So I graduate this time next week, and since I am going off to college I would much rather prefer to have a laptop for my school work and hobbies etc. However, I don't want any ordinary laptop, I want something powerful enough for me to continue my 3D graphics work, and powerful enough to last in this ever-growing computer generation.

So far I have looked at two options, however the second is so over-priced I would never be able to afford it, even at base price it is expensive.

First option is the Dell 1705 laptop which was heavily modified and quite powerful. Second option is the Dell 1710 XPS laptop which is powerful to start with, but any improvement modifications are ridiculously overpriced (in my mind, for example going from a core 2 duo @ 2 GHz to a core 2 due @ 2.33 Ghz costs around $100 [about 50 pounds for you British types]).
With my heavily modified 1705 the price was under $3000, but the slightly modified XPS turned out to be $3700 or so, even when the 1705 afterwards was more powerful than the XPS.

Here is a catch though for those of you who know of powerful laptops at good prices. I want a large screen, preferably 17 inch which is what both the 1705 and 1710 are. Also it needs to be a core 2Duo processor with at least 1GB of ram, and a powerful graphics card.

If anyone has any ideas, please say so I'm starting to get into a delima about this.

What about some from Alienware or ASUS G1 or Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi 1547

when exactly does college start ? from what ive read the 8 series nvidia mobiles are just around the corner which will either make the 7s a lot less expensive or if youre interested in some serious graphics power you could get a brand spanking new gf8

I start school in August.

edit- Oh I should also add I believe my price budget is under $2000 (1000 pounds).

Okay I think I'm stuck on what I got.

I've come down to two options, and I'm actually extremely surprised how low the prices are for alienware laptops, their desktops are outrageous, but their laptops are actually very reasonable.

Devil, I looked at Asustek and fell in love with the G2p, but their website is just plain hard to work with etc. so I looked it up on froogle to get a base price, but the problem is unlike Dell and Alienware, you can't customize anything, and I kinda want to be able to choose what goes into my laptop.

So this is what I've come up with, a Dell Inspiron E1705, and an Alienware Area-51 M5550

Here are the customizations I've made for them and.. overall info on them.

Dell E1705:
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM FREE Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium with 1GB of memory
LCD PANEL 17 inch Wide Screen XGA+ TFT Display with TrueLife™(glossy)
MEMORY 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz
HARD DRIVE 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7900 GS
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio

Final Price: $1,460

Alienware m5550
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7200 2.0GHz 4MB Cache 667MHz FSB
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® Vista Home Basic
LCD PANEL 15.4" WideXGA 1280 x 800 LCD - Saucer Silver TrueLife™(glossy)
MEMORY 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SO-DIMM at 667MHz - 2 x 512MB
HARD DRIVE 80GB Serial ATA 1.5Gb/s 5,400 RPM w/ NCQ & 8MB Cache
OPTICAL DRIVE 24x DVD-ROM/CD-RW Burner w/ Nero Software
VIDEO CARD 256MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7600 Alienware Recommends!
SOUND OPTIONS Intel® 7.1 High-Definition Audio

Final Price: $1,389

I'm going to pull for the Dell just because I would much rather prefer the 17" screen, and I think its a pretty good deal, its got more hard drive space for a cheap price, my dad and I are going to split the price, so for only $730 I think its pretty much perfect, there is only one thing I would change, but I want to know if this is possible.
Is it possible to put more RAM into a laptop?
If not, I guess I could set it so I have 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, but that adds $200 to the price which I find somewhat absurd for adding only 1GB of ram.


And I dropped the XPS1710, because it costs twice what the 1705 costs, even for the exact same internal components.

i suggest the dell Nuse. Most the specs are better than that alienware, apart from the audio card. but integrated is good enough imho. Good luck Mate

Frenchy

I've never had any problems with audio, maybe its because i've never really listened to "great" audio from a computer with a good audio card. Hey, ignorance is indeed bliss correct? heh

I think I am going to go for that dell.
Just found plenty of stuff how to add ram, so I think I'm gonna go with the 1 gig and increase it to 2.

