If you had $1600 to spend on a laptop, what kind what you get?

[deep.tinker77]

Due to the fact that my wife loves me, I get to buy myself a little gift and I want a new laptop. If you had 1600 to toss on one, what kind would you get? :-k

[mips]

IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad, nothing else for me.

[JSchwage]

I'd probably get a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo Macbook with 2GB of memory. I just can't resist a built-in webcam and mic in a notebook. And if you order one today, you get it for $101 cheaper due to their Black Friday promo. :D

[Dual Cortex]

One with a core 2 duo, 2GB of RAM, and an nvidia vid. card >= 7900GS

[deep.tinker77]

Does anyone think it's worth waiting for a quad-core laptop to be released?

[deanlinkous]

I would get 3 $500 dell laptops or at least two and max out some memory and get some accessories and stuff or....

Dang, now i am depressed that it is YOU and not ME! :(

[deanlinkous]

quad core - do you really need it?

[Dual Cortex]

Does anyone think it's worth waiting for a quad-core laptop to be released?

For a laptop? No.

[zachtib]

IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad, nothing else for me.

i agree completely... I'm planning on getting the Z61t ;)

[deep.tinker77]

quad core - do you really need it?

...uuhh...no, I guess not :(

[Kayne]

Without doubt, Macbook Pro ftw

[rfruth]

How important is wireless (802.11g or wait for 802.11n ?) battery life (spare battery ?) How much hand holding (extended warranty, preinstalled Linux ?) Its fun spending someone elses money !

[zachtib]

How important is wireless (802.11g or wait for 802.11n ?)

upgrading to N yourself should be fairly easy... I think I'm going to buy a tried-and-true G card with my Thinkpad, and wait until I can be sure that the N card would work and upgrade it, and would advise the OP to do the same. (Also, my campus still uses 802.11B for the campus-wide wireless network, and I don't see that changing any time soon.)

[drphilngood]

Personally, I´d build an awesome new desktop but, if it has to be a notebook,:-k nothing but a Macbook Pro would get me to spend that much money.

[deep.tinker77]

How important is wireless (802.11g or wait for 802.11n ?) battery life (spare battery ?) How much hand holding (extended warranty, preinstalled Linux ?) Its fun spending someone elses money !

Wireless b/g/n would be nice.

Will be installing linux on day 1.

Decent battery life is ok, not a big issue. Thanks :D

[JSchwage]

Without doubt, Macbook Pro ftwHe did say he had only $1600 to spend, did he not? The cheapest Macbook Pro is $1999.

[Kayne]

He did say he had only $1600 to spend, did he not? The cheapest Macbook Pro is $1999.
Oh, you're right :-k
I would get it in the edu store for 1700 € which is about 1800 $ (?)
...well, I would wait for another month to buy it then :)

But yeah, without a discount it would be difficult to buy a mac notebook with that amount... it's too much for a MacBook and too less for a Pro.

I just know that I won't use Vista in the future but I also need Photoshop and iTunes.

[rfruth]

I don't know what brand (IBM/Apple/Dell) but I'd get the biggest display possible (or an external monitor & keyboard & mouse) 1 GB RAM, a nice graphics controller, light weight oh yea a nice locking water resistant carrying case (or backpack) one with big pockets, a hand strap & a shoulder strap - this is fun :rolleyes:

[dbbolton]

what, nobody likes vaio's ?

[deep.tinker77]

Has anyone heard of ibuypower? I was lookin at a laptop of theirs awhile ago, I found this one today(http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=188) on the site. It's a little cheaper, and has some pretty decent specs. I looked around for the levono's, but all had imbedded (GMA950) graphics cards.

Edit: I'm not too sure about their quality.

[zachtib]

I don't know what brand (IBM/Apple/Dell) but I'd get the biggest display possible (or an external monitor & keyboard & mouse) 1 GB RAM, a nice graphics controller, light weight oh yea a nice locking water resistant carrying case (or backpack) one with big pockets, a hand strap & a shoulder strap - this is fun :rolleyes:

light weight and large display don't exactly go together... i'd say go for a midsized laptop, and then add an external LCD if you need it.


what, nobody likes vaio's ?

I've never cared for the personally, while I've never tried installing Linux on one, I've heard of people having problems with them.


Has anyone heard of ibuypower? I was lookin at a laptop of theirs awhile ago, I found this one today(http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=188) on the site. It's a little cheaper, and has some pretty decent specs. I looked around for the levono's, but all had imbedded (GMA950) graphics cards.


Some might consider that a plus, as the Intel cards have open sourced video drivers, and therefore, AIGLX support out of the box. Anyways, some of Lenovo's laptops have Radeon and FireGL cards.

[mips]

Has anyone heard of ibuypower? I was lookin at a laptop of theirs awhile ago, I found this one today(http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=188) on the site. It's a little cheaper, and has some pretty decent specs. I looked around for the levono's, but all had imbedded (GMA950) graphics cards.

Edit: I'm not too sure about their quality.

I've never heard of them, personally would not consider it.

The lenovo p models don't have Intel gfx but ATI, (ie T60p etc). They even have linux support for a few models.

[zachtib]

I've never heard of them, personally would not consider it.

The lenovo p models don't have Intel gfx but ATI, (ie T60p etc). They even have linux support for a few models.

a friend of mine bought a refurbished ibuypower model, and it was nothing but trouble for him, I wouldn't recommend them personally, but if you look closer, you'll realize that IBP is simply a builder and reseller of OEM whitebooks.

