Help narrowing down options

[jgards]

Hey everyone,

1) What is your budget?

Under 1400

2) What size notebook would you prefer?

d. Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen
e. Desktop Replacement; 17"+ screen

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

Canada

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

No preference

5) Would you consider laptops that are refurbished/redistributed?

I'd consider

6) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?

I'd like it to be capable of playing games, D3 is the main one right now. Other than that, Internet, video.

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

I'll be moving it from one home to another, but it will mainly stay on the desk.

8) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?

Yes, D3 and SC2 but I would like to be able to play some more graphic intense games.

9) How many hours of battery life do you need?

Not a big issue, 2-3 I guess but I keep it on the desk often.

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?

I would prefer to see them, but understand that may not be realistic.

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?

As high as possible

13) Do you want a Glossy/reflective screen or a Matte/non-glossy screen?

No preference

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?

Looks/style is somewhat important but I'm more interested in best quality for price.

15) When are you buying this laptop?

The sooner the better, but within a couple months max.

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

I've had a Dell Inspiron last me 5 years now, so ideally another 5 years for the new laptop.

Notebook Components

17) How much hard drive space do you need; 80GB to 640GB? Do you want a SSD drive?

500 GB is plenty, a SSD would be nice at around 256 GB

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

Need the CDRW/DVD-ROM but not Blu-Ray.

I've been looking through the board a little bit to try and get an idea before posting. I've got a couple laptops in mind at this point and I was just looking for help narrowing them down as well as the best way of buying one of them in Canada. I really would like to just go to a store and buy one, but it doesn't seem like a realistic option for the laptop I'm looking for.

Anyway the few I've looked at:

ASUS G53SX-BS71: Best buy has this one online for $1300

Sager NP9150: Minimum $1350. For sale at reflexnotebook. Is this a good website to purchase off of, and is the minimum spec NP9150 good enough or is it recommended to upgrade some of the components?

Toshiba Qosmio X770: $1669 at Costco. It's a little out of my price range but I found it interesting with the extra 128 GB SSD.

By no means am I attached to any of those they were just a few I was looking at. I'm open to all suggestions, all brands just as long as I have a good way of purchasing it in Canada.

My current laptop is:

Inspiron 17"
Intel Core2 Duo T7500 2.2Ghz
Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT
2 GB RAM
150 GB Harddrive

I'd like the new one to be a significant upgrade over this one. Thanks for taking the time to look at the thread.

[s2odin]

Take a look at:
Reflexnotebook.ca is your Source for the Sager NP9130 (Clevo P151EM1) in Canada or
Reflexnotebook.ca is your Source for the Sager NP9150 (Clevo P150EM) in Canada
(9150 has more up-gradable options as well as a backlit keyboard).
You can also had an mSATA SSD to cache with your HDD and help increase speeds tremendously.

[villagepark]

Your best bet would be to get the Sager NP9130 with default options for $1100ish or the Sager NP9150 with the AMD 7970m upgrade for $1550ish. $1550 is over your budget but the video card is about a whopping 2.3x as good at the one in the NP9130 and there are no compelling products in-between the price points.

Also note that both of these laptops have 2 hdd bays so you can pick up an aftermarket 128GB ssd for about $150 stick it in and use that as your OS drive.

[jgards]

Thanks for the replies.

So you don't think it's worth it to go for the NP9150 with the GTX 670M, I should either go 9130 or 9150 with the AMD 7970m?

[villagepark]

NP9150 with 670M is +200$ for an i7 vs i5 processor and a backlight keyboard. It does not seem worth it at all.

TO me it seems the 9150 with 7970m is the best choice even though it is over budget. The 7970m is 1.8-2x better than the GT675m which is just a renamed GTX580m which was the fasted card in the world last generation. It is pretty absurd a new card to be 2x better than last years card. You should really jump on this happening. Keep in mind you are also getting an i7 included in the price.

To make the case even worse for the $1100 GTX 670 laptop, the GTX 670 is just a renamed GTX 570, and you could have got a laptop with the GTX 570 for the exact same price last year, so its not really a good value.

[jgards]

Alright, I'll give it some thought. Thanks for the help.

[jgards]

It looks like even the 9130 is a great deal. Most other notebooks around the price range seem to come with the Geforce GT 540M card vs the 9130's GTX 670M. If I'm understanding correctly the GTX is a much better card.

Still haven't decided if I can get together the extra 400$ for the 9150 with the 7970M.

What's the main difference between the i5-2450M and the i7-2670QM?