Help me pick out a Laptop!

Hey SM! I've been looking to get a new laptop, I have one in mind, but I'd like some input and suggestions

Specifications I'm looking for:
Must be able to handle RS
Must be able to handle most games (Obviously not maxed graphics. Just simple games like Minecraft and RS)
I'd like to use it for school, work, and videos
Must have at least 4gb of RAM
Decent size monitor (15in+)
Please no alien ware. 
Some sort of decent speakers would be nice
Wireless internet with good range

Budget: Preferably around $1000 USD (If less, that be amazing!)

Current laptop I'm looking at: http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/qosmio/X70 I still think this is a bit too much computer for what I plan to be using it for.

Thank you guys in advance and I'd appreciate any input since I haven't purchased a laptop in a while.

Give up on the decent speakers. There is no such thing on a laptop. Instead, look for a decent sound card, and plug in headphones when you want the sexy sound. 

As for good laptops, I shall begin with:

I really despise apple computers. 

I shall close with:

Their laptops are nice. 

Just my completely anti-biased opinion. I have a lot of friends that use them and they all perform and outlast my history of laptops. 

Historically, I have purchased 17 inch HP laptops, and been at least happy. Do not custom build them (like the option choosing shit on site). Do NOT choose 32 bit. 

Handling most games and handling rs and minecraft are 2 very different things lol. RS and minecraft are basic games, so handling them is a breeze. My POS 32bit basic OS shit processor netbook plays RS no prob. 

If battery life is of concern, stick with 15" screen. If it is not, then you can consider the 17s. Any specifications claiming battery life longer than 2 hrs are bullshit on a 17 inch laptop. When you first get it, it will be longer. Once the battery is older than a few months, 2 hrs is what you'll get.

I personally perfer my netbook to my laptop. It is smaller, handles gaming, handles, videos, easy to carry around for things like work... can tether to my phone for internets everywhere... and finally... I bought an extended battery for it and it really does last a true 7 hours on full charge. 

So, even if you wont dig the netbook screen size or smaller everything... at least stick with a 15 inch screen rather than 17. The computer will run longer, and it will last longer. 

#1 killer to computer equipment is heat. Period. Laptops are notorious for heat, since everything is jam packed in them, then they sit on a surface with usually very minimal venting. The bigger the screen, the hotter that battery will get to power it, and the less time it will probably last overall. The battery as well will fatigue quicker due to the heat. 



So um, summary to the babble:

Smaller the better
Battery life will be like 30% of what they claim
No such thing as decent speakers, look for a decent sound card instead.
Most laptops these days perform perfectly fine with their wireless signal, so you shouldn't pay much attn there. 
The computer you linked too is way too much for RS and Minecraft.

1st off having owned 2 toshiba laptops (l305-s5944, and p745-s4102 my current one) I would highly recommend avoiding anything branded Toshiba, the build quality is quite pathetic and I wouldn't doubt you'll regret buying a Toshiba, the build quality on my current p745 is much better than the l305 but it's still lacking, give them 4-6 years before buying from them. As for the speakers you'll want JBL (Samsung), Harman/Kardon (Toshiba), or Beats (HP). HP Envy 15t-j000 Quad edition or select edition would be the best option at this current point in time for that budget. 

I would suggest a custom built laptop, otherwise you might as well throw your money down the toilet and flush because you'll get shit hardware from a pre-built 101% of the time unless you pay more than you should.

Options I recommend (for both if available):
- Defualt CPU
- 740m graphics card (3% worse than a 650m, so middle-high end) 
- 1080p screen 
- 8gb 1 DIMM (so you can upgrade later to 12-16gb)
- backlit keyboard (if you want, it will look nice and be functional)

up to 9 hours and 45 mins of battery life claimed, more like 9 hours 20 minutes at the most on the lowest possible settings, you'll get around 3-6 hours using max settings. 4.81 lbs, 1.15 in thick, both thinner and lighter than my 14 in laptop. 

I've been researching the best laptop options, and honestly HP really only has good options, however  later in july there will be more options, especially since the 4th gen intel CU and newer Nvidia GPUs are available. I've looked at Lenovo, Sony, Asus, Acer, Samsung, etc. their options are sub par or their hardware doesn't meet portability specifications (Samsung and Sony have decreased in battery life, Lenovo still doesn't have 7+ hours of battery life) so honestly HP seems to be the only option at the moment. 

