Author Topic: laptop suggestion (Read 1630 times)

blackbeard · « **on:** February 15, 2010, 10:14:15 AM »

ok so i think it's time for a new laptop. thing is i want a tiny one that's screen is between 9 and 13 inches but has a either an i7 or core 2 duo processor, good graphics, 256gb or higher ssd, blue ray drive and 8gb+ of ram as well as as much other stuff that i don't need as i can muster. my budget is about $5000 and if possible i would like to avoid brands such as acer. the only laptop i've found that comes close to this is the macbook pro but it lacks a bluray and only has an nvidia 9400m. any suggestions?

madsci1016 · « **Reply #1 on:** February 15, 2010, 10:56:55 AM »

If you are in the US, nothing , in my opinion, beats a Dell. Decent prices and great customer support. Built in hardware diagnostics, and they don't be-little those customers that know a few things about computers.

I have had a few dells now. When anything would start acting funny, i hold 'Fn' to boot into diagnostics, and call customer support to tell them the error code. The next day i had a service guy at my door with a new motherboard. Can't beat that.

Look at the Alienware systems, there a division of Dell now. They have a 11" that already got an award from Cnet 2010.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/alienware-m11x?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

Nevermind, no optical drive built in. That's gonna be a tough one, you want a net-book size laptop with a optical drive built in. Good luck.

ekanshmishra1210 · « **Reply #2 on:** February 15, 2010, 11:08:35 AM »

I also think that dell is a good option but you may also go for sony vaio that is also good
I also have dell .
Dell have a very good support and it's laptop will work very fine

blackbeard · « **Reply #3 on:** February 15, 2010, 01:26:55 PM »

i was looking at that alienware one. it's much easier on my wallet even if i add the solid state drive and 8gb of ram. i think that's the one so far even if it doesn't have an optical drive. it's like a netbook on steroids!

madsci1016 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 15, 2010, 01:42:31 PM »

Just don't skimp on the warranty. Go for at least 2 years in home service. It's worth it.

SmAsH · « **Reply #5 on:** February 15, 2010, 01:51:28 PM »

Wow, that alienware pc is amazing! I was gonna say dell but heck, that did it...

madsci1016 · « **Reply #6 on:** February 15, 2010, 02:58:15 PM »

Well, Alienware is Dell, so win, win!

Haha. Alienware used to be a separate company, but Dell bought them out and kept the name for their 'extreme gamer' line of laptops.

dunk · « **Reply #7 on:** February 15, 2010, 06:53:27 PM »

i'm not sure how much processor power you need but my travel laptop is using the Intel Atom processor which gives me close to 5 hours uptime on the standard battery.
as the CPU is the biggest battery hog it's definitely worth looking into if you need battery life.
if you don't need battery then please ignore me.

dunk.

blackbeard · « **Reply #8 on:** February 15, 2010, 08:32:17 PM »

Quote from: dunk on February 15, 2010, 06:53:27 PM

i'm not sure how much processor power you need but my travel laptop is using the Intel Atom processor which gives me close to 5 hours uptime on the standard battery.
as the CPU is the biggest battery hog it's definitely worth looking into if you need battery life.
if you don't need battery then please ignore me.

dunk.

i found that atom netbooks are pretty good for most things but i was looking for a full replacement for my lenova t61 clunker.

on a side note i ordered the m11x maxed out! such a waste of money but it's so pretty!

robotsRcool · « **Reply #9 on:** February 16, 2010, 12:16:18 AM »

I think i know a good company but idon't know if they are in the US
they are called ibuypower and the're fantastic

Admin · « **Reply #10 on:** February 17, 2010, 06:47:18 AM »

I've owned two Dell laptops in the last 10 years, used them literally every day over that period. I love the customer support.

I never purchase the warranty, but they still go out of their way to fix stuff for free for me (once was my fault, once was their fault).

Dell Lipo batteries seem to crap out after 3 years though for me, and I rarely use the battery. Otherwise no complaints.

I'll probably go another 2-3 years of upgrading my current laptop before I buy another, and it will definitely be a Dell.

blackbeard · « **Reply #11 on:** February 17, 2010, 07:50:42 AM »

Quote from: Admin on February 17, 2010, 06:47:18 AM

I've owned two Dell laptops in the last 10 years, used them literally every day over that period. I love the customer support.

I never purchase the warranty, but they still go out of their way to fix stuff for free for me (once was my fault, once was their fault).

Dell Lipo batteries seem to crap out after 3 years though for me, and I rarely use the battery. Otherwise no complaints.

