Laptop buying help

[mrboo123]

I'm looking for a new PC, hopefuly a laptop, (I'm going to college next year, so the mobliey would be nice) that is better than the desktop I have now; heres the main stats:

Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz
1GB DDR RAM
nVidia GeForce3 Ti200 card

I mostly play stagrety games (ie Civ4 and EU2), but it would be nice to know that I can play the lastest games (like that new Oblivion RPG game)

I think I found a good laptop but I want your guys advise:

http://stores.tomshardware.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=16310448

http://stores.tomshardware.com/rating_getprodrev.php/masterid=16310448/id_type=masterid

http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/product_detail.do?storeName=storefronts&landing=outlet_store&category=refurb_notebooks&subcat1=hp&catLevel=4&product_code=EC365UAR%23ABA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834224047

http://stores.tomshardware.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=17307941

I also have some general question too.

I've heard that the ADM processors are better than Pentium. This true? Should I care?

Are computer cheaper in the US than in Canada, with equal dollars? I'm going to the US at the end of June, and since the CND$ is at 90 cents per USD$, it would be nice to know this (I'd just buy it there than online).

Is there any new coming up in the computer world that I should know about? (In hopes this would bump prices down abit)

I'm comptely clueless about about video cards (kept I know the one I have is old). Which one is better, ATL or nVidia?

My budget is $1000. But I'm willing to go another $100-200 if the laptop REALLY worth,(I want to last alteast 4 years)

Thanks in advance!

[Urban Ranger]

Your computer is quite good, except for the video card.

Getting a notebook computer that exceed those specs is probably going to be costly. So, maybe wait another year to see what comes on the market?

[Kuciwalker]

You're not going to get it on that budget, I don't think. Not unless you go with a tiny screen and every other component at minimal specs.

[Wiglaf]

I think HP makes the best laptops for pc's these days. I don't actually own one but they seem like a great deal...

Where the **** are you going to college? Wireless

[mrboo123]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Where the **** are you going to college? Wireless

While not written in stone, (I'm still looking) the most likely right now is the University of Saskatchewan (Its 2 hours from where I am now, and 2 of my Aunts lives there, so I can live with them; thus helping reducing costs). If now that, anywhere in western North America, or New York City (area). (I'm going to take Economics, if anyone has advice for what colleges are good)

[Q Classic]

Ick to HP/Compaq. Toshiba's pretty good, honestly. Also, IBM/Lenovo hasn't screwed anything up, but they tend to be more utilitarian, so less on the gaming end. Stay away from Dell; though, you may not be able to, since if you want a gaming laptop, Alienware is premium.

AMD processors are good on the desktop; however, the chipset/infrastructure isn't there on the laptop end to make them an ideal choice. I'd still recommend Intel for the laptop market.

[Kuciwalker]

Last I checked, you couldn't get a decent graphics card with a ThinkPad.

My HP Pavilion is pretty nice.

[Ramo]

Just bought a Dell.

Core Duo 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 60 GB Hard Drive, DVD RW, Geforce Go 7800, 17" screen for $1115 (US) with shipping and tax (only CA and TX residents have to pay sales tax on Dell orders ).

It should run Oblivion fine (everything else I throw at it runs fine at the highest settings).

The only problem is that I got the smaller battery of the two offered (53 Watt hours), but can always buy a second one when I can afford to upgrade.

[-Jrabbit]

ThinkPads are great machines, but designed for business much more than gaming. It's easier to find a gaming-friendly machine that will handle academic apps.

Don't forget to check out student discounts, usually available through your school. This can save you mucho dinero, so you get much more buying power.

[Lorizael]

I would highly recommend against Dells. I very much liked my Dell laptop at first, but have suffered numerous hardware problems in the year and a half I've owned it. Also, everyone I know who owns a Dell laptop has had similar hardware issues.

[Whaleboy]

My laptop is an Acer 5622, Core Duo T2300 @ 1.66Ghz, 1Gb DDR2 RAM, 80Gb HDD, ATI Mobility Radeon X1300, 802.11a/b/g.

Not bad for £770. I get about 2:15 of juice out of the battery doing intensive stuff which is reasonable considering that involves Civ4.

Bare in mind that your CPU, if its a Northwood Core, is on about the same level as the cheapest available AMD Sempron (budget chip). Dual core is where its at in laptops, and Intels Core Duo pwns.

[Jon Shafer]

I've owned two laptops:

One a Gateway for about 3 years and my recent one a Dell I've had for a few months. I had to get the motherboard/vid card replaced twice and the screen once for the Gateway, so I can't really recommend them...

The Dell is a great machine (2.0 gHz dual core, 2 GB RAM, GeForce 7800) and has been awesome so far, I'm just hoping nothings goes kaput.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by mrboo123
(I'm going to take Economics, if anyone has advice for what colleges are good)

Undergrad Economics degrees are, well, quite useless. You'll need to think about an advanced degree after that.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Lorizael
I would highly recommend against Dells. I very much liked my Dell laptop at first, but have suffered numerous hardware problems in the year and a half I've owned it. Also, everyone I know who owns a Dell laptop has had similar hardware issues.

I've also had hardware problems with Dell. However, they've replaced the part everytime free of charge. Often since the problems don't occur until after a few years, the old part is obsolete and they'll send you an upgraded version. On my last laptop, they doubled my memory when the hard drive began failing. When I had problems with my DVD drive, they replaced it with one 3x as fast. However, the performance doesn't decline that much. My current one is four years old and runs nearly as fast as new.

So if you go Dell, I'd strongly reccommend the 3 yr warranty.

[mrboo123]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Undergrad Economics degrees are, well, quite useless. You'll need to think about an advanced degree after that.

When I said "Economics" I meant the generally area where I plan to goto. Right now, I'm thinking about going in either Accounting, Finance, and/or General Business. (Or maybe become a Historian, but I don't think that job would paid the bills very well)