Good Choice

Quote from XCNuse :

Devil, I looked at Asustek and fell in love with the G2p, but their website is just plain hard to work with etc. so I looked it up on froogle to get a base price, but the problem is unlike Dell and Alienware, you can't customize anything, and I kinda want to be able to choose what goes into my laptop.

I have just looked at their webpages and you can change the type of processor,memory,HD,DVD writer(with or without Lightscribe),you can change the operating system as well but I am not sure what else you would expecting to be changed.

I see your decision above and looks pretty good.The Dell notebook have much better graphic card but the 17" LCD will have higher native resolution so the situation is pretty same with the Alienware 7600 and lower res display.Only to consider thought if you want to play in native resolution.

What about the Supermans edition from Alienware.I know it looks pretty shocking but it has quite good graphic card if you mean this notebook as well as gaming station.

if its not until august id really advise you to wait for both gf8 and santa rosa (800mhz fsb and mimo wlan) both of should be available by then and speed things up a bit or cheapen them when it comes to your curretn choices

agree...

Well, technically I should say July, I'll be moving down there the first week of August and starting classes the next week.

Just curious, I'm not a huge pro when it comes to new stuff, what exactly is this GF8 and things you mentioned Shotglass?

Quote from XCNuse :

Just curious, I'm not a huge pro when it comes to new stuff, what exactly is this GF8 and things you mentioned Shotglass?

gf8 is geforce 8 as in the current graphics card series from nvidia which at least according to their marketing bs is a lot quicker
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2984&p=2
and even if you dont want one of these they should make the gf7s you currently have in your notebook setups considerably cheaper

as for santa rosa its the new version of intels notebook standards (like centrino)
basically it means a quicker connection between the cpu and the nothbridge/ram which doesnt seem to have that much of an effect but at least for rendering it is a little quicker:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuch ... owdoc.aspx?i=2985&p=7
sr also includes the latest wireless networking standard which by itself isnt anything new for top tier notebooks but at least it will turn buying them into a no brainer

So are you suggesting I buy the cheaper 128mb video card, and once all GF8 stuff comes onto the market get myself a nice 512mb GF7 card for like $100 (if that is to happen)?

Usually it takes a good year or so for prices of graphics cards to drop after they are released, because after looking at those specs of GF8 cards the prices are surely going to be in the well near $1000 range, and because of that people will still be demanding cheaper cards with plenty of performance for now.

I tell you what those, that is some serious performance upgrades from GF7 to GF8. :dunce:

no afaik you still cant really upgrade the graphics card on laptops (there were some attempts at pushing for a slot standard but i havent heard anything of it lately)
anyway what im suggesting is you wait for the gf8 to either
a) buy one
b) hope that the gf7s drop in price and by a gf7 laptop

Okay, well now that I am set on this Dell, my dad agreed to pay half of the price, so should I be interesting in buying one of those cooling plates? I've found some which are pretty cheap, and not so many that are to expensive, so should I be interested in buying one?

I'd wait until you get the laptop first to judge whether you need a cooling plate or not. The Desktop Core 2 Duo's run pretty cool at stock speeds so I am guessing that the laptop should be pretty cool as well compared to other laptops.

Well if I didn't close out of MSN Messenger last night I would have bought the laptop, because apparently Dell had a $500 off coupons, so I could have specced out the laptop to max (of what I want), and only have to pay 999$.. Nice.

That ended 5 AM this morning.

There better be another one soon lol

Okay, well I've changed my mind on this one, and after reading plenty of reviews, getting advice etc. I'm going to buy the Inspiron 1505. While the 17" would be glorious, I dont exactly need it (but it would be so cool), so the 15.4" will do. Oh it also turns out the Nvidia Go 7800 is considerably cheaper than the ATi X1400, which is a life saver, because Dell has a deal with ATi on that card so they only cost $50 more, as compared to the $150 Nvidia card.

Here is the greatest part though, it costs just over $1,000.
Here are the specs I would be getting with it.

