Reliable, Long-Lasting Work Laptop

[esteve]

1) What is your budget?
Around $1400 after everything, warranty, shipping, tax.

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
15"-17"

3) Where will you buying this notebook? You can select the flag of your country as an indicator.
United States

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?

a. Like: Dell Precision, Dell XPS
b. Dislike:

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?
No

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
1. Eclipse / Visual Studio / NetBeans (Programming)
2. Video Streaming
3. Music Streaming
4. Video Games

7) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
Both

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?
Its not essential, If i did it would be games that are NOT graphics intensive (Starcraft II, Diablo 3 if its ever relased)

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?
MUST have 5+ hours. I can't be worried about keeping a power cord with it at all times.

10) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
Online

11) What OS do you prefer? Windows (XP or Vista or Windows 7), Mac OS, Linux, etc.
Windows 7

Screen Specifics

12) From the choices below, what screen resolution(s) would you prefer?

Maximum Resolutions: WSXGA+, WUXGA, FHD, 1080p
Actual resolutions: 1680x1050, 1920x1200 and 1920x1080

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen?
Don't care

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Don't care, hopefully not too ugly..

15) When are you buying this laptop?
Between now and July.

16) How long do you want this laptop to last?
3+ years

17) How much hard drive space do you need?
500GB+

18) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a CDRW/DVD-ROM, DVD Burner or Blu-Ray drive?
DVD burner minimum

19) Other Needs
* HDMI Output
* Bluetooth
* Warranty (Hopefully include drops+spills)
* DDR5 over DDR3 If possible..

20) Other Questions
When will the next iteration of intel processors be coming out? Am I in between cycles? Probably a stupid question, but should I wait for the next 'tech wave'?

What are the Pros/Cons vs. getting a workstation (Like the Precision M4500/M6600) over the consumer sector Performance laptops (XPS 15/17)? It seems like the Precisions get GDDR5 video cards, but dual core processors instead of quad, and the XPS have DDR3 and quad cores..

Also I like the idea of having more than one monitor attached to the computer at a time, is that possible on either of these systems, or is there a better system that would incorporate these ideas?

[Teff]

You hit the new CPUs a couple months after they came out. They are called Sandy Bridge, and are models like i5-2420M. 4 digit numbers. The 3 digit numbers, i.e. i5-540M are the previous generation (Arrandale) ones. Sandy Bridge, compared to Arrandale, is significantly faster at the same clock speed (10-30%), gets significantly better battery life (Particularly quad core! Intel shipped out 17" laptops with integrated graphics that got a real world 6+ hours of battery life), and much improved 3D rendering performance over the previous generation integrated video. (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is playable on my Lenovo x220).

Sandy Bridge had some very large delays because of a chipset problem - the major rollout has really been early April as opposed to February, but it has been fixed, so it will have a slightly shorter shelf life than average, but it'll still be 9+ months until it is really replaced on some levels by.... Ivy Bridge. Which will be 22nm as opposed to 32nm, and uses a new type of transistor that will probably make a big boost in battery life over what we have now. If you need a laptop now, you're in good shape.

Don't worry about DDR3 vs GDDR5 - look at the number of shader units the video cards have. Remember that ATI is only really comparable to ATI and Nvidia to Nvidia. The high end Precision workstations use high end pro video chips - they have drivers for CAD and such. The XPS 15 uses a midrange consumer video card - they are definitely slower than the high end Quadros, but a lot cheaper, too. There are consumer cards that are as powerful as the high end Quadro cards, and you will tend to find them only on gaming computers as they use a lot more power than the midrange cards.

If you look up the video cards on Notebookcheck.net you will be able to find the relevant information about them.

For the games you mention, I'd say that the GT540M in the XPS 15 would be enough performance for you. You'd probably be playing the games below 1080p on a medium setting, but they will run just fine. Be aware that high performance gaming chips use a LOT more power than midrange ones, and computers with high end video cards sacrifice battery life and heat tremendously to acheive higher performance.


Pros and cons for workstation vs consumer?

Workstation:

+ Build quality MUCH better
+ Generally more reliable
+ Better cooling (Again, built for longer term use and being pushed)
+ Sometimes better display options (Though XPS 15 1080p screen is as good as TN gets)

- Expensive
- May lack consumer grade outputs like HDMI (Displayport may be able to be converted depending on the type of displayport option)

Consumer

+Price

As battery life is a priority for you, I'd recommend going for a computer that has Nvidia Optimus - it's a video switching technology that makes it so you don't always have to use the discrete video chip. This is good, because the discrete video chip often uses 10+w just doing nothing - this way it stays off unless you need it. Optimus has been a huge boon to the battery life of computers with midrange video cards (It is not in the high end cards unfortunately).

[esteve]

So I've been looking at a few computers, but they are all coming out a little over my price range..

Ideally I would like the following components in my laptop, or something close to it.

