Need a New Laptop - what do you recommend ?

[WTR]

Go for it - I'm open to all suggestions... even Mac !!

[bd-850]

one that has a Wine Proof Keyboard for you Ron

[WTR]

Definitely !!!!!

[ofey]

1. How much do you want to spend?
2. What do you need the laptop to do?
3. Is it a desktop replacement or do you need to carry it about?

Once upon a time, I used to preach Mac. Now I say buy only what you need.

[WTR]

Hi ofey - net forums / email / low end word processing / medium gaming capacity

[bd-850]

and massive porn surfing

[DORA_ANNE]

Ron I Myself have always had Toshiba and have been pretty pleased with My LapTop ...I have just updated To another Toshiba Laptop 15.6 screen Core 7 and 4GB ...

[PsyTrix]

The new macbook pro! Went over to apple in 2008 and havnt looked back! I now have the 2010 15" i7 8GB ram and 500GB HDD MBP with the HD screen and anti glare package - The battery life is great with 7 hours i highly recommend you head over to a apple store before you make up your mind and check out their range - They can also take you through some of the awesome features these things have.

As for gaming, their game range is getting larger and playing Starcraft II at full capacity works great!

[ofey]

To be honest, once games are a necessity for your laptop, you should look away from buying a pure Mac.

Screen size should be determined by how much carrying about you will do with it and price.

I like Macs. I used to own macs. But now with Hackintosh, it's no longer a big deal.

I personally like Alienware m11x, Lenovo X201 and T410 and also Dell's XPS15.

For me now, Laptops need portability. I'm on the move so much in my job and I love doing car logging using EvoScan so I need an ultraportable.

ATM, I'm using a Dell Mini 10V which dual boots Windows 7 SP and Mac OS X 10.6.6.

Short of playing the latest games, I can do loads... . Plug in an external 24" LCD monitor and my wireless keyboard and mouse and it's a desktop replacement.

10", I can carry it anywhere I go.

[stewy]

If you go for Dell make sure you get the 3 year warranty and pay the lil bit extra for on-site warranty.

Asus always seem to rate well for quality and Samsung are relatively new to the laptop market but seem to make some very well built units.

Mac = over-priced and more often than not out-dated technology due to the fact they do product refreshes less frequently than other manufacturers.

The real question though is if you game do you have to have a laptop? Perhaps a mid-budget custom built desktop would be better and if you need email/web on the go buy a cheap ~$200-300 netbook....

[The X]

Avoid Dells, I've found their "build" a bit flimsy.
I've never had problems with HP laptops. Their support is good, when I had my laptop stuff in warranty period, I've had them send out a courier to pick it up and courier it back at their cost.
HPs feel a bit more solid.
15" are good for portability, however if you're gonna be gaming, are you gaming with keyboard or other input device. If keyboard, maybe go 17" as the keyboard real estate is a bit bigger and better space keys.

If you want gaming, then maybe look for a lappy with an Nvidia video chipset instead of a budget intel or ATI video chip set.
If you want to future proof, look for something with 4GB of RAM. As the video chipset will also "borrow" some of the RAM to supplement it's own RAM for rendering graphics and stuff.

Why don't you have a look around and post some links from JB HiFi and we'll yay or nay them for you.

[Mizta B]

I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro and it's a great little machine
Highly recommend them and as Doreen said 15.6 inch screen,4GB RAM good features and sturdy build
Just my two cents Ron
Regards Chris.

[RyanMK]

As ofey said, if you're gonna do a considerable amount of gaming with your laptop, I would avoid getting a Mac, even though you can partition it to run windows as well.

[milobob]

Don't get a Mac if you want to game... or if you are lazy to learn a new OS. Most of my friends have switched to Mac for the cool factor - some who aren't very tech savvy have taken quite a while to ajust. Not really a problem but you are paying heaps more for the same thing.

One of my friends has a macbook pro but runs windows 7 on it exclusively - quite funny.

But anyway, another one of my friends just bought an Asus G-series kaptop for $1.2k. It's a discontinued model but it has good graphics, i7 core + lots of ram and hdd space. Good gaming laptop I suppose.

[ripflare10]

As most people have said here if your want gaming on the laptop stay away from mac. I have a dell mini and I have not had a problem with it. (I don't advise to get this laptop for playing games) Dell can custom build a laptop for most price ranges. Make sure you get a warranty for it. Not just with Dell but whatever laptop you end up getting. They do have more of a tendency to play up then desktop computers in my experience. I personally would stay away from Toshiba they play up something chronic with age or if you push them (ie overclocking)

My personal suggestion if you have a decent amount to spend either one from Alienware (Doesn't matter which one, they are a nice range of laptops * drools* )or Dell XPS15 although I just did a scroll up to read some responses and Offey has already suggested these. It seems we have the same taste in computers offey. lol