Best bang for the buck laptop

[remotebandit]

Hey blokes , im looking for a laptop NEW and have about $1600 - $1800 in my hands now to play with .

My main use for the laptop will be to convert my DVDs to HDD so that i can throw the converted movies to my PS3 .

I will also do allot of video edditing from my DV and High Def Hard drive camera .

I WANT SOMETHING WITH A BIG WIDESCREEN

Games ... nothing hardcore just the odd flight sim .

Internet ... i only really use internet to check emails , do the odd porn surf every few weeks ( why lie ) download allot of podcasts and music from itunes and thats about it .

Burning .... would love to burn videos ive made off the video camera to DVD with menus like kids birthday / occasions with menus

Ive had a Dell in the past .. wasnt overly impressed with it id class them more for business , ive still got an Acer and its the WORST thing ive ever had as i had major issues from the day i pulled it out of the box and they are totally SHIT in anyones language .

I DO NOT WANT MAC as it is not compatible with software i intend on running plus the guy on the Mac vs PC add i want to kill so he wasnt doing Jobbsie any favours .

Anyway , some models or links will be great on what would be the best PC for that cash .

[Matt]

"Acer - the poor mans lappy"

[Nissanmania]

I'm sitting in front of a NEC Versa P570 with 2.4GHz intel processor, 8600 NVIDIA 250Mb graphics, 2GB RAM, 200GB HD and 15.4"wide screen etc etc that I recently purchased from Portacom(www.portacom.com.au). Check out their website for specials as their prices are sharp, they specialise in laptops and do their own service work. I paid $1,800 for it but i think their latest price is $1400! NEC are a good midrange laptop that isn't going to give you lots of warranty issues. (My previous one was great till It dropped out of a cupboard!) Can get either Vista or XP downgrade for extra $200 (what i went for)

[remotebandit]

If youve got nothing to offer please dont post or ill get the real mods onto ya but on a serious note Matt , you of all people shouldnt be talking about poor mans anything ya tight ass !whistle


!lol !lol !lol !lol !lol !lol !lol !lol

[Nissanmania]

Oops, just noticed you are in Melbourne! Might get one even cheaper there?

[remotebandit]

ill look into that 1 Niss , wot size HDD does it come with and XP vs Vista ?

Are the lappys cheaper down here as well are they ... lol

[Nissanmania]

200GB HDD was standard in mine but you'd fill that pretty quick with video. An extra $200 or so should get you a 500GB HDD.

Lots of software is not yet Vista ready and may not work or have limited functionality. I played it safe and stuck with the tried and true XP pro. Microsoft's usual policy is to release a new OS and let the punters find the flaws!
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Thu May 01 2008, 10:04PM ]</span>

[mangoman]

Vista is terrible on laptops, it really slows down startup because of some of the processes. If you end up getting vista business or ultimate then you have free downgrade rights to Windows XP Pro (as long as you have legal media).

If you have legal media from another PC then you can wipe the vista business/ultimate and install it, on activation call the registration number and tell them you are downgrading vista and they will give you the key (they will ask you for your vista key which should be on the bottom of the laptop)

Note if you have an old xp disc you should make sure it has SP2 integrated onto it. If you dont some of the current laptops around today wont install off the disc.

Also if you are not sure what you are doing you probably should ignore the above....

[Alex]

way to go windoze! hahahaha keep the downgrades coming !devil

[obzELiTe]

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=_hnOCUkbix0

macbook air vs thinkpad

[mangoman]

HAHA, windoze has so much more functionality than a mac anyway.

Apparently the macbook air also has a very underspec processor.

BTW whats with the 500GB HDD, to my knowledge there is no such thing available in aus???

I think this would be closest and its gunna be more than $200
http://techreport.com/discussions.x/14308
Although if you need that much Disk Space you should either be using a desktop or an external 3.5" Hard Disk.

If you are looking for a versa you might want to try emailing these guys.
http://www.laptopfactoryoutlet.com.au/newlaptops.htm
Ive never used them and dont know if they will deliver but it might be worth contacting them to check their current prices.

They had a really cheap versa at some stage but i cant recommend the notebook as ive never seen it. I read a review saying it was a little plasticy but it is meant to be light and cheap for what it does.

The specs on the above link are a lower than the one which nissanmania listed but you dont really need that much processing power anyway (the hard disk will slow you down more).
<span class='smallblacktext'>[ Edited Fri May 02 2008, 03:50PM ]</span>

[Nissanmania]

You are right mangoman, I looked up the details on the Portacom site and 250GB seemed to be the biggest laptop HDD they supplied. You pay alot extra for 50GB so better off using external HDD for file storage. No good for video editing dierctly off this though as USB2 not fast enough data rate for processing. I know, I've tried it. (And Firewire as well).

Can you really have too much processing speed? Not if you want to future-proof your purchase. I believe Vista is very resource hungry as well.

[mangoman]

In my opinion buying the latest processors are a waste of time due to the fact that processor power still improves at an incredible rate. You may be adding 25%-50% to the price of a computer/laptop for an extra 3 months of being on the bleeding edge.
While the performance increase is often negligible.
Although you also dont want to go with a low end processor.

Vista is resource hungry however is a little more resource hungry however its the slow hard disk of laptops which seem to be the bottle neck causing vista performance to be so cripplingly bad, especially during startup.

[remotebandit]

Damn , ive upped the stakes again , just seems that if i put a bit more i can go better , then if i go more i can go better then if i go more i can go better ... well i started at $1000 now im looking at about $2200 as ive seen this 1 :
http://www.shoppingsafari.com.au/product.php?id=1145

What do yas reckon , i like the blue ray and HDMI output , will hook straight into my 60inch plasma nicely i reckon .

[revsinc]

Save your money, your going to need it to buy my 1/12 scale thingy !

[dingosrun]

looks pretty good

[remotebandit]

Ok , so i get my laptop today HP DV9821 , its got everything and then some but ......

NO OFFICE ... WTF .

Its got a trial version then after 60days you have to buy it .

After totally stretching my original $1200 budget and spending $2300 and i now have to fork out another $200 ??? for office for this Vista .

Im gonna cut the bullshit , how do i get around this preloaded office and find a serial number or a hack or something , its crap if you ask me that you have to pay for something like office that really should be a stock windows item .

Any help can be done via PM .

Fanks and goodnight .

[*TOP DOG*]

good choice with the pavillion.(DV's are the pavillions im pretty sure) dads got one and its great for his video editing!
same problem with the 60 day office trial... good luck with finding a crack though..
pretty sure you wont be disspointed with this machine but.

[Dan]

RB look up cracks/serials on google and sometimes youtube have some too where the video shows u step by step how to do it.