My new baby :)

[dragonash]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220492

[poppinfresh]

<< jealous

[chrol]

I, too, am jealous. Very jealous.

[dragonash]

That is the product of having renters insurance my friends ;p

although the headache i am going through makes everything break even I suppose. It is mucho better than my 2 yr old sony vaio that SUCKED.

[Ninjahedge]

Nice, but not jealous! ;)

I am still looking to simply replace my 2 20" LCD's with a single monster screen!!! :D

But until then, I have to play games like Stalker that, even with a great vid card, still stutters when you have sunrays turned on! (I think it may be HD access, but i am not sure what is holding it up!).

This machine looks good, a bit heavy, but good. Nice stats, decent price (did you get more than $50 off?). I hope you spend the rest of the settlement wisely!!!!!! ;)

[poppinfresh]

Nice, but not jealous! ;)man, why you hatin' on dragonash :P

actually, i went with a 15" laptop for my gaming, though its only 1.5 duo 2 core :( though i do appreciate the size and weight diff from a 17", though the screen real estate makes me a bit sad when i work on web stuff or photos :(

and i bought my wife a 14" laptop. i'm highly envious of how compact and light it is compared to mine

[Ninjahedge]

I was thinking of getting my wife a new one.

She is working on a, hmm, 3 or 4 year old Dell 700m:

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/dell-inspiron-700m/4505-3121_7-30975241.html

The machine is OK, but she tries to use PS on it, or when she surfs she has 2 dozen tabs running on 3 different browsers and wonders why everything is running so slow.....

But she also does this sitting on the couch with it on one of the arms (next to the wall, don't ask we have a weird layout). If I get her a larger laptop, it might not fit and it DEFINITELY will not be convenient to take on vacations with us (photo dump, movie storage...).

The res is pretty good for a small screen (1280 x 800), and it is hard to find that DPI on a larger screen....

If I were to get her a replacement, it would probably not be a boku $$ model since she does not play games on it. It would be nice to get a slightly larger model... (more screen space?).

[dragonash]

I brush Ninja off as being ridiculously jealous ;)

Actually, as long as I can play a few games (l4d, TF2), then I dont mind. It's basically a desktop replacement or movie watcher when I am not around my desktop :)

Compared to my old one that couldnt play anything (cheap gfx card), I will be using this one a lot more. The old one was a waste of money and I never used it, except to hook up to my tv and watch anime on. I can now do a lot more with this and the HDMI output is a nice bonus.

[poppinfresh]

mine has a dedicated 256 MB Nvidia 8600GT and 4GB ram and despite my 1.5 duo 2 core, TF2 and L4D work pretty well!

I don't get all the cool effects desktop gamer pcs get, but i do have decent model res and texture res, they aren't minimum by any means

[Ninjahedge]

Her machine has problems with Warcraft 3. :p ;)

[=A!M=OakWind]

EWWWW laptop.

[chrol]

Just curious, Ninja, don't take this the wrong way, but:

If she doesn't game and only uses it to browse, why spend the dough on a new laptop? Is the one she's using now inadequate for browsing? I'm not sure how any laptop in the past 6-8 years could have trouble with that. We, as Americans, seem to have some sort of love of "new" over "function". Hell, I'd love a new laptop, and now that I have a job I could afford it. But I also realize that all I do anymore is browse and the only reason I'd need a new one is if I wanted to game. So I'm resisting that urge for newness.

Just trying to save you some money.

[Ninjahedge]

Re-read my post.

PS = Photoshop.

Also, when you have more than 3 tabs open, the machine does slow down. She has a dozen at any given moment.

The main problem is, they seem to think you only need high resolution screens on the fast machines. That somehow one that is not intended for gaming does not need the desktop real estate.....

So again, she needs a bit more power and I am looking for more real estate. I never said I was looking for a $2000+ machine that could play a decent game of L4D! ;)

[Dr. Death]

I'm somewhat jealous. I need a new laptop, BUT...I got my wife a new desktop first (paving the way for me to go all out on what I want.) :D

I was gonna build it but I would have had to spend weeks doing research on what processors and stuff to get, and with A-Bit gone, I'm disillusioned about components for building PCs.

