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Laptop Shopping

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04.03.2013 3:15am

Thread Creator

Crux
A mental Dentist's office

So it's that time of decade again, where I fear that my laptop has fallen behind the times and I should think about a new one.

Also I've been debating whether I should get a smart phone finally, but I'm only going to focus on getting one of these two.

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04.03.2013 3:44am

Amer
pew pew pew

I guess the question is what do you want it to do?

Smartphone, unless it's something closed off like an iPhone, will be out of date and you'll have to upgrade at your contract renewal time. I have a Samsung Infuse 4g that I can't wait to get rid of in May for something new. It doesn't have enough RAM to run many things at once and is always freezing up these days after working perfectly for a long time. The new apps just killing it. The upside to a smartphone is being able to look up shit on the fly. Product reviews, directions, random trivia, etc. No one wants that situation to come up and you have to pull out some tablet or other gigantic device. The internet isn't at a place yet where you can get by on tiny smartphone only.

I play games on my laptop. I don't use a desktop anymore. I probably would build a gaming rig if I had a room with a desk to put it, but I don't. So, laptop.

I have a Asus G72 that I bought end of 2009. It's in their "Republic of Gamers" line. It's got 1TB of hard drive space, 2.0GHZ Quad Core, 1GB GeForce GTX 260M vid card, and 6gb of memory, plus blu ray drive. It cost me about $1600 at the time. I'm still using it to play Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite and Heart of the Swarm. Maybe not at the highest settings, but not at the lowest either. I think now they are up to the G75 or G77 these days. It's a lot of money to spend on a laptop, but you get a lot for it and it's probably cheaper than alternatives from Alienware, HP, etc. Twice a year I crack it open and blow at the dust from the fan and that's about it. You won't get much help from Asus, so you have to be somewhat computer savvy about it. The Blu Ray player software that came with it stopped updating after a year and no longer worked, so I wound up having to find an alternative with no help from Asus.

Even if I wasn't into gaming, if I really wanted a laptop I'd probably go Asus just for the price savings.

If all you're going to be doing is Interwebz, Microsoft Office, etc. you might want to look at one of the new Surface Pro tablets. Basically does everything full fledged windows 8 does, including Silverlight. Compact package.

My wife's iPad 2nd gen is still going strong even with several drops on it's head with some scratches and cracks. Apple's pro is it's a closed system so shit made for it works and is more compatible. Plus a lot of apps that come out, especially games, are i-device only and Android is left out in the cold for months or forever.

Android tablets and phones have more free apps, but have more compatibility problems. The hardware in the phones is usually better. I prefer Android over iOS as a personal preference, but I'd be lying if I said there were iOS exclusive apps I wish I had access to.

Either way, you're buying a pretty much non upgradeable item.

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04.03.2013 3:46am

Crono
Crono can cross dimensions too!

Smart phones are the devil. If you want to be a common douchebag who sits around with friends or family and doesn't know how to look away from his precious phone, go for it. If you think you won't fall into that category there's a 75% chance you will*.

In terms of laptop shopping: what are you looking at in terms of range/maker? I got a Acer for $500 a little over a year ago that I really dig but it does burn me frequently. I'm pretty sure there's a hardware issue that's caused me to reformat 5 times in a year. But still, for $500 bucks I'e more than got my money's worth in a year and have been able to run any AAA title from 2 years ago and further back.

*statistics made up on the spot but damn it feels like 3/4*

Currently Playing: Dark Cloud 2: 3 hours.
Also Playing: CT, FF VI, Solatorobo, Secret of Mana, Halo 4.
Just Finished: Fable II: 7 hours.

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04.03.2013 7:52am

Arckanghel
Pirate.

My ASUSG51 has served me well and all of their lines beat every other manufacturer out there for reliabitlity. But, it all comes down to what you want it to do.

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04.03.2013 10:06am

Zubis
Registered Member

Crono said:

Smart phones are the devil. If you want to be a common douchebag who sits around with friends or family and doesn't know how to look away from his precious phone, go for it. If you think you won't fall into that category there's a 75% chance you will*.

*statistics made up on the spot but damn it feels like 3/4*

Only if you have no self control. If you say you don't see the point of Twitter next you need to turn in your nerd card :P

I personally recommend the HP Pavillion G series - they're no powerhouse, but they're cheap (<$500) and stable.

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04.03.2013 6:48pm

Thread Creator

Crux
A mental Dentist's office

Honestly I don't see the point of twitter. It would be nice to be able to check my emails, check product reviews, get directions, and search for a good restaurant; once in a while. And since I pay $55 a month for my current plan with 200 texts a month I wonder if it is an outdated, overpriced plan now a days.

As for the Laptop, I currently have a MacBook 10.4.11 unfortunately because of this there are no more updates for the browsers this can run so I've been getting some very gradual problems crop up and the computer is slowing down. Also the casing has cracked in some places. Generally I just use it to surf the web and organize my work in spreadsheets. I would like to play some games, but anything beyond a flash game is not a priority.

I'm not thinking of getting another Mac though, I think I'll go back to PC. The Mac's organization in regards to programs and all sub programs connected to them has been very useful though.

