I know, those are two words that should never be used together, but I need a pretty powerful laptop for college. I photoshop a LOT at college and do a bit of music and video editing (Media courses are awesome, not so awesome on the pocket though) as well as playing some lower-end games (Sim City 4, Red Alert 3, and Transport Tycoon Deluxe just about sums up my entire games collection). Ok, fair enough, it's not gaming as such, but I need something with: - A decent processor (at least 2GHz Core2Duo, 1066MHz FSB and 3Mb Cache) - A good quality screen (17" would be brilliant, but this isn't essential) - At least 3Gb RAM The problem with finding my own is that I have no idea about laptop brands, and thing like reliability, customer service (Though I've been advised against Dell Studio laptops). Budget is £1000 as the absolute maximum, but that has to pay for a carry case and a spare battery. One thing above all... it has to not be a Mac. Any help massively appreciated Sean
Wanna DIY it? If your interested I'll explain more, save yourself some cash and get your hands dirty, if anything goes wrong with the laptop you know you understand how it works because you built it yourself
I'd be curious to hear about the 'DIY option'. I was looking for one about three years ago, and I've started to hunt around for a more current system. I did look at bare bones systems then, but I was put off by the use of desktop processors. This is because I had seen 'laptops' based on P4 desktop CPUs. But C2D's better power and heat envelopes may have made them acceptable. But on top of that, there was a problem fining video cards that were MXM or AXIOM based. So I gave up on that idea. the problem now is finding companies that are actually using the current gen mobile GPUs in their laptops. There are a lot using 9 series geforce chipsets and lower end ATI GPUs out there. That might be fine for a lot of people. but considering the limited upgradeability of a laptop, I'd prefer to get as much power int he GPU department as I can.
I'd prefer to get one prebuilt to be honest, it needs to be on battery and I'm craaap with electronics ...seriously, I can't even solder an LED to a PCB
DIY isn't that DIY to be honest, not as flexiable as a PC. basically you get a barebones laptop, which you have to supply your own CPU/memory/HDD. Usually there isn't much money to be saved and battery life isn't all that great...
if you work with MXM you can also pick the GPU but anyway yer thats mostly true... battery life... well how many enthusiast laptops have battery lives measure in hours?
Either way, I've done a little bit of research and found these two that seem like they match perfectly: Toshiba P300 -T9500 processor Advent 7555 GX - Q9000 processor Just wondering if the Quad core-ness, HD4850 mobile, HDD space and 1Gb extra RAM is worth the extra money
I would say the IBM Thinkpad W700 but that's if money was no object. Its also counted as a desktop replacement which I personally think gaming laptops are basically.
Thnks for the input drift, but money's a bit of an object here, if I had £2000 I'd go for the Toshiba Qosimo X300 And thanks Moyo
I'd be after a 2xx series card so I'm current with the current gen (or an equivalent ATI if I could find one). I'm trying to look for both myself and a family member who will only be able to own a laptop in a few months. I was hoping to be able to wait for Calpella based laptops to hit, but for the family member, I don't think I will be able to wait for it to come with a discreet GPU.
Ok, i know it's over your budget, but what about: Asus G70S-7S007C At £1250 it is over budget i know, but, the specs speak for it's self: And you get a free carry case and free mouse with it too. Sam
go on laptop direct or look on this website they do good laptops and you may want to consider a sony vaio as they are very good build quality as well http://www.rizeon.com/
I can't agree with you on that count. Viaos are notoriously overpriced, perhaps a bit up in the build quality but in general Sony laptops are a rip off. Plus they're not gaming laptops.
That Rizeon is amazingly expensive for what you get... I put together what's basically the Toshiba P300 and it came to almost £970, but thanks for the link (and I think LaptopsDirect is broken, or at least down for maintenance as it's not loading any "more info" pages). It's true Sony Vaios are overpriced and not strictly gaming laptops, but it's not strictly a gaming laptop I'm after, so thanks again for the suggestion, and as nice as the G70s is, I'd prefer to get the P300 as, again, it's a lot cheaper and the specs are basically the same (plus the last Asus I got was a nightmare to find drivers for)
Might once again get flamed. But, thought Apple.....? You might find a lot of your Media work will be using Macs in school, and generally they have better Software for Music and Video editing. University Discount is pretty high, and you get a Free iPod Touch at the moment. And of course, you actually get a battery life Would be over budget though, but unlike anything mentioned so far, will be worth about 70% of its value in 2 or 3 years time, and will run for ever (I Still have an iMac G3 Plodding along silently)
That's more like it Malketh, just preferably UK based and not costing $261.07 in shipping alone but thanks for the find And Digitalise, it's far too far over budget, and without going pro I won't have anywhere near the screen size I need (15.4" at least is really a necessity). I can't access prices on the education store because I need to be in college to get onto it (but I doubt it'll be 25% discount to meet the budget anyway. The budget is really stretching it as far as it can go anyway. Macs are horrible to use and in my experience crash far too often, they're overpriced and the worst thing by far... they're made by Apple. We have Mac Pro G5s and some 20" iMacs at college, and they're horrendous for all of the above reasons... Thanks for trying though
To get a gfx card noticeably faster than the 4850, you'd have to get a dual card setup. I'd also go for this which looks the same as the 7555 but £200 cheaper?! It's basically an MSI 725 with a 1440x900 screen. Big thread here