So...I got an HP through Costco.com. I like HP's recovery system, having had to use it several times on clients' computers. And Costco has free customer support and they extend the warranty to two years.

Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Quad processor Q9550 [2.83GHz] It wasn't worth $100.00 to go to 3GHz IMHO. This processor is second from the top of the heap. It's got 6 MB cache (3 on each core die) and the 1333 MHz FSB.

6GB DDR2-800MHz dual channel SDRAM [2x2048,2x1024] (the 4 GB option would have filled all 4 slots with 1024 modules--stupid. So I got the 6 GB option. Then I can pull just the two 1024 modules and replace with 2048s...if needed.)

750GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive

512MB ATI Radeon HD 4650 [DVI, VGA, HDMI] I have no idea if this is a good card or not, but at least it's not onboard video.

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Just $30.00 more than onboard audio.

15-in-1 memory card reader, 2 USB, 1394, audio

Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Business with Service Pack 1 (64-bit) In case she wants to revert to XP.

Microsoft(R) Works 9.0 (Waste of disk space but no option for nothing.)

HP multimedia keyboard and HP premium USB laser mouse - Special Price! Multimedia keyboards are a waste but I can use the mouse--she will probably keep her Logitech Laser mouse...we tried a bunch and it was the most comfortable for her small hand.

LAN port on system board (10/100/1000Base-T), no wireless LAN (no need for wireless on this computer--she has a 100BaseT jack right there.)

LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive

Norton Internet Security(TM) 2009 - 15 month (another waste of disk space, but we'll use it til the sub runs out.)

No TV Tuner w/remote control (computer is too far away to hook it to the TV. I'll probably use my old 3.2 GHz desktop for a media pc when I get a new one.)

Memory card reader: 15-in-1

Ports: 6 USB (2 front, 4 back), 2 IEEE 1394 (1 front, 1 back), 2 PS/2

Audio: Front headphone, mic (7.1 speaker capable using front ports)

Total slots: 1 PCIe (x16 graphics), 4 PCIe (x1), 2 PCI

Power supply: 460 watts

Storage bay: HP Pocket Media Drive Bay

Dimensions: 19.14"(L) x 7.85"(W)

Should last her for a while. :)

[Ninjahedge]

Final $$?

[dragonash]

just got it yesterday. LOVE newegg's delivery time since I live in NY and their warehouse is in NJ :)
Overnight baby!

Anyway, that screen was much larger than I expected. It is sure a beast. But a sweet one. It runs L4D pretty well. The recommended settings all go VERY high, but it acts weird. So I will need to do some fine tuning. Hell, it's better than my desktop :)

Virtually no bloatware on it.

Resolution is great and the hdmi output will come in handy when quickly connecting it to an HDTV.

Two fun things about it. The fingerprint scanner and facial recognition. I have seen those fingerprint scanners and they all were horrible. This one works on the first shot everytime. But its just cooler to have your laptop see you, recognize your face and auto log you in lol

I am going to try to take a picture of myself and place it in front of the camera to see if it will work as well lol

[c3po]

i didn't get a fancy newegg laptop. mother in law gave me a present. new laptop.

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/834330/HP-Pavilion-dv7-1260us-17-Widescreen/

[dragonash]

nice. Bluray drive!

[Ninjahedge]

I would like something similar for my wife.... I just have to see if my name is on the "list" for the second round.........

[Dr. Death]

17" screens are nice. the key is to get as many pixels as possible. I think the biggest is 1440 x 900 for a laptop. I think it's WUXGA+ or something.

The final price on the HP was 1483. Had to pay tax but shipping was free.

[dragonash]

i have 1920x1200

[Ninjahedge]

HDMI 1080p!

Nice res for a single screen, especially on a laptop....

[dragonash]

its actually more than 1080p ;p
But yeah, dead cool. It was one of the features about that computer.
Even has an hdmi out...which i just used for the final episode of Gundam 00.

Awesome ;p