Purchasing A Laptop - Help

[Randy Parker]

I went to Best Buy and I think I found what I am looking for. I'll let you all tell me what you know about the brand before I purchase.

 

Asus G73SW - BST6

Core i7 Sandy Bridge Processor

8 GB DDR3 RAM

17.3" Screen

NVIDIA GTX460M Graphics Card with 1 GB dedicated memory

750 GB HDD

 

How much? Which Best Buy?

[98NCCalum]

I've got the macbook air and I love it. The air probably isn't good for games though, they don't have cd-roms so you are kind of up a creek if you buy a game and have to install it via cd.

The air also doesn't have a Hard Drive.

[HT721]

The air also doesn't have a Hard Drive.

 

Well I'm a computer moron so that is news to me.

[BleedBlue12]

How much? Which Best Buy?

 

$1200 at the Best Buy in Lexington off of Nicholasville Rd.

[swamprat]

When my HP crapped out, I had an IT repair guy look at it and he said 2-3 years is about all you can expect from a laptop any more with the advances and upgrades before they become outdated.

 

Really. Professionally, I still have laptops that have been in the field for 8 or 9 years. Personally have 3 older than 3 years of age, one of those is circa 2003, and one is even an HP.

[98NCCalum]

Well I'm a computer moron so that is news to me.

Well I should specify, it does not have a customary spinning HDD disk hard drive. It has all cloud and flash storage. So its a solid state drive in essence.

[98NCCalum]

When my HP crapped out, I had an IT repair guy look at it and he said 2-3 years is about all you can expect from a laptop any more with the advances and upgrades before they become outdated.

He's right and wrong. You can expect to get 2-3 years before I would do something like upgrading the RAM or something along those lines. But, the day you buy it its outdated technologically speaking. And that goes for Mac or PC.

 

But a laptop hardware wise should easily last you 5+ years with proper care and support. You may have to replace a Disc drive or HD at some point but that happens when there are so many moving parts.

 

My biggest advice I give to people is BACK YOUR STUFF UP EVERY MONTH!!!! Can't even tell you how many people are amazed when their HD craps out and they've lost little Susie and Johnny's lifetime of pictures.

[Voice of Reason]

My biggest advice I give to people is BACK YOUR STUFF UP EVERY MONTH!!!! Can't even tell you how many people are amazed when their HD craps out and they've lost little Susie and Johnny's lifetime of pictures.

 

I guess I better back up my files on my almost ten year old desktop. :scared:

[04sportsfan05]

I just bought a macbook pro. So far, a thousand times better than any windows pc I have ever owned. So much smoother.

[BleedBlue12]

Here's an update on what I ended up getting:

 

When I went to Best Buy to purchase the Asus I mentioned before, an employee came up to me and said "On any other day I would tell you that's the best computer we have here. However, we just received the newest Sony Vaio on the market." Turns out, he had literally just pulled the display model out of packaging and was setting it up when I came in. They only had one model to sell aside from the display. This Sony Vaio has the following specs:

 

Sony Vaio F-Series Laptop (VPCF226FM/B)

Intel Core i7-2630QM Processor (Quad Core)

8 GB DDR3 RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M (1 GB VRAM)

Windows 7 Home Premium

Blu-ray Disc Player

Full HD 1080P Display - 16.4" Screen

Backlit Keyboard (Nice little feature)

Instant Web Access (Can boot up the internet before even turning the computer on)

 

So far, I am absolutely in love with my new PC. It runs very smoothly, quietly, and is cool to the touch when gaming. I can multitask like never before. Couldn't be happier with my purchase! Until something inevitably breaks down of course, because that's life.