lightspeed laptop

techtic

@dizzy:
"3. Yes, although it may not be worth the cost"

what factors should i consider? i'm willing to pay for it to be fast but how much faster does it get?

"4. If you want one for editing which isn't recommendable since laptops aren't color accurate at least get a business model so that you get a hi-res screen or you'll find it useless without an external monitor"

what kind of editing do you mean?

@eric
"The other option is to get a good laptop that has two bays for HDD's and install a super fast SSD drive. Depends on how good you are with PC's to set it up though. The option will allow you to get a super fast SSD that would be way faster (2-3x) than the one above."

an ssd faster than the ssd in the computer you linked to? that would be awesome.

right now my options are your laptop or this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220695) using an ssd card i'll buy as my main 1 and the one that came with the laptop as an external, but it would be mad annoying to have to always plug in and out and would be much easier to find a laptop with two drives (better to come with two empty drives so i could put in a 2 terabyte and an ssd) like you said. so where can i find one?


just so i understand, having an ssd and a hdd in 1 computer means all the main tasks of the computer will be speeding fast except when moving stuff from the sdd to the hdd and vice versa and when running programs from the hdd because thats when the hdd is used?

eric93se

I'm not sure but I don't think they make a 2TB internal drive for laptops, I could be wrong. So yeah basically all the software will be on the fast SSD drive and all your music/videos/data will be on the HDD.

Looks like the one you linked to has a second HDD bay: newegg review
"High Value Gaming Performance

Pros: Top of the line ATI 5870 graphics. Decent i7 processor. 8GB DDR3 (mine had 1333). Out of box 3DMark06 score was 12201. 17.3" screen as good as I've seen on a laptop. You won't easily find this kind of gaming performance at this price.
Dual exhaust ports at rear of unit move plenty of air out. Not worried about overheating.
Control Deck Power4Gear utility allows 4 different performance settings. The battery saving mode along with the twin turbo mode (CPU + graphics) turned off via a top panel button will double the battery life from ~1 hr up to ~2 hrs, but cut the 3DMark06 score in half.

Cons: Your gonna be leaving this 8 lb beast plugged in most of the time. It has a big footprint. Portable, but not a good choice to use on airline flights.
Fair amount of bloatware for stripped down machine.
HDD seemed a bit slow, HD Tach quick bench random access time was 18.6 ms. OS and application load times were plenty acceptable though.

Other Thoughts: I'm gonna splurge for an SSD anyway (ideally goes in the second drive bay). Just hope the OS transfer goes smoothly since all you get with the G73HJ-X1 is a recovery DVD.
I may have been a little careless removing bloatware and tweaking Windows 7. Now I have a nagging "copy of Windows 7 not genuine" watermark that shows up on the lower right of the screen an hour or so after boot up. The copy of Windiows 7 authenticates fine though."

DiiZzY

Going above Intel's X25-M or Kingston's series with Toshiba controllers would be way overpriced having price and performance in mind.

Anything that involves photos and videos that you want to have it look "right" or does have a resolution that's above SD.

//Danne

techtic

dizzy:
"Anything that involves photos and videos that you want to have it look "right" or does have a resolution that's above SD."

for what kind of editing? i'm thinking of editing for my youtube videos or my music videos

@eric:
maybe but i dont think so. 1st of all he said ideally which i think means this doesnt have a 2nd bay (what else could he mean). also, i think the 2nd bay would be something asus would for sure advertise.

so where can i find 1?

if i run music or a game from my hdd will that use the speed of the ssd or the hdd?

eric93se

Your going to use the SSD for programs not storage, remember the SSD is not a big drive, the bigger the price grows quickly. It might be a good idea to start with a laptop with the option to add a SSD later on since they are getting cheaper and faster quickly.

techtic

na once i'm getting the laptop now i really want it to be fast and i'm willing to shell out the big bucks for it.

can u help me find 1 (besides the one i found below)?