[Iandefor]

I've heard bad things about iBuypower.

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller2001.html

In regards to what I'd buy... I'd either get a Macbook, Groovix (http://http://groovix.com/groovix.html), or System76 (http://www.system76.com/) computer.

[deep.tinker77]

Good to know about the ibuypower ones, thanks alot all for helping me avoid an expensive mistake. This is alot harder than I thought it would be.

[deep.tinker77]

Some might consider that a plus, as the Intel cards have open sourced video drivers, and therefore, AIGLX support out of the box. Anyways, some of Lenovo's laptops have Radeon and FireGL cards.


I'll look around for the lenovo's with Radeon's. Do you have a link by any chance? Thanks.

[chaosgeisterchen]

I'll look around for the lenovo's with Radeon's. Do you have a link by any chance? Thanks.

Do you really want to buy a notebook with ATI graphics? Their support under Linux is not very decent, the newest drivers are okay but not state-of-the-art. If you want to fully use Linux you either go for Intel integrated graphics or a nVidia one. I would avoid ATI if I were you.

[happy-and-lost]

One of those Alienware ones. I'd kill for a nVidia card now I've seen Beryl in action...

[deep.tinker77]

Do you really want to buy a notebook with ATI graphics? Their support under Linux is not very decent, the newest drivers are okay but not state-of-the-art. If you want to fully use Linux you either go for Intel integrated graphics or a nVidia one. I would avoid ATI if I were you.

Didn't know about the limited ATI support, thanks for the tip chaos. That is a big point for me because I happen to love the eye candy that beryl gives. :D

[zachtib]

Do you really want to buy a notebook with ATI graphics? Their support under Linux is not very decent, the newest drivers are okay but not state-of-the-art. If you want to fully use Linux you either go for Intel integrated graphics or a nVidia one. I would avoid ATI if I were you.

ATI support <= 9200 is great, but the newer cards are sort of spotty. The rumor that has been floating around for some time is that AMD would open the specs to the newer ATI cards, which would allow for better driver support, but until that happens, I'm sticking with a GMA950 laptop.

[chaosgeisterchen]

If you want to use Beryl fulltime you will be best off buying yourself a notebook powered by either an Intel integrated chip or an nVidia mobility chip, 7600 or above. I would rather tend to advise you to buy the nVidia one as Beryl will consume more hardware power in the future as it is constantly expanding.

There is never the perfect solution for all your needs but I think that a CoreDuo or Core2Duo with some decent graphics card and at least 1024 MB RAM will to the job just fine for you. I would strongly advise to go for more RAM if you are able to. 2048 MB are a financial effort you won't ever regret in future times.

[deep.tinker77]

If you want to use Beryl fulltime you will be best off buying yourself a notebook powered by either an Intel integrated chip or an nVidia mobility chip, 7600 or above. I would rather tend to advise you to buy the nVidia one as Beryl will consume more hardware power in the future as it is constantly expanding.

There is never the perfect solution for all your needs but I think that a CoreDuo or Core2Duo with some decent graphics card and at least 1024 MB RAM will to the job just fine for you. I would strongly advise to go for more RAM if you are able to. 2048 MB are a financial effort you won't ever regret in future times.

Right now I have a Toshiba Satellite M-55 with an intel 810 integrated graphics card, and I run beryl full time. It's decent, but, it doesn't support the "Rain" effects, and I'm still having trouble getting my cube to work. I figured if I wanted a new laptop, I would get one that could do pretty much anything I wanted without sacrificing performance for the eye candy. I travel alot and use my laptop daily, so I figured I'd get a beast if I was gonna get another one. Thanks for your tips. :D

[chaosgeisterchen]

If you travel around a lot I would give everything for decent battery lifetime. I would love to use my notebook at least three hours without power supply needed. It would be even better to be able to use it for about five hours. Some notebooks offer that. I got one, for instance. But Linux is running everything else than fine on it.

GMA 950 should be fairly enough for the basic Beryl-effects but if you want to enjoy the whole lot you should go for the nVidia cards.

@zachtib
Do the R300 drivers support power management for the mobile graphics chips? It's mainly because of that. ATI mobility cards consume too much battery life at the moment with non-working power management.

Please do correct my statements if I am tapping around in total darkness.

[JLB]

Thinkpad (such as the T series)
HP Business class laptops (such as the NC6120)

[Dual Cortex]

um, for the love of god, don't use Intel's integrated graphics!
If you're not an extremist on open source theories, etc., get a computer with nVidia graphics ;).
Actually, for $1600, I expect a laptop to come with either nVidia or ATI graphics.

[zachtib]

@zachtib
Do the R300 drivers support power management for the mobile graphics chips? It's mainly because of that. ATI mobility cards consume too much battery life at the moment with non-working power management.

Please do correct my statements if I am tapping around in total darkness.

well, I have a Radeon 9000, so its the R200 drivers.

I'm not sure about power management, but I average about 4 hours of use per charge, so I'm not complaining

[chaosgeisterchen]

well, I have a Radeon 9000, so its the R200 drivers.

I'm not sure about power management, but I average about 4 hours of use per charge, so I'm not complaining

Thanks for your answer. They seem quite able from my point of view, thanks.

[deep.tinker77]

Thanks everyone for your help, I know what spec's I should be looking for, just gotta find the right one. Thanks again.

[chaosgeisterchen]

Thanks everyone for your help, I know what spec's I should be looking for, just gotta find the right one. Thanks again.

You're welcome, as anytime. Just post here if you need further help.