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Help! What notebook to buy?

post #1 of 22
4/17/05 at 5:35pm
Thread Starter 
This is my first post on Notebook Forums. This site is awesome and everyone seems to know what they're talking about. I am trying to decide what notebook to get. I think I have narrowed it down to three:

Sager NP3790
Uniwill 2591A3 from Cyberpower
AOpen 1557G from ABS

This is my first notebook ever. I will be going to college in the fall and want a great performing, very portable laptop. I don't want to have to get another notebook in 2 years because the one I get now is outdated. It needs to be a good all around gaming laptop with at least 128mb ram dedicated to graphics. I am also very biased toward ATI. I want to get the best performance, something I can be proud of. Are there any other centrino notebooks I should consider? Which of these is the best. I have read that the Uniwill has various complaints, and about the Sager's heat issues, but I don't know anything about the AOpen. Are they good quality?

Thanks for any help you can give!
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post #2 of 22
4/17/05 at 5:46pm
Here's a good review of the AOpen 1557GLS

http://notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=40249

I was leaning towards this one but now im torn between it and the Asus Z71V. Hope the review helps you.
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post #3 of 22
4/17/05 at 5:51pm
Well, in college, you're going to want to be able to carry your notebooka round a lot. You'll want some notebooks with good-decent battery life. Take a look at some of the Asus notebooks, particularly the Asus Z71V and the W3V. The W3V is slightly more portable, haveing a 14" screen. Other good choices for college is the IBM T43. I've heard it's got 5+ hours of battery life (someone want to confirm this?) Also, with a decent graphics card, its quite a nice gamign machine
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post #4 of 22
4/17/05 at 5:53pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeedFreek
This is my first post on Notebook Forums. This site is awesome and everyone seems to know what they're talking about. I am trying to decide what notebook to get. I think I have narrowed it down to three:

Sager NP3790
Uniwill 2591A3 from Cyberpower
AOpen 1557G from ABS

This is my first notebook ever. I will be going to college in the fall and want a great performing, very portable laptop. I don't want to have to get another notebook in 2 years because the one I get now is outdated. It needs to be a good all around gaming laptop with at least 128mb ram dedicated to graphics. I am also very biased toward ATI. I want to get the best performance, something I can be proud of. Are there any other centrino notebooks I should consider? Which of these is the best. I have read that the Uniwill has various complaints, and about the Sager's heat issues, but I don't know anything about the AOpen. Are they good quality?

Thanks for any help you can give!
All three of those have older generation chipsets and video cards. I second the notion to look at the ASUS z71v and the W3v and if you can afford it, the V6v.

ProPortable.com has most of ASUS' line if you want to look at them.
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post #5 of 22
4/17/05 at 6:03pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ilCacciatore
All three of those have older generation chipsets and video cards. I second the notion to look at the ASUS z71v and the W3v and if you can afford it, the V6v.

ProPortable.com has most of ASUS' line if you want to look at them.
Agreed, and it's always best to wait until you absolutely have to to purchase a notebook (unless there's a closeout/special deal/special coupons or something). Just keep in mind shipping times and whatnot. AMD Turions should be out over the next couple of months, as well as hopefully more Sonoma based notebooks.
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post #6 of 22
4/17/05 at 7:33pm
Thread Starter 
I’m not sure how much I will carry it around yet since I've never been to college before. I am Intel biased and want to get something off of their proven centrino line. Does the Sonoma platform make that much difference? It's a large jump in price. My budget is limited. It must be below $2000. I did look at Asus. They are beautiful notebooks but they don’t have any with 128mb ATI graphics, just 64mb. Any other recommendations with 128mb ATI graphics? Any more comments on the three I listed?

Thanks
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post #7 of 22
4/17/05 at 7:40pm
Have you consider Compal CL56? I think mwave has it pretty cheap. Of course there are a lot of other vendors, just do a search on cl56.
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post #8 of 22
4/17/05 at 7:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeedFreek
I’m not sure how much I will carry it around yet since I've never been to college before. I am Intel biased and want to get something off of their proven centrino line. Does the Sonoma platform make that much difference? It's a large jump in price. My budget is limited. It must be below $2000. I did look at Asus. They are beautiful notebooks but they don’t have any with 128mb ATI graphics, just 64mb. Any other recommendations with 128mb ATI graphics? Any more comments on the three I listed?

Thanks
Yeah, but the NVIDIA go 6600 with 128MB should be roughly equal to an ATI x700 with the same amount of memory...check the review threads and look at the gameplay results, people are stressing about the 3DMark05 benchmarks, and while that serves as a good test, it is not always the best indicator...

...as for a 128MB ATI notebook, the best one is the Acer 8104, but that's above your budget...argh...
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post #9 of 22
4/17/05 at 7:54pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeedFreek
I’m not sure how much I will carry it around yet since I've never been to college before. I am Intel biased and want to get something off of their proven centrino line. Does the Sonoma platform make that much difference? It's a large jump in price. My budget is limited. It must be below $2000. I did look at Asus. They are beautiful notebooks but they don’t have any with 128mb ATI graphics, just 64mb. Any other recommendations with 128mb ATI graphics? Any more comments on the three I listed?

