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Laptop choice

Created 5th February 2012 @ 23:49

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hans

I’m looking for a new laptop, and since all those choices blow my tiny mind, I figured there’s someone here who knows their hardware better than I ever will. So if anyone cares to share any advice, thanks in advance!

Oh and I apologize if there’s been a similar thread recently, this board’s search function is fucked.

The basics:
Willing to spend up to 1500 €
Should not be a Mac or a Thinkpad, also the Alienware laptops are just fucking ugly
Keyboard must have haptic marks on the F and J. Yes I’ve seen keyboards without those.
Not larger than 14.1”
Must have a HDMI port and a cd reader

What it must do:
Mostly it must run emacs and matlab, and play the occasional dvd, which I guess any laptop can nowadays.
BUT I’d like to have the option of playing video games on it – hence this post. Specifically, if I can play TF2 in decent quality on it, it’s good enough. I don’t need the newest ultra stuff.

I’m planning to dual boot linux and windows (for teh gamez!!!), so it should have a good history with linux drivers.

After that comes the general stuff: The best battery lifetime, the lighter the better (without smaller batteries), good customer service. Good audio output wouldn’t hurt but I can use an usb soundcard as well. Last but not least, it should be robust (without being a Thinkpad! :D), because it will be carried and thrown around a lot in my bag, and dropped from medium heights occasionally.

FIR

SnG

Quoted from hans

Mostly it must run emacs and matlab

Doing an engineering/mathematics course? matlab has some serious calculation power behind it, I’m still learning first-year basics of this lol

Anyways back on topic, I currently use the Acer 5755G with Core i7. Its pretty good, can run most games decently on medium/high (I run BF3 on medium/high settings), moderate weight. Its also durable as fuck, but I haven’t tried dropping it and never will. Thrown around in my bag, maybe, but not dropped.

Downsides in regards to your criteria, however, is I dont think it has the “haptic” marks on the F and J, and that it’s size is 15.6″.

More here: http://www.digitalversus.com/laptop/acer-aspire-5755g-p11580/test.html

I personally love this laptop, its so cheap and yet so good for portable gaming (and blu-ray!) compared to overpriced Alienware stuff. If you can live with the downsides (according to your list) its definitely worth a good look.

hans

Sadly the Acer doesn’t look like something I could ever type on (and it’s too big and supposed to have really bad manufacturing)… But thanks for the reply!

Quoted from FIR

Doing an engineering/mathematics course? matlab has some serious calculation power behind it, I’m still learning first-year basics of this lol

Not quite, I’m rounding up my phd :D Which is why I need a laptop that doesn’t die every 30 minutes fml…

Shotgun

1500 euros for a laptop? You can almost buy the new razer laptop for that money…

If you want to play just TF2 decently you should do fine with 800 euros or something.

hans

Yeah, it’s not like i absolutely want to spend all that money on it. Just not looking for the cheapest deal ever made :)

FIR

SnG

True. The keyboard is a little hard to type on at first (much less play StarCraft II on it) but after a while I’ve gotten used to it. But now I use an external keyboard so I don’t do much buttonmashing on it. As for really bad manufacturing, I’ve had 2 Acer desktops and 2 Acer laptops over the years (this one is a direct upgrade from the previous laptop) and I’ve never really had much of an issue, so either I’m super lucky or the notion that it’s badly made is perhaps blown out of proportion.

But never mind that, I’m pretty sure you’ll find something that’ll suit your needs. gl with the search! :D

Quoted from hans

Not quite, I’m rounding up my phd :D Which is why I need a laptop that doesn’t die every 30 minutes fml…

On a completely unrelated topic, what PhD are you doing? I’ve only just begun basic matlab for first years as well as an introduction to CAD design, and to be honest the one thing that bugs me is the use of arrays and surf plots (involving those meshgrid/mesh commands etc). Just curious to see how you coped with it :D

vøid

msi x460dx ?


Last edited by vøid,

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