[Joshatdot]

I've never owned a lappy, I've always built my own towers. The purpose of this lappy would just be for portable music & video, Wi-Fi browsing, light gaming (MMO Asheron's Call).

Three things I would like:
- Large HDD capasity
- Decent Onboard sound (if there is such a thing on lappys)
- Decent DVD/CD drive for ripping CD's

Optional would be a good vid card/chipset.

Price $1000 ish

 

[audioengr]

Toshiba. Very reliable. Just works.

 

[Joshatdot]

Hmm..I 'custom' build a Toshiba and a Dell..the Dell was cheeper. Which brand has best HP out? (I guess it won't matter much IF I get a 0404 USB)

 

[kamal007]

Dell is better imo because of the accidental warranty. If you drop the laptop by accident, they'll either repair them or you'll get a new one. plus theyre tons of couopons floating around and you'll probably get a better deal than similarly configured laptop.

just my 2c

 

[Rocketmech]

NB's suffer from weak sound cards and noisy hp jacks. I have a Dell 1520 I like very much, the sound card is decent but the hp jack has noise. I went with a Alien usb dac , cmoy amp combo to eliminate the noise and improve sq. I think any usb solution is better than any onboard audio.

I would recommend you make a request on NotebookReview.com
You can find good guides and advice from NB pro's there also.

BTW, Dell's accidental warranty is at an additional cost.

 

[Basil101]

Asus is a great brand of notebook, some of their laptops include a SPDIF port for better sound than the hp out.

 

[Uncle Erik]

I really love my MacBook. You can get a refurb for about $1,000 that runs great and covers your bases. It also has bit-perfect optical out and a remote so you can use it as a music server.

Don't base your initial purchase on hard drive capacity. Aftermarket drives are *much* cheaper than paying for a big drive up front. If you've built your own towers, then you pretty much know how to replace a laptop drive.

So buy the laptop you want and then put in the drive of your choice later. You'll save money and you'll often be able to get a bigger drive than offered by the factory.

 

[facelvega]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joshatdot /img/forum/go_quote.gif I've never owned a lappy, I've always built my own towers. The purpose of this lappy

for the love of decency, please stop calling them "lappies"

Quote:

Originally Posted by kamal007 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Dell is better imo because of the accidental warranty. If you drop the laptop by accident, they'll either repair them or you'll get a new one. plus theyre tons of couopons floating around and you'll probably get a better deal than similarly configured laptop.

Yeah, the cheapness and this warranty made me switch to Dell from IBM, and I wish I hadn't. The IBM (now Lenovo) laptops are just built better, more durable and nicer to have to touch every day.

Don't worry about good onboard sound, there is no such thing in current laptops. What counts as decent, like the card in a macbook or lenovo, is still no better than a $30 TBAAM, and is much weaker.

And as for large drive capacity, I used to think the same thing, and got 120 gigs on this computer, which was a lot at the time. Already it's not enough, but I don't care, because these days USB external drives with absurd amounts of memory are so cheap that storage and backup aren't really a problem anymore. Not as useful as having the memory onboard, but safer to keep it in a safe location on a drive that isn't constantly in use.

 

[ozz]

my macbook pro has served me well as long as you don't expect
anything from the built in speakers as all laptop's suck in that dept.

 

[Hoeboe2k]

I think the macbook pro's headphone port is decent at best. It picks up quite an amount of soft beeps and boobles, I think this is from other parts of the computer interfering. I've only really noticed it on my super.fi's because they are super sensitive. My Alessandro MS1 doesn't pick them up. I'm looking to upgrade out of the headphone jack using the optical output.

 

[HardHeadCase]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220256

 

[bhjazz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rocketmech /img/forum/go_quote.gif NB's suffer from weak sound cards and noisy hp jacks. I have a Dell 1520 I like very much, the sound card is decent but the hp jack has noise. I went with a Alien usb dac , cmoy amp combo to eliminate the noise and improve sq. I think any usb solution is better than any onboard audio.

I found the best solution for noisy Dell outputs is to add an external amp. Turn the output up on the Dell to get the power level well above the noise floor, then control it form an amp. Even my ol' Mint in this config was far better than the straight headphone output.

As for the Alien DAC solution....definitely! ('tis my next build!)

 

[Joshatdot]

OK..so HP out on any Lappy is bad...so I guess I'll need a 0404 USB, or a USB DAC & Amp.

 

[WittyzTH]

another vote for Dell if you're looking for Windows systems.

don't care much about hp out. looking for optical out + getting DACs is the best way.

 

[dragonchi]

the new penryns cpu's are stated to launch this janurary too, so prices will drop a lil from current laptops.
these new chips are going to eat less power, so you'll see better battery life.

the sound on my dell 630 is terrible! since the sound is processed throught he motherboard, which is all the same. [santa rosa], your better off getting a rig that suites your needs, then come here and get a portable DAC/amp.

the other things you posted. the hard drive, this can be upgraded on your own if your not tooo worried about taking apart your laptop. it's alot cheaper to upgrade yourself then to have bought from the manfacturer.

the optical drive, well they're all the same other than from the amount noise they make when the spool up and the time it takes from them to mount the disks.