I've been looking for a new laptop to possibly get as a christmas present. I know for a fact that it has to be under $1000 shipped, and that it should have a dedicated graphics card. I'll most likely buy from Newegg, as I don't know of many other better online retailers. I've bought from TigerDirect and I just don't like how they deal with your order. Could I get any insight on which brands would be the best and what not?

First question, do you really need a laptop? If you do great, if not a desktop will be a fraction of the price.

For laptops a lot of it is about screen quality, keyboard/track pad feel and packaging. All of these are qualitative measures and you can best get a feel for them by going to a shop and seeing what models you like/dislike (then buy online if it's cheaper) remember that with a laptop you're stuck with it and if you don't like the look and feel of it you're not going to get on with it however quick it may be.

I think he made it pretty clear that it has to be a laptop.

For the love of god make sure it has a good video card!!! I bought a laptop with an ATI Radeon Xpress 1150, and it's slow as hell in games. Get anything with an nvidia 7400,7600,8400, or 8600, or even 7950 if you can find it, or ati 2400 or 2600 will do, but don't get radeon "xpress" or intel integrated graphics!

I have a desktop that does well with games, but in the summer, I do go to other places for vacation so I would like a mobile gaming rig.

Also, I guess I will look around the nearest electronics store and see which ones I like.

Well, if you want a REAL "portable gaming rig," clearly, there is only one TRUE solution:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/sem ... ch-lcd-screens-312081.php

LOL.

I ment mobile gaming as it can play LFS well, not hardcore like that.

Ok, I've narrowed it down to 3 main laptops.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ ... aspx?Item=N82E16834115410

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ ... aspx?Item=N82E16834220237

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ ... aspx?Item=N82E16834220230

Is Asus a better brand than Acer? All of these are under $900, two have free shipping. I will need to buy another 1GB RAM module for the ones with 1GB, which means the shipping money will come in handy. The grand total of these will be VERY similar, so I just want to get the better brand. Which would you guys get?

I'd go for the Asus F3, just because of the graphics chip, and the processor. If your going to add another gig of RAM to it, thats even better
~Bryan~

Acers tend to have fairly nice keyboards, I'm not sure the Asus looks like it will be that nice to use I'd seriously suggest going and having a look at them before buying.

I will try to have a look at them this weekend, but the possibility of finding one of those are slim. The only place that may sell them is BestBuy, which I don't believe sell Asus' or Acers.

My girlfriend's laptop is an Asus, and last week it got a CD stuck in the drive. Couldn't open the door, paperclip trick didn't work, so I gave up.

She picked it up to put it away, the drive door fell open and a screw fell out; the screw had been fouling the door and it had taken a nice chunk out of the CD too. Checking it over I found four more loose screws around the outside of the case. This computer barely ever leaves the house - it doesn't take any abuse at all - so I can only assume it wasn't put together very well.

Asus is a VERY good brand. That laptop must have been a lemon, because I do know for a fact that Asus makes wonderful products. I did a lot of research before buying my tablet for college, and it came down to either the Fujitsu or the Asus. I WOULD have gotten the Asus (which, among other things won praise for it's good build quality) but apparently there were issues with battery life. If I ever get a new laptop, I will look at Asus first. They make interesting and beautiful products.

Acer (here, at least) are a budget brand with sub-par build quality...

I find it hard to believe you can't get a laptop for under £490 with 2 GB of RAM though?

I can't figure that out too, $1000+ almost all have 2GB of RAM. The Acer is the only one that has 2GB, but getting another GB for the others is only $20-30, not that much.

You not only pay a little extra, but i'm sure you'll void the warranty doing it...

Hrm....now that's a turnoff with that. I'll have to read up to see if it really does void it.

Yea, also remember that the others with less RAM usually have both their slots filled with, say, two 512 Mb sticks. So it's not as simple as buying another Gb, you usually have to buy the whole 2 Gb.

Well, both Asus' have 1GB sticks. I'm guessing they both have more than one RAM slot too, so I should be fine.

Well, yesterday, I did go looking at laptops to buy. I couldn't find an Asus laptop in any store but I found similar Acers, and they looked horrible.

Also, I read the warranty terms for the Asus' and it seems that I can't add another 1GB to it without making the warranty void.

Now, it seems to me that I need to relook which ones are in my price range. There is another laptop with similar features but a 7600, not a 8400 or 2400-2600. Would I really notice big differences with the graphics cards or not?

Graphics cards make a big difference in games, so you will notice a difference between a 7400 and 7600 for example. Also, Acers are not that bad, my friend has a 17" Acer with a core 2 cpu, 2gb ram, and 7400 gpu, and it's really fast, he's always playing WoW on it and it seems to run pretty good.

Also, I wouldn't worry about "voiding warranty" if you add more ram, nobody can stop you from doing it and it's a very simple upgrade. In fact I've never heard of a laptop manufacturer denying you that option. I've known people with Dells, Compaqs, Toshibas, IBMs, and Sonys, and they've all upgraded thair memory. I think Acer is just afraid you'll break something if you don't know what you're doing, but if you've ever performed any computer upgrade in your life, then you're qualified to upgrade the ram on a laptop, it's just that simple. Also, if anyone asks, just say "the laptop came with 2gb of ram." They can't disprove you.

Yeah. Asus laptops are not usually found in stores as much

Quote from shiny_red_cobra :

Also, I wouldn't worry about "voiding warranty" if you add more ram, nobody can stop you from doing it and it's a very simple upgrade.

...i carry my laptop around with me every day, and at least half of all weekends (i'm sad!). If i break it, i WILL need the warranty, it seems stupid to void it when i don't need to.

If you send it back and the screws have been used, or the stickers have been removed (which they usually put over the holes you'll need to open) and they'll just tell you that you've voided the warranty, and that you'll have to pay to get it back again.

I can't believe you think that just telling the manufacturer it came with 2 GB of RAM will actually work...?

I did not know that upgrading the RAM voided the warranty. On every laptop I've owned, the RAM port has been freely accessible (even labeled on some) with regular screws. I thought that was something the customer was allowed to do?!

Opening it usually voids the warranty, as does swapping parts, just imagine what happened if someone used ultra-extra Value RAM that was dead and the PC wouldn't boot? Or if they tried to use DDR in a DDR2 slot or something?

About the Acers, I've heard that they are reliable and that wasn't what I was going for when I said "they looked horrible." What I ment there was that the design of it looked horrible.

Also, I think I will take my chances with the laptop RAM stuff. Our family has an old Dell, the RAM port on that was acessible so I will take the luck of the draw. I've built my own computer and that's working fine, so I really believe there won't be any problems on adding a stick of RAM.