Gaming Laptop

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trinibwoy

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Need some advice fellas. Just got word that I'll be taking a little trip to India later this year (around September I imagine) to head up a project there for an "indefinite" period of time. This was just the excuse I was waiting on to justify purchasing a gaming laptop.

I've never really looked into them and was wondering if you guys had any advice. Is there anything new on the horizon I should wait for? Which manufacturer has the best value/support etc ?

I'll be primarily playing WoW (assuming I have a free internet connection in the hotel) but would like enough horsepower to catch up on those 1-2 year old RTS and FPS titles I've been neglecting.

Any advice much appreciated :)
 
satein said:
If you are strong and having non-limited budget... try this Dell XPS M2010 :devilish:
http://reviews.cnet.com/Dell_XPS_M2010/4505-3121_7-31898796.html
It's 20" LCD Laptop with ATi Mobility X1800.
Click to expand...

CNET didnt seem to impressed with it. How about the M1710? It's $1000 cheaper, has a faster GPU, and is 10 pounds lighter! I have no idea why someone would buy the 2010 :???: I doubt that X1800 mobile is gonna be able to push native rez on a 20 incher.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/resultscompare.aspx/notebooks?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&a=6422~0~28027&p=xpsnb_m1710~xpsnb_m2010~
 
I want a Toshiba gamer. MauiMom just got a Dell Inspsiron on sale for around $500 and she HATED IT when it came so much that she shipped it up and returned it and went out to OfficeDepot and bought a Toshiba for $449 and added 512MiB of memory for another $30 and it is just a gorgeous little bargain laptop.

The Toshibas just looks sooo much nicer than the Dell's do, IMHO.
 
Toshiba is the only choice that makes common sense these days. They've got great stuff, for a great price. And they offer a very good choice.

And I would suggest a 15.4" screen with a resolution of 1200 * 800 for the best overall experience.
 
She got the 14" widescreen, but it's just freaking gorgeous!

It was slow as hell with the 256MiB (<- for Rys) it came with, but since she added another 512MiB it's all zippy and nice.

She can even tap into my network wirelessly when she comes over now, I gave her a WEP key to our network. Makes exchanging files oodles easier and I finally got my portable 30GiB USB HD back. :LOL:

A really nice little laptop even though it ain't a gamer, my wife is seriously considering one so she could watch movies at work on it.
 
You might want to wait until August if you can for the mobile Core 2 Duo.

Also, the MX1800 is not slower than the go 7900, though the go 7900 gtx is faster.
 
Yeah, I would definitely wait for Core 2. 20" seems a bit much considering laptop GPUs aren't exactly desktop ones. I wouldn't get anything bigger than 15.4", personally, just b/c they're on the outside of conveniently portable, but I suppose that and 17" will be your targets. I consider 14" the outside edge of nicely portable.

Core 2's supposed to come out at the end of July, according to Tech Report, so you should have time to snag one. I'd probably want a 7900 over a X1800/1900 for power draw, but I don't know how ATI's mobile solutions do on that end. (The X1800 may not be so hot with AoE3, though, if that's something you're looking forward to.)

I've also heard Toshibas are good, but I've only got experience with one fairly low-end Cel M 15.4" model (no complaints for the price). I'd check to see if Dell or Tosh or whoever you buy has warranty support in India.

Also, 20lbs for a laptop? :oops:
 
My own personal laptop will be a DTR, I won't care if it's 30-40lbs so long as it's got the power I need.

I know I'm in the minority on that, but that's just how I feel. I'll trade size and convenience for power/storage/battery life any day.

Besides, the heavy ones are cheaper...you pay a good premium for all that light and thin goodness.

But this one is for my wife, so I'll recomend to her to hold off a bit because better/stronger/faster/more for cheaper is coming out soon. She understands that concept with computers and has come to realize that I'm getting pretty good at knowing when the right time to buy what is.*


*(Thanks to all the kind folks here who have taken the time to answer all my questions and a whole lot of other folks at a whole lot of other places who share that same kind attitude about helping people learn. My most heartfelt thanks to you all, I really do appreciate it and damned near on a daily basis think of it and make sure to take a moment to send some silent thanks. :) )
 
ANova said:
You might want to wait until August if you can for the mobile Core 2 Duo. Also, the MX1800 is not slower than the go 7900, though the go 7900 gtx is faster.
Click to expand...

