If my 4+ year old netbook has taught me anything, it's that 10 or 11 inches isn't enough for me (you can quote that if you like), and that 1 gig of ram, and a processor around the 1 gig mark won't accomplish much.
I've got some great use out of it, when I moved in with my ex I also had to move from using my Dad's PC to buying my own, and the Netbook was great during that period. I've also had fun on it playing Dawn of War on the train, or doing dailies in Lich King using mobile internet.
But I fancy having a decent laptop, one that I can play something a bit more stuff on, right now I'm thinking TF2 and Sins are the main two, and my netbook manages Sins *slowly* and loads TF2 but crashes a bit when you get on a server for TF2. With that in mind I feel I don't need a high spec to accomplish those two games. I also bought about 30 games at Christmas in the steam sale, and having a lot of the indie games run on a laptop would be cool. I'd love to have Star Wars The Old Republic run on it, but if it's the difference between a laptop that doesn't run it and one that does for £100 more, I think I'll keep my £100, probably...
Anyway, i've got a base to go from here: http://www.ebuyer.com/285944-fujitsu-ah ... m=products
Ian showed me stuff on Sandybridge, and looking at this i've decided to try and keep my budget below £400. Looking at that I think Star Wars will run on it, since the processor and memory suggest it's alot better than minimum specs, and it being an MMO the minimum specs arn't too high.
So yeah, until there's some sort of "Ask Stu" website set up, anyone here got any idea's, tips, links to cool laptops?
New Laptop Thread
Moderator: Guild Shogun
Re: New Laptop Thread
It should also have fans on the opposite side to where Seppy is sitting.
Re: New Laptop Thread
The problem with cheaper laptops, even SandyBridge powered ones, is that the inevitably onboard VGA will struggle to cope with newer games. The 2310 CPU on the Fujitsu you linked to doesn't have much power at all.
Personally I'd keep an eye on the Dell Outlet - the stock gets updated most days at between 1 & 3pm and it's first come first serve - take a few minutes to read up on particular models based on how large a screen you want, how much HDD space you need etc and then narrow the search to that model. I'd recommend going for a 'certified refurbished' rather than a scratch&dent - both the refurbed ones I've bought have been as-new, down to the screen protector & sealed box.
Your £400 should easily get you a 14/15" model with core i3, 3/4GB RAM and a discrete VGA card.
If you can find an i5 be wary of paying more for a discrete card... For example there's an Inspiron 14 [N4050] with an i5-2410M cpu on at the mo for £338 delivered. The discrete card added to it (an ATi 6470M) performs no better at all than using the onboard VGA - money wasted!
Personally I'd keep an eye on the Dell Outlet - the stock gets updated most days at between 1 & 3pm and it's first come first serve - take a few minutes to read up on particular models based on how large a screen you want, how much HDD space you need etc and then narrow the search to that model. I'd recommend going for a 'certified refurbished' rather than a scratch&dent - both the refurbed ones I've bought have been as-new, down to the screen protector & sealed box.
Your £400 should easily get you a 14/15" model with core i3, 3/4GB RAM and a discrete VGA card.
If you can find an i5 be wary of paying more for a discrete card... For example there's an Inspiron 14 [N4050] with an i5-2410M cpu on at the mo for £338 delivered. The discrete card added to it (an ATi 6470M) performs no better at all than using the onboard VGA - money wasted!
Re: New Laptop Thread
Trouble is, I have no idea what's good and what isn't. Looking at that Dell site (which doesn't seem like the best navigation...) I getHeeuge wrote:If you can find an i5 be wary of paying more for a discrete card... For example there's an Inspiron 14 [N4050] with an i5-2410M cpu on at the mo for £338 delivered. The discrete card added to it (an ATi 6470M) performs no better at all than using the onboard VGA - money wasted!
•Inspiron 15R - N5110
•Processor: Intel Core i3-2330M (2.20GHz, 3MB cache, Dual Core)
•Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
•4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (1 DIMMs)
•Hard Drive : 500GB Serial ATA (5400RPM)
•8X DVD+/- RW Drive
•Display: 15.6in High Definition (720p) LED Display with TrueLife
•Intel HD Graphics 3000 with up to 1.6GB Dynamic Video Memory
•English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
•Wireless: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card)
•LCD Back Cover : Diamond Black Switch Cover [Switchable Lid]
For £335. And the "Intel HD Graphics 3000 with up to 1.6GB Dynamic Video Memory" sounds impressive... but damned if I know how useful that is... but it looks like if I look at that PassMark link in your post, that this processor is 293 rather than 291...
15" sounds about right, I don't need bigger, even 14" could do, just my netbooks 11" (I think, it might be 10") is so small... Hard Drive, 500gb seems plenty, I think i'd even manage with 100gb, since I don't really need to store much on it. Ideally, I'd be happy to pay a bit more for more memory, since it doesn't seem overly expensive.
Re: New Laptop Thread
I've had a quick read up on the current Dell model range and I reckon you can get an XPS 15 in a decent spec for not much more than £400 if you're lucky.
