Help: Buying a Laptop for college

D

Dray

If only L.A.I.R didn't suck
So after living in the college dorm for two semesters, I realized that my monster of a gaming PC just isn't cut out for the college campus

cords everywhere, bright lights and loud fans make for disgruntled roommates, and it's a pain to move it out semester after semester and I can't do computer stuff anywhere except my dorm room and I can't even take it with me for winter and spring break

I'm just looking for a notebook that's somewhat portable, runs fast, relatively quiet, and do some modest gaming without burning a huge hole in my not so full wallet

I've heard good things about HP laptops and newegg seems to have some nice ASUS machines, but I'm having a bit of trouble weeding out the winner so some advice or suggestions on what to buy would be greatly appreciated, thanks
 
I bought a Gateway FX from Best Buy in January. It was $1200 new with a GeForce 8800 and 3 GB of RAM with a Dual Core 1.66 GHz processor (equal to a 3.24 GHz single core). They still sell the Gateway FX there as a gaming PC, though I think the current deal is a little more expensive and has 4 GB of RAM. Check your Sunday paper Best Buy ad, you should see it.

I am very satisfied with its performance for games and schoolwork, as well as just web browsing etc. Good price, great performance on pretty much any new game (no Crysis, but almost anything else).
 
Gaming laptops will be pricey, and I can garunetee you won't find one under $1000 that isn't outdated.

You should probably look into something that can run Oblivion on high-ish settings. Oblivion's a pretty good benchmark for what you're looking for.
 
after looking a newegg for a while, these two seemed to catch my eye

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220307
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220308

fast processer, good RAM, and the video cards on them don't look to shabby either

they also have some other features, of which some seem a bit erroneous but still add to the whole package

built in webcam/mic, fingerprint scanner, plenty of ports including a hdmi and vga port, dvd drive, 250 gb hard drive (which is plenty for me because I have a hard time even filling up a 120 gb hard drive), comes with a optical mouse and laptop bag as well as a recovery disk in case I screw something up, and it also comes with a 2 year warranty as well as accident insurance

I don't really mind that they come with Vista, if I really want I have my XP disk on stand by
from reading some of the reviews apparently it only registers 3 gigs of the RAM with 32 bit vista, does that mean the computer will disregard the 4th stick completely?

I also notice that the screen resolution is quite small but I don't really think a high resolution is that necessary for a laptop, if I want real quality resolution I'll turn to my desktop computer monitor, also is it possible I could hook up my desktop monitor to my laptop and use as a duel screen

sound, like screen resolution I don't really think needs to top quality on a laptop so I can leave that alone as well

overall it they seem to deliver on every aspect I was looking for and then some, the primary difference between the the two is the graphics card but I don't really know the difference between radeon and nvida

if yall think that another brand or model is a better choice then one of these please let me know or if you spot anything I missed when looking at these computers that would be awesome
 
1.jpg


This is where I got my info from recky. Do explain.

Sorry it isn't the clearest thing ever, but it says CPU Speed 1.66 GHz rated at 3.24 GHz
 
trkorecky said:
No, just no.
Click to expand...

1.66 + 1.66 = 3.32

The number is close, but it wasn't doubled by someone who doesn't know how dual cores work. It just happens to be really close.
 
so I went ahead and bought the the Asus M50

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220307

got it with the the cooling pad, with tax and shipping included it's only an extra $9.00 dollars, whereas if I bought it individually it would have been over $30.00

hopfully I'll get it all in a few days and let you all know how it worked out
 
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