Thanks
When I graduated High School in May '04 I thought it would of been really helpful to have a laptop in class, however at the time I couldnt afford one. Now that I have been in college 2 semsters I have determined that for myself a laptop in class would be pretty useless. But the thing is I am in many science classes where we do the standard stuff, writing equations working out problems etc. So I really dont care how big of a laptop I get (as long as it isn't excessively huge like a 13 lb P4). I'd reccomend going to college for one semster and when you need to use a computer use the schools computer lab. Then determine if you want a lighter notebook for classes. You may be like me and decide that a laptop in class is useless, or you may be one of the people that can really thrive off a computer in classes.
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post #10 of 22
4/17/05 at 7:55pm
You can spec out a Asus Z71V from ProPortable.com for under $2k.

1. Intel® Pentium® M w/ 2MB Cache; 533MHz FSB : 750 - 1.86GHz; 533MHz FSB; w/ 2MB Cache -Standard
2. DDR2 533 so-Dimm : 1024 ddr2 533 (512mb x 2) - Corsair
3. Hard Drives 2.5" ATA100 : Seagate Momentus 60GB 5400 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
4. Optical Drive : 24x Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW) -Standard
5. Internal Wireless Card (Required for Centrino) : Intel PRO/2200 Wireless 802.11b/g MiniPCI
6. Operating Systems : Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ SP2 -Standard
7. Warranties : 2 years parts & labor w/ 1 way paid shipping

Total: $1,844.16
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post #11 of 22
4/17/05 at 7:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by thestateimin
You can spec out a Asus Z71V from ProPortable.com for under $2k.

1. Intel® Pentium® M w/ 2MB Cache; 533MHz FSB : 750 - 1.86GHz; 533MHz FSB; w/ 2MB Cache -Standard
2. DDR2 533 so-Dimm : 1024 ddr2 533 (512mb x 2) - Corsair
3. Hard Drives 2.5" ATA100 : Seagate Momentus 60GB 5400 RPM w/ 8MB Buffer
4. Optical Drive : 24x Combo Drive (DVD/CD-RW) -Standard
5. Internal Wireless Card (Required for Centrino) : Intel PRO/2200 Wireless 802.11b/g MiniPCI
6. Operating Systems : Microsoft Windows XP Professional w/ SP2 -Standard
7. Warranties : 2 years parts & labor w/ 1 way paid shipping

Total: $1,844.16
It also has a fairly good graphic card, 6600go 128 MBs, which can handle CS:Source @70 FPS @1680x1050

The 6600go kicks the shit out of the X300 that Dell offers with their 6000, it will offer a world of difference.
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post #12 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:01pm
and you might look at one of the half size ones.....if you are not a computer based gamer. i plan on getting one when i return to civilization next november. i dont know of any specific models but a few people have them down here and they have all their music, decent hard drive space, wide screen aspect lcd, dvd player, small enuf to be barely noticable to avoid those pesky robots.
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post #13 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:03pm
Oh, hehe, sorry. Yep Michael's right. The Asus Z71V comes with the Nvidia 128MB 6600 Go.
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post #14 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:15pm
As said, the Asus Z71v can be purchased for under 2 grand (I got mine for $1940.33 from Integrated System Technologies), but so can the Acer 8103. Either machine will run any game out there. Also, you might want to wait a couple months until Sager releases their version of the Clevo 38AW (Sager 3790 Sonoma upgrade).
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post #15 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:23pm
Thread Starter 
The reason why I want a ATI GPU is its overclockability using ATItool which I am familiar with(My drug is making things faster ). Also I can use the caltalyst driver by modding it with DH Mod Tool(http://www.driverheaven.net/patje/). The catalyst driver has the awesomest GUI I have ever seen. Check it out here(http://www.theskinsfactory.com/skins...rtfolio&id=128). You can monitor and adjust everything and it even gives you a few more points on the benchmarks!

I'm pretty sure Nvidia doesn't offer anything with software that is even close. If it does, that might make me leave ATI.
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post #16 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:43pm
Um you can overclock with a Nvidia too..
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post #17 of 22
4/17/05 at 8:54pm
nVidias are easily overclockable, depending on which laptop you get. For example, the 6800go in the 9300 is very easily overclockable, whereas the 6800goultra in the XPS2 has a difficult time being overclocked
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post #18 of 22
4/17/05 at 11:02pm
Thread Starter 
I know that you can overclock nvidia, but the software probably isn't as good. Is there any articles about overclocking nvidia GPUs in notebooks?
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post #19 of 22
4/17/05 at 11:10pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SpeedFreek
I know that you can overclock nvidia, but the software probably isn't as good. Is there any articles about overclocking nvidia GPUs in notebooks?
Well the nvidia drives I have in my desktop allow me to OC it via the drivers, I didnt have to download any other software
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post #20 of 22
4/18/05 at 9:07pm
Thread Starter 
I think I'll stick with ATI, but thanks. I heard there is a new version of the 3790 coming out soon is that true, and when?
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