House of ZAN Forum

[Ravage]

Okay, so here's the beefy lowdown...

I just found out that there is a possibility of getting DSL here in Guam, in my room no less. It looks like we can get a 2g connection in our room, and we're looking into the possibilities of wireless, thus supplying intarweb to my entire group, who all live on the same floor at the same end of the same building.

However...

My laptop is useless. My network card is "no longer functional", my battery is shot apparently, because I can't run the thing without it being plugged in anymore, it tends to crash alot, and shuts off when I close the lid (!?), and you all know the problems I was having with it not reading CDRoms anymore...yeah, time for a new beast.

I'm probably going to order one online, and have it shipped. I was hoping to get one down here, perhaps, since it would be somewhat cheaper, but there is nowhere on Guam to really buy computer stuff! Consequently, I need advise on what to look at getting. I did a little shopping on notebook graphics cards, and learned a little, but not much. I still don't know what's better...

My Personal Requirements:
60 GB HD or higher
Graphics Card with HL2 potential (even if barely so). I could make due with less, if my price requires it.
CD Burner/DVDROM (No DVD Burner)
Price max appx. $1500

I prefer NOT to buy refurbished models. Thus far, my experience with HP has been nigh onto hellacious, but everyone else I know that has an HP laptop likes them, so I'm not opposed to trying it again. I had never heard anything bad about Dell, until a few days ago. My buddy tells me that he's seen MANY Dell systems go to crap, and that he'll never buy anything but HP or Toshiba. I remember Ben's problems with Toshiba from the administrative side, so I tend to shy away from them. I won't get a Gateway (no need to heat the neighborhood like Nick used to). I don't want to give up my firstborn for an Alienware, and I don't know jack about the Sony Vaio.

Any guidance from my pricing-savvy friends would be helpful. I've checked pricewatch, but again without knowing more about laptop hardware, I'm not sure what I'd be getting. I also want to avoid the stripped-down Athlon models that HP used to run, like what I have in my laptop right now (I hear they don't do that with Athlons anymore, though).
Maybe if someone has time to do some research while sitting at work on a computer? (I'm pointing fingers at Jared and Todd here, maybe Dana!)


Oh, and remember, I only use my laptop for the following:
Word Processing
Photo and Music Storage
Mobile Jukebox
Low-end Gaming (Meaning I can go long periods of time without BF2 or WoW, but going without CS, SC, and WC3 is tougher).
Temporary Game Server
Some Photo Editing (preferably)

Talk to you all soon.

[Dana]

If I were going to buy a PC laptop, I think I would also go with an HP. My sister has one... it seems very stable and speedy, and their customer support seems to be fairly nice. (I don't think ANYONE has "awesome" customer support anymore!) It wasn't refurbished, BUT it is just one computer among thousands built every day. You're bound to have lemons & jewels among any model.

I've also heard good AND bad things about Dells. Don't know anything about Toshibas.

Here's something you may not have considered, though. An Apple MacBook. Now before you crap on the idea (k ew, pull your pants back up plz), hear me out:

- It's an Intel-based laptop (Intel Core Duo 2GHz), which means it will boot both Mac OS and Windows XP.
- It comes with iLife, a software suite that lets you manage/store photos, edit sound & music, create web pages, create DVDs, etc.
- It has a remote control for browsing photos or playing music.
- Built-in wireless receiver
- 1000Base-T ethernet
- VGA output
- built-in Bluetooth
- 2 USB 2.0 ports & 1 Firewire port
- combo drive (reads all CDs and DVDs, and burns CDs & CD-RWs)

With a gig of RAM and a 100GB hard drive, it's $1349. (Around $1100 if you get a smaller hard drive, but if you wanna dual-boot I'd get the bigger one)

I dunno how it would handle HL2. It's an economy-level laptop with an integrated Intel graphics processor, and has 64MB of video, but it also shares the regular RAM for video. Blizzard's devs are saying WoW will run fine in Windows with that GPU.

I also don't know what size screen you're looking for, but it has a 13.3" glossy (like Ryan Sellars's laptop) widescreen with 1280x800 res.

Anyway, just thought I would mention it since you're not looking for tons of horsepower, basic gaming capability, & wanted to stay under $1500. If you ask me, it will do a lot more than most sub-$1500 laptops will do, even if the GPU is less than I would have hoped for.

http://www.apple.com/macbook/macbook.html
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[Dana]

LOL by the way, your avatar is now an advertisement...
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[Erik Dodd]

Yes Damin, your avatar is dasuck
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Είναι όλα τα ελληνικά σε με

[Grand Master Sef]

Damin, change yer avatar, ya look like a salesman now

anyway, whatever you do, don't buy ANYTHING refurbished anymore. yer laptops sucks & yer PS2 sucks........L2P!
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[Plague]

Damin, just did this on HP's website:
Operating System
Microsoft(R) Windows(R) XP Professional with SP2
Processor
Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo processor T2500 (2.0 GHz)
Display
17.0" WXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1440x900)
Graphics Card
256MB NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) Go 7400
Memory
1.0GB DDR2 SDRAM (2x512MB)
Hard Drive
80 GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Primary CD/DVD Drive
FREE Upgrade DVD+/-RW/R CD-RW Combo w/Double Layer
Networking
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
TV & Entertainment Experience
No TV Tuner w/remote control
Primary Battery
8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
Productivity Software
Microsoft(R) Works/Money

price $1,578.99 *
mail-in rebate − $50.00
Price after rebate $1,528.99
you saved 3.2%

This laptop is close but better then Ryan's laptop.
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"Never fear, I is here!"
Jared Sellars (a.k.a. Plague)

[Deathscythe343]

btw alienware is dell now, dell bought them out a few monts back. i think your best bet would probably be a desktop w/ flatpanel. while its not portable its still usually the best for gaming
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Why run? You'll only die tired.