i need a new computer

So, the time has come to kick my old computer to the curb. It's served me well (since 2004!) but it's just gotten to a ridiculous point where it's taking forever to do much of anything and is freezing entirely too often for me to be comfortable.

Anyways, back when I built it, I was still kind of into computer gaming (built specifically for Doom3 lmao) but now I'm just not into that anymore. So I figure I'll go for a laptop. But I'm poor as hell. So I'm looking for a cheap, but good laptop. Under ~$600USD. Preferably with a multicore processor of some kind, a good amount of ram, and a large-ish HDD (500gb.) And something other than intel integrated graphics or whatever. I don't game MUCH but i'd like to be able to run SOME games.

I know fuckall about laptops though. The last time I had one was 2002 and it was a shite gateway that fell apart. Who makes the good ones these days?

get a tower. you get better components for less money. and who plays games on a laptop anyway, wtf? you wanna game on the subway?

go with the times, get an iPod.

great job, germany.

lol

netbook. Cheap. Check.

laptops are dodgy.

I have had an ASUS G2S notebook since 2007 and it has served me well while I travelled the world while freelancing. I've been back in Australia for a while and it's served me well as a desktop replacement. It was expensive to buy at the time, $2400, but was one of the most powerful notebooks on the market. 17" screen, Core2 Duo 2.4 ghz, 512mb nVidia Geforce card.

You can probably get the same specs for MUCH cheaper these days, considering that you probably don't need/want such a large screen. I'm sure I've seen my specs or better with a 15" screen for $1000 or less.

Laptops certainly aren't dodgy. They are, for the most part, designed out of the box to work. Getting this was a welcome relief from constantly testing drivers and settings on my old desktop. But I am in the market for a new desktop soon and will probably find that the components conflict less than they used to.

I game daily on this notebook.

  On 7/24/2011 at 3:30 PM, MRZL said:

get a tower. you get better components for less money. and who plays games on a laptop anyway, wtf? you wanna game on the subway?

If you want cheap and good, go for the tower for sure. I honestly wouldn't buy a laptop unless you wanted to spend around $1000.

You could easily customise a decent Dell-laptop for 500-600$. Not very good for gaming though.

yeah i don't think you'll find a laptop for 600$ that will sort of run 3d games, but, 600$ for a stationary pc is enough to build a very decent midrange.

Im going for a tower once this acer aspire laptop finally days... its done well for the past 4 years though but it really struggles now when im producing....

i probably should have thrown in "i am going back to school in september," as that's most of the reason i want something portable.

when i said "occasional gaming" i mean "playing tf2 sometimes." so it doesn't need to be good, i'm currently playing tf2 on a 2.0ghz athlon with a radeon x850. if that can run it, i'm sure almost anything in a shitty laptop can run it and still look marginally better.

and i don't really do much anymore, music wise. other than play music.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230088

this looks good

is this good

  On 7/24/2011 at 9:27 PM, disparaissant said:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230088

this looks good

is this good

i've re-read you posts more thoroughly and still think this would be mostly fine for what you want, but in terms of gaming it's not ideal - got a reasonably slow processor and integrated graphics with shared memory. sure it'd run TF2 OK, but maybe not much more than that (probably handle WoW in lowest settings, if you play WoW...).

but if you can find something cheap enough with a Core i3 processor and integrated Intel HD graphics I'd go for that.

thanks! i had asked another friend of mine and that's what he essentially said, found this along those lines

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246155

not bad for a marginal price increase. but i have no idea how lenovo stuff is, i've heard bad things.

thinkpads have served me well over the years

  On 7/24/2011 at 10:11 PM, disparaissant said:

thanks! i had asked another friend of mine and that's what he essentially said, found this along those lines

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246155

not bad for a marginal price increase. but i have no idea how lenovo stuff is, i've heard bad things.

lenovo make great laptops! they're essentially just IBM thinkpads: thusly, well made and durable. this one looks like a pretty good deal yeah, much better spec than the other one you linked. fuck it, buy the bastard.

the longer you wait the better the laptop

I'd recommend Lenovo as well. Go durability! That ideaPad will run TF2 fine but will have a hard time with newer games.

yeah i think i'm going to go with that one, thanks for the help :)

Tablets are not going to replace laptops for a couple of years - so I wouldn't worry about that.

But disp kept her last compy for seven years, so I would.

fuck tablets, fuck laptops, i prefer a full keyboard and mouse combo every time.

laptops caught on because of convenience and portability. with tablets people feel like they're in star trek, but there's no fucking keyboard. it's as if the manufacturers saw us buying droves of laptops and misunderstood the reasons: oh, you like a cramped, uncomfortable keyboard? try this on-screen one then!!!!