I'll probably go another 2-3 years of upgrading my current laptop before I buy another, and it will definitely be a Dell.

whatever you do don't switch to Lenovo. my t61 was 1400 when i bought it a year ago and after spending about 500 on hard drive replacements and 40 for a dvd burner that should have come standard i find that the best resale price i can get for it is $500. so admin you know any guides for laptop based robots

parallax · « **Reply #12 on:** February 17, 2010, 09:42:51 AM »

As far as brands go, recently I have owned a Dell, HP, and Sony. The HP was one of the dv9000 series. You can get them for like $100 on EBay because they have a massive flaw in their thermal dispersion. Try googling it; it's not pretty. The Dell served me well (it's still kicking around after 7+ years) and the Sony is one of the love's of my life. I'm going to sound like a salesman here, but little features like a back-lit keyboard, light sensor to automatically adjust the brightness, solid construction, and softkeys that are actually useful are nice touches. For instance, I'm running Windows 7 Professional right now, but I have a softkey for internet access which will boot from powered off to a minimalist Linux kernal and run nothing but a browser- in about two seconds. Want to google that thing you just saw on TV? Yeah, you can do it almost instantly.

It sounds like you are looking for a monster rig and money isn't much of an issue. 8+ GB of RAM and an i7 plus a high end video card = monster gaming/video editing/3d modeling beast. I can't even remembering seeing something like that regularly available as a laptop, unless it was an Alienware (which is Dell anyway, so that's a good thing). They will set you back a pretty penny, but WOW are they worth it!

Barring that for some reason, I just bought (read: sold my soul for) this rig for $1300 the other day.

Sony Vaio
Intel i7 1.6GHZ (up to 2.8GHZ)
6GB DDR3 RAM
500GB SATA HD
Blu-Ray optical drive (burns DVDs too)
1GB nVidia 330GT
16.5 Widescreen LCD with true 1080p
Bluetooth
Etc.

I can run Crysis on Very High graphics options at 1024x786 at +-22FPS consistently

Not bad for $1300! Consider it as an alternative if the budget somehow changes and you can't afford the Alienware.

Admin · « **Reply #13 on:** February 18, 2010, 12:37:53 AM »

Quote

so admin you know any guides for laptop based robots

An entirely different question

Keep in mind, when selecting your laptop, that it'll be on a mobile platform. That means it might run into walls, flip over, fall down stairs, etc. I hear of many laptops where the harddrive would fail after a 1-inch drop, so keep that in mind! Make sure the harddrive you get is quality. You can get a solid state harddrive as they are very tough, but they cost more, store less, and are a bit slower (the media hype isn't true, at least not yet). Read the reviews.

Also, try to get the smallest and lightest possible, as mass means everything to a mobile platform. The bigger it is, the harder it falls, as they say . . .

Oh, and make sure you have at least 3 USB ports (ISP programmer, Axon USB, USB webcam, etc). My laptop has 6, and although that sounds like a lot, with my mouse and external harddrive I've already used up 5 USB ports, leaving only one left for misc stuff.

blackbeard · « **Reply #14 on:** February 19, 2010, 09:45:51 AM »

ike my t61 is a bit on the heavy side. what would your opinion be on removing the hard drive and setting up a live mint cd with all of the necessary software? i imagine that i could also lighten it up by removing the keyboard and mouse and maybe remove the lcd screen in favor of those mini vga lcds.

parallax · « **Reply #15 on:** February 19, 2010, 10:11:07 AM »

Totally feasible. I have worked with a similar setup before. Things to watch out for:

*Some computers won't successfully POST without a keyboard attached.
*If the live CD you are using has the option to, you may want to copy the OS data to RAM (Slax will do this). This way you avoid potential problems caused by vibration.

You could use a USB flash drive to upload anything you needed when it was running. As cool/functional as having a mini-VGA LCD would be... would it be necessary? If you have a VGA out on the laptop you could just hook it to a monitor any time you needed to see what was going on...

SmAsH · « **Reply #16 on:** February 19, 2010, 03:19:35 PM »

Just to comment on the above posts, he isn't looking for a laptop to run on a robot, isn't he looking for a work laptop to run cad programs etc?

parallax · « **Reply #17 on:** February 19, 2010, 04:35:39 PM »

Correct me if I'm wrong Blackbeard, but your considering using your Lenovo for a laptop bot, yes? I think this is why it came up, Smash

Quote from: blackbeard on February 17, 2010, 07:50:42 AM

whatever you do don't switch to Lenovo. my t61 was 1400 when i bought it a year ago and after spending about 500 on hard drive replacements and 40 for a dvd burner that should have come standard i find that the best resale price i can get for it is $500. so admin you know any guides for laptop based robots

Quote from: blackbeard on February 19, 2010, 09:45:51 AM

ike my t61 is a bit on the heavy side. what would your opinion be on removing the hard drive and setting up a live mint cd with all of the necessary software? i imagine that i could also lighten it up by removing the keyboard and mouse and maybe remove the lcd screen in favor of those mini vga lcds.

)

RoboChan · « **Reply #18 on:** February 19, 2010, 06:39:14 PM »

i got a sony nw with 4 ram and 2.2 core 2 duo. I LOVE IT! just my .02.

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Author Topic: laptop suggestion (Read 1630 times)

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