New Laptop

Budget:
[2500 or less]

Expectations:
[I would like a laptop that will last for a few years.]

Usage:
[Some gaming, mainly internet and email, multitasking]

Special Needs:
[Not comfortable doing upgrades myself so want a machine that won't need to be upgraded for sometime.]

Saved Ticket #: [1269856]

Specifications:
[Please Type Here]

Does the Avon have better screen quality. What would you suggest in a 17.3 model.

Thank you for your response.

Originally posted by wenatachii Does the Avon have better screen quality.

Not having seen either of them, I would wager the Avon has the better screen simply because of the higher resolution, but, as mentioned, that resolution causes a high price in the ability of the graphics card to push all the pixels at an acceptable frame rate.  Even with a 980M, if you want this laptop to last a few years and play most current games at High-Ultra settings, I would recommend a 1080p screen.

Originally posted by wenatachii What would you suggest in a 17.3 model.

Of the 17.3" models, I would go for a Harker myself, especially as right now it appears to be the only 17.3" model available other than the SLI Behemoth, which is older chassis model and more expensive.  Other 17.3" models may become available again.  Someone at DS would have a better idea of what's in the pipeline.  They're likely out of stock on parts, and so are not offering others at the moment.  That happened to me when I was ready to buy my Krypton last year, and all I had to do was wait for the parts refresh for them to offer it again.

Here's solid base configuration: 1270893

You want to focus on some essentials with the laptop when making the initial purchase in order of importance:

1) Best GPU you can get, even if it's questionable whether you can afford it.  In this case, I wouldn't settle for anything less than a 980M.  Upgrading a laptop GPU down the road is a questionable and very expensive proposition, so get the best you can now.
2) Best or close to best CPU you can afford.  Same caveat as above regarding upgradeability.
3) OS drive must be an SSD, and the biggest one you can afford.  An SSD is the single greatest performance boost with current PCs.  They blow platter drives out of the water.  If you can get one big enough to install all your games, all the better.  250GB minimum is my recommendation.
4) RAM should be 16GB minimum these days and that will also last you quite a while with little need for an upgrade.  You can upgrade to 32GB if you want later, but the slots to install that upgrade are harder to get to than the slots that are taken up by the 2 8GB SO-DIMMs already installed.
5) 2nd data/game drive.  SSD if possible and recommend 1TB.  If you can't afford it now, you can buy the platter drive like I have in the suggested configuration above and upgrade later.  Upgrading either of the 2 drives is the easiest upgrade you can perform on a laptop other than the pain of reinstalling an OS or copying over the data from the old drives, but it's easy even for one who's not very technical.

Hope that helps.

Originally posted by wenatachii Very helpful Thank you.

You're welcome.  I don't know if I'm the laptop guru around here, but I think I'm the laptop evangelist.