Jump to content
Heads Up! This website is no longer maintained, if your a member from our era, consider joining the discord to say hello.
Sign in to follow this  

New laptop time!

Recommended Posts

Hey guys! I'm heading off to college soon and I was wondering if you guys could recommend a few good laptops for me. Here are some guidelines.

 

The cheaper the better, but don't sacrifice price for quality. As long as it's under around 1,200, I'll be fine with it.

 

I want the screen to be around 15 inches. I know this may seem heavy... But I don't really want a small screen because I'm also going to be using the computer for gaming.

 

On the topic of gaming, lets talk about graphics cards. I have NO idea about anything in the realm of hardware, so all I can say is a good graphics card? Something that can run Starcraft 2 and DotA 2. Not simultaneously. Just run them. With decent graphic settings.

 

Memory. My current laptop has about 150GB of hard drive space. And it's basically full... I would like some more space.

 

A keyboard with a full numpad would be nice, but it's completely optional.

 

Long battery life.

 

OH and also... My current laptop gets really hot. I installed a program that shows the current temperature of my processor (I think it's my processor), and if I'm not doing anything it stays around 150 Fahrenheit. If I play minecraft for a few hours, it goes up to 185... And I also have a laptop fan running under it...

 

I know these are a bunch of guidelines... But if you can find one that fits pretty close to these, that would be awesome.

Share this post


Link to post

It's fallen off of the "recent posts" list... So bump? :)

Share this post


Link to post

You should look into getting an Ultrabook. They're very lightweight and cheap: http://www.newegg.com/ultrabooks

Share this post


Link to post

Newegg

I would go with this, it has an intel I-7 processor which will do a phenomenal job with multitasking as well as gaming, it has 6 gigs of ram and a 500 gig hard drive, and last but not least a dedicated 1gb nvidia video card.

 

There are a couple downfalls to this laptop... due to the graphics card combined with a power hungry processor your battery life is advertised at 4.5 hours which means you will probably only get about 2 to 3 hours out of it in practice. Laptops aren't particularly meant for gaming so quite frankly just about any laptop you get will start getting hot when you put it under load.. I would suggest one of These to keep the unit cool under load. As for monitoring the temperature there are several windows 7 sidebar apps that will be able to monitor it for you. There is also a program called "core temp" that will be able to monitor it.

Share this post


Link to post

I really like that laptop! I don't think battery life will matter too much for me... I'll have it plugged in most of the time.

Share this post


Link to post

Just make sure you get some kind of laptop cooling dock. Any laptop will get hot running games, the cooling dock will save you from overheating the computer and it having to shut itself down to prevent catastrophic failure. As for the battery, if you have it on the charger a lot make sure to take it off about once a week and run it nearly dead, it'll make the battery age better. (also if i were you i would buy a 4 gig stick of ram to throw in it (the laptop maxes out at 8) it currently has a 4 gig and a 2 gig if i remember correctly.

Share this post


Link to post

Here I selected a couple laptops to pick from... Which do you think is better? Here. I want a laptop with a lot of HDD space because my current laptop is basically maxed at 500.

Share this post


Link to post

Quick update: I think I'm either gonna buy the first, or the third laptop.

 

Here look at this list: Here.

Share this post


Link to post

I would go with the first, and with the money you save, get this.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post

Hmmmm I see.

I showed my aunt the ones I was considering, and she showed them to her friend who's an expert on computers, and he said that they have new processors which makes them expensive, but their hard drive is bad. Thus, the processor and hard drive don't go well together which may cause problems later on.

Can anybody confirm/deny this?

Share this post


Link to post

I believe what he is referring too is that the speed of the hard drive is 5400 rpm which truthfully is a little slow, but the reason it is slow is because the hard drive is so big. If you want a faster speed you would almost have to get a smaller hard drive. Truthfully I don't notice much of a difference between a 7200 and a 5400 but it may just be me. :dntknw:

Share this post


Link to post

The speed of the drive has nothing to do with capacity. It's a slower drive because it's cheaper and consumes less power.

 

Realy you don't want a large drive in your laptop, too easy to lose tons of data to a stair case, etc.

 

Get a small HDD or SSD and laptop with eSATA or USB 3.0 for an external drive.

 

This will serve your for your price area http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230141

Share this post


Link to post

Actually, quite frankly yes it does. Faster hard drives haven't been able to keep up with massive inflation of data storage that we have seen in recent years. This is do to many factors. 1: most people don't notice that much of a difference between waiting 2 milliseconds or 15 milliseconds, its fast enough for them therefore they don't go buy the 15000 rpm drive at newegg or a switch to a solid state. 2 Due to lack of funding (from people not buying 15000 rpm drives or SSD) the storage capacity of the faster drives has not been able to keep up with the slower drives that most consumers are used to. This becomes very apparent when you actually look at the hard drives. You don't see any 256 GB 15000 RPM drives or any TRUE 1TB SSD where as you see a relatively decent amount of 2TB 5400. So Yes, drive speed does have an effect on the amount of storage. Is it because of mechanical or electrical limitation, no; but there is obviously a correspondence with drive speed and storage space. :cookie?:

 

If he backed up his data he wouldn't have to worry about losing it to a set of stairs or a bottle of water...

Share this post


Link to post

I would go with this, it has an intel I-7 processor which will do a phenomenal job with multitasking as well as gaming, it has 6 gigs of ram and a 500 gig hard drive, and last but not least a dedicated 1gb nvidia video card.

Share this post


Link to post

Thanks for all the help guys!

I'm actually considering a price a little smaller now, maybe around 1,000 so I can spend 200 on buying an External Hard Drive... But that laptop looks good. Since my aunt is going to be funding most of the money, I have to get it passed by her, and she can see if a laptop is going to be used primarily for gaming...I hope this one is OK.

Share this post


Link to post
I'm actually considering a price a little smaller now, maybe around 1,000 so I can spend 200 on buying an External Hard Drive...
A very wise choice sir. If I were you I would put the vast majority of my games on the external keeping my internal drive faster.

Share this post


Link to post

256GB is an odd size for a 15k drive, you'll normally see SSD in that size. 15k drives normally stick to the 300GB, but due to the increased speed of a 15k drive you won't see them in laptops. They have to much addional metal casing to keep the drive stable, making them to thick.

 

You don't see 15k RPM drives above 1TB because of the small 2.5" form factor required to spin that fast.

 

If you'll looking for long term storage 5400 rpm drives are fine and you can get there 7200 same size sibling for a few more $$$. For a boot drive or the drive you're playing from you'll notice a change from 5400<7200<10k<15k<RAID0<SSD.

Share this post


Link to post

What does everyone think of this laptop?

 

Specs:

HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Series Laptop, Intel Core Ivy Bridge i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz) with Turbo boost, 15.6" HD Brightview Display, 8GB DDR3 5400 rpm, 1TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M Graphics w/ 1GB GDDR3 memory, 4 USB 2.0...

 

No EHD if I get this one since a) 1 TB will be more than enough HDD space for me and 2) no USB 3.0

Share this post


Link to post

If your not going to be very mobile it would be good. However if you are going to be taking it to classes you may want to reconsider OR buy an external 2.0 hard drive at a later date, mainly in case you drop it. Data loss sucks xD I deal with it all day at work.

 

Other than that I personally think the laptop would be a good fit for you.

Share this post


Link to post

Okay thanks! I think I'm gonna buy the HP because that's the one my aunt seems set on buying. :)

Share this post


Link to post

Sweet man, hope you enjoy it. Let us know how its working for you in a couple months.

Share this post


Link to post

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

×