Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Do they [Acer] have that bad of a history of breaking?

If you do some reading on the BestBuy or Amazon or NewEgg website reviews, you get a picture that Acer has really upset some customers with their poor customer service.  However, the squeaky wheels are the ones that make all the noise.  I'm sure there are thousands of people who have bought Acers and haven't had any problems with them.

In my mind, it's kinda like buying a refurbished machine.  Sure there's a higher chance of getting a dud, but there's still a good chance that you get a computer that you'll be really happy with.  And you save a LOT of money by taking that risk.

I did find one review of this computer that you're looking at on Amazon.  It wasn't flattering.

Going to try Sony custom out (especially since they have the no interest financing option).  Here's my first try (still trying to keep it somewhat low):

    Intel® Core™ i5-2450M processor (2.50GHz / 3.10GHz with Turbo Boost) (45; 43)
    Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium 64-bit
    15.5" LED backlit display (1366 x 768)
    AMD Radeon™ HD 6630M (1GB) hybrid graphics with Intel® Wireless Display technology (Class 2)
    640GB (7200rpm) hard drive
    6GB (4GB x1 + 2GB x1) DDR3-SDRAM-1333
    CD/DVD player / burner
    Standard lithium-ion battery (5300mAh)

The price is 1070 before tax.  I know that the video card is not class one but considering that:

1) It's Sony so at least I'm buying from a reliable company
2) I'm not planning on having any newer games on ultra high graphics mode
3) It's either that or the standard one they have.

Am I getting closer to my goal?  I have to stay under $1000 so that my wife and I can go to a bed and breakfast for our five year anniversary at the end of this month (whoohoo  ).  If I go through Sony, I can get a better (from my basic knowledge point of view ) laptop while still being able to go on our trip (we have had the no interest deals before and we always pay them off before the interest kicks in).

Whatcha think?

The whole idea of top tier manufactures is farce, every manufacturer has budget models that will suck and have problems because they're cheap. This is were brands like Acer get their bad name. Sony by comparison does not sell a true  budget model so they have a good name. Any laptop in the price range your looking for will be about the same regardless of manufacturer 

How important is a dedicated compared to discrete?  This hp configure looks nice to me but the down side is that it is not a dedicated card.

Your dv6tqe series

Color   dark umber

Operating system   Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor   2nd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2670QM (2.2 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) with Turbo Boost up to 3.1 GHz (rank 17)

Graphics card   2GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 7690M GDDR5 Discrete Graphics(TM) [HDMI, VGA] (class 1)

Memory   FREE UPGRADE to 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)

Hard drive   750GB 7200 rpm Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection   

Office software   Microsoft(R) Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word/Excel(R) only, No PowerPoint(R)/Outlook(R)

Security software   No additional security software

Primary battery   6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

Display   15.6" High Definition HP LED Brightview (1366x768)

Primary optical drive   FREE UPGRADE to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner

Personalization   HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader

Networking   802.11b/g/n WLAN

Keyboard   Standard Keyboard with numeric keypad

It will cost $1152 pre tax but they do have a no interest financing option.

                       Price     Graphics Card Rank       Processor Rank         Brand        Screen
Option 3       $  900         #34 (Class 1)             #24 (Great)              Acer            17 in
New idea      $1152         #32 (Class 1)             #24 (Great)              HP              15 in

Why are you paying $250 more dollars for basically the same computer (and a smaller screen) just because it is an HP?  Is the brand really that important to you?

Quote from: lp670sv on March 01, 2012, 05:32:14 PM

The whole idea of top tier manufactures is farce

I wouldn't go as far as lp, but I agree with him that it's not nearly as important as $250

1) The computers I looked at earlier are sold out

2) I am also looking for no interest deals to be able to pay more

If you find a better one on a site that does offer no interest financing, I'm all ears.

So I just found out that Newegg.com also has financing (Best Buy has a no interest credit card but I don't want another credit card).  So, Here's one from that site:

Newegg 1
   Video: Class 1   Processor: #24

It is your covenant 17" screen as well as a high Class one card.  Though it does run about 1500 after taxes, the 12 months no interest plan will put off the bulk of it until we get our major tax return in a couple of months.

Here's another one

Newegg 2   Video: Class 1   Processor: #24

Of course, if for some odd reason I don't qualify (I have never been rejected), It'll be back to the drawing board again .

I agree that the Asus is the better option there, and it should be an AWESOME computer for what you want.  My only hesitation is that you are up into a whole other price range now, and we haven't really looked around at that price range to see what else is out there.