Dell E1505:
PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
LCD PANEL 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™(glossy)
MEMORY 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
HARD DRIVE Size: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive
VIDEO CARD 256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory™
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio

Final Price: $1,183

So in the end, it is $300 cheaper than the 1705, and I get the 2GB of memory which my uncle told me is a "must" with Windows Vista (which I don't really want Vista, but I don't really have a choice either). Also my uncle pointed out, the more weight, the less it seems to be fun no matter how great it is.
Unfortunately it is only about 1 lb. lighter.

The only downside I see about having the smaller one is that because it is smaller means there is less air going through it, possibly meaning it could become significantly (and hopefully not lethally) hot inside of it.

Also I get my speakers and my mouse today can't wait!

Got Logitech X-230 speakers, which is a very good buy I must add, at only $50 (or less) they are probably some of the best small stereo speakers I have heard ever, and I highly recommend them if you plan on buying some speakers for your computer, it has a good deep bass, and even is made out of metal cones to ensure good sound quality.
http://www.goodgearguide.com.a ... 1677_7_logitech_x-230.jpg

As for my mouse, I got a Rocketfish mini optical mouse. It was pretty cheap, and I hope it works well. I have had my 10 minute glory with a wireless desktop mouse, and on the eleventh minute of that glory streak I found myself ripping open a box of batteries. Definitely not fun, so I found this USB mouse, seeing that I hate using the pad mouses over extended periods of time. At first I was looking at the brother, the wireless USB mouse, but my sister told me she landed up selling hers to someone just because she landed up spending more money on batteries for it than the actual price of it after using it not even a full year.
http://www.rocketfishproducts. ... ges/PRODUCT/medium/34.jpg
Looks somewhat cheap, somewhat comfortable look to it, it better be both.

I'll post back later today when I get it and get some size comparison pictures and how it feels.

ATI Mobility Radeon™ X1400 Product Features
Four pixel shader processors
Two vertex shader processors

Thats really not good for gaming.

About 2GB is must have for Vista.I completly agree.

Well I dont have many choices for video cards, either its integrated, the ATi, or the Nvidia Go 7300, and the ATi X1400 is said to be much faster than the Nvidia.

This is a laptop, so gaming won't be happening to much.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/898/3dmark2005xa4.jpg
There is a comparison chart, the Nvidia card gets 1600, while the X1400 gets 2200.

I mean, in every account I've read so far the X1400 seems to be incomparably faster than the Nvidia.

Not directed at you personally XCNuse, and slightly OT, but I REALLY dont see why people use mini-mice for laptops. They are about the single most uncomfortable computer related thing I have ever used, and a full sized mouse really doesnt take up much more space in a laptop case.

That is all, continue discussion..

I'm just hoping it isn't that small lol, but yes I do agree, I really hate those mini itty bitty teency weency mouses that are like the size of a small coin.

Those are pointless.

I'm hoping its comfortable, if not I'm going to be pretty upset, but another way of looking at it is; what else would I do with $18 on a gift card?
I guess I could do several things, but nothing to my interest.
The reason I'm getting it though is because I cannot stand those little pad things (over a period of time).

Did you thought about having a 7200rpm hard disc instead of the 5400?
This is something that is going to make a serious deference on boot and program loading time.

I did, but for $100 more for no gain in harddrive space, I figured I'd stay with the lower speed hard drive, because for $55 I can gain 40 GB, and for the 100 GB 7600 RPM HD I'd have to pay $150.

just got interrupted, I just got my mouse and speakers, and for some dumb reason the mouse came in a box which is about 1 foot long, 8" tall and 8" wide.. this is retarded, I'm going to open it up.

Okay this is weird I'm going to start uploading pictures of this. Who's ever heard of "Poly Air", whatever it is.. hmm I'm guessing this is the new "peanuts"? isntead of foam its air pockets.. interesting.

Mouse is.. a little bit shorter, but its much skinnier, let me upload pictures.

Well I was about to take a comparison shot of the size of the mouse, so I picked up a golf ball, set it next to it, it turns out this mouse is exactly the width of 1 golf ball, and the length of 2 golf balls.. like perfectly that size, kinda strange.