I've been playing with computers since I could crawl (mid/late 80's)... I've built many a high-end gaming rigs, business rigs, 3D architecture rigs, geospatial surveying rigs (as in, topography, having ginormous earth and land models, a huge strain on storage and graphical performance), etc... I am to computers what Boyd Coddington or Chip Foose or George Barris or someone like that was to hot-rods, or at least I like to think so.graphics cards that will walk all over any store bought computer.ust me when I say, AVOID: Apple, Dell, Alienware... They are 90% name, 10% giblets. Also, Alienware is now owned by Dell, and Dell makes my skin crawl... Even the mention of such gives me a tingle up my spine and one of those things where you have a mini-throw-up, where you puke but it only makes it to the back of your throat....
Your best bet for a Windows machine is a good, solid, Toshiba Satellite... I've run Satellites since the early 2000's, and have only had one die on me. Even today, I am using a hella nice quad-core Satellite with 17.5" display, number pad on the keyboard, etc... She lacks memory, but mem is cheap and easy to install. This computer handles Battlefield 3 like it was Minesweeper. A truly amazing piece of technology, especially for the $550 I paid for her.
My sister started college with a Dell that lasted a whopping 1.5 months before being completely and utterly unserviceable, even by Dell (they like to discontinue things and leave you with a choice of New Dell or No Computer)... We got her a Satellite, and the thing has lasted her three years now; banged up, beat up, and still kickin'...
My mom has always favored the teeny little netbooks and has her an Acer something-or-other. Honestly, I hate that damn thing because it has a sub-sized keyboard and I am constantly missing keys while typing. It's good enough for her, as all she does is Facebook and order things all day, and really doesn't use it much.
I, however, value raw performance over all... When AMD's Phenom II (Quad-core 4.7GHz monster) processor first came out, I had one coupled with a Radeon 5870 (almost top-end, but the top of the top is usually for Geospatial plotting of massive terrain features and such; supercomputer type stuff), 16G ram, etc... She was a MONSTER!! I overclocked to 5.2GHz thanks to a monster of a heat sink; it was actually so efficient that it was cooling the processor too much and causing performance issues. Yes, that is possible.
Believe me when I say your best bang for your buck is a Toshiba Satellite. Ask the geeks at Office Depot or wherever (AVOID BEST BUY unless you like paying 15% extra because you're in a Best Buy), and they should hook you up with one that's not overly powerful but not 50 seconds from being so obsolete you can only use it for a paperweight. My suggestion is to stay on the more powerful end of the spectrum, as it will have a longer service life, compatibility-wise... The cheaper stuff usually lacks in performance because it is older tech, and tech gets phased out on a weekly basis.
If you want something powerful like an untouchable gaming rig, go with a desktop and if you're that serious you most likely know what you're looking for enough to shop
http://www.newegg.com for individual parts and pieces....
And speaking of Newegg, they may have deals on laptops. They usually have the lowest price on everything computer-related, and are a WONDERFUL company to work with! Parts that come DOA (dead on arrival, don't work), or items that come smashed or broken or even slightly unsatisfactory, they will make right. They won't rest until it is right.... They will send out their own team of Viking henchmen to rape and pillage and murder and plunder and set fire to tech company execs' homes and families until you are satisfied with your purchase.... Ask me how I know :viking:
HP, Asus, etc, are all decent, but my favorite is the Toshiba Satellite... Of the 10 or so I've had the pleasure of owning as a main lappy, only one has actually died. The rest are in a pile of old-but-still-working laptops back home. Now, how many of you HP/Dell/Mac users have a heap of still perfectly functional but old and slow lappies!? Didn't think so! ;)
- CK
P.s. Once you get it, get a solid-state hard drive for it and install Windows 7.... W8 is a steaming pile of **** (every other Windows release is ****; W3.1 was good, 95 was ****, 98 was good, 2000/ME/NT was ****, XP was good, Vista was ****, 7 is good, 8 is ****)... Also, with a solid-state hard drive, you can quite literally toss that bastard out a window without having to worry about your hard drive dying on you! It is like a hundred thumb drives welded into a box inside your computer, as opposed to a very sensitive magnetic disc array. Solid-state is the future of hard drives, and the future looks damn good.
