which laptop should I get?

I am going to get a laptop from bestbuy and if I get a Sony I get 24 months no interest which will allow to pay this thing off.....I know that after 24 months they will hit me hard.....but I figured 24 months would be enough time....can someone here point me to which sony I should get...or even another place I can get 24months or more interest free and which laptop from them you advise....thanks A TON!...I am so excited.....I would love to have a small computer with great battery life.......as for gamming...I think all laptops stink anywho.....so it matters none to me....besides all I play is CounterStrike so it is no biggie....but if I could get one with a good graphics card and good battery life and below $1700 that would also rock(of course...hehe)....thanks a TON! again for your input!

I plan on coding on this thing and bringing it to class and such...hence the reason for the smallness....also I would love it tohave wireless capabilities...thanks again

I plan on coding on this thing and bringing it to class and such...hence the reason for the smallness....also I would love it tohave wireless capabilities...thanks again

Well my suggestion is if you want power, good battery life, gaming power and the ablity to move around would be getting a Vaio based on Centrino Technology. Toshibas aren't bad either, look at the Protege.

If price is an issue then you might wanna look at some Athlon or Pentium 3 M based laptop. The battery life on most P4 M or P4 based Celeron is a joke(under 2 hours) and are usually heavy like 8-10 pounds.

The Mobile Radeon 9000 seems to be a good video card for what you need, the Mobile 9600 seem to be the best out there but you pay a premium.

Some nice mid end notebooks in your price range would be the Viao GRT series, the Compaq Presario 2100-2500 series and the Toshiba Protege series.

what about the dell 600m?

The specs on the Dell are excellent, but IMHO it's ugly compared to other brands. And in the other post the only the older proteges would be in your price range so you can ignore that.

have ya seen the neato SKINS!hehe

where do you see a comperable toshiba?....Iam lost I suppose but their portable centrino laptops are starting at 2.1K thats 1K to much..the one I want is the bare 600m with the 64meg atiradeon9000 which I think is an awsomest buy....1.3 is also way enough for me.....I think it will run most of the games I thow at it.....as for in the long run I don't think gaming is it's main purpose anywho...so I might even settle for the very base model...but for just $75 more I don't see why I shouldn't get the 64 meg

Yeh I've seen those but to me it gets kinda cheap like cell phone covers. To me nothing beats the look of Sony but only the look, not the actually specs.

yeah the Vaio's are aWsOme!

eDiT: LoOkInG!

The Dell does seem to hit the spot on everything you need in a laptop and fits your budget to a penny.

I'm thinking of getting a bunch of ppl who own laptops together then making a thread on taking care of them with tips like never use windex on the screen and what not. I just got a laptop and learned so much on how to take care of it so there might be some tips you might wanna share.

aight sounds like a plan .....I just need to order the darn thing

I just got mine from R&J technology. I ordered it with the options I wanted, and I think I got a great deal. It's a 1.4 centrino, 256 Meg DDR (laptop ddr is so cheap, I just bought 256 more from newegg for like $45). It has a 15" screen, 40 gig 5400 rpm hdd, radeon 9000 64 mb gpu, and a dvd/cd burner combo drive. It has built in support for usb 2.0 and firewire, built in 802.11b wireless, and an infrared port. I think it also has a built in smart card reader, though I haven't tried that. I paid about $1650 for it. It shipped with all necessary drivers, a battery, and a nice carry case. Here's the downside-the speakers. The speakers in my old HP pavilion put this one to shame. That said, no laptop will have good speakers. That's what the headphone jack is for. I ordered it without an operating system or any 3rd party software, so you have to keep in mind that you get those with most other laptops. They were available, I just wanted all the hardware I could get for the money. They were slow to deliver because of a supplier problem, but they called me early on and told me of the trouble, thereby giving me the option to change or cancel my order. I waited, and I'm glad I did. The machine has performed flawlessly, and even with a pretty small battery, the battery life has been very good so far. About 4 hours of light use seems to be the norm. Keep in mind that I ordered a 5400 rpm hard drive instead of the standard 4500 you normally see in laptops. Overall, R&J technology really did a bang up job for me.

treepop said:

what about the dell 600m?

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I second that vote! My roommate bought a 600m a while back and I fell so much in love with it that I bought one this week (I was in the market for a laptop).

I've got myself an ati radeon 9000 64MB graphics card in it, got integrated wireless, and with the second battery, I can get up to 8 hours of battery life. Plus I got it all for around 1300 and its plenty small to take to class.

Also, you can't really beat a dell in the way of service. Get the 3 year mail in service and you never need to worry about the thing.

And if you do go for the 600m, be sure to upgrade to the 40GB hard drive. The 40GB is the 5400rpm version, faster than the 30 or 60.

EDIT: oh, and Sandra scores tell me the 1.3Ghz version perform better than an athlon xp 1800+ and I can get about 6500 3dmarks in 3dmark 2001 when plugged in.

krusty
wow those are some nice stats for a laptop!
v8440
thanks for the info I will look into R&J technology

I picked up a Dell Inspiron 8500 recently and im in love with this thing,its got the geforce 4 4200 go,it gets a little over 9000 in 3dmark 2k1.It just amazes me!Playing vice city now smooth as silk and theres nothing like being able to go out on my patio at night and playing ut2k3 online wireless or burn a cd.Its also got a 15.4" widescreen which is awesome for dvd's.It does get very hot though and is not exactly a light weight but in very happy with it.

*JEREMY* said:

I picked up a Dell Inspiron 8500 recently and im in love with this thing,its got the geforce 4 4200 go,it gets a little over 9000 in 3dmark 2k1.It just amazes me!Playing vice city now smooth as silk and theres nothing like being able to go out on my patio at night and playing ut2k3 online wireless or burn a cd.Its also got a 15.4" widescreen which is awesome for dvd's.It does get very hot though and is not exactly a light weight but in very happy with it.

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Definately not the laptop you want to drag to school every day. portable gaming station, yes, but definately not the carry around every day portable. My other roommate has an Inspiron 8100. It gets about 4 hours of battery life with 2 batteries and is quite a beast.

I have a toshiba I dont want anymore with a 4 year warranty and its brand new! Should have said somthing

2.4ghz.768 ddr .Wireless technology built right in too

^^^ cost or is there a thread in the sell area? (pm me the price or point me to the selling thread)