Best laptop

[blaze3927]

Hi
well basically Mr Kevin Rudd gave me 950 AUD why? in Australia Bribes are actually called :
tax returns
or tax stimulus
and I'm thinking i better by me a laptop
so what would be the best new laptop (including ebay international etc.), with the best specs possible, can i get for 950AUD? (around 700 US)

i would use it for gaming (im not fussy bout graphics), school, and multimedia, I don't mind Vista and I know how to get linux dual booted anyway so OS isnt a fuss. Battery life isnt a problem.

I was thinking of hp pavillion dv7 (yes i have seen it gor for 800 AUD)

p.s. please don't say let me google that for you cos I really have done quite a bit of research and i was wondering if someknew might just know a bit more than me about these things

cheers

[bicostp]

If you want to do any gaming at all, don't even consider the cheapest models with basic video chipsets. My HP dv5000 with a 2.0 ghz Turion and Radeon Xpress 200m can barely run TF2 at 20 FPS in DirectX 8 mode with a special FPS config that bottoms the graphics out and turns a lot of effects off. (Plus there's an issue with that chipset that makes any Source 2007 games running in DirectX 9 mode crash hard enough to take the entire system down.)

Are you sure you want a laptop? $700 can buy one hell of a desktop PC. (I've priced out a Q9550/GTX 260 216 desktop for under $675...)

[arfink]

Radeon Xpress 200m: avoid it like plague. It's the crappiest ATI chipset out there. Doesn't even support OpenGL 2.0, which royally sucks. I mean, why in the heck NOT? And it runs like a piece of junk in Linux.

[Bibin]

Thinkpads are great laptops, especially the T series. Look into a high-end T600; thinkpads are very solid.

[Harshboy]

Does it really need to be a laptop? Because laptops are a huge ripoff in price:performance ratios.

I'm going to tell you right now to get a beastly desktop instead, but if you really must have a laptop...

Acer Aspire AS6930

The best price:performance laptop I could find for your price range.

[blaze3927]

cool thanks very much, yeh i'm lookin for a laptop cos i can get decent pc's for $200 here in canberra (ex government gets rid of quad and dual cores super cheap) and I already have three decent ones. Im thinking of buying and reselling lcd's aswell cos you can get 2005 model 15" computer lcd's for $15-$40 AUD, pm me if you want one and I'll sell it to you for no extra but postage costs could be steep internationally

[Jongamer]

Thinkpads are great laptops, especially the T series. Look into a high-end T600; thinkpads are very solid.

QFT
I know this because I have a T61p, and my friend owns a T60p.

Thinkpads are Professional looking, and have quite a bit of horsepower under the hood (my T61p can play Fallout 3), very well built, they have a matte black finish, and a Matte screen so it won't look like shi* and gross like those glossy shiny POS laptops after a year.

Lenovo Support is the best (WAY better than Nintendo's), one time a friend of mine had a faulty battery, called Lenovo around 5PM, they shipped the replacement and he received it before he got home from school the very next day, same thing happened when in my Info Tech class, got a Lenovo Laptop Under Warrenty to fix, had a bad HDD, got the replacement HDD the day after we called.

Plus you can't beat the Thinkpad Keyboards, they have always been the best.

[bicostp]

Plus you can't beat the Thinkpad Keyboards, they have always been the best.

Don't forget the best feature... TRACKPOINT! I love those things. They're so much better than POS touchpads. (Though you do have a choice, since they usually have both.)

[lifeisbetterwithketchup]

Don't forget the best feature... TRACKPOINT! I love those things. They're so much better than POS touchpads. (Though you do have a choice, since they usually have both.)

Quoted for truthiness!

[Kurt_]

I have a few things to say regarding the Thinkpad T61 laptops.

I've owned one for a little under a year, and it's been crushed under the weight of school supplies (University school supplies, think like 10-30 pounds daily) near constantly. It's held up pretty good. It's survived a 6 foot drop screen-first onto carpeted concrete with not even a scratch.

However, in the time I've owned it, there have been several little annoyances.

1) The screen cracked. I'm not sure why or how, but I got a hairline crack that spread. Lenovo wouldn't replace it.
2) My 'M' key occasionally pops off. It stopped now, but for a few months every three weeks or so I'd just kind of slip off in mid-typing.
3) The PCMCIA slot flap got stuck down. I unscrewed and slid off the access panel, and the spring was just caught on itself, but still.

However, it also has little benefits.

1) Reading Light
2) Touchpad palm detection (It detects the signature of an accidental palm swipe and does nothing)
3) Trackpoint = godly. I use it to FPS sometimes. Once you get the hang of it, it's nearly as good as a mouse. Not as good, but damn close enough for most tasks short of sniping and drawing.


My T61 gets 2 hours battery life on minimum settings with the discrete graphics (which can play COD 5, minus the fire animations) and the 4 cell battery.

[limpport]

Does it really need to be a laptop? Because laptops are a huge ripoff in price:performance ratios.

I'm going to tell you right now to get a beastly desktop instead, but if you really must have a laptop...

Acer Aspire AS6930

The best price:performance laptop I could find for your price range.

This is the laptop I would have gotten if I hadn't gotten my Macbook. I second this one.

Plus you can't beat the Thinkpad Keyboards, they have always been the best.

Don't forget the best feature... TRACKPOINT! I love those things. They're so much better than POS touchpads. (Though you do have a choice, since they usually have both.)

http://xkcd.com/243/

[blaze3927]

Hey thanks for the advice, but after much thought i've decided to go with an alienware, which i can get for $1500 AUD with all this

Area-51® m15x System
Display: 15.4" WideUXGA 1920 x 1200 LCD (1200p)
Operating System: Genuine Windows® Vista Ultimate - English
Graphics Processor : 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 8800M GTX
Processor: Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X9000 2.8GHz CPU (6MB Cache, 800MHz FSB)
Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 2048MB
Turbo Cache Memory: Intel Turbo Cache Memory 1GB – Accelerate Data Transfer Speed System Drive:
Single Drive Configuration - 320GB 5400 RPM SATA
CD/DVD/RW: 2x Dual Layer Blu-ray Disc Writer (BD-R, DVD±RW, CD-RW)
Sound Hardware: Intel® High-Definition Audio (24-bit, 192Khz) with surround sound
Wireless Network Card: Internal Intel® Wireless 4965 a/b/g/Draft-N Mini-Card
Additional Power: Additional AC Adapter - Alienware® m15X 120 Watt Auto-switch AC Adapter
AlienRespawn: AlienRespawn v2.0 Recovery DVD – Windows Vista Edition

[timmeh87]

Thinkpads are great, I have two.

2) My 'M' key occasionally pops off. It stopped now, but for a few months every three weeks or so I'd just kind of slip off in mid-typing.

Thats crazy, my M broke off too... I replaced the mechanism with the ~ key (its now an empty hole, lol)

[Bibin]

I own a T40 ThinkPad, from when it was still IBM, and I still prefer the actual aesthetic design to the newer ones (I miss the red and blue color scheme of the TrackPoint's mouse buttons). I am going to upgrade to a T43 motherboard soon for epic performance. My main battery, combined with my UltraBay battery, gets a massive ~12 hours of battery life.