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Don't need commentary on where I'm buying it blah blah blah, just how the 4 I picked at this particular time stack up against each other.

Which one would you get?

If you're looking for pure muscle, the MSI has the strongest processor and the fastest hard drive. They tend to make decent quality products as well. The Asus ROG's got a 1/3 bigger but somewhat slower hard drive, and has 4 USB 3.0 ports as compared to the MSI's 2 USB 3.0/2 USB 2.0 (transfer speed is higher with 3.0 if you have USB 3.0 devices).

The Sony's nowhere in the ballpark of the other 3 for power, and the other Asus (not the ROG) has a less capable graphics card and processor than the MSI or the Asus ROG.

For that kind of price-range, you should be looking for an SSD instead of a hard drive. Beyond that, I think we'll need some basic information on how you plan to use the system, and for what purposes. Different setups will be idea for different goals.

I have to ask this. Do you actually plan on taking this thing away from home on a regular basis?

I carried a laptop of similar size/weight around for two years. It's do-able. Not always fun, but do-able. I'm sure Havok won't have any issues with it.

It's not the ability to physically carry it I'm talking about. It's the fact that laptops are about $300 expensive than an equivalent desktop and a hundred times more annoying to maintain, which is not a great trade-off for the ability to theoretically play World of Warcraft on the crapper.

Stark will mock me... but basically just the internet, some ebay, maybe watching football online and the occasional game. Maybe image stuff.

I just hate slow computers. As for taking it places, just different rooms in my house. I don't have a place for a desktop, at least not one that I want to make.

Plug it into the TV and use a wireless keyboard and mouse? Trust me, if there is any remotely feasible way you can get out of buying a laptop for your primary computing platform, seize it with both hands.

There's a huge gulf between 'not slow' and 'gaming system.' For what you're trying to use it for, I'd recommend something in the 600-900 range; you can spend whatever you want, but for your uses, you're going to hit diminishing returns really quickly. Zaune has a decent point too, as long as that's not going to cause fights over use of the TV itself. He's more than a little chicken-little about the horrors of laptop maintenance, but not entirely wrong; they are moderately more difficult to work on and acquire parts for. I do, also, have to reiterate my call for an SSD whether you go for a laptop or a desktop. It will make a dramatic difference in program load times and system response time, far more so than just throwing more processing power at the problem.

I just calling it how I see it, chum. Though I have to admit it might be partly self-inflicted since I tend towards portability over performance and refuse to spend more than two hundred quid on one.

Zaune wrote:I just calling it how I see it, chum. Though I have to admit it might be partly self-inflicted since I tend towards portability over performance and refuse to spend more than two hundred quid on one.

Oh that will do it. Actual build quality is only a thing for more expensive machines.

I'm going to second the call for an ssd. In everyday use I used to be able to tell the difference between my laptop (relatively modern but a laptop) and my desktop (pretty much modern relatively high end gaming rig). Then I put ssds in both and stopped being able to tell the difference in performance. SSDs are a huge deal.

Y....eah. Buy cheap shit, get cheap shit. This is why I don't sell laptops in that price range; it's not worth the pain to us or our customers.

It's a policy I began following the day I wrote off a £700 Toshiba Satellite that wasn't insured by tripping over the power cord, and overall it's worked out fairly well.

Yeah, if all you want is a high-quality fast general-use machine, then none of the above really fit what you want. Something around $1k with a 15-inch screen and a good-sized SSD will not only fit your use case just fine, it'll also be easier to keep around the house than a 17.3-inch monster, and in daily use will be a lot faster. A 128-gig SSD will be enough to fit your OS and all the applications you use regularly, and you will be amazed by the speed boost.

I'd say go with the Vaio. Asus and Acer tend to have sketchy build quality, and ignoring the price having a comfortable keyboard that doesn't feel like you could punch a hole by accidentally pushing too hard is a huge deal. Having the SSD will give you a nice boost in performance.

Ugh. Not Sony. I won't say 'anything but Sony,' because they're not the worst, but they're far, far from the best. They're not even all that bad, but they have a history of trading heavily on the Sony name and not so much on actually being either good or a good value. Were I to recommend a single brand from both a keyboard-quality and an overall build-quality perspective, it would be Lenovo. There are, however, no Lenovos on your list, something that I would recommend looking into changing.

Well I have to admit, I like the shiny. I also know that I am totally overshooting for what I actually do, but I don't mind.

If you want suggestions, I'd say poke around at some of Toshiba's stuff. They have a nice balance of quality build and shiny things. Samsung has some decent offerings, too.

If money is no object - http://www.bestbuy.com/site/qosmio-17-3 ... &cp=1&lp=1

...Bloody hell, Zod, you're just a laundry list of some of the shoddier laptop companies in the business, aren't you?

How durable / shock resistant are SSDs compared to normal HDDs?

Unless you open it up and smack one of the actual chips with a hammer, pretty resistant.

HDDs are vulnerable to shock primarily because of the moving parts.

Just don't touch OCZ SSDs with an eighty foot bargepole.

Personally, I'd go with the Asus.

I know it's a gimmick, but I like the back-lit keyboard (Although that's probably because I never learned to touch type effectively)

I'd also swap in a SSD and put the 1TB drive in an enclosure for backup storage.