Buying a new computer: could use advice

[Icewalker]

I'm buying a new computer! (Yaay...)

But I'm trying to figure out a few more things about the exact specs I want. I'm looking for a very top of the range current computer, especially gaming capable.

I'm less concerned about the battery life, I usually keep it at home.

The three major contenders I've looked at are
Dell (crazy customizable, this is almost the best in everything)
Processor: T9300 (2.5 GHz)
Screen: LCD, high res, glossy, 1440x900
Hard Drive: 128GB Solid State
Video Card: 128 MB, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M


Lenovo
Processor: T9300 (2.5 GHz)
Screen: 'display panel: WSXGA+ TFT'. Not sure exactly what that means. It also says 'discrete graphics'
Hard Drive: 160 GB, 7200 rpm
Video Card: 128 MB, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M


Toshiba
Processor: T9400 (2.53 GHz)
Screen: WXGA+ w/ TruBrite Technology, 1440x900
Hard Drive: two 160GB, 7200rpm drives
Video Card: 2303MB total, 512 MB discrete, NVIDIA GeForce 9700M


Obviously this is only a tiny bit of the information. Many of the other things are identical between all three (memory and battery are all shared, as are OS. Stupid Vista.). A lot of other things that I left off are also things I don't care about. I may be able to provide them if they are actually important, I don't know a huge amount about computer hardware.

With regards to price, I don't mind paying more for a better computer, so I'd like to know more with regards to how good they are than which is a better deal.

Are any of these three notorious with regards to stuff like failing? I really have no idea.

[Cobra_Ikari]

As far as laptops go, I have ALWAYS preferred Toshiba. No real reason, I just...really like them, and mine have served me well.

[RTGoodman]

Personally my family has never really liked Dells, and from what I've heard some of them (though I'm not sure if they're laptops or desktops) have had a tendency to, well, catch fire. My old Dell laptop was okay, but as it got older it got crappy pretty fast.

I don't know anything about the other brands you've listed, but I'm VERY happy with the HP Pavilion laptop I just got last month. Like Dell they're completely customizable, and they've got everything from basic, cheap laptops to fully specced-out ones with all kinds of fancy stuff. I'd take a look at them, just to see if you run across one you might like. And you can get some killer deals from them occasionally, too - I ended up saving a couple hundred bucks just because I ordered mine during their long "back to school" sale.

[turkishproverb]

As far as laptops go, I have ALWAYS preferred Toshiba. No real reason, I just...really like them, and mine have served me well.

Seconded.

And they're Durable as heck. You can drop one out a second story window and you've got a good shot at it working.

[Icewalker]

Mm...I'll look through those when I have the chance.

[Crispy Dave]

out of the ones you listed id go for the Toshiba.

if you decide on something else here are a couple things you want.

1. at least a 7200 rpm hard drive.
2.video card has at least 256mb of ram on it
3.comp has at least 2 gigs of ram
4.defently get xp if you can.

[Neftren]

Processor: T9300 (2.5 GHz)
Screen: LCD, high res, glossy, 1440x900
Hard Drive: 128GB Solid State
Video Card: 128 MB, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M

Dell has probably the worst tech support ever. You have to get all your drivers through their site (meaning no pre-beta drivers for gaming). Dell also is notorious for breaking down quickly, and there are so many design flaws inherently built into their laptops. I'm sort of against the Dell.

You hardly need a 128GB Solid State Drive. That'll just ramp up your costs and it'll be a waste of money. It's simpler just to get a standard 250GB HDD and defrag it every so often. You also get to overclock that too.

That Video Card is a piece of crap for gaming. The 8400M is the lowest grade laptop graphics card around. At least try to get an 8600M at the very least. Best results would be an 8800. Try getting more Video Ram. Assassin's Creed needs at least 256 to run smoothly. Think of that as a baseline should you wish to run more processor or videocard intensive games.


