Hi sifus and bros and sisters, need your advice hunting for a new laptop. Much as I don't want to, my old faithful Dell Inspiron 1420 is starting to have screen issues, and have had to repair once already; maybe time for a new one and retire this machine to less demanding work LOL; though the T9300 on this baby can still keep up with faster and newer machines.

1. Preferred Brand - Dell or Asus, Lenovo can consider-- Acer only if that model is reliable. Can't afford to send it back if it keeps having hardware issues and I've heard some horror stories about Acer after sales service (NO Toshiba, no Samsung, and NO HP please, I takut their PC division fold already will have problems in future).

2. Budget - ~ RM3k or less, RM25XX-RM29XX is ideal.

3. Usage - IT student, so expect to be doing stuff like Matlab, a lot of programming and compiling, database work and other CS related stuff. I'm doing Folding@home, so I need a powerful processor. Also, I believe in future proofing my machine, so looking for 2nd gen i7 and minimum 4GB DDR3 RAM. Other uses: surfing, watch movies on occasion, facebook gaming, playing old puzzle games like Bejeweled 3 and Bejeweled Blitz. Note that I usually have 700+ tabs open in Firefox and around 40-50 tabs in Chrome at any given time. The laptop will not be travelling much-- mostly between my uni and home once a week, since I already have an Asus VX6 for mobile computing. Used mostly while plugged in and will be running very long hours due to F@h work (estimated >18 hours daily).

4. Preferred laptop/screen size - 14"-15", nice resolution (>1440 x 900, maybe 1920 x 1080?), prefer non-glossy display, but can deal with glossy mirrors masquerading as screens (why la comp makers all no more 14.1"?? I miss that screen size so much, 14.0" just seems too weird after years on 14.1")... If possible I want to avoid Nvidia Optimus or similar switchable functionality: planning to dual-boot Windows with Linux and last I heard, Optimus enabled systems will not let Linux systems recognise the discrete card so you end up stuck with only the integrated graphics. Soundcard and speakers-- I use a USB DAC with Senn HD650 so it's not really an issue.


Don't really care what it looks like, it's for me to use not admire after all. I would like it if the laptop has solid build quality; don't like all plasticky flimsy kind of feel. Also VERY important: the laptop should have good ventilation-- plenty of vents at the bottom and no complaints about overheating.

Want lots of connectivity options on the laptop... so USB 3.0 and hopefully 3 USB ports (wish for 4 but I think nowadays no more laptops with 4 USB ports. ). Not much of a gamer, but want a good discrete graphics processor as well, maybe with around 512MB of graphic memory? Also HDD hopefully 500GB or bigger. Not interested in Blu-Ray though nice to have if on there. Have my own MSDN copy of Win7 Pro x64 already, so the laptop doesn't have to come with a preinstalled system... I'd rather it come without actually.

Sorry if these specs are too hard to find in one package, but the main thing I want is a well built lappy that has lots of processing and computing muscle and is tahan lasak enough to go for another 3-4 years at least. Saw that Dell Inspiron 15R has the very latest 2nd gen i7 core-- is that good? Thank you in advance.

This post has been edited by ArianneG: Sep 19 2011, 01:39 AM

Thank you to all here who have given me advice for my hunt!

@AlexLai: I will admit to still being fond of Dell laptops-- mine has served me well and faithfully. I actually dropped it once from about 2 feet high while it was on, and my Inspiron didn't miss a beat; worked on just as normal! Looked at Dell website, the Inspiron 15R going for RM2599 has the latest 2nd generation Intel® Core i7-2670QM processor, 2.20 GHz capable of turbo boost up to 3.10 GHz; I looked it up and the i7-2670QM is supposed to be the successor to the i7-2630QM that's on the Asus N55SF; RAM options are nonexistent outside of 4GB DDR3 though. >.< Not sure whether it's a good buy for that price.

Asus N55SF? While I don't quite like Optimus tech, I can live with it: IIRC all the 2nd gen Sandy Bridge processors' integrated graphics are still fairly powerful right? After all I don't plan to do any strenuous gaming or things like that on my Linux install that would require a powerful graphics unit. The most maybe watch some HD movies, and that very rarely and more likely to happen on the Windoze side of the box. Should be good enough for that purpose, maybe? Can confirm? Also, is there any place selling it below RM36xx?

@astria: Well, I don't really mind i5 myself LOL-- but since my dad who is footing the bill says when buying a computer get the best possible at the time of purchase and flat out said to GET an i7, who am I to want to argue?

@eugenechiuu: Nope, not a typo. I really DO have 700+ tabs open in Firefox most of the time normally, though not at the moment--once got up to 800+, but then FF became unstable LOL... the newer FF versions allowing for memory tweaks are handy when you want to do that kind of thing. At one point when researching for my final project I had three browsers open with tabs in the high 400s in Chrome and Firefox and Opera. Don't mind desktop, but as it is, this year uni room and study table really no space for CPU and monitor... want to squash in my printer also must get creative already.Also I probably have to take my laptop(s) home with me to work over the weekends, and moving CPU+ monitor every week will be a pain, to say the least.

This post has been edited by ArianneG: Sep 19 2011, 05:08 PM

@astria: Not looking for HP la bro... HP and Toshiba and Samsung are on my no buy list for laptops LOL.

MSI not sure of reputation nia, otherwise don't mind considering...