13" Laptop

[Ya93sin]

So I've just about given up on my old 11.6" netbook (Acer Ferrari One). I've had it two years, it served me well, used to play Far Cry 2 on this thing, it even maxed Burnout Paradise without AA.

Anyway, the HDD has just given up, Windows takes forever to load, and I don't thint it can be helped. Reinstalled Windows and formatted the drive (did the latter first

).

The temperatures are also awful, I'm in an air conditoned hotel atm, just browsing the net, and CPU temps are 69. A year ago they would be 56 doing the same things in a non-air conditoned room. And when new, it was even lower. Its a dual core, but still. I guess the laptop needs a good clean, but I've just about given up on it, and I wan'tmore power anyway, this tech is a bit outdated. I might clean it up when I get back home but still.

So I'm going to uni hopefully in late September, and for lectures and such (notes) I want a laptop, something I can carry around easily. I'm not going to pay for a Mac.

I reckon 13" is just about the sweet spot, a 14" may interest me, but anything above is a no-go. I would be very happy with some decent graphics, it doesn't have to be a 540M or higher, but just get around most games on the market today at medium or low settings (ofc I have the gaming PC, but when I'm around other people's places and such).

I'm not into netbooks, as I say I want grunt. 2nd gen Intel CPU would be nice, or an AMD equivalent.

I've seen the MSi X370 so far, just wanted to know if anyone has any recommendations?

Any help much appreciated

Yasin

 

[Dolph123]

I myself am looking for a 13" laptop and i have the same requirements. If you want to play games on it i wouldn't recommend that MSI since the 6310 performs pretty much the same as the integrated Intel graphics.

I've taken a look at the Acer Aspire TimelineX 3830TG. It has really good specs (I5-2410 and GT540m) and it doesn't cost that much. It does have some issues which kept me from getting one. 1: The build quality is really bad and it flexes a lot. 2: It overheats really fast and throttles down when playing games. There are 2 fixes for this: Either use a throttle fix or reapplying the thermal paste (someone decreased the temps by 18 degrees by doing this). If you can live with the bad build quality and if you can reapply the thermal paste, i'd recommend it. I'd get one if i had the guts to reapply the thermal paste

Link to fixes: http://3830redone.de.vu/

 

[Ya93sin]

I'm not in the mood to go for an Acer haha, I want to try somebody like MSi or Asus. Its not even about the build quality, its the thermals really, and again it doesn't look like they did it well with the TimelineX.

I think I saw a good looking Asus one, so its that (I can't remember model no.) and the MSi X370 atm, but Intel do look very good hahah

 

[ruthless_villain]

budget??

 

[ionicle]

macbook pro if you like macs

and have the budget for it

it has everything you need

microphone, webcam, bluetooth, wireless, decent spec processor, brilliant battery life, nice keyboard, solid construction, led backlighting, keyboard backlighting, and loads more...

 

[Ya93sin]

budget??

£600 tops

£500 or so would be a great thing

£400 would give me multiple orgasms

But I want a dedicated GPU, or at least the AMD APU thing. RAM I don't care about, can upgrade, ditto the HDD. CPU would need to be at least a dual core. And screen 1366x768 is fine, but 1080p would be orgasmic, though not likely at this level.

Needs to be thinnish and lightweight so I don't look like some geek walking around campus with a 4kg Acer Laptop

 

[ruthless_villain]

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/20270299/Sony-VAIO-VPC-CA1S1E-Intel-Core-i5-2410M-4Gb-320Gb-DVD-SuperMulti-LAN-WLAN-BT-Webcam-Win-7-Home-Premium-64-bit-14-Green-Notebook/Product.html?_%24ja=tsid:11518|cat:20270299|prd:20270299

Simplez

 

[Ya93sin]

Damn, lemme look for different colours, that's almost exactly what I want

Thanks

Will carry on looking as well

 

[Dolph123]

The Asus U36SD has caught my eyes. It is a bit pricey though. If it performs well enough in games i might just get it. I've found a 4 gig model, 8 gig and a 4gig and hybrid HDD one, but i'm not sure which one to get

 

[Ya93sin]

Does look nice. Tbh RAM is dirt easy to upgrade, and ditto the HDD, so I'd look more at the CPU

 

[Ya93sin]

Seeing that VAIO laptop for around the £600 mark with an i5-2410m and a 6470m. Very tempting, lets see if prices go down within the next month (I reckon they will/hope

)

 

[Mustang]

Apologies for attempting to hijack your thread but does anyone know if/when the Samsung 900X3A-A04 is coming to the UK?

 

[Ya93sin]

Erm no, best to email Samsung..

 

[Ya93sin]

OK, my list so far:

MSi : X460DX (this will be in stores in a bit)

Samsung: SF 310 (looks OK, I don't particularly like Samsung however)

ASUS: U33Jc/U36Jc (one has a nice wood feature, same specs)

Acer: New TimelineX series launching, need to wait for that to see models, not likely I'll go this way though

Sony: VAIO C-Series VPCCA1S1E

 

[ruthless_villain]

I Think TTL has one of the vaios

 

[Ya93sin]

Hmm I wonder which one

 

[ruthless_villain]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbgQU7oZ5es

 

[Ya93sin]

Damn its the same one. I'm thinking, get it from Tesco w/10% discount, so its like £585, then bang in a Momentus XT 500GB. Annd now to watch the video

Thanks for the find, I'm really lazy

But then I am on holiday

 

[Ya93sin]

Quite heavy though, and battery life is meh to say the least. I bet there will be a few new models as school starts up again.

I do like the ASUS and the Sony, the MSi one isn't out yet and neither is the Acer, so choices still

 

[Dolph123]

5 hours ago i bought an asus u36sd in the city my sister lives in. Unfortunately though, it didn't last more than 4 hours since it couldnt boot up and it made very loud sharp noises. But that could've happened to any laptop conpany right? Anyway, while it lasted i did play some minecraft on it which it could handle at far distance with fancy graphics smooth. Also, the build quality and finish was were nice (as good as sony and mac) and it said 5 hours of battery life in power saving mode @ 50% charge. I hope they have one left on monday in the store in my town so i can get a new one