[Tikker]

i spent a whack load of money 4ish years ago on a Dell Inspiron 9400

2500+ and it's actually been worth the money

it's tapped out at 2gb ram, and core 2 duo (t7200, 2.0ghz) still performs pretty well

the video card is showing it's age (nvidia 7900gs) but still will run most modern games, but at lower resolutions, and tons of effects off

the ram is starting to show its age, and is starting to throw BSOD when too much of it's used (i assume memory hardware issues with this)



so long story short, I'm looking to replace the Dell with a comparable system



17" screen (1920x1080, 1920x1200)
decent speakers at least
I'd like a good gaming video card, despite the fact I'm not sure how much more gaming I'll do on it
hard disk space is kind of a non-issue, as I haven't ever filled the 160gb on this box


I use my current laptop as a mobile Media Center as well as a gaming machine


looking at an Asus g73jh now, but open to other possibilities

anything in the 1200-1700 range would be fine (work kicks in roughly 1200ish towards the machine)

 

[recneps77]

+1 to Asus.
It's the only brand I recommend to people these days.
They've maintained high quality (unlike the other brands.. most seem to have gone downhill )
and I actually know someone with the g73jh
It's an amazing machine.

 

[Tikker]

it's arrived, and it's crazy sexy

 

[recneps77]

(assuming you got the g73)
It's also amazingly quiet, considering it's capabilities.
An excellent machine, though you should expect no less for that price tag

 

[Tikker]

yeah, the quiet factor has me really pleased. the dell wasn't too bad, but there was no doubt when the fans kicked in. this one doesn't seem to get nearly as warm as the dell did either, which is a pleasant surprise


I'm still trying to figure out their rationale in carving up the HDDs into 4 seperate partitions

 

[Petee_C]

g73jh review

Tikker, How's the keyboard on that machine? I'm contemplating a new laptop to help me edit some home HD video....

Thx,
P

 

[Tikker]

I really don't care for the chiclet style keyboards


there's still a bit of a learning curve I think, but I find that it doesn't really seem to keep up to my typing speed the way the Dell did

I'm not an exceptional typer by any means, but I have a really tough time maintaining over 50wpm with this keyboard. seems like the throw of the keys is much longer (or possibly just need to be more precise?) than any other keyboard i've ever used


spacing wise, the keys are fine, the numpad is a nice touch, etc


the touchpad is multi-touch too, which took some getting used to, but it's fairly responsive

the machine has a ton of whizbang, and i'm really pleased with it overall

I'd just kill to swap in my Dell's screen and keyboard/touchpad