Whens the best time to buy a gaming type Win 7 laptop?

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Squilliam

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I was wondering about when the best time would be to buy a Windows 7 gaming type laptop. Im in two minds here, theres a part of me which says that a Core 2 duo+ HD 48xx and Windows 7 will be great, but theres another part which says that maybe a Clarkdale 32nm and an HD 5xxx series part would be better in Q1 next year.

Is it worth waiting for the new technology? Im not really in a hurry so WWB3D (What would Beyond 3d do?)
 
There's never a best time. When you finally drop the hammer, another few months later there will be something even more awesome for the same or less cost.

Personally, I wouldn't drive my decision solely on Win7 (although I love Win7, it's the OS that you will want surely.) For myself, I'd be very interested in ATI's newest RV8xx-based mobile chips with all the power improvements they've made. I'm not sure if I'm nearly as interested in the Clarkdale setup, mostly because they'll be pretty expensive in the first go-round. A decent Core 2 Duo should do just fine IMO
 
HP Envy 15 if the reviews say yes (currently it's more of a no, 6-cell = 80mins), nothing else if battery doesn't go over 150mins.

I'm considering a E15 + 9-cell slice (2k USD) as I'm in a BFA course (as opposed to BEng/BSes- those would do fine with CULV :p) and offline 3D rendering is a hobby along with TF2. :LOL:

The E15 is quite a huge deal if the touchpad and battery issues work out, since you have expandability into the future (6GB/16GB DDR3) and an awesome chasis build quality that IMHO MSI/Asus/the minority boutiques can never offer.

i3/i5 will likely hit the battery/space target much easier, as with the mobility 57XXes.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
digitalwanderer said:
Yes, very much yes! I think I'm still under NDA as to why I say that, but a very emphatic "WAIT!!!" from me. :yep2:
Click to expand...

Acknowledged sir.

Silent_Buddha said:
Well considering you've waited this long, it might pay to keep an eye out for laptops featuring Dx11 GPUs... ;)

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

Im a chronic waiter! Theres always new technology over the horizon, and one thing I have always had interest in for mobile platforms would have to be touch screens. Windows 7 + Touch screen is an interesting combination for me at least.

Albuquerque said:
There's never a best time. When you finally drop the hammer, another few months later there will be something even more awesome for the same or less cost.

Personally, I wouldn't drive my decision solely on Win7 (although I love Win7, it's the OS that you will want surely.) For myself, I'd be very interested in ATI's newest RV8xx-based mobile chips with all the power improvements they've made. I'm not sure if I'm nearly as interested in the Clarkdale setup, mostly because they'll be pretty expensive in the first go-round. A decent Core 2 Duo should do just fine IMO
Click to expand...

Its the only way I can convince myself to finally go with a laptop. If i bought now and missed out on the DX11 goodness I may very well kick myself. I guess I want it all for battery life, performance and cost.

Tchock said:
HP Envy 15 if the reviews say yes (currently it's more of a no, 6-cell = 80mins), nothing else if battery doesn't go over 150mins.

I'm considering a E15 + 9-cell slice (2k USD) as I'm in a BFA course (as opposed to BEng/BSes- those would do fine with CULV :p) and offline 3D rendering is a hobby along with TF2. :LOL:

The E15 is quite a huge deal if the touchpad and battery issues work out, since you have expandability into the future (6GB/16GB DDR3) and an awesome chasis build quality that IMHO MSI/Asus/the minority boutiques can never offer.

i3/i5 will likely hit the battery/space target much easier, as with the mobility 57XXes.
Click to expand...

Thats pretty interesting. One thing i noticed with the laptops I test drove at shops is that they have much better touch pads than 3-4 years ago. Its like the call to finally have a decent size pad has been answered...
 
digitalwanderer said:
Yes, very much yes! I think I'm still under NDA as to why I say that, but a very emphatic "WAIT!!!" from me. :yep2:
Click to expand...

