Considering new notebook but need expert advice...

[crashingmedic]

I'm considering purchasing a new notebook / laptop as a desktop replacement machine. I currently use my laptop for everything I do (trading, video & photo editing, light gaming, anything else I run into...) and have been pretty happy with it. I've had it for just about 2 years. However, I have started to see lag when extreme multitasking and am considering upgrading before I run into any real problems.

My machine is an HP dv7-2040-us. I have replaced both hard drives with 2 WD5000bekt drives each with 500gb and upgraded the OS to W7 Ultimate x64. Other than that everything else is the same. Here is the link...

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01688360&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN


And, here are my answers to the questions on the FAQ page...

1. What is your budget?
$1500 (flexible within a few hundred $$$ either way)


2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
17.3" or bigger screen


3. What screen resolution do you want?
1600x900 or bigger (1920x1080 preferred)


4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
desktop replacement


5. How much battery life do you need?
doesn't matter since it will be plugged in over 95% of the time


6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Yes. I'd like to be able to play some newer games that are released in 2011. Does not have to be at full resolution or max settings, just playable without lots of lag. Examples are Dragon Age 2, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Crysis 2


7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
both photo & video editing, day trading, extreme multitasking


8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
2 internal hard drives at least with 500gb each (at least)


9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Newegg, Sager, HP, Toshiba (their direct sites)


10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
3-5 years


11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
prefer BlueRay / DVDRW combo drive but I have an external BR/DVDRW that works fine


12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I have an HP and I love it. I also had 2 Toshiba laptops in the past and they were great as well. I've heard great things about Sager and ASUS and I am considering them. I do not like Dell or Alienware since Dell bought them.


13. What country do you live in?
USA


14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
(see below message)

I have pretty much given my wife my old pc with a Q6600, 8GB DDR2 and 4x 1TB hd. It was fine for my needs but I started seeing lag on that one as well. Since I am on the go quite a lot now I am using my laptop for everything. I've replaced the hard drives with 2 faster drives and larger drives and am considering upgrading the RAM to 8gb to get me through the end of this year.

I am an extreme multitasker and I notice a real difference with trading on my pc vs my laptop with 8gb vs 4gb ddr2. I can't open 20+ applications without a lag on my laptop. Since notebooks are now capable of supporting 16GB RAM I figured I'd look to upgrade before this year is over since I have the funds saved back already. I'd like to be able to do anything on my notebook.

The absolutes I must have are...
* 2 hard drives (or at least space to add a 2nd internal hd)
* dedicated graphics card (prefer nvidia but not a deal breaker)
* able to support 16gb ram (I load lots of data for my trading charts and I must not be lagging)
* 17.3" 1600x900 or bigger screen - cannot go smaller (prefer 1920x1080 but not deal breaker)


I've been told that the new i7 2630QM just under a stock i7 950. Here's the link I was given...

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-2630QM+%40+2.00GHz

I also use an extra monitor with the hdmi port on my laptop. I'd like to use more than 1 extra monitor and I know that an external video card / processor or whatever would be required for this. I'd also like to be able to dual boot W7x64 & WinXP Pro x32 on a laptop but my HP machine is not capable of this.

Anyway, I'd like to get feedback on what machines you experts would use yourselves if you were me. I figure a high end ASUS, Sager or HP is the best.

Thanks...EWB

 

[tlg]

With 1500 $ its going to be very hard to find a 17" or more laptop that will run Skyrim maxed out (or any other game generally).

At that price you can definately get a good quality 17" or 18.4" laptop with the CPU and ram you need to do every job you want.


They biggest downside on a laptop (that make it slower than desktops) is the tons of extra "essenital" windows add-on programs that each company implements on their laptops which end up giving you 80 processes or more in the task manager. So choose carefully having that in mind. I've seen toshiba laptops having too many of those applications.

ASUS RoG are really good laptops reasonably priced. It's hard to advice you on specific models when there are literally hundreds on the market, so simply stick on your budget and don't trust brands selling laptops with big specs and low prices (like Acer) cause the components quality will be terrible and the laptop will die out too soon if you are always having it loaded.

Checking on amazon.com this would be my choise:
http://www.amazon.com/G73SW-A1-Republic-Gamers-17-3-Inch-Gaming/dp/B004I1J864/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1306198324&sr=8-4

You can add more ram in a year if you want. From what I know too much RAM would even slow down your gaming performance (thats in desktops actually)
It's got the GPU CPU and storage you are looking for and a nice LED screen. All for a good price in my opinion.

 

[tlg]

This comes at a better price with a slower and smaller hdd
http://www.amazon.com/G73SW-XA1-Republic-Gamers-17-3-Inch-Gaming/dp/B004LRO9AK/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1306198680&sr=1-1
Can't really find any other difference from the other laptop in my previous post, plus its within your budget.

 

[crashingmedic]

Thanks tlg. I've noticed the bloatware before and on my HP I wiped the drive clean and installed W7x64 and just added the drivers...big difference there. I'll check out those ASUS machines. I know newegg has an asus similar to them, if not the same model for $1850.