Processor: T9300 (2.5 GHz)
Screen: 'display panel: WSXGA+ TFT'.
Hard Drive: 160 GB, 7200 rpm
Video Card: 128 MB, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M

Pretty standard HDD. Try getting 250 GB or something with higher RPM. Again, Video Memory is going to be an issue for you. Still, something in the 8000 series is what you want if you're going to game on the go.



Processor: T9400 (2.53 GHz)
Screen: WXGA+ w/ TruBrite Technology, 1440x900
Hard Drive: two 160GB, 7200rpm drives
Video Card: 2303MB total, 512 MB discrete, NVIDIA GeForce 9700M

This is the best of the three you've listed so far. If it's possible, get a big HDD and a small HDD, say in the range of 100/250. Put the OS on the smaller one and the rest of your games on the bigger one. The 9700M is one of the newer mobile cards around and has everything you're looking for. Of course, this may also be extremely expensive.


Are any of these three notorious with regards to stuff like failing? I really have no idea.

Dell is horrible right now. Lenovo is okay. Toshiba is relatively okay. They're on the same level as Compaq I'd say.


Obviously this is only a tiny bit of the information. Many of the other things are identical between all three (memory and battery are all shared, as are OS. Stupid Vista.). A lot of other things that I left off are also things I don't care about. I may be able to provide them if they are actually important, I don't know a huge amount about computer hardware.

I urge you to try Vista (get Ultimate if you can). If you hate it that much, downgrade. You can get a free downgrade back to XP off Microsoft if you bought Business or Ultimate editions.

One other thing you need to care about is RAM. You want at least 2 GB. 2 or 4 GB. Never go with an odd number. It'll slow your computer down.

I would personally recommend HP right now. Or, the MacBookPro can dualboot into Windows. So you'd get access to the 8800 GS graphics card and a really nice screen. It's personal preference really. I could give you more details, but that's just the basics.

[Fri]

Huh, I never buy a built up computer. I bought a cheap desktop back then when I started college, and slowly upgrade it one component at a time.

Related to your topic, if you asked which computer BRAND that you should buy, I can't help at all.

I think it's more important to look at the inside you know, on what you need and how much do they cost.

Do cost matter? Because from those three you listed, one is kinda different. You know, the last one seems to have the best hardware . It's like asking opinion on whether to buy family car A, family car B, or sport car C

[Syka]

Dell sucks. Bad. For one, their tech service are little b's. Worst. Tech. Ever. When I have an issue, I call AOL (my mom has an account, even though I don't use it- they still help) or our phone company (if it's a connection issue).

Not too mention, I've heard from several people that after 2 years they are expensive paperweights and I can back that up. Right around 2 years my laptop went caplooey. It stills works, but it's a piece of crap. I only use it if I absolutely have to.

I refuse to do Dell ever again. We had a Dell desktop that sucked, too (and also had tech issues with about 5-6 years before getting my laptop). I unfortunately had no choice in my laptop as it was a graduation gift.

So...I'd avoid Dell like the plague.

Cheers,
Syka

[Icewalker]

Price isn't too important. Actually, mostly due to the solid state drive, the Dell computer is a lot more expensive, the Toshiba is about $400 cheaper. I'm going to use Vista and keep it carefully backed up, and if it ever goes wrong I'll replace it.

As to the big/small HDD idea, that doesn't really work, the Toshiba isn't a customizable one, it's a set package. Space isn't really an issue though, external hard drives are really big and quite cheap.

[Neftren]

Price isn't too important. Actually, mostly due to the solid state drive, the Dell computer is a lot more expensive, the Toshiba is about $400 cheaper. I'm going to use Vista and keep it carefully backed up, and if it ever goes wrong I'll replace it.

As to the big/small HDD idea, that doesn't really work, the Toshiba isn't a customizable one, it's a set package. Space isn't really an issue though, external hard drives are really big and quite cheap.

Step away from the Dell.



As for the big/small HDD, it's a trick used on Desktops to maximize performance for gaming. You put your OS (and thus, any overhead on your SATA2 connection) onto one drive and then you have the entire connection of the other drive for whatever application you're running. Again, if it's preset, then whatever.

