Need some suggestions on purchasing a laptop

[BewareTheDrow]

Hey guys. I have a couple of questions about buying a new laptop. I'm a student at the University of Pittsburgh (hail to pitt!) and I have a few base requirements for it.

1. No Pentium 4. Had a bad experience with major overheating on an Alienware Laptop (at 3.4 ghz no less). I'll only go for Pentium M or Athlon 64.

2. 512 mb of ram, hopefully a gig, only because XP has a urinary tract infection with anything less.

3. DVD Burner (preferably). I use images of my hard drive to back up, and its easier on a DVD than a CD with all the crap I have. Plus, its generally useful.

4. Radeon 9700, Radeon x800 or Nvidia 6800. I'd prefer the 6800 because it seems to run cooler from what I've read.

5. Hitachi Travelstar 60 GB 7200 RPM hard drive, only because I can't handle 5400 RPM hard drives. I can feel the difference, it would kill me.

6. Arctic Silver. Some notebooks dealers appear to use arctic silver on the heatsinks in the notebook. I've had some great experiences in the past six months with my desktop and overclocking temps with Arctic Silver, so if I can keep my notebook cold, all the better.

I've been looking at www.powernotebooks.com ; www.discountlaptops.com ; and some occasional random links I've found on here.

I wanted suggestions as to what a reasonable price for my requirements and any suggestions for performance would be from anyone on the board. Thanks for any help! :santa:

-Dennis

[sunrunner20]

First off imho, Your are not likely to find a laptop that fills ALL those requirements.

1. Easy enough to find, just have to look a little
2. Find a laptop with two slots for memory, then order more memory by default or install your own.
3. No knowlage on this area, only messed with DVD burners on my desktop
4. High end video cards have a tendancy to use alot of power, and for this you would likely need a laptop with a spot for video cards(probally supply a lesser one by default and you would buy install the better one yourself)
5. Again, something you will likely have to buy yourself and install, and something else that will suck battery life.
6. Is something you will have to take on yourself.

My guess is all that would add ~$1k+ to the total price for the computer.

[XunknownX]

5. Again, something you will likely have to buy yourself and install, and something else that will suck battery life.



I bought my Dell XPS and customized it through Dell with a 60gig 7200 rpm harddrive. I myself can also tell the difference. Death to <7200! haha

[Mr.Guvernment]

^^^

dell has good choices on their inspiroin 9200 and XPS.

Sager - check them out as well


#5 - the 7200 drives dont use nay more power then the 5400 / 4200 drives, or anything to worry about.

[CL56]

What kind of mobility are you looking for? Battery Life? Gaming?

[sunrunner20]

Jeez, don't look at your posts...

[enduro]

Definitely give the Dell XPS a look. Also, Sager seems to have a pretty good rep. For the ram, personally I would buy my own. You would have to figure out how to do that but I bought mine for 160 bucks from the Egg. It has a 9800 with 256 Mb so that's pretty high up there. The hdd you will probably have a problem with because it isn't exactly promoting a long battery life and most manufacturers what that. You might be lucky though, I didn't check out the XPS so it may have it.

[Penel]

Dude get a DELL!! ;)

[enduro]

Get a Dellf ;)

http://dell.eprize.net/dell/dellf/

[BewareTheDrow]

Sorry for the delayed response. Been working 14 hour days. I actually want this for more of a 'gaming laptop' (kind of a joke, I know) If I bought a laptop with less than high end specs, how can I tell if I can upgrade the video card? Memory is a given, same with the hard drive, but video card upgrades I'm not really familiar with on laptops. Any current and future help is greatly appreciated.

-Dennis

[enduro]

AFAIK, vidcard upgrading is very slim. They are almost prebuilt for the laptops and so only specific ones will work. You usually have to order the replacements through your lappie's manufacturer as well. Personally, I'd buy the best vidcard that you can afford right now and buy a gig of ram or something else later. The cpu, vidcard, and lcd display are three things you don't want to skimp on.

[BewareTheDrow]

The only major concern I have is price and heat. Disregard mobility/battery life for the time being. I just don't want another monster laptop that also overheats like nobody's business.

[enduro]

With a Pentium M you really don't have to worry about heat because it clocks down when it's not under stress. I think mine runs at 600 Mhz for normal use. The price isn't too bad either as long as you dont' go for a 2 Ghz or something.

[BewareTheDrow]

http://secure.hypersonic-pc.com/scripts/custom_sys.asp?sysid=Aviator_AX7

http://www.powernotebooks.com/product.php?itemId=396

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=34-224-006&depa=3

http://www.powernotebooks.com/product.php?itemId=58

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=34-224-004&depa=3

Those are four selections of notebooks that I'm looking at. Give me an idea of what you guys think. I think newegg is actually the best deal, just kinda iffy about ordering notebooks from them. That said, my desktop was built almost completely from parts ordered there, and its sexy. Thanks for any input.