~1000$ for a new laptop! What to buy, what to buy?

College Life
1

<p>Hey guys, thanks for looking at this.</p>

<p>I guess I’ll cut the bs’ing and get right to exactly what I want/need.</p>

<p>Need:
A Laptop (Dur)
A very comfortable keyboard
At least 3+ USB ports
An Ethernet port or comparable wireless NIC
64 Bit architecture
ULV processor
6+ Hour Battery Life (Usage, not standby)
2-4GB+ of DDR3 RAM
Any size 7200 RPM HD
PORTABLE</p>

<p>Want:
Discrete graphics
1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA
Core i5 or better
Back lit keys
720p Display
11 inch screen good, 13 is about what I need
Gobi
Under 10 pounds, under 5 even better
FAST boot-up sequence
Good speakers
Overclockable</p>

<p>Do not want:
Mac
Acer
Short battery life
Horrible keyboard spacing
Unstable/unreliable
Bad customer service</p>

<p>Things I will be doing in regularity with said laptop:
Writing a lot of papers
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Premiere
Gaming
Programming
Frequent boots and shut downs (I will be using in-class)
Using external monitor</p>

<p>I have laid out in excess of about 1000$ for this laptop. This does NOT mean all of it has to be spent. Even more so, if you can lay out a nice laptop that doesn’t exactly meet all of the stipulations, but also provide a nice little netbook for in-class work, that would work nice too. </p>

<p>Also, if you had 1000$, and followed your own stipulations, what would you purchase?</p>

<p>Are there any good deals you have come across that I should know of? (I am WAY big into saving money)</p>

<p>Hey, let me experience serendipity, and I’ll be most thankful :)</p>

<p>Thanks for any help!!</p>

2

<p>So you want a ULV Core i5?</p>

3

<p>If you can work that in, yeah, the Intel core i3, i5, and i7 processors are very appealing and suit my style of work.</p>

4

<p>No, I mean that I don’t think the ULV (ultra-low voltage) i5’s have been put into production laptops yet. I could be wrong.</p>

5

<p>Oh, if that is that case, I guess I’ll just stipulate that ULV is a Want rather than Need, but thanks for the heads-up.</p>

6

<p>If you want an 11-inch screen then the Alienware M11x is the only way to go. i7 ULV 2.26GHz, 1GB GT 335M, 500GB 7200RPM HD, 4GB RAM, 4.4lbs, ~6hrs battery life, multi-colored keyboard backlighting for $1087.
However you won’t get a comfortable keyboard on an 11" laptop…</p>

<p>13" in that price range there’s not much… Sony Vaio Z is twice your price, and nothing else really has i5 and 1GB VRAM… Acer Aspire Timeline 3820TG is the only one that meets those requirements and might possibly be somewhere around $1k (it hasn’t come out yet so dunno about pricing yet). But then you don’t like Acer so…</p>

7

<p>configured at the HP website:
<a href=“http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Ultra-Portable&series_name=dm4t_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/Ultra-Portable/dm4t_series[/url]”>http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=notebooks&a1=Category&v1=Ultra-Portable&series_name=dm4t_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/notebooks/Ultra-Portable/dm4t_series&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>HP the new dm4t–weighs around 4.4lbs</p>

<p>Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit<br>
Processor Intel(R) Core™ i5-430M Dual Core processor (2.26GHz, 3MB L2 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 2.53GHz<br>
Memory 4GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
Hard drive 320GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection<br>
Graphics card 512MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5450 switchable graphics<br>
Display 14.0" diagonal High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768) -For HP Mobile Broadband WWAN
Primary optical drive SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support<br>
Personalization HP TrueVision Webcam + Fingerprint Reader + Digital Microphone<br>
Networking Intel Wireless-N Card with Bluetooth<br>
Keyboard Full-size island-style keyboard
Primary battery High Capacity 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (standard)
Office software Microsoft(R) Office Starter 2010</p>

<p>$949 then search around for a discount coupon</p>

<p>I don’t have any personal experience with HP laptops so you’ll have to get opinions on HP from others.</p>

