Best sites to customize/purchase a laptop?

[Ben E Lou]

I'm going laptop-only soon. Looking for something fairly high-end, mainly to replace my desktop, but that I'll take with me when traveling. Where should I go?

[Comey]

Every company does customized laptops nowadays. This really depends on what you plan to do with it. Lenovo does some great business laptops...HP's line is solid, as is Sony's (I own a Sony Z, which is the ultimate in ultraportable powerhouses).

You can also look at Sager, which is high-end...check out http://www.xoticpc.com/ for that line.

[Ben E Lou]

Usage...

• home video editing
• text sims (but I want very fast multi-season sims for, say, OOTP)
• some gaming (Civ5 and future Civ games mainly)
• I like to multi-task like crazy (4 instances of FOF, 1 OOTP, 3 firefox, IE, Word, and Excel all open right now, for example)

[chesapeake]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I'm going laptop-only soon. Looking for something fairly high-end, mainly to replace my desktop, but that I'll take with me when traveling. Where should I go?

I tried this about 6 years ago using the laptop for roughly the same purposes. I found that hauling that beast around was a pretty miserable experience, and the performance was never better than mostly adequate. Sorta like what my wife says about me.

I expect that advances in miniaturizing will help make the final package easier to carry. Just don't lose track of the final weight.

[Honolulu_Blue]

SkyDog,

I went laptop-only back in 2008.

I would highly recommend the Sager brand. I have a 15.4" inch screen laptop. It's a bit big for travelling, though I have taken it on car trips and have used it on a train before.

They are very high end gaming laptops. Good quality. The biggest drawback is the battery life. Very short, but that's to be expected when you have such a powerful machine.

Here is my original post on the subject, still feel the same today:

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

I would take a look at Sager laptops. Back in November, I was in the market for a new laptop or desktop. I decided to go laptop simply because I would use it a lot more. I wanted something that could handle the newest games, so I did a ton of research on gaming laptops.

It turns out that Sager laptops (I'd never heard of them before) get excellent reviews. I bought one in December and have been thrilled with it so far. I haven't had any issues with it. I am not sure what you can get at the price range you're looking for, but I'd recommend poking around.

Here are some websites that sell them (I bought mine from powernotebooks):

http://www.powernotebooks.com/

http://www.xoticpc.com/

I'd never heard of either dealer, but they are both incredibly reputable.

I also consulted this site (A LOT) during my research. These people are crazy about their laptops and very responsive. You can post a thread saying what you're looking for, specs, price range, etc. and will get a number of good responses quickly.

Here it is:

Notebook and Laptop Reviews

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by Honolulu_Blue

SkyDog,

I went laptop-only back in 2008.

I would highly recommend the Sager brand. I have a 15.4" inch screen laptop. It's a bit big for travelling, though I have taken it on car trips and have used it on a train before.

They are very high end gaming laptops. Good quality. The biggest drawback is the battery life. Very short, but that's to be expected when you have such a powerful machine.

Here is my original post on the subject, still feel the same today:

Thanks!

And to be clear, I have very little need to use it *during* travel other than to relieve boredom during layovers. It's more the fact that I wake up between 4 and 5 am most mornings, and like to get some gaming in before my relatives/in-laws wake up. So in that regard, I'm not terribly concerned about size. My wife travels with her 17-inch screen laptop from time to time.

[Ben E Lou]

And how short is "very short?"

[Ben E Lou]

So, Blue-Ray is a technology that I've paid no attention to whatsoever, and I own zero Blue-Ray products. Is there strong reason to believe that I'd regret not getting Blue-Ray? Will many videos be Blue-Ray only? Will games be Blue-Ray only? (I'll likely buy something new again three years from now, fwiw.)

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

And how short is "very short?"

I would say, an hour to an hour and a half tops, I think. I don't go powerless very often, so it's hard for me to estimate. And I am always running my machine at "full power" or whatever the highest power settings are, so you may be able to extend the battery life by lowering the power consumption settings.

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

So, Blue-Ray is a technology that I've paid no attention to whatsoever, and I own zero Blue-Ray products. Is there strong reason to believe that I'd regret not getting Blue-Ray? Will many videos be Blue-Ray only? Will games be Blue-Ray only? (I'll likely buy something new again three years from now, fwiw.)

