Shoppin' for a lappy

Ember

Ember

Mrs. Tek7
I'm looking at this one.

I'm looking for a solid machine for mostly basic computing and playing some videos. I'm obviously not looking for a gaming machine, but I'd like to have the option there for a game to at least run.

Also, this machine pretty much maxes out my price range.

What I've read sounds like the specs are pretty good for the price.

So, gang. What do you think?

Oh, and yes I know Best Buy is evil...no need to point that out. :p Show me where I can buy something comparable for the same price, and we'll talk.
 
Ember said:
I'm obviously not looking for a gaming machine, but I'd like to have the option there for a game to at least run.
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*coughPortalcough*

Ember said:
Oh, and yes I know Best Buy is evil...no need to point that out. :p Show me where I can buy something comparable for the same price, and we'll talk.
Click to expand...
As long as it's not Circuit City, which is even more evil. True, Best Buy computer salespeople may masquerade as technicians (yes, I'm talking about Geek Squad), but Circuit City is world-renowned for its bait-and-switch "oops, we accidentally posted the wrong sale price in our ad--for the third time in three weeks" nonsense.

</offtopic>

From what little I've read and heard, the GeForce Go 8400 GS can handle modern games fairly well. I'm not expecting my wife to pick up a copy of Unreal Tournament 3 or Crysis any time soon, but I do dream of one day playing Team Fortress 2 with her. Of course, by the time that day comes, I'll probably have built my next desktop computer and still have my notebook (a Dell Inspiron E1705 with a GeForce Go 7800) to fall back on.
 
This Everex is basically the laptop I bought, and I only had one con to it really the backslash keys... they are everywhere they creep into the del location and the enter spot, but other then that I love it.
 
I have that exact one Ember, and it is awesome... Other than get Vista off of it, if not the GPU doesn't work to well, once you get XP on it, it runs amazingly...
 
Hescominsoon said:
$50 more for a slower cpu? The cores are more efficient than AMD but not quite that much more.
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The Geforce 8400M G is 64-bit, while the 8600M GS is 128-bit.

I consider as it is Intel and 2x better GPU.

Well, its Steam Processors, Bandwidth Max (GB/s) and Bus Width are 2x better.

Though, I didn't notice Whon's lappy also uses the higher video card at a cheaper price.
 
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Whon said:
This Everex is basically the laptop I bought, and I only had one con to it really the backslash keys... they are everywhere they creep into the del location and the enter spot, but other then that I love it.
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Holy cow... i counted 5 slash keys! Do people really need THAT much slash keys?? Lol.
 
I'm partial to Intel C2D since they are faster with optimized multimedia code (SSE). This should help you to search:
http://dealnews.com/search.html?search=intel+laptop
This Dell is decent; you might want to upgrade the graphics card:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=bqcwkta&s=bsd
but factor in S&H & tax, but I would wait for a sale on DealNews.

If you wind up shopping at Best Buy, go to your USPostOffice & grab a "movers packet" which usually contains a 10% off coupon. Think of it as tax-free :)
Let me know if you need more help.
 
Actually they are only faster with SSE3. The athlons match up on sse and sse2. The athlons are actually still better in raw FP performance as well. The athlons fall behind in IPC and power efficiency(which is flipped from when they were competing against the p-4.)
 
yeah, the slash keys on my keyboard are a pain to get used to but I do like having a full sized keyboard and numberpad. You can alter the slash keys so they work as the extended shift keys or enter what ever you want them to be.
 
Intel is BY NO MEANS x2 better than AMD... If you look at FACTS and not a biased information, Intel runs only 10-20% more efficient in comparisons...
 
My wife and I ended up buying the HP dv6768se at Best Buy.

We had to wait around 20 minutes to get an employee's attention before we could make the purchase (I'm not exaggerating; I was watching the clock on my cell phone), then wait for them to ask a manager about a special on 50% off a wireless notebook mouse, then get berated by a so-called Geek Squad "technician" about how free anti-virus programs infect your computer, club baby seals, and eat babies. (And people wonder why Geek Squad's reputation is in the toilet among people who actually work in IT.)

I don't think I'll ever purchase anything computer-related from Best Buy again--at least nothing that will force me to have a face-to-face conversation with a socially inept salesperson masquerading as a technician.

</rant>

My wife loves the laptop and I'm getting ready to clean it off, re-install the OS, and install the base drivers today. I'll be using this guide to do it.

I have to admit that it's a very shiny laptop. I look forward to seeing it run even more quickly (thought it runs very quickly even now) after it's cleaned up.

EDIT: In short, the laptop is awesome, but Best Buy and Geek Squad = epic fail.
 
I learned not to shop at Best Buy a long time ago, when a geek squad member told me I cannot use s-video to connect my laptop to my TV, (have done it at least 15 times recently), so to me, Best Buy is a joke...
 
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