Another Notebook Thread

Hey guys,

I'm looking to purchase a laptop sometime this summer (ideally in the next month or so unless something intriguing is coming out before August). Basically I'm looking for something which is quite portable (13" or 15") while still having a lot of power and some style. I was looking at the new MBP lines but have no real use for OSX and the additional price to add Windows 7 makes this a bit high.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/...goryId= 16154

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/newg...d=40989&img=21

I was looking at the Sony Vaio Z, with nice resolution, light, i5 or i7, and a SSD. I would likely configure it with an i5 (from what I've read the i7 is only a ~5% boost) and 6 GB of ram to a price of ~2100. The only downside is no blue-ray but I'm not really interested in using this for movies, but more for something easily portable with some gaming use.

Does anyone have any experience with Sony's or have another other suggestions? I'm going to visit the local Sony store in a few days but doubt they will carry any high-end computers here. This is a big purchase so any comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

so - a $2000+ budget? That's allot of cash to spend on a laptop my friend. If your situation at all allows I would get a nice portable $800 laptop that will do all you need it to and then spend the other $1200+ on a kick arse gaming desktop that will be unbelievably nicer for gaming.

.....just what I would do if it were my cash

I actually already have a desktop for gaming. It's about 2.5 years old but still nicely handles anything I play on it. For PC gaming I pretty much have been sticking to TF2 lately, so its actually a bit of overkill for that. I'm not sure if I'll be taking it with me when I move later this summer (can always ship it later, and frankly toning my gaming down might do me some good).

Yeah it is a large budget, but I find when I but tech stuff I tend to do a bit of overkill (for better or worse), allowing me to not even have to think of upgrading for at least a few years and not really be missing out.

I'd say that Sony is a quality product. The only bad thing about them is that they tend to get a bit proprietary about things, meaning that they tend to want you to have to go to Sony for anything, even drivers. But unless you intend to change the OS or modify things, that wouldn't be a problem.
I'd also say that, like Apple, you tend to pay a bit extra for the name, but no biggie.

Here's an interesting Toshiba (same quality as Sony/Apple)
http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/produ...b2d2fba 8en02

and it's in stock. (maybe even in a different color.)

<---- note the location.