Looking to buy a laptop soon...

• Yoorah wrote on 2012-11-23 17:02
  With a Macbook, you can get mugged easily. A friend of mine is going to an art school in Orlando, and she says that Macbooks are actually included in the tuition there. The result? Pawn shops are full of them. lolol
  
  ThinkPads are not meant to look pretty, although that's a subjective thing. :< The original design is from their team in Japan, apparently inspired by a traditional Japanese lunch box ... and it hasn't changed a whole lot for like 10 years or more. I guess you could still get robbed by a tech geek or something, as most people would assume it's an old laptop. lmao
  
  You could put a sticker on it or something! *shot*
• Evaris wrote on 2012-11-23 17:12

  Quote from Yoorah;985847:

  With a Macbook, you can get mugged easily. A friend of mine is going to an art school in Orlando, and she says that Macbooks are actually included in the tuition there. The result? Pawn shops are full of them. lolol
  
  ThinkPads are not meant to look pretty, although that's a subjective thing. :< The original design is from their team in Japan, apparently inspired by a traditional Japanese lunch box ... and it hasn't changed a whole lot for like 10 years or more. I guess you could still get robbed by a tech geek or something, as most people would assume it's an old laptop. lmao
  
  You could put a sticker on it or something! *shot*

  
  If it were old, it would still say IBM, I doubt anyone would miss the "made in China" sticker on the Lenovo :P (I think I have an old IBM thinkpad lying around the house somewhere still....)
  
  But, given the prices there, I would have to recommend a Sager. Plus you can order one with a custom design. http://www.xoticpc.com/sager-np6165-clevo-w150er-p-4344.html
  
  You've got a considerably faster GPU on board, better construction, and accessory / customization options. Only downside is getting windows separately, thought that can be an upside if you know someone with an Windows 7 disk lying around.
• Lewd wrote on 2012-11-23 17:31
  I think that Thinkpads are one of the best looking out there
  
  Also, that mouse nub
• Micho wrote on 2012-11-23 22:30

  Quote from Yoorah;985847:

  You could put a sticker on it or something! *shot*

  
  
  My sister does this, there's fucking stickers everywhere on her electronics. These Asian stickers like the ones that have shape, I think it gives her stuff a girly feel.
  
  And Claudia, why buy one during graduation? Christmas is coming up and it'll probably be cheaper then.
• Claudia wrote on 2012-11-23 23:32
  omg meeko that is an asian thing
  because I love my chinese friend dearly but her DS is covered in stickers from magic castle like woooah
  
  also I might, because my mom keeps urging me to look now instead of later. methinks yoorah's thinkpad is the winner.
  it also makes sense to order right now, because the black friday coupon is awesome.
• Micho wrote on 2012-11-24 00:26

  Quote from Claudia;986005:

  omg meeko that is an asian thing
  because I love my chinese friend dearly but her DS is covered in stickers from magic castle like woooah
  
  also I might, because my mom keeps urging me to look now instead of later. methinks yoorah's thinkpad is the winner.
  it also makes sense to order right now, because the black friday coupon is awesome.

  
  
  Ugh, I have a sticker on my iPhone, for the home button so there's a little piggy I press now.
  
  Yeah I would buy it with the coupon or when Christmas comes around, the more you save, the better!
• Evaris wrote on 2012-11-24 10:49
  well, something to warn you on is that that ideapad isn't exactly your best option, even for the price. For example, that Sager will be about twice as fast in gaming. (the NVS 5400M is an underclocked Nvidia GT 630m, and as such is slower still than other near-priced laptops.0
  
  If you were looking at buying this weekend up until Cyber monday (when the best sales are to be had.) I would recommend one of the following, this lenovo at the high end with a 660m; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834310660
  or for a good bit less, this toshiba; http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214871
• Claudia wrote on 2012-11-24 15:48
  Ooh, those are shiny. That Toshiba is really nifty for the price, although it's heavy D: .
  
  The only gaming I do is Mabinogi, though.
• Evaris wrote on 2012-11-24 17:09

  Quote from Claudia;986273:

  Ooh, those are shiny. That Toshiba is really nifty for the price, although it's heavy D: .
  
  The only gaming I do is Mabinogi, though.

