So my parents have offered to buy me a much-needed new laptop for Christmas. Sort of unexciting getting only one gift and knowing exactly what it's going to be, but how can I complain? The one constraint is that it must be under five hundred dollars, and anything more than that must be supplemented on my own penny... which pretty much means I can't go over five hundred dollars. Not that great of a budget for a good laptop, but we'll see.
So far, I've been using the reviews on PC Magazine to help guide me. I'm not completely stupid, I know what all of the specs and descriptions mean, but my hang-up is that I have absolutely no perspective on what's the best, what's practical, what's cost-effective, etc, and I especially have a hard time weighing the pros and cons of a laptop that has some of the things I want but not others (which is pretty much how it is for all of these when I have a $500 limit). I could really use some advice.
So my shopping list is basically from [url=http://www.pcmag.com/products/0,,tqs=4E72BA441C7B15E2A02CA94EEEF111CEBB87871C,00.asp?action=defaultadvancedquery&cid=1565&sid=1565&gridtitle=Recent%20Product%20Reviews&googlequery=q%3d%26mt823%3d21234%26start%3d420%26sort%3dprice%26dir%3ddesc&stpdinglp=1]this page[/url] forward, since I have it sorted by descending price.
My current laptop's specs:
AMD Turion 64 Mobile Processor
Technology ML-34
1.79 GHz, 960 MB of RAM
1.5-ish hours of battery life, but I think it's decayed a lot from it's full potential
I was never 100% sure about how screensizes were measured, but last I understood it was the diagonal measurement from corner to corner, and that's a little over 15 inches widescreen.
The problems I have with my current laptop:
Gets choppy if I run certain programs that shouldn't be that demanding on it, or if I run three or so programs at once.
Overheats easily.
The casing broke from routine, gentle handling.
Sometimes goes to pieces just from playing slightly complex flash games or streaming videos - it may just be showing it's age, I don't really know.
High Priorities
Reliability/Durability - Most of my laptops have suddenly had either hardware failure or busted casing for no good reason. I'd like to have one that doesn't turn over and die after nine months.
Processor and Ram - I educated myself a little bit, but on the whole I don't know very much about the difference between the various processors available. I'd more or less like the best one I can reasonably afford; I'm not delusional enough to think I'm going to get some kind of high-end gaming machine for my price range, but I do tend to run a lot of programs at once and run my fair share of media.
Screensize - I'm seeing incredibly small laptops everywhere these days the sizes of paperback airport novels, but this will be my main personal computer and I want something with as large a screensize and resolution as is reasonable. I'd really prefer not to downgrade from the one I have now.
Medium Priorities
Windows 7 - From the look of the shopping list, quite a lot of laptops are coming with Windows Vista and Windows XP, but my goal with this new one is to update myself to 7. It's not a deal-breaker if the perfect laptop for me comes with something else, but if it does I'll be switching to Windows 7 almost right away anyway.
Battery Life - I spend most of my laptop use plugged in, so if my perfect laptop happens to have a battery life of a half hour, that's okay. All the same, the longer I can get it with the other things I want in tact, the better. Battery options are a plus.
Heat and Ventilation - I know that a computer that runs better will also run hotter, so asking for the nicest specs I can get while also expecting it to run perfectly cool is far-fetched, but my current one overheats just from trying to play FFXI if I don't have a little fan held up to the vent and I'd like to move away from that.
Storage: I don't need a lot, but I also don't want to end up with almost nothing. Hooking up to an exterior hard-drive if it ever comes to that would be a handy option.
Low Priorities
Size and Weight - If I can get it as thin as it can be after everything is satisfied, great, but I don't care if it's a clunker.
A Webcam - I guess almost all of them come with one now anyway.
And, just because it's probably helpful for those weighing the kind of computer I need,
My Usual Habits That I Need My Computer to Fulfill
Word-Processing
High, high internet usage
Running of 2 or 3+ programs simultaneously
Remaining turned on all day, hibernating while not in use
Picture viewing
Drawing
Animation
Videos
Games (Nothing too demanding, the worst of it is FFXI)
Instant Messaging (why does this always seem to take up so much memory?)
