Computer advice?

[Owlie]

That's one thing that's got me a little leery about Dell. Mine has those bottom-mounted fans, and it gets rather warm. (Someone smack the engineer at Dell, please!)
I don't mind the display thing--I've got my current computer on the highest possible resolution and I still want it a little higher.

DBF found me a few computers that are similarly spec'd to system 1 for $100-150 less (Toshiba, Acer, Asus). Many of these don't have separate video memory, though. I can't find anything comparable to system 3 in terms of processing power (the biggie for me) for the price. (I also just discovered I can add a backlit keyboard for $40...Or I can upgrade the display to 1080p for $150...) The standard lower resolution screen seem to be something people complain about, but I can't tell if they're "normal" people, or gamers. I'm also not sure that it's worth $60 for an extra 2GB of RAM.

[colorisnt]

I will just say it now as well, not a fan of Toshiba. Their quality may have improved, but they left a good friend of mine high and dry when her charger on her computer failed (Dell did this to another friend, too). It took them two weeks to ship her a new charger. My cousin's screen also crapped out after two months and they claimed she caused it so even though it was under warranty, she had to fight for two months to get it replaced. This was a few years ago, though, so it may have gotten better.

[colby]

Horrible problems with my Dell Lattitude 531, mostly an engineering issue. The cooling vents are on the bottom. The thing gets so overheated. I replaced the hard drive at 3 years because I had so many other problems, and it didn't really help. We're thinking it may be a motherboard issue. Yuck. Currently using 8 year old gateway laptop, has new hard drive and battery. Both crashed prior to the Dell purchase. Much higher quality machine than the Dell.

Dell laptops do seem to get hot and have just-adequate cooling. If you don't run your laptop all the time or don't live in a hot climate, things work better. I have heard others surprised at how hot their Dell laptops run after using other brands.

That said, I have had problems with my MacBook's fans failing and then the hard drive failing, so I guess nobody's perfect

[jacobadam]

I have been using HP computer. I didn't get any problem yet. I would recommend to buy HP PC and install some graphics hardware for more graphics support.