New Laptop~~ advice

Life Technology
1

Ok, so I’m looking to buy a new laptop… and need help on where I should go for this as it may need to be a custom. Please remember I am in Taichung and travel is not easy these days with the new bubs around. And how much do you think such a system would cost?

I want::

GOOD specs. I’d like it to be at least a bit more powerful than my current desky, which is a 3.2G dual core with a 9800GT (512) and 4G RAM. I’ve seen that there are systems out now with better graphics cards than that. Intel and NVidia only though, please.

500G minimum HDD.

Touch screen, preferably tablet-like twistable. I’ve looked at buying a Wacom (this is for photoshop use) but having it integrated would be a world better.

Windows 7 - Ultimate, though Preimium is ok if Premium can be changed to English too.

2

Come on guys and gals… someone’s gotta know more about computers here than me. I’m not PC illiterate by any means, but I’m sure someone must have a better hook on where the best place to go for this would be. I really would like to get this system soon as I want to setup the desktop for the missus’ use - her’s is dying.

3

Get in touch with Nam at Nationwide. nationwide.com.tw/

4

Get a Macbook. :sunglasses:

5

Don’t think Macbook Pros go past GeForce 9600 or 3.06 GHz dual cores. Anyway obviously the poster is looking for an exceptionally high performance device, not a pretty toy.

@x08: I don’t think you will be able to find anything with those specs AND an integrated digitizer. Most integrated digitizer notebooks are of the tablet size (12" or 13").

6

What you’re asking for doesn’t exist.

You can’t get a notebook with better performance than a desktop.
Also, what’s your budget?

Taiwan doesn’t actually have a lot of high-end notebooks, although this would get you close www1.ap.dell.com/tw/zh/home/Lapt … 510186tw~~
It’s NT$119k in its most basic form and it has everything with the exception of the touch screen. It even comes with a pair of graphics cards. The notebook CPUs just aren’t as fast as the desktop counterparts, so you’ll have to make a trade off there.
Asus has a slightly less powerful model shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item … 00&ROWNO=1 for NT$78k although a friend of mine has a similar machine with the same graphics card and he said it’s not really good enough for the latest games. The Asus machine also has a fairly poor screen resolution at 1366x768, but you’d really want to upgrade the Alienware screen anyhow.

7

Depends on your need… for something with that power it either doesn’t exist or will be very expensive if it does exist. If you just need something luggagable then you can get a smaller desktop case with a smaller motherboard that works with it and build your desktop, so if you do travel you may move the system around and hook it up to a monitor at your destination if they have one… but even with smaller desktop cases monitors aren’t really too luggage friendly. Then you can get a normal laptop for your mobile computing needs.

If you don’t game that much and really don’t have to have very high processing powers that matches a desktop, there are tons of option out there for around 15-20k nt. Keep in mind modern games will play on something with a 8600GT if you keep the details/stuff down, may not be pretty and framerate may not be ideal but they will run. Most of these notebooks are designated as desktop replacements however so they may not be the best if you must carry it with you everyday to work, but they are fairly luggage friendly.

Don’t ask about superlight or netbook sized things that have the processing power you want… they don’t exist and even if they do they will be hot enough to cook on assuming they can run. Many smaller notebooks are designed with portability and battery life in mind, not processing power.

In fact notebooks are pretty much designed to be portable and efficient, therefore its processing power will almost always be less than the desktop counterpart in order to conserve power.

8

As was said above…you basically want something that doesn’t exist and will cost a fortune if it did.

If you want something to use for photoshop and want to blow a load, go buy a powerful desktop, a nice touchscreen wacom, and a netbook for you to lounge about the house. It will be much better in the long run than paying out the ass for a laptop.

9

ASUS makes some good local laptops. Asus is the top name is PC boards and even though they don’t have a big market in the States, they are king when it comes to their boards. I have Windows 7 Ultimate and it has some features that the others don’t have, but I think that Windows 7 Pro is your best bet. I’ve looked at some of the smaller mini PC’s and without a formal way to get the OS on it, I would not recommend them. My recommendation is buy a bear bones ASUS system, a full copy of a US version of Win 7 Pro and load the OS on your own. The new Win 7 comes with Windows Touch. It’s a nice feature in the new OS. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/touch You won’t have to pay for the extra software thats mostly bundled on the laptop that never comes with the disks. Win 7 will load most current drivers and updates on the laptop and the rest can be loaded separately. Dell is my other recommendation. If you do get a Dell here in Taiwan, the warranty is for Taiwan only and not in the States. They impressed me internally with support and the driver’s and updates page are easy to access without going through the hoops to get them. My two cents.

10

You might need to look into laptops in the US. The 9800 GT mobile is outdated, you got to start looking for the GT360 mobile series if you’re in the NVIDIA camp. I also recommend looking for i5 CPUs not the higher clocked Core 2 Duos, they are much faster. I had my eye on the Toshiba Qosmio, but can’t really accept the looks of it. http://laptops.toshiba.com/laptops/qosmio

11

Macbook for your purposes.

Cheap netbook at Guanghua for ~12000 for email, internet and such.

12

That’s probably true. Indeed, for Photoshopping a integrated digitizer is the best you can have, but I have yet to see extremely powerful laptops with one. What does the OP want to do except for PS with such a machine? Play?

If it’s indeed for PS mainly, I’d look into the offerings of the well known business notebook brands. Fujitsu has as far as I am aware of by far the longest experience with Convertible & Slate Digitizer-equipped laptops. The Lifebook T900 seems to have the most powerful processor available (up to Dual Core i7 2.66Ghz), but just the totally non-Games-capable chipset graphics of the Intel QM57 chipset.

Anything more powerful will not have a digitizer, as far as I am aware of. If you want top notch performance & graphics, probably some of the gaming notebooks that are more or less desktop PC size and weight, though, might be an option. No integrated digitizer, though.

But of course, besides Fujitsu in the recent years a lot of other companies are slowly jumping onto the Convertible trend… like for example (quoting only the ones known for good quality business notebooks):

Lenovo (ex IBM): X200, X201 (similar specs than above)
HP: EliteBook 2740p (similar specs)
DELL: Latitude XT2 (lower specs)

The only thing I can say from my experience in the computer business (development actually): If you want something reasonably reliable, your best chances are with the business lines of the top brands, see above. Everything else (like consumer laptops) hit or miss… you can get lucky and have a well engineered system, or you are (more likely) unlucky and have systems with severe design issues. If you are very lucky, those design issues don’t affect you, though.

Unfortunately, with consumer notebooks, even by spending more you can not increase the chance of getting a good product - you just buy more features or performance.

Either way: Good luck in choosing a laptop. I don’t want to give any advice on brands, because in my experience all brands have good as well as bad products. Like most modern computer products, it totally depends on the quality of the design team that is in charge of the product…