So I am looking for a laptop to buy before heading up to college sometime around the end of August. The passed few days, I have researched a lot and spoke to some guy at Bestbuy yet still feel the need to ask for your expertise before making a final decision. What exactly I want from this machine is the following
- Something around $1000 (give or take $100 won't kill me)
- A decent graphics card that can handle games like Skyrim, yet something that won't be outdated in the next four or so years in case the next elder scrolls comes out or something else that might catch my eye as I hear laptops aren't as able to upgrade as I have been able to with my 5 year old pc.
- I'm still unsure about a few specs such as processors and ram, not in the sense that I don't know what they function as, just importance and priority. (ex. Is there really that big of a difference between 6 GB and 8 GB of Ram)
- Also, from what Ive seen it's looking like I should get a 3rd gen i7 processor, but i dont even know how important that is (please help)
- No larger than 15.6" as I'll have to lug it around campus all day.
The Samsung 7 Series seems to have everything I'm looking for except a powerful graphics card. However, I managed to find one that may make up in this area, but for $1200. If I can find a cheaper alternative that would be great. I'll still need your advice as to how good of a deal it may or may not be. I'll list the specs for ease of comparison.
Samsung NP700Z5C-S04US
- Intel® Core™ i7-3615QM Processor (no idea how this varies from other i7's)
- 8GB Ram
- 750 GB with 8GB ExpressCache™ Technology (and this from any other 750GB HD!)
- NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M Graphics (1GB)
- 9.2 hours battery
- 4W Stereo Speaker (2W x 2) with Subwoofer SoundAlive technology
Please let me know if I am disregarding any important specs. These are the only ones that seem important to me but I can easily be missing something common users don't understand. I'm no computer genius.
Now we move to our possible alternative, the HP Pavilion. This computer is extremely customizable right on the website unlike the samsung and the site claims to have a pretty generous rebate, allowing me to max out the graphics without having to surpass the $1000 price range by too much. I customized the HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC and came out with these specs.
- 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
- 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive (free upgrade from 640 GB)
- NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 650M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 memory [HDMI, VGA] ($125 upgrade from NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 630M Graphics with 1GB GDDR3 memory [HDMI, VGA])
- 9 cell Lithium Ion Battery ($30 upgrade from 6 cell)
- Beats Audio (Not essential but I love music)
- Free BluRay upgrade (Can't say I'll even use it but I admit anything free is nice to hear)
In the end this comes out to be $1,295, and then $1,045 after the instant $250 rebate. This HP sounds almost too good to be true, so I'm here to ask you all, is it? The guy at best buy told me not to even consider a dell (as I was looking into the XPS 15) because supposedly they are not durable and have crappy parts. If that's the case, I don't even care about the specs, I want this to last. So my only doubt about the HP is the durability, which I would appreciate feedback for.
This will be my first laptop, so any advice about differences between desktops and laptops would be very helpful as well. Any other ideas or even other laptop suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advanced.
- Something around $1000 (give or take $100 won't kill me)
- A decent graphics card that can handle games like Skyrim, yet something that won't be outdated in the next four or so years in case the next elder scrolls comes out or something else that might catch my eye as I hear laptops aren't as able to upgrade as I have been able to with my 5 year old pc.
- I'm still unsure about a few specs such as processors and ram, not in the sense that I don't know what they function as, just importance and priority. (ex. Is there really that big of a difference between 6 GB and 8 GB of Ram)
- Also, from what Ive seen it's looking like I should get a 3rd gen i7 processor, but i dont even know how important that is (please help)
- No larger than 15.6" as I'll have to lug it around campus all day.
The Samsung 7 Series seems to have everything I'm looking for except a powerful graphics card. However, I managed to find one that may make up in this area, but for $1200. If I can find a cheaper alternative that would be great. I'll still need your advice as to how good of a deal it may or may not be. I'll list the specs for ease of comparison.
Samsung NP700Z5C-S04US
- Intel® Core™ i7-3615QM Processor (no idea how this varies from other i7's)
- 8GB Ram
- 750 GB with 8GB ExpressCache™ Technology (and this from any other 750GB HD!)
- NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 640M Graphics (1GB)
- 9.2 hours battery
- 4W Stereo Speaker (2W x 2) with Subwoofer SoundAlive technology
Please let me know if I am disregarding any important specs. These are the only ones that seem important to me but I can easily be missing something common users don't understand. I'm no computer genius.
Now we move to our possible alternative, the HP Pavilion. This computer is extremely customizable right on the website unlike the samsung and the site claims to have a pretty generous rebate, allowing me to max out the graphics without having to surpass the $1000 price range by too much. I customized the HP Pavilion dv6t-7000 Quad Edition Entertainment Notebook PC and came out with these specs.
- 3rd generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3610QM Processor (2.3 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache)
- 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
- 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive (free upgrade from 640 GB)
- NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 650M Graphics with 2GB GDDR5 memory [HDMI, VGA] ($125 upgrade from NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GT 630M Graphics with 1GB GDDR3 memory [HDMI, VGA])
- 9 cell Lithium Ion Battery ($30 upgrade from 6 cell)
- Beats Audio (Not essential but I love music)
- Free BluRay upgrade (Can't say I'll even use it but I admit anything free is nice to hear)
In the end this comes out to be $1,295, and then $1,045 after the instant $250 rebate. This HP sounds almost too good to be true, so I'm here to ask you all, is it? The guy at best buy told me not to even consider a dell (as I was looking into the XPS 15) because supposedly they are not durable and have crappy parts. If that's the case, I don't even care about the specs, I want this to last. So my only doubt about the HP is the durability, which I would appreciate feedback for.
This will be my first laptop, so any advice about differences between desktops and laptops would be very helpful as well. Any other ideas or even other laptop suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advanced.