Which Laptop?

TRDteen

TRDteen

New member
Hello all. With college starting this week, I'll be needing to get a laptop to bring to school. With that being said, I want something thats mainly for gaming. Nothing to run max graphics on, just a mid gaming laptop that I can also take notes on, do research on and write papers. Also, something thats sleek and not too bulky, so I can bring it around school with me. Preferably Windows, but if you have any Apple recommendations, post them as well. Thanks guys!
 
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TRDteen said:
Hello all. With college starting this week, I'll be needing to get a laptop to bring to school. With that being said, I want something thats mainly for gaming. Nothing to run max graphics on, just a mid gaming laptop that I can also take notes on, do research on and write papers. Also, something thats sleek and not too bulky, so I can bring it around school with me. Preferably Windows, but if you have any Apple recommendations, post them as well. Thanks guys!
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idk about gaming but im a college student and i love my macbook pro aside from the two dead pixels
 
Macbooks are quite expensive. I feel could get a Windows for less and with higher performance specs.
 
TRDteen said:
Macbooks are quite expensive. I feel could get a Windows for less and with higher performance specs.
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My son starts college next week also. He picked up a Sony Vaio for around $575. He really likes it. He too wanted a Mac, but being a part-time worker/full-time student, it just wasn't affordable for him. My older son has had his Vaio for 3 years now and its been great. Of course some clown will come on and tell us all how much they suck. Its only an opinion. FWIW
 
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I know very little about computers, but I will say my Macbook has held up through 6 years of abuse and still works great. Yes the initial cost was hard to stomach, but I've been very happy with it and it did everything I needed in college and now.
 
We have the MacBook's now. I stopped using my Dell Latitude. My Dell was great, but like my MacBook better.
 
I have a MacBook Air that my parents got me for college and it's working great. If you get one don't get the extended warranty, as it doesn't help at all in my experience.

As for gaming, I haven't done much on laptops as they are obviously looked down upon for gaming since you have to compromise something to get it so small (or wicked expensive). As such I built my own gaming rig (desktop) for under $700 (software and all hardware, keyboard/mouse/monitor, etc.). Windows 7 is preferred for gaming since Windows 8 is having issues with games. I would also look for something with at least a quad core and 4GB of RAM, and then a nice graphics card (around 1GB dedicated VRAM, though VRAM is definitely not an indicator of GPU performance, generally they go fairly hand in hand).

Gaming + Laptop + Cost Effective is hard to come by. As said, smaller = less performance or more price, and laptop means everything is smaller. With that said, I have gamed on my MacBook Air (11" screen woo!), though the game selection is very limited and most "mainstream" games consist of titles by Valve and then my Air was struggling (though I had a dual core which was bottlenecking the games I played). The OSX platform isn't meant for gaming, though I like it because of how smooth it operates compared to Windows so I have it for my everyday activities and school and then the Windows rig I only use for gaming really.

You can also look at AlienWare. They make computers "meant" for gaming and laptops meant for gaming, though many people frown upon them as a overpriced so I would look at reviews, but you might find something that has good gaming specs and at a good cost. Hopefully that helps a bit.
 
Check out Macmall.com

Look at the 13" Air with 8GB ram and 128GB SSD.

Their pricing is great. Fully legit warranty, free shipping and no tax.
 
Windows 7 sucks and windows 8 sucks more. Actually windows has become a little better. I bought a MacBook Pro last year because of windows 7 and after the learning curve, it's been great. It boots in 10 seconds and runs like the day I bought it. If gaming is your thing though, you should probably stick with windows. I would touch windows 8 though.
 
Anything with a 3rd Gen Intel i3 or better and 4+ GB of RAM will likely get the job done IMO. We are spoiled with CPU performance these days (but the Intel Celeron/Pentium/Atom lines and the low power AMD APU's can still be underpowered for lots of tasks).

I also agree SSD's are a must. Samsung's 840 series are currently the ones to beat unless you go with an Enterprise grade SSD (which will cost like 3x as much!). I've been running SSD's since 2009 (started with Intel, now using Samsung) and would never go back to a hard drive for my OS and Programs. Just stay away form the cheapo SSD's. Samsung makes their own controllers and NAND flash chips - complete control over the entire process and it shows IMO...


In any event - It is always a good idea to remind people to:

BACK UP YOUR DATA!!!

