Yet another recommend me a laptop

My old gateway laptop (5yrs old now) crapped out so it's time to upgrade. I need some advice as to where to go as gateway no longer does the direct sale.


This computer will be my do everything computer, which is not a lot but still will need to withstand my constant usage for the next 3/4 yrs. I mostly use my computer to play maple, spore, and a couple other games, hopefully some newer ones as I wasn't allowed to play even spore on my last computer due to it being so old. Other than that I'd like for it to be able to watch hulu etc without desyncing all the time (my Internet is fast enough but my computer failed at keeping the audio/video synced) and also to video chat with family as I soon won't be as close as most of them want me to be. Weight isn't much of a problem as it will be stationary most of the time, though a 15 in+ screen is a must. Battery life beyond an hour (playing maple as an idea of power consumption) would be nice (my last one was lucky to last an hour just typing in notepad...)

Price range? I was hoping under $1000 but I can go higher

I found this one on newegg reviews seem nice your thoughts? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6834101229

I'm pretty sure it's worth the price just wondering if I should go better for an increase in price.

This.

The 6-cell battery in it is a joke, but the rest is nice.

As good a deal as that initially looked like I'm not too keen on having to flash the bios, reinstall ati drivers, etc. Just to make it useable...
The deal lasts through 9/30 so I'll keep it in mind.

Pretty sure that the newer models will have the newer BIOS and drivers preinstalled.
And really, flashing the BIOS and installing drivers isn't all that bad.
I upgrade ("reinstall") my drivers every time I see a newer version at the NVIDIA website, and I've flashed my BIOS like 4 times. Though, this is a desktop and even if something went wrong with the BIOS flash, Gigabyte's dual BIOS would prevent it from bricking.

If you are a college student, look at lenovo, I'm planning to get a laptop through them, original price of 1400, discounts to 900. It's got a core i7, r gigs RAM, and 1 gig discrete graphics.

I would recommend any laptop with at least Windows 7 Professional. ASUS, HP/Compaq, and MSI all make great laptops for their prices. (I recommend HP/Compaq due to their warranty and policies.) With 7 Pro you also can use your Domain Account on the School's network if they have one for you. 7 Home can not connect to a network on a domain.

I'm not a fan of hp, had some problems with them before but that was nearly 10yrs ago.

The more I think about that deal the more it seems too good to be true, and there must be something really wrong with it.

Check out this Toshiba: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6834114940

I'm not a huge fan of Toshiba's service department but they do make good quality stuff that will last.

If you care about battery life at all, you shouldn't buy a laptop with an AMD processor.
Engineers at AMD even say this themselves. >_<

He wants a desktop replacement laptop for gaming, productivity, and web, thats why I recommended AMD.

Intel laptops are good but in the past few years of working on them, I've noticed more hardware breakdowns than I have with AMD laptops. Some Intel laptop manufacturers use low-grade parts in the laptops making them burn out faster. AMD laptops seem to use better equipment that lasts longer.

Average burnout time I've seen for Intel laptops... 15 months, versus the average time I've seen for AMD laptops to burnout hardware 36 months.

But the thing is, Intel's CPUs are superior in just about every way (both performance and battery life). I personally have never burnt through a laptop (probably because the only one that I own is a netbook), but to me anything over 12 months would be 'satisfactory' because I'd be itching for an upgrade by then anyways.

But if equipment durability is a factor, don't go for cheap laptops. Those from Acer/Gateway/E-Machines in my friends' experiences have all died within 2 years. If you really want durability, then go for a business laptop (the business Thinkpad line, for example), they can last you like 5+ years no problems.

There's nothing wrong with that IdeaPad. The only things it has superior to every other sub-$1000 laptop with a i7-720QM are the graphics card and built-in bluetooth. The price before coupon code is a scam really - It's not worth more than $1100 IMO.

I'm wondering with the lenovo, It says the processor speed is 1.6 ghz yet a lot of the others I've looked at are 2.2/2.4 but are i5 vs the i7. Anyone care to explain which is better and why?