need a new lapotop for college

I'm going to grab a laptop for college, but I wanted to get one that can run Half Life 2 death match without a latency of over nine thousand. I talked to a guy on geek squad and he said that HBs and Vaios are reliable laptops, although I don't know how good they are at playing games. I imagine I might have to get an updated video card to help things run a little more smoothly.  And I already know AlienWare is overpriced shit and DELLS are just plain shit; macs are out of the question too because I own a bunch of expensive programs for windows. Anyone know any laptops that can run HL2 death match smoothly?

What is your budget?

about $1000

Don't get a Sony - it's a time bomb set to go off the day after your warranty expires.

I thought everything was a time bomb after the warranty.

Check out one of the PC/laptop building sites. They're typically much cheaper and let you build more powerful machines for less. They also build quality computers, and come with all the usual warranties and stuff. It's also not overpriced, like Alienware usually is.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com
http://www.ibuypower.com

many thanks, fellow Anon. I'll check it out.

hears the thing OP, you cant upgrade a GPU on a notebook there hard wired in to the MOBO. so get one with a good stock GPU.

>>8

Wow, you absolutely suck at English.

Get an HP Pavillion.

The brand doesn't matter; dell's aren't shit.  It's not like they manufacture the hardware components.  It's all OEM equipment that gets placed together.  Have you ever seen a dell brand motherboard or graphics card?

I have a dell inspiron with the standard ATI mobility radeon x1400 and it runs any game using the HL/HL2 engine at normally no less than 40fps.  HL2 isn't a very graphically intense game.  For running anything requiring close to the same specs you probably wouldn't need more than a gig of ram, though anything more wouldn't hurt, and if you're going dual core at least 1.2ghz, otherwise 2.2+.

>>11
>dell's aren't shit

Yes they are.

>>11
Two words: lowest bidder.

You might want to try Samsung, as they're producing fairly good models with an acceptable price tag.
One of the most important things when it comes to buying laptops, especially if it's your only computer, is support. You absolutely DO want decent support with good reaction times to get your stuff fixed when in case it breaks. Support is expensive, so most manufacturers only provide you with one year, but I'd absolutely recommend upgrading to 2 or even 3 years, depending on the usage (components being moved around a lot and kept running for extended periods of time are more prone to failure, so longer warranty is recommended; if you'll just leave the stuff sitting on the table and use it a 3, 4 hours a day, you'll most likely be fine with a two-year warranty if you don't buy crap.) Buying crap, by the way, is NEVER recommended, no matter how cheap it is. Go get some information about support and customer service of an interesting manufacturer (reaction times,  customer satisfaction, failure rate, ... -- sometimes, computer magazines make surveys to compile these datasets; Sadly, as I'm not from the U.S., I don't know if there has been anything relevant for you recently) and then decide whether to buy the model or not.

Generally, IBMs support is considered as the best support there is, but they don't manufacture "affordable" computers with great graphics hardware.  However, if you've got the money, you might want to look at the things they offer, as they DO have some powerful machines with decent graphics hardware.

>>1 Yeah cause geeksquad's totally reliable.

>>11
I'm typing on my current laptop, a Dell Inspiron 5100; and it's shit. The screen's been replaced twice in under four years of use because it just dies out after a year in a half or so. I hear it has some sort of PC part in it that causes it to overheat all the time; and right now I have to keep it either [1] on it's side while not in use or [2] on top of an elevated platform; if I cover the fan for less than five minutes it'll just shut off. Sometimes when I just pick it up to movie it elsewhere in the room it shuts off automatically. And no, I've never dropped it or done anything retarded like that. The battery life when it's unplugged is less than five minutes [probably needs a new battery, but I digress].

But my main beef with Dell isn't just their products, what really pisses me off is their customer service. I'm sick and tired of being redirected to India so I can be walked through a system restore, or completely wipe out my hard-drive. Even more so, I'm sick of listening to some crappy 15-second keyboard music on a loop for hours on end. They've improved their customer service from English-impaired and bureaucratic to just plain incompetent. They don't call back when they say they will, and even when a guy did come to replace my screen-- he came back with the wrong fucking screen replacement! And then he tried to sell me those rubber sticker-feet that melt off the bottom of my laptop for $5 a piece; roughly twenty dollars for only a fraction of a cent worth of glue and rubber.

Maybe Dell's products aren't absolute shit. My kid brother just got his ass spoiled with a top of the line Dell PC that he seems happy with; but they treat their customers like shit.

Apple makes pretty much the best laptop hardware I have ever seen, even if you open it up to service it yourself.  The screens are bright, the touchpad is hueg and you can use it to scroll with, the keyboard is durable as fuck and doesn't jam up when tiny bits of debris fall into them (unlike my Dell and Toshiba).

Their support is also very good, almost ninentdo-like.  Most of the time, a breakdown constitutes free service as long as you keep your Apple Care up to date. (excepting when you do something stupid, like break the screen) 

  The only problem is that they come preinstalled with Mac OS X.  You can just rip that out and install windows if you want.  All current macs use Intel Core processors.