I'd still want to stay under 1400 after warranty,shipping,tax,fees, so if this is unattainable at my price range let me know, or which pieces should I downgrade but get a minimal performance drop in gaming and programming.

This is loosely based off what I really desire from the Dell Precision series..

Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM or 2630QM to
1GB+ DDR5 Video Card
2GB+ RAM (Don't mind upgrading by myself)
250GB+ HDD (Don't mind upgrading by myself)
15.6"/17" UltraSharp™ FHD(1920x1080)
9Cell Battery (or 3 Hr+ 6cell)
DVD RW
Bluetooth (can live without)
Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n
1+year warranty with accident/spill insurance (Kind of important since thats how I lost the last one..)
Backlit Keyboard

What do you think? Possible somewhere other than for $1,800 on dell?

[magicman0]

So I've been looking at a few computers, but they are all coming out a little over my price range..

Ideally I would like the following components in my laptop, or something close to it.

I'd still want to stay under 1400 after warranty,shipping,tax,fees, so if this is unattainable at my price range let me know, or which pieces should I downgrade but get a minimal performance drop in gaming and programming.

This is loosely based off what I really desire from the Dell Precision series..

Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM or 2630QM to
1GB+ DDR5 Video Card
2GB+ RAM (Don't mind upgrading by myself)
250GB+ HDD (Don't mind upgrading by myself)
15.6"/17" UltraSharp™ FHD(1920x1080)
9Cell Battery (or 3 Hr+ 6cell)
DVD RW
Bluetooth (can live without)
Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n
1+year warranty with accident/spill insurance (Kind of important since thats how I lost the last one..)
Backlit Keyboard

What do you think? Possible somewhere other than for $1,800 on dell?

To get that is not that difficult. I just configured a precision m4600 with your preferred configuration:

i7 2720qm
1080p display
2gb Ram
250gb HD
9 Cell Battery
3 year basic warranty
firepro m5950 (i believe with the ATI catalyst drivers and a bit of hacking?, you can turn this into a Radeon 6770M)
Backlight keyboard

the total comes out to $1646, but theres free shipping, 3 year warranty and with a bit of shopping around and looking for discounts and deals, you can bring the price down to somewhere close to your price range, but obviously you'll have to wait a bit since it just came out

Also, make sure you consider the fact that the Precision line doesn't have graphics switching, so even though you may get good battery life, I don't think it will be over 5 hours.

[Leoben]

So I've been looking at a few computers, but they are all coming out a little over my price range..

Ideally I would like the following components in my laptop, or something close to it.

I'd still want to stay under 1400 after warranty,shipping,tax,fees, so if this is unattainable at my price range let me know, or which pieces should I downgrade but get a minimal performance drop in gaming and programming.

This is loosely based off what I really desire from the Dell Precision series..

Intel® Core™ i7-2720QM or 2630QM to
1GB+ DDR5 Video Card
2GB+ RAM (Don't mind upgrading by myself)
250GB+ HDD (Don't mind upgrading by myself)
15.6"/17" UltraSharp™ FHD(1920x1080)
9Cell Battery (or 3 Hr+ 6cell)
DVD RW
Bluetooth (can live without)
Intel® Centrino® Ultimate-N 6300 802.11a/b/g/n
1+year warranty with accident/spill insurance (Kind of important since thats how I lost the last one..)
Backlit Keyboard

What do you think? Possible somewhere other than for $1,800 on dell?

I like the looks of this one, FORCE 16F2 / MSI 16F2, for $1,109.
FORCE 16F2 / MSI 16F2
but...
- no backlit keyboard
- no accident/spill insurance
- definitely not 5 hours battery life

[esteve]

To get that is not that difficult. I just configured a precision m4600 with your preferred configuration:

i7 2720qm
1080p display
2gb Ram
250gb HD
9 Cell Battery
3 year basic warranty
firepro m5950 (i believe with the ATI catalyst drivers and a bit of hacking?, you can turn this into a Radeon 6770M)
Backlight keyboard

the total comes out to $1646, but theres free shipping, 3 year warranty and with a bit of shopping around and looking for discounts and deals, you can bring the price down to somewhere close to your price range, but obviously you'll have to wait a bit since it just came out

The basic warranty doesnt cover accidents/leaks, the additional coverage is a 169 upgrade bringing it right back up to 1800, and I don't know if discounts/coupons/etc were or weren't available on the small business side, especially with the precision having just come out last week, but maybe with a combination of deals and a good rep I could get a bit closer to my price.

Also, make sure you consider the fact that the Precision line doesn't have graphics switching, so even though you may get good battery life, I don't think it will be over 5 hours.

I'm starting to realize 5 hours may be an unachievable balance with the graphics/computing power I desire, but I think 3 hours is a reasonable amount of time to be between power outlets, and that should be do-able with a 9-cell battery.