maybe this toshiba (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834114804) ( x505-Q875) has 2 drives. he says it about the x505-Q870 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQKxr...eature=related) at 1:24. heres the one from the video (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834114797) which seems to have the same specs as the x505-Q875 with regards to omitting that it has two drives, indicating that the 75 probably also has two drives.

i'm not sure which one to get though. the 75 for 230$ more has a slightly bigger screen (1080p), 2 gig more of ram, but it has 180 gb less than the 70. does the 2 gb add to the speed of the laptop at all?

techtic

CRAZY GOOD NEWS! you were right, the asus has a 2nd drive and its much better than the toshiba 50$ less one. all i need now is a ssd i like and a battery better than the 8 cell they have (is it possible to switch batteries?). please help me out

techtic

i'm sorry for posting so many times but i'm just learning crazy info the more i research.

the 1550$ at the end of the day doesnt have an extra ssd bay (asus site). so i did a evaluation and right now my top four picks are as follows: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...220%2D695%2DTS

i'm planning on buying one of the three ssd ones and upping the ram to 8 gb, the battery to 12 cell, and putting in a fast ssd.it's really between the cheapest and the 1299$ one because the 1199$ one only has 180 gb more than the 1080$ one and i'm not willing to spend 120$ on those gig.

the question is: is it worth 220$ to spend for 180 gig hdd, 2 gig ram (which i'm buying for the 1080$ anyway), and a better graphics card? right now i'm thinking yes. but i'm not such a big gamer and if i'm correct i believe i can play any game out there on high and the more graphics-games on low (http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mob...0.23825.0.html) with the graphics card from the 1080$ but at the same time i might end up keeping this laptop for 3-5 years and by that point maybe some of the games wont even be playable on low. pretty much i want to make sure that in a few years ill still for sure be able to play games on low

if you could help me decide by giving me some info i'd really appreciate it

techtic

guys? help me out please

eric93se

You said you wanted a laptop fast enough to play games right?

You need one with the 5870 video card in it, this is another good choice MSI GX740-079US NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 17.0" Wide SXGA+ 4GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 $1400

techtic

wow check this out...http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+/+17.3"+Display+/+6GB+Memory+/+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Black/9741729.p?skuId=9741729&id=1218165344675

this seems to murder the newegg one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220688) but with even better specs. just checking with the expert (you)

how about internet connectivity? are all the laptops i looked at equal in that aspect and how can i check them against each other?

debro

Internet comes in 3 types.

Wireless Ethernet (802.11n is the latest, 802.11G is older)

Wired Ethernet (Gigabit/1000mb is common now, 100Mb is the older standard)

3G/GSM across the mobile phone network.


I'd suspect that all laptops will have Gigabit Ethernet & 802.11n, unless it's uber crap.

3G/GSM mobile cards require you to have a subscription/plan with a mobile phone provider, and is pretty expensive to keep up ... and it's very slow. I doubt that you'd use it for gaming ... your mobile bill might add up pretty quick.

__________________

eric93se

That best buy model looks good, go for it!

techtic

debro:
thanks for the good info

@dizzy:
for editing, how important is getting a better laptop than the one i'm considering?

i know, i'd have gotten it already but the problem is i'm looking for a reseller with a universal warranty because im not going to be in america the next few years.

newegg's 1079$ laptop already comes with a 2 year asus global warranty and i dont really need the bestbuy one (i'm a speed freak and i want to get into gaming but i've never gamed in the past and dont need such an amazing card) which only comes with one year asus warranty.

bestbuy has a universal warranty option for 2 yrs for 200$ which is crazy, and the newegg nonuniversal one for 2 yrs is only 99$. it saves me 220$ (1400 or 1179) on something i dont need. the only problem is newegg's warranty isnt universal and it's costly to ship it to america to be fixed. you know any places with a universal warranty that comes out to less than bestbuy's price?

sorry for the crazy long message

techtic

i realized it's worth it for me to get the bestbuy warranty and narrowed the laptops there down to these two:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....centerwell.jsp

i'd rather get the cheaper one, the only problem is it only has half a gig vid memory. is getting a gig necessary for gaming or like a cheaper gpu when i change the game's settings from high to low that won't matter?

eric93se

Your link is bad. But you don't need a gig of video ram for it to work well.

