The Laptop Guide - Post here for questions, deals, etc.

[Callisto]

My cousin is trying to find a cheap($400 max) laptop for my aunt for Christmas, just a general use one for internet and such, anyone have recommendations on the lower-end Asus ones or the new Win8 Satellites?

[Cliron]

Isn't there an Asus chromebook, if its just going to be used for general internet usage?

My nephew breaks electronics in ways I wouldnt think possible. My mother was going to spend 500 euro on a laptop for him, when all he does is troll on facebook and youtube. I've convinced her to get him a chromebook as anyone I know with one swears by them for what they do (light and portable, cheap, if you only use internet and dont mind google docs).

[Anakron]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-i...H5JtFRx58wr2vA

The good thing is that there's free shipping, and if you don't like it, you can return it to a local store.

[Jicent]

Acer Aspire V5-552-X814 http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V5.../dp/B00EY50MKK


Screen Size 15.6 inches
Max Screen Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Processor 2.5 GHz
RAM 6 GB DDR3
Hard Drive 750 GB SATA
Graphics Coprocessor AMD Radeon HD 8650G
Graphics Card Ram Size 512 MB
Wireless Type 802.11bgn
Number of USB 2.0 Ports 2
Number of USB 3.0 Ports 1
Average Battery Life (in hours) 4.5 hours
Expand
Other Technical Details
Brand Name Acer
Series V5-552
Item model number V5-552-X814
Operating System Windows 8
Item Weight 4.4 pounds
Item Dimensions L x W x H 15.02 x 10.08 x 0.82 inches
Color Cool Steel
Processor Brand AMD
Hard Drive Rotational Speed 5400 RPM
Batteries: 1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)

Acer Aspire V5-572G-6679 http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V5.../dp/B00DKFFFXO

Screen Size 15.6 inches
Max Screen Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Processor 1.8 GHz Core i5 3337U
RAM 6 GB DDR3
Hard Drive 500 GB SATA
Graphics Coprocessor NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 720M
Graphics Card Ram Size 2000 MB
Wireless Type 802.11bgn
Number of USB 2.0 Ports 2
Number of USB 3.0 Ports 1
Average Battery Life (in hours) 5 hours
Expand
Other Technical Details
Brand Name Acer
Series V5-572G
Item model number V5-572G-6679
Operating System Windows 8
Item Weight 4.4 pounds
Item Dimensions L x W x H 15.02 x 10.08 x 0.82 inches
Color Polar Black
Processor Brand Intel
Hard Drive Rotational Speed 5400 RPM
Batteries: 1 Lithium ion batteries required. (included)



So I can't decide between these 2 laptops because I am not familiar with amd's apu tech(haven't bought a pc since 09). I always thought dedicated>integrated card but I've noticed while doing research on these 2 pc's that the amd with the intergrated card slightly out performs the intel with the dedicated card.If someone could give me an idea on whats better than that would be awesome.

[Anakron]

The GT 720M is so weak that you're probably not much worse off (if at all) with a Haswell i7's integrated GPU. You could do a lot better than the second model for $700.

EDIT: By better, I mean Haswell i7 with 1080p.

[Jicent]

I actually have a refurbished version on hold for $495 my budget is around 500.

[Anakron]

Well, HP isn't the best of brands, but a quick search found these:

http://holiday.microsoftstore.com/st...ctID.289454900
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Asus-VivoBoo...item4d14fb5517

Even at $500, you should be able to do much better than a refurbished Acer. I mean, you go to HP's store and you can build a new one with better specs (minus the GT 720M) for $500ish.

[Grieverbk]

Looking at replacing my aging laptop as it's showing multiple signs of imminent failure lately.
Was wondering if anyone around here has any experience with Maingear?

I'm currently looking at a few options, but this has made it to the top of my list recently.
http://www.maingear.com/custom/notebooks/pulse17/

General reputation online appears to be that they make a quality product, but if anyone here has/had one of their systems, i'd be happy to hear your opinion.

[The Stig]

That laptop is just a mirror/rebranded MSI GS70 (http://www.msi.com/product/nb/GS70-S....html#overview) and has terrible cooling qualities. Avoid if I were you. As good as it is due to it being slim, it's just not designed to effectively cool a Tier 2 Gaming Mobile Chip.

EDIT: Ignore my opinion if you live somewhere constantly cold and/or you are in are in chilled environment where the extra heat generated from laptop is moot; if you don't turn up the heating

[Grieverbk]

The heat/cooling isn't much of an issue for me, my current M14x gets hot to the point where you need to watch how you grab it after a gaming session or you'll burn yourself.
Fucking lol @ the rebranding though, it's identical as far as I can tell, and the MSI one is nearly $500 less ($800 with shipping and all) than the Maingear.
Budget isn't really an issue, but if I can save that kind of money on an identical product, i'm going to

Thanks for the heads up.

[Edit] Nevermind, was reading things wrong, both are in fact identical.

[The Stig]

I didn't check the prices as I'm not familiar with US market prices, but yeh at least I saved you some money.

