A New Laptop

[six_storm]

Hey guys. If you haven't seen, I've got my laptop for sale. It's an alright laptop but I want to do a little bit more with it when I'm on the go. I'd like to be able to game a little bit and have a little more performance with Vista, while maintaining the "portability". No laptops bigger than 15" please. I should be getting $450 for the laptop and I'll be putting probably $200-$400 on top of that. So, you guys get to help me choose a new laptop. :D

Here are a few that I'm biting on right now:

A local guy on [H] is selling his Acer Gemstone laptop for $625 shipped:



Not a bad laptop for the price! The only downer is that it's an Acer. I've always heard their support is very limited and crappy.

Second, I've been eyeing this MSI GX600 laptop:

* Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5550 1.86 Ghz 2 mb L2 Cache
* 15.4" WXGA (1280 x 800) Widescreen Super Glare TFT Display
* Mobile Intel® GM965 Express Chipset Family
* NVIDIA® 8600M-GT 512 DDR 2 + Turbo Cache- Microsoft DirectX 10 support
* Windows Vista / XP compatible (NO OS installed, can be installed upone request)
* DVD+-RW/ CD+-RW
* 3 Gigs of DDR 2 memory
* 160 Gb SATA HDD
* Built In 1.3 Megapixel Webcam
* Integrated Wireless G/ Bluetooth/ Gigabyte Ethernet
* E-SATA connector
* HDMI connector
* XP driver CD included

http://cgi.ebay.com/MSI-GX600-Gaming-Laptop-Nvidia-8600-GT-512mb-15-T5550_W0QQitemZ120265509547QQihZ002QQcategoryZ177Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Not a bad little package either. I'd actually rather have something like this one, depending on how much money I will have to spend in the next few weeks.

So what do you guys think? Are these good for the money or are they just crap?

EDIT: [H]ardforum is down right now, so I can't give specs on the Acer right now. It's basically the same laptop but with a HD-DVD drive, 1.5GHz CPU, and 2GB of RAM.

[crainger]

Go with the MSI.

[six_storm]

Go with the MSI.

Yeah, that's what I'm leaning towards. Dell had some decent holiday deals on their XPS notebooks but I don't have that much money lol. I also updated my OP just in case anyone was interested.

[six_storm]

Has anybody ever heard of iBUYPOWER? They are being sold at CC now and they are decent little machines for the money.

[six_storm]

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/iBUYPOWER-CRZ-93XE-15-4-Widescreen-Laptop-CRZ93XE/sem/rpsm/oid/213242/catOid/-12963/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do

This was the one I was looking at earlier.

[six_storm]

Scratch that. My fiancee and I had a little ordeal about how much money I can spend on a new laptop. Looks like I might have to sacrifice a little on the specs, but still get something I can upgrade.

I've been looking at the Dell Vostro 1500s with:

1.46 GHz Core 2 Duo
1GB RAM
120GB HDD
256MB NVIDIA 8600GT
15.4" Screen

It's something that I can upgrade the CPU and RAM later on down the road, but not spend a ton of money on from the get go.

[|MaguS|]

Look for the Sony Viao's, You can probably find them for sub $600 easily and are great laptops. There screens are some of the best from what I have experianced.

[six_storm]

Look for the Sony Viao's, You can probably find them for sub $600 easily and are great laptops. There screens are some of the best from what I have experianced.

One of the main things I'm looking for is getting a laptop with a 8600GT M in it. CPUs and RAM are easily upgradable afterwards compared to the video cards, ya know?

[six_storm]

So I talked with a few co-workers to see if we get a discount from Dell. Apparently we do! I priced my Vostro just the way I had it and I save quite a bit of money. Here is what I'm looking at:

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.4 GHz
1.5GB RAM
15.4" Screen
NVIDIA 8600GTM 256MB
120GB HDD
1 Year On-Site Service
No Bloatware

Not bad for $620!