New Laptop
 

Well, my laptop finally decided to bite the dust last night. The battery has been dead for a while, the plastic cover for the screen is cracked and broken in several places, the right hinge is broken, and the screen has gone to distorted white colors (guessing a wiring issue or internal crack). Since I've already replaced the screen once, I decided it was time for a new baby. Bear in mind a new desktop isn't an option due to my need for a portable laptop for college courses and lack of money.

While this sucks, I'm very excited to get a new one. My now-defunct HP DM4-1065dx was an excellent multimedia/college machine. I'd still recommend that product line to anyone looking. However, the main drawback to this piece (and this is a laptop problem in general) is the Intel Integrated HD Graphics.

I'm only a moderate gamer (still playing Nova games and other old stuff, i.e. CoD and CoD2), so the graphics issue hasn't been much of a problem. I do, however, have games like BC2/MoH Warfighter/Skyrim lying around that I'd love to be able to play. While I couldn't go all out with an Alienware gaming laptop, I believe I've found one that will run these games at moderate settings while retaining a respectable framerate:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834314016

I know the general public has very mixed feelings for Acer, but this machine has multiple excellent reviews and has very decent specs for the price. The i5 3230 CPU is a bit faster than that of my old DM4, the HDD space and speed is fine for my needs, the RAM is slightly outdated but upgradeable, and best of all - DEDICATED GPU! The GT 730M has been tested thoroughly with games like BC2 and Skyrim (on this specific laptop, even) and most sources show that these games will run at respectable framerates with moderate to high graphical settings.

Anyway, I wanted to share my excitement and also see if you super-techs could see any problems with the detailed specs. Seems to come with all of your standard ports and bells and whistles. I think I made a good buy here, so please shower me with praise.

I don't see anything wrong with it. It looks like a pretty nice machine for the price. It's got a better graphics card than my old laptop and I've not had many issues with games on it. I don't usually play on the highest settings though.

:clap2:

Looks like a good computer and Asus and Acer usually make very good laptops and it seems to have some extra memory room for the future :)

You're right, Acer generally doesn't have the best reputation for computers. If this is one you are pretty sure will have the quality you need then go ahead, though, it might be wise to get New Egg's warranty.

As far as the specs... they look pretty good for the price. My only suggestion is to get a SSD as soon as you can. It will make the world of a difference in the performance.

Out of curiosity, how long have you had your HP?

Got my new machine in one day of shipping and I love it!

The design is great, I've got my numpad back, more real estate with a 15.6" screen (prior one was 14"), and it's got all the ports I need. I do wish that more laptop producers would introduce the axle-style design that Dell has been using to rotate the lid. These ones that work off hinges are guaranteed to break at some point after so many rotations.

As far as how the laptop runs, this thing is beast mode! I can play Battlefield: Bad Company 2 at max settings very smoothly in any situation. I can run Skyrim on high settings also. The dedicated GPU was well worth the $600.

The only thing I didn't like upon first using it was Windows 8. The disconnect between Metro and the desktop is strange and awkward. I'm slowly getting used to it, but I would probably downgrade to Windows 7 if I could afford a legit copy.

Yea, I bought the two year warranty for it since shipping was free.

Yea, I've noticed that read/write times for this guy aren't going to shatter many windows, but I've yet to actually benchmark it. Unfortunately, I can't afford a SSD anyway.

Approximately 3 years. Considering I dropped it 3 times on wood, concrete, and from the top of a luggage cart (darn move-in helpers), it held up remarkably well. Just more of a media laptop.

Whatever people say, those specs are way better than my age old pc, but in my case, my pc won't be upgraded till it stops working. So, congratulations.

I'm with ya.

I only got this laptop because my old one broke.

ssd will be great for you in the future, everyone gets the upgrade bug right? it will breathe new life into your machine, and wont cost as much as a whole new laptop :)

i just picked up a lappy with mSATA and a 2.5" bay, so have the fortunate situation of being able to use a smaller capacity solid state drive for OS and apps, and also large amount of cheap storage (which cetainly doesn't need ssd speed). ive never come accross mSATA before, but seems like a great compliment to a mechanical drive, unless u have unlimited money and just wack in a 1TB ssd :D

Never heared of mSATA either, is it a connector on the outside of the laptop?

internal, http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/msata-...w-32232-3.html

left one:
http://i.imgur.com/FGAb2Ob.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ddLSbK3.jpg

seems popular with ultrabooks.

I get the upgrade bug with desktops but never with laptops. They're too prone to breakdowns, and I feel the money is wasted in upgrading. I pretty much pick the specs I want right as I buy it.

This thing is great, though. The read/write speed on the HDD is noticeably slow, but everything else is excellent. I'm running Skyrim at Ultra settings and staying above 40+ FPS. :D