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Final Fantasy Online Forums  >  Community Discussion  >  The Dork Squad

Help me buy a laptop.





0
 02.22.2012 6:55pm
Thread Creator

Crono
Crono can cross dimensions too!



I've actually never bought a computer before and yet I've gone through 4 desktops and 3 laptops (arguably 4); I love hand-me-downs.  Well my laptop has been on its way out for the past year and it has gotten to the point that I have to reformat it every few months and I just can't be hassled with it anymore.  So since I've never bought a computer before I don't want to end up burned because I didn't know to stay away from Brand A or not get something with graphics card B and I don't really know if it's an advantage to get a 1.5 quad over a 1.8 dual core, etc.  Here's what I'd like to have:

500+ gb harddrive but if I must I'll go with 320
15+ in HD screen
A graphics card capable of playing games decently from everything up to about a year ago or better
$500 price range
DVDR drive (blu ray is nice but not required)

I'd really like to stay at 500 or less but if it's 20-30 over I'm not going to care.  I've been looking at Newegg for the past half hour but there are so many laptops in that price range I just don't know what to go with or if there is a better deal elsewhere.  I saw this one and it looked like a good option but is the graphics card good enough? 
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215257



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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0
 02.22.2012 7:45pm
 (Edited on 02.22.2012 at 7:51pm)

Amer
pew pew pew



Your cost is going to be dependent on finding a laptop with a decent graphics card. 

I doubt you will find a laptop with decent gaming graphics for under $1k. 

I'd check out this concerning mobile GPU's  - http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.130.0.html




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0
 02.22.2012 9:12pm


Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you



Yeah, all those requirements are doable at $500 - except for a decent GPU.

This is just my opinion, but a laptop is not a serious gaming device.  If you want to do a lot of gaming, you need a desktop, end of story.




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0
 02.22.2012 10:46pm
Thread Creator

Crono
Crono can cross dimensions too!



Well I don't mean a GPU that will keep me up to date for the next few years; I just want something that will cover PC releases up to about a year ago and that will be fine. 

I won't be doing that much gaming on PC and I really want to drop having 2 desktops in my house (gf has better one) and I utilize laptops way more anyways.  She gave me the ok to drop a gpu in her desktop whenever I just don't know if I want to or not.

So with that in mind, what's the best bang for my buck at 500-550?




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0
 02.23.2012 12:10am


Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you



After some research, the best bang-for-your-buck is going to be one of the new integrated options like Intel's Sandy Bridge or AMD's A6 or A8 chips.  Also, there are a lot of recommendations for that particular laptop you linked to, so that's probably your best bet.




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0
 02.23.2012 4:59am


Dh
Not in the face!
The Alpha and the Omega



The best bang for your buck is probably going to be an Acer. You can get a Core i5 with a Geforce GT 5xx or 6xx in it for around $600. As much as I hate to recommend Acer, their laptops won't die on you in less than a year. I'd recommend ASUS, but they're about $150 more for the same technology and as much as ASUS rocks at making stuff, their tech and customer support is utterly awful.

Stay away from Toshiba, HP, and Sony. They seem to just kick out garbage.

- Toshiba seems to have a huge problem making batteries that don't eat shit after 6 months.
- HP has simply never been able to make a reliable mobile device other than a calculator. Their DV-series notebooks had such an unbelievably high failure-rate, they've been sued multiple times over it.
- Vaio laptops just physically fall apart after a few months. Sony is good at making televisions and Playstations. That's about it.
- Stay away from AMD's A-series chips. They seem to overheat a lot in notebook platforms.



I made this for you!




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0
 02.23.2012 5:12am


Southern Comfort
silently judging all of you



Were those HP DV-series notebooks the one where the charging cord socket would desolder, star arcing, and fry the motherboard?  I remember hearing about a string of those kind of failures from HP.




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0
 03.03.2012 11:47pm


Dh
Not in the face!
The Alpha and the Omega



Southern Comfort said:

Were those HP DV-series notebooks the one where the charging cord socket would desolder, star arcing, and fry the motherboard?  I remember hearing about a string of those kind of failures from HP.

That or they'd overheat like crazy because they put garbage fans in them.




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0
 04.26.2012 1:18am


LB
Necromancer of Winning



In my experience, an i3 laptop with 4g of ram has no issue with almost any game on low settings. Using shared video memory is great if your processor is fast enough and you have enough ram. With an i7 laptop and 8gbs of ram, your gpu won't matter too much.

As for durability and toughness. Buy the extended warranty with it if you plan on using it for more than a year. Period. They are all fragile, little, expensive boxes of parts.




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