Black Friday Advice - Laptop Purchasing

[quote=Jebus McAzn]So I'm looking for a good laptop that's on sale for Black Friday. The main concerns are whether it can perform well enough to last me through college - let's face it, all I need for that is the ability to run a browser and Microsoft Office - but I digress. Apart from handling the standard stuff (Firefox/Chrome/Office/iTunes/etc), I'd obviously like to be able to play games on it like LoL, SC2, and other things. With that in mind, I'd like some advice on laptop purchasing. My budget is limited to hopefully around the $500 range. Here's what I'm looking at thus far: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834158073&cm_mmc=BF2011_listing-_-32-_-N82E16834158073&nm_mc=BF2011_listing From the reviews it seems good and is capable of playing, oh, Skyrim for example. It's a quad-core, 6GB RAM, 640GB memory, etc, etc, but the one thing that worries me is the 1.5 GHz CPU which seems slow in comparison to a lot of other laptops out there which easily get over 2.0 GHz. Should I be worried about this or will it not make a big deal overall since it's quad-core?[/quote]

[quote=Zoki]Well in many opinions low speed quad AMD processors don't perform well. I never liked AMD but that laptop still seems nice for its price.[/quote]

[quote=Jebus McAzn]Yeah. I was wondering how it'd be compared to, say, [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215206&cm_mmc=BF2011_listing-_-32-_-N82E16834215206&nm_mc=BF2011_listing]this[/url] or [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246193]this[/url][/quote]

[quote=Dotter]The Lenovo laptop is probably not good for gaming at all, but probably a fine "working" computer. The Acer one seems better, but I'm not sure about the graphic card - it's the same graphic card I have in my laptop and I can't run games like Skyrim (at least not that well) - I can play games like LoL, LFD 2, Dead Island without problems, though Dead Island isn't with maxed graphics. But for that price, the Acer seems pretty good. I payed way more for my laptop, which is probably about the same quality.[/quote]

[quote=Atarios]i have the hp pavilion. :S[/quote]

[quote=DEWO]ok 1st of all avoid AMD in any form (cpu and gpu) So no AMD processors, or Radeon Graphics. You better stick with intel processors and intel or nvidia gpu. Preferably get a core iX processor. Now picking laptop is easier than PC. You mostly have to rely on manufacturer. Suggestions IN ORDER: 1. Lenovo (IBM) 2. Dell 3. HP and Asus (pretty equal on this one) Avoid Acers. From those 3 i wouldnt buy any, If you want to play on it. Get core i5 and at least nvidia 540M If you want to just "type and browse" stick with core i3 and integrated intel gpu (it will last pretty long on battery in this setup as well). If you have any other picks that you came across i would be glad to help with decision :)[/quote]

[quote=Zoki]Dewo you serious? ATI Radeon graphics are awesome, they have wayyyy more power than nVidias in same price range and from what I've seen, they have same quality build. But it's a matter of opinion. I love combo Intel + ATI and they work great on 3 of my computers, while we had nVidia on 2 other computers in our house and there were problems 24/7. I also don't agree with your order, Dell has in no case better computers than HP, they should atleast both share second place. And I totally disagree with Asus quality being the same as HP. I think of Asus as updated Acer, a little better. About laptops. If you want quality build, tested like hell you can go with Lenovo. Mediocre performance, good quality build. The trick with Acer is that for its price, it has very good stuff in it and many go and buy it. But in most cases quality build, is bad, speakers are shit, etc,... I like HP laptops very much. I bought one last year for about 1000$. Core i5 Duo Core 2.7GHz, Ati Radeon HD5650, 4GB 1333Mhz Ram, 640GB hard drive, 17.3" LED screen...I had no problems with it, if you have disk full of shit you can just run HP recovery and you have licensed Windows 7 on in like 30 mins again. Also my HP came with great accessories. I love the speaker, Beats system is awesome, one of the best on laptops. It also have multituch pad, finger scanner, awesome webcam with intergrated functions and lots of hubs like HDMI,...There is also a lot of awesome free software by HP, but I don't use it.[/quote]

[quote=DEWO]Zoki, this is always a matter of personal preferences. I base all my knowledge on direct touch with the hardware. I was and still am selling IT hardware, and i also have a lot in common with warranty returns, repairs and so on. I've been doing this for 8 years as a job and more coz i've been already "on the market" way before i started my 1st work. Over those years i've build my own preferences based on % of returns, performace and tests. But still this can vary since not all markets have exactly the same hardware. For example US Fujitsu laptops are way better than European ones also coz in europe you buy Fujitsu-Siemens hybrids and so on. Why not ATI on laptops? Drivers and durability. First of all driver support for mobile ATI cards is one bit crap... even after AMD realy started to improve on this field. Often you end up with stock drivers since the newest ones are not fully compatible with your version distributed for example only for Asus Radeon cards becouse of the display they handle. You have to make tripple effort or 3rd party drivers to get what you need. Also Radeon mobile cards generate AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALOT of heat... They are often more powerfull than similar priced nvidia ones but it has its cost and the diferences are not that big. Also the amount of heat they produce often leads to GPU detach from the PCB and can lead to random driver crash. I would definitly say that buying a PC version of Radeon cards is a very good idea if you want performance but for laptop i wouldnt buy a single one. Sorry that this is such a wall of text :) And remember this is only my opinion.[/quote]

[quote=Zoki]I only disagree about Ati Radeon cards with you. They have great power and none of the points you mentioned has come across my cca. 6 year use of Ati Radeon cards. I have no problems with drivers, tbh they specially released drivers for my series because of Battlefield and some games optimization. ATI Radeon and AMD processors have nothing in common, their quality is a lot different and I would never buy AMD processor, while I love ATI radeon graphics.[/quote]

[quote=DEWO]ATI doesnt exist just to be clear and Radeons have alot in common with AMD since it is the same company that makes them :P Well I am not saying that ALL THE RADEON CARDS are problematic but seeing that you own a 6 year old one you probably dont know the issues of radeons starting from number 4XXX to the newest 7XXX series (which is still 6XXX series with changed name :P)[/quote]