Well, I was going to buy a laptop this week for the purpose of doing OpenCL and OpenGL development on the road. The GPU I was considering was one of lower end 40nm mobile GT 2xx (210/220/240 etc). Now I am confused after reading your reply whether I should really buy one right now.
 
Sorry, you mentioned the "GT 2xx (210/220/240 etc)" and I just felt I should clarify that I have no clue what is up with those. :oops:
 
I bought the HP dm3z . The set up I choose was the AMD turion neox2 1mb cache 1.6ghz radeon hd 3200 256meg card with the radeon hd 4330 (it will switch between the two) 3 gigs of ram , 250 gig hardrive it cost me $660 with free shipping before tax. At that price i couldn't say no. Dx11 may come early next year or so , but honestly laptop gaming sucks so bad that in my price range (sub $800) i'm not goin to be able to get something that will actually play a dx 11 game at resonable speeds for at least another year. Dropping $660 means in 2 years I can allways just buy another one and get those benfits.
 
eastmen said:
I bought the HP dm3z . The set up I choose was the AMD turion neox2 1mb cache 1.6ghz radeon hd 3200 256meg card with the radeon hd 4330 (it will switch between the two) 3 gigs of ram , 250 gig hardrive it cost me $660 with free shipping before tax. At that price i couldn't say no. Dx11 may come early next year or so , but honestly laptop gaming sucks so bad that in my price range (sub $800) i'm not goin to be able to get something that will actually play a dx 11 game at resonable speeds for at least another year. Dropping $660 means in 2 years I can allways just buy another one and get those benfits.
Click to expand...

How is your feel of the laptop so far? How is the battery life and day to day stuff?
 
Battery life is okay. About 2 hours for streaming sex drive over netflix . I can get about 4 hours of just surfing and i'm able to play most games at native res with medium settings. So far RE5 and Crysis are two games that kill the system and get me sub 20 frames at native res.

I like it so far. If you have more money to spend you can get the intel verison with the geforce i think its a 105m or 110m . Pretty low end and comparable with the 4330. But your looking at $750 with the cheaper intel chip. and the geforce is allways on while the 4330 is switchable on the fly with the hd 3200.

I like it , I think its worth the $660 I paid before tax on it. As long as I can play sw tor on it , i'm happy. I never really need more than 2-3 hours of battery life anyway. I'm hoping someone comes out with a bigger mabye 8 cell battery for it.
 
Thanks! So that is not a big improvement over regular laptops in terms of battery life. I am now eying an Asus K50AB (Turion x2 RM-75 2.2ghz, Radeon 4570, 15.6'', 6lb definitely-not-ultraportable) which is just $650 on newegg right now (CAD 699 here in Canada).
 
codedivine said:
Thanks! So that is not a big improvement over regular laptops in terms of battery life. I am now eying an Asus K50AB (Turion x2 RM-75 2.2ghz, Radeon 4570, 15.6'', 6lb definitely-not-ultraportable) which is just $650 on newegg right now (CAD 699 here in Canada).
Click to expand...

battery time is going to be really bad on that.


Remember though its going to have a bigger battery but hte life should be much worse though gaming will be much better.
 
eastmen said:
battery time is going to be really bad on that.


Remember though its going to have a bigger battery but hte life should be much worse though gaming will be much better.
Click to expand...

Yeah battery life is likely going to be pretty bad and its going to be a pain lugging it around daily weight-wise too :(
 
if you want something portable you should really look at the dm3z or even the dm3t with the geforce line up. It wont destroy the newest games but it does well with most games. Left 4 dead 2 is running really well (demo) seems with medium settings at default res i'm getting above 30fps and no stuttering.

ALso the 4330 is the 4570 just diffrent clock speeds. So you can clock your 4330 up more if you want to try and make up performance diffrences


Asus also has a dm3z type machine coming out that you might like a little better
 
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