If your important data doesn't live in at least 3 places you are asking for a world of hurt...

:cool:
 
welp..... I stand behind MAC... but then again my macbook is seven years old and just wont die, Soney is not bad, but write back and let me know if it lasts seven years.... I guess my idea is that if I am going to replayce a laptop every two- 4 years.... why not just buy one that last for twice as long and is less of a hassel ? for me, that is a mac. I promise over the life time of any mac, you will have spent just as much on your pc/ windows machine because it will have been replaced at least once... food for thought
 
cdthiker said:
but then again my macbook is seven years old and just wont die...<snip>...I guess my idea is that if I am going to replayce a laptop every two- 4 years.... why not just buy one that last for twice as long and is less of a hassel ?
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Who wants to use a 4+ year old laptop (or a 7 year old laptop!)? I might agree if you buy one today as CPU power is getting stupid these days (Core i5 and beyond came about in 2010 IIRC), but CPU's from 4+ years ago are long in the tooth IMNSHO (end of the Core-2-Duo lifespan or worse if talking 7 years ago). Battery Life, screen pixel densities, modern peripheral support, graphics horsepower, etc will all suffer on something that old IMO.

Nothing against Macs in and of themselves - just a question of Moore's Law and how long you want to make use of old process/fab technology and all that comes with older technology :) Unless you want to rip apart your mac, you will also end up paying LABOR to replace the battery as they aren't "user replaceable" (unless you DIY). I'm sure you are capable of doing this yourself - but another point to consider (Apple looks at their hardware largely as "Disposable"). Mac will also generally omit older hardware from running new versions of their OS (a way to force you to upgrade hardware if you want the latest OS).

I certainly have Dell Laptops that are older than 5 years (first Core-2-Duo line) - and with an SSD and W7 they are useable for most tasks - but I'd much prefer a new one if I was reliant on laptops in general (I'm not a heavy laptop user in the slightest - Love my Oveclocked 4.7GHz Sandy-Bridge E and 4.5GHz Ivy Bridge desktops :) )).

More food for thought ;) A well-balanced diet is a good thing!

:cool:
 
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Indeed a well balanced diet is a good thing.
Sure it is out dated and slow, But I just can not justfiy spending money on something that still works..... then again I drive a 95 4 runner.... so who knows....

as for the battery, I am on my second one, got it off amazon for a pennies on the dollar, it was a matter of unlocking the old on with a scre driver and sliping the other one in.

Of course if you know what you are doing there is a lot of great open source programs out there.

What I do know is that my slow old macbook still runs and preforms. Sure there are parts of it that are no updated, but I have a newer macbook pro that came with my wedding ( the lady's) that I can use for .... whatever. It is now two years old and running flawlessly . What can I say after mutpile PC crash and burns from dell to HP and yes a soney and a leveno aka IBM I am so far over Windows/PC's it is not even funny. I dont have time to play around, I just need something to work, every time, for a long time. Hence Mac. but thats just my 2 cents,
 
TRDteen said:
Hello all. With college starting this week, I'll be needing to get a laptop to bring to school. With that being said, I want something thats mainly for gaming. Nothing to run max graphics on, just a mid gaming laptop that I can also take notes on, do research on and write papers. Also, something thats sleek and not too bulky, so I can bring it around school with me. Preferably Windows, but if you have any Apple recommendations, post them as well. Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

It really depends on what kind of gaming you want to do. Gaming is not Apple laptops strength, unless you're willing to spend some serious money on a MacBook Pro Retina with a discrete graphics chip.

I'd go to college. See what they have for sale on campus, and pick up what fits your needs.

I'm a Mac/Linux guy, but live in a corporate PC world. Sounds like a Windows machine will be a better choice for you, based on your post. The Alienware 14 might be a good fit for you.
 
zopperman said:
My viao sucked. hard drive crashed twice, lost everything, was slow and ran like crap. took 2 mins to boot up.

Mac take 8 seconds
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THatfield said:
I just bought a Sony Vaio S Performance. Fully customized with a 750GB HD, 12GB of RAM, Blu-Ray/CD/DVD player and 1080p HD screen.

VAIO S Series Laptop PCs | Thin Laptops for Business | Sony Store USA

I love it. Windows 8 isn't that bad either.
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I just picked up a Vaio T series Ultrabook and it's pretty sharp. Boot time is less than 10 secs. Lovin' it so far.
 
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