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Laptop Vendors In The Us

booya

By booya
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booya Newbie

booya

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Hey, I'll be travelling to the states at the end of the month and would like use my EXTREMELY STRONG CANADIAN DOLLAR (man, that feels so good to say!) to buy a lap top in the US. the only store i know of in the states is Best Buy... can some one direct me to some more places? i prefer big box, just because, but if you kow any specific small stores in salt lake city or las vegas that would be cool too! thanks!
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booya Newbie

booya

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Aright, i pretty much need a unit that i can use to deal with my photos, internet, some video, and the ability to download music... on occasion i will be running autocad 2008, and photoshop. thats about it! i had a big HP 17" pavilion and the frickin power supply is fuct, so it won't stay on for long whicyh is no good for me if i'm doing some time intensive work in CAD. preferably want a 2 duo processor and a shitload off ram or be upgradable to 4gb. and if possible a decent video card. oh and it must be small and portable, 14 inch or less...

I've been thinking of getting a mac but autodesk doesn't make software for macs so i'd have to get a desktop
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MechAnt Newbie

MechAnt

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That is quite the demand for $700. Since you're going to be using CAD and Photoshop, you're going to need a lot of processing power and a mid to high range video card. Your memory needs are also very high. Since you're not much of a gamer, you should look in workstation laptops. Dell's D830 Latitude is a great business/workstation notebook. Lenovo T61 is a great option too. There is always the Compal IFL90 however it is more of a gaming laptop. Sidenote, for a computer with that much power, you should be looking to spend over $1200.
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Geiseric Newbie

Geiseric

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If you are willing to spend a little more into the $1000 range, Ibuypower makes some pretty nice laptops. I have heard some bad things about the service and speed of shipping, but the I thought it was fine, and all of the other people that I know that have bought from them had no problem. Because they are customized, they do take around 1-2 weeks to arrive. I got a fairly powerful machine (for a laptop) for about 1800, but they have nice machines in the 1000-1200 range. I spent a little more just to get a little more functionality out of it. I recommend just taking a look at their site and seeing if there is anything that interests you.

http://www.ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm

If you are curious, here is what I got for 1,800: 17 in. wide screen laptop, with an Intel Core2Duo t7700 (2.4 ghz), 4 gigs of ddr2 pc5300 ram, 250 gig 5400 rpm sata HD, and an Nvidia 8600m GT w/512 Mb video ram. It has a very nice chassis, high quality, hard to damage, my only complaint is that it is glossy, so it always looks like shit because of fingerprints. It came with Vista Hope Premium, but the OEM installer seems to not have any limitations on it, its just not printed by Microsoft. It also seems to be heat resistant, strangely enough biggrin.gif as I dropped a coal on it (while closed, thank God) and after I took it off, I noticed no damage to the case. I was shocked. Of course when I took it off I dropped it on the carpet and put a sizable hole in it, but so be it.
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booya Newbie

booya

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QUOTE (Geiseric @ Nov 6 2007, 01:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
If you are willing to spend a little more into the $1000 range, Ibuypower makes some pretty nice laptops. I have heard some bad things about the service and speed of shipping, but the I thought it was fine, and all of the other people that I know that have bought from them had no problem. Because they are customized, they do take around 1-2 weeks to arrive. I got a fairly powerful machine (for a laptop) for about 1800, but they have nice machines in the 1000-1200 range. I spent a little more just to get a little more functionality out of it. I recommend just taking a look at their site and seeing if there is anything that interests you.

http://www.ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm

If you are curious, here is what I got for 1,800: 17 in. wide screen laptop, with an Intel Core2Duo t7700 (2.4 ghz), 4 gigs of ddr2 pc5300 ram, 250 gig 5400 rpm sata HD, and an Nvidia 8600m GT w/512 Mb video ram. It has a very nice chassis, high quality, hard to damage, my only complaint is that it is glossy, so it always looks like shit because of fingerprints. It came with Vista Hope Premium, but the OEM installer seems to not have any limitations on it, its just not printed by Microsoft. It also seems to be heat resistant, strangely enough biggrin.gif as I dropped a coal on it (while closed, thank God) and after I took it off, I noticed no damage to the case. I was shocked. Of course when I took it off I dropped it on the carpet and put a sizable hole in it, but so be it.



Mech... i know i'm asking for a lot, but i'm willing to sacrifice HDD space and ram for now, thats why i want it expandable... and video card can be mid range i think... i won't be doing any excessive CAD on it, just want sometihng that will work it when i do need it.


