I'm trying to figure out what laptop to get, and would appreciate any advice you care to throw my way. The intended use is a remote terminal to my workstation, plus playing videos and some mid-weight gaming. Yeah - see how I listed the work use first?
1. My budget is ~$2000 to 2500.
2. & 3. I really want 120dpi and 1000+ pixels vertically. That means I'm good with anything from an antique 15" 1280x1000 screen up to a 19" at 1920x1200. Weight isn't critical.
4. Desktop replacement. Specifically, I'm hoping to equal or improve on my old desktop's gaming and video performance - it had an E8400 with 4GB RAM and a 7950 GT, so I take that to mean something akin to a T9900 and GeForce 260M in laptop land. Please advise me if I've got that wrong.
5. Enough to get through a full movie - call it 2 hours.
6. Current time wasters are Battle for Middle Earth II, Demigod, EVE Online, WoW, and a others as the mood strikes. I suspect Dragon Age may come into it soon.
7. It will also be used for movies and other video, possibly be used to edit some fairly huge graphics files, and definitely need to view large, graphics-heavy PDF documents.
8. Hard disk capacity needs to be enough to run Windows and dual-boot into Linux, but it won't be storing my video collection or anything. Figure 500GB or so is plenty.
9. I'll be happy to take your recommendations on a source.
10.If it holds up, it will be used for years for one thing or another. I've noticed, however, that laptops tend to die young around here, so I'd plan on no more than a two year active lifetime.
11.Optical drive just needs to read ordinary DVD's. I suppose it needs to be upgradable to blue-ray for longevity's sake.
12.Your recommendation on brands would be welcome. I had a buddy who swore by Toshiba, but has since become a Gateway convert. Another one liked Sager. Personally, I've used HP & Lenovo laptops in the past, and was satisfied with them for business use. The HP(DV4000?) was pretty good at playing movies, and passible at games if you didn't expect too much. The Lenovo (T-61p I think) held up slightly better, and had a nice 3-button mousepad, but it's screen was very dim, and had a wacky high DPI that lots of apps didn't like. I also used a Dell, back in the day, and it had a great feature of letting you put additional batteries into un-used bays.
13.I live in the USA.
14.Ideally, I'd like to get one with a DVI port to plug into an HD external monitor or two when I'm not out and about. Also I'll want to be getting a pro or server version of Windows, rather than a home version.
1. My budget is ~$2000 to 2500.
2. & 3. I really want 120dpi and 1000+ pixels vertically. That means I'm good with anything from an antique 15" 1280x1000 screen up to a 19" at 1920x1200. Weight isn't critical.
4. Desktop replacement. Specifically, I'm hoping to equal or improve on my old desktop's gaming and video performance - it had an E8400 with 4GB RAM and a 7950 GT, so I take that to mean something akin to a T9900 and GeForce 260M in laptop land. Please advise me if I've got that wrong.
5. Enough to get through a full movie - call it 2 hours.
6. Current time wasters are Battle for Middle Earth II, Demigod, EVE Online, WoW, and a others as the mood strikes. I suspect Dragon Age may come into it soon.
7. It will also be used for movies and other video, possibly be used to edit some fairly huge graphics files, and definitely need to view large, graphics-heavy PDF documents.
8. Hard disk capacity needs to be enough to run Windows and dual-boot into Linux, but it won't be storing my video collection or anything. Figure 500GB or so is plenty.
9. I'll be happy to take your recommendations on a source.
10.If it holds up, it will be used for years for one thing or another. I've noticed, however, that laptops tend to die young around here, so I'd plan on no more than a two year active lifetime.
11.Optical drive just needs to read ordinary DVD's. I suppose it needs to be upgradable to blue-ray for longevity's sake.
12.Your recommendation on brands would be welcome. I had a buddy who swore by Toshiba, but has since become a Gateway convert. Another one liked Sager. Personally, I've used HP & Lenovo laptops in the past, and was satisfied with them for business use. The HP(DV4000?) was pretty good at playing movies, and passible at games if you didn't expect too much. The Lenovo (T-61p I think) held up slightly better, and had a nice 3-button mousepad, but it's screen was very dim, and had a wacky high DPI that lots of apps didn't like. I also used a Dell, back in the day, and it had a great feature of letting you put additional batteries into un-used bays.
13.I live in the USA.
14.Ideally, I'd like to get one with a DVI port to plug into an HD external monitor or two when I'm not out and about. Also I'll want to be getting a pro or server version of Windows, rather than a home version.