First Higher End Laptop - Thoughts?

Just ordered my first laptop not bought at either Best Buy or Tigerdirect. Let me know thoughts or opinions, please. Bought from Xotic

Sager NP8170 - Only selected options shown

Wireless Network Intel® Advanced-N 6230 - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module + Bluetooth (SKU - S8R111)
Primary Hard Drive 500GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300 - 16MB Cache)
Ram 8GB - DDR3 1333MHz Dual Channel Memory (2 SODIMMS)
Graphics Video Card ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD6990 2048MB PCI-Express GDDR5 DX11
Thermal Compound - IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Processor 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-2670QM, 2.2-3.1GHz, (32nm, 6MB L3 cache)
Display 17.3" FHD 16:9 "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright LED Glossy Screen
Operating System ~Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Installed

I figured I wanted something that I wouldn't have to worry about replacing for five years... for under $1500.00. Did I succeed?

 

Thanks for your business travismann!

You can definitely expect a good 5 years out of that laptop with the specs you've chosen. Later on down the road you could always look into upgrading to an SSD (when they don't cost an arm and a leg) which will just get more life out of it in my opinion.

 

5 years is a lil extreme! , def 3 years! . It might be good even in 5 years, but its a good idea to buy a laptop every 2 to 3 years to play current games at fairly high settings! I replace mine every year! I dont spend that much money more, just sell it and buy newer ones !

 

That is a good idea selling and replacing though. That would be the only way I consider buying another one within 2-3 years. Otherwise I just have too many other things in life I should be saving towards. Acroedd, how much money do you usually recuperate on average in a sale, percentage-wise?

 

I guess it's kind of like buying a new car if you plan on selling it after a few years and upgrading to a new one. To be honest, I've never had a laptop that was really worth selling after 3 years. My current laptop (Gateway P7811-FX) has been good to me the last 3 or 4 years, but gravity got the best of it... and even without the cracked side (only thing that really went wrong), it sells for $500.00 on a good day on ebay. Ah well, looking forward to getting myself a bit modernized!
And yes an SSD (or maybe the new momentus hybrid) is definitely on my "to get" list once the prices get a bit more reasonable.

 

The Momentus XT price will not get better than this.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/not...momentus-xt-500gb-sata-3-0gb-s-89-newegg.html

 

Looks good and i agree with Justin, get an SSD down the road you won't regret it! The 6990M should play your games medium to high settings for a good 2 years.

 

Gwilled - Wow that price is great on the Momentus... although I was thinking of waiting till the new model came down in a price a bit (apparently doubling the SSD size makes it 1.5X snappier). Although if I wait long enough, SSD prices get a bit more reasonable, it'll be a pretty easy choice to go with an SSD

 

I also get a new laptop every year and sell the "old" to get funds back. I usually get anywhere from 50-70% of its original price back (i got 130% back a few years ago for an 8 month old AW m17, but that was becouse prices actually went up for it and it was hard to get here back then, it was still a good deal for the buyer at a bit over 60% of the price of a new machine at that time).