Bought myself a new laptop

[grislyatoms]

Portable desktop might be a more descriptive term, though. It's heavy and huge. Had to re-image my little netbook; it now belongs to kiddo.

Asus G75VW-BBK5
17.3-inch laptop (I can actually see without squinting or glasses)
LCD resolution of 1920 x 1080
8GB of memory
1TB hard drive
Intel Core i7-3610QM 2.3GHz processor
Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M 2048MB
Windows 7 Home Premium
memory card reader
4 USB ports
HDMI port

From Consumer Reports. Took advantage of the Father's Day sales but I'll be sucking down ramen for a bit paying for this...

[Perd Hapley]

Portable desktop might be a more descriptive term, though. It's heavy and huge.

That's the kind I want. A guy who used to own an Osborne told me it wasn't portable; it was luggable.

[erictank]

'Tis the season, I guess - just plunked down way too much on a slightly-more-powerful machine in the same class as you, Grisly. Same CPU, 16 GB RAM, 750GB (7200rpm) HDD, Blu-ray writer drive, GTX 670m (only 1536MB - base video card for this model), Win Home Premium (w/ $15 upgrade to Win8 Pro - not sure if want  ), card reader, etc.; a Sager 9170 from Xotic PC, online. Single biggest cost increase was for the 17.3" 1080p high-gamut screen - I figured if I'm gonna do this, let's get the stuff I can't change right the first time. Sager actually has user-replaceable video cards, so if I want (and can find) one of their GTX 690M cards next year, I can put it in myself. I'll eventually put a mid-sized SSD as primary/OS hard drive and the current hard drive (or a larger one) as secondary, but I can do that myself, too, and couldn't spend for that on top of the other stuff. Two hard-drive bays plus optical bay? Gotta love large cases. And it still only weighs a little under 9 pounds, not bad at all, considering.  Of course the power brick is probably another 2+ pounds...

G75VW-BBK5 - is that a Best Buy model? I'd read they were going to be selling the G75 (I had thought about getting one of those, before deciding on the Sager), but haven't seen one in person yet. Enjoy it - it sounds like a VERY nice machine. Did ya get the "afterburner" lights in the rear vents? 

My netbook will become my stepson's homework machine, so I guess I'd better wipe and reload the drive.

[Ned Hamford]

My new laptop should be coming in tomorrow.  I spent a lot of money that could probably have gone to much better places. 
But the financing was great!

[grislyatoms]

'Tis the season, I guess - just plunked down way too much on a slightly-more-powerful machine in the same class as you, Grisly. Same CPU, 16 GB RAM, 750GB (7200rpm) HDD, Blu-ray writer drive, GTX 670m (only 1536MB - base video card for this model), Win Home Premium (w/ $15 upgrade to Win8 Pro - not sure if want  ), card reader, etc.; a Sager 9170 from Xotic PC, online. Single biggest cost increase was for the 17.3" 1080p high-gamut screen - I figured if I'm gonna do this, let's get the stuff I can't change right the first time. Sager actually has user-replaceable video cards, so if I want (and can find) one of their GTX 690M cards next year, I can put it in myself. I'll eventually put a mid-sized SSD as primary/OS hard drive and the current hard drive (or a larger one) as secondary, but I can do that myself, too, and couldn't spend for that on top of the other stuff. Two hard-drive bays plus optical bay? Gotta love large cases. And it still only weighs a little under 9 pounds, not bad at all, considering.  Of course the power brick is probably another 2+ pounds...

G75VW-BBK5 - is that a Best Buy model? I'd read they were going to be selling the G75 (I had thought about getting one of those, before deciding on the Sager), but haven't seen one in person yet. Enjoy it - it sounds like a VERY nice machine. Did ya get the "afterburner" lights in the rear vents? 

My netbook will become my stepson's homework machine, so I guess I'd better wipe and reload the drive.

That sounds like a nice machine as well! Never heard of Sager.
The guy at Best Buy (you were correct on the model ID) tried to talk me into an Alienware machine for twice the price. Alienware used to mean something until Dell got ahold of them.
Enjoy it!

[AmbulanceDriver]

Definitely something in the air I think. I also just replaced my laptop that cratered itself.  Went w/ the HP DV7 6C23CL from Costco.  Pretty good bang for the buck I think...   AMD A8 Quad Core processor, Radeon HD 6620G graphics, 6GB DDR3 (which will be getting upgraded to the max of 16GB post haste) [GRR!  Just saw that the info Costo had posted on the sale information for this laptop was wrong, it's a max of 8GB   although interestingly enough, the Crucial memory scan tool shows that the max is 16GB....   odd....], 750GB 5400RPM HDD, 17.3inch screen, gigabit ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n, as well as bluetooth.  One cool feature is the fingerprint scanner, i can just swipe my finger past the scanner and log on to the computer as well as different websites.  Kinda nifty feature.

[grislyatoms]

My new laptop should be coming in tomorrow.  I spent a lot of money that could probably have gone to much better places. 
But the financing was great!

