Need new laptop! Help!

Hey guys!

I need a wee hand,I've had my current laptop for a wee while and its dying. I think its time to cut my losses and replace it (rather quickly actually since I'm having trouble switching it on and I'm mostly just leaving it on all the time O_O)

Anyway, can you guys recommend any laptops that are pretty decent graphics wise? Any advice would be greatly appreciated cause I'm not that good wi the techy computer stuff.

The first thing to say is stay away from Alien Ware they are very over priced. The next is how much are you looking to spend?

Overpriced also = any shop you can walk into.

I`ve always had Toshiba laptops and never had any problems with them,in fact I have 3 on my home network,but then again,like everything pc related,I also know people that have had nothing but trouble with Toshiba`s

I'd be willing to go up to 700 or 800 for a really decent laptop but I'm not really looking to run crysis on ultra settings or anything so anything sorta midrange for as cheap as possible.

Any brands in particular I should avoid like the plague?

I think Sony VAIO's are quite expensive but I've had no trouble with mine, nothing that I didn't cause myself anyway. The one I have is in your range now I think, it's still quite good for gaming but there may well be something of the same price with newer better tech.

Since I've been looking at tech recently I'll take a look into the laptops for you and make a topic about it on the forum that helped build my PC.

Thanks Fen, that'd be good. I've been reading reviews all day (how boring) and I've sorta made up my mind on the HP Pavilion dv6-3085ea

I'm gonna keep looking and see if I can find anything better for the same amount of money. If I can't find it within the next few days I'll buy it. I'm horribly afraid of this laptop dying completely before I can get a new one >_<

Pffft one day, I looked at computer stuff everyday for 5 or 6 months getting ready for my PC. I can tell you I have bored the poop out of people with computer stuff, they didn't care, they didn't want to know, they didn't know what I was talking about but I told them anyway.

I made a topic I'm sure it will get a good response soon, they are quite good on that site.

I've had nothing but praise for my Dell laptop. It's an old XPS m1530. It ran everything I needed to well, which was pretty much only World of Warcaft at then highest settings @ 1280*1024. And when it broke the whole two times it was fixed next day by Engineer visit All for 700 quid.

That was many moons ago though, no idea who or what is selling decent laptops nowadays.

Thanks Neo, I did have a look at the new Dell XPS' but I've heard waaaay too many horror stories to think about buying a one. I think you're the only person I've heard praise them.

Maybe it was just luck of the draw. Can only draw upon my own experiences, and I've only ever owned two laptops. It currently doesn't see much use though, both speakers have died and it's out of warranty.

I also owned a Vaio. And it was a damn sexy machine, remarkably lightweight for it's size (15") and as reliable as old boots for it's lifetime. It just wasn't very good specs wise, and I well overpaid for it. But it was my first laptop and I treasured it greatly. Sony's OS restoration cd did load it with much unwanted crap though.

Ok Bert found 3 laptops around your price range which to me look good and are well known brands.

I'm waiting to hear from the people on that forum if they are any good so if you can hold on till I hear back it would be best, I don't remember what to look for in laptops so I may have missed something which is important. They should let me know sometime today I think.

I'll post them incase you decide you can't wait or the guys on here that know more about computers than me want to give them a look over.

Sony VAIO VPCF11J0E/H £749 I have a VAIO and mine is a very nice machine, this one is better).
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-031-SO&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat

Asus N52JV-EX342V £749.99
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-176-AS&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat

MSI GT640 £849 (The people on the forum suggest the GT660 which is about £100 more expensive)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-026-MS&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat



There's are also these if you want to go a little more expensive:

Sony VAIO F12 MOE/B £886.80 reduced from £949
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-029-SO&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat=

MSI GX660R £958.80 reduced from £1099
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-025-MS&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat=

I've been told that the laptops with 1920 x 1080 would be a bad idea because you need a powerful graphics card for that, the ASUS has the screen size one person recommended.

right so that puts out the vaio as much as I'd love the MSI I'd have to wait until next pay day to buy it - I don't think I have that long

The cheap Vaio is the best of the bunch that Fen posted imo. The difference between the two Vaio's is no way near the almost £150 price difference.

Unless I'm getting things really really messed up, a lot of todays laptops have really crap resolutions designed for the movie crowd. My Vaio had 1200x800 or something like that, and on a 15" screen it just wasn't pleasing the the eye at all for any computer work. The Asus has the ever rubbish good for movies and nothing else 1333*768 resolution, so movies will look exactly the way they do on a HDTV. Would be good on an 13" screen though. And I do love the 13"er's just for the fact they are actually portable and don't murder your back when carried in a backpack.
For gaming, running at non native won't matter. Movies won't matter, it's still true widescreen and at 1920*1080 thats bluray in proper HD. For web browsing etc you want as high as you can get without eye strain imo.

I'd get the £750 Vaio personally from that list for various reasons.

I don't know which is the better machine really, specs wise the VAIO is better than the ASUS, but I've been told that playing at lower screen res will make the game a bit blurry. I've tried to find the MSI cheaper but looks like thats as cheap as it gets, if you can wrangle the extra dosh I would say go for that one.

Well my laptop wasn't starting up but I did some mad hard disk and memory check, changed the boot order of some stuff (well actually just mashed random buttons until some bios stuff came up and what I happened to do worked), cleared off some crap and managed to find an update for the bios - so far so good so I may not be desparate as I first thought. We'll see though

I may just save for the MSI but I have my cars annual money drain coming up so I'll try to hold off until after that.

Although I have to wonder...How come none of these laptops have a decent amount of USB ports...I'm used to 4 so going down to 2 would be a bit of a nightmare, especially since I'd be using one for a cooling thingy.

I don't know I didn't really look at the usb ports, I think I noticed some saying USB 3.0. Is it that important though, I mean my laptop only had 3 USB ports and I ain't had much no trouble no how. Well until recently when I got the USB keyboard but I got a USB hub with 5 more USB ports, they only cost about £3-£10.

The HP-pavillion DV6 3085 seems to have everything I want (plus I can trade in my old laptop and get £150 off it making it 450 quid) but I'm not sure about the processor - i know zero about them.

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/pdf/dv6-3085ea_ds_ene.pdf

I can't open that file. A guy did make some suggestions which are supposed to be better than the ones I came up with. He made a long post and I was too tired to read it, I'll look at it tomorrow and I'll try and find the one you found.

ta

Le sigh! My laptop isn't fixed at all. Gonna take it to get it fixed by someone who knows what they're doing. I can't really afford a new one atm anyway, not with my MOT/Car Tax coming up >_<

Taking it in tomorrow so might not be on the forums for a while (basically, i'll need to convince someone to let me borrow their laptop) Hopefully I won't be away for too long

see you guys soon X)

*Shame*

I've not looked into those laptops at all since I posted.

I'll make sure to tomorrow even if you can't buy it yet or get online.

P.S. If you can borrow someone's laptop make sure you search as deeply into it as you can and find the stuff they wouldn't want you or anyone to know. Like for example what games they've bought over the internet because they couldn't face buying them from the shops.

haha! That'll be great if I get to borrow my mums laptop - perhaps I shouldn't do too much raking on that though. Might freak myself out, lol!

Sherbet wrote:haha! That'll be great if I get to borrow my mums laptop - perhaps I shouldn't do too much raking on that though. Might freak myself out, lol!

Yeah best case scenario you find old Halo save files and find out your mums a secret bad ass. Worst case you find out she has a very used favourited link to two girls one cup, and has started a fan site dedicated to it.