  
  
  Even if so, it's generally a good idea to have the ability to do more in the future. Though in cost effectiveness for you, this may be a much better buy at less than $400, leaving you with extra money for accessories, or a new smarphone like a Nexus 4 or something.;
  http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+K+Series+15.6%26%2334%3B+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Matte+Light+Indigo/6087209.p?id=1218717240847&skuId=6087209
  
  You'll get a good quality build (Asus) with decent battery life and enough power behind it for Mabinogi and most games out there. (yes, it can run Crysis.. albeit at lowered resolution/ settings)
  
  Or more simply, here is a laptop which is just as good for your purposes, for about half the cost, and made by a reputable and quality brand. (Asus is the world's #1 manufacturer of motherboards [they make boards for a lot of other assemblers like HP] and is the #2 in terms of least defects behind Gigabyte. Asus is also in Taiwan not China, and manufactures a good number of products from places which are not Foxconn. [though they have said they are pulling away from the Pegatron fab. sad news.])
• Claudia wrote on 2012-11-24 21:53
  And now you have me with the ASUS.
  
  So many options.
  
  @______________@
• Excalibur wrote on 2012-11-24 23:33
  http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/ideapad/y-series/y580/
  
  I bought this. :v
  
  It's a hundred dollars cheaper than the y580 on amazon.
• Excalibur wrote on 2012-11-24 23:34

  Quote from Excalibur;986454:

  http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/laptop/ideapad/y-series/y580/
  
  I bought this. :v

  
  
  It's a hundred dollars cheaper than the y580 on amazon.
• Evaris wrote on 2012-11-25 02:26

  Quote from Claudia;986410:

  And now you have me with the ASUS.
  
  So many options.
  
  @______________@

  
  
  The Asus also runs Windows 7.
  
  and, at least in my opinion, options are a good thing. Better to be overwhelmed with options than to have none at all. Personally if I had $800 or so to spend right now, it would be on said Asus and a Nexus 4, but that's me. And I'm looking to play higher end games, yet that laptop is still fine for high-end games like MWO and Crysis, so long as you don't mind lowering the settings considerably. And if you don't need / want a smartphone, there are a lot of things you can do with the extra $400.
  
  Just my input.
• Claudia wrote on 2012-11-25 13:27
  I am on a budget, indeed. Less money spent on a laptop means more money towards...college textbooks and tuition.
  
  I think i'm going to end up with the ASUS, unless somebody pulls something else wonderful out of their secret treasure trove of awesome laptops. Thanks for all the advice, everyone.
• Yoorah wrote on 2012-11-26 03:22
  I'm kinda iffy about that Asus, tbh. D: It may be an OK choice for newer games, however I've heard that the APU sucks for DX9 games, which Mabi based on. Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics beats that AMD GPU by 24% in 3DMark05, according to http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-7640G.69836.0.html
  
  And even for newer games, the AMD "dedicated" GPU is not much faster than the integrated HD 4000.
  
  On the CPU side, Intel totally destroys that AMD A8, especially in single core performance (which is the Mabinogi use case). In terms of compute performance, the A8 is inferior to a low-end Intel i3 overall. Considering how heavily Mabi uses the CPU (it basically maxes out a core on my beastly desktop i7-3770K), the A8 would struggle pretty badly. D:
  
  The NVS 5400 is quite a bit faster than the HD 4000 on top of that.
  
  That, combined with the average build quality... makes it a poor choice imo. I mean, it would be fine as a typical throw-away laptop, and if you're lucky, it could last a long time, too.. but I would buy something nicer, especially as a graduation thing. :<
  
  And...
  

  the NVS 5400M is an underclocked Nvidia GT 630m, and as such is slower still than other near-priced laptops

  
  The NVS isn't "underclocked 630m," but rather it's a 630m running at a proper safe speed where stability and long-term longevity is improved. I kind of hate how consumer GPUs, especially the mobile ones, run above sensible speeds in order to lure consumers with better benchmark scores. It's why there's so many people complaining that their laptops have dying GPUs. :|
  
  Another option, if you're okay with only having an HD 4000 integrated GPU (at the same cost as a T430), is the ThinkPad X230 line. You basically trade gaming performance for small size. You can also upgrade to a sweet IPS display, which has much better viewing angles/colour than a typical laptop screen.. for like $50. If I needed a laptop for school or work right now, it's what I'd get tbh. Although the NVIDIA GPU in the T430 is quite tempting as well.
  
  Oh, and this is an older T series from back when the ThinkPad line was still owned by IBM, but lol:
  [video=youtube;-CrpUU3cCPE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CrpUU3cCPE[/video]
  Yay for engineering. Good luck doing that with a random HP or whatever. Specs on paper aren't everything.