I haven't seen nor heard of any games coming out that are Blu-Ray only. In fact, other than ordering some old games, pretty much everything I buy is digital, so I don't even think about CDs vs. Blu-Ray. Blu-Ray is nice for high definition and you can connect your laptop to your TV with a HDMI cable and use it that way if you'd like. Blu-Ray players are backwards compatible, so you wont have any problem with your old DVDs/CDs.

As for something new again on the horizon... Beats me. I don't really follow it too much either. I am typically a couple years behind the curve on that stuff.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Thanks!

And to be clear, I have very little need to use it *during* travel other than to relieve boredom during layovers. It's more the fact that I wake up between 4 and 5 am most mornings, and like to get some gaming in before my relatives/in-laws wake up. So in that regard, I'm not terribly concerned about size. My wife travels with her 17-inch screen laptop from time to time.

Since I got my laptop, I haven't touched my desktop. I really love the portability of it. Even with my laptop getting on to about 2.5 years old now, I still can play all the games I want, wherever I want. I was playing Civ V last night.

I had to nuke and pave it back in December of last year. It was freezing up on me and finally crashed. Luckily, it gave me fair warning and I was able to back everything up. Since the nuke and pave it's been back to normal, so it wasn't a hardware issue.

If you want to play something during a layover, just find a seat near a power socket and you're all set.

I am a big fan of the brand. I know a couple other guys on here, sovereignstar for sure, have one as well.

[Ben E Lou]

Sounds good. And it sounds like "no Blue-Ray" would be a win-win. I win now by saving a few bucks, and if by chance it's a heavily desirable technology when I want a new machine in 2-3 years, it's a convenient "need" excuse.

[stevew]

Unless you would be hooking it up to an HDTV to watch a blu ray movie, or had a large collection of movies on blu ray, there's basically no reason to add it now.

[Ajaxab]

I just ordered a Sager 8130 from powernotebooks.com after learning about Sager from the Notebook Review Forum. The 8130 doesn't have the best video card for games that is currently available, but it should serve me well for the next 2+ years. Upgrading to the best video card, the Nvidia 485 GTX, was going to be an additional $$600 with a step up to the Sager 8150 or 8170. That was a bit too steep for me.

There seem to be a lot of helpful people over at the Notebook Review board. You might post a list of things you're looking for in the 'What Notebook Should I Buy' section and get some helpful suggestions there.

[CrimsonFox]

I just got a laptop with a bluray player and it is slower ripping and burning CDs than the faster regular DVD burners. I just don't think the technology is there yet bluraywise.

If you belong to costco, the costco website is where i got mine. Has lots of good stuff, but even the workers at costco say do NOT get an hp laptop. You will end up returning it.

[Wolfpack]

I just got a new HP 17", mainly so I can have the portability to be in any room to be on the computer. It did come with a Blu-Ray, but that was a free upgrade that was offered at the time. I don't expect to be making extensive use of it because as others have noted, PC games aren't really on Blu-Ray and are a hard commodity to come by on CD/DVD as is. I may make use of it as a portable movie-watching platform, probably, but I'm now inventorying what I've got from my very old and dusty collection of PC games (circa late 1990s-early 2000s, mostly) and determining just what has a chance of being run on such a new computer. (Short answer? Not much, unless you're into around-the-elbow problem solving.)

[Travis]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

I just got a laptop with a bluray player and it is slower ripping and burning CDs than the faster regular DVD burners. I just don't think the technology is there yet bluraywise.

If you belong to costco, the costco website is where i got mine. Has lots of good stuff, but even the workers at costco say do NOT get an hp laptop. You will end up returning it.

Same deal as when DVD burners first came out and were slower than CD burners. They're slower but you're getting access to a different medium to watch/backup to. Definitely a question of whether you need/want that tech at this point, but probably will be a similar replacement cycle that we saw with CD to DVD.

[sovereignstar v2]

I travel with my 17" inch... Sager "desktop replacement" every now and then. Doesn't faze me at all. If you get something with the new Sandy Bridge processors battery life should be better than what some of us current owners have. I ordered mine from malibal.com. Technically not a Sager as Malibal didn't brand their's after getting it from Taiwan/Clevo, so mine doesn't even have any logos.

