Laptop Opinions

[Kaladran]

I know, I know... this is probably one of the most asked questions, but I'm so out of date with current PC hardware I'm having trouble telling if this laptop is a good deal or not. Pretty much I'm looking for something that can is good for sitting in front of the TV and to take with me on the occasional trip. I won't be playing the the latest and greatest games, but I would like to be able to play the occasional game or two. The only "new" game I can see myself playing on this would be Heroes of Might and Magic 6, all other gaming would probably stay on my desktop.

So what do people think?

Price - $685.99 CAD

Inspiron 14R:
Inspiron 14 Notebook


Processor:
2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-2410M processor 2.30 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 2.90 GHz


Operating System:
Genuine Windows® Home Premium, 64-Bit, English


Memory:
4GB Shared Single Channel DDR3 Memory


Hard Drive:
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive


Video Card:
AMD Radeon™ HD 6470M (64-bit) 1GB Graphic


CD ROM/DVD ROM:
8X Tray Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)


Monitor:
14.0" High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife™


Network Card:
Integrated 10/100 Network Card


Sound:
HD Audio 2.0 Support SRS™ Premium Sound


Wireless:
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030, 1x2 bgn + Bluetooth


Battery:
48 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery

[bullet4o1]

Looks good to me. Sandy Bridge and 6470 graphics. That should play most of the newest games on medium or low settings. That's about the same that I had my brother get for a gaming laptop.

[ketchuo]

everything looks great, so I would go for it, and it does go for a good price. I've been using a 450 gb hard drive when I first got my computer and im still at 200+ gb

[Clay Pigeon]

6470 is pretty weak, It only has 160 stream processors (divide by 5 to get the approximate # of nvidia pipeline equivalence, or 32 nvidia pipelines).

You'd be better off going with a notebook powered by an AMD A-series APU if you plan on gaming and don't want to spring for high-end dedicated graphics.* The A8 laptops have 400 stream processors or the equivalent of 80 nvidia pipelines. Not really powerful enough to play crysis, but enough for most less demanding games, including source with the eye candy on.

See: http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/NOTEBOOK ... eam.aspx#3

*avoid toshiba, panasonic and sony, they've opted out of AMD's driver program so you can't get driver updates from AMD for those brands, you have to go through the laptop manufacturer.

[One_Medic_Army]

Specs look decent, laptop choice is mostly about what you want to do with the machine.
Is it s gaming machine that'll be sitting on a table?
Is it a portable machine that'll be sitting in your bag all the time?
Will you be watching movies/shows on it?

Apart from that you didn't list if it's Vista of 7 (assuming it's 7, avoid Vista)
Nor did you list the manufacturer, which is also important, depending if you want cheap or well built and durable.

[metacide]

If you're going to get a Dell, check out the Dell refurbs. You can spend about half as much and still get a fantastic warranty, so if it breaks you can get it repaired or get a brand new one.

That being said, I dislike Dell.

[MrBlah]

It seems a bit expensive if you ask me.

[One_Medic_Army]

If you're going to get a Dell, check out the Dell refurbs. You can spend about half as much and still get a fantastic warranty, so if it breaks you can get it repaired or get a brand new one.

That being said, I dislike Dell.

Never get a refurb laptop.
Too many things on any computer system are cumulative and aren't readily noticeable until something fails. You never know if you're getting the laptop someone practiced overclocking on and the CPU is only a couple days from exploding, and has consistently lower speeds from wear.

[metacide]

Never get a refurb laptop.
Too many things on any computer system are cumulative and aren't readily noticeable until something fails. You never know if you're getting the laptop someone practiced overclocking on and the CPU is only a couple days from exploding, and has consistently lower speeds from wear.

Disagreement. Dislike of Dell aside, I've picked up a few of these for business purposes. We get the warranty that will replace the laptops for free even if you run them over with your car (literally). We have only had cause to return one (it was run over by a car), the others are working splendidly.

Refurbs have a bad rep, but the quality team at Dell is apparently very much on the ball.

[One_Medic_Army]

Conversely my dad got a refurb'd HP laptop at Fry's (Don't get me started), which was a pile of crap at the onset, until when he was done making bad decisions with it the OS was mostly nuked and it took 10minutes to open a folder.
I'm not sure how much of it was due to him being stupid with the machine, how much was due to the (ab)use of the previous owner, and how much I can blame HP for; but overall it was not a good experience for anyone.

[Kaladran]

Thanks for the help... now I'm even more conflicted. I was really only looking at Dell because my GF's company has an employee purchase plan with them so there was a "slight" discount on the laptop. But if I can find something better and cheaper elsewhere I won't complain. I've also been playing around on Lenovo's site, but really I'm just unsure of what to take.

Really it does not need to be a gaming powerhouse, if it can play current games on medium settings then I'm happy. It won't be going out on my daily commute, but I probably would take it with me on vacation, so I don't want it to be a brick.

My price limit would be $750 - 800 tax incl.

[Clay Pigeon]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/ASUS+-+Lapt ... Id=2881042

449.99 usd at bestbuy in the USA. I dunno if they have bestbuy in Canada, but it has a discrete 6650 and an A6 quadcore, which has an on-chip gpu that can crossfire with the discrete card.

[Katotsu]

My experience with ASUS has made me decide to not get a laptop from them again. In under a year the headphones/mic ports snapped, pushing them out of place and unusuable. After a year of not caring to send it in the adapter died. I sent it in, saying it had a problem with the ports, the charger was dead and it had an overheating problem. Got it back, the first two were fixed but less than 2 months later the charger plugin started being faulty. Turns out the heating problem wasn't gone, and the solder holding the charger plugin had melted away. My dad fixed it, and did a better job than whatever did the solder in the first place.

[One_Medic_Army]

I've got an ASUS laptop (big honkin' gaming laptop) I've been using for a couple years now, I can say that aside from one thing the computer's in great shape (there's a loose connection in the headset port that gives false-on readings, simply put the actual speakers won't come on because the computer thinks there's headphones plugged in).
Tech support is, however, a crap-shoot. Not that I expected much better from a company based in Taiwan though.

Apart from that one issue it's a great laptop that's lasted well, no cracks in the casing and everything's still solid and working just fine.

[Deslock]

Newegg has An Acer that appears to be in your price range:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6834215119


However , if you ever feel the need to goto extremes, take a look at this monster:

http://www.maingear.com/custom/notebook ... /index.php

Take a look at the tech specs. This "laptop" would put most desktop systems to shame.
Oh, and have about $5500 in pocket change to get this.