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Moosferatu

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Hey, I'm going to be getting a new notebook this summer, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice. Dell is currently having some pretty good sales. Are their computers good and reliable? From Chris's experiences I know that I don't want Alienware... so, do you guys have any suggestions in general?

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Hey, I'm going to be getting a new notebook this summer, and I was wondering if anyone had any advice. Dell is currently having some pretty good sales. Are their computers good and reliable? From Chris's experiences I know that I don't want Alienware... so, do you guys have any suggestions in general?
My experience with Dell has been a mixed bag. I own their Inspiron 5150 laptop. It's a good machine, but has one major problem: it has a fan at its base which sucks in dust and causes the laptop to overheat quite often. As such, the system will freeze and shutdown often, mainly when I'm using 3D applications, such as games. Apparently this is a problem in the Inspiron 5100 and 5150 series, and someone even wrote a website about it. Unfortunately Dell hasn't really been too helpful since my warranty is up (problem started happening after it expired).

Otherwise though, the laptop is great. Other than their denial of their model having a design flaw, I've been very pleased with their support. Also I'm sure they've fixed this problem in their newer models, so this information might not be very helpful. However I would stay clear of their 5100 and 5150 series. :)

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Well... I'll probably do little gaming on it, though not as much as I used to. If given the option between buying a game for PC or xbox I'd probably go with xbox. I'd like to still be able to run some games decently on it though, like Psychonauts or PC exclusives that I really want. Other than that, internet, school work (I'll be going into computer science), etc.

Does Gateway make reliable machines? This one seems pretty good.

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Dell suck, and their customer service is appalling.

Why not go for a brand name but just catch it while it's in a sale or something? Over here at least, you can often get awesome Sony's, Toshiba's or Compaq's for the same price as a Mediocre Dell during sales or special offers.

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you can often get awesome Sony's, Toshiba's or Compaq's for the same price as a Mediocre Dell during sales or special offers.

I thought Compaq and HP weren't the greatest. Not bases on anything in particular.

Are Intel Graphics Media Accelerators crap?

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I've read some stuff about Toshiba's notebooks, and apparently the battery life is terrible, like just over an hour. That sucks. I've also checked out HP's dv4000 and dv1000, and Compaq's v4000 and v2000. They seem to be pretty good, but they only come with Intel Graphics Media Accelerators. Is that a big deal if I want to be able to play stuff like Psychonauts?

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I hear Gateway is one of the worst for premature breakdown. And in the COmputer shop I work at we get HP and Compaqs constantly. I got a Dell one that serves me well. Also one guy I know is always telling me the IBM Thinkpad is the only way to go.

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For some reason my dad has always been a fan of Dell (maybe he knows someone) and the craze caught on to me. We have 3 Dell laptops at home and 2 Desktops and God knows how many more at my Dad's office. And we love them. None of us are incredibly computer-proficient so we've always favored brand name and customer service over building something ourselves and dealing with the headaches that oft come with that.

As for the laptops themselves, both my parents have the 600m, which is more for their work purposes. I, on the other hand, have the 8600 (which I don't know if they are making anymore) and for 1200 dollars, it's one of the best computers I've ever owned. I've already had it for 8 months now and it's almost never given me problems. And I game on it all the time - Halo, Battle for Middle Earth, Knights of the Old Republic I/II, Call of Duty, Half-Life 2 (demo). Granted, many of these games aren't the most demanding ones out there at the moment, those that I do run do so superbly, which makes me think newer games will run fine as well. I even tried the Brothers in Arms demo, which worked quite superbly. But for some reason the Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault demo didn't work so well; all the people showed up as yellow blobs... On a different, more relevant note, I haven't tried the Psychonauts demo yet. I did download it, but finals are taking their toll on what I play and don't play.

(As you can tell, I'm a big fan of trying out games before I buy them.)

So this is basically my Dell Inspiron 8600 with Pentium M processor, 512 RAM and an ATI Radeon 9600 PRO. The ones on sale today actually boast better stuff than this, so I would presume what little setbacks I experienced with games you wouldn't experience if you tried it today.

As for battery life, the 8600 claims it has 5+ hours in it everytime I unplug the power cord and the most I've run it off of battery is 2 hours, at the end of which it still showed 2+ hours remaining. I live at college, so really, this laptop is more of a desktop replacement for me, which is why it's almost always running off of power and on my desk. And frankly, it's a little too bulky to be taking around with me wherever I please.

*A short note on their customer service - it can be darn slow at times, but it's no better than any other company that I've experienced customer service with. And yes, like virtually every other company, they assume you're an idiot, but I play along and it always fixed the problem for me. One time with my desktop, it wouldn't turn on, and so I contacted them with this problem a month before my warranty expired. They basically delayed the resolution, essentially, unable to pinpoint where the problem was, and once my warranty expired claimed they couldn't help me anymore. I reminded them that I first talked to them a month ago and the delay was because they mis-interpreted the problem (or I mis-represented it? but that's besides the point) and they apologized and went gung-ho and sent me parts for virtually everything that may go wrong - power supply, motherboard, processor, memory, etc. I basically replaced everything, and now it works and I'm so happy. :clap:

Hmm...turns out it became a relatively long note. Oh well, I hope this helps.

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I would check out Asus notebooks, I've had one and it's really nice, pricepoint is great and they look quite nice as well

Mine is an M6 so I can recommend those

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I don't like how they are called notebooks now. Who did that?

They don't call them laptops anymore because they don't want you to put them on your lap. They overheat if there's no air under the bottom of the computer, they want you to put them on tables and stuff.

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I'll put whatever I want on my lap.

I tell you what you can call it though.

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HP are awfully overpriced.

Why would you not go for Alienware after you've heard one billion good things and one bad thing about them from Chris? I've heard a billion bad things about Dell and Compaq...

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Why would you not go for Alienware after you've heard one billion good things and one bad thing about them from Chris? I've heard a billion bad things about Dell and Compaq...

I've got some bad things to say about Alienware laptops...

At my office we used to have an Alienware. It weighed a ton and was downright ugly.

If you want a gaming laptop, go with Falcon NW. The FragBook we have now is awesome. It' still weighs a ton, but the screen is a work of art. And it runs games really, really, really well. Plus it comes in a giant metal suitcase that makes you feel like a CIA agent.

Just don't buy a gaming laptop for its battery life. They all get like five minutes of battery power. Oh, and don't buy one for value, either. They're all hideously expensive.

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Sorry, Yuf, but I just ordered a Dell. Sort of fast, I know, but I got an awesome limited time deal that was too good to pass up. Here's what I got.

Dell Inspiron 6000

Pentium M 750 (1.86GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)

512MB DDR2 SDRAM

128MB DDR ATI's Mobility Radeon X300 PCI Express x16 Graphics

80GB hard drive (they don't say how fast it is...)

and a bunch of other stuff I don't feel like typing up off this sheet right now.

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