[TigerHunter]

Apple.

Sorry, I had to.

[Dispozition]

If you don't care about expense, Alien Ware is what you want. Bloody expensive, but the best crap you can cram into a laptop there is.

[Neftren]

If you don't care about expense, Alien Ware is what you want. Bloody expensive, but the best crap you can cram into a laptop there is.

Alienware is overrated. Not worth it for the cost.

[Don Julio Anejo]

Acer, HP and Toshiba are usually considered the most reliable brand-wise.

Out of curiousity... Does it have to be a laptop? You may be cheaper off building a gaming PC and buying a cheap laptop if you need one for school or something.

Why? A mid-range gaming PC will cost you around $1000 if you build it yourself, another $500-600 for the laptop, compared to $2500 or so for a gaming laptop that will only work half as good as the gaming PC.

[Emperor Tippy]

Alienware is overrated. Not worth it for the cost.

It depends. You can make one yourself cheaper but you loose out on the customer service, which is quite good.

A lot of the cost also depends on how you customize it and what you need/want it for.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Alienware is overrated. Not worth it for the cost.
Agreed. You're paying around $500-$700 for a brand name. You get the same with Apple, but at least Apple does have some nice peripheral stuff. Alienware has decent tech support, but... Also, this is anecdotal, but I've known at least 10 people who purchased Alienware, and only one of them was happy in the end (6 actually returned the machine straight up and bought something else in the end).

EDIT: I know this will be the question, but here's the problems that were encountered. Every single machine was shipped later and took longer to arrive than advertised - by at least 10 days, with four weeks on the longest example. To note, this is after taking into account extra time for unusual configurations - the four week case, there was after 10 extra days for a the build. Most of them had buggy software, and at least three stopped working completely within a week of arrival. One arrived with an incorrectly assembled and damaged case. Four had incorrect drivers installed. Now, any one of these things can happen, but it seems endemic with Alienware - in no case have I ever heard of an Alienware machine working 100% out of the box. Even the one guy who was happy in the end had to reinstall the OS and have them send him a replacement audio card.

EDIT2: This all happened while I was in college, but since then Alienware has been acquired by Dell, so I wonder whether their tech support is as good as it used to be...


Out of curiousity... Does it have to be a laptop? You may be cheaper off building a gaming PC and buying a cheap laptop if you need one for school or something.

Why? A mid-range gaming PC will cost you around $1000 if you build it yourself, another $500-600 for the laptop, compared to $2500 or so for a gaming laptop that will only work half as good as the gaming PC.
Agreed, this is what I do. I paid about $500 for a laptop I use for net access, word processing, watching DVDs when I'm on a trip, that sort of low stress computing. My home desktop is the monster - Including software, it cost me about $1400 and is much better than what I could have gotten anywhere for the same price. Yes, you do end up being your own tech support in that situation, but you also have less shovelware and proprietary driver issues to deal with, and most tech support is pretty bleh anyways. If you have the savvy to build a machine, you probably have the savvy to trouble shoot most problems.

Probably the main issue is that you don't have a nice fat total warranty on the machine, so if it bricks, that's when you're really in trouble. Now you're tracking down manufacturer warranties, at best, and at worst you have to shell the full cost to get new parts yourself or bring it to a third party repair company.

[Crispy Dave]

hell if cost is nothing then go for falclon Northwest then you can show off to everyone you meet.

fyi:alienware is now owned by dell

[Icewalker]

As to the desktop/laptop idea, I don't really want to, just because it'd be a huge hassle, and I prefer to be able to do a lot of these things traveling. I personally don't have the ability to put together a computer myself, although I have several friends that do, but it'd get really problematic if anything ever stopped working.

Sounds like overall the Toshiba wins by a lot, in the opinions here.

[Lupy]

Hewlet-Packard has always been a great brand, Toshiba is fine too, but HP dominates as far as tech support. When I lived in Atlanta they did house calls if you had the slightly upgraded Warranty, see if you can get that if you live in a big city.