Need a new laptop -- suggestions

This laptop is 3 years old and has seen a lot of action.

It is starting to show signs of aging, so I think it's time to get a new one.

Usually I am very Jewish about this and stretch it for as long as possible, but I don't want to do that this time.

For the past 10+ years I have ordered Dell computers for a few reasons:

1) I could customize them the exact way I wanted, only paying for the features/equipment I really needed

2) They were cheap

3) I was very good at gaming their system with coupons and other tricks, making every system I bought overwhelmingly cheaper than the equivalent systems elsewhere


HOWEVER, they have outsourced ALL of their telephone support to India now. You used to be able to reach an American if you tried hard enough, and that person would typically help you solve your issue. Now there are no more Americans to reach, and the Indians obviously are never going to go beyond their dictated rules from above.

So I'd really like to avoid Dell.

Here is what I want in a laptop:

1) Middle-of-the-line (by November 2012 standards) when it comes to processor speed

2) 17 inch screen

3) Sound card that has stereo mix, so I don't have to hassle with flaky external sound cards for radio

4) A lot of RAM. I haven't looked up what is standard today, but I'd like to be in the higher end of standard when it comes to RAM, because that always makes your machine avoid obsolescence when it gets older.

5) Hard drive space doesn't matter. I don't download much.

6) I want a PC. I'm not a Mac guy.

7) $1100 or less

8) I don't give a shit if it's heavy. I'm not a 100-pound girl, so I am fine with lifting a heavy laptop if it has all the features I want.

9) Long battery life


It would be best if I could go through a Dell-like company where I can customize everything. Don't feel like building my own. Too much effort and not enough savings.

Suggestions?

The best laptop I ever owned was a Sony Vaio, 7 years and that thing took a beating and never blinked.

I was just checking into getting another one (a nice one not this POS Toshiba I have), and noticed on their website you can now customize them just like a Dell. Screen size, memory, graphics, even down to the battery the whole bit. Might be worth checking out if customizing is big for you.

I was just playing around and customized a badass one with a 17 inch screen for like $1200.

Regardless of what laptop you get, it will be primed with Windows 8. I just got a new laptop a few weeks ago. It's a culture shock Windows 8, but after a couple weeks it's better and works well. But there is a learning curve.

You can get a very good Toshiba from Best Buy for $600 or so. If you wait till Black Friday you will find some real good deals, and some you can order online. To me Toshiba is Sony without paying for the name. HP laptops suck i'd stay away from them nothing but issues.

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Originally Posted by ShadyJ

You can get a very good Toshiba from Best Buy for $600 or so. If you wait till Black Friday you will find some real good deals, and some you can order online. To me Toshiba is Sony without paying for the name. HP laptops suck i'd stay away from them nothing but issues.

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There is no comparing a Toshiba to a Sony.

I got a $699 Toshiba in January of this year from BJ's. Since then the hard drive has crashed($110), the screen needed to be replaced ($140) (my thumb pressing on the very top corner while I lifted it up wrecked it), and the battery went bad ($90).

It is a complete piece of shit.

If you spend over $500 for a laptop you probably did something wrong, especially between now and Jan 1st.

http://www.microcenter.com/

Don't understand why anyone wants a laptop nowadays except unless you are a student. Tablets, desktops, and cell phones all seem to have it covered already. Laptops gonna be as popular as speak and spell in 5 years.

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Originally Posted by BetCheckBet

Don't understand why anyone wants a laptop nowadays except unless you are a student. Tablets, desktops, and cell phones all seem to have it covered already. Laptops gonna be as popular as speak and spell in 5 years.

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Disagree with this.

Tablets are not nearly as possible or versatile as laptops.

Same with cell phones.

Desktops are not good unless you want to be chained to a desk in one part of the house. A desktop can be a decent thing to have for an "office" setting (even a home office), but you always want a laptop, too.

Maybe this will change in the future, but right now tablets aren't "there" yet.

Even the difficulty of typing quickly tilts me as far as tablets and phones go.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 4Dragons

If you spend over $500 for a laptop you probably did something wrong, especially between now and Jan 1st.

http://www.microcenter.com/

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I don't mind spending a bit more if I get a quality product that has everything I need, and has moderate reliability.

I don't want to save a few bucks today and have a major headache in 10 months.

