Looking to buy a new Laptop

[Deepak]

okay I already have a laptop but well im starting to get a little bit pissed off at it. It only has 40 gig HD, intel centrino M processor and well only 512mb ram.

So im looking to build a new laptop .. well rather buy a new laptop. But I want to customise it for the best possible results. The things that im looking at is the brand, the processor, graphics card, RAM, whether or not I should have a blu ray drive or a simple DVD + /-RW will be enough on it. The battery will be a big thing as well.

So im looking for recommendations as well as any other advice when looking for a new laptop.

[AYHJA]

As with most things Deep, this depends on how much you want to spend...

For about $600, you should expect to have 2 GB of RAM, 120 GB of disk space, w/at least a decent Athlon in it...

For what its worth, anything with a Core 2 Duo is where I would start...They're just exceptional chips for the money...I don't know about Blu Ray players and recorders, but I'm pretty certain getting a laptop w/that capability will add into the price significantly...

Give me a ballpark on what you're looking to spend or finance, and I'll put a decent spec up for you...

[zaphodz]

Yes specs you require would be helpful.

I can tell you my experience if it helps. I needed a reasonable portable, easy to carry, yet powerful laptop for work. I ended up buying a Dell XPS m1330 laptop for a good price at around 10-15% off early 2008.

The 13 inch screen has a resolution of 1280 x 800 and is fine for everything I do including 3D work. I got mine with a dedicated nVidia graphics chip because I need it for 3D apps and for games. Battery life is about 2 hours with the small battery. I have 4GB ram and a dual core chip that does 2.8Ghz (though it is a 2.6Ghz chip).

If I was in the market again for a good priced laptop I would not hesitate to buy the updated version, the Dell Studio XPS 13.

I must say I hardly ever use the inbuilt dvd drive. It depends on how much of a movie fan you are as to whether blue ray will be of benefit.

Of course there are heaps of different laptops around and if you have some idea of screen size, portability and whatnot we could help you work out a good deal :)

[Deepak]

Well obviously I want something better than what I have.

Lets See i would like to spend around $2000 NZD to a max of $2500.

I want performance on the laptop. Would prefer the screen size to be above or equal to 15" atleast.
Processor has to be a dual core as I dont want slow processing speeds. I was looking towards maybe the 2.6 or 2.8ghz but a little bit less shouldnt be a problem
RAM has to be atleast 2 gigs and if possible 4 gigs.
I really do need a dvd burner atleast.
Hard Drive - It has to be around 300 gigs atleast, was thinking about a 2nd hard drive as well. Maybe do a dual boost system with XP and Vista Ultimate. Not going for any other lower versions of Vista.
Battery Life - I do want something with a high battery life. 3-4 hours a minimum.
Graphics chip/card - has to be able to support games etc.
Needs atleast 3 USB ports preferably four.
Goes without saying needs to have wifi .
Considering that A loves vista, which vista version would you go for?

I cant think of anything else right now.

[zaphodz]

You could probably do with just one hard drive since dual hard drive laptops are a bit rareish, expensive and they are pretty bulky.

You can setup one hard drive to dual boot XP and Vista. You can boot as many operating systems as you want from one drive really (only one at a time though of course - you can virtualise as many as you want in your favourite OS).

If you go for 4GB of ram, a 32 bit operating system like XP and Vista Ultimate 32 bit will only see 3.5GB or so of ram. You would need a 64 bit operating system like XP64 or Vista Ultimate 64 to be able to use all 4GB of ram. Depends how important it is to you to be able to use all the ram. Your software must be 64bit compatible to use it as well.

Every laptop these days has wifi. Most have at least 2 USB ports.

[AYHJA]

Ahh, the AYHJA Tech team back in action..! Nice work zaph, as always... :D

For what you're willing to spend Deep, I bet we could find you something Dual Core, 64 bit...Also, I agree with zaph, just get one of those pocket externals for the extra space, mp3's, movies and all that...If you want one small enough to fit in your hand, you can get a 300GB for about $120, but for that same price you could probably get a good 500-1000 GB external that's a little bigger...

I have Vista Ultimate...I think its great, and on a machine like we're about to spec out, you shouldn't have any issues...But for reasons zaph outlined, you might want to shy away from the 64 bit stuff unless its necessary...I have a system w/2 GB of RAM, runs like a champ and is about 3 years old now...Plus, w/the ready boost, you can scoop a good 1 GB thumb drive if you need a little pep for shit, maybe $10...

Curious though, why dual boot w/XP..? I use M$ Virtual Machine, It's like the best of all worlds...I have both an XP install and a Windows 7 install and they run great on my machine...I still have not had a program yet that wouldn't run on Vista and had to run on XP, so I don't even use it that much...

I'm gonna go through some stuff and see what I can come up with for you ASAP M8....

[zaphodz]

That's true - there isn't much point having a dual boot setup of XP/Vista. You might as well pick an operating system (most likely Vista since that's what PC's come with now) and just use virtualisation for stuff that doesn't work. Or if Vista irritates you just use XP or even Windows 7 now since I think the beta 32/64 is good enough to run on right now.

I use M$ Virtual machine too :) But lately I've also been using Virtualbox since it runs anyone's VM's nicely (without installing tons of crap like VMWare). For some places I work I get the offer of a laptop or a company locked virtual machine and I always just take the virtual machine so I only have to carry one laptop around :)

[Deepak]

I like the idea of a virtual machine. Although I must admit I havent used a virtual machine before but will try it out fa sho. Cant do it on my current machine because it doesnt have the spec's to run a VM.

As for the 64bit OS, Id rather go for the 32 bit. Easier to find software that would run on it. And I completely forgot about that aspect of Vista where you can easily extend the RAM through USB.

As for a 2nd hard drive, its not a neccessity. The thing is I like my music on my HD but well if I get something like a 300 gig HD on my laptop that should well cover my needs for my music and oh yeah Preferably I would like a wide screen because i do tend to watch a lot of movies on my laptop.

So lets check out what you guys suggest.

[zaphodz]

With Vista you aren't actually extending the RAM through USB. That feature is ReadyBoost - it allows you to speed up how quickly the computer boots by putting stuff on a flash drive (flash drives read faster than a hard drive).

[WAY]

*twiddles thumbs*
Well, um, nothing to do here then. :D
Awesome work Zaph and Ja.