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I was one of the luck ones... I recieved a rebate from Uncle Sam's tax men and now I'm in the market for a laptop.

I have a budget of $2500 and here's what I want to do:
1. play games (3D)
2. photo editing
3. Website Creation

I don't mind brands or off brands... but a decent warranty (more than 2 yearsw) would be nice.

Thanks for all your help.

I have an older Dell Inspiron and have been satisfied with it for the most part.

At work, the computer center (where I work), buys all Dell Laptops. They usually are Inspirons, but we also support Latitudes. There are a few IBM's around, but not too many.

All I can say is:

Most comon problem with Dell Inspiron:
1. The keyboard (although nice to type on) are crap. We have replaced the keyboards on at least 80% of the Inspiron's. Dell claims that it has fixed this problem, but is still persists.
2. Many of the new Inspiron's that we have also have a problem with the fan motors. The fans do not come on and go off as they are supposed to and cause an overheating problem. Dell also deny's this and claims that people forget and put the laptops in the bags while they are on standby thus causing the overheating problem. This is crap! We have let them run and sat there and watched them overheat.

Latitudes:

1. For some reason, the batteries begin failing to make a solid connection shortly after you begin using the laptop. This is persistant with the Latitudes that are returned to our department.

2. The displays - the connector in the lid comes lose very easy and you have to take your display apart to fix the problem.

All in all, if you get by those problems, they really are sturdy good laptops. After my third keyboard replacement, my laptop finally runs as it should and I like it. I just wasn't happy about replacing the keyboard.

Like I said, I don't have any other experience with other brands, but this is some of the problems we have with the Dells.

desertjedi wrote:I was one of the luck ones... I recieved a rebate from Uncle Sam's tax men and now I'm in the market for a laptop.

I have a budget of $2500 and here's what I want to do:
1. play games (3D)
2. photo editing
3. Website Creation

I don't mind brands or off brands... but a decent warranty (more than 2 yearsw) would be nice.

Thanks for all your help.

Laptops tend to be fairly ill-suited for all three of those tasks (mostly due to their LCD display, though the thing that restricts games is that laptops tend to trade off performance for power consumption.)

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:

desertjedi wrote:I was one of the luck ones... I recieved a rebate from Uncle Sam's tax men and now I'm in the market for a laptop.

I have a budget of $2500 and here's what I want to do:
1. play games (3D)
2. photo editing
3. Website Creation

I don't mind brands or off brands... but a decent warranty (more than 2 yearsw) would be nice.

Thanks for all your help.

Laptops tend to be fairly ill-suited for all three of those tasks (mostly due to their LCD display, though the thing that restricts games is that laptops tend to trade off performance for power consumption.)

Oh yeah, and I tend to suggest IBM laptops. Though an IBM laptop tends to be one that you pay a bit more for, but you get a laptop that runs forever and tends to be easy to upgrade and repair.

GrandMasterTerwynn wrote:Oh yeah, and I tend to suggest IBM laptops. Though an IBM laptop tends to be one that you pay a bit more for, but you get a laptop that runs forever and tends to be easy to upgrade and repair.

I agree! I forgot to mention that the IBM laptops that we do have in the department have been problem free for the most part.

Although I really like Dell for home computers/workstations/and especially their servers, my next laptop will most likely be an IBM. I won't buy another Dell laptop just because of those problems.

Don't get a Sony!

IBM Thinkpads are robust and reliable. Today, my neice was pounding away at my Thinkpad. I would not dare let her do that with a Latitude.

Dells are not a bad buy, but I second the experience that the keyboards seem to go out like crazy. Usually it is the keyboard itself , but sometimes its the controller on the mobo.

Sony's sucks for many reasons, including warranty, driver support, and a lack of legacy ports like a RS-232 connection.

Your 3 requirements are pretty tough meet for laptop cheaply. You are really looking for a desktop replacement laptop, which will be much heavier than most laptops.

TrailerParkJawa wrote:IBM Thinkpads are robust and reliable. Today, my neice was pounding away at my Thinkpad. I would not dare let her do that with a Latitude.

Dells are not a bad buy, but I second the experience that the keyboards seem to go out like crazy. Usually it is the keyboard itself , but sometimes its the controller on the mobo.

Sony's sucks for many reasons, including warranty, driver support, and a lack of legacy ports like a RS-232 connection.

Your 3 requirements are pretty tough meet for laptop cheaply. You are really looking for a desktop replacement laptop, which will be much heavier than most laptops.

