[Ai Freelander]

Hi. I'm not sure if this is the write forum for this because I'm not actually going to literally build a laptop i'm just looking/reseraching for a notebook I will buy in like July. If it is the wrong forem, my bad .

My favorite brands are ASUS and Sony, from what I hear from other people and a square unix report on laptop failures. I am definatly going for windows 7 and an i core most likely 5 since 7 is over kill for me. This is going to be my college laptop and I really want it to last about 5 years w/o going horribly obsolete.
I want:
-a 13-15 in screen. I'm only 5'3 and generally pretty small so the 17 inc or more than 6 pounds notebooks are too large/heavy for me to feel like lugging around
- should be a good res HD
-SSD with at least one 160GB, I don't really use external hard drives so it needs to be large so it call hold all my music and movies/photos ect
-i-core processor speed at least 1.8 ghz
-battery life (large) its impotent to be even though I know that they always degrade.
-web cam (hopefully nice, but not absouletly nessary.

so basically I think I know what I want, I'm having a hard time finding it and may be going overkill for my pratical use. Also I don't really understand what is 'good' or slow or 'bad'. Oh its also important that this laptop is durable or im going to end up being SOL. thank you guys so much in advance for helping me.

[madmatt2006]

Hello and welcome to PCHHQ windows 7 and and I5 CPU would work well together. Have you looked at a bare bone laptop base yet? ASUS have some good ones

[Ai Freelander]

madmatt2006, on 20 February 2010 - 01:37 AM, said:

Hello and welcome to PCHHQ windows 7 and and I5 CPU would work well together. Have you looked at a bare bone laptop base yet? ASUS have some good ones

um no. Like I said, I can customize a laptop online, but there is no way I can build one. I'm really just want advice on what is most likely going to work and not get destroyed with normal use. I looked at some asus 15 inch models but they either had horrible batterylife or a processor speed of like 1.3.

[noop]

What type of processor? If it is a quad-core processor, 1.3Ghz isn't too bad. Keep in mind, laptops are usually way slower than desktops unless you are willing to pay a lot.

Do you have a budget for this machine?
noop

[Ai Freelander]

Well I am going to be working full time this summer so its flexible + family member chipping in possiblely. I am guessting my budget is from 1-2k. I think an i5 processor will suit my needs best while not becoming too slow in caparison for the next several years. I would like to be able to play wow, so decent gaming, but not too bad. I'm also looking at the ASUS K42F, which seems good but its grapics card is 105M, which I've heard is really really bad?.

[noop]

This one looks like a really nice laptop, especially if you are going to be playing WoW. The only downside that I can see is the screen is 17" which you said above may be too big. However, this is probably your best bet especially if you will be gaming on it and want it to last a few years: ($1,599.99)
ASUS G Series G73JH-X1 NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 17.3" 8GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 - Retail

Here is another machine that is about half of what the first one is. Has 4GB of RAM and a pretty decent graphics card. The only thing you may want to upgrade on this one is the harddrive to a 7200RPM drive or your Solid State Drive. This one has a smaller 15" screen which would make it a bit more mobile: ($999.99)
lenovo IdeaPad Y550P(324156U) NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M - Retail

Let me know if these are something you may like. Their are still hundreds to choose from
noop

[madmatt2006]

This one is very nice! in fact I'd say it's awesome ASUS G Series G73JH-X1 (The first one in noop's post)

[Ai Freelander]

Hey guys, sorry for long time no see. Thanks for you idea's. My parents gave me the idea of how much they were gonna chip in so I can Increase my laptop budget to 2,500. I've been looking at the sony Z, customized to 256 SSD, 6Mb of ram, and an i5 processor, with the 3 year warrenty. But the SSD doesn't support Trim, and I'm worried about the speeds decaying badly over time. Like I said I want this laptop to run decently 4-5 years. Is it worth the price?, or is there an easy fix to SSD degradation. I looked at noops G series and its a little too heavy and a little too bad on battery life:) but thanks for thinking about it. I'm also thinking that the asus bamboo series is coming out soon in the US, but it only has 310 Nivida GEforce card and I don't know on the scale whether its a good or bad card.

[noop]

Hey Freelander, sorry for the long reply, totally missed this post.

If you want something to last, I would still go with this: ASUS G Series G73JH-X1 NoteBook Intel Core i7 720QM(1.60GHz) 17.3" 8GB Memory 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 - Retail

Then buy a solid state drive and you should be good to go. Here is one that might be of interest: OCZ Agility Series OCZSSD2-1AGT120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Retail

As long as you don't do raid, that drive should do trim. As for battery life, you can always purchase a second battery and just swap them out.

Hope this helps and let us know what do you,
noop