High-Spec Laptop

TheRiddler

Hey I'm in the market for a new high-spec laptop. I want to keep it for a few years so I need something reliable. Ideally I would like to keep price under 2000 but I could stretch a bit if needs be. Main uses are video and audio encoding and converting, Photoshop, watching videos and gaming. I'll be bringing the laptop to college so for screen size < 17" would be best. I would like a strong GPU for gaming, large HDD (great if I could something with 2 HDD so I could get a SSD but the only laptop I know has this is the Alienware M17x?) and possibly a Blu-Ray writer if the budget allows. Some laptops I have been looking at are Dell Studio Xps 16", Alieware M15x, Sony Z Series, Macbook Pro 15". Any thoughts anyone?

MackDeToaster

The HP DV8 can take 2 drives and has all the rest, but is 18". I think they also have a DV6 which is similar but has a 15.6" or so screen, it's full hd and with blueray, i7 and 4gb ram is about 1400 in PC World.

The Acer 8940 and 8942 are similar to the DV8 but seem to be impossible to get in this country, but if you didn't mind a German kb and o/s you could import one for about 1300.

The Sony F series has i5 and i7, blueray, full hd and has a 16.4" screen, but has only room for one drive. The i5 is 1200 in PC World and the i7 is about 1450 but doesn't seem to be in any shops here yet. However they do seem to be plagued with issues - I've just had to return my i5, but hope to have better luck with the i7 once they become available online (sonystyle.ie).

That's my two cents, I'm still trying to get something similar but no luck yet.

Voodu Child

Asus N61JQ hasa 16" screen, is reasonably slim and light, i7-720QM (quadcore) CPU and ATI 5730 GPU (upper-mid range). Its also got 2xHDDs. Its got a bluray drive (read only).

Its quite new so you might have to hunt around to find one. Try google.co.uk shopping search, I see a few sellers there in the £1100 range. Theres also a dual-core version, N61JA.

Also, just be aware that if you want something with a lot of CPU and GPU power, and two HDDs, the battery life is going to suffer.

TheRiddler

That Asus N61JQ looks pretty good as do some of the Acer machines with i7 but it's a pitty most of them are 18". What are your thoughts on the Sony Z Series? Where could I get one of these they don't seem to be up on sonystyle.ie?

Overheal

My only thought is if you have the money its great, but otherwise the Desktop Option is going to be way more economical and perform better. A good medium solution is to get a Higher End Desktop for the bulk of your work and keep a portable medium range laptop for presentations and college work, etc.

Like with the N61JQ, once you get into the Comparable Performance range, you've also talked about losing the Portability that made it an attractive option in the first place. Starting from the 15.4" up you begin to sacrifice the portability for performance and it defeats the purpose.

And of course, the woeful battery life. But, AMD has cooked up Hybrid chipsets since last I checked which reportedly save bucketloads of juice by running on a low-end integrated chip for most applications; only kicking on the GPU when something serious is happening.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/ati-hybrid-graphics/

well, that was the page. but some sod has broken the html code. Here,

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:O8xApLXynfIJ:www.amd.com/powerxpress+amd+hybrid&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

MackDeToaster

TheRiddler wrote: »

What are your thoughts on the Sony Z Series? Where could I get one of these they don't seem to be up on sonystyle.ie?

I don't really know anything about the Z Series but there's a big thread here along with two massive ones on the F which might be useful...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1068

romperstomper

asus G73 will do everything you want. €2K here but $1500 in the US which is only €1100 here. there is nothing that even comes close. dual hard drives, mobile 5870 (great card), this thing has the works

digitaldr

I had the the previous generation z series and was really pleased with it - nothing beats it in terms of power/weight. Unfortunately it wasn't soup proof (spilt a bowl of Thai noodle soup over it some months back!) luckily after much toing and froing the house insurance paid out.

The new z series is not available from sonystyle Ireland - I got my old one there and it was a major rip off compared to the UK. Apparently the Sony Centre on Stephens Green will be getting them in on around the 9th of April. I have a friend up North who is going to order it for from the uk as they won't ship to ROI. Interestingly there are more options available in the UK than there are in the USA - eg full HD screen at an extra £50. I've decided to go for the 500 gig HDD option and will probably upgrade to a SSD if/when they come down in price - it's supposed to be a pretty easy job.

The one minor criticism I'd have is that you need to increase window's default font size due to the 1600 x 900 screen (1920 x1080 option for the new model) - the very odd application doesn't handle this well. In Firefox I used an add on called no squint which worked very well on the vast majority of web pages.

Apparently new macbook pros are just around the corner - might be worth considering too.

Might be holding off on purchase for a while due to ABS pump going on the car - will cost €1000 to fix!!!!

Solitaire

Nice double post - I like the 7-minute time lapse between the posts :P