[sovereignstar v2]

These are the Sandy Bridge quads FWIW and will be all you can configure in some boutique laptops:

Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.2-3.3GHz
Intel® Core™ i7-2820QM, 8MB L3 Cache, 2.30-3.40GHz
Intel® Core™ i7-2920XM, Extreme 8MB L3 Cache, 2.50-3.50GHz

[Comey]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Thanks!

And to be clear, I have very little need to use it *during* travel other than to relieve boredom during layovers. It's more the fact that I wake up between 4 and 5 am most mornings, and like to get some gaming in before my relatives/in-laws wake up. So in that regard, I'm not terribly concerned about size. My wife travels with her 17-inch screen laptop from time to time.

To echo what others have said, I think you'll find your preferences change after you get a laptop. I haven't used a desktop since 2002 (I own one, but it doesn't work, and even when it did, I didn't bother with it), so I'm biased. ; )

[Johninja]

I would recommend Toshiba highly. Mine has taken quite a few falls and still works fine. Remember to fiddle with the power settings, sometimes the default setting only uses a low % of the total CPU power.

[CrimsonFox]

The other nice thing is they now make great graphics cards for laptops. I considered getting a monster gaming desktop but really didn't need one as the new laptop has a great card that isn't that expensive.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

These are the Sandy Bridge quads FWIW and will be all you can configure in some boutique laptops:

Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.0-2.9GHz
Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM, 6MB L3 Cache, 2.2-3.3GHz
Intel® Core™ i7-2820QM, 8MB L3 Cache, 2.30-3.40GHz
Intel® Core™ i7-2920XM, Extreme 8MB L3 Cache, 2.50-3.50GHz

What sort of performance difference would I expect to see between these four? There's a pretty big price difference.

[Ben E Lou]

Oh, and forgive my ignorance; I'm still on XP at home and work. What are the major differences between Win7 Premium, Professional, and Ultimate? Is there a reason I'd want to pay the extra to get one of the latter two?

[Comey]

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/w...oducts/compare

Win7 Premium should be just fine for your needs; I have Ultimate, but only because it came with the machine. Frankly, I don't really know what I use on it that would set it apart from Home Premium.

[Ajaxab]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

What sort of performance difference would I expect to see between these four? There's a pretty big price difference.

From what I've read, the 2630 should be just fine for everyday use and games. The 2720 might be the price/performance sweet spot though. Whether you actually need a 2720 for its minimal performance boost though is debatable from the sounds of things. I was quite content to stay with the 2630.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Oh, and forgive my ignorance; I'm still on XP at home and work. What are the major differences between Win7 Premium, Professional, and Ultimate? Is there a reason I'd want to pay the extra to get one of the latter two?

I'm guessing the latter two are more server based things and I"m guessing you only need it for home stuff and games and things like that.
So Premium is fine. I'm really loving Win7 actually. Originally I was reluctant to leave XP.

[Bigsmooth]

Check these Toshiba Qosmio's out:

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/...#1301701992496

The Q8102X is available at Costco online for $100 off ($1499). 18.4" screen with all the high end graphics, i7 chip, etc. Plus at Costco you get an extra 2 years warranty I believe. I'm about to order one!

[Ben E Lou]

So I'm reading over at the OOTP Boards that SSD may not be the wisest option for running OOTP because of how often it writes/rewrites to the HD. Any thoughts on this?

[Ben E Lou]

This thread:

What affects gameplay speed more - CPU or HD? - OOTP Developments Forums

[sovereignstar v2]

I have a 120GB SSD and a 500GB HDD. I store the 'My Documents' folder on the HDD and believe that helps a little bit. I can't recall if OOTP has a user data folder (like FM has) that you can change, but I imagine it does. That would alleviate some of the problem.

The myth is that your SSD is just going to die on you at some point. Trust me - you'll end up replace the laptop before your SSD dies. Just google 'SSD write limit' if you want to know more.

Anyways, I'd get a laptop where you can have two drives like I did. With many of the smaller ones you can replace the optical drive with a HDD, though you might want to purchase a cheap USB optical drive in that case.

[Ben E Lou]

OK, makes sense. OOTP writes data to the My Documents folder, so I suppose something like that would work.

