In search for Laptop for audio/gaming

Tipstir, you have just shown us the extent of your experience with laptops. Thank you

MKE, you can go to the www.hp.com site and look at the specs and configuration, as well as the date of manufacturer... particularly the BIOS and Chipset. Then you find a similar HP model in Great Britain and do the same thing at the same web site.
Many of the HP laptops are built by country, with a great number built in the Balkans, Poland, and East Germany. Where nearly identical items might be built in Panama, or Singapore, or other sites. They are kept separate for reasons of support and compliance.
One thing to always remember. There are only SEVEN 7 laptop manufacturers in the world. They build them under 87 different brand names. There are separate assemblers of components on top of those 7, but not many.
You can tell a lot by the motherboard and the screen, but it is difficult to get the manufacturer to tell you which computer has which components. So try to get your hands on anything you buy.
Some Alienware, Dell, Compaq, and Acers are made in the same facility. Dell never builds its own, as far as I know. Acer makes low end computers for Dell, Compaq, HP, and Toshiba. HP builds its own high end laptops. Lenovo builds most of its own. But the reality is that most computers are built by assemblers from stock parts.
Get one that has a very good screen and inverter (will cost a lot more) with multiple cooling fans that move the air out efficiently. You will have one that lasts a life time. A lifetime is 7 years. Otherwise, it will last two.
The less money you spend, the earlier you will replace the inverter or the cpu fan. The other aspect that really matters is parts availability. Laptops need more maintenance than desktops. You need to know you can get parts... sometimes strange things you have never before heard about. Thus the pretty good Toshiba is a terrible choice. Their parts supply chain is horrible, and repairs take a month. Lenovo's high quality laptops are always repaired and back on your desk within seven days. Their parts bins last 7 to 10 years, as does HP parts and repairs. But you pay more.
But you can spend a great deal of money and still get a disappointing laptop... Sony VAIO for example.
The enemy of "good" is "better.

hi all, almost bought an XPS laptop from ebay, but at the last minute i noticed that the seller had hijacked the account and informed by ebay not to pay the seller.
anyhow. now am in a pickle dillema, there is one question created on my mind and that is, will a NVidia G8 series card, like the 8400 and 8600 work on windows XP? or will i be limited only to Vista and DX10. there is a project around for porting dx10 on xp, but i basically need the system to work with xp and maybe dx9? is that possible for that GPUs???
i cant seem to find any info on that over the net. the laptop that have got my attention now are:
a) HP Pavilion DV9500t, (T7200, 2gb, 240gb, 8600 256mb, 17-1608x1050)
b) Acer Aspire 7520 (TL-60, 2gb, 160gb, 8600 256 mb, 17 1440x900)
c) Dell Vostro (T7300, 2gb, 240gb, 8600 256, 17 1440x900)
d) XPS (T7200, 2gb, 160gb, 7950gtx 512, 1920x1200)

any recommendations or ideas much welcome, thnx

DX10 GPUs will also work with XP, no problem. Out of all those laptops, the XPS one gives the best performance of them all. Those 7950GTXs combined with the Core 2 Duo will blow away the others, even in DX10 I reckon.

the HP and the XPS ones are the most ££££££££££ hehe. i know i believe the XPS rules them all aswell. however due to mostly price i hardly can afford it, even used. anyhow.
another question is if anyone knows which one would be faster, a 256mb 7600 or the 128mb 8400??? the 8600 256mb is obviously better, but still most laptops on ebay come with the 8400 and 128mb

also forgot, is the quadro fx1500 (looking also at the dell m90) any good on games? eg good like a 7600 or 8400/8600? or much worse?

anyhow, thanx again

Actually, the 7600 beats the 8600 in most current games. But down the road, who can tell what's going to happen? But the 7600 is definitely better than the 8400, which is just a small step up from a 7300GS.

hello. just to post a long overdue reply.

I got at the end an HP Pavilion DV9500t and damn am happy i did buy it.
Core 2 Duo - T7200
2Gb Ram 800
2 x 160gb (5400 rpm)
17" - 1440x990
8600 GS - 256ram
vista

cant complain besides the screen resolution but it plays everything i throw at it. gothic 3 plays nicely on native resolution with somewhat most effects on. with vista playable frame rates are crap. thats one of many reasons why i now have xp and suse installed. also using the omega drivers did help quite a bit.
disk wise recording is ok, eg. recorded upto 4 96khz stereo signals while playing more than another 10 plus 20fx/vst and system was still working fine.

However the only problem at the moment i c is when i use protools. for some reason its like protools system doesnt recognise that the cpu is dual core, cause it is having problems glitching and stop responding for upto 30-60sec if i load more than 3-4 vst plugins and it needs to work its cpu a little. if i am streaming/playing back audio in protools then everything works fine .

anywho.

if anyone is looking for a decent laptop i think the HP dv9500t is a good choice for its price. i paid 710£ on August.


babye


ps: i am not an employer of HP in any way besides being a consumer of their products ;p

hehe no problem

been here for ages, thought i do something useful the only complain i could say for laptop would be bigger screen, since i do alot of music work on the road and hence a 1920x would be great but HP dont offer that, only the 1680x but then again i couldnt afford it at the time.

besides a 8600gs is fine for most games, plays Gothic 3 just fine, not best resolutions but still enjoyable. same with NFS ProStreet. plays just fine if u are not a hard core gamer. he in that case you would be looking for sli laptops that rocket sky high well above 1000£...

anywho.

tata. off to solve my other problems with other pcs ....

bye