<p>prospective business major, into just a few games (wc3, sc, cs, and maybe one or two more).</p>
<p>I want a 15.4 inch screen. I'd prefer 17 inch but the lightest one I've found is the very expensive Alienware Area-51 m15x at 7.8 pounds.</p>
<p>any brand is ok, as long as I've heard of it</p>
<p>at least 2.4+ GHz</p>
<p>at least 2G RAM</p>
<p>preferably 7200 RPM
preferably NVIDIA GeForce 8600, 8700, 8800, or other newer GeForces (512mb)</p>
<p>hard drive space doesn't matter, 120 gb is enough</p>
<p>I'm forgetting some specifications..I just want a good computer, preferably as light as possible. No budget restrictions, just nothing too ridiculous. I prefer 1,000-2,000 range though.</p>
<p>Also, which operating system do you recommend? XP, Vista, Mac OSX, Ubuntu?</p>
<p>Note: I've done my research, but I'd just like some CC suggestions :D</p>
<p>I'd say take the Asus hands down. Asus makes all their own parts, and it truly is a top notch gaming system. Dell has to outsource all their parts because they are not a parts manufacturer. With the specs you want on the Asus (upgrade from 250GB 5400rpm SATA to Seagate Momentus 7200.2 160GB 7200rpm S-ATA 300, and "upgrade" (downgrade?) to XP with all necessary drivers), you're looking at adding ~$210 to the $1299.00 sticker price at 1topcc.com.</p>
<p>I'm going to argue for the Dell since nobody has so far, and I own a M1530, so I'm bias of course.</p>
<p>I looked at the Asus specs and reviews though, and I am impressed.</p>
<p>However some things to consider:
Weight: even with the 9 cell battery the M1530 is slightly lighter than the Asus, not really too significant unless you're gonna carry it around
Asus: ~6.5lbs Dell: ~5.9/~6.3</p>
<p>Battery Life:
Asus: 2 hours + Dell: (w/ 9cell) 3.5 hours + on high performance setting
And I could probably squeeze ~4 hours using power save mode and vista battery saver</p>
<p>I got my M1530 during the Grads and Dads sale where it was a steal, if you wait I'm sure they'll have even better deals coming up.
The resolution on this is ridiculous, it goes up to 1920 x 1200, but I like to keep it at 1680 x 1050.
It's really nice to watch movies on though. =)</p>
<p>Thanks!
I heard the CD rom in Dell's M1530 is noisy - any truth to it?
Which one do you guys think is more stable? I'm planning to use it for 4 years. (I don't want to buy those 3 year warranty plans.)</p>
<p>I've tested the dvd drive out a few times and to be honest I didn't notice it until you mentioned it.
I just popped in a DVD to watch a movie to test it out, and there is noise as with most disk drives, but it definitely isn't "noisy."
Definitely less noise than my desktop disc drives, if that's what you're afraid of.</p>
<p>I'm sure both notebooks are stable, but I'll just comment on the one I actually own. =)
I've only had it for a short time, but I think the Dell is very solid and feels like it could survive 4+ years.
The cover (I got midnight blue) has this nice rubberized material similar to my cellphone.
The keyboard has this awesome brushed aluminum surrounding it.
The touchpad could be bigger and I wish it had a disable switch like I've seen on some HP laptops, but I'm probably going to use a notebook mouse as soon as I get one.</p>
<p>Another happy M1530 owner here. I did have a problem with a noisy disk drive, but one call to dell and they had a tech out here to replace it the next day. Plus, when you buy an XPS from Dell, you get priority support based in Phoenix, instead of having to struggle with the techs in India or the Phillipines or wherever they are these days.</p>