Geis... whats yer battery life like o nthat beast? i had a big HP bitch, that i want to throw out my window, 17" is way too big for me.
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Geiseric Newbie

Geiseric

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It's so heavy that if I leave it on my lap for too long my left leg falls asleep.
The battery life is pretty variable depending on what I am doing, With little use of the gpu, on power save mode it gets around 3 hours on a full charge. Enough for me, most of the places I use it have places for me to plug in. Edited by Geiseric
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booya Newbie

booya

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QUOTE (Geiseric @ Nov 6 2007, 02:12 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
It's so heavy that if I leave it on my lap for too long my left leg falls asleep.
The battery life is pretty variable depending on what I am doing, With little use of the gpu, on power save mode it gets around 3 hours on a full charge. Enough for me, most of the places I use it have places for me to plug in.



hahahahaha! thats funny shit! 3 hrs is not bad... i'll check it out, you have a sweet case too, i checked out the site... too bad they don't have that in a 15.4.
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lemmiwinks Newbie

lemmiwinks

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QUOTE (Geiseric @ Nov 6 2007, 03:51 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
If you are willing to spend a little more into the $1000 range, Ibuypower makes some pretty nice laptops. I have heard some bad things about the service and speed of shipping, but the I thought it was fine, and all of the other people that I know that have bought from them had no problem. Because they are customized, they do take around 1-2 weeks to arrive. I got a fairly powerful machine (for a laptop) for about 1800, but they have nice machines in the 1000-1200 range. I spent a little more just to get a little more functionality out of it. I recommend just taking a look at their site and seeing if there is anything that interests you.

http://www.ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm

If you are curious, here is what I got for 1,800: 17 in. wide screen laptop, with an Intel Core2Duo t7700 (2.4 ghz), 4 gigs of ddr2 pc5300 ram, 250 gig 5400 rpm sata HD, and an Nvidia 8600m GT w/512 Mb video ram. It has a very nice chassis, high quality, hard to damage, my only complaint is that it is glossy, so it always looks like shit because of fingerprints. It came with Vista Hope Premium, but the OEM installer seems to not have any limitations on it, its just not printed by Microsoft. It also seems to be heat resistant, strangely enough biggrin.gif as I dropped a coal on it (while closed, thank God) and after I took it off, I noticed no damage to the case. I was shocked. Of course when I took it off I dropped it on the carpet and put a sizable hole in it, but so be it.


I've got a Dell Inspiron 1521, and for 1500 I got a really nice setup. I got the same video card, I believe it was a T7100, only 2 gigs of ram, 7200 rpm 160 gig hard drive, a high res 15.4 inch screen, and a 4 year warranty with accidental damage protection. You can choose not to have a microsoft operating system installed on your computer so you don't have to bother uninstalling all their shit if you want to run Linux or something, they will send you the vista software separately if you want though. I get anywhere from 2 (playing video games, highest settings) to about 6 (lowest settings, internet, word processing, etc.) hours of battery life (I got the extra capacity battery, sticks out about an inch from the back)

I guess the main difference would be how much you care about a company's reputation and customer service. Shipping with customization took 5 business days for me, though they estimated 3 weeks.

On a side note, just have to tell this story. I was watching South Park at my desk one night (Merry Christmas, Charlie Manson if anyone cares) as well as eating dinner... Long story short, I dumped over half a nalgene (32 oz.) directly onto the keyboard and watched it seep into the computer... It shut off immediately, and I soaked as much of the water off the keyboard as I could with kleenex, then spent the next 15 minutes holding the laptop on its side, watching water come out of it and bitching to my roommate. When it seemed like the water was done coming out, I set it up against the box fan in my window with the vents on the bottom up next to the fan to dry it out. Woke up 6 hours later to try it out, and though it went a little slow at first, everything was fine and it went completely back to normal in a couple days. I watched a bootleg copy of Hot Fuzz in celebration. But yeah, I'll testify that though some people don't like them, they have quality laptops.

Oh and almost forgot it weighs about 7 pounds.
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Geiseric Newbie

Geiseric

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I'm not out to promote ibuypower or anything, but I have heard some of the negative reviews, and I found it just wasn't as bad as some people made it out to be. 2 weeks for customized parts isn't bad, and both times I called them and every time I emailed them they picked up or responded. I have three friends who also have ibuypower laptops (thats how I heard about it) and they didn't have any issues either. While perhaps there have been issues in the past, I was overall satisfied with the way things are now. My room mate Pete had a psu issue about 11 months after his purchase, and they fixed it for him for free, with paid shipping, in about 2 weeks.
Ibuypower is generally a lot cheaper as well. Before I purchased my laptop, I spent about 15 hours looking around for the best hardware for cash laptop, and I ended up settling on ibuypower.

That all being said, again, I don't really care either way, but I think ibuypower's bad rep is a little exaggerated.
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MechAnt Newbie

MechAnt

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Don't forget Dell coupons. My Inspiron 1520 with T7300, Nvidia 8600m GT, 2GB ram, 160GB HD, Bluetooth, Intel Wireless-N, 1440x900 WXGA+ screen all for a clean $1050 including tax and free shipping. Their warranty repairs and stuff pay for shipping both ways. A comparable lappy would cost you over $1500 Edited by MechAnt
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