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Thread ID: 129865 2013-03-17 10:20:00 Laptop recommendation Greg (193) Press F1
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1333125 2013-03-17 10:20:00 I'm really out of touch with the latest offerings, and I'll be wanting a new laptop soon. My current one has been great, recommended by Jen, but I'm itching to upgrade. Looking at the adverts I guess I can expect to pay around 1000 bucks, or is that unrealistic? I hope to have something with most bells and whistles, eg bluetooth, lightscribe optical drive, built in cam etc. I need enough processing grunt for modern games, with ram and graphics to match. Screen needs to be at least 15.6". I'll only consider Asus or Toshiba brands.

Thanks for any suggestions. 		Greg (193)
1333126 2013-03-17 22:58:00 Then buy the best spec'd Tosh or Asus in that price range. TBH you'll be looking at around $1200 for something with decent graphics.

Here are a few to look at.

www.playtech.co.nz

www.pbtech.co.nz 		wratterus (105)
1333127 2013-03-18 02:50:00 Asus

enough said 		GameJunkie (72)
1333128 2013-03-18 05:04:00 Thanks Wratts- either of those look good, and it kinda brings me up to speed on what to expect. Greg (193)
1333129 2013-03-19 04:46:00 Well here is my take on ASUS.

Last year, I bought an ASUS Transformer Prime. It had Wifi issues (mostly every unit had issues). Asus didn't really bother to fix this problem and just told everone to RMA it. RMA does absolutely nothing according to a lot of users on XDA. So I decide to live with poor wifi. Then 7 months later, my camera stops working (just google: 'green camera transformer prime' and you'll see how many have issues with it). So I thought I should RMA it some time. Then a month later I get LCD mura and dust under the screen. And finally on top of all that, while on holiday overseas, the tablet battery would not charge above 74%. Once I got back, I phoned and told them all the issues. They got me to send it in and they said they would fix everything. I asked about shipping and they told me I would have to pay for postage beacuse it was not bought in NZ. I sent it in. The status on the website shows it has been received. I was thinking I'd have it back in just over a week. Instead it took a month.

So I get it back, test everything. The camera was replaced, screen was replaced, motherboard was replaced (why didn't they just replace the whole thing??). Everything works fine, except the Wifi.

I was sick of the Wifi, so I decided to open it up and fix it myself. I did some similar stuff to what the guys on XDA did, and improved my wifi a *lot*.

Then about a week ago, I thought I should unlock my bootloader to install a custom rom. Then I found that my serial number in settings was 'unknown'. This means the technician didn't transfer my old motherboard serial to the new motherboard. I emailed them and they want me to send it back. I really don't want to do this again. And if I do, they will be the ones paying for shipping.

I don't think I'll be buying another ASUS product again. Stay *away* from ASUS in my opinion. Their design/build quality is nice, but their quality control and after sales service is just pathetic. I had a million times better service with apple. I sent an iPod in because I bricked it while jailbreaking, then in less than 7 days they send me a new one. They paid for shipping both ways even though I bought the device outside of NZ. 		sahilcc7 (15483)
1333130 2013-03-19 05:57:00 To be annoying I could point out if you bought it in NZ you could have gone back through the retailer under warranty and been covered by the consumer guarantees act and might have had a much better experience.
I know the transformer prime had a design flaw with the aluminium body causing poor Wi-Fi, the rest of it worries me a little though. I have a transformer TF300 and I think it's a great tablet but to be honest it doesn't get that much use or leave the house.
Mine has excellent Wi-Fi, better than my galaxy s3 by quite a bit.

To the OP You can get most of what you want for $1000 the main problem being graphics good enough for 3D gaming, that's what will push the price up. 		dugimodo (138)
1333131 2013-03-19 06:42:00 To be annoying I could point out if you bought it in NZ you could have gone back through the retailer under warranty and been covered by the consumer guarantees act and might have had a much better experience.
I know the transformer prime had a design flaw with the aluminium body causing poor Wi-Fi, the rest of it worries me a little though. I have a transformer TF300 and I think it's a great tablet but to be honest it doesn't get that much use or leave the house.


To the OP You can get most of what you want for $1000 the main problem being graphics good enough for 3D gaming, that's what will push the price up.

Yeah, I realized that I could have returned it to retailer if I had bought it here, but at the time I don't think it was out in NZ or the price was around $300 higher.

Mine also doesn't really get used all that much. I use it everyday for YouTube, and maybe a movie once a week connected via micro hdmi to the home theatre.

I guess the 7 inch form factor is far better. 		sahilcc7 (15483)
1333132 2013-03-19 07:47:00 Well here is my take on ASUS.

Last year, I bought an ASUS Transformer Prime. It had Wifi issues (mostly every unit had issues). Asus didn't really bother to fix this problem and just told everone to RMA it. RMA does absolutely nothing according to a lot of users on XDA. So I decide to live with poor wifi. Then 7 months later, my camera stops working (just google: 'green camera transformer prime' and you'll see how many have issues with it). So I thought I should RMA it some time. Then a month later I get LCD mura and dust under the screen. And finally on top of all that, while on holiday overseas, the tablet battery would not charge above 74%. Once I got back, I phoned and told them all the issues. They got me to send it in and they said they would fix everything. I asked about shipping and they told me I would have to pay for postage beacuse it was not bought in NZ. I sent it in. The status on the website shows it has been received. I was thinking I'd have it back in just over a week. Instead it took a month.

So I get it back, test everything. The camera was replaced, screen was replaced, motherboard was replaced (why didn't they just replace the whole thing??). Everything works fine, except the Wifi.

I was sick of the Wifi, so I decided to open it up and fix it myself. I did some similar stuff to what the guys on XDA did, and improved my wifi a *lot*.

Then about a week ago, I thought I should unlock my bootloader to install a custom rom. Then I found that my serial number in settings was 'unknown'. This means the technician didn't transfer my old motherboard serial to the new motherboard. I emailed them and they want me to send it back. I really don't want to do this again. And if I do, they will be the ones paying for shipping.

I don't think I'll be buying another ASUS product again. Stay *away* from ASUS in my opinion. Their design/build quality is nice, but their quality control and after sales service is just pathetic. I had a million times better service with apple. I sent an iPod in because I bricked it while jailbreaking, then in less than 7 days they send me a new one. They paid for shipping both ways even though I bought the device outside of NZ.

we're talking about laptops here

my Nexus 7 is made by ASUS, so is my laptop

the next generation after the first transformer prime fixed the wifi issue 		GameJunkie (72)
1333133 2013-03-20 07:14:00 I had great warranty service on my existing Asus machine. The hard drive packed a sad - can't recall all the symptoms. I couriered it to them and it was couriered back, at their own cost, in a week. Drive was replaced, as was the vid card which I didn't know was faulty. All good. Greg (193)
1333134 2013-03-21 08:56:00 Hmmm...my almost 18yr son has expressed interest in a gaming laptop for his birthday next month. I'm inclined to wait until the end of the year and give him one for Christmas/going to university as we did with his sister.

I know he has been looking at Alienware machines which IMHO are a bit over the top for a student. He is into gaming but has a PS3 which does the job extremely well.

So, is a flash drive really necessary? Standard HDs seem to be fine for most people. Opinions?

I'm inclined to spending the same money as Greg, $1000 or a bit more for a decent machine. This one from above certainly seems good although the SSD at 120GB is small compared with standard HDs. www.pbtech.co.nz 		Winston001 (3612)
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