They are good systems, of course like any brand, you get what you paid for.. If you decide to buy the cheapest end system from a company... well... you get what you paid for.
hurmm.. Thanks for the heads up guys. Think i'll give hp a miss then. I'll have alook at small buisness, but i only really have £1k-1.2k to spend so might have to compromise.
1 - 1.2k laptop! You have many choices! The problem is I don't think it's a great time to buy a laptop at the moment due to the arrival of the mobile Intel Core i's series, and more powerful laptop GPU's being used in the system. I don't know how much 3D you are doing. Does that include casual gaming, or you want gaming the least games at at least medium settings. Here are some laptop ideas: - Dell Latitude E6400. This is the one I have and use everyday. Comes equipped with 4GB of memory, 9-cell (~8 hours + battery life minimum brightness (which is kinda bright considering the matte screen and LED backlit) with wireless on. The + added is that you can shut down the screen any time by doing Fn+D on it (comes back with any mouse or keyboard input), so you can push the system to a 9 hours at the end... of course battery life considered is when the battery is new). The laptop features a Quadro NVS 160M 256MB, which is a low end (or mid-low range for laptop) graphic card - it's basically a Geforce 9400M but has 256MB dedicated memory, so it ends up being faster. I am able to easily overclock it to crazy speed with Nvidia own System Tool, which allows higher settings in games, and support for more demanding games on low settings (ie: modern warfare 2). Laptop is fairly quiet, sound card is OK in laptop standard (for some reason the default setting has the treble on max and bass on near minimum, but that can be adjusted for much better sound with the SRS panel). Speakers, well it's a laptop, a small laptop, so don't expect anything at all, frankly, but they are loud. The laptop is a breaze to open and manage, with a 1 screw & slide bottom panel which give you access to the full internal component. That means you can change pretty much anything... motherboard, CPU, RAM, wireless card, bluetooth, and the rest. (except GPU.. that is soldered on the motherboard). The laptop is in metal and used as a larger heatsink, hence the ability for me to OC my GPU like crazy when I need the power. Of course, like all laptops, you can't game while on battery by default (CPU and GPU goes at minimum speed). Features a 1440x900 LED backlit display, 2 mouse (touchpad and trackpoint), and the very cool and useful: backlit keyboard. The laptop comes MINIMUM with 3 years warranty with 3 years next buisness day on site service. Meaning, if you something is broken, you'll have a technician form a contracted IT company for small business, come at YOUR place (next business day) at the time you want (in business hours), to come and fix your laptop infront of you, to ensure that everything is well done. Any damage from the technician part is covered (I got Dell to replace my screen lid due to a minor scratch, as the technician flip the laptop on the laptop without putting any cloth under the system. The lid is in metal, so it's like a car paint.. .it can get starch, when it does... you see metal. Paint normally is very thick, so it doesn't get scratch super easily like a glossy covered laptop, but still. Has display port, VGA, and powered eSATA (USB + eSATA where both can be used.. it's a 2 port in one) on the system. This laptop has very good reviews about everywhere you look. As a heavy user of the system I can tell you that this laptop is fantastic. However, it has 1 downsides and 1 note (every laptop has downsides). Note: The GPU is not super powerful as discussed, and perhaps the coming update will feature a better, more powerful GPU. The GPU was fine when the laptop was release tough.. the laptop was released by Dell 1 year and half ago. My laptop is a year old. Downside: This is a first generation laptop of the series, so some engineering problem will follow. There was a throttling system problem, ironically affecting those you took the cooler graphic solution: Intel integrated graphics 4500X HD. This is now resolved completely (it was just a bug in the BIOS). But the real downside, that exists is a cosmetic one, actually. Personally it doesn't bother me, as the laptop is very good for the price (and the free upgrades and price drop I got just by negotiating) to a point that it compensate it. The downside, is that the laptop only has 2 simple small pads that protects the screen from the palm rest. These 2 pads are not enough to have the screen FRAME (bezel) not touch the palm rest. In result the screen FRAME will get scratch (become shiny at some parts), and the pad themselves do marks on the frame itself. Please note that under NO CIRCUMSTANCED, even under pressure on the screen lid, that the laptop screen touches the keyboard. So like I said it's a cosmetic problem. When I got this laptop, I knew in advance about the issue and took the path in diminishing the affect by sliding a small cut out segment of a black tie wrap that used to group together the power adapter that comes with the laptop under each pad. (making them thicker, and not squish down flat when carrying under heavy pressure such as in my back with big university books. On the lighter note, the keyboard is standard layout. No weird key placement. Additional note: If this is your first laptop, note that like all non-glossy keyboard black keys laptop, they become smooth out over short period of time. The exception to this, is Lenovo systems, but they just delay the problem by a few months by having more textured keys. So if you have that, don't freak out, its normal. So yes, great system! Check out reviews if you don't mind the GPU. If you do game, then this laptop is great to be used with conjunction to a desktop computer where you can really game on. Other laptop, the Alienware M11x. ~11inch system, great resolution, glossy screen though. This one is interesting, it's like the Latitude E6400, but on reverse, where the CPU is low powered and the GPU is really fast. So check out benchmarks and reviews, to see if it fits your needs. Else than that you have the Dell Studio series including the Studio XPS. I mentioned that every laptop has at least one downside, well the Studio has a glossy screen, while the Studio XPS is pretty much all glossy, and the keyboard is noisier. The upside is that the GPU, if I am not mistaken (check to confirm please), the GPU is more powerful then the Latitude E6400, but under the Alienware, of course. They are many other laptop, I encourage you to also check out Lenovo website... I can't start naming ALL of them, I'll never end. But, I hope I helped you out in finding your laptop that fits your needs and what to expect and common issues to expect.
Thanks for the info, very usful I'll have a look over that laptop, it sounds good. I think im still looking for a 17" laptop with 1920 res, but i'll def check it out.
