Buying new laptop. Help a brother out.
 

So after months of months of reviewing and looking (while waiting for my tax return) I finally have the money in hand and so far plan on purchasing the Sony Vaio SE2
Sony VAIO 15.5" 2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2450M Laptop (VPCSE23FDB) - Black : 15" Laptops - Future Shop

I don't plan on buying from future shop, it'll be from the Sony store but that one is spec'd out the way I want it. Before I go out and grab one is there any other suggestions on a similar rig?
My requirments are

Budget $1000 +/-
Light and slim profile.
Black in color.
A video card that can game.

I was also looking the lenovo y470/y570 but those are a bit too thick and bulky for me.

:fuckthatshit:

anything sony is garbage speaking from a tech's point of view, only their Z series are top notch.

AMD 6630 can't game anything more then League of Legends.

ASUS N53SV-QHDB1-CBIL I5-2410M 4GB 640GB 15.6in GT540M BD Combo Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Notebook - ASUS - N53SV-QHDB1-CBIL

17" version

ASUS N73SV-DH72 17.3IN FHD i7 2670QM 6GB 750GB GeForce 540 Blu Ray HDMI BT USB3.0 WIN7 Notebook - ASUS - N73SV-DH72

Samsung's top notch raptop.

Samsung NP700Z5A-S01CA Intel Core i7 2675QM 8GB 750GB 15.6in HD+ HD6750 DVDRW BT Win7 HP Notebook - Samsung - NP700Z5A-S01CA

Better alternatives are out there, avoid HP, Toshiba, Sony & Bottom line Lenovo stuff.

for $1k budget you should be looking at ultrabooks
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrabook

You didn't read his last requirement:

A video card that can game.

Ultrabooks can't game. Unless you look at the new Acer which is out of his price range.

Really? I thought the sony s series would be alright.. is it the build quality that's usually shitty? I've read tons of reviews and other then fan noise and the orangie red's of the IPS screen not too much bad is said about it.

Also I didn't think the new acer was out yet? I've been waiting to see a US/CAN price on that

edit: I mean the reason I was steering away from the asus in the first place was the physical size/weight of them compared to the sony..

Alienware?

asus from ncix and memoryexpress are also pretty nice :thumbs:

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=65175&...S&promoid=1058

you get a core i7 and its cheaper :fullofwin:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/72...phics-intel%C2

gt 540 bit better too :suspicious:

in the end all up to you though :woot2:

yeh check out ncix. futureshop and bestbuy got old parts in their laptops

+1 for asus

If you are not in a rush for a laptop. Intel is suppose to be releasing Ivy Bridge in a few months.

+1 Asus

Bought a G53S and am in love with my machine. Although the Republic Of Gamers line isn't light in any way ... for the price you're willing to spend, weight may be a moot point. They also have accidental warranty included right off the bat as well. So that may swing you too.

buy desktop for gaming, buy netbook if you really need to have a portable computer. otherwise, buy a tablet. done and done.

You should wait a few months and buy an ultrabook if weight is important to you.

Intel should be releasing ultrabook chips around may/june. They've already released mobile i7s, but no ultra book will use that chip.

Acer Aspire TimelineU M3 should be released any day now. Intel Core i5-2467m
NVIDIA Geforce GT 640M and a 256GB ssd drive and space for a 2nd drive. Should be around $1000. MSRP is $600 GBP in the UK and $1298 SD in Singapore.


AnandTech - Acer Aspire TimelineU M3: Life on the Kepler Verge

Acer or Asus both have affordable laptops with game capable graphics cards. There usually is an Acer price pointed around $650 - $850 at best buy or future shop or NCIX with an NVidea graphics card and a an i3-i5 processor that will meet most gaming needs and for $1000 you should be able to get an i7.

What do you mean by gamer though? Cause what exactly you need in that range is going to differ depending on what you play.

Yeah thanks for the responses guys.
@most people .. I've heard from a few sources the Ivy Bridge isn't much of a upgrade as people were hoping for. The biggest thing it's got going for it is that the intel hd 4000 is just as good as the low level amd/nvidia cards out these days. So I'm not sure if it's worth waiting for.
My laptop screen has pretty much shit the bed and I work in Van / live in Kelowna so a working laptop is pretty important to me.
@thenewgirl yeah that's the thing is that I'm just looking for a mid level card like the nvidia 540m .. nothing too spectacular.