Use this link to search the outlet specifically for that model and cross your fingers that you happen on the one that fits your needs / wallet.
As far as performance goes, you'll get a minimum of i5 and the basic VGA card included scores almost 600 on the same scale on which the onboard HD 3000 scores half that. The top model offered in it scores 130 more on top (though you'll pay ~£40 more for it on the outlet [£65 retail])...
You can spec up your ideal options on Dell's Retail XPS 15 page - there's even a choice of 1080p or touch- screens!
Regarding the saving that the outlet provides over New Retail - the only XPS 15 on the outlet at the mo is going for £540 delivered. The same spec (or at least as close as I can get; the CPU is a slightly different model) is a tenner under £900. That's a beefier spec than you need (6GB RAM, 750GB HDD & Quadcore i7 CPU) so don't panic at the price of that specific one.
The only offer I can see currently is for free delivery on all laptops - valid until 2nd March. If you can hang off until then I'd say it's likely they'll follow it up with a 10/20% discount as well. If you're lucky the two will overlap for a little while - that's when to strike! As previously mentioned, the inventory tends to get refreshed at 3pm daily through the week but there's no harm in checking every now and then in the preceding hours just in case.
Use this link to search the outlet specifically for that model and cross your fingers that you happen on the one that fits your needs / wallet.
As far as performance goes, you'll get a minimum of i5 and the basic VGA card included scores almost 600 on the same scale on which the onboard HD 3000 scores half that. The top model offered in it scores 130 more on top (though you'll pay ~£40 more for it on the outlet [£65 retail])...
You can spec up your ideal options on Dell's Retail XPS 15 page - there's even a choice of 1080p or touch- screens!
Regarding the saving that the outlet provides over New Retail - the only XPS 15 on the outlet at the mo is going for £540 delivered. The same spec (or at least as close as I can get; the CPU is a slightly different model) is a tenner under £900. That's a beefier spec than you need (6GB RAM, 750GB HDD & Quadcore i7 CPU) so don't panic at the price of that specific one.
The only offer I can see currently is for free delivery on all laptops - valid until 2nd March. If you can hang off until then I'd say it's likely they'll follow it up with a 10/20% discount as well. If you're lucky the two will overlap for a little while - that's when to strike! As previously mentioned, the inventory tends to get refreshed at 3pm daily through the week but there's no harm in checking every now and then in the preceding hours just in case.
Re: New Laptop Thread
Just like that, I refresh the outlet after posting and the 1 XPS 15 available has increased to 4 pages of them!
An example:
System ID: EED118ZW
* XPS L502x
* Processor: Intel Core i5-2430M (2.40 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.00 GHz)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (1 DIMMs)
* 750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 8X Tray Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
* Display: 15.6 inch High Definition Display with TrueLife
* Graphics : 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M Graphics card
* English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
* Wireless: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card)
* LCD Back Cover : Silver WLAN
£424 delivered.
Assuming there's a 15% discount code due to appear in a week or two a £450 laptop on the outlet becomes a £382 laptop.... If one appears with a faster CPU but smaller HDD at that time.... Bingo!
An example:
System ID: EED118ZW
* XPS L502x
* Processor: Intel Core i5-2430M (2.40 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.00 GHz)
* Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium
* 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM 1333MHz (1 DIMMs)
* 750 GB SATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
* 8X Tray Load CD/DVD Burner (Dual Layer DVD+/-R Drive)
* Display: 15.6 inch High Definition Display with TrueLife
* Graphics : 1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 525M Graphics card
* English Genuine Windows 7 SP1 Home Premium (64Bit OS)
* Wireless: Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 (1x2 b/g/n+ Bluetooth Combo Card)
* LCD Back Cover : Silver WLAN
£424 delivered.
Assuming there's a 15% discount code due to appear in a week or two a £450 laptop on the outlet becomes a £382 laptop.... If one appears with a faster CPU but smaller HDD at that time.... Bingo!
Re: New Laptop Thread
I can hang off. I swear when I used that link yesterday it went somewhere entirely different to where it went todayHeeuge wrote:The only offer I can see currently is for free delivery on all laptops - valid until 2nd March. If you can hang off until then I'd say it's likely they'll follow it up with a 10/20% discount as well. If you're lucky the two will overlap for a little while - that's when to strike! As previously mentioned, the inventory tends to get refreshed at 3pm daily through the week but there's no harm in checking every now and then in the preceding hours just in case.
Looking at it now, there's that spec and another for the same price, 250gig hardrive instead, and has 6gig of Ram. Unfortunatly I can't check it 3pm each day, or any weekday infact, but if there's two up there now, hopefully when I look again each day for the next few days when I get home from work, they'll be something there.
On this search, it seems the spec you've posted is the cheapest, so as far as I can tell any L502x would do?
Oh, and Cheers!
Re: New Laptop Thread
The free delivery offer is still live and until midnight tomorrow (Friday) night use code D6J3MF6HL7TX02 for £20 off.