Laptop Advice

[Killswitch]

I'm looking to replace my current, aging laptop with something a bit more modern (I hear you have things called batteries nowadays which are smaller than the little steam engine that drives my current laptop).

It's mainly going to be for work...coding, web design, running PuTTY and email and web stuff, but I'd like to be able to play a few games every now and again too;

1) Football Manager 2010
2) DAOC (yay!)
3) Half-Life 2

Just for some light relief. I'm wondering if anyone with some experience of laptop-gaming could give some pointers on what to look for. Ideally I don't want to spend much more than £600 (which is about...erm...600 euros!!) and I don't want to play Crysis or some other eye-candy horror on it. I've got a PS3 for that kind of stuff.

Best one I've seen (I think!) so far is this one;

Acer 5739G with GeForce 240M Graphics

Which has got a pretty decent GFX card and an okay CPU for not that much money, really.

Any advice will be gratefully received!!

Dave

 

[kiniki]

Hey Dave,

There is loads of good lappys about, Ebuyer do a non branded one wich is a very good spec, but has a not so hot GFX card for about £350.

I can hook you up with a 10% discount on a Dell lappy if you wanted one of them.

Have a look at the XPS 15 range, there good for under £600.

Just look about, if its going to be a gaming laptop then dont go for shared or discrete graphics as they will suck

 

[Cromcruaich]

Acer do have some bargains at the moment and they are getting solid reviews.

The turion ones offer particularly good value, as I think they are trying to unload em, for example:
Acer Aspire 7535G Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer

Hard to find benchmark comparisons with core2's however from what i've seen they arnt a million miles away.

If you arnt bothered about having the decent gcard in then can go much cheaper, though tbh for the money i'd def go for a dedicated gcard, you never know when you might want to load something up a bit more fancy, DAOC for example!

 

[Fast]

Looks a great buy the Acer

 

[fiire]

just my 2pence worth, i looked at alot of laptops before i bought mine, i can honestly say you cannt beat this
rock :: Welcome :: Ultimate performance gaming laptops and notebooks 840


eek but i just seen you only wanna pay £600 so this is no good to you

 

[liloe]

Spend a few more bucks, buy this one: Apple - MacBook - The $999 notebook, completely redesigned.

Yes I know I'm a freak, but that thing simply IS awesome, so why not spend some money for quality =)

Battery life is awesome (and the numbers aren't a lie, just so you know), display quality is awesome and well, the whole thing is awesome

 

[ST^]

Spend a few more bucks, buy this one: Apple - MacBook - The $999 notebook, completely redesigned.

Yes I know I'm a freak, but that thing simply IS awesome, so why not spend some money for quality =)

Battery life is awesome (and the numbers aren't a lie, just so you know), display quality is awesome and well, the whole thing is awesome

Maybe he cares about value for money.

Fucking Apple fans. Seriously.

 

[Killswitch]

Acer do have some bargains at the moment and they are getting solid reviews.

The turion ones offer particularly good value, as I think they are trying to unload em, for example:
Acer Aspire 7535G Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer

Hard to find benchmark comparisons with core2's however from what i've seen they arnt a million miles away.

If you arnt bothered about having the decent gcard in then can go much cheaper, though tbh for the money i'd def go for a dedicated gcard, you never know when you might want to load something up a bit more fancy, DAOC for example!

Well, several months later than planned, I've just ordered what looks like a cracking laptop from Acer;

Acer 5740G 15.6" laptop (1366x768)
Core i5-430M CPU @ 2.26GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon Mobility HD5650 1GB DDR3 GFX Card
BD-ROM/DVD-RW Combo Drive
500GB 5400RPM HDD

Got the whole thing delivered for £700 which I reckon is a bit of a steal for that spec. Should be arriving on Tuesday. Benchmarks I've seen for the Core i5-430M and the HD5650 suggest it should handle DAOC, HL2 and Football Manager without breaking a sweat.

I've not got it yet, so I can't really recommend either the seller or the build quality of the laptop, but just on price it seems great! Next thing is to save up for a nice SSD to stick in it instead of the crappy 5400 drive it's got now.

Acer Aspire 5740G LX.PMB02.093
Notebookcheck: Intel Core i5 430M Notebook Processor
Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

Last thing...notebookcheck.net is an incredibly useful website if you're trying to compare laptop specs!!

 

[liloe]

Maybe he cares about value for money.

Fucking Apple fans. Seriously.

I admit I'm in love

I have yet to see a cooler laptop, though =) With world-wide service etc.

 

[Jeros]

I admit I'm in love

I have yet to see a cooler laptop, though =) With world-wide service etc.

I was looking at macs as i have 20% discount as a student

STILL NOT WORTH IT!

 

[Punishment]

My laptop

Absolute beast runs 2 accounts and youtube in the back perfectly , dont buy xps or alienware trash and for the love of god dont touch apple stuff for gaming , this is where its at and that exact model can be bought for under 1100 euros , 5 stars

Bear in mind tho she is a big girl , mine is a desktop replacement with keyboard and mouse plugges in at my desk

 

[Zenith.UK]

I've got an Acer Aspire 5920G from Aug 2007. It cost £800 at the time and is still a damn useful machine today.*
Acer Aspire 5920G-302G16N Notebook 2GHz [Discontinued]

My strongest suggestion to you would be to take out 3 yrs extended warranty on ANY laptop that you buy. I find many laptops will develop some mechanical fault in 3 years and the cost of the warranty would be less than the labour and parts of a major mechanical breakdown.


* Apart from the nVidia 8600M GT MXM-II graphic card that fried yesterday. £45 for a replacement part from eBay and a moderately simple fix.

 

[liloe]

... dont buy xps or alienware trash and for the love of god dont touch apple stuff for gaming ...

Why not? =) 2,83 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, GeForce 9600M GT with 512 MB

Newer MBPs have a better gfx card, but I'm not gonna buy a new notebook for that

Well and the LED backlit screen is just pure love =) Add a great keyboard and an even better touchpad to that and you have a wonderful thing. FW 800, Display Port and the best thing when not at home is simply the MagSafe power connector cause someone will always stumble over the cable. Had it flying around tons of times and that thing practically saved my notebook =)

 

[Zenith.UK]

Magsafe = Apple in good idea shocker.

Now if only Apple would licence it and make it an industry standard (like micro-USB on mobile phones now).