Links:

Select edition (i5-3230m default, no other option for CPU):

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9F93AV?HP-ENVY-17t-j000-Select-Edition-Notebook-PC

Quad edition (latest 4th gen i7 available):

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/E4T17AV?HP-ENVY-15t-j000-Quad-Edition-Notebook-PC

Snow wrote:So um, summary to the babble:

Smaller the better
Battery life will be like 30% of what they claim
No such thing as decent speakers, look for a decent sound card instead.
Most laptops these days perform perfectly fine with their wireless signal, so you shouldn't pay much attn there. 
The computer you linked too is way too much for RS and Minecraft.

Smaller isn't better all the time, 14 in vs 15.6 is but 17 in vs 11 in isn't.
Battery life is more like 92-94% of what they claim nowadays.
My laptop speakers are Harman/Kardon, they're decent. The card can be the top of the line, if Realtek makes the drivers then it's useless.
WRONG, if the wifi card is anything under a Centrino 2230 it will have a terrible signal, even then it does depend on the router and drivers as well, it also depends on if you're using 5ghz or 2.4 ghz.
Right, that is toshiba's gaming series, not only is it thick (about 1.5-1.7 in) but it's heavy (about 7 lbs, add 2 water bottles to a 5 lb laptop)

Thank you both for your input! In another 10 min I'll rep Snow too. Attack, would you say that those laptops will stay cool if I kept it on my lap while like running RS? That was the problem with my last laptop. Thanks

Jewlian wrote:Thank you both for your input! In another 10 min I'll rep Snow too. Attack, would you say that those laptops will stay cool if I kept it on my lap while like running RS? That was the problem with my last laptop. Thanks

Not sure, when it comes to HP. The Toshiba i have now stays pretty cool but the fan is almost always on 70%-90%, it really depends on their cooling system I suppose. It would be hard to find a non-gaming laptop manufacturer that is focused on making their products stay cooler, you'd have to get a custom built from like xoticpc with a copper heatsink or something. If you're willing to take the laptop apart you can always install a copper shim and arctic mx-2 thermal paste (about $8 together online) on the CPU/GPU to make it cooler, but that takes some know how to not break anything and do it correctly. It should stay cool as long as you don't push it too hard, a cooling pad is a good idea, I've had no troubles with my newer laptop when it comes to heat though and it's always on my lap.

Also that 1st link I accidentally put the 17 in version, here is the link for the 15 in version:

http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9G47AV?HP-ENVY-15t-j000-Select-Edition-Notebook-PC

I know its probably not what your looking for but it doesn't hurt to say it

If you are looking for a laptop which you want to use for school and play decent games, I wouldn't solely watch at laptops with their own video cards, internal graphic cards such as intel HD 4000 are more than sufficient for Runescape (I would know, I use it ;p). 

Furthermore I'd really advise you to pick a Haswell laptop. These are pretty new so will probably get you above the 1k usd mark but are worth it, which leaves me to something which would I recommend you.

Macbook Air.

The hardware is good. The screen is good. And the new battery in addition to the new Haswell processor makes it able to last over 12-13 hours. It also has enough processing power to handle almost anything you throw at it. Even though you may not like OSX, you can always put windows on it. The only downside it has is that its 13,3 inch and a little above your budget; 1099 USD

I personally have recently purchases a Macbook Pro Retina 13,3 inch and I absolutely love it. And I can honestly say that the saying is true; once you go mac, you never go back

Good luck into finding something that is right for you Jewlian

PS: If you are looking for a Windows laptop which is relatively cheap, Medion and Gigabye and Lenovo both deliver laptops/ultrabooks which are relatively cheap but with good hardware inside it. However I am not too sure about the quality. I know lenovo for instance is not the best with quality, but I have had a Medion desktop for years and I really like that  so maybe this helps too

Adding to the above (too lazy to edit lol), if you wanna know the actual battery life of something (like Snow said) it's almost always lower than what they actually say. Apple is pretty consistent with what they claim to be their battery life (at least it has been for my Macbook Pro), but most other brands tend to exaggerate. I would advise you to look around the web. The Verge (somewhat like the WSJ for tech xD) uses the same battery test for all the devices that they test, so if you want a pretty popular laptop from a popular brand and they tested it, you can be sure of that when you look at the battery life they claim to get, that that is pretty consistent of what you may actually get

Inchy wrote:I know its probably not what your looking for but it doesn't hurt to say it

If you are looking for a laptop which you want to use for school and play decent games, I wouldn't solely watch at laptops with their own video cards, internal graphic cards such as intel HD 4000 are more than sufficient for Runescape (I would know, I use it ;p). 

Furthermore I'd really advise you to pick a Haswell laptop. These are pretty new so will probably get you above the 1k usd mark but are worth it, which leaves me to something which would I recommend you.

Macbook Air.

