[x]

New laptop/notebook

Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 11
  1. KyleFly KyleFly is offline

    Grapevine, TX
    United States

    Posts: 366
    Joined: Aug 10

    Apr 14th, 2012 (4/14/2012 6:57pm)

    Looking to buy new laptop/notebook with price range up to 750$. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Only thing i know i want is a 17" or bigger screen.
     
  2. wickedfamous wickedfamous is offline

    Vancouver, WA
    United States

    Posts: 286
    Joined: Apr 11

    Apr 14th, 2012 (4/14/2012 8:16pm) in reply to KyleFly

    Get an Intel sandy bridge CPU (second generation). If you're primarily using it to play poker & other general tasks, a core i3 will provide enough power and you will come in well under budget. If you need more power, you should be able to find a core i5 or i7 with all the bells & whistles easily with a budget of $750.

    Since you're playing poker, pay close attention to whether the laptop has a 10-key numeric pad. This can often be an afterthought that you don't recognize until you're sitting at a table.

    If I were spending $750 today, here is what I'd expect to get:
    - Core i7, Quad core CPU
    - 8 GB RAM
    - Blu-Ray drive
    - 17" Screen
    - 500 GB+ Hard drive

    One thing to keep in mind is that hard drive prices are extremely high due to last year's flooding in Thailand. So the days of getting 1TB Drives on the cheap are gone. Also, having an SSD (solid state) hard drive will tremendously increase filesystem performance. Specific to poker, it will help the improvement of HUD software. The problem is that SSD's seldom are found in laptops as a stock option. This is because many laptops can only hold one physical hard drive, and SSD's are short on space (but high on performance). They are not an adequate hard drive for a typical user. If an SSD is something you want, you'll need to find a laptop that holds two hard drives, or use an external mechanical drive to store movies/music/etc. You may be better off custom building a laptop with this option, if it's something you want.

    As for brand-specific recommendations, anything with an Intel sandy bridge CPU will perform in the same ballpark. The difference between manufacturers will be physical aesthetics, and "bells & whistles". I personally love HP's laptops. They often include integrated bluetooth. This can be used to tether to your cell phone for internet, and that can go along way for poker players. My HP also has a biometric fingerprint reader, so I swipe my finger rather than type in passwords. Also, my integrated webcam is of higher resolution than similar laptops I considered. The speakers are Dr. Dre Beats audio, FWIW. It doesn't "boom" but sounds better than laptops I've had in the past.

    Hope this helps.
    Edited By: wickedfamous Apr 14th, 2012 at 08:19 PM
  3. vicvegas007 vicvegas007 is offline

    Tofield
    Canada

    Posts: 342
    Joined: Oct 11

    Apr 14th, 2012 (4/14/2012 8:30pm) in reply to wickedfamous

    +1 to what wickedfamous said but my love is for Toshiba, rock solid at a decent price.
  4. KyleFly KyleFly is offline

    Grapevine, TX
    United States

    Posts: 366
    Joined: Aug 10

    Apr 14th, 2012 (4/14/2012 9:25pm) in reply to vicvegas007

    thanks for the all the info. Where would be a good place to purchase the computer(website,bestbuy,etc)? thanks for your suggestions :)
     
    Thread Starter
  5. wickedfamous wickedfamous is offline

    Vancouver, WA
    United States

    Posts: 286
    Joined: Apr 11

    Apr 14th, 2012 (4/14/2012 11:00pm) in reply to KyleFly

    In terms of bargain hunting, I like to use www.dealnews.com to find deals on almost anything. They index deals from all sorts of retailers, both online and brick & mortar stores.

    Best Buy has good deals, but they can be beaten. Rather than shop by retailer, I would find the perfect laptop, and then check prices at different retailers. I purchase electronics regularly from the following places with good experiences:

    Newegg.com
    Frys.com (or a store, if one is local)
    Amazon.com
    Best Buy

    If you check the laptop sub-category at dealnews, you will find a nice index of the best deals among all the popular retailers. They do not index retailers with a history of leaving customers unhappy.
  6. POKER_PANDA POKER_PANDA is offline

    Costa Rica

    Posts: 4,605
    Joined: May 06

    Apr 15th, 2012 (4/15/2012 12:34am) in reply to wickedfamous

    i cosign toshiba, best value on market imo
     
  7. wickedfamous wickedfamous is offline

    Vancouver, WA
    United States

    Posts: 286
    Joined: Apr 11

    Apr 15th, 2012 (4/15/2012 3:44am) in reply to POKER_PANDA

    I wouldn't say Toshiba is necessarily any better value. A quick look at newegg in the $750 range, I found two HP & Toshiba laptops with identical processor, memory, hard drive, etc. The HP had a fingerprint reader, all else being equal. I wouldn't buy either of these laptops however.
Reply to Thread
Page 1 of 11