New Laptop Advice

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slims

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slims246
The motherboard on my old Dell Inspiron finally gave out a while back so I'm in the market for a new laptop. Looking for something to do all the usual computing tasks as well as some light gaming. Don't want the screen to be smaller than 15", don't care too much about the battery life since I won't be carrying it around too much and don't want to spend much more than $500

So far the best bang for the buck seems to be the HP Pavillion g6z-2200. For $525 it has the following specs:
AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M Accelerated Processor (1.9GHz up to 2.8GHz)
1GB AMD Radeon HD 7670M Discrete-Class Graphics
15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1366x768)
4GB DDR3 - 1 DIMM
500GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support
HP TrueVision HD Webcam with integrated digital microphone
802.11b/g/n WLAN

Seems to be a good buy. Anything else out there with comparable or better performance for the same sort of price that I should consider?
 
The hardware is good but I'd rather suggest Asus, Acer, Lenovo or Samsung. HP is not bad in my experience(Of course my experience is from HP PC's that are 5-8 years old) but I don't like the shiny plastic of their latest consumer laptops(fingerprint magnets and oil shows up easily. So good idea to miss out on HP if you like your laptop to look clean).
 
Submerged
Could you expand on your reasons why you do not have a high opinion of HP laptops?

Evidence and facts would help a lot.
Click to expand...

Not just the laptops, but each and every product that they make.

Reason being is a few years ago my family bought an HP computer, it would blue screen after about 10 minutes, every single time. We had it sent in to HP and "fixed" 4 times. Nothing worked.

After a bit of research it turns out that they had installed faulty motherboards into all of those computers. (HPE-372f maybe more)

There were countless number of people online with the exact same problem, and HP would do absolutely nothing to fix it, or give a refund.

The only way to fix it was to buy a new motherboard, which you shouldn't have to do for a prebuilt PC. WAY too much headache with their terrible policy's as well.


So yeah, don't give a single cent to those people.
 
I tend to agree, I've never owned an HP product that has actually worked for more than about a week. I've never had an actual HP computer though.
 
Hmm. I've never had a HP system either but based on the few opinions here I think I'll check out some other brands and see what else is out there in the $500 range.
 
Submerged
Could you expand on your reasons why you do not have a high opinion of HP laptops?

Evidence and facts would help a lot.
Click to expand...

I've never seen an HP laptop that had adequate cooling. Minty had one that sounded like a dust buster compared to my Dell when it was just idling (and he had all sorts of problems with besides), and I know someone from school who had one that the GPU fried itself out on twice in 6 months because it kept overheating. And those were both fairly powerful multimedia/gaming laptops, so I can't imagine how good the cheaper ones would be.
 
Well definitely avoid a HP laptop; they are absolute rubbish.

I have a Samsung R530 which is good and still going strong. It might be a good choice for you but the only problem is that it's quite costly.
 
djinline
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312434

This model has similar specs (apart from the 2GB GDDR3 GPU which performs a bit worse than the 1GB GDDR5, but it is still good for laptop gaming) but comes with a 5400rpm HDD. :indiff:
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That looks pretty nice. I also found this Acer with similar specs. It's intel and Nvidia instead of AMD but from what I've been reading the performance is similar.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215662

Thoughts?
 
djinline
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312434

This model has similar specs (apart from the 2GB GDDR3 GPU which performs a bit worse than the 1GB GDDR5, but it is still good for laptop gaming) but comes with a 5400rpm HDD. :indiff:
Click to expand...

Still a good laptop. If he wanted to, he can clone the old hard drive and replace it with a faster 7200rpm drive(or SSD) in the future if he does not think it's fast enough. It's good enough for light gaming and it will do everything for office use.

Edit: I've looked at the Acer laptop and it is an incredible deal for the hardware but the shiny plastic asks to be scratched and is a fingerprint magnet.
 
