Laptop for College

[Gib]

Welp, I decided to go the laptop over desktop route, so I need some suggestions

Laptop will be used for,, the general crud like, gaming, dvd-burning.

Gaming could be a lot could be alittle, but the laptop must be able to handle any game.

Budget try and keep it under $2,000
17inch monitor at the least
dvd-/+ burner

I was looking at the Sony VSony VAIO VGN-AR130G which costs about $1,700. Only issue i see a bit suspect is the video card.

Suggestions would be great, I am currently leaning away from dell, becuase of the massive amount of junk they install on their computer. A couple of my friends have just purchased dell laptops and then run terribly slow.

Thanks

[phenious]

Ok. I know you just said you wanted to lean away from Dell but hear me out on this. Most of their machines run fairly well if you take decent care of them. I feel like I can say this because I take care of roughly 3,500 Dell laptops at the College I work for. Secondly. You are correct, the default image that dell has is TERRIBLY slow. However, they give you the disks you need to do a fresh install without all the crap loaded up. This isnt to hard to do either. Put in the OS disk. Re-install windows. Put in the Drivers disk. Let windows find the drivers from there. Normally I only let the Ethernet drivers install then I go get the latest and greatest from Dells website. But the main reason I vote for Dell is because you can get a complete care warrenty. What this will allow you is a Dell tech to come to your place within 48 hours and repair your PC if a part should break free of charge. Laptops break. The next best thing about the dell is that it covers everything except fire and theft and intentional damage. So as long as you didnt mean to drop it down the flight of stairs, they will fix it. The other thing to do is to make sure you get the premium phone support so you dont have to wait on hold and you are promised a US based Tech so you can actually understand the person at the other end of the phone. The extra warrenty will add to the bill but at least you know you will have a laptop that will be taken care of for 4 years.

[Gib]

I'm not totally agains't dell, but I generally hate them becuase the way they advertise is insane, you check spec sheets out on their website and they dont even include everything, they say the good hardware parts, and kinda leave out the not so good parts in many descriptions.

but anyway, since it appears you would know a ton about dell laptops, any suggestions on dell laptops that would suit me?

thanks

[butch81385]

I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron E1705
17" widescreen ultrasharp screen
t2300 core duo processor
1 gig of ram
100 gig hard drive (5400 rpm though)
nvidia Go 7800
usb tv tuner
dvd rw dual layer
9 cell battery (gets 3 hours of battery time)
windows xp media center edition

I paid $1200 after shipping and using some coupons and deals that they had running at the time. This machine plays COD2 at highest resolution and graphics settings and can handle my engineering apps.

if you want, i can get you the exact specs and options i chose

Also, if you get a dell, dont forget to run the "Dell Decrapifier" (just google for it)

[bombledmonk]

I will second butch's suggestion, I own the same notebook and it's treated me nicely gaming or otherwise. And in reality there are not too many competitors for this notebook that boast a 7900gs in the sub $2000 catagory.

The x1600 is the norm in the sub $2000 market so it's pretty much your pick from there. There are several laptops with great reviews like the Asus A7J, HP 8000t or upcomming 9000t, Toshiba Satellite P105-S921, as well as many more.