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04.03.2013 11:22pm

Crisium
N/A

If you are not serious about Laptop gaming, just go for the integrated Intel. Still, make sure you get one with the HD 4000. Intel's graphics solutions are utter crap, so if you don't get the fastest available then you can abandon any hope of at least some sort of gaming (any will do Flash though).

Windows 8 introduced a cool new development for laptops: the tablet-laptop hybrid.

There's the Dell XPS 12:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9obDfnr3lA&t=30s

Or the Lenova Yoga 13 or Asus taichi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56w58JDwoUk&t=59s

Just make sure you get one with an i7 or i5 and HD 4000. If you get a Nvidia Tegra or ARM CPU it will run the gimped Windows 8 RT.

Btw, I also do not have a smartphone. Solidarity, comrade.

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04.04.2013 11:40am

Arckanghel
Pirate.

Crux said:

Honestly I don't see the point of twitter. It would be nice to be able to check my emails, check product reviews, get directions, and search for a good restaurant; once in a while. And since I pay $55 a month for my current plan with 200 texts a month I wonder if it is an outdated, overpriced plan now a days.

As for the Laptop, I currently have a MacBook 10.4.11 unfortunately because of this there are no more updates for the browsers this can run so I've been getting some very gradual problems crop up and the computer is slowing down. Also the casing has cracked in some places. Generally I just use it to surf the web and organize my work in spreadsheets. I would like to play some games, but anything beyond a flash game is not a priority.

I'm not thinking of getting another Mac though, I think I'll go back to PC. The Mac's organization in regards to programs and all sub programs connected to them has been very useful though.

As far as the phone plan, I pay roughly $65 for unlimited texting, unlimited internet and 500 minutes. It's a pretty good deal, but $55 for some minutes and 200 texts? That's not a good value at all. You could pick up a plan devoted to seniors somewhere for a much better price that offers the same benefits and sticks with an old school phone.

To the laptop, if you aren't gaming, then just go find the nearest sub-$500 ASUS product you can pretty much. As already stated, you won't need more than the Intel intergrated graphics. Probably insist on 4GB or more of RAM. But basically anything sitting on the shelf at Best Buy or yoru local retailer that hits between $400-$500 will be perfect and be around for quite a while. If you can get an SSD (Solid State Drive) for a hard drive do it. They are not only much faster and more reliable long term, but the prices have really come down.

Other options: Pretty much anything sub-$500 from Samsung Lenovo, or Toshiba. I steer clear of most brands owing to their poor relaibility, especially HP or Acer.

If you're willing to spend a bit more on what's cool, new very wpoerful and lightweight, similar to a MacBook, check out the Ultrabooks from Samsung or ASUS. In about the $800 category you'll get a really powerful laptop that is light, slick and has great battery life.

If you're ok with an almost web only experience, get a Chromebook. I was using about 20 of them late last year for field organization. They ran around $250. The battery life was forever and a day and they were slick, booting in mere seconds. You plug in your Google account and that's it. In addition to the fact, all the hassles of a laptop or computer are gone, everything is in the cloud. There's virtually no maintance and it doesn't have the drawbacks of taplets or the small screen sizes. The models I was using were particularly Samsung.

0

04.07.2013 12:19am

Thread Creator

Crux
A mental Dentist's office

Wow! Thank you all so much for the advice.

I'm taking an interest in the Asus Taichi and the Lenova Yoga and I was thinking about getting a SSD (solid state drive) for my laptop already. I am only worried abot one thing and that's Windows 8....

I just remembered while reading the latest posts in the "How to kill the new Xbox before it's even released", that it was Vista and the Job's Macbook unveiling that convinced me to get a Macbook years ago.

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04.07.2013 5:53am

Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you

Honestly, squarely, Windows 8 is good shit. It's just not quite as good as its predecessor, and Metro is a questionable design choice for non-touchscreen devices - and Metro can be fixed, 99% of the code for the old start menu is still there, it just takes an extra program to bring it back to usability.

0

04.07.2013 4:29pm

Thread Creator

Crux
A mental Dentist's office

Really? I had heard a lot of bad criticism of Windows 8 (I don't remember what they were now though) and also the fact that Steam and Minecraft called it a closed platform.

Although I should say 'thank you' since I now know the Start screen can be banished.

0

04.13.2013 1:09am

Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you

The bitching about 8 is the same bitching that happened when Vista was released, that happened when XP was released, that happened when '95 was released. People are going to bitch about the new stuff just because it's not the old familiar stuff, every damned time. But when you filter that out, there's not a lot of bitching because something is genuinely bad or broken.

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04.13.2013 2:10am

Zubis
Registered Member

Except Vista genuinely sucked, which is why people waited for Windows 7.

Windows 8 partially sucks, which is why everyone is waiting for Windows 9.

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04.13.2013 2:47am

Arckanghel
Pirate.

So, I have zero experience with 8 really at this point other than messing around. 7 sits on my laptops and equip. Reasons to move to 8 at all? Anything really a problem or upgrade other than the GUI which is nice for a tablet and dumbed down for what I want for a PC?

0

04.13.2013 7:23pm

Atma Weapon
I Am Pure Energy

Just get a MacBook. You can thank me later.

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