The hardware is good. The screen is good. And the new battery in addition to the new Haswell processor makes it able to last over 12-13 hours. It also has enough processing power to handle almost anything you throw at it. Even though you may not like OSX, you can always put windows on it. The only downside it has is that its 13,3 inch and a little above your budget; 1099 USD

I personally have recently purchases a Macbook Pro Retina 13,3 inch and I absolutely love it. And I can honestly say that the saying is true; once you go mac, you never go back

Good luck into finding something that is right for you Jewlian

PS: If you are looking for a Windows laptop which is relatively cheap, Medion and Gigabye and Lenovo both deliver laptops/ultrabooks which are relatively cheap but with good hardware inside it. However I am not too sure about the quality. I know lenovo for instance is not the best with quality, but I have had a Medion desktop for years and I really like that  so maybe this helps too

Well I have a medion laptop (and a MacBook ), and the medion laptop is really shitty...
Not worth the money compared to the mac...

Sorry beforehand thats in dutch but...

http://www.medion.com/nl/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+S4613+ultrabook%E2%84%A2/30015491A1

You can't dissagree with the fact that this looks awfully nice - especially at that pricepoint

Inchy wrote:I know its probably not what your looking for but it doesn't hurt to say it

If you are looking for a laptop which you want to use for school and play decent games, I wouldn't solely watch at laptops with their own video cards, internal graphic cards such as intel HD 4000 are more than sufficient for Runescape (I would know, I use it ;p). 

Furthermore I'd really advise you to pick a Haswell laptop. These are pretty new so will probably get you above the 1k usd mark but are worth it, which leaves me to something which would I recommend you.

Macbook Air.

The hardware is good. The screen is good. And the new battery in addition to the new Haswell processor makes it able to last over 12-13 hours. It also has enough processing power to handle almost anything you throw at it. Even though you may not like OSX, you can always put windows on it. The only downside it has is that its 13,3 inch and a little above your budget; 1099 USD

I personally have recently purchases a Macbook Pro Retina 13,3 inch and I absolutely love it. And I can honestly say that the saying is true; once you go mac, you never go back

Good luck into finding something that is right for you Jewlian

PS: If you are looking for a Windows laptop which is relatively cheap, Medion and Gigabye and Lenovo both deliver laptops/ultrabooks which are relatively cheap but with good hardware inside it. However I am not too sure about the quality. I know lenovo for instance is not the best with quality, but I have had a Medion desktop for years and I really like that  so maybe this helps too

The hd 4600 integrated graphics are around a 630m (14% worse according to game debate) in performance, which is very good for integrated graphics however when it comes to graphics card some tend to be better at some things than others. Like AMD would be the best option for playing games like Crysis 2 and the Elder Scrolls series, while Nvidia is the best option for Crysis 3, the Cod series, and the Battlefield series. I'm not sure how HD 4400/4600 would handle videos, but it looks as if HD 4600 can handle some games at lower resolutions, for benchmarks click here. HD may be a good option, but if you can spend the money I would recommend going for something with 730m+ or 8600m+ or Iris HD 5100 (if it's even available in laptops).

Inchy wrote:Sorry beforehand thats in dutch but...

http://www.medion.com/nl/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+S4613+ultrabook%E2%84%A2/30015491A1

You can't dissagree with the fact that this looks awfully nice - especially at that pricepoint

Look nice and it will perform well, but if Jewlian lives in the US then it's not available. Looks like Lenovo bought the Erazer desktop line though, maybe they'll buy their laptop designs as well, would like to see that ultrabook with a 4th gen i7u and 740m, I'd buy it if the battery life was right.

I am searching for my own laptop too at this very moment, and I heard alot of rumors (?) that toshiba isn't that good of quality.
But that is only what I heard ofcourse

2VN wrote:I am searching for my own laptop too at this very moment, and I heard alot of rumors (?) that toshiba isn't that good of quality.
But that is only what I heard ofcourse

Toshiba has garbage build quality, I've had 2 Toshiba laptops and am dissatisfied with both. Start by looking at Lenovo, you may find something that fits your needs there.

Jewlian, I will not bs you so here is a nice laptop brand. Cheap effective and meets your specs. Buy a lenovo. They are very good and last a long time. The one just purchased in my house has 4gb ram. 2.8ghz cpu, and handles just about everything with very little heat.

Geckoscraps wrote:Jewlian, I will not bs you so here is a nice laptop brand. Cheap effective and meets your specs. Buy a lenovo. They are very good and last a long time. The one just purchased in my house has 4gb ram. 2.8ghz cpu, and handles just about everything with very little heat.

Please do not gravedig. Anyways Lenovo is the number 1 PC brand, so they do make some good stuff.

Good Luck in finding your laptop ! I'll search for some laptops you may like.

Locked. If Jewlian needs this unlocked he can message me.