least 500 gb to work with).

Thanks. I do not know much about laptops, but there appears to be all this hype about haswell and stuff. Suggestions are appreciated.

The Y410p from the previous page is $770, just outside of your budget but it would satisfy your needs. If you need to go cheaper, head over to techbargains and keep an eye out for a good deal and then ask about it here. "Moderately demanding FPS's" and "$700 is my budget" conflict with each other, as you'll need a dedicated GPU for moderately demanding FPS's but good dedicated GPUs tend to be on laptops that are more than $700. If you're willing to settle for a laptop that is inside of your budget but can still play a lot of interesting games except maybe FPS's, then you have a lot of options.

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Aug 15, 2013

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



Duck and Cover posted:

It has a Haswell. Also yes no maybe. What kind of video games?

Inspector_71 posted:

That thing is Haswell powered :ssh:

:doh: Mostly games like DOTA 2, LoL, Borderlands 2, etc.

Hadlock posted:

The chugging may be caused by an aging drive. You can pick up a 2tb rotational drive or a 128gb ssd for $100 which combined with a reinstall of windows will get you through the end of the year.

That said, the laptop pictured is one of the best laptops you can buy, period. You'll probably have to play games at less than native resolution though.

I've already replaced the hard drive and graphics card, so I'm kind of reluctant to drop more money on this PC. At this point I can afford to get a new computer, presuming it'll last me ~2 years of school/work/travel/etc, so I just want to get the most bang for my buck.

Thanks for the advice though!

CapnBry
Jul 15, 2002

I got this goin'
Grimey Drawer
The Lenovo U430 showed up briefly on the Lenovo site this morning. Looks like you can make a pretty decent system with the exception it is limited to 8GB of RAM. Only one RAM slot? How am I supposed to have 100 browser tabs open? Also the display is only 250nit and something tells me it is going to be glossy.

mewse
May 2, 2006

Oh boy a 1960x1080 screen

butt dickus
Jul 7, 2007

top ten juiced up coaches
and the top ten juiced up players

mewse posted:

Oh boy a 1960x1080 screen
49:27 is such an elegant ratio.

Naffer
Oct 26, 2004

Not a good chemist

CapnBry posted:

The Lenovo U430 showed up briefly on the Lenovo site this morning. Looks like you can make a pretty decent system with the exception it is limited to 8GB of RAM. Only one RAM slot? How am I supposed to have 100 browser tabs open? Also the display is only 250nit and something tells me it is going to be glossy.


•The 4th Generation Intel® Core i5-4258U processor
•The 4th Generation Intel® Core i7-4558U processor

These two chips are 28W Haswell with the Iris 5100 GPU.

etcetc
Apr 22, 2013

QuarkJets posted:

e: My resolve is seriously wavering; I've been wanting to hold out for more HD5000 laptops so that I could enjoy better battery life will still being a mediocre gaming laptop, but the 410p is looking really nice. The $829 deal for the 1600x900 model goes on for another 7 days, so plenty of time to make up my mind I guess. Are we still looking at late September/October before we start seeing more HD 5000 laptops?


The Y410p from the previous page is $770, just outside of your budget but it would satisfy your needs. If you need to go cheaper, head over to techbargains and keep an eye out for a good deal and then ask about it here. "Moderately demanding FPS's" and "$700 is my budget" conflict with each other, as you'll need a dedicated GPU for moderately demanding FPS's but good dedicated GPUs tend to be on laptops that are more than $700. If you're willing to settle for a laptop that is inside of your budget but can still play a lot of interesting games except maybe FPS's, then you have a lot of options.

Yea... I'm just worried about the build quality, battery life, and weight. I heard that Think Pads are built much nicer, what do you think of the S431 I posted?

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

etcetc posted:

Yea... I'm just worried about the build quality, battery life, and weight. I heard that Think Pads are built much nicer, what do you think of the S431 I posted?

Nobody knows because they just came out but my guess is that they might not be 'real' thinkpads. Also, isn't the 8670M really pretty bad?

For the money, if you're buying an Ivy Bridge anyway, you might as well get a T-series like the T430s which is cheaper, has a proven track record, and better discrete GPU options.

etcetc
Apr 22, 2013
The weight and battery life do seem pretty shoddy though, I will be using this for college. In retrospect ergonomics are more important to me.

