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I'm looking to replace my 1.5 year old HP G42 laptop (2.9ghz AMD, 4GB ram, 300GB HDD)... I paid around $350 for it and plan on giving it to my parents.
I'd like to keep the purchase in the $1500 range.
I want an HD 1080p screen and I want a Blue-Ray drive. I've heard all about how great SSD drives are so I'd probably want one of those too.
Beyond that doesn't really matter I just want something that will perform well. I don't do a lot of gaming on my laptop, I have an Xbox 360 and PS3 for that. Still, something that could play a game or two preferably with a non-integrated graphics card would be nice.
I do not own a desktop PC or tablet... I use my laptop for everything online and some CAD related stuff from my job. As far as portability goes my laptop stays on my desk at home unless I am going out of town or on vacation.
My current laptop is 14" and I think a 17" would be very nice. I have a huge blue ray collection and would like to have the movie option available. I'm not buying the laptop for that purpose though... I already have a PS3 and big screen TV I'm just thinking of movies on the go.
Take a look at the ThinkPad W530. It's designed for CAD. It's only a 15.6" and does not have a Blu-ray option. It has a 1080p screen option, color sensor, and supports up to 32GB of RAM (for CAD). But it comes with a price premium since it's a high quality laptop.
I wound up spending closer to $2000 to get a decent 17" laptop with an i7 processor, NVIDIA Graphics card, 240GB SSD primary drive and 2nd HDD drive, and I did not even get an internal DVD drive and blu ray is expensive. My own experiences with internal drives are they just don't seem to last very well so I got an external drive and drive bay carrier for a third HD.
Mine was an Origin which should be here in a few days. They are primarily known for gaming computers but speed and graphics are important to gamers and that is why I wound up looking at laptops built for gaming..I got mine for working with mapping software.
You you have a lot of customization options including blu-ray. I found the price of what I built to be competitive with mainstream computers and it is built in the US and they have a good reputation for customer service and lifetime tech support. And there are any number of smaller companies building gaming computers that will offer the graphics, larger screen, and DVD options you desire.
But for work our typical corporate computers are small (mine is a 13 inch probook), rugged and used with a docking station...and with specs only a mother could love. But I think I could hammer nails with this thing...but the build quality is impressive.
Yes I was thinking of going the gamer route because the specs will be right along the lines of what I am looking for.
I've looked at Origin, Alienware, Sager as well as IbuyPower and CyberpowerPC. $1500 was pretty much the bare minimum with $2000 being the norm after some custom additions. If that's what I have to pay to get what I want so be it.
I do want an SSD primary drive as well... was thinking something like 250GB and then adding in a 750GB 7200 rpm HDD... storage won't be an issue. My current laptop is only 300GB and just 40% full. I would think 1TB would be enough.
Yes I was thinking of going the gamer route because the specs will be right along the lines of what I am looking for.
I've looked at Origin, Alienware, Sager as well as IbuyPower and CyberpowerPC. $1500 was pretty much the bare minimum with $2000 being the norm after some custom additions. If that's what I have to pay to get what I want so be it.
I do want an SSD primary drive as well... was thinking something like 250GB and then adding in a 750GB 7200 rpm HDD... storage won't be an issue. My current laptop is only 300GB and just 40% full. I would think 1TB would be enough.
Personally, the first one (two) sounds great, and spend an extra $150 getting your own SSD and clone over the O\S from the HDD. It's slightly cheaper. It looks like those MSI laptops are all using the same chassis, so unless they are using entirely different motherboards between the ones with SSDs and the ones without, you should have a second spot to plug in an extra harddrive\SSD. You may want to visit MSI's website, call them about the model before making that decision though.
You'll pay big money for "brand" products like Alienware. And I'd recommend avoiding Alienware. Dell has all sorts of trouble with their hardware. The MX11 (tiny little thing) snapped hinges like it was its job.
Also as for SSDs, go with as large as you can reasonable afford. I ended up buying a 128GB for about $100 a few months ago, and I have windows putting my entire user profile on a secondary storage drive (a 300GB Velociraptor), as well as my Steam games install to there. My SSD acts as my boot drive, and any software I use frequently goes on it. Notably Windows, Office, Photoshop, chat software, etc.
I would do comparison shopping when you get into this price range. I looked a sager, clevo, origin, more common name brands I wrote off due to cusomter service, etc. Basically from what I gather a lot of them are built on Clevo chassis, and a lot have Asus motherboards.
As far as graphics cards go.. Higher is better? 675 better than 670? MX better than M?
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