Help to find relatively powerful, modern looking laptop (~13")

[ahpadt]

Continuation from where I/we stopped the other discussion.

Requirements:

- ~13"
- No cheap plastic design
- Good build quality
- Good keyboard
- Semi-powerful/powerful hardware (C2D and 4GB of RAM please)
- Possibilities for SSD (I want warranty)
- Should play SD movies with no problems, HD would be nice too
- Performance to play the odd game

I'm quite serious about finding a course at a university to start studying now, which involves moving away from home and I don't know if I will be able to bring my desktop. Also, I just dislike my current laptop (read previous quotes below) in terms of using it for a long period. I think it's brilliant in terms of portability but for semi-powerusing it's not so great. Keyboard is too small, screen isn't bit enough for properly enjoying a movie or series etc. Tbh I don't think ANY netbook can fully substitute a real laptop, which I've now learned the hard way cos my current laptop was worth ~2300EUR back in the days when I bought it (luckily I got a big discount). It's probably not worth shit now if I want to sell it and buy something new.

Contenders which I have found/has been suggested by others:

(I have a similar thread going on a Norwegian forum, I only found the 3 first ones)

- Macbook Pro 13" (nice design and hardware but dunno about OSX)
- Dell Studio XPS 13 (decent design and hardware, no SSD, and semi-crap battery life, dunno about build quality)
- HP ProBook 5310m (Outsider which I don't know a whole lot about)
- HP Envy 13 (Shameless MBP rip-off which is why it's tempting but I dislike HP and their support, no SSD)

Old quotes:

Originally Posted by ahpadt

Simple, quick question:

Are there any 10"/11" netbooks with a C2D processor? My current Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook P7230 (10,6" display, Intel Core Duo U2500 1.2Ghz, 2GB RAM and 80GB HDD) is suuu-looow. Running a clean installation of XP on it. The only one I can find is a Fujitsu Lifebook P8110 but thats knocking on 2300€.

Looking at getting something new but the problem then is that you don't really get anything juicy unless you jump up to 13" which is normal notebook territory.

Originally Posted by Thomas93

Best of the bunch if you ask me

If your feeling generous order two

Originally Posted by ahpadt

We don't get Vaio's in Norway Norgay.

Their new X-series is stunning and I'd seriously consider that one if I could.

Originally Posted by Thomas93

Toshiba
Toshiba A600
HP
HP Compaq

Would you be interested going CULV? Alot cheaper an some more options available.

Originally Posted by ahpadt

Added requirement: must have a premium feel.

And no, I'm not skimping on the performance. Maybe a netbook isn't for me cos I want it to be able to do more than what my netbook currently does. Like playing SD movies without having the fan on 100% during the entire movie. HD movies would be nice aswell, including the odd game which is unrealistic but hey.

This thing even lags when I fire up semi-heavy flash games. OS is a fresh XP with all updated drivers.

Originally Posted by Thomas93

My teacher has the 2230s, very solid. Toshibas like that seem to garner positive reviews most of the time.

its a shame you cant get the sony, really does meet every single requirement.

Are you not willing to even consider 13"?

EDIT: Dell

Originally Posted by ahpadt

I AM considering 13" but then I have to move out of this netbook thread.

Originally Posted by Thomas93

Well take another look ath the Dell and the HP's.

Im seriously considering the HP myself

[Thomas93]

The macbook Pro can have XP, Vista or 7 put on it no problems.
Seeing as you have now gone for 13" and under -
Acer Aspire
Acer Ferrari one (Slight Wild Card)
Another Acer
HP
Samsung
Toshiba

[ahpadt]

Got bad experiences with Acer, both reading about them and actually seeing one. My girlfriend has one and it squeeks and rattles. No thanks.

[Dr_Grip]

IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad SL 300

[Cobol74]

Originally Posted by klankymen



One of the most thought provoking posts that FG has ever had!

To find a really good laptop with millions of lines of data on it just pick one up from a taxi recently vacated by a drunk MI6 agent.

[thevictor390]

This thread broken for anyone else?

Originally Posted by thevictor390

http://forums.finalgear.com/technolo...op-13-a-39693/



Eh?

[Thomas93]

you've broke the internets!

[Polly]

Which cunt divided by zero again?

[katwalk]

I like my MBP but honestly, the only reason I find this an acceptable price is because if it goes wrong in any way I can drive to free instant tech support.
And honestly I don't know WHAT Dell's tech support is like, but this is a good thing because I have had one of their desktops for six years.

HP/Compaq and Acer I know from myself and friends they can be cheesy.

[ahpadt]

In my experience Dell support - atleast over here - is somehow decent but I keep reading about build quality issues on the XPS Design 13".

[Quiky]

Thread fixed.. quit posting useless garbage characters to screw up the templates.

[brydiem]

Ok, Dell's support is excellent from what I've dealth with in Australia (got onto a person within 5 minutes, told them what was wrong, support guy out to my house to fix it and fixed within 2 days), but build quality isn't great. My inspiron 9400 (E1705) has a wobbly screen, a plasticky feel and overheats a fair bit so i have gotten a cooling stand to fix that. Actually, the reason I had to call tech support was because the graphics card fried itself and the mainboard due to overheating.

[katwalk]

Originally Posted by ahpadt

In my experience Dell support - atleast over here - is somehow decent but I keep reading about build quality issues on the XPS Design 13".

Andddd I just brought my father's Dell XPS gen 4 desktop home.


I take back all the nice things I said buy the damn Mac because this thing:
a: will not take vista at all, despite coming out right before vista did.
b: will not let me do a clean install of XP of a fucking dell xp disk because it can't find it's own internal drive
c: has NO TECH SUPPORT unless I call a toll line because the warranty is out.

Meanwhile, if your have a 5 year or older mac powerpc, it is only non-upgradeable as of a few weeks ago and will probably not be totally obsolete for at least 1-2 more years. Since my 2 year old one is an intel I can probably use it for another 5 years and you know what? If i take it to the store or call up and the warranty is out then, they still don't charge until I need it fixed or parts. Fuck Dell. Get the damn Macbook.

[thevictor390]

Try a BIOS update for Vista, and for XP, you need to slipstream in SATA drivers (since XP came out before SATA).

[katwalk]

It won't let me do a damn thing because there are no hard disks.
THEN HOW ARE YOU WORKING YOU RETARD COMPUTER YOU HAVE ONE WITH 250 GB OF SPACE

[thevictor390]

Right, the XP disc doesn't have the drivers for the hard drive, so it can't see it (why they aren't on the custom Dell OEM disc no one knows). You can load them in during the install with a floppy or another CD, or you can rip the CD you have, add them to the image, and re-burn.

[katwalk]

It only recognizes one disc drive during the install for some reason idk why so I can't stick what i think is the driver CD in (he had 2 dells it could go to the other one)

[thevictor390]

There should be a load driver button or some such at the screen where it shows your discs, which should let you swap in the driver CD.

(we should probably stop this thread hijack.... but if you make another thread about this I'm sure others who have more experience doing this than I do can give you more specific information. It's annoying but it's a problem with a lot of early SATA computers)

[katwalk]

mom found all the discs for it somehow and it works now
JUST NEEDED 5 DIFFRENT DUMB DISKS ALL SET NOW

[ahpadt]

Hijacking my thread!

It almost feels like a given to get a Macbook Pro since I can't really find anything who has the same level of build quality and hardware combination.
I'd be going for a 2.53Ghz, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD setup.

To comfort katwalk, then I can say that sometimes installing new OS's on old laptops can be a freaking pain in the ass.