Getting a laptop for school next year

I don't know a whole lot about laptops. Hoping for under $1000, obviously lower would be better. I was thinking either that fancy new alienware netbook, or some asus laptop. Any recommendations?

I'm Canadian by the way, so I was hoping to get from newegg.ca or some other Canadian shop.

I've already got a nice desktop at home for games, so I'm not really looking for a "gaming laptop". Of course I'd like to do some light gaming on the laptop though.

I don't know a whole lot about laptops. Hoping for under $1000, obviously lower would be better. I was thinking either that fancy new alienware netbook, or some asus laptop. Any recommendations?

I'm Canadian by the way, so I was hoping to get from newegg.ca or some other Canadian shop.

RobboElRobbo

[QUOTE="RobboElRobbo"]

I don't know a whole lot about laptops. Hoping for under $1000, obviously lower would be better. I was thinking either that fancy new alienware netbook, or some asus laptop. Any recommendations?

I'm Canadian by the way, so I was hoping to get from newegg.ca or some other Canadian shop.

freesafety13

I would highly recommend a amd llano laptop, it should suit you well. The cpu is pretty crappy compared to intel's sandy bridge laptops, but it will be good enough for anything you will possibly need for university. The graphics card inside will be really good and will let you play any game you want at medium settings. The best part about it will be the price....it probably will sell for around $600-$700...that kind of price for a gaming laptop is unheard of.

How important is battery life? I don't know about you but the typical 2-3 hour charge is insufficient for me.

HP Envy line are good laptops...

I'd wait and see if anyone turns out a decent 11.6-13" Llano-based model, as hopefully you'll be able to get an A8 with hybrid crossfire for under $1000 (and even if you can't, the A8's on-board GPU will be good enough for light-duty gaming). The M11x is probably a little too expensive for your needs (especially considering its low-voltage CPU), unfortunately Dell has replaced the i5 option from the XPS 15 with an i3 (and upgrading to an i7 would push the price up too high) plus it's a little on the big side, and the Envy 14 is similarly pricey (and this is all before taxes).

How important is battery life? I don't know about you but the typical 2-3 hour charge is insufficient for me.

Tezcatlipoca666

What are these Llano laptops you guys speak of? When will they be released?RobboElRobbo

AMD's new midrange CPUs (well, APUs in AMD-speak). Basically a slightly faster version of their current Phenom mobile line/Athlon desktop line, but with a genuniely useful on-die GPU (good enough for running modern games on low settings, and it's capable of running in hybrid crossfire with a dedicated GPU on DX10/11 games) and at least 5-6 hours of real-world battery life. Should be the best option for mobile gaming at ~$600-1000, and models should be available at retail within a few weeks.

[QUOTE="RobboElRobbo"]What are these Llano laptops you guys speak of? When will they be released?PBSnipes

AMD's new midrange CPUs (well, APUs in AMD-speak). Basically a slightly faster version of their current Phenom mobile line/Athlon desktop line, but with a genuniely useful on-die GPU (good enough for running modern games on low settings, and it's capable of running in hybrid crossfire with a dedicated GPU on DX10/11 games) and at least 5-6 hours of real-world battery life. Should be the best option for mobile gaming at ~$600-1000, and models should be available at retail within a few weeks.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146779

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834146999CVF

Just some ideas.

How do these look? I don't follow laptop hardware at all. I have no idea which laptop processors or graphics cards are considered good, lol.

http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=59466&vpn=FX620DX-056US-IB52414G50S7P

http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=61181&vpn=K53SV-A1

http://ncix.ca/products/index.php?sku=59745&promoid=1336

And this looks interesting enough, but I don't think it could game whatsoever

http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=56099&vpn=VX6-PU17-BK&manufacture=ASUS

All of the first 3 look great. Expect build quality to be a little less than Lenovo however.

The ion2 can play some games as well. It's not too shabby for a netbook class GPU.

I have to ask three questions before making any recommendations: -Do you plan to be taking notes on it? -Do you want to go totally paperless? -Do you mind buying used from eBay and the like?NamelessPlayer

-Yes

-Well, not for math obviously

-I don't mind, but buying a used computer kinda makes me nervous

I'm a long time Alienware hater but I'm really intrigued by the M11x, lol. Looks like you can get em used on ebay for around 700-800 dollars. From what I've read, this laptop is exactly what I'm looking for. Good idea? No?

[QUOTE="NamelessPlayer"]I have to ask three questions before making any recommendations: -Do you plan to be taking notes on it? -Do you want to go totally paperless? -Do you mind buying used from eBay and the like?RobboElRobbo

-Yes

-Well, not for math obviously

-I don't mind, but buying a used computer kinda makes me nervous

I'm a long time Alienware hater but I'm really intrigued by the M11x, lol. Looks like you can get em used on ebay for around 700-800 dollars. From what I've read, this laptop is exactly what I'm looking for. Good idea? No?

I really wouldn't want to buy a laptop used. A desktop, yeah, I don't mind.

