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Laptop shopping for college and beyond- Any nerds/geeks want to help?

I have an ASUS laptop and love it.  I'm typing on it now.  It has plenty of video power, as well.

FWIW, I've been building my own desktops for the past 10 year.  I always used ASUS motherboards.
 
My current PC has an ASUS motherboard. Biggest hunk of junk I've ever owned. Didn't start off well when they used a bad northbridge so it claimed to have sata2 but couldn't even boot with one hooked to it. Proprietary firmware has it locked in too :\
 
AutoBat said:
My current PC has an ASUS motherboard. Biggest hunk of junk I've ever owned. Didn't start off well when they used a bad northbridge so it claimed to have sata2 but couldn't even boot with one hooked to it. Proprietary firmware has it locked in too :\
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That's odd.  I've never had a problem with an ASUS MB, and I've built about 10 desktops for myself and family over the past 10 years.
 
DocNrock said:
AutoBat said:
My current PC has an ASUS motherboard. Biggest hunk of junk I've ever owned. Didn't start off well when they used a bad northbridge so it claimed to have sata2 but couldn't even boot with one hooked to it. Proprietary firmware has it locked in too :\
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That's odd.  I've never had a problem with an ASUS MB, and I've built about 10 desktops for myself and family over the past 10 years.
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Ditto--I've built desktops in the past, and have switched between Intel and ASUS, and never a problem with either one. I had a buddy who had a nightmare with an Actiontec board--turned out to be an improper connection on the board for one of the chips pins. I've also been a stickler on using Intel chips as well. I have NEVER been a fan of AMD's stuff--seen too many flukey things happen with them, and I don't trust them at all in the compact areas of a laptop, where you have half of the cooling power that you would in a desktop. Heat is the number one slow killer of laptops. A laptop that runs hot consistently will have component failure within two to three years of release. That's why I always steer people away from budget computers whenever possible--they simply destroy themselves because of ineffective cooling and a budget processor (normally a cheap AMD chip) that simply runs too hot.
 
Good choice, Max . . . I looked that one up and it seems to have good reviews. Now, I must do some friendly combat with those folks who still think PCs make better laptops. They don't. (Disclaimer: PCs have Apple beat fair and square when it comes to desktops, business applications, and many other areas. But in terms of laptops, apple wins hands down in my book.)

1. REFURBISHED. Far cheaper, just like new, and still from apple.

2. No Viruses (virtually. its really hard to get them, and really easy to get rid of them.)

3. User Interface: It's more intuitive. Not switching because you're "acclimated" to PCs is a stupid excuse.

4. They're cased in metal.

5. YOU CAN RUN WINDOWS ON IT TOO. (Best of both worlds. Or all three. Linux works too.)
 
Max said:
I think I'll be able to run hackintosh on this computer.
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'atta boy. triple boot that sucker! OSX is irreplaceable when it comes to anything creative (music, video, pictures, etc.), PCs OWN when it comes to games . . . and linux (Unix) can quite frankly do a whole lot of stuff that neither of the others can (if you know what the crap you're doing).
 
I won't completely say that Macs are useless--far from it:

I2444.jpg


Now I KNOW for a FACT that Max will not be able to do that with the big ASUS he's buying. Sorry buddy--looks like you gotta eat your rolls whole.
 
AutoBat said:
My current PC has an ASUS motherboard. Biggest hunk of junk I've ever owned. Didn't start off well when they used a bad northbridge so it claimed to have sata2 but couldn't even boot with one hooked to it. Proprietary firmware has it locked in too :\
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I've always built my own also. 4 abits then 3 MSI and my most recent is an ASUS p8p67 and it's got some stupid stuff going on with it.
The BIOS needs a lot of work. You can't even see the whole BIOS screen with a 19" CRT monitor. To see the BIOS the monitor needs the "auto adjust" feature.
( starting to remind me of a mac ) ...so I bought a new monitor.
Choosing things in the bios seems "iffy" ... need to click more than once or sometimes it just happens with a mouse over ... un reliable GUI.

SATA on the p8p67 is also not really that good. Installing anything older than XP SP3 requires IDE mode as opposed to AHCI mode.
The drivers that came on the DVD are incomplete. I still have unrecognized hardware on the mother board but nothing critical. "Unknown pci device"
The boot up screen only sees 2 of the 3 hard drives connected to it.

I don't think I'll ever buy an other ASUS after having so much good and easy from my last 3 MSI builds.
 
I realize Max has already made his decision, but as far as finding tech related things for cheap I would suggest http://www.pricewatch.com/

I saved about $40 on my last desktop build going there. Totally wasn't paid to say any of this, it's just a good site.
 
Yeah, it's really nice. It's not too difficult to max out the graphics card, but that's not a problem.
 
Good choice there Max. Happy to see you stayed away from MacBooks. They really are just an over priced specced up windows PC anyway.  :icon_thumright:
 
Max said:
Yeah, it's really nice. It's not too difficult to max out the graphics card, but that's not a problem.
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Make sure you give it a full driver update--you may have some better luck getting a little more chutzpah out of the graphics card, or with a BIOS or chipset update, you may get more as well. You're going to blow away some folks when they see the sheer awesomeness of the big ASUS.
 
Glad to hear you went with the Asus - great damn machines.  You should have the 2 year warranty with that guy.  Register with Asus when you get it so you can get your first year accidental damage claim.  There's something so satisfying about new computer day...
 
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