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A Moderate Gaming Laptop
Berendas
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hey all, I am preparing to head off to college in the coming months, and as senior year is already half over, I find myself looking into laptop computers to take with me to college. My laptop WILL be used for schoolwork, but I would like a machine that can run games at least fairly well and I was wondering if Penny Arcade's community had any good suggestions.
I am a long time windows user but if feedback is overwhelmingly in favor of a Mac I may very well consider it. Also, I am not extremely well versed in hardware so building a computer is out of the question for me. My price range is around or under $1500. The computer that interests me most as of now is the HP Pavilion, specifically the dv7 series but I am open to suggestions.
Thanks in advance for any feedback :P
I am a long time windows user but if feedback is overwhelmingly in favor of a Mac I may very well consider it. Also, I am not extremely well versed in hardware so building a computer is out of the question for me. My price range is around or under $1500. The computer that interests me most as of now is the HP Pavilion, specifically the dv7 series but I am open to suggestions.
Thanks in advance for any feedback :P
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The video performance is competant. It's comparable to the X1950 Pro I had when I ran a desktop. It'll do NWN2, Titan Quest, etc. All at 1680x1050. It runs WAR at high settings just fine in PvE (although for keep sieges, it plays like a slideshow like almost everything else). I have zero interest in it, so I haven't tried Crysis, but it runs TF2 at high settings very smoothly as well.
It uses a 512MB 9600M GT for video. Note the M. Mine has 4GB of DDR2 800 RAM, and a 2.53ghz Core 2 Duo. It has a 320GB HD and runs Vista 64, and the price tag was $1600, shipped, after the upgrades.
I bought this as a stopgap. I hated my old iBook, and I wanted something with a high-res screen. That limits your options pretty severely in the laptop world. The same hardware in a Mac will run you $2500 + tax (and shipping; it's the 15" Macbook Pro).
As usual, if you like OSX, then you don't have much of a choice. Apple makes a quality product, but a good value for the money, hardware-wise, it is not. And if you want to game, well... yeah.
All in all, I bought this laptop because I wanted something that was competent for modern games, but I knew it wasn't going to be my long-term gaming platform. So I wanted something that, beyond being a competent gaming machine right now, wasn't going to me some massive, overwrought brick like most "gaming" laptops wind up being; I intend to keep using this for school for at least another couple years.
I have to say, I've been thrilled with it so far. I bought it back in August and have taken in back and forth to campus several days a week, and since I don't have a desktop anymore, I use it as my main computer at home, too. I highly recommend it.
Don't order the laptop bag if you get it, though. The one Sager provides is a piece of trash. The stitching is already coming out of it.
They're backordered on Best Buy's site but you might find one local. I searched in my area and two stores near me have them.
EditSpoiler for system specs:
Processor
Intel® Core™2 Duo Mobile
#
Processor Speed
2.3GHz
#
Display Type
WXGA high-definition widescreen TFT-LCD with Ultrabright technology
#
Screen Size
17"
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System Bus
1066MHz
#
Cache Memory
3MB on die Level 2
#
System Memory (RAM)
4GB
#
Type of Memory (RAM)
DDR2
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Hard Drive Type
Serial ATA (7200 rpm)
#
Hard Drive Size
320GB
#
Optical Drive
Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW
#
Optical Drive Speeds
2.4x DVD+R DL; 2x DVD-R DL; 8x8x8 DVD+RW; 8x6x8 DVD-RW; 5x DVD-RAM; 24x16x24 CD-RW
#
Direct-Disc Labeling
Yes
#
Digital Media Reader or Slots
Yes, digital media card reader
#
Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS
#
Video Memory
1GB GDDR3
#
Personal Video Recorder (PVR)
No
#
TV Tuner
No
#
MPEG
Yes
#
Built-in Webcam
Yes
#
Modem
56 Kbps* ITU V.92 *Capable of receiving 56 Kbps downloads. However, current regulations limit download speed to 53 Kbps.
#
Networking
Built-in 10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 connector)
#
Wireless Networking
Wireless-A+B+G+N
#
Bluetooth-Enabled
No
#
S-Video Outputs
None
#
Additional Audio/Video Connectors
HDMI v1.2
#
Audio
High-definition audio
#
Speakers
Built-in stereo speakers
#
PCMCIA Slots
None
#
USB 2.0 Ports
3
#
IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports
1
#
Parallel Ports
None
#
Serial Ports
None
#
Game Ports
None
#
Laptop Weight
Standard (more than 5.5 lbs.)
#
Battery Type
9-cell lithium-ion
#
Pointing Device
Synaptics touchpad with vertical scroll
#
Operating System
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit with SP1
Think about building yourself a nice desktop, I know I wish I did.
Unfortunately, it's a 17" with a "WXGA" screen (that's 1280x800... on a fucking 17") and it weighs 9 pounds.
That's one thing that infuriated me when I was shopping for laptops. Finding a good screen is a pain in the ass. You look at laptops, and it seems you have all these options. But then you cut out of the ones with shitty screens, and there's almost nothing left.
EDIT: Well, they advertise it as "WXGA high-definition widescreen TFT-LCD with Ultrabright technology." WXGA is 1280x800. WSXGA or WXGA+ is 1440x900. Apparently that idiotic *GA nomenclature has confused the sales department at Best Buy's website.
Netbooks are light, have fantastic battery life, and are just fine for taking notes and trawling the internet. They even run a surprising number of games, if you find yourself with a couple of hours to kill on campus. For ~$350, you can pick up something like an Eee PC or an Aspire One, leaving yourself with over $1000 to build a kick-ass gaming desktop. Having the best of both worlds is infinitely better than trying to wrangle a jack of all trades.
I move alot and live in some pretty cramped quarters, so getting a "gaming" laptop made a lot of sense to me.
Taking notes and writing papers at 800x480 with a ridiculously small keyboard is a real riot, too.
I currently live in a room where my futon takes up literally half the room, and I have a recording setup, three guitars, and an amp, and I still had no problem fitting my 2-monitored desktop in the room. Unless you're in a room so cramped that the bed takes up all of the space and the