Hardware New Laptop

[KingVamp]

Don't worry you probably couldn't find a decent Apple laptop at that price anyway.

Tried to like again,but it wouldn't let me.

If PCSX2 in specific is important to you, you should lean on an Intel

Wasn't really important at first, could be well off with just ps1 emulation,...but it's too tempting
and stuck in my head now.

-refurbished


You should subscribe to the Newegg newsletter! at least until you make your purchase. they send out short-term coupons with blanket savings (like 15% off all Razer products, for example) once or twice a week and if you tend to browse while logged in to their site, may even send you suggested products based on what you look at or even discount coupons for those type of products. And their opt-out works correctly, I had to do this to avoid getting the newsletter twice every time it got sent out and they don't screw you on unwanted ads when you do the opt-out.

I was thinking about refurbished,but I'm bit worry that it more acceptable to messing up even if it clean up and
such. Althought, do hear they refurbished demo laptops. Wonder if that more trustworthy. Well, I was only force to get a new charger after 3-4 years,but even that is no longer keeping my old laptop alive.

.At the certain sites am looking at, bestbuy is the only store that near me.

I may do that.


http://www.microcent...duct_id=0375282
To bad they didn't have a store here.
,but (although it brown. *nitpicks)
http://www.microcent...duct_id=0386935

Is microcenter or that laptop to be trusted?
The laptop has me skeptical.
If this is good, do you think "pleading" will give me the black one. lol

I didn't want/not going to the overclocking realm, want my laptop to last.

What do you thing about this?
http://www.staples.c...2464:F5L055-BLK

And of course I'm not rushing even if im laptop-less right now :/. I want a good, long lasting laptop,which would
probably beat my old one into the dirt. This why I want multiple opinions.

From PCSX2 Thread.

Intel Core 2 Duo / Core i3 @ 3.2Ghz or faster

I didn't think I seen a i3 with 3.2Ghz. Are u refering to over clocking?
I seen in video I posted said that the lowest requirements is 2.4Ghz.

Ha!
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+IMR+Matte+Dark+Brown+Suit/5218223.p?skuId=5218223&id=1218626372515

With $20 gift card.

 

[exangel]

If PCSX2 in specific is important to you, you should lean on an Intel

Wasn't really important at first, could be well off with just ps1 emulation,...but it's too tempting
and stuck in my head now.

-refurbished

I was thinking about refurbished,but I'm bit worry that it more acceptable to messing up even if it clean up and
such. Althought, do hear they refurbished demo laptops. Wonder if that more trustworthy. Well, I was only force to get a new charger after 3-4 years,but even that is no longer keeping my old laptop alive.

Since you're uncertain enough to need guidance on this decision, you should avoid buying refurbished by mail order. Not because of reliability concerns per se, but because you will have to pay part of the shipping costs to make an exchange if you find a defect in what you receive. You should only go with Refurbished/Open Box items by a local retailer who has some kind of replacement or refund policy that will protect you from additional expenses that may arise from a product that has a *shorter warranty*. But you should still have confidence in your diagnostic skills when you examine your laptop if you buy a refurb/open box item locally! The shorter warranty caveat is bad regardless of who you buy the laptop from if your luck is poor and you get a stinker.

I choose refurbished when I'm confident in the item/brand itself, and do research into the product, especially if I still save money after I throw in an extended warranty. Refurbishment may re-use some of the parts from returns, but if you're buying a Factory-Refurbished item that does not always mean that the product is any more unreliable than a new one. It's just that regulations require that if any of the parts in the product come from recycling, the manufacturer can't sell it as a new item.

When it comes to something like a laptop, maybe a couple of the parts came from a returned item, but the item may also contain recycled "new" parts from unsold products.
One of the biggest reasons manufacturers let the refurbs go for so cheap is that they rarely provide more than 90 days' warranty. If you don't discover a problem until the fourth month, the manufacutrer won't lose any money on parts/repairs for your laptop.

From PCSX2 Thread.

Intel Core 2 Duo / Core i3 @ 3.2Ghz or faster

I didn't think I seen a i3 with 3.2Ghz. Are u refering to over clocking?
I seen in video I posted said that the lowest requirements is 2.4Ghz.

