Best Laptop For $1,500-$1,700

[lilxvietxboi]

Hey,

I was looking up laptops recently and I wanted to know what kind of laptop would be best for traveller/office work. Preferably 3.2ghz w/ 512ram and at least 40gb HD and wireless networking b/g.

I liked the Toshiba Satallite line, but I was wondering what else I could afford. Thanks for all your help.

 

[Avg]

Well I would recomend a pentium m, you won't find one at 3.2ghz but it does more work per cycle then a p4 and uses less energy.

 

[Flanagun]

I'd check out the sager laptops. www.sagernotebooks.com or www.pctorque.com

 

[enduro]

If you buy from Dell in the next 7 days or so you can get 20% off a Inspiron notebook using codes from here:
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=344507&highlight=dellf

That's what I'm doing. Just bought a laptop from them that would have cost 1910 bucks for around 1500. Saved a chunk of change. Here's some of the specs on it. If you're wondering, I added free shipping and other saving into the cost so no.... my math isn't that bad lol.

Pentium M 1.6 Ghz A processor
WSXGA+ screen 1680*1054
1 gig of pc2700 Sodimm (bought it from Newegg) added in price
Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro Turbo ( had to have it)
CDRW/DVD Combo drive
Free Intel Pro Wireless card (definite plus). So you can get a Centrino setup basically.
2 80 cell batteries........ the spare will definitely come in handy

So you can definitely get a nice system with some awesome savings if you are planning on buying before the 5th of Jan. (when the coupon's end).

 

[gvblake22]

Well I would recomend a pentium m, you won't find one at 3.2ghz but it does more work per cycle then a p4 and uses less energy.

I second that.
Dothan all the way

 

[Xenocide]

get an asus and build it yourself, you can easly get a 2.0ghz dothan and a 9700 mobility with even an 80 gig harddrive for under 1700$

 

[Avg]

get an asus and build it yourself, you can easly get a 2.0ghz dothan and a 9700 mobility with even an 80 gig harddrive for under 1700$

That sounds interesting, I'm also looking for a laptop but I want to be able to play games on it, and from what I'm seeing I"ll have to spend over 1.5k to get one that does what I want, but if it was possible to get the stuff to build it slowly then I would definately go that way.

 

[enduro]

I'm not sure if I can see a price like that with a good screen on it, 768-1024 Mb of ram, CDRW, wireless card, and two batteries. The 9700 is great and all unless you have a cheap XGA screen to go along with it that can only handle 800*600. Not stating anything because I couldn't get the Asus site to work. Just wondering if that includeds everything you'd need to be able to use it normally.

 

[Xenocide]

it comes as a barebones kit, all you have to add is

cpu, hdd, and mem

 

[Pinky]

Do you have any size requirements? I know my laptop is used for portability, so it couldn't be TOO heavy (less than 8 lbs was my rule). I found an older Toshiba satellite through the ocforum classifieds and it's been doing great. I only use it for work, email, and internet. Minor spreadsheet work and minimal photo editting. It's my backup as well. Now, it's only an early P4 celeron but I can't tell the difference in basic PC apps. I would never game with it, no 3d card. If you want a decent gaming laptop you're looking at a $2,000 - $2,500 entry fee for something that will come close to replacing a low end gaming desktop.

 

[feyd83]

get an asus and build it yourself, you can easly get a 2.0ghz dothan and a 9700 mobility with even an 80 gig harddrive for under 1700$

I second that, I love my Asus M5N. Cheap as dirt and high quality.

 

[enduro]

If you want a decent gaming laptop you're looking at a $2,000 - $2,500 entry fee for something that will come close to replacing a low end gaming desktop.

I'm not so sure about those numbers. I'll be able to verify it once I get my rig, but I've talked to two people with the same setup all ready and they could play Doom III on Medium as well as Half Life 2. That's from a 1500 dollar laptop. The vidcard helps quite a bit.......... Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro. I've tried playing Half Life 2 on my dad's lappie that has a MX440 Go on it and it couldn't even handle the beginning at low 640*480 although he only has 512 Mb of ram and it couldn't keep up. Maybe if he had a gig it might have done better.