QuarkJets
Sep 8, 2008

etcetc posted:

The weight and battery life do seem pretty shoddy though, I will be using this for college. In retrospect ergonomics are more important to me.

If those things are important to you, then get something with a 3rd generation Intel processor and Intel graphics. You probably won't be playing any demanding FPS games, but you'll probably still be able to play Civ V and other games that have lighter graphical requirements. All of these laptops will also have tons of benchmarks already, so you'll be able to see what kind of FPS you can expect on whatever games you want.

For a college laptop I wouldn't suggest getting a discrete GPU

QuarkJets fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Aug 15, 2013

OXBALLS DOT COM
Sep 11, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Young Orc

etcetc posted:

The weight and battery life do seem pretty shoddy though, I will be using this for college. In retrospect ergonomics are more important to me.

Of what? Even the aging T430s weighs exactly the same amount as the S431 and has a 6-cell battery instead of the 4-cell in the S431. And you can also add another bay battery.

sigher
Apr 22, 2008

My guiding Moonlight...



I'm looking to get my girlfriend a laptop to replace her (probably) 7 year old piece of poo poo one, I'd also like it to be a bit on the "gaming" side of things so we could play stuff together on Steam. The Y410p is looks to be the best bang for your buck, and reading up on it you can also get a second 750MX for SLI? This sale is making it look really drat tempting.

Twerk from Home
Jan 17, 2009

This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

Sire Oblivion posted:

I'm looking to get my girlfriend a laptop to replace her (probably) 7 year old piece of poo poo one, I'd also like it to be a bit on the "gaming" side of things so we could play stuff together on Steam. The Y410p is looks to be the best bang for your buck, and reading up on it you can also get a second 750MX for SLI? This sale is making it look really drat tempting.

The OP has lots of advice, but the Y410p is a ton of computing power for the dollar, and you should pretty much never do SLI on a laptop. The thing is constrained by thermals anyway, in real-world usage sometimes SLI laptops are slower than single-GPU because of overheating and throttling down.

If you want a cheap, powerful laptop and don't care about it being thick and heavy, the Y410p looks like a good option.

sigher
Apr 22, 2008

My guiding Moonlight...



Interesting about the SLI being worthless on laptops, but it makes sense. Thanks for the info, the Y410P it is.

Twerk from Home
Jan 17, 2009

This avatar brought to you by the 'save our dead gay forums' foundation.

Sire Oblivion posted:

Interesting about the SLI being worthless on laptops, but it makes sense. Thanks for the info, the Y410P it is.

Not worthless on all, but as far as I know Alienware are the only guys who build their machines with enough cooling capacity to run all components at 100%, and their machines are hulking gigantic things covered in fans because of it.

signalnoise
Mar 7, 2008

i was told my old av was distracting

Weinertron posted:

Not worthless on all, but as far as I know Alienware are the only guys who build their machines with enough cooling capacity to run all components at 100%, and their machines are hulking gigantic things covered in fans because of it.

My m11x was ridiculously heavy, I can't imagine lugging around a 15inch version of that.

WHERE MY HAT IS AT
Jan 7, 2011
I know a guy with the 17 inch one, I have no idea how it isn't making him progressively shorter carrying that thing around all the time.

Eduardo Vasquez
Oct 19, 2005

Even the funkiest brothers must buckle down and get a job. Who knew that tomatoes had such a rich market on Earth? Now, I drink wine worth more than your soul.

CapnBry posted:

The Lenovo U430 showed up briefly on the Lenovo site this morning. Looks like you can make a pretty decent system with the exception it is limited to 8GB of RAM. Only one RAM slot? How am I supposed to have 100 browser tabs open? Also the display is only 250nit and something tells me it is going to be glossy.


Any guesstimation when this will be released?

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Duck and Cover
Apr 6, 2007

MatCauthon posted:

:doh: Mostly games like DOTA 2, LoL, Borderlands 2, etc.


I've already replaced the hard drive and graphics card, so I'm kind of reluctant to drop more money on this PC. At this point I can afford to get a new computer, presuming it'll last me ~2 years of school/work/travel/etc, so I just want to get the most bang for my buck.

Thanks for the advice though!

Should be fine as stated earlier you might not be able to play at the native resolution. I'm no expert but Dota 2 and LOL aren't exactly demanding.

Duck and Cover fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Aug 15, 2013

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