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General Laptop Buying Advice


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I'm looking to buy a laptop sometime in the next few (2-6) months, and would like some general advice from people who know about this kind of thing. I know my fair share about hardware but I've never had a laptop myself and have no idea about the practicality of it. No idea how long battery life I will typically want, how heavy or light I'd want it to be... those are the sorts of things I would like to know about.

 

To sum up how I am as a user, I would want to do a lot of visual stuff. I would be doing a lot of Flash and Photoshop work on the thing and would like to play games. Currently I am surviving on a 6600GT, which can manage most games fine by my liking - Stalker at 1024*768 is playable to me. Obviously I would like something at least that powerful, but understand it might not be practical - I do want a lighter machine, and one with a longish battery life - an 'ultraportable' as far as I know. My sights are set on Dell's M1330 right now, as it seems to be a compromise between the small size and decent performance. I know a GeForce 8400 is what it is, but the system seems to have enough other benefits to offset this weak video card.

 

So can anyone tell me if my assumptions are wrong? Suppose price is not an issue for the moment, would I appreciate the small form of an ultraportable enough, having never owned a laptop before, to sacrifice a higher spec video card? The video is the only part of the package I am not sold on completely right now - you can get C2Ds and 4GB of RAM on this model. Or would I be better getting a chunkier one for a lower price? Would the small screen (13.3") be too small?

 

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Basically I've rambled on a lot of sh.t up there ^. Can anyone point me in the right direction from here? And I do not want a Macbook Pro, just in case anyone was going to suggest that.

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  • 2 weeks later...

well, gaming laptops are expensive. but i would say if you want a high performance one go alienware or dell. with both, as far as im aware(im going from memory as its late and i really dont want to get an aids cookie from dell.com) they allow you to customise.

 

 

tbh, if i was in your position i would of got a macbook pro and then just bootcamped XP.

as for 4GB, no need unless youre a vista user- and another thing, dont get vista.

2GB is more than enough for games.

i dont know much about mobile gpu's, but i could of sworn i came across an article saying theyre going to release a 8800gpu for notebooks/laptops.

 

i cant stress enough though. dont get vista. i would get linux before that damn system raping OS

Edited by kaneda
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Agreeing with him. Bootcamping XP is a decent idea that works wonders for my friend.

 

Also @ Kaneda:

 

 

KAAAAAAAAANEEEEEDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

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