I want to buy a laptop for school. So, what I need is a laptop that can run at least 2-3 hours, the more, the better. I realy do NOT want a relfective screen, these are so annoying and we have a lot of windows in our school.
Other things I'd like:
1Gb ram (at least)
80Gb HDD(at least)
a rather descent graphics card, because I'd like to do some gaming on the laptop too (some lessons are freaking boring ).
Dual Core CPU (slow model is good enough)


my budget is ~ €1200

I've never had a laptop before (okay, I do have a DX4 laptop w/ 16Mb RAM , but that one doesn't count), so I'd like to have some input about brands, what are there positive and negative points ?
Ow, before I forget, I also want to know how the sound quality is, it's not something that will be descisive, but I just like good speakers (especialyl their sub to medium range, because that seems to be the problem with most speakers).

A Dell, Compaq, Fujitsu-Siemens or Toshiba - and not every model. It's hard to specify a particular model because i don't know what's available right there. Can you provide any models you've seen that fall under your criteria, and then it would be a bit easier to point out the pros and cons of each one.

For your budget, you should be able to get a good laptop. You can go to Dell's site and customize the laptop to your liking. If you are a gamer, I recommend going with the XPS laptops since they will have a better video card for gaming.

For the non reflective issue, I assume you mean those anti-glare screens that Dell have. Most (all?) of the Dell E series laptops have those I think.

Another brand that you might want to take a look at is Toshiba (as mentioned above) or one of those Acer laptops.

Try to customize the laptops to your liking and see how it fits your budget. Some of these sites (like Dell) let you choose your parts including the processor type.

I wouldn't really know what you should buy but i find mac's good and you can play world of warcraft on them
I don't play world of warcraft though
You can always download photoshop, macromedia flash, fireworks, dreamweaver, director and sound booth to keep you entertained and make some money designing websites

I really should start creating my own websites and selling them lol

Ill take my own advice and start now

-Lewis

P.S thanks for the inspiration.

@WeaponX: I'll take a look on the Dell site, but I guess the XPS series are bit too expensive for me (I'm just a casual gamer).
I think I mean the anti-glare thingy , as long as I can't use the screen as a mirror (like the Sony Vaio laptops).
I'll take a look around for customizing some laptops, but first finishing my exams .

@Lewisthemusician: I've been looking into these macbooks, but the macbook (not pro) uses a small, über-reflecting lcd and comes with an onboard GMA950 and the Macbook pro is a bit too expensive (starting at €2000 ).

@Grafitti: I've been looking into some laptop, but that's been a while ago (exams ), maybe next week I'll be looking for some laptops again


//edit: any input on the inspirion 6400 ? Looks sweet

This post has been edited by wutske: Jan 28 2007, 10:24 AM

Does anyone understand the Dell website .
Their pricing sucks:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products...;l=nl&s=dhs

Inspirion 9400 (take the second model).
from € 1.228 for € 1.037 , but when you do configure and order (configureer en bestel), the price suddenly changes into from 1.542,21 for €1.351,46 ....
rip-off ...

//edit: damnit, nevermind...


or



This post has been edited by wutske: Jan 28 2007, 12:52 PM

Don't rule out Apple either. You can get a loaded Macbook for a thousand pounds and a base level MacBook Pro for 1350 pounds. http://www.apple.com/uk/

With the new intel macs you can run windows on the same machine via bootcamp and the hardware specs are nearly identical.

The Inspiron 6400 is good. I've bought one a couple months ago. It's very good value for money.At the moment, very sweet too with their deal of $300 off. Go for their "best" model for $999. I can't believe what they offer for that price.

Actualy, I do rule them out ... The cheapest Macbook pro comes at €2000. The normal Macbook has small, glossy screen and the graphics card is only an Intel GMA950, wich isn't made for a bit of gaming, yet, the cheapest model would still costs me €1120. Wich is too much for things I don't want.

@Grafitti: To bad I live in Belgium, no $300 off here , but I know Dell usualy gives some €€€ off (currently €100 when ordering online , it's been like that for months).


So, atm it's between the Inspirion 6400 & 9400. But I realy need to do some more investigation (exams, exams ). All I know is that Acer is no go because they all have glossy screens (same goes for the expensive Sony's).

I personally would really want to rule Dell out. I've had bad experiences with every single Dell computer I've used and I've had to deal with a lot of them. Dell laptops are not the way to go if you don't like downtime. HP, toshiba, and Alienware are much better than Dell. From Alienware, a Area-51 m5550 should be able to fit into your budget. If not, a dv6000t from HP or a Satellite P100-ST1072 isn't a bad choice either.