Truth is, I haven't looked at computers specs or prices since I got this computer ages ago. Now I'm in the market for a new laptop but I have no idea what is good value, specs or even where to look for good deals.

Any advice or direction would be appreciated.

Servius_Fulvius

United States947 Posts

July 28 2010 19:20 GMT

That all depends, what do you want to do with it? Is it a computer used for school/work, multimedia, or lots of gaming?

Wysp

Canada2299 Posts

July 28 2010 19:22 GMT

Mainly school, I'd probably like to install starcraft 2 on it. Really I'm looking for value and durability, gaming way back on my priorities (although I do desperately want to play starcraft 2...)

yourwhiteshadow

United States442 Posts

July 28 2010 19:24 GMT

i posted a topic about this at hd/husky's website. i'm still working on it, but my ultimate goal is to build a rig that will ultra sc2 at 1920x1200 for $450 (maybe only $150 more for a 24" monitor). with that in might, you should be able to do some light video editing, easily do photoshop, and pretty much anything else.

http://starcraftarena.net/forum/index.php?topic=313.0

QuanticHawk

United States32082 Posts

July 28 2010 19:25 GMT

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=132862

also check out the benchmarks at tomshardware. I'm not particularly computer savy, but it's very much dependent on cpu more than vid card. Supposedly any i5/i7 processor with a dedicated video card can run it on medium at the very least. I'm running it fine on mine (the last post there)

yourwhiteshadow

United States442 Posts

July 28 2010 19:31 GMT

an i5/i7 is ideal, but legionofdoom and TH benchmarks showed that a dual core with a decent gfx card could ultra the game at 1920x1200 (and you'd still be getting ~60 fps). there was also a benchmark from the beta that showed i7 ran into some issues in certain situations, but that should be resolved by now i hope. the biggest issue is your budget. unfortunately the way the PC world is, it ALL depends on your mulahh

Wysp

Canada2299 Posts

July 28 2010 19:35 GMT

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114936&cm_sp=NotebookDeal-_-34-114-936-_-07282010

My buddy is saying this is a really good deal but the battery life will be bad, does this sound correct? Do you reckon it a good deal?

yourwhiteshadow

United States442 Posts

July 28 2010 19:42 GMT

6 cell battery? yeah, it will have bad battery life. a 12-cell or 9-cell will run you maybe $150 more. if you're serious about sc2 i would highly suggest building a desktop and getting a $200 netbook for school. if you need performance you'll have your desktop at home, if you need to just do school work go to school with your netbook.

Neo7

United States922 Posts

July 28 2010 22:10 GMT

I'd recommend ASUS's UL line. I have one and it's great for school (doesn't weight a lot, very slim, has like a 7 hour battery life). Buy the models with the hybrid nVidia graphics though as when you plug them in (or sacrifice your battery to 3 hours), they become quite a powerhouse and can play StarCraft 2 comfortably (not on super high graphics, but mine runs well on medium settings).

The only problem I've had with mine is the hard drive went dead (it was a Seagate so I was like "lol Seagate") and replaced it pretty cheap with a better hard drive.

JeeJee

Canada5652 Posts

July 28 2010 22:22 GMT

#10

On July 29 2010 04:42 yourwhiteshadow wrote:
6 cell battery? yeah, it will have bad battery life. a 12-cell or 9-cell will run you maybe $150 more. if you're serious about sc2 i would highly suggest building a desktop and getting a $200 netbook for school. if you need performance you'll have your desktop at home, if you need to just do school work go to school with your netbook.

cells matter not at all, you are looking for the whr # of the battery
upon a quick google, this seems to have 48Whr, which is actually quite poor. the actual hours you get out of it depends on the power draw but i'm not familiar at all with amd processors. that said, it's got an onboard graphics card, and if you are looking to play games that may not be the way to go

zoltanqc

Canada171 Posts

July 28 2010 22:46 GMT

#11

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695&cm_re=asus_g73jh-_-34-220-695-_-Product

I got this and its totally baller. Good as a desktop alternative but still portable. Will last years also.

GreatFall

United States1061 Posts

July 28 2010 22:55 GMT

#12

I agree with zoltanqc. I have the Asus G73 and it is insane. It can run SC on ultimate graphics while you stream lol.

R2D2C3PO

Canada105 Posts

July 29 2010 03:36 GMT

#13

Approximately how much would it cost me to buy a laptop that can play SC2 on highest?
Just looking for a rough estimate.

Wysp

Canada2299 Posts

August 01 2010 18:32 GMT

#14

http://www.thesource.ca/estore/product.aspx?language=en-CA&product=2510376

This is what I'm thinking about buying, biggest reasons: its cheap and close to me. Do you guys think it should run SC2 pretty well?

Graphics/Video
Video Card: ATI Radeon HD 4250 Graphics
Dedicated Video Memory: N/A
Shared Video Memory: N/A

Processor
Processor Brand: AMD
Processor Type: Turion II dual-core
Processor Chipset: N/A
Processor Speed: 2.5GHz
Bus Speed: 1066MHz
Level 2 cache: 2MB

OpticalShot

Canada6330 Posts

August 01 2010 18:39 GMT

#15

To be honest, the idea of buying a new laptop and installing SC2 on it doesn't quite make sense to me. It seems like you're pretty set on buying a laptop, but if SC2 matters to you, I'd suggest building a desktop and buying a netbook.

On July 29 2010 12:36 R2D2C3PO wrote:
Approximately how much would it cost me to buy a laptop that can play SC2 on highest?
Just looking for a rough estimate.

Roughly $1100 USD (say it's the best deal ever), is my estimate, for a laptop that could run SC2... on highest, that I don't know. My old dell laptop was $1500 CAD (~$1380 USD? I think) 3 years ago, and I think it can run SC2 on modest settings.

Wysp

Canada2299 Posts

August 01 2010 18:41 GMT

#16

school matters to me, the only question is will it run SC2 on low settings.

KF91

Canada221 Posts

August 01 2010 19:24 GMT

#17

If you don't mind that fact that the screen is only 14 inches (No numpad. :/):

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/product/gateway-gateway-14-intel-core-i3-laptop-id49c01h-silver-future-shop-exclusive-id49c01h/10146659.aspx?path=b0b83b0f090073ab35eade1a78fd995aen02

Graphics Chipset: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
Native Screen Resolution: 1366 x 768
Video Memory: 1024MB

Processor Cores: 2
Processor Speed: 2.26GHz
Processor Type: Intel Core i3 350M
Processor Cache: 3MB L3
System Bus: 1066 MHz

It says battery life is up to 6 hours, but I think that's only if you have the lowest brightness with wifi turned off :/ It's a little bit more expensive than the one you found at the source, but I think it's a good deal since it comes with an i3 and a discrete video card.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-330M.22437.0.html

Notebookcheck says this card can run Bad Company 2 at around 27fps (medium settings), so I think it will be able to handle SCII pretty well.

EDIT: I don't know what program you're in at school, but personally, I would go to a store to look at the keyboards if you're going to use the laptop a lot. Slighty less powerful laptop with a comfortable keyboard is always better than a powerful laptop with a crappy keyboard.

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