Please let me know what you can tell me. Feel free to say "You can't get the kind of laptop you really want for only $500," because I can just as easily thank my parents for the offer but decline and ask for other things for Christmas, and save up my own money whenever I can finally get a job.
Thanks.
Your price range is tough. Let me give you some advice on computers out there, since I've personally worked on the repair side of things with certain brands.
You have to go Japanese. But since you're on the cheap you might be okay with a pretty good Lenovo or HP (Lenovos are more affordable though). My personal favorite is Sony, but their parts are proprietary as hell so if you don't buy an extended warranty then you are pretty much ****ed after the first year is up. Toshiba and Fujitsu make pretty sturdy, well-functioning, and cheap machines. Between the two I'd suggest Toshiba because they are really easy to repair and diagnose, and they are cheap to maintain and repair.
Stay away from glossy keys and glossy screens (unless you are a responsible adult who doesn't eat off keyboards and sneeze into screens). Get a machine with at least an Intel Core2 Duo or AMD Turion II processor (or better!) and at least 2GBs of RAM. For your kind of use you want at least 2.2 GHz of processing power and the RAM I suggested should be enough to start out. You can always upgrade that later.
When you say "animation" I hope you're not trying to run Maya at a $500 limit.
If all else fails, get an HP.
This is what I showed my dad today: a [url=http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=A1220]Fujitsu LifeBook A1220 Notebook[/url]
It's two-fifty over budget, which I'm not too happy about, but this is one of Fate's recommended brands, and my dad confirmed it by saying my pastor also has a Fujitsu and he says it's study and capable machine. I feel good about [url=http://www.shopfujitsu.com/www/content/products/notebooks/notebooks.php?products/notebooks/tech_specs/a1220_ts]its specs[/url]. Every review I could find on it seemed to suggest that it was a good buy at this price for the amount of features and performance value; the only real bad thing that anyone had to say about it was that it was ugly, and I suppose looking again it [url=http://www.pcmag.com/slideshow/0,1206,l=245109&a=245113,00.asp]isn't the prettiest[/url], but I don't really give a **** about that.
I can probably pay for the extra with Christmas money and my scholarship surplus combined, which stinks because I was counting on that money for some other things, but this is more important. I've basically told my dad this was the one and e-mailed him the link to the product, so if for some reason one of you knows something I don't and needs to warn me about some unforeseen shoddiness with this laptop, now's the time to scream it. It really looks good to me, though.
i talked to a tech-savvy friend of mine and linked him to this thread, here's what he had to say (i'd rather him just post here but whatever):
Jake says (12:39 AM):
There's plenty of quality ones at that price though
Jake says (12:40 AM):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220663
Afraid that's about close to it as I can get, even then it has extremely ****ty graphics
But LED backlit which owns and a decent processor
And a ton of RAM and decent HD size
i'm afraid i don't really know my shit a great deal, but he was the person that recommended me a laptop that's proved incredibly durable and has served me well for a year and counting. hope it helps somewhat!
edit:
Jake says (12:45 AM):
Tell him to monitor his local staples if he has one because they regularly have kickass deals in that exact range on laptops
i talked to a tech-savvy friend of mine and linked him to this thread, here's what he had to say (i'd rather him just post here but whatever):
Jake says (12:39 AM):
There's plenty of quality ones at that price though
Jake says (12:40 AM):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220663
Afraid that's about close to it as I can get, even then it has extremely ****ty graphics
But LED backlit which owns and a decent processor
And a ton of RAM and decent HD size
i'm afraid i don't really know my shit a great deal, but he was the person that recommended me a laptop that's proved incredibly durable and has served me well for a year and counting. hope it helps somewhat!
edit:
Jake says (12:45 AM):
Tell him to monitor his local staples if he has one because they regularly have kickass deals in that exact range on laptops
Why are my threads on both forums being flooded with good advice after we've already ordered one?
Still, I'm confident about the one I picked.