Let's Talk Laptops
 

Oh great sages of TFP, I come to you with a dilemma. My current Dell D820 is aging and can't handle most recent games and most of the CAD programs I need to use for school. I've currently got a 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM, shitty video card system and would like to upgrade to a system around 2.5ish GHz dual core, 3 GB RAM, with a reasonable video card laptop. My budget is about $1000 US and I'm eyeing either getting a new Dell or getting an HP, specifically these two models:
HP Pavilion dv6
Dell Studio 15

My question, what is your advice as I esteem the collective wisdom of this board highly? Are Lenovos, ACERs, Sonys, etc. any good? I'd like to be able to do moderate gaming (i.e. NOT Crysus at warp speed) and if it can handle most of the middle of the road games it should be able to handle most engineering programs. Thank you.

I like this one. 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, GeForce 9600M GT 512MB... all just under $1000. This should handle your average gaming load without giving you trouble. Just make sure you keep it cool as it can get warm.

Get this. Profit. GeForce 9800M GTS videocard, 4 GB ram, Core 2 Duo, 320 GB HDD, all for $1090.

Gateway - FX Edition Laptop with Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology - P-7805u

Best deal ever. Best gaming laptop deal I've ever seen.

lasereth speaks the truth. the fx line from gateway is literally the best deal on high powered gaming laptops ever made. solid choice.

alternative, get a Sager. They're not as well known as the other guys, but their quality is second to none.

sagernotebook.com

The two laptops you're looking at will do fine, but don't expect any big graphics performance from either of them unless you upgrade to one the beefier graphics card options. I can't speak to the Gateway FX, but it looks like a pretty solid deal.

As far as name brands go, it's really up to you. I've personally had some great laptops from ASUS, so I'll suggest this one for $1049: Newegg.com - ASUS N51Vf-X1 NoteBook Intel Core 2 Duo P8600(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD 7200rpm DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GT 130M - Laptops / Notebooks

To answer your name brand question, Lenovo tends to design for business users, Acer is pretty good for cheaper laptops, and Sony makes some damn sexy high-performance laptops, but you're going to pay about double what it's actually worth. Those are some pretty general statements, but that's been my experience in a nutshell.


edit: I'll second shakran, Sager makes some great performance laptops too.

Sager used to make the Alienware machines.

You could go that route but the GeForce GT 130M is a joke compared to the 9800 GTS 1 GB included with the Gateway. You wouldn't be able to do moderate gaming with the 130M.