I copy pasted that part of the info from their official forum. Though the requirements may have decreased since I last edited the guide, what I said specifically in my thread is: for maximum compatibility, those are recommended requirements, not minimum. That's why I gave links for information about running the emulator on lesser hardware, which can scale all the way down to a 2 GHz dual core (I was able to emulate a SMALL number of games on a Turion 64 Dual Core @2.0GHz with 4GB RAM at native resolution, including Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy X!) Your mileage may WILL vary per game, and the 3.2 GHz for that line of CPU's is recommended for maximum compatibility not minimum needs.

If you're going for Intel in that price range try to be careful about what graphics it has for the sake of your other gaming desires though. If it's possible for you to snag something that has Intel HD Graphics 3000 or even a dedicated card, that'll be nice. Lower than that, and your other needs may see lower performance than you should be able to get in the $400 range.
I have seen an occasional laptop that wasn't refurbished on Newegg that had dedicated graphics in the $380 to $440 range, but they rarely include Intel CPU's.

And yes, there are i3's that fast (and faster,) but not in laptops.

edit: fixed quote nesting and added a little detail.

 

[KingVamp]

I think I found a good one. Hope reliable are HP laptops? How reliable is newegg?

 

[Originality]

Read the reviews on that specific laptop. If the design is good and the parts work, it'll be fine. If not, it is more prone to failure. The same applies to all laptops, not just HP.

Example, their tx series had a major design flaw that caused them to overheat. I have one that died in 2 years, and the other still works after 5 years. The difference is that I tweaked the OS to reduce thermal output.

On the other hand, one friend has a dv6 series that is still running very well for him.

 

[exangel]

Read the reviews on that specific laptop. If the design is good and the parts work, it'll be fine. If not, it is more prone to failure. The same applies to all laptops, not just HP.

Google the item name with model number, and add keywords like "problem" "freezing" "issue" -- if you don't get anything alarming specific to your model, then you're probably safe.

How reliable is newegg?

Newegg is as good as, or better than, Amazon or Best Buy -- except that if you don't live in California, (there may be some exceptions with TN/NJ where they have warehouses also) you don't have to pay local/state sales tax.
Amazon has great customer service and when your purchase online through Best Buy you may be able to do return/replacement service locally.

Newegg is fantastic if you're ordering parts -- for a more expensive single transaction like this one, it isn't especially better than Amazon or Best Buy due to the potential need for service in the first 30 days. In the past 5 years I have ordered 3 laptops and 1 netbook through Newegg (all four of which were New) and only 1 laptop from a retailer (Best Buy).

With Newegg, the first laptop I ordered (in 2007) was a $1300 ASUS gaming system, and it was flawless. It still works. It just looks worn out.
Then I ordered a $400 ASUS 11.1" Netbook for my father, in 2009. It was also flawless but we gave it to a friend who wound up pawning it
That same year I helped my mother choose a $500 ASUS consumer laptop that has an Intel processor and it is working great but she has a tendency to use chat rooms while eating and watching soaps so the keyboard is in horrible shape >.>
In fall of 2010 I ordered an Acer system that was about $550 from them and it had a serious screen problem that I didn't discover until it was too late to send it to Newegg for an exchange. I had to ship it to Acer and long story short they replaced the wrong part. I don't have any problem with Newegg for that problematic system.
This year I bought a $1500 professional business laptop with an insane battery life on behalf of my friend as a gift for his son who's a researcher who travels often. We had a really hard time with the order verification process because my friend wasn't aware that his bank had imposed "Online Fraud Protection" on his card, and since his initial online purchase with it was over $2,000, it was insta declined. It ruined my vacation and everyone was inconvenienced by how long it took to resolve, but the laptop itself was just insanely wonderful (This one was a Toshiba) and I was terribly jealous that I had only 3 hours to examine it for defects before we had to pack and ship it to his son.