[QUOTE="RobboElRobbo"]

[QUOTE="NamelessPlayer"]I have to ask three questions before making any recommendations: -Do you plan to be taking notes on it? -Do you want to go totally paperless? -Do you mind buying used from eBay and the like?NamelessPlayer

-Yes

-Well, not for math obviously

-I don't mind, but buying a used computer kinda makes me nervous

I'm a long time Alienware hater but I'm really intrigued by the M11x, lol. Looks like you can get em used on ebay for around 700-800 dollars. From what I've read, this laptop is exactly what I'm looking for. Good idea? No?

[QUOTE="RobboElRobbo"]

[QUOTE="NamelessPlayer"]I have to ask three questions before making any recommendations: -Do you plan to be taking notes on it? -Do you want to go totally paperless? -Do you mind buying used from eBay and the like?NamelessPlayer

-Yes

-Well, not for math obviously

-I don't mind, but buying a used computer kinda makes me nervous

I'm a long time Alienware hater but I'm really intrigued by the M11x, lol. Looks like you can get em used on ebay for around 700-800 dollars. From what I've read, this laptop is exactly what I'm looking for. Good idea? No?

Are you talking about a tablet or something?

This is the M11x I found btw

http://cgi.ebay.com/Dell-Alienware-M11x-PHANTOM-Intel-Core-2-Duo-/330575513804?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item4cf7d608cc

I'm a long time Alienware hater but I'm really intrigued by the M11x, lol. Looks like you can get em used on ebay for around 700-800 dollars. From what I've read, this laptop is exactly what I'm looking for. Good idea? No?

RobboElRobbo

Depends on what exactly it is you're looking for. The thing about the M11x is that while it's powerful relative to its form factor and battery life, at the end of the day you still need to make some pretty significant performance sacrifices to get that level of portability. Now that might be exactly what you're looking for (something that can get 6-8 hours of battery life between charges and still run games reasonably well), but if you don't need that level of portability you can get more power for a similar price with something like the Dell XPS 15 with a proper i7 quad-core (and still a decent 4-5 hours of battery life).

That's why I recommended waiting for Llano- in theory it should be the best of both worlds, and could come in a couple hundred dollars cheaper to boot.

Oh, and if you do go with the M11x try and make sure you get one of the new Sandy Bridge models (it'll list an i5-2537 or i7-2617 as the processor), as you could run into some nasty CPU bottlenecks with the older models.

Just came across this, and it looks quite nice, aside from terrible, terrible battery life.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220794&Tpk=asus%20g51

[QUOTE="RobboElRobbo"]

I'm a long time Alienware hater but I'm really intrigued by the M11x, lol. Looks like you can get em used on ebay for around 700-800 dollars. From what I've read, this laptop is exactly what I'm looking for. Good idea? No?

PBSnipes

Depends on what exactly it is you're looking for. The thing about the M11x is that while it's powerful relative to its form factor and battery life, at the end of the day you still need to make some pretty significant performance sacrifices to get that level of portability. Now that might be exactly what you're looking for (something that can get 6-8 hours of battery life between charges and still run games reasonably well), but if you don't need that level of portability you can get more power for a similar price with something like the Dell XPS 15 with a proper i7 quad-core (and still a decent 4-5 hours of battery life).

That's why I recommended waiting for Llano- in theory it should be the best of both worlds, and could come in a couple hundred dollars cheaper to boot.

Oh, and if you do go with the M11x try and make sure you get one of the new Sandy Bridge models (it'll list an i5-2537 or i7-2617 as the processor), as you could run into some nasty CPU bottlenecks with the older models.

Are you talking about a tablet or something?

RobboElRobbo

[QUOTE="RobboElRobbo"]

Are you talking about a tablet or something?

NamelessPlayer

Yeah, I soon found out that I should be looking into the new R3 models if I'm going Alienware, and they go for exactly $1000 on Dell's site. Couldn't really find any cheaper on ebay or anywhere else.

Wait, I don't get it, some of the R2's have i7's? So basically I should look around for an R2 that doesn't have core 2 duo, or an R3?

Yeah, I soon found out that I should be looking into the new R3 models if I'm going Alienware, and they go for exactly $1000 on Dell's site. Couldn't really find any cheaper on ebay or anywhere else.

Wait, I don't get it, some of the R2's have i7's? So basically I should look around for an R2 that doesn't have core 2 duo, or an R3?

RobboElRobbo

http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=61181&vpn=K53SV-A1

RobboElRobbo

I just ordered this exact one (from the same place) for the same purpose, should be arriving any day. I've heard good things about Asus laptops so i'm interested to see how it works

I purchased the ASUS N53SN-XR2 Laptop from American TV for $999.98, it has a second generation i7 @ 2.0Ghz, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, and a GT 550M GPU. The screen size is 15.6 inches with a resolution of 1366 x 768. I can run Crysis on High, Grand Theft Auto 4 on High and Bad Company 2 on Medium/High with no problems. A similar model can be found on Amazon that has a GT 540M (won't get you as far as a 550M for gaming) but it does have a 1080p Screen and is around the same price.

Just came across this, and it looks quite nice, aside from terrible, terrible battery life.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220794&Tpk=asus%20g51

RobboElRobbo