8

<p>Not gonna happen.</p>

<p>Choose two out of three: 6hr battery life, discrete graphics card, portable</p>

<p>Also, to get all you want, you’re going to have to bump your budget up significantly. Not to mention, several of the companies have poor customer service (esp. Lenovo), further restricting your choices.</p>

<p>Oh yeah, almost no laptop comes with the ability to overclock.</p>

<p>Based on your wants/needs, I suggest getting a powerful desktop and a 11" netbook. The desktop will run you ~$700 while the netbook will run you ~$400. You’ll be much happier than having some notebook that doesn’t quite accomplish any of the tasks you want.</p>

9

<p>I find that to be an excellent suggestion. Thank you for clearly doing your homework here Excel.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>Depends how strong of a card you want.</p>

<p>If a 310m with 512 MB of DDR3 memory is enough than he could look at the Asus UL30vt which is 13 inches, weighs 3.7 pounds, and has an estimated 12 hours of battery life which would easily get more than 6 in real world usage.</p>

<p>Also the amount of memory dedicated to the graphics card isn’t what determines how good of a card it is…</p>

11

<p>

If OP wants this deal for under 1000 they can get a dell studio 17 ( touch screen) and a mini notebook. Dell mainly for dorm while notebook for class. Possibly a great deal.
[Popular</a> Laptop / Notebook Deals | Dell](<a href=“Computers, Monitors & Technology Solutions | Dell USA”>Computers, Monitors & Technology Solutions | Dell USA)</p>

12

<p>I surprisingly hav da same needs n wants as u in a laptop with roughly da same budjet of $1k n i found the hp pavilion dv6 2190-us laptop 2 b da best option.check it out on amazon.com n tell me wat u thnk of it…</p>

13

<p>Based on your vocab, it seems like you already know a lot about laptops… well…</p>

<p>In your budget, there aren’t many laptops that give power, portability, and battery life. That “perfect laptop” costs a lot.</p>

<p>HP dm4t ~ $800 after discounts
HP dv5t ~ $900 after discounts
But HP has mediocre customer service. You can’t have it all. You’d have to go with Apple or Sony for the premium stuff…</p>

14

<p>Geek talk, I like.</p>

<p>Long story short:</p>

<p>Ask this question again in two months. The ULV i5s are still relatively new, and it’ll take a month or so for newer models to come out that truly take advantage of this new technology. I’d definitely look at models from Asus and Sony, possibly HP as well (their current laptops are still low-quality IMO but their quality has been going up with the introduction of the Envy, so one can only hope). I’d throw Acer into there as well but it seems like you’ve already dismissed them.</p>

<p>So, just wait a month or so and see what your options are then :)</p>

15

<p>Is anyone looking at the Acer Aspire Timeline X 3820TG?</p>

<p>It has similar specs to the Envy 14 (i5 440M, Radeon HD 5650, 9-12 hours battery life) but is 13" instead of 14.5". Also supposedly it costs around $1.1k USD in Europe (hasn’t arrived in U.S. yet)</p>

16

<p>I have, it’s a great laptop. Probably would have been one of my recommendations to you if it weren’t for the “No Acer” part in your original post.</p>

<p>However, with the 5650, I wouldn’t expect the battery life to last long if you’re using the dedicated graphics card. The laptop uses a hybrid graphics solution, where you can switch between the onboard graphics and the dedicated card, and the 9-12 hour battery life estimate (I’m pretty sure it’s 9-10 hours actual; real world battery lives are usually 2 hours less than highest estimate) was done using the integrated Intel Graphics chip. With the 5650, I’d assume the battery life to be around 4-5 hours. Not terrible, but definitely not the all-day life you might be looking for either.</p>

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<p>In real life the acer 3820tg gets about 5 hours on the intergrated graphics. 2-3 hours on the ati 5650 graphics. There’s a review on it on notebookcheck.com</p>

<p>You can’t always trust the manufacturer’s claims. 9-12 hours might mean using a huge 9-cell battery while leaving it sitting on a desk.</p>