WHAT SHOULD I BUY? Multimedia, Good Sound, Light Gaming
Help me find my laptop!
General Statement of Usage
Lightweight Office and multimedia work. Desire above average audio recording and playback. I'll be taking this laptop with me to work every day, to coffee shops, etc but not actually walking around with it much.About Me
My Computer Experience: 20 years in the Computer IndustryBasic Specs
Country: USA
Purpose: Office type work, Multimedia. Lightweight 3D.Operating System
Budget: About $1500
Portability: To and from work every day.
Games: Not much. Maybe some flight sim games but not much.
Battery Life: 3+ hours.
XP Professional or Windows XP Media Center or Vista.Screen Specifics
Screen Size: 14" or 15" WXGAPurchasing Factors
Glossy/Matte: No strong preference.
Preferred Brands: No.Components
Purchase without seeing it in person? I prefer to see it first in person, but not required.
Stylishness Factor: Not important.
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo
When to buy? This month.
Desired Life: 5 years
Hard Drive: At least 80 GB 7200 RPMCommunications:
RAM: 1 GB minimum
Optical: DVD-RW Dual Layer
Touch pad
Sound / Recording Quality: Above Average
Built In Camera/Mic - Nice to have not required.
WiFi: 802.11a/b/gPorts
Blue Tooth
Cellular - Integrated or possibly via PC Card
Ethernet - Gigabit Preferred. 10/100 Ok.
S-Video Out
USB X 3
Firewire
PCMCIA
Microphone In / Headphone Out (digital audio port a plus)
Media card reader desired but not required.
Answer:
Re: What to Buy - Multi-purpose multimedia
Nobody has any advice????
Ok I checked out the dv2000t / dv6000t. I saw them at Best Buy but those glossy touch pads suck! Anyway here's how I configured/priced them for reference:
Reference Laptop: dv2000t / dv6000t - $1020 / $1120
Core 2 DuoLenovo T60 - No firewire, s-video, or media card reader.
WXGA (1280x800)
1 GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce Go 7400
DVD double-layer r/w.
Webcam
WiFi
free HP Deskjet F380 "All in one".
Lenovo Z61m - Nice feature set (wide screen, firewire, s-video, media card) but a bit pricey.
Any other suggestions?
Answer:
Re: What to Buy - Multi-purpose multimedia
Dude...it's Sunday afternoon and out here is SoCal it is a GREAT lazy day with some wonderful warm breezes blowing.
I'll offer what i can. My personal specs are similar to your except I started about 30ish years ago. So I getcha...
If you are going to look at something to drag around to work everyday. I would really recommend the business lines. For HP that is pretty much the NC/NX/NW lies of laptops. For Dell it is the Lattitude line. Other's I do not know. Some folks like the build quality of the Lenovo systems too and compare them well with both HP & Dell business lines.
Personally my eyes are worn to the nub from years of coding and I need the luxury of a 17" display. So I went for an HP NX9420. I found mine from a reseller in Canada who was moving out last year's builds before the new ones came out earlier this year. So, I paid just US$1225 including shipping. Then I upgraded the RAM and added a 12-cell battery. All in all it was a total of about $1450ish for eveything. That was several hundred under buying directly from HP and includes the international 1-yr warranty standard with all their business models.
Advantages of business lines are build quality and US based tech support. Oh, yeah, pretty much ZERO bloatware too...businesses do not have the time to waste re-installing an OS or removing the other consumer level crapware. Worst I had to deal with was a 60-day NIS tiral install which I finally found a removal tool for on the Symantec site. So not too bad.
I will say that this system is more solidly built than the dv9000 I had first. No case flex or squishy hinges. Love the keyboard too.
You can find deals on Lattidues too...in the past I had great results with Dell Business Support. It is far better then their consumer support. cannot comment on the HP support yet, it's only been 2 months so no issues...yet. ;)
And people LOVE their dv600t systems too...lots of hardware goodies. The builds I have seen are OK. But if you are going to transporting your system daily, I would be only slightly reluctant to buy one. And I mean VERY slightly. If it were the only option in my budget I would pull the trigger in a heartbeat...I cannot say the same thing about the Dell Inspiron 1505 (similar model to the dv6000t). I am not fond of the Dell consumer support anymore nor the build quality of their entire Insprion line.
I can agree with you about the touch pads from HP. They take some getting used to after using the rougher kind like Dell uses. What I find has helped is cleaning it at least once/day. That smooth suface just seems to want to grab your finger and feels like tracking though mud...keeping it clean will help. And likely the models in the store were NEVER cleaned and every greasy fingered kid just ahs to touch the pad...ICK!!
Maybe there is some info there that will help ya out...
back to kicking back in the sun with my iced tea.... :D
Answer:
Re: What to Buy - Multi-purpose multimedia
the glossy touchpads on HP dvs do suck, but I found if you turn up the pointer speed to like 80% of the bar, it makes up for it. This is all from testing it in the store mind you.
Answer:
Re: What to Buy - Multi-purpose multimedia
The HP nc6400 is worth looking at; excellent overall quality and a good keyboard.