New Laptop time

[Xouqoa]

I am going to get a new laptop sometime early this year, hopefully when there are some good prices floating around.

Any suggestions? I will mainly use it as a web development/server machine, but it would be nice to play games on it as well. I'm looking for something under $700 if possible, and am currently leaning towards a Dell Studio 15/17.

[Zaelath]

I think you're shit out of luck if you want to play games on a sub $700 machine.. the low end has integrated intel video chips, it's another few hundred to get the ATI "real" card.

I've had a Dell for a couple years, still love it.

[Xouqoa]

I ended up getting an HP (gag) from Best Buy since they didn't have the Toshiba I eventually settled on. This one has a dual core AMD Turion and 8gb of memory. It has an ATI video card, and seems to run WoW okay but that's all I have put on it. I was priced at $699 but on unmarked clearance for $450, so I think it was a pretty good deal.

[Fairweather Pure]

I think you're shit out of luck if you want to play games on a sub $700 machine.. the low end has integrated intel video chips, it's another few hundred to get the ATI "real" card.

I've had a Dell for a couple years, still love it.

My wife's Dell Inspirion was about 600$ and it runs plenty of games at a decent rate. Torchlight looks fantastic. It just depends on what types of games you play. Personally, for laptops I would never do any sort of hardcore gaming. Of course, I haven't tried WoW on it yet either, but I think it would run ok on low settings considering the other games she has on there.

[Winnow]

This is one of the nicer new notebooks to come out of CES so far:

http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/06/hp-t ... pruces-up/

HP decided to go all-new with its TouchSmart tm2 followup. The 12.1-inch laptop is powered by new Intel Core 2 Duo procs and even discrete ATI Mobility Radeon graphics if you're man enough, and claims 9 hours of battery life off its standard 6-cell. Most importantly, the capacitive multitouch screen is finger and pen friendly. The physical design takes some cues from HP's new Envy laptops, including the controversial unibutton touchpad and lovable aluminum build, and seems decently thinner, lighter and stronger than the tx2. The laptop should be out on January 17th with a starting price of $949.

Capacitive touch (as opposed to resistive) is nice.

It has Wacom tablet capabilities built in as well so you can use it as a drawing tablet.