 

[Avg]

I found a couple of laptops at newegg for about 1.5k with 9600 and 9700mobility, even if it has 256mb it can be upgraded later, ofcourse they are from companies may have not heard of before.

 

[lilxvietxboi]

Haha, This is for my friend, I know I didn't post it, but it doesn't matter.

He INSISTS on have 3.2ghz (I know, I know, I told him Pentium M will last longer and you won't be able to tell the difference and he said, what about $1,700(From the original $1,500) I'm like whatever.) I rather get him a Pentium M wth 512 or 1gb memory. This won't be for gaming. Just for office work. No size requirements, but the weight has to be decent, NOT heavy.

So right now I'm considering the dell and toshiba satallite(i have an older one and i still love it).

Q. Can sager be bought in B&M stores? We don't have a credit card to buy online.

 

[sunrunner20]

In My experience, Toshiba has top notch warrantee support. And, apparently I am not alone in this opinion because some group with a reasonable of authority on the matter (I forget who) ranked Toshiba the best. I have had a satellite 1200-S122 for 3 years now and the only major thing that has gone wrong with it is my backlight failed. The backlight failed a couple months ago, but I have a Select Serve (if they still call it that) 3 year warrantee which covers everything, and it only kicks in after the normal warrantee drops off. So, I have another year of warrantee. Another nice thing, I have heard most companies won’t do crap about intermittent problems. Toshiba, replaced my DVD-Rom drive, which would occasionally refuse to read a disk, and my keyboard, which my control key would sometimes get “stuck” down in windows but was fine at the physical switch. I suspected it was hardware, but turns out it was a screwy windows install. They even replace my speakers at my request because they had a little dent in them. Oh, and please not that the laptop has gone with me too school and almost everywhere else since day one of its purchase.

 

[lilxvietxboi]

Yeah I have a satallite pro 4600 (free so im not complaining) Love it.. nothing wrong with it yet. except heat which is a basic problem in all lappy's but yeah. anyone suggest any specific laptop in this price range?

 

[Pinky]

I'm not so sure about those numbers. I'll be able to verify it once I get my rig, but I've talked to two people with the same setup all ready and they could play Doom III on Medium as well as Half Life 2. That's from a 1500 dollar laptop. The vidcard helps quite a bit.......... Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro. I've tried playing Half Life 2 on my dad's lappie that has a MX440 Go on it and it couldn't even handle the beginning at low 640*480 although he only has 512 Mb of ram and it couldn't keep up. Maybe if he had a gig it might have done better.

You'll need 512MB RAM at 400 FSB and at least a 9600 mobile with 128MB (9700 with 256 is ideal). To get all of this in a laptop, last I checked, it was over $2,000. As full desktop replacements, laptops are as close as they have ever been, but still at a premium cost.

 

[enduro]

512 Mb of DDR400? Is that what you mean? Or 512 Mb of ram and a 400fsb which the Dothan I'm getting has. If you mean DDR400 then yeah. Only the XPS laptop has DDR400 in it. The others all have DDR333. The system I'm getting has 1 gig of DDR333 though with good timings and a 128 Mb Mobility 9600 Pro. It's coming on or before next Friday so I'll be able to post results in about a week. Hopefully it will be able to game as well as I hope it will.

 

[AZNBoiOnFIYA]

if you are looking to a office/work laptop, i would recommend ibm's thinkpad series. they are seriously thin and light and are great for traveling. i wouldnt recommend the xps for just office/work just because it weights like 9lbs. my friend bought one for college and ive only seen him carry it with him once.

 

[enduro]

Well, I'm going to have mine with me everywhere, I have a backpack for school that has a laptop holder in it so that should help a bit. The school I will be going to have wireless networks in the Engineering buildings. My job ( math and physics tutoring) has cable as well so I can play UT and surf the web from my lappie at anytime. My job doesn't require much work so I get paid to sit around for 5 hrs and surf the web I love my job.

If you could online use Word on your lappie and you couldn't access the internet wirelessly though.............. that would be a pain. I can see why he would get annoyed with a 9 lb paper weight.