At the same time, I don't want to drop something ridiculous like $1500 or more on a laptop, because that is overkill.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BetCheckBet

Don't understand why anyone wants a laptop nowadays except unless you are a student. Tablets, desktops, and cell phones all seem to have it covered already. Laptops gonna be as popular as speak and spell in 5 years.

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Disagree with this.

Tablets are not nearly as possible or versatile as laptops.

Same with cell phones.

Desktops are not good unless you want to be chained to a desk in one part of the house. A desktop can be a decent thing to have for an "office" setting (even a home office), but you always want a laptop, too.

Maybe this will change in the future, but right now tablets aren't "there" yet.

Even the difficulty of typing quickly tilts me as far as tablets and phones go.

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I was a huge laptop fan (had a $3500 DELL) but I just don;t see the point. When I travel I have no need to play games or much poker (plus I would never resort to playing poker on a shitty laptop screen anyways, let alone a single monitor). Most of the time you are using it from the same location when at home so I'd rather use an external monitor than the 17 inch screen.

Life span of laptops like 1/3 of desktop on top of it.

I'd actually argue that its good to have your computer in one part of the house. Not healthy to have it with you in every room (I used to do this myself). Its liberating to be free from that.

I buy a cheap laptop in the $300-400 range and then just get a new one every 2 years or so. Battery life deteriorates over time with laptops so I like just getting a new one when current one gets run down, without having to spend any serious dough.

Totally disagree about laptops, they are still super useful - I use it when I travel to play poker, to do stuff when I watch TV (poker, etc.). Smartphones, etc are not in the same ballpark yet

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BetCheckBet

Don't understand why anyone wants a laptop nowadays except unless you are a student. Tablets, desktops, and cell phones all seem to have it covered already. Laptops gonna be as popular as speak and spell in 5 years.

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Every indicator disagrees with you. Smaller and portable is now the way to go. Desktops are for dinosaurs. Now that laptops can do what desktops do, it no longer makes sense to keep a big machine unless you're using it to watch tv as a dedicated media server.

I got this one a few months back well it's about the same model except this one here is pre-loaded with Windows 8. I love it and Asus is a great brand. This is clearly overkill for most but you get what you pay for.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+1...ptop&cp=1&lp=1

A bit off topic but Asus also makes great routers. I went through easily a half dozen shit ones having to reset them frequently until I got this bad boy last year:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Druff

This laptop is 3 years old and has seen a lot of action.

It is starting to show signs of aging, so I think it's time to get a new one.

Usually I am very Jewish about this and stretch it for as long as possible, but I don't want to do that this time.

For the past 10+ years I have ordered Dell computers for a few reasons:

1) I could customize them the exact way I wanted, only paying for the features/equipment I really needed

2) They were cheap

3) I was very good at gaming their system with coupons and other tricks, making every system I bought overwhelmingly cheaper than the equivalent systems elsewhere


HOWEVER, they have outsourced ALL of their telephone support to India now. You used to be able to reach an American if you tried hard enough, and that person would typically help you solve your issue. Now there are no more Americans to reach, and the Indians obviously are never going to go beyond their dictated rules from above.

So I'd really like to avoid Dell.

Here is what I want in a laptop:

1) Middle-of-the-line (by November 2012 standards) when it comes to processor speed

2) 17 inch screen

3) Sound card that has stereo mix, so I don't have to hassle with flaky external sound cards for radio

4) A lot of RAM. I haven't looked up what is standard today, but I'd like to be in the higher end of standard when it comes to RAM, because that always makes your machine avoid obsolescence when it gets older.

5) Hard drive space doesn't matter. I don't download much.

6) I want a PC. I'm not a Mac guy.

7) $1100 or less

8) I don't give a shit if it's heavy. I'm not a 100-pound girl, so I am fine with lifting a heavy laptop if it has all the features I want.

9) Long battery life


It would be best if I could go through a Dell-like company where I can customize everything. Don't feel like building my own. Too much effort and not enough savings.

Suggestions?

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1. RUN do not walk FLEE in fact away from dell. They are HORRIBLE TERRIBLE on every conceiveble level. The products not only suck (big time) the "customer service" is a scam, the fuckers try to sell you a new machine at every call. Meaning, the moron answering the phone has no fucking idea what a laptop is, he reads a script and just regurgitates the same bullshit until you get pissed enough to bitch, at which point you will get a "secret" phone number (which changes often) to their actual tech support line.