I'm looking hard at the Sager NP8170, mainly because it has room for two drives and an optical. Here's where I am right now:

Display	17.3" Full HD LED-Backlit Display with Super Glossy Surface (1920 x 1080)
Video & Graphics Card	Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M GPU with 1.5GB GDDR5 Video Memory
CPU Processor	2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM Processor ( 6MB L3 Cache, 2.20GHz) [$160.00]
Thermal Compound	IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU [$40.00]
Operating System	Genuine MS Windows® 7 Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition ( 64-Bit Preloaded )
Memory	16GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 X 4GB [$270.00]
RAID Storage Options	Non-RAID Storage
Primary Hard Disk Drive	120GB Intel SATA2 Solid State Disk Drive [$235.00]
2nd Hard Disk Drive	750GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Secondary Hard Disk Drive [$125.00]
Optical Drive Bay — Optical Drive or Hard Disk Drive in Optical Drive Bay with Caddy case	8X DVD±R/RW/4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
Wireless Network Card	Bigfoot Networks Killer™ Wireless-N 1102 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module [$40.00]
Primary Battery	Smart Li-ION Battery Pack
Integrated Security Device	Fingerprint Reader
Microsoft Office	New! Microsoft Office Starter 2010 - Included in Price
Warranty	Sager 2 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty [$79.00]
Carrying Bag	Standard Carrying Bag

[sovereignstar v2]

You are pimping that thing out good!

That's a lot of RAM but if you think you'll need it for the video editing, go for it. What site are you configuring this at?

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

You are pimping that thing out good!

I rarely watch television and movies, so the computer tends to be my primary source of home entertainment/diversion.

That's a lot of RAM but if you think you'll need it for the video editing, go for it.

I'm thinking that plus my absurd multi-tasking, plus the delta in cost between 8MB and 16MB just isn't all that much.

What site are you configuring this at?

custom gaming laptops - Welcome to Sager Notebooks

[sovereignstar v2]

Sager are good builders, bad at customer service. I'd go with a reseller like XoticPC or Malibal.

http://www.la.bbb.org/Business-Repor...r-Inc-33000135

[Ben E Lou]

Yowza. I just assumed it would be cheaper/better to buy from the source. Thanks for the heads-up.

[sterlingice]

I like seeing the little tack on items they try to sell people on. Does the snazzy thermal compound or "better nic card" really get you anything for the $40 each you're paying?

Personally, I'm going to wait a few more months to go get a SSD. Not enough bang for that buck and those prices are going to start coming down, I suspect. Same with the 16GB of RAM- seems overkill, but that's me.

SI

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

The myth is that your SSD is just going to die on you at some point. Trust me - you'll end up replace the laptop before your SSD dies. Just google 'SSD write limit' if you want to know more.

Haven't heard about this but is the myth that you should put the docs you write to on another drive or something to keep it from wearing out? Considering you pound your paging file with reads and writes much more than any other spot on the drive- I don't think were you keep your docs would make much of a difference.

SI

[sovereignstar v2]

I can agree with that. I changed the MyDocs folder location primarily so I wouldn't lose stuff when I format my OS drive, which I do fairly often out of compulsiveness.

[sovereignstar v2]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I like seeing the little tack on items they try to sell people on. Does the snazzy thermal compound or "better nic card" really get you anything for the $40 each you're paying?

Personally, I'm going to wait a few more months to go get a SSD. Not enough bang for that buck and those prices are going to start coming down, I suspect. Same with the 16GB of RAM- seems overkill, but that's me.

SI

The thermal paste upgrade is overpriced, but if you don't want to put it on yourself and you want to keep your machine as cool as possible you don't have much choice. You could get a whole tube of ICD7 for under 15-20 bucks, but I can tell you from experience it is a bitch to put on and can be a bit overwhelming for a newb. The stock paste is trash. Will your computer die from it? No, but you have to consider the stress the most common buyers of these machines put on their rigs. Dual video cards and extreme processors are not made for laptops...

As for the wireless card, you get what you pay for. A little overpriced? Sure. The only people that need 16 gigs of RAM are multimedia people. Ben talked about video editing, so he just might be able to take advantage of that if he's dealing with raw, uncompressed files.

