Student buying laptop

[Mich@el]

Hi well going to be starting college soon and am planning on getting myself a laptop. I have been looking through local ads and internet and have determined internet looks to be best since laptops really dont seem to change price all that much in ads (even for thanksgiving). I am stuck atm trying to figure out what I should get. The best I have been able to determine what i want is the HP ze4700 customized. What I am hoping for in a laptop is:
60 Gig drive
2.8 p4 or equivlent (1.8 M i believe but not positive this working on old memory)
DVD/CD-RW
512 Memory
Geforce 5200 or above
Wireless G
15inch or above
and all other little things of USB and such that come in all no matter what. If anyone here can think of anything other than ze4700 i should check or or just any other ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
Michael

[TechZ]

r u looking for something portable or DTR (Desktop Replacement) becasue the one u choose seems to be a DTR

[Major Kong]

That actually isn't a bad notebook rig. The Athlon Mobile CPU ain't bad at all. I'd say your looking at $1300-$1400?

A couple of real good alternatives are the zForce F1 from ABS and my personal favorite the Sager 4080V. The ABS (ABS is owned by New Egg) will run ya about $1430 and the Sager about $1700.
I own a 4080V and can vouch for it's quality. Another good site to check out is Power Notebooks. It's a great site and they treat you right.

[Mich@el]

thanks much I'll look through them. and yes I am looking for a laptop not a desktop. And I am willing to spend up to 1500/1600 just rather not but if its a great deal than I will look closely at it.

[TechZ]

dtr actually refers to those large powerful notebooks that arent so great on battery life and arent raelly fun to lug around, as a student a dtr woldnt be much fun

[CrashNBurn79]

Well I know I could get flamed for saying this but I have came across this at Best Buy, and oh how I want this! Before you pass judgement here are the specs :
Display: 15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA (1280 x 800 max. resolution)
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
CPU: Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 3000+ Processor
64-bit Architecture operates at 1.800 GHz
System Bus uses HyperTransport™
Technology operating at 1600 MHz
1 MB L2 Cache
Memory: 512 MB DDR SODIMM (PC 2700)
Hard Drive: 60 GB HDD
Optical Drives: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (24x24x24 CD-RW; 8x Max. DVD-ROM); Media Reader (Compact Flash, Micro Drive, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro)
Video: ATI® RADEON™ 9600 Discrete Graphics with built in 64MB Video RAM
Sound: PC2001 Compliant AC '97 Audio
Built-in Stereo Speakers
Modem: 56K* ITU V.92 Fax/Modem
Network: Integrated 802.11g Wireless LAN (up to 54Mbps); 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Pointing Device: Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Zone
Battery: 8-cell Lithium-ion (Li-ion)
Dimensions: 1.6"h x 14.0"w x 10.4"d
Weight: 7.5 lbs. (8.65 total travel weight)

$1400 (have seen it for 1200 after rebates)
Any Guesses?
EMACHINE! Yes I know there rep for having crappy computers but still, they even have one w/ a DVD burner for $100 more! I tired this out a Best Buy and Oh man it's fast. here's a link to e-machines website e-machines Website where you can find both of them.

[bbtech6650]

Originally Posted by TechZ

dtr actually refers to those large powerful notebooks that arent so great on battery life and arent raelly fun to lug around, as a student a dtr woldnt be much fun

I have a dell inspiron 5100, its one of the dtr's that dell makes.

The specs are:

Intel 2.4gig
512 ddr
24x cdrw drive
32mb ati vid
usb floppy drive
xp professional
15" xga display
dell 802.11g trumobile mini pci card...

The battery lasts 4 hours...
When i am gaming the battery lasts about 2 .5 hours.



bb

[Vip2]

Originally Posted by CrashNBurn79

Well I know I could get flamed for saying this but I have came across this at Best Buy, and oh how I want this! Before you pass judgement here are the specs :
Display: 15.4" Widescreen TFT LCD WXGA (1280 x 800 max. resolution)
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition
CPU: Mobile AMD Athlon™ 64 3000+ Processor
64-bit Architecture operates at 1.800 GHz
System Bus uses HyperTransport™
Technology operating at 1600 MHz
1 MB L2 Cache
Memory: 512 MB DDR SODIMM (PC 2700)
Hard Drive: 60 GB HDD
Optical Drives: DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive (24x24x24 CD-RW; 8x Max. DVD-ROM); Media Reader (Compact Flash, Micro Drive, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD), Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro)
Video: ATI® RADEON™ 9600 Discrete Graphics with built in 64MB Video RAM
Sound: PC2001 Compliant AC '97 Audio
Built-in Stereo Speakers
Modem: 56K* ITU V.92 Fax/Modem
Network: Integrated 802.11g Wireless LAN (up to 54Mbps); 10/100Mbps built-in Ethernet
Pointing Device: Touchpad with Vertical Scroll Zone
Battery: 8-cell Lithium-ion (Li-ion)
Dimensions: 1.6"h x 14.0"w x 10.4"d
Weight: 7.5 lbs. (8.65 total travel weight)

$1400 (have seen it for 1200 after rebates)
Any Guesses?
EMACHINE! Yes I know there rep for having crappy computers but still, they even have one w/ a DVD burner for $100 more! I tired this out a Best Buy and Oh man it's fast. here's a link to e-machines website e-machines Website where you can find both of them.

Yup that's a great machine! I bought one when they first came out. Its replaced my all my desktops instantly (I got one with the 5400RPM HD). This thing IS FAST. I couldn't believe it was an eMachine (it's not its a relabeled Arima W720-K8). Battery lasts about 2-3 hours depending on what you are doing. No problems running games and I tried COD, BF1942, BotF, 64-bit UT2K3 (the 64 bit one on Linux demo), GTA, GTA: VC, and KotOR. They all run smooth even at 1280x800 (widescreen) for those that support it. I get 3094 3dmark '03 (http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=2276489) after taking it close to the limit on overclocking (stock I got 2445). It also does a SETI work unit in ~2:00hrs stock ~1:36hrs overclocked.

Its also better to buy a laptop locally if you can, not online. If you ask they can power it on and you can check for dead or malfunctioning pixels on the display before you hand over your cash. I went through one eMachine before getting a good one. At work we have a bunch of Dells and a couple of Compaqs with bad pixels. When checking for pixels try a white screen first and look for dark pixels then try a black screen and look for light or colored pixels.

[Mich@el]

Thanks for the suggestion of the eMachine i'll go check out best buy.

[FatalException0E]

Thanks for the link to Sager, Major. They're amazingly informative.