DiiZzY

Depends on how serious you want to be, best would be an extern monitor with IPS panel or better... If you don't care much the builtin should do fine.
//Danne

techtic

what do you say about buying on ebay? ive found 200$+ cheaper still with warranty

techtic

im about to buy this guys tell me what u think

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...en&s=dhs&cs=19

what i like a lot bout this:
6gb 1333 ram
i7-740
good enough vid card for me (1gb radeon hd 4650)
backlit keyboard
500 gb 7200hdd
crazy 3 yr. warranty that dell will come to me and fix anything within a day a call them international
2 hdd drives (for ssd)
bluetooth
i can get it from dell new for 1150$

what i dont like:
price (ebay has cheaper but i dont feel like sifting through everything)

12 days to assemble before shipping (its taking me way longer to research for it anyways)

what do u guys say?

eric93se

The 4650 is not a gaming card

When buying from dell you have to wait for the insane deals where the coupon codes make the price irresistible. Sites like slickdeals.net will list them, but the really good deals you have to be ready to jump on.

debro

www.notebookreview.com/dellCoupon.asp

Google: "dell coupon" "studio 17".
Also, if you have a Dell registered acccount (free to join, even if you don't buy 10000x PC's a week ) then you become a "gold member" and you can use gold member discout vouchers.
Also any associations you have may get extra deals - I don't know, maybe AAA has a special member discount .. or the Philidelphia Crazy Cat Lady Association, or whatever ...

I wouldn't upgrade the HDD's ... Why not spend $200 and retrofit a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD in instead? The speed increase from SSD/HDD drive will wallop any increase due to those slow mobile CPU's.

Chainlink black looks crap - You cant see it in the images, but it's got dark grey "chains" all over the black cover.

The 4650 is pretty decent for older games, and will accelerate H264 for blurays ... it's a laptop.

You want muscle, you get a desktop for the 1/2 the price

__________________

techtic

@eric
"The 4650 is not a gaming card

When buying from dell you have to wait for the insane deals where the coupon codes make the price irresistible. Sites like slickdeals.net will list them, but the really good deals you have to be ready to jump on."

what do u mean it isnt a gaming card? http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-ATI...0.13883.0.html
its 300$ cheaper than that bestbuy asus one and hopefully good enough to play any game on low in 2/3 yrs

well the dell is 438$ off right now

@debro

"I wouldn't upgrade the HDD's ... Why not spend $200 and retrofit a 500GB Seagate Momentus XT Hybrid HDD in instead? The speed increase from SSD/HDD drive will wallop any increase due to those slow mobile CPU's.

whoever said im upgrading the hdd? im putting in an ssd

"Chainlink black looks crap - You cant see it in the images, but it's got dark grey "chains" all over the black cover."

as long as it doesnt work like crap and doesnt smell like crap i dont care if it looks like crap


one problem for me right now is having an address in the u.s. to ship it to to ship it to me. does anyone wanna do me a favor (ill pay) and order it and mail to me?

sorry about the backwards writing. im on my friend's messed up computer

techtic

is it easy to find 2 gb compatible ram for any of the 1000$ and less computers on here? ive newbly looked around and not found anything

http://computers.shop.ebay.com/PC-La...&_sop=15&_sc=1

eric93se

RAM is easy to find, the laptop will have some speed of DDR3 SODIMM. Don't buy any memory till you confirm whats in the laptop.

techtic

all i need to look at is the the pin number, the ddr3/2 type, and the speeds and if theyre the same on the ram and the laptop theyre compatible?

can the speeds (1333, 1066) of the different sticks of ram be different in the same laptop?