I'm in the market for a laptop. I've thought about getting a tablet PC, but I think a laptop would be more suitable for what I am going to be using it for. I setup a home server for movies, and I want to be able to play the movie streaming from my laptop via HDMI output. (Just for fun)

I'm also going to be using this laptop for school. Basically for projects and reading when I'm at work.

I've been doing some browsing online to try and find a nice machine, but I can't make my mind up just yet what to get. I would like to know if anyone has had any experience with any laptops recently and has been impressed my a particular machines performance.

Some recommendations would be cool!
My price range is up to $800.00 USD so far. I really would like to keep it around 500-600 though since I will need a bag and possibly an extra battery.

Do you want it to play games?

There's plenty on the market for 500-600 range that can do all that. However, the majority of them use Intel integrated graphics. I think most laptops out on the market today are capable of streaming 1080p video. But the drawback is most of them don't do 3d acceleration well. If you are looking only for projects + streaming movies + online browsing, make the screen size and form factors the primary drivers. If you need to play games, you need to look at a lot more stats.

It's not going to be for games at all. I already have too many computers at home for playing games. I need to focus more on school.

Right now, the best portable notebook is Lenovo's thinkpad x220. 12.5" screen, will give you between 10-15 hours of battery charge, and the quality of the components is superb. I am planning on buying one myself once I save up enough.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/18/leno ... 20-review/.

For school/work, you need something as portable as possible without sacrificing performance. This one is pretty much the ideal case, with the best price/performance ratio. And nothing beats the legendary thinkpad keyboard.

Right now they have a $100 off deal going on which makes it well within your budget. If you can stretch it a bit, you can a get a "slice" battery which works along with the 6/9 cell battery, which will give you around 24 hours of real-world battery life. That is only needed if you plan on spending a lot of time away from a station though.

This is what I concluded for myself after several months of research (at which time the x220 was not in production) :)

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thi ... eries/x220.

For media, the only laptop I know that has built in hdmi are HP. Look into the envy. That is a F*CKING glorious little machine. Light, portable, built in hdmi, beefy enough processors too. Check 'em out. I know four people who just bought them and love the shit out of them.

HP have good consumer laptops, Dell's enterprise laptop lines are pretty legit. The latitudes.

Sweet Pea has an "entry Level" Inspiron. It works pretty well, haven't had any issues with it...yet.

So if you're looking for a lappy with good media support and some playability, HP. If you need just an all around work horse, Dell.

If you want an extremely reliable all around workstation, IBM/Lenovo thinkpad (don't get the other models. Just go for the thinkpad).

If media is very important to you, go with HP/Dell/Asus. The parts that Dell/Hp/etc. use are actually pretty much all the same, mostly made by CLEVO and just rebranded in their names. It's just how they look on the outside that is different. They also have glossy screens which are good for watching movies on. The Thinkpad series has matte screens for prolonged usage without eye strain, with roll cage protection and better recovery software built-in, and the best keyboard of all laptops.

Thinkpads are the best... I love thinkpads since there are great on everything

Yeah my buddy has a thinkpad and I think it's the best deal for a laptop meant for schooling

Might be buying one later this summer too

DO NOT GET HP!!!!!! My sister has a HP and after one year the mother board crashes, after paying some fine bucks she gets it "fixed" then it crashes again 2 weeks later, and she has to pay them again to "fix" it. If you ask me they put in shitty motherboards to get your cash, get Dell.

She probably didn't take care of it. I've had my hp hdx18 for 2.5 years now and it's still fine. Fried a few hard drives because I didn't have a cooling pad on it, but now that I've taken care of that it's all good. Also: with any laptop if you don't get the 2 year extended warranty or whatever it is, you might be retarded.

I have never had good experiences with dell, including my girlfriend's top of the line laptop. Dell's response on the problems with it was "send it in, give us $200 and 6-8 weeks and we'll fix it." With HP and the extended warranty I would get mine back in no more than two weeks. Anyway, on her laptop - after it stopped charging it's battery and started shitting it's pants she decided to get an envy and like I said, loves the shit out of it.

I got a Macbook Pro for work and I have to admit its definitely the best laptop I have ever had. I run Windows 7 using VMware Fusion and it runs Windows apps seemlessly from the Mac OS desktop...definitely cool.

I was about to rage, then I read windows 7... not a bad idea.

Been working with Macs since the begining of my studies in music (composition, ear training, stuff...) and I can say I can't get used to that layout and all the bindings and the keyboard and the mouse and.. errr.. I hate Macs even though I know they're super good computers.

Macbooks are nice, but I've been seeing them go for 1000.00 to 1500.00

At first I spammed this thread with a million "TROLLTROLL"s, but then I was like nahhh...
Don't get ASUS, that's overkill.
Agree with Strange here, as you don't really need a badass laptop to achieve what you're wanting. Not even a really good video card, even.

If I were you, I'd get the cheapest laptop from Dell I could find.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I found what I was looking for! I got an old IBM ThinkPad, and it is going to be my baby. I almost bought a new one, but I kept thinking that I didn't want to spend that kind of money on myself and I really wanted one that looked a little beat up.

Got a ThinkPad A22m. Maybe later on down the road I'll get something beefy. I'm going to Nuke the drive and throw Linux on it. openSUSE, Gentoo, or Vector Linux. I downloaded all three and I'll figure out which one I like best.

Good choice. The thinkpads are unbeatable as student/professional workstations. Enjoy!

Do you enjoy pain? If you do, get gentoo. Otherwise stick to suse or ubuntu

I have an Asus laptop And im not sure if the designer was retarded or something but the vents on the bottom are horribly placed and this bitch overheats like crazy me and Ben have the same one and we have had non stop problems with Asus one the plus side we have the one year warrenty or w/e so we jsut send it in each time. Ben is on his 3rd RMA right now.

F*CK asus laptops.

supafly...buy a laptop cooler?