I find it to be desirable laptop due to its size/slim factor, but I would've thought a m14x's cooling is good compared to this; it's not that slim if I remember correctly (my m17x has grills and with my big ass cooling pad it always feels cool to touch even after a session)

In any case I'd go with MSI then, not only for the money but I would bank that reputation wise they'll be ahead, bad or good, and you should get better support maybe, although this may not always be true.

MSI rebrands too... they used to take Clevo Chassis and rebrand it. Now though it seems they're going for more customisation; I'm unsure if this particular laptop is a rebranding of another, or whether they took a base chassis, blinged it up, then via MSI themselves they'll pass it on for rebranding.

good review report: http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/lap...2od-002us.aspx



EDIT2: Seeing your budget -- why not buy a http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-syst...zer-blade-pro/ ? It looks futuristic and badass

EDIT3: I'm assuming your budget is in the $2000 range as the first link for maingear says the laptop starts at 2099 -- I believe a minor crowd of people will come in shortly and suggest to build a desktop, buy a netbook + ipad with the same money and call it a day..... but I know how you feel/what you're thinking <3

[Grieverbk]

I didn't check the prices as I'm not familiar with US market prices, but yeh at least I saved you some money.

I find it to be desirable laptop due to its size/slim factor, but I would've thought a m14x's cooling is good compared to this; it's not that slim if I remember correctly (my m17x has grills and with my big ass cooling pad it always feels cool to touch even after a session)

EDIT2: Seeing your budget -- why not buy a http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-syst...zer-blade-pro/ ? It looks futuristic and badass

EDIT3: I'm assuming your budget is in the $2000 range as the first link for maingear says the laptop starts at 2099 -- I believe a minor crowd of people will come in shortly and suggest to build a desktop, buy a netbook + ipad with the same money and call it a day..... but I know how you feel/what you're thinking <3

Yeah, the slim form-factor is the big sell for me.
I sometimes travel a fair bit with my laptop and i've grown tired of hauling around what generally turns into a dinner table due to it's size.
I used to run around with an 17" Asus N70Sv-A1 years ago, then moved to my M14x, I also currently have a Asus UX31a Zenbook I carry around, but that's used exclusively as a security toolkit/platform (Kali Linux) due to it's ultra-portability and limited storage space (128GB SSD)

I did look at the Blade Pro, but I spoke to a friend of mine who owns one and he didn't really give the Synapse UI/Controls a shining review, but that was really the only black mark on it.
Blade Pro tends to be significantly less spec-wise, and doesn't appear to perform as well in benchmarks as many other options at that pricepoint. Also, extremely limited storage, as it only has the single SSD where some the other systems i'm looking into offer SSD boot drives, paired with a high capacity HDD.

I don't really have a hard budget tbh, whatever I spend is my budget lol.
I already have a $3000 Desktop built and running strong (i'm not counting peripherals), so anyone telling me to do so is issuing a moot point, and obviously a netbook/ipad is not a solution when you're in the market for a gaming spec laptop.


[Edit] tbh, i'm really liking the look of the new Alienware models, but with me moving back up to a 17" laptop, i'm not sure I want to deal with a system that bulky again :/

[The Stig]

Aww gee I'm so jelly.... if I tank like 100 AK/WPs for you, can you buy me one? haha

Shopping around, you made me realise there's no other gaming class laptop slim chassis on the market besides that one, to which I'm quite amazed about.

The only other company I'm familiar with that operates in the US is http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Z...aming_Notebook

And that is the same laptop too to MainGear and MSIs lol. Although according to the offer/banner there, you can get FFXIV 1.0 !!!!!

[Jicent]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834231455

Ended up getting this instead, thanks for the advice.

[Souj]

Not really the kind of question that would normally be here, but before I left work, I had closed my laptop (but I accidentally left it on) and threw it in a bookbag filled with some clothes and misc junk. Its not going to overheat is it? I'm not sure how much, if any heat the thing puts off when it's closed

[The Stig]

As long as it was idle it's probably safe.

How modern is it? The newer it is the less heat it'll probably generate, unless you're still on one of them ancient Pentium 4 ones lol

EDIT: The battery will probably die before it poses any threat, and if it's a modern laptop it'll auto shutdown once CPU passes a certain amount of heat

[Souj]

It's a little acer netbook thing I bought new last year on clearance. I rounded up for worst case scenario lol

[The Stig]

Netbook? Then yeh it'll be fine as long as it's idle.

edit: and that your bag isn't in some warm room or a room with heating.... lol

[Kiarax]

Joining new laptop club since current one is falling apart. Done a little digging around and this is the best I've come up with:
http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/sy...plorer_X6-6000
Would be upping memory to 8 GB (dunno if 4 GB x2 or 8 GB is better, any benefit to one over the other?) and using a faster HD but everything else as is (with Win 7 ofc). Comes out to around £850 and that's about as high as I'd really like to go (struggling to find anything much cheaper without dreadful specs). Any opinions from those of you less techtarded than myself? Will be used for gaming primarily and a little photoshop and video editing.

[Prothescar]

The only difference that x amount of RAM sticks compared to y amount of RAM sticks makes is stability; the less you have plugged in to the bus, the more stable your system will be (usually). It doesn't matter very much though, so just do whichever one is cheaper. Unlikely that you'd find anything cheaper when it comes to mobile PC gaming; powerful laptops always come at a premium.