Best Laptop for $700

[CompCrasher86]

General Questions

1) What is your budget?
$700 give or take a hundred bucks
2) What size notebook would you prefer?

b. Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen
c. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen

3) Please select your country's flag as a post icon and tell us what country are you buying this in.
U.S.A.
4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
5) What tasks will you be performing with the notebook?
DVD, Internet, Photoshop + Premier, Games, Office 2007, Music, Virtual DJ
6) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places or leaving it on your desk?
Bringing to school
7) Will you be playing games on it; if so, which games?
Battlefield 2/2142
8) How many hours of battery life do you need?
At least 2
9) Do you mind buying online without seeing the notebook in person?
I don't mind
10) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista), Mac OS, Linux, etc.
Windows XP but will put up with vista
Screen Specifics

11) Would you prefer standard or widescreen?
Widescreen
12) From the choices below, what screen resolutions would you prefer?

b. SXGA - 1400x1050 - Compromise resolution between XGA and UXGA.
or
c. UXGA - 1600x1200 - Very small text and graphics icons, you can fit lots of stuff on the screen.
or
e. WSXGA+ - 1680x1050; Wider viewing version of SXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
or
f. WUXGA - 1920x1200; Wider viewing version of UXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.


13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen?
Glossy
Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Yes
15) When are you buying this laptop and how long do you want this laptop to last?
Through college (4 Years+)
Notebook Components

16) How much hard drive space do you want; 40GB to 200GB?
At least 80gb
17) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a DVD, Blu-Ray or HD-DVD drive?
DVD/CD-RW is fine but prefer DVD-RW

**Basically something that will be better than what I have (Presario 2500 hunk of junk), handle my schoolwork, and play an occasional game or two like Battlefield 2.

[Lithus]

Seriously, your budget is 700 bucks and one of your requirements is no Alienware?

Price out a Vostro with a 8400m GS or 8600m GT.

[Johnny T]

What he said...have a look at a few Dell coupons...most are for inspirons.

[SkeeteRX8]

Yeah..look at the Dell Vostro 1500, or an Acer Aspire 5520...

[pixelot]

I definitely concur.

[CompCrasher86]

Yea I know the no alienware thing is kinda stupid, but they just charge so much for their laptops, its like paying a thousand bucks for a nice case when you can get one for much cheaper. $700 gets you nothing from Alienware

[CompCrasher86]

Skeete with your T61, have you tried games on that and if so, how well do they run?

Also how does the battery life run on it?

[SkeeteRX8]

On my T61p, I run newer games such as Halo 2 and Call Of Duty 4, and I can get around 40-60 at medium settings in 1440 by 900; the T61p mobile workstation version of the T-series (the one I have) uses the NVIDIA Quadro FX570m, a digital content creation/computer-aided design variant of the Geforce 8600m GT GDDR3, currently the second best graphics cards available in any 15.4" laptop (behind the 8800M GTX in the Alienware M15x)..It gives great performance, and with the 9-cell battery that I have, I get about 4.0 hours maximum performance power settings with SpeedStep disabled, and 5.5-6 hours with balanced power settings.

However, the T61p starts at about $1200, look at an R61 with the NVIDIA Quadro NVS 135m/140m, which can be found at much lower prices, from Lenovo or retailers as well.

Within your budget, I would still suggest a Dell Vostro 1500 or Acer Aspire 5520.

[CompCrasher86]

Ahh well I am interested in your T61 because I get an employee discount through a friend and can get one with your specs for around $800 but I thought that since they were business laptops they wouldnt do games well at all.

[SkeeteRX8]

Most 15.4"-17" mobile workstations are great medium-gaming computers, especially with Quadro FX or Mobility FireGL graphics cards, and they have the bonuses of better tech support, durability, upgradeability, and security features (you wont find a TPM in any Alienware).