Some sonys have a RS-232 port...

WEll part of the reason why I want a laptop with these functiuons is that I was supposed to move to China for business (2-3 yrs) and I didn't want to take my desktop (big and heavy) with me so a desktop replacement would be fine, it still weighs less and is smaller than an ATX tower. I don't want a Sony anything tough, they look frggin awesome, but I've had problems with their warranty and service.

Dells and IBMs seems to be the ones to look at, thanks. I would still appreciate any other suggestions.

Personally, if I were going to be doing graphics, sound, or movie editing, I would rely more on a Mac. I don't know the technical details, but from what I've been able to do on them, they seem predisposed to being able to easily handle media work.

desertjedi wrote:WEll part of the reason why I want a laptop with these functiuons is that I was supposed to move to China for business (2-3 yrs) and I didn't want to take my desktop (big and heavy) with me so a desktop replacement would be fine, it still weighs less and is smaller than an ATX tower. I don't want a Sony anything tough, they look frggin awesome, but I've had problems with their warranty and service.

Dells and IBMs seems to be the ones to look at, thanks. I would still appreciate any other suggestions.

Don't get a Dell. They have good support, but their laptops tend to be unreliable from wht I've seen.

IBM makes rugged laptops, but their graphic chipsets tend not to be so good unless you pay quite a bit extra (e.g. for the ThinkPad T40p). Their newer series using the Pentium M (not Pentium 4-M) get excellent battery lift, however, and may be worth spending extra for.

Alienware makes high-performance laptops, but I don't know how reliable they are. They tend to have subpar battery life and generate a lot of heat, but are quite fast.

IMHO, I would take a hit in graphics performance and get a ThinkPad T40-series laptop with a Radeon 7500.

Saurencaerthai wrote:Personally, if I were going to be doing graphics, sound, or movie editing, I would rely more on a Mac. I don't know the technical details, but from what I've been able to do on them, they seem predisposed to being able to easily handle media work.

Presumably he's already invested in x86 and switching over is a nontrivial expense on top of the cost of a new laptop. In addition, they don't do gaming as well.

For example, a 15" PowerBook with a 1GHz G4e, 512MB SDRAM, 40GB HD and DVD-ROM/CD-RW would set him back ~$2550. While it is an excellent laptop with fairly long battery life, he's also have to purchase new software on top of this existing cost.

He could get a 12" PowerBook and probably stay under budget even with the new software costs, but why? Certainly, Apple makes good laptops, but I don't think it'd be worth it for him.

If you want a desktop replacement get an Alienware machine, they are big and the batteries have a shite life but if you're not going to be using it on the move it'll probably be the best bet.

i've got an HP laptop and have been somewhat pleased with it so far. the somewhat is that i cant upgrade the graphics card. so i cant play games that require a better card. other than that , ive been happy with it. plus it has an s-video connection so i can hook it up to my 32 in. tv. that's always fun with the comp games

I will say it right now just after skimming this thread: a laptop can do all of those things, but you have to know how to run the system to make it do those tasks (especially 3D gaming) well.

I would reccommend these brands:

Toshiba
HP/Compaq
IBM

STAY AWAY FROM GATEWAY AND DELL!!!

My personal experience has been that Toshibas are nice solid, well-built machines at a very good price. My old Toshiba Satellite-Pro 430-CDT lasted 6 years and roughly 30,000 hours of heavy use (I am anything but gentle with my computers, they either handle my usage or they are destroyed in the process) before it started failing and I replaced it earlier this year, even though I still have it and still use it on occasion. At one time it was literally hurled about 20 feet into a concrete wall while it was operating (someone in the class had a "glitch" and started throwing things), it survived with a couple bad scratches and a small crack in the case but no other damage.

No doubt other people here have had differant experiences, but that was mine, and I would recommend the Toshibas over the others, though HP/Compaq comes in second.


Make sure you test the capabilities of the video card and screen before you buy it, you should be able to run Quake 2 or Half-Life at 1024x768 without a problem, and run a DVD without lag or ghosting fullscreen. Interestingly enough my old Toshiba could pull fluid 640x480 on Quake2 and Half-Life, video playback on the otherhand, it could not.

Also, make sure you have at least a 16mb video card (32-64+ preferable), get an Nvidia or ATI R9000 and up, for the Nvidia, make sure it is not MX400, in that case you would do better to get an ATI, but given the choice, go with Nvidia.

Compaq's consumer line is horrid, but their professional line is good.