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[Truean]

I got a lot of use out of my last one--7 1/2 years.
That old desktop has some problems though: disk drive sucks, etc.

I was just looking for some opinions if this were a good idea or not. Should I bother getting the extended warranty, battery issues, etc? I would really appreciate any advice you could give because this is a major purchase for me.

I'm considering getting an HP Laptop from Best Buy:

$1,136
500GB memory
6 GB RAM
Quad Core Processor(s)
1GB Graphical Capcity
Built in Webcam
3 hr, 15 min battery charge life

$149
Microsoft office (Can I get this cheaper as a student?)

$99
All in one printer/copier/scanner

$350 (not sure if I wanna get this)
3 year unlimited warranty and damage insurance; includes unlimited
Geek Squad service and free memory backup.

$69
Laptop backpack (one with the little place for it)

All in all, I'm looking at:

$1,136
$149
$99
$350
$69

$1803 With extended warranty/ insurance + (7% Sales tax) = $1919.24

or

$1453 withoutout warranty/insurance+ (7% Sales tax) = $1569.24

I need a laptop with lots of capability for research and graphics. Money is tight for me like everyone else, but I consider this a tool of my trade. The warranty sounds very expensive, but is it worth it? Is there anything else I need to ask about this thing? Wireless internet issues...? Not really sure. What do you think I should do?

[Mr Tk]

First make sure that the laptop your getting is 64bit otherwise all that ram is wasted.

Second check the graphics card. Is it 1gb of on-board, dedicated or discrete? (On-board not so good as it uses your memory, dedicated has a gpu but none of it's own ram, and discrete is the best because it's a gpu with it's own ram.)

Third for Office at that price that will be the student price (all though you could consider open office, although it's not the be all or end all of word processing.)

Fourth, warranty. While myself will ALWAYS go for one, because after working retail I saw a crap lot of computers come back after the first year. However since this also has damage insurance, it means that if your laptop is accidentally damaged (i.e a non-warranty fault) you're not going to have to fork out for the repairs of the device. Read the fine print for the warranty first before you buy. Make sure what exactly it covers or doesn't cover. If you have home contents insurance which covers the laptop for non-warranty damage, it maybe cheaper to buy the hp extended warranty.

Finally laptop bags are handy. I like backpack type ones cos they're easier on my shoulders.

As for other things every laptop should have at least g wireless built in, and you'll have the usual ethernet port and usb ports. Depending on how many things you need plugged in at once, you may want a USB hub.

[Darkone]

Do note that it being a quad for 1k, it probably doesn't have a graphics chip in it. More than likely, it has integrated, and the 1gb thing is something like 256 + 768 shared.

[Balathustrius]

I would skip the extended warranty; $350 is more than any faulty part is gonna cost, seems to me.  But then, I probably wouldn't buy from Best Buy, either; I hear so much crap about that place.  But any part that comes pre-broken is probably going to be covered by the regular warranty, anyway.

Have you tried shopping around online?  You can find some much better deals than you're likely to get at a retail outlet, and you can customize your purchase to a better degree.  Of course, there's the shipping wait.

[sneakey pete]

You'll probably go through a battery per year. Odds are warrenty won't cover it either.

[Dwarf]

But what about this?

[Mr Tk]

I would skip the extended warranty; $350 is more than any faulty part is gonna cost, seems to me.  But then, I probably wouldn't buy from Best Buy, either; I hear so much crap about that place.

I've seen non-warranty repairs on laptops with mainboard problems range from US$220 to US$1000, with US$650 being the average. It's not just the parts, but also labour as well.

[redacted123]

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[Uber dwarf2.0]

Make sure you get the extened warranty as it saves your butt,my defunct card died out in  its frist year luckly

[Nilocy]

http://1toppc.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=N81Vp-D1&Category_Code=

This is the laptop I got. Fairly good value for money. Evn when I imported it from the US. Also, you get 3% off with paypal e-cheque. for that i got a super heat sink.

[lambskin]

Instead of getting office why not try open office? Its free, so if you don't like it you can just get regular microsoft office.

[Puck]

First of all... use open office. No real reason not to. And it's free.
Secondly.... does it REALLY need to be a laptop? Desktops are always more bang for your buck. You could also save on the backpack that way 

Well, next thing is the CPU... not sure, but pretty sure, its STILL a few years til a quad core will really make a difference for most stuff. I'd go for one of the cheaper dualcores and overclock the shit out of it. They are quite forgiving, even with stock cooling.

Also, I'd probably not bother with more than 4GB RAM, but in a desktop that doesnt make all that much of a difference in price, you can get decent RAM at about what? 15 bucks per gig?

[sonerohi]

But what about this?

Don't mention the heathen device here.

Hey man, heathen rocks. Christianity was invented to manipulate people. Also, I just like the human flair the gods of most pantheons have. Because god is supposed to be benevolent, but appearantly, he is quite an asshole.

Oh, terrible derail...

-offensivity-

[Truean]

Well, I have got the awesomeness all paid for.....

I got the computer above and decided not to get geek squad protection at the moment.

It is 64 bit. Awesometastic. Hopefully, this thing will last me a long time (seeing as it cost a bit...).

Anything that I should know?

Will running a quad core effect my ability to play dwarf fortress?

[sonerohi]

DF is only programmed to run on one core. It will help if you are running additional activities, but otherwise no.