New Laptop - Is it best to wait till financial year clearance sales?

• 

  humdingaling on 21/04/2012 - 21:52

  +1

  Australia takes way too long to pass on savings from new technologies so i would go with end of fin year
  look how much we are still paying for last generation tablets
  transformer one is still being sold for 400 bucks without dock

  for laptops…extra considerations to put in
  battery and portability
  HDD size does matter and more importantly….SSD or not SSD

  anyway good place to look for general pricing in AU ….onlinecomputers.com.au
  if in sydney can save on shipping charges

  can pick up some monster gaming laptops for around 1k
  http://www.onlinecomputer.com.au/product_info.php?products_i…

  **edit
  apparently ivy bridge is only days away anyway lol

• 

  Splashtash on 21/04/2012 - 22:17

  Thank you for your help :) I shall look into those sites right now :D

• 

  evol on 21/04/2012 - 22:43

  +1

  If you're not in a rush for a laptop, you really should wait for Ivy Bridge. It's supposedly launching in the coming weeks . The average performance benefit is 5-15% overall, whilst the new Intel HD 4000 gfx is significantly better than the old HD 3000 of Sandy Bridge. No point in spending $$$ on tech that's going to be "outdated" in a month.

  http://www.arnnet.com.au/article/421839/intel_first_ivy_brid…

  Also for your needs anything from $600 to $2000 could easily fit the requirements you outlined. You should also think about factors such as weight, battery life, input/output functions, usability (eg. is the keyboard/trackpad any good), general brand reliability and warranty etc.

  Personally I'm a Lenovo Thinkpad fan, as I think they're very solidly built laptops (best keyboards I've ever used too) at great value prices especially when on sale. Thinkpads are more aligned to the business use part of the market though, although they still have pretty decent multimedia features.

  • 

    Splashtash on 22/04/2012 - 09:21

    +1

    apologies for the down vote, was sposed to be up vote, my android phone is small ≧▽≦

• 

  Splashtash on 21/04/2012 - 22:59

  Yes i know how well lenovo's do as my partner has had one for like ova 5 years and still running solid!!! They seem quite durable ey. But there not really good for much gaming i think and they seem more expensive ~_~"

  I read somewhere that ivy will only improve like 3% somewhere , maybe its old or un-trustworthy.non the less i think i might just wait but usually the new tech laptops are really expensive, i might just wait for the older models to go on sale.

  thanks bro for the heads up , really appreciate it!

  • 

    scrimshaw on 22/04/2012 - 00:45

    +1

    I read somewhere that ivy will only improve like 3% somewhere

    From what I've read, Ivy Bridge isn't that big of an improvement on the CPU performance, its mostly the enhanced IGP (graphics performance) that's being hyped, as well as the lower power consumption.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_%28microarchitecture…

    • 

      evol on 22/04/2012 - 03:56

      +1

      From this preview by Anandtech:

      Based on these early numbers, Ivy Bridge is pretty much right where we expected it on the CPU side. You're looking at a 5 - 15% increase in CPU performance over Sandy Bridge at a similar price point.

      Hopefully all things being equal, the same performance increase will scale across to the mobile laptop processors too. But yeah definitely one of the main improvements from Ivy Bridge is the new integrated graphics chip.