New Laptop

[Mark Nibert]

I am saving up to get a laptop and wanted to see if anyone had any preferences. I am looking in the 1500-2000 dollar range. I have always wanted to try a MacBook Pro but there is also a couple nice Sagers in that price range. I do enjoy video games and also writing programs etc. Anyone here have any suggestions or preferences?

[Pat Farrell]

wow, that is a lot of money, you will have tons of choices.

I tend to link the Lenovo Thinkpad line for serious work, they are built like tanks, so they do well for travelers. Not the cheapest.

How about instead, get a netbook and a $1000 desktop and monitor, easy to get it all for $1600 or so. This lets you have a quad CPU and fast video card for games, plus a netbook for taking everywhere. If you get a netbook with SSD, they can run forever on battery power.

[Bear Bibeault]

If you're hankering for a MacBook Pro I can highly recommend one. You can run either/both of OS X or Windows on it and get the best of both worlds.

[Pat Farrell]

Bear Bibeault wrote:MacBook Pro I can highly recommend one.

I made both of my bosses get Mac laptops. The more technical one ran the standard VM to run Windows inside OS-X and loved it. They both loved how reliable and easy to use they are.

As a geek, I'm not willing to pay that much for style and ease of use, but for them, it was the right choice.

Note, its not clear that a Lenovo with comparable specs to a Mac laptop is very different in price. Both brands sell at a higher price than others.

[Bear Bibeault]

its not clear that a Lenovo with comparable specs to a Mac laptop is very different in price.

The MacBook Pro has the advantage of being able to run both OS X -- my preferred platform for development -- and Windows. I personally only boot Windows when I need to test something in IE.

[Joe San]

I've got a Lenovo R-series and it looks great. Accidentally dropped it a couple of times and man its still robust and runs smoothly. Go for a Lenovo notebook. It is a bit expensive but definitely worth the money.

[ankur rathi]

Jothi Shankar Kumar wrote:I've got a Lenovo R-series and it looks great. Accidentally dropped it a couple of times and man its still robust and runs smoothly. Go for a Lenovo notebook. It is a bit expensive but definitely worth the money.

Which model do you have? I am always fascinated by IBM thinkpad (the small one) but it's no more produced.

[Joe San]

I have a Lenovo R61 CTO, bought from the USA. http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3814#

[Mark Nibert]

How does the Lenovo compare to the sager? I was looking at the np8662 on xoticpc.com. It seems to be a very reasonably priced laptop that will perform very well. I have never used a Lenovo. I am still interested in a macbook but it looks like they just raised their prices.

[Himanshu Kansal]

Alienware would be my choice

[Mark Nibert]

For alienware the minimum spec for 1k just doesnt suit me and w/out adding much it jumps to 1800 pretty quick. I have a desktop for gaming so if that is kind of a plus but not necessarily an option. The Lenovo's look ok but the reviews on the t500 seem 50/50.