[Ben E Lou]

Yes, raw and uncompressed. As for that price, very early in my marriage, my wife and I bought a put-it-together-yourself corner computer desk for maybe $250. Office Depot wanted an additional 40 bucks to come out and put it together. We went cheap and didn't pay them. DUMB decision. The time we spent fooling with that stupid thing was worth two or three times that much money. I learned from that experience, and will be nickeled and dimed on that sort of thing the rest of my life. It just isn't worth my time.

[Ben E Lou]

Thanks again for the help. My new laptop arrived this morning. After some more research and some testing on a machine belonging to a friend, I dropped down to 8GB RAM. but moved up to 256GB SSD. Should I just store pics and videos on the 2nd drive and do pretty much everything else on the SSD? (Unless I have a major problem I won't be reinstalling the OS ever. I just don't do that.)

[Honolulu_Blue]

Did you end up going with the Sager that you spec'd out above?

[Ben E Lou]

I actually bought {hangs head in shame} a Dell. BUT MY REASONING IS SOUND! I didn't realize that my company had changed policies since my last purchase. It used to be that they paid a percentage that reset every time you bought something. But now, they pay based on total service time as long as you wait three years between purchases. So the short version is that I was able to get a Dell with basically the same specs that the Sager would have had, but with some additional stuff like a comprehensive 3-year warranty (including drops, spills, and power surges,) and it cost me ~$400 less than the Sager would have. I figure with the extra protection I have I'm ok. But yeah, same processor, 3 GB GeForce, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 640GB SATA HDD, backlit keyboard, 36-month McAfee.

[cartman]

Just curious, did you use the new laptop to run the WOOF sim this morning? If so, I think it might have a computing issue. My QB was atrocious.

[Ben E Lou]

Originally Posted by cartman

Just curious, did you use the new laptop to run the WOOF sim this morning? If so, I think it might have a computing issue. My QB was atrocious.

No, it came at around 8am. And I'm waiting for a consensus on this question to determine where I want to put FOF. My guess is that the Friday WOOF sim will be run on the new machine. (I'm posting from it now.)

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

Thanks again for the help. My new laptop arrived this morning. After some more research and some testing on a machine belonging to a friend, I dropped down to 8GB RAM. but moved up to 256GB SSD. Should I just store pics and videos on the 2nd drive and do pretty much everything else on the SSD? (Unless I have a major problem I won't be reinstalling the OS ever. I just don't do that.)

256 MB runs out surprisingly fast if you have a lot of different programs installed. I think your plan is generally a sound one, just know that.

[Ben E Lou]

Well, my solo HDD on the machine this is replacing only has approx. 140 GB used, including vids and pics, so I figure I will be ok on space for a good while.

[Honolulu_Blue]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I actually bought {hangs head in shame} a Dell. BUT MY REASONING IS SOUND! I didn't realize that my company had changed policies since my last purchase. It used to be that they paid a percentage that reset every time you bought something. But now, they pay based on total service time as long as you wait three years between purchases. So the short version is that I was able to get a Dell with basically the same specs that the Sager would have had, but with some additional stuff like a comprehensive 3-year warranty (including drops, spills, and power surges,) and it cost me ~$400 less than the Sager would have. I figure with the extra protection I have I'm ok. But yeah, same processor, 3 GB GeForce, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 640GB SATA HDD, backlit keyboard, 36-month McAfee.

Sounds like a sweet deal and a good machine. I don't think I would have passed that up either.

[DaddyTorgo]

I got the okay from my partner to get a new laptop and charge it to work...need to start shopping.

[sovereignstar v2]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

I actually bought {hangs head in shame} a Dell. BUT MY REASONING IS SOUND! I didn't realize that my company had changed policies since my last purchase. It used to be that they paid a percentage that reset every time you bought something. But now, they pay based on total service time as long as you wait three years between purchases. So the short version is that I was able to get a Dell with basically the same specs that the Sager would have had, but with some additional stuff like a comprehensive 3-year warranty (including drops, spills, and power surges,) and it cost me ~$400 less than the Sager would have. I figure with the extra protection I have I'm ok. But yeah, same processor, 3 GB GeForce, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 640GB SATA HDD, backlit keyboard, 36-month McAfee.

Glad to hear about the warranty. Dell doesn't come close to matching the durability and reliability that a Sager/Clevo provides.