I'm looking for a laptop to buy and I'm really hating it. With computers you can pick out the perfect parts, order them and build yourself a perfect PC but choosing a laptop is a horrible experience so I was hoping someone could recommend me something. This will be used as a replacement for my desktop until I can afford a decent PC but also needs to be something portable I can use in lectures and so on. Looking for: Decent performance Silent, light and portable. Quite small, i'd say 15.4" screen, maybe a bit bigger but probably not 17" Capable of casual gaming, nothing amazing Probably a dedicated GPU but I'm really not sure of how good integrated graphics is nowadays Budget is anywhere between £600-£900, depending if the price is justified. If you're speaking from experience (own the product) that's ever better.
Ooh, interesting. I am after the same thing and is leaning towards a Dell Latitude E6420 14''. I don't own one yet but it looks like it is the best of the rest out there. I'm going to keep an eye on this to see what our most knowledgeable bit-tech mates recommend.
I would think 14" or 15" would be the right size for you - any bigger would be difficult to carry around and any smaller wouldn't be a good desktop replacement. Sorry I can't point you in the direction of a specific model though!
I've spent weeks researching this and finally purchased one last thursday. Out of everything out there, in the end I decided one built to my specifications from this company would be my best option. They don't seem to cut corners when it comes to performance, and being able to choose from several components was brilliant, cant wait for it to arrive (GS170...i7 quad, 8gb ram, 2gb video, 500gb hybrid drive, full HD screen) http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk/index.html
I've been eyeing this up: http://www.dell.com/uk/p/xps-l502x/pd?oc=n00x5m03&model_id=xps-l502x £630 i5-2410M GT525M What else could I get for this money? Any reason why I should steer clear? Seems like a pretty well rated laptop. EDIT: Just found this - http://www.dell.com/uk/business/p/xps-15/fs - The second column seems to be pretty much the same laptop yet only £500. The third column is an i7 and is the same price. What am I missing, is business just a lot cheaper?
Just ordered this: gs170 Chassis - :: Kobalt GS170 17.3\' with switchable Optimus Technology utilising Intel GMA HD graphics Screen - :: 17.3\' 1920x1080 Full HD Matt LED Backlit NTSC 72% Processor - :: Intel® Core i7-2630QM Quad Core with HT 2.0-2.9GHz 6MB Cache 45W Video Card - :: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 555M 2GB GDDR3 DX11 144 CUDA Cores Memory 1 - :: 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz CAS9 2x 4GB DIMMs Hard Drive - :: 120GB Intel 510 series SSD Optical Device 1/ 2nd HDD - :: 500GB 7,200RPM HDD Operating system 1 - :: No Operating System Required - £75 Cash Back after purchase! WIFI - :: Intel 6300 Ultimate-N WIFI module 9 in 1 card reader - :: 9 in 1 card reader Keyboard - :: English UK Soundcard - :: Integrated High Definition Audio Power Cable - :: UK From http://www.kobaltcomputers.co.uk I had the same problem trying to find a decent machine that didn't cut corners.
I cannot remember exactly but i think you get less support/warranty buying business over the retail laptops as they expect "bussiness" i would guess to take out support cover or may have there own IT staff etc...and you would likely miss out on retail packaging/discs etc, someone may correct me however as i have no actual experience buying there business laptops but just seem to remember reading something similar to above before. Dells are good for price, but can be a mixed bag on if you get a good one that lasts for years or one that you keep having to send back, its because they are fairly big they produce alot of them.