0 interest through June of next year via Discover card, for me. I'll have it paid off well before then, though. <knock on wood>

[grislyatoms]

One other nice little feature - 0 bloatware.

[lupinus]

Upgraded my two or three year old Acer with an HP DV6. Decent price and good specs...only thing I've encountered has been it tends to run a little toasty when playing certain games. Nothing sticking it on top of a chill pad didn't fix.

[never_retreat]

Wish I had this just as a conversation piece.

[Boomhauer]

Couple months back I brought a nice Toshiba at Wal-mart...not the lowest level but the next step up. Works well for internet/basic office tasks/photo editing. I didn't need it for anything fancy (don't computer game anymore) so it works well for me. Previous laptop lasted 6 years so this one should be good for a while.

[erictank]

That sounds like a nice machine as well! Never heard of Sager.
The guy at Best Buy (you were correct on the model ID) tried to talk me into an Alienware machine for twice the price. Alienware used to mean something until Dell got ahold of them.
Enjoy it!

Oh, I'm quite sure I will. 

Sager is a brand I see ads for all the time in PC Gamer and Maximum PC; I did a search online and turned up Xotic PC as a reseller/rebuilder (they take laptops from MSI, Asus, Sager, and others and have factory authorization to do warranty-covered mods) with an excellent reputation, so I poked around a little, learning about the different brands and options and finally pulled the trigger. I pretty much chose the Sager because I at least have the possibility of being able to upgrade the graphics later with it, whereas pretty much everyone else solders the graphics card onto the laptop motherboard - that, and I could get the other options I wanted. The order was just confirmed yesterday, which started production - they're saying it could be up to 3 weeks to build, test, and ship (and possibly another week for UPS Ground), so I won't have it for a while, unfortunately. One disadvantage about not buying from the local store.

Agreed on the Alienware bit. I used to LOVE their hardware; over the years, I bought two desktops (back-to-back) and my first laptop (the next computer after the 2nd Alienware desktop) from them, and all were at or near the top of the curve. The laptop was bleeding edge the day I bought it (so, it was 2 levels down within 6 months...  ). It seems to me that, yeah, they fell off a cliff when they were acquired by Dell. Now you're paying a premium price for mid-grade systems - pass, thanks. They had pretty good customer service back in the day, don't know what it's like now.

[Ned Hamford]

Alienware customer service, like everything but their production, is run by Dell. Nothing special about their towers, but I still am a big fan of their laptop design.  Sometime today my 2nd laptop from them should be arriving.  Given how they are overpriced, you can actually ask to speak with a sales manager and haggle.  I got a few hundred off on top of coupons.  And no interest financing ain't too shabby either.

:Ned feels special having a leather bound user manual:

[grislyatoms]

Couple months back I brought a nice Toshiba at Wal-mart...not the lowest level but the next step up. Works well for internet/basic office tasks/photo editing. I didn't need it for anything fancy (don't computer game anymore) so it works well for me. Previous laptop lasted 6 years so this one should be good for a while.

Toshiba makes good products. I have a 250MB flash drive made by Toshiba I purchased 3-4 years ago. It's been dropped, stepped on, had water splashed on it, etc. and still runs just fine.

[grislyatoms]

Wish I had this just as a conversation piece.

May I interest you in a few of these?

[grislyatoms]

[grislyatoms]

 

[never_retreat]

I remember those things laying around the house when I was a kid. My father worked for digital for 20 some years. I used to use the big reels of tape to attach my younger brother to a tree.

[birdman]

I remember those things laying around the house when I was a kid. My father worked for digital for 20 some years. I used to use the big reels of tape to attach my younger brother to a tree.

Same, and same!  Are all older children of DEC employees cut from the same cloth?!

[grislyatoms]

Are y'all looking at it closely? That's a 200MB five platter HDD. Look at the quarter I put on it for comparison. No tape, there, but I follow the sentiment.

[never_retreat]

Same, and same!  Are all older children of DEC employees cut from the same cloth?!

Must have been Digitals frivolous use of hardware.
In high school I had pc's the make the other kids jealous.
I remember my father dimming the lights in the neighbor hood when he would try to power some of those big ars computers at the house.

[birdman]

Must have been Digitals frivolous use of hardware.
In high school I had pc's the make the other kids jealous.
I remember my father dimming the lights in the neighbor hood when he would try to power some of those big ars computers at the house.

In elementary school I used his vt220 and their office vax to do all my papers before I got a real computer.  Well, and played a lot of BBS games.

When he was doing his field service rotation I'd get all the broken stuff...never got a multichip module from a 9000 though...which is what I really wanted :(

[never_retreat]

In elementary school I used his vt220 and their office vax to do all my papers before I got a real computer.  Well, and played a lot of BBS games.

When he was doing his field service rotation I'd get all the broken stuff...never got a multichip module from a 9000 though...which is what I really wanted :(

I had a vt220 also, used to go into the bbs's direct with a 300 baud modem.