If I'm including ALL of my transactions with Newegg since 2002 though, I've probably spent or helped others spend $25,000 in the past 10 years. Last time I tallied my entire order history it was almost $20,000, but I know I've spent minimum another 5 grand in the past year doing builds and repairs for myself and a couple others.
Of the pages and pages of orders in my history, hundreds of parts-- I have only had 3 defective products and two RMA's... I can say from my considerable experience using Newegg as my primary supplier that if you get a bad product, you either had really bad luck, or there may have been damage in transit which is a risk with any kind of online/mail shopping.

 

[KingVamp]

The one I was looking at, turn out to be open box. O.o

I'm glad you told me to look at the gpu because the i5 I found cheap and new only had
a gma gpu.

-_-'

I need better laptop searching skills.

Are there cheaper i3/i5 plus Intel 3000 alternatives? I actually found (I believe ) good i3 laptops.
It's the i5 that keeps screwing me over. Lolo

See

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/features.jsp?skuId=5290622&type=moreInfo&product=hardGoodPrd%3A1218631400987&productTitle=HP+-+15.6%26%2334%3B+Pavilion+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+320GB+Hard+Drive+-+Pewter+-+g6-1d38dx&id=1218631400987

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=4847142&pid=1218548303104

 

[Foxi4]

First link appears to be broken. Second link? No, because Acer.

My suggestion: ASUS X53 series are entirely affordable. I'm currently typing this post on an X53s, equipped with a Core i3 (2.2Ghz, Second Gen), GeForce GT 520MX (1GB) with 4GB RAM and I have to say that it's pretty damn efficient for its price. You should be able to afford one.

 

[KingVamp]

First link appears to be broken. Second link? No, because Acer.

http://m.bestbuy.com/m/e/product/detail.jsp?skuId=5290622&pid=1218631400987
Try that.

Do you have a specific reason for denying Acer? Lol

 

[Foxi4]

Update: New link - No, because HP, these also suck.

All my experiences with Acer have been negative so-far. Many people will disagree with me, but my opinion is that those laptops are cheap for a reason. They're poorly-designed, they overheat quickly, their batteries are crap and their general performance is piss-poor, at least of the laptops in the Economy range. You can really get a far better deal from other companies, even with worse specs.

 

[exangel]

Hey I've got another tip, regarding going to local retailers regarding your purchase. You may not be able to find a good deal locally on a model you find a good deal for online, but you should try to check out a display unit for something from that series at Best Buy or Office Depot / Office Max / Staples, anywhere that carries a selection of laptops. Check it out in person, because something that plagues sub-$500 laptops is cheap build quality. I think the most major thing you'll want to pay attention to is how much the screen housing flexes, if it flexes noticeably just from opening and closing motions, that's bad news already. If you're at a regular electronics retailer, you can easily compare low end models to higher end to see what ought to be normal.
This is one of the things I didn't do with the fail Acer that I bought, and I really wished I had checked out that series locally first.

But I lean to agree with Originality more than Foxi regarding brands. Although I won't personally buy Acer again, it's because their warranty service center was retarded and ignorant (I provided thorough but well organized information on what they needed to fix when I sent in that laptop that was bought new). And I had another unsatisfactory encounter with them prior for a desktop computer, but that's not as relevant.

Research the specific models yourself, and if you can find out when the model or series first started shipping to stores, that's helpful. If some HP laptop has been on the market for 9 months, and you aren't finding a lot of results with "HP WhateverModelYouAreCuriousAboutXX problem" (or defect, or issue, or broken..) that is probably just as well, if you're getting a good price for your demands. And that's definitely better than just going with anything ASUS without checking the same thing, just because me and others chime in about how much we love the ASUS's we've bought. (And I do, but you should exercise the same caution with what you spend your money on regardless!)
For an expense this big, always read all the reviews on the site you're browsing the item on, I'd also recommend that you see if competitor sites have plenty or reviews to pick through as well. Sometimes a manufacturing defect is more specific than you'd find with a particular broad keyword search -- for example, I almost selected a $1400 HP ENVY series laptop (which is a GREAT high end series) for my friend's son earlier this year, but there were a lot of comments about the screen not displaying red colors correctly. this was a problem that was true to EVERY SINGLE ONE THEY MADE due to an undetected manufacturing issue. XD