2. You should be looking for 4gigs of RAM minimum, though my nerdier friends have an average of 8, and my nasa buddy has 64 (yes, sixty four) gigs of motherfucking memory. JFC

3. STAY AWAY FROM HP ANYTHING, ON ANY LEVEL, FOR ANY REASON CONCEIVABLE

4. Buy a used macbook pro, yes I saw you are a windows guy and let me explain my rationale- you can easily and very efficiently dual boot Mac OS X with whatever flavor of Windows you desire (I like Windows 7 at the mo) and if you need any help whatsoever getting the configuration to work, I will help (it's super simple) When you boot the laptop up, all you'll be doing is holding the Opt button, which will give you two selections for OS, either click your mac installation or click the windows installation.

REASONS WHY A USED MAC BOOK PRO IS IDEAL FOR YOU- Aside from looking gorgeous you will never find a better machine with all the useful bells and whistles that may not matter to you now, when you've had a month or so on the machine you will seriously never ever want to be without your mac. The island keyboard is a BREEZE to type on, it is BACKLIT (trust me, I knew I wanted that function without ever having it, and then I couldn't live without it-it is AMAZING) and the battery lasts roughly 8 hours EIGHT HOURS per charge (you can squeeze ten hours of use from a single charge if you are jewish about it) and the even more amazing thing- the battery fully recharges within about an hour, maybe 1.5 TOPS.

It is absolutely impossible to find anything better for the money. Believe me, I tried, and gladly ponied up the $1200 for my 13inch. You'll find a sony with a backlit keyboard, but the battery is shit and the case is fucking plastic, and the keyboard sucks. You can find nice keyboards and nothing else, a nice battery and everything else sucks. THE MACBOOK PRO IS THE FERRARI AVENTADOR L985T4UT9MILLION OF LAPTOPS OR MY NAME IS NOT 408MIKE (which it is)

Every peripheral imaginable will auto-install instantly when you plug it in. It's fucking amazing.

The laptop does not creak and moan and groan as it's made from a solid chunk of brushed aluminum,

WHEN YOU DON'T WANT THE MAC ANY LONGER, OR IF YOU DO NOT LIKE IT, I SWEAR ON MY EARLY GRAVE YOU WILL BE ABLE TO SELL IT FOR CLOSE TO WHAT YOU PAID FOR IT, EVEN 2-3 YEARS LATER. NO pc can boast that.

Personally Macbook pro's run Windows MUCH as in INFINITELY better than any pc can. Trust 408 on this one Druff, please. You will absolutely thank me later if you do.

A used 15 inch (17 is way too big!) MBP from 2011 should be around $800, if you shop around you can certainly get a 17" for around the same dollar amount but look for one with upgraded RAM, I believe if you hunt you'll find a 4 gig'er someplace.

Bless you

If you have money there is no reason not to want a MacBook pro

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Originally Posted by Baron Von Strucker

If you have money there is no reason not to want a MacBook pro

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You don't know Americans real well but you are 100% right. Problem is, in this country it's all about WINNING, people always want to win at every conceivable moment and angle. The way shit rolls down from computer land, either you champion windows/pc, or you champion mac, and both sides will aggressively defend the rationale behind their decision.

ULtimately a more intelligent/savvy individual will spec both and come to a logical conclusion, but that is often not the case. MOst of the time people just always gravitate toward one or the other, which is a pity because magnificent machines come and go and no one picks up on them, not wanting to seem an "appe fanboy" or other etc.

http://www.electrofundepot.com/index...&product_id=98

Ive had my eye on ASUS laptops for a while...

One reason is because they have Stereo Mix on the store models I have played with...

This one looks tight and right Druff

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+1...&skuId=6904672

My 2 cents.

Asus is the most underrated brand out there.


gem

I've been using an asus for about a year now. They were listed as some of the most reliable laptops out there, so I bit. They also had a year Drop/Spill protection as well, which is a nice bonus. I had a Sony before that was pretty bulletproof, but it cost significantly more. Only issue you may have with ASUS is the price jump if you want more than 8GB RAM available.

As 4Dragons linked to, if there's a Microcenter near you, hit that up. In general, stay away from Best Buy in case you run into any issues. Whatever pennies you save there will cost you in time and aggravation if you ever have to deal with them about it.