Pete said:
Yeah, I would definitely wait for Core 2. 20" seems a bit much considering laptop GPUs aren't exactly desktop ones. I wouldn't get anything bigger than 15.4", personally, just b/c they're on the outside of conveniently portable, but I suppose that and 17" will be your targets. I consider 14" the outside edge of nicely portable.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. I'll have to do more research on the MX1800 and toshiba offerings. Pete, for me size doesn't matter :LOL: - performance and value are most important. I'm one of those people who only needs a portable on long trips, I'm not going to be lugging it to work each day :smile:
 
Heh, I was just thinking of using it in an airplane, but if it's going to be sitting on your desk, then I guess the extra desktop real estate would be nice. You'd want to account for the panel's scaling in games, though. Dunno how good that looks, or if it varies greatly b/w high-end laptop screens.
 
Btw, what is doing the stretching nowadays? The GPU, or still some hardware in the panel? I would guess the GPU, as it's in the control panel.
 
Pete said:
You'd want to account for the panel's scaling in games, though. Dunno how good that looks, or if it varies greatly b/w high-end laptop screens.
Click to expand...

Yep, that's the #1 reason I don't own an LCD for my main rig. But when it comes down to it, if a game is taxing enough to require toning down the rez I'll be playing it on my main machine anyway.

Does anyone have an idea when should we expect the next round of gaming laptops to surface based on upcoming Merom chips? Should we expect them as options in configuring existing products like the 1710 from Dell upon release?
 
One other thing you should consider:
To Glare or not to Glare? I.e., do you mind a glare type display?
Myself, I can't stand them. I don't care about the contrast when you can use the thing as a mirror in not-so-perfect lighting conditions...but YMMV.
 
Well I bit the bullet after stacking up a 30%, 12% and 5% coupon and 18 months interest free financing on a Dell 1710. My first and only experience with Dell support has been good - had a question during checkout and was able to text chat with a representative immediately who took care of it.

Looked into the new Toshibas but the general consensus on notebook forums is that the service and support is quite sub par and keyboard layout leaves something to be desired (even though it retains the keypad unlike Dell so some may prefer that). Also, upgradeability on the Toshiba's seems to be very questionable (what's up with zero configurability on the high end laptops?).

Moving to Merom on the Dell if necessary seems to be very easy though I doubt I'll ever need to. But the final nail in the coffin was the relatively low 1440x900 native resolution on the Toshiba at a comparable price point - $1999 before tax and shipping on the P100-ST9012.

All in all I got the following config for $2110 after tax and shipping but before 5% discount (puts me somewhere around net $2000):

17" 1920x1200
Core Duo 1.83Ghz
Go 7900GTX 512MB
1GB 667Mhz DDR2
60GB HDD 7200
24x CD/DVD Combo
Soundblaster Audigy (Software)
Windows XP Media Center
3 yr Warranty

Snyder said:
One other thing you should consider:
To Glare or not to Glare? I.e., do you mind a glare type display?
Myself, I can't stand them. I don't care about the contrast when you can use the thing as a mirror in not-so-perfect lighting conditions...but YMMV.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, good question. Guess I'll find out soon enough.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Why did you get a 1920x1200 screen for a gaming laptop? You're going to have to run at a reduced resolution if you want framerates in the double digits.
 
ANova said:
Why did you get a 1920x1200 screen for a gaming laptop? You're going to have to run at a reduced resolution if you want framerates in the double digits.
Click to expand...

Not really. First of all, it will not be my primary gaming machine - still have my desktop A64/X1900XT for the heavier stuff.

Secondly, it is pulling over 60fps in Quake4 at 1920x1200 2x8x so it should be fine for the things I plan to throw at it - http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.aspx.

Also, the GPU is upgradable so hopefully it will be possible to swap in a next gen mobile part if things get too choppy in the future. I'm not sure if it's possible to upgrade laptop LCD's but a GPU upgrade would certainly be the more affordable option. The Toshiba resolution was far too low in any case and all of the factors mentioned above IMO far outweigh any compromises I may have to take regarding limiting laptop play to less recent titles since it will be a secondary machine in any case.

The thing I'm most concerned about is the reported inferior LCD quality and other display issues affecting some Dell laptops.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yeah, a little odd that you list all the specs of this gaming laptop except for the GPU. :smile: GTX or GS?

2.5hrs battery life isn't bad considering a Thinkpad T23 gets the same (Netburst: good times).

A full kybd would've been nice. Not an issue?
 
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