edit: Following my own advice I did some googling on that HP you linked. There wasn't anything really alarming when I googled about "G6-1D38DX" with various problem keywords, what you need to look out for is complaints in the reviews, or for support forum threads (which are usually most informative when not on shopping-related or official websites -- i.e. Tom's Hardware or other magazine type websites.)
At least one of the reviews on BestBuy say it's a quad core but there aren't any i3 quad cores. This one is a dual core, but i3's use hyper threading, and that's why CPU meters will show four. Intel quads are rare on any laptop, even some (if not most) i7 laptops i've seen are technically hyper-threaded dual cores. I think that's a great score for the price with emulation and the fact you'd be getting it through best buy who has a great service/replacement policy (plus the rewards points) that, makes it worth paying sales tax.

 

[Foxi4]

Agreed - it's always a good thing to google up the exact model for any issues it may have. I was simply speaking from a personal experience since HP actually is known for releasing rather mediocre laptops.

Also, inb4 Originality denying my anti-Acer claims.

I'm basing them purely on my experience with Aspire laptops people brought to me for repairs or updates. They often suffer from overheating, they often differ in quality from one-another within one series, even within one model and their batteries quickly lose juice. I really think they're cheap "for a reason" - the hardware underperforms. It "feels" as if Acer was putting quality hardware on a really bad motherboard and set the contraption to work at half-efficiency to avoid issues - there's often a large gap between an Acer laptop and another laptop with comparable specs.

 

[exangel]

Agreed - it's always a good thing to google up the exact model for any issues it may have. I was simply speaking from a personal experience since HP actually is known for releasing rather mediocre laptops.

Also, inb4 Originality denying my anti-Acer claims.

I'm basing them purely on my experience with Aspire laptops people brought to me for repairs or updates. They often suffer from overheating, they often differ in quality from one-another within one series, even within one model and their batteries quickly lose juice. I really think they're cheap "for a reason" - the hardware underperforms. It really "feels" as if Acer was putting quality hardware on a really bad motherboard and set the contraption to work at half-efficiency to avoid issues - there's often a large gap between an Acer laptop and another laptop with comparable specs.

You remind me to mention that models may* also differ some from country to country, and warranty service is handled by different repair centers entirely when we're generalizing laptop brands distributed internationally. I've got my own gripes about HP as well, namely their horrible bloatware which is worse even than Acer's, but that's something that can be remedied with freeware like the batch uninstaller in Advanced SystemCare Pro.

 

[Originality]

I never said anything. I've already pointed out that all laptop issues are to be judged case-by-case. Yours is just one review. There are many more on the Internet that either agree or disagree with you. Some models have more problems than others. All I can say is that my dad's Acer Aspire has no problems at all (core i5-540M, Intel GMA 4500M, cost around $400 at the time). That's my review. Now any consumer with a good head on their shoulders would take those two into consideration and go online to find more reviews before making their decision.

Also keep in mind that some people treat their laptops better than others. As mentioned, I've had two HP tx series laptops, and the reason why one survived where the other died (despite inherent design flaw) is because I tweaked the OS to be kinder to the hardware.

 

[KingVamp]

(core i5-540M, Intel GMA 4500M, cost around $400 at the time).

New? How and where?

You guys are a great help. I appreciate it.

Where you got your laptop foxi?

 

[Originality]

New, from a local Micro Anvika store (UK only), from around 3 years ago. I liked the shiny blue case, and i5 is perfect for my dad's chess analysis program.

 

[Foxi4]

Where you got your laptop foxi?

I got mine New from Media Markt - that chain isn't available in the U.S, I think.

 

[Joe88]

(core i5-540M, Intel GMA 4500M, cost around $400 at the time).

New? How and where?

I think he means $400 GBP which equates to $620 USD

 

[Originality]

No, I meant £350 which equates to around $400-450 before taxes. Now it's around $530 after taxes, but the rates were different back then.

 

[Zetta_x]

My Acer Aspire has a I5-2450, HD 7670m (which so far pwns the igp), 1 4gb memory stick (with two available slots, no need to replace any ram to upgrade). It has a nice sturdy design and working great so far. bought it online at the end price of $500 after $50 rebate

 

[KingVamp]

Anyway had experience with Gateway computers?