Laptop recommendations, please

benl

benl

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Ben
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I recently upgraded to a Dell Precision 6400, custom-built, excellent spec - but appalling, terrible, horrendous build-quality! In the first month, it had three wifi cards, two motherboards and a new hard drive. I then had to wait two months for a replacement machine which had a hard drive failure within six weeks. At that point, I arranged a refund.

So, I'm on the hunt again. My minimum spec is:

- Win7
- 4Gb
- As much CPU power as I can get (eg. 3Ghz 6Mb cache twin-core type area)
- 500Gb 7200 drive (preferably x2, but twin-drive laptops are few & far between)
- 17" 1920x1200 MATTE screen (definitely no glossy ones)
- Backlit keyboard (essential)

Budget around £2k, but would spend more if there's a good reason to.

Suggestions made so far:
HP Pavilion dv8-1000
MacBook Pro 17 running Bootcamp 3.1 to get Win7

The Mac option is vaguely appealing, but I'm worried about the lack of right-click - how does one get around that? I don't use mice, only the trackpad.

Any other suggestions?

Ben
 
neil_g said:
well a matte screen on the mac is a £40 extra..

whats your budget?
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Erm, Specsaver time........

........I would have sworn your reply would be along the, Dells are great line, too ;)
 
Mikesphotaes said:
Erm, Specsaver time........

........I would have sworn your reply would be along the, Dells are great line, too ;)
Click to expand...

:bonk:

i havent had any caffine yet today... lol

but yes, if you want a macbook pop off to your local apple store and give one a whirl and get a feel for the way it works.

if not then yes the dell lattitudes are a nice bet, magnesium chassis and robust. and will give you a nice bit of change.
 
OSB said:
You may have answered your own question, ime with thinkpads the build quality and robustness is right up there.
Click to expand...

+1 Lenovo build quality is excellent.
 
Thanks, guys. I've asked the same question on an IT list, and had several replies about the robustness of Lenevos, including one that was dropped five feet onto concrete and also left in a shed overnight during -3C temps!

So the W700 is definitely a strong contender, but other (non-Dell!) recommendations welcome.
 
Check out Amazon.co.uk, I bought a Toshiba under £400 and good value, works great.
 
benl said:
The Mac option is vaguely appealing, but I'm worried about the lack of right-click - how does one get around that? I don't use mice, only the trackpad.
Click to expand...

As no one has answered this yet, the MacBook touch pads don't have any buttons, but you can set up the bottom right of the touch pad to act like a right click, although personally I prefer to se a two fingered click as right click.
 
The MacBook Pro touch pad takes about 3 days to get used to. And I speak as someone who came to Mac after PC. If you can't get used to it simply buy a mouse. Mac mouses have right clicks on them. I have no problem using a laptop with a wireless mouse.
 
Wish I had 2k to spend on a laptop lol! Anyway been doing a bit of digging. How about the Asus G73JH-TZ008V:
17" Full HD TFT (1920x1080, Color-Shine), Intel® Core™ i7-720M processor 1.60 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz, ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD 5870, 1GB GDDR5 dedicated graphics memory, 1TB (500GBx2) (7200rpm), 8912MB (2048x4) DDRIII 1066 RAM, Blu-Ray Combo, 64bit Window 7 Home Premium, 802.11 BGN, Headset - £1458

Although I do think Color-Shine means glossy screen... (I hate them too, who thought that was a good idea?!)

OR

Mesh Computers Edge18 Xtreme GTX260 Pro:

* MESH Edge 18.4 - M980NU GTX260
* Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 Dual Core Processor (2.80GHz, 6MB Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
* Operating System Optional
* 18.4" FULL HD TFT Display (1920x1080)
* 1GB Nvidia GeForce with CUDA GTX260 Graphics Plus
* 4GB DDR3 1066MHz Memory (2x2GB)
* 500GB Serial ATA 5400RPM 2.5" Hard Drive
* DVD Super Format Dual Layer DVD Re-Writer
* Intel WiFi Link 5100 802.11n Wireless LAN
* Built in Bluetooth Technology
* Built-in Intel High Definition Audio, with 3D Effect & Full Duplex Speakers
* 2.0 Mega Pixel Built in Webcam
* Free Microsoft Works 8.5 + Limited Microsoft Office Trial
* BullGuard Internet Security 8.5 - 90 Day Trial - AntiVirus/Firewall/Backup/Spamfilter
* Biometric Fingerprint Reader
* Multi Format Memory Card Reader
* 1 Year Return to Base Warranty (UK Mainland Only)

£1429 and has good customisable options, including a SSD, Blu-Ray Upgrade, Warranty Upgrade. Dunno if screen is glossy.

Just 2 possible options, but sure there are others.
 
I'd go with the Macbook pro, rock solid build quality and Leopard is very very stable. Only wish I could afford one, oh and justify it to the wife!

Using Fusion you could have Mac OSx and Windows running at the same time
 
CraigyBoy86 said:
Wish I had 2k to spend on a laptop lol!
Click to expand...
Well, I don't, but my business does. :-) I always go for very hi-spec laptops, then they remain current for years. My last one was still a respectable spec compared to new machines after 4.5 years.

Anyway been doing a bit of digging.
Click to expand...
Thanks for those suggestions - will hunt out some reviews.
 
PaulF said:
I'd go with the Macbook pro
Click to expand...
Played with a friend's one (running Win7) this evening. All my concerns about compatibility are now gone: there are a few tricks (like two-fingered click to get right-click), but it's clear those would be easily learned. Booting straight into Win7, you otherwise wouldn't have been able to tell it was anything other than a Windows PC.

Using Fusion you could have Mac OSx and Windows running at the same time
Click to expand...
We tried Fusion as well, which appears to have a few more issues. For example, it uses the Mac trackpad settings rather than the Windows ones, and it didn't recognise Windows as a valid copy, but it all seemed to work fine. I can see someone who needs to use both platforms would like it a lot (even copy-and-paste between the two worked fine), but personally I'd just boot straight into Windows.

Next step is to try the W700.
 
benl said:
I recently upgraded to a Dell Precision 6400, custom-built, excellent spec - but appalling, terrible, horrendous build-quality! In the first month, it had three wifi cards, two motherboards and a new hard drive. I then had to wait two months for a replacement machine which had a hard drive failure within six weeks. At that point, I arranged a refund.

So, I'm on the hunt again. My minimum spec is:

- Win7
- 4Gb
- As much CPU power as I can get (eg. 3Ghz 6Mb cache twin-core type area)
- 500Gb 7200 drive (preferably x2, but twin-drive laptops are few & far between)
- 17" 1920x1200 MATTE screen (definitely no glossy ones)
- Backlit keyboard (essential)

Budget around £2k, but would spend more if there's a good reason to.

Suggestions made so far:
HP Pavilion dv8-1000
MacBook Pro 17 running Bootcamp 3.1 to get Win7

The Mac option is vaguely appealing, but I'm worried about the lack of right-click - how does one get around that? I don't use mice, only the trackpad.

Any other suggestions?

Ben
Click to expand...


You can either use a key+mouse click, or two fingers on track pad and click

I like using two fingers to scroll up and down, and confuses me witless then I use my wifes windows laptop!
 
can you boot straight into windows based?

i'm thinking of a MBP and would like to take advantage of boot camp and load windows 7. how much is windows 7 basic version, i don;t think i need a all singing all dancing version. only reason is i have microsoft office for windows and would like to add a car diagnostic onto it which i think only works on windows?
 
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