OK, here's what I found on NewEgg at a variety of prices:

                       Price     Graphics Card Rank    Processor Rank      Brand     Note
NewEgg 1    $  700       #59 (mid-Class 2)        #50 (Good)         Acer        Lots of positive reviews
NewEgg 2    $  800       #30 (low-Class 1)        #24 (Great)        Lenovo    only 15in screen
NewEgg 3    $  900       #59 (mid-Class 2)        #24 (Great)        Acer        1 TB hard drive
NewEgg 4    $  950       #55 (mid-Class 2)        #24 (Great)        Toshiba    Better brand
NewEgg 5    $1050       #21 (mid-Class 1)        #46 (Good)        Toshiba    Better graphics card
NewEgg 6    $1350       #21 (mid-Class 1)        #24 (Great)        Toshiba    1 TB hard drive

Based on these findings, I think that it would be good to ask yourself if you really need the high-end gaming specs, because you could get the 1st one for basically half the price of the last one.

As for the top end, I like the NewEgg 6 better than the Asus you were looking at.  They have the same processor, the same graphics card, and the same price, but the Toshiba hard drive is twice as big.  The Asus has a bit more RAM (12MB vs. 8MB), but I also like the Toshiba brand more than Asus.

If it were me personally, I think I'd go with NewEgg 2.  It has the processor AND graphics card you want, is a great brand, and you save $500 by dropping the screen size 2 inches.  Unless someone else has a good reason not to buy that one, I'd recommend getting it before it sells out

12 GB of ram vs. 8 GB of ram is not a "little" better.... and although the graphics card is the same model it is NOT the same card. The Asus card has 3 GB of VRAM the Toshiba is only 1.5 which is a MAJOR difference. The Asus also has a higher resolution monitor which is better for gaming.

I think 8GB of RAM is plenty really, but you do make some good points overall.  What is your opinion of the $1350 Asus 17in compared to the $800 Lenovo 15in?

I think 8GB of RAM is plenty really, but you do make some good points overall.  What is your opinion of the $1350 Asus 17in compared to the $800 Lenovo 15in?

The Asus is far better it's just a question of if he wants to shell out the extra cash, there's nothing wrong with the Lenovo.

Well, I tested the eligibility for the payments and got rejected. Figures. So, I got another month or two before we get our tax refund. The limit will be 2k once that comes in so time to focus on different set (still want to keep it under $1600 pre tax so that I have room for any accessories I need (e.g. carry case)).  Of course, not maxing out is always nice

At this point I really need to ask if you are SURE you want a gaming laptop. The fact of the matter is there is no such thing as battery life for a gaming laptop, you will be tied to an outlet when gaming for the most part and even when doing light work you will find the battery life gets frustrating. Combine that with the fact that at your price point you could get the Lenovo laptop that is decent at gaming AND build a top of the line gaming desktop

Put it in the garage and buy a really nice 4-way-walky-talky with the money you save. Boom, not isolated.

6 GB of memory is fine for most people, so a gaming laptop that you don't want to be replacing anytime soon it's just average. Video memory is VERY important, it can make or break a lot of modern gaming experiences. There aren't even that many devices that USE Usb 3.0 so having more than one of them really isn't that beneficial and I can tell you that of all my computers that have an external E-Sata port (all of them) I have used it exactly zero times as most devices that run on E-sata also require a power cable which is pretty hard to come by one that isn't part of your internal power supply, and if your using your internal power supply you already took your computer apart no need for an external E-Sata port. 8 cell battery provides a 33% increase in battery life so he might actually be able to use the laptop as a laptop for basic tasks like internet word processing etc. when your referring to hard drive speeds, the faster they are the faster it can transfer data and thus the faster the system will run overall. On a faster hard drive literally every single thing loads faster, file transfers are faster. It's the reason nerds like me are willing to pay 100 dollars for a 64 GB hard drive. Arbitrary rankings are a good start but they really prove nothing and don't take everything in to account, such as Video Ram. The motherboard in the Asus also has a more advanced and faster chipset (that's something that you'd have to do a lot more research to find). When I rank computers I don't take huge price increases in to account for exactly this reason. The Asus is far superior to the Lenovo, but that's exactly as it should be considering the difference in price. Rather the extra benefits of the Asus is worth $550 is up to the person actually buying the computer to decide. Personally $1400 for a laptop is too much for me no matter what, I'd rather build a desktop and get a laptop I can actually use as a laptop. But Ironica is already willing to spend up to 2k on the thing so $1400 may be nothing to him.