Notebook

[Carbon]

Yes! Another Laptop/Notebook thread!

I'm highly considering buying another laptop because I'm in a lot of Chemisty and Engineering courses now, of which will use CAD and other programs and I want a new laptop that I can carry around with me. The problem is, I don't know what's good and what isn't any more since I don't follow it like I used to and things on notebooks have different, funky names anyway.

I know there are various building sites out there but, as stated above, I don't know what is good and what isn't. So if someone has any great builds they could share with me, I'd really appreciate it.

I'm looking for more or less a gaming laptop (power wise). I want at least 1.0 Gig of Ram and a 256MB Vid Card in it. I don't need to have a huge LCD on it, but I guess larger is better, if it's reasonable in price. HD space isn't a huge factor either. I barely find myself filling up my 120GB at home, so anything about 100GB is good.

Lastly, I want to only spend between $1000-1500 for it and absolutely no more than that.

If someone can help me out, that'd be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

EDIT: Forgot to add my current laptop will be four years old this March.

[Zigma]

notebookforums.com

look under classifieds.


edit: i have a ton of notebooks for sale if you're interested.

Dell Inspiron B130, Intel Celeron M 1.6ghz, 512MB Ram, 60 gig, DVD/CDRW, 14.1"WXGA TFT, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Refurbished with 1 year Onsite! $550

Dell Inspiron B130, Intel Pentium M 1.7ghz, 512MB Ram, 40 gig, DVD/CDRW, 14.1"WXGA TFT, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Refurbished with 1 year Onsite! $575

Dell Inspiron 1501, AMD Turion 64 MK-36 (2.0), 512MB Ram, 60 gig, DVDRW, 15.4"WXGA TFT, 256MB Ati X1150 Shared, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Refurbished with 1 year $625

HP Pavilion DV8220, AMD Turion ML-37 2.0ghz, 512MB Ram, 160 gig, DVDRW, 17+WXGA TFT with Brightview, Ati X200 128MB IGP, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Refurbished with 3 month $800 [5+]

HP Pavilion DV9060US, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66ghz, 2Gig Ram, 240gig, DVDRW, 17+WXGA TFT with Brightview, 256MB Nvidia Geforce 7600, Webcam+Mic, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Brand New with 1 year $1,500

Toshiba Satellite A105-S2194, Intel Celeron M 1.73ghz, 512MB ram, 80 gig, DVDRW, 15.4"WXGA TFT with TrueBrite, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Refurbished with 3 month $575 [5+]

Toshiba Satellite P105-S6024, Intel Core Duo 1.6ghz, 1Gig Ram, 100 gig, DVDRW, 17+WXGA TFT with TrueBrite, 56K, Lan, Wireless, Refurbished with 3 month $875 [5]


(nevermind these but if someone is interested lol)

Compaq Evo N610C, Intel Pentium 4 1.8ghz, 512MB Ram, 30 gig, DVD, 14.1"XGA TFT, 32MB Ati 7500, 56K, Lan, Dead Battery, Dead Cmos, Sometimes You need to Restart, Used with 30 days $300

Dell Latitude C640, Intel Pentium 4 1.8ghz, 512MB Ram, 40 gig, DVD/CDRW, 14.1"SXGA TFT, 32MB Ati 7500, 56K, Lan, Sometimes shuts off on its own, Used with 30 days $380

Dell Latitude C640, Intel Pentium 4 1.7ghz, 512MB Ram, 30 gig, CD, 1.44, 14.1"XGA TFT, 32MB Ati 7500, 56K, Lan, Used with 30 days $350

IBM Thinkpad T30, Intel Pentium 4 1.8ghz, 512MB Ram, 40 gig, DVD, 14.1"XGA TFT, 16MB Ati 7500, 56K, Lan, Used with 30 days $400

[RuBP]

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/viewto ... ght=laptop

Some good sites in that thread.

[VZX]

I bought ASUS A8Js a while ago and quite satisfied with its performace
the drawback maybe a slightly lower battery life and no bass at all (never had a notebook before... so I'm not sure if there's a notebook with good bass speaker out there)

Here's one of the review
If you want a laptop with good performance+decent price at its class w/o butchering too much in graphics power, I recommend A8Js

Edit:
Oh and Spec:
- Core 2 Duo T7200 (2 GHz)
- Geforce Go 7700 512 MB click here to see mobile graphics card comparison
- WXGA+ (1440x900)
- 1 Gig DDR2 RAM 667 MHz expandable to 2 Gigs
- comes with 90 Gigs or 120 Gigs HD
- SoundMAX HD Audio Soundcard + integrated microphone
- 2.4 kg

[Saphirea]

Only thing Ill tell you is get the best video card with the most video card ram and system ram that can be on it.

[Boyiee]

I still havent bought mine - for a new one thought it was either sagernotebook.com, hp.com, or ibuypower.com

You can easily setup a 2.0ghz core 2 duo, 1gb ram, 256mb go7*00 notebook with either 15.4 or 17inches for 1200-1600$.

For used, notebookforums.com is best. I'm still undecided on how much I want to spend (1500 or 2000) or if I want new or used - but as it stands i'll probably go used as notebookforums.com sometimes has a crazy 3000$+ laptop with 3yearish warrenty selling for 1800ish lol.

[Aidin]

If you plan to do alot of work with CAD, I would advise you to get a noteboke with at least a 128mb video card, and 1gb or more RAM. AutoCAD 2007 has problems rendering 3D smoothly on my 512 RAM machine, but no problems whatsoever on my 2gb machine, both are almost identical except for the RAM.

[XxSlusherxx]

http://images.movie-gazette.com/albums/N/notebook-3.jpg

[Zigma]

imho it's not worth paying the almost $3,000 for a notebook with a kick ass video card because you can't (some you can, but you're limited) upgrade them.

you're gonna have to sell your laptop to get a new one later down the rode. It's best to get one with video card thats about 2 generations behind the "latest shit". You save a truck load of money and still see performance.

[Heian]

If you put AutoCAD on your laptop, just save alot. I mean really, seriously save your work alot and keep a back up file on a flash drive. AutoCAD has a knack for crashing when you least need that to happen. Um also you may want a really good chunk of RAM not so much for AutoCAD but for other programs you will be running at the same time so it shouldn't crash at all.

Oh and don't throw your laptop when you get pissed at AutoCAD like I did, luckily it hit my couch.

[Po]

http://images.movie-gazette.com/albums/N/notebook-3.jpg

lol I thought the same thing.
My girlfriend loves that movie lol