Looking for a new Labtop

[diamondmine]

Well I am in the market for a new Laptop Computer. I currently have an old dell that works great but I have had it for 5 years and its really time to upgrade and buy something new.

I have had nothing but great things to say about my Dell but I was wondering what the next step would be. I see that Dell bought up Alienware, and I dont know too much about them. I know that Gateway also has some great systems but I am just not sure what to buy.

I guess I would be looking for a computer that would play eq (of course) and then also run Counter Strike, or any other game on the market.

I currently have windows xp and xp Pro on my machines and I dont know much about Vista.

I am looking for some information and experiences that this community has to offer.

Thank you,

~D

 

[thez]

If you like Dell, stick with it. I, personally, am a big fan of Dell computers, and would recommend them to anyone who asked. I played EQ for several years on a Dell PC and a Dell laptop. Alienware is a bad idea, though -- they rip people off nowadays (ironically, it started when Dell bought them out).

 

[Ioannis]

xpbargians.com

look for dell laptops, great deals

dual core, ddr2, decent video cards to run anything for under $600 to $800 last I looked

 

[Wasted]

My personal opinion...

Best laptops that money can buy, Apple. Specially now that you can just dual boot xp on them... they rock.

Best value for your money, Dell. But this is only really true if you buy the best support service possible. At that point, you're no longer buying a laptop, you're getting a guarantee of a laptop. --Wasted

 

[pullzem]

Having been manager of PC tech support since the company's 1st PC in 1981 I used to always build my own. But, when I decided to forego that choice and buy bundled PC's many years ago, I looked into the major players figuring they'd stay around. Even though I heard many negative comments from people on forums about Dell, I found some deals in their special-clearance area. Those are custom PC's that customers backed out of purchasing for various reasons and Dell discounts them really well since they contain many variations of hardware and software. They come with full warranties since they're brand new and configured at Dell.

I shopped thru the 100's of listings looking at the loaded software and specific hardware configurations I desired. They have customized search algorythms to narrow your list to include some items you feel must be included. Anyway, I found a couple choices that were even better than Dell had discounted, as they included video cards in the configurations but not included in the pricing sheets (so basically I got hardware their pricing forgot to list in the total price before discounting for some reason). As for anything negative about Dell...knock on wood...not a single problem of any kind with any Dell PC I've bought...and I passed on buying the extended warranties. They offer you the chance to purchase the extended plans for the first 90 days so if you decide you just don't feel comfortable with the 1 year warranty, you can plunk down more money.

The savings would have been nice even without the hardware they forgot to include in the pricing, as they want to move those custom PC's. It's just a matter of finding one that meets or comes really close to what you want and who knows, you might even still find bonus included hardware. To this day, they don't list my video cards in their "delivered to customer" configuration but they were in the PC's when I unboxed them

 

[gman]

I have to second Thez's comment on Alienware. I have an Area 51 and while it does most things well I have nothing but problems with it from day one. Also forget about it being a laptop... its huge, heavy, over heats and don't plan on using it with it not being pluged in as it will run the battery down in about 10 min. Its a desktop in a laptop case.

 

[gladimus]

As I have worked for Dell.....

Dell Laptops are great but do have issues and worth it to buy the extended warranty and the complete care package.

My company recently bought 2 new "Vostro" Systems from Dell. They are great machines but the HDD had already gone bad on one of them. Thankfully Dell shipped out a new HDD next day and was back up and running in about 45 min.

If you don't care about warranty then shop www.delloutlet.com some GREAT deals on misorder and scratch and dent stuff!

 

[Sac916]

i use a dell laptop i bought las time this year for $1500 runs great, just be sure to get extended warranty. i play 3-4 toons on laptop smoothly. 2 gigs of ram duel core. i always buy dell.

 

[RageATM0998]

I have a ThinkPad and love it. I've only had one problem in the 3 and a half years that I've had it, and they were quick to ship me a box, so I could send it in and have it fixed through my warrenty plan. From the time I contacted them about it to the time I had my laptop back and fixed was less than a week. I also feel that it's one of the more durable laptops I've seen / used. If you're like me and tend to be a bit rough and/or clumsy with your stuff, it might be worth looking into. I've dropped mine on accident from chest height onto the floor while running and it didn't hurt it at all (not that I'd suggest doing this on purpose).

 

[fubarcat]

Look into MSI brand

In Sept of 07 I purchased a GX700 for my son to use in engineering school. The specs he needed for their program to make drawings was a bit demanding and to buy a machine to run it was looking at 3k. I ran onto MSI on EBAY of all places and found a couple stores there that carried them. They come with a couple different kinds of processors AMD or Intel your coice and also you can have your preference on video cards from Nvidia to Radeon both offering 512mb on board. In Jan of 08 my Alienware fried its motherboard so I decided to purchase one of these MSI laptops to play EQ on. Mine has Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz Intel processors, Nvidia 8600 1024mb on board graphics card, 4gb of 667 kingston ram, 17" lcd screen. So far it seems to run flawlessly. Last week I loaded 2 instances of EQ on it and it lagged out a little in the guild lobby so I tweaked the graphics card down some and it disappeared. Price I paid for this bad boy (you sitting down) $1550 + $25 s/h.
If you are interested in more info I will check back here when I get home and post the stores info so you can contact them if you want see what they have in stock. Only downfall is it came with no operating system. I just looked on EBAY there is a couple listed there by frostycomputers which is who I purchased my sons from and was a smooth transaction. His are not quite as good as the one I got but the prices are a bit lower also to reflect it. Just goto EBAY and goto laptops and in the search window at the top type MSI and there should be about 10 or so listed. Look for the GX700 series ones they will be your best gamers. GL on your purchase.

 

[Villageidiot]

what i run

Not that this is the best or even par for that matter but it is what i run. Haven't had too many probs at all.

HP Pavillion dv9000
4g ram

I can 3 box no prob.

it's cheap too