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At that price I'd be getting the laptop with the best looking screen...most of today's 1366x768 screens look horrendous but there are some decent ones. One of the best upgrades I've done was getting the B+RGLED 1080p screen w/95% color Gamut, it cost 150 bucks extra but it's worth every penny. After all its what your constantly looking at, people always seem to overlook the display.
 
You should be able to get a much better laptop for your money if you look at outlet stores. Something like a Intel 3210m and GT 640m should deliver about 70% better gaming performance and also processing advantage on average and also should be better on battery and run cooler. Don't get the GT 630M, important to get a Kepler card as it is much better at performance per watt.
 
This is the cheapest laptop I've found with a 640M in it
Aspire V3-771G-6851 - $650

Processor: 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3210M Processor 2.5GHZ with Turbo Boost technology up to 3.1GHz
Memory: 6GB DDR3 SDRAM
Storage: 750GB hard drive
Display: 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal™ LED-backlit Display 1600 x 900 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M with 2GB DDR3 VRAM

$100 more than the Aspire V3-571G-6407 but a larger screen, more memory, storage and better video card. Wasn't looking to spend so much money or get a 17" laptop but for the price and specs I am considering it. I know it would last me quite a while before I'd want to replace it.
 
slims
This is the cheapest laptop I've found with a 640M in it
Aspire V3-771G-6851 - $650

Processor: 3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i5-3210M Processor 2.5GHZ with Turbo Boost technology up to 3.1GHz
Memory: 6GB DDR3 SDRAM
Storage: 750GB hard drive
Display: 17.3" HD+ Widescreen CineCrystal™ LED-backlit Display 1600 x 900 resolution, 16:9 aspect ratio
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M with 2GB DDR3 VRAM

$100 more than the Aspire V3-571G-6407 but a larger screen, more memory, storage and better video card. Wasn't looking to spend so much money or get a 17" laptop but for the price and specs I am considering it. I know it would last me quite a while before I'd want to replace it.
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There is usually very good deals around on outlet stores now and again. Good place to look could be here: http://slickdeals.net/.

Anyway here is a laptop where you could potentially get a discount on it after buying it as instead of GT 650M, it is coming with GT 640M LE: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312510

Will make a good portable laptop but 14" I am guessing is too small for you. You could go for the 17" one you linked to if you want it or look out for better deals on that website I mentioned.

nick09
This is better. Latest version of the i7 processor and the graphics card is much better than the GT 640M. Plus Samsung is a great brand.
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That graphics card is worse than the GT 640M and I think it is better to stick with 3210m due to heat reasons.
 
I see your point. Though the graphical aspect is almost all above 30fps on both cards and I think the difference is there but it's minimal(Most are 5-7 more fps in the GT 640M's favor). The Samsung has the advantage of being a Quad core versus the Acer's Dual core. Personally I think that's worth the lost in graphical power.
 
Good choice but I think one made by Lenevo(Suggested by djinline) would be a better choice. The GPU has 2GB of video memory instead of 1GB that's in the Acer. Plus it fits your $500 budget.
 
nick09
Good choice but I think one made by Lenevo(Suggested by djinline) would be a better choice. The GPU has 2GB of video memory instead of 1GB that's in the Acer. Plus it fits your $500 budget.
Click to expand...

Like I said earlier, the 1GB GDDR5 7670M GPU in the Acer will perform better while gaming than the 2GB GDDR3 version in the Lenovo (7670M won't have enough grunt to benefit from the 2GB of VRAM), but Lenovo has good reputation and it has an extra USB 2.0 port. But I would say the Acer is well worth the extra $30.

However, if you really want to make a difference between Acer and Lenovo in terms of performance, this one is more powerful (better CPU @ 2.3GHz/3.2GHz, better IGP which compensates the 2GB GDDR3 GPU, more RAM, bigger HDD) for $70 more. You shouldn't need to upgrade RAM or HDD which saves money. Make your choice, mate.
 
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