I saw an ASUS N53 at London Drugs today that had a 2gb Nvidia 630m card in it? After reading the 1gb version is on par with the 540m so I imagine the 2gb version should do the trick.

The only thing I don't like about the ASUS n53 series is the size and weight. There's at least an inch on either side of the screen. Looks like the shell could fit a 17" screen. I wanted something smaller then the 3 year old HP I have now... and that is not.

I was going to wait on that ACER m3 until I read a pretty iffy review on it...

The only other option I'm thinking of these days is that if I decide to go with the ASUS I might as well spend an extra $100-$200 on a SAGER that's the same size/weight. You can already get the Ivy bridge processors in the SAGERS as well as the new Nvidia 650m card all for about $1100.

Decisions I tell you. It's fucking tough. Still thinking about the Sony though.. it's been reviewed pretty well all over the internet.. just has the same problem as every other thin gaming computer out at the moment... it gets hot.

edit: Oh and also I like the fact of having a 1080p screen. That might just a novelty thing though.

Ok I've narrowed it down
0 Asus N53SM-DS71 2.2GHz 15.6inch Notebook - Silver Aluminum ;Computers ;Computer Systems ;London Drugs
only downside of this one is the 1366x768 resolution but it comes with more ram and a 2GB Nvidia 630m

0 Asus N53SV-EH72 2.2GHz 15.6inch Notebook - Silver ;Computers ;Computer Systems ;London Drugs
less ram, smaller HD but has a 1080p screen and a 1GB Nvidia 540m

both have i7's


other then that there is another one at london drugs that has a ATI 6770m card.. twice the card of the 630/540 .... but it's an HP
0 HP Pavilion dv6-6180us 3.10GHz 15.6inch Entertainment Notebook PC - Steel Grey ;Computers ;Computer Systems ;London Drugs

1366x768 on a 15" screen sux.

I would worry about the second one over heating with High def on the smaller vid card.

Acer Aspire 15.6" Laptop featuring Intel Core i7-2670QM Processor (AS5755G-9417) - Black : 15" Laptops - Best Buy Canada

Is more what I was thinking.

Wait for Ivy bridge.

The performance isn't that much of a jump, but still better nonetheless. Plus, it's more energy efficient. So, when you take your laptop out for work/study on battery, you should see anywhere between 10~20% of difference.

And USB3.0 becomes integrated into the chipset. Not some sorry ass controller that most company usually cheap out on.

Yeah.. I'm the most indecisive person. But that's what I'm thinking now..
Alienware, Sager and HP-us all have their new IVY bridge chipsets so it's only a matter of time now... the new version of the HP that I posted a couple up has an Ivy Bridge i7 and new 650m gfx card for just over 1g.. not available in canada yet though.

you're overthinking this
 

You completely overlooked this post about the Samsung model. Samsung has made tremendous progress in technology these days and is the direct competitor to Apple in terms of phones, tablets and laptops. You can find the NP700Z5A-S01CA at Memory Express in Richmond or NCIX. It has everything you need in a laptop and then some. It can play Diablo 3 at high settings without any problems...
Sony is crap. bottomline is this: Almost all manufacturers of laptops today get their component parts (CPU, GPU, HDD, Optical Drive, wireless ethernet card etc.) from one or two manufacturers in China, Thailand etc. It's how the company's engineers put it all together that makes the difference...design is key. Samsung has got it right and a few others have too but Sony hasn't figured it out yet...they have had some major failures in recent years and their products just aren't as reliable nowadays.
Forget Ivy Bridge CPU's... it's nothing special unless battery life is a huge factor.

I'm in the market for an ultrabook and I'm just wondering which brands I should stick to and which brands I should stay away from.

Most ultrabooks offer the same specs, so like corwin1 says, it's really down to the company who puts the parts together. I haven't purchased a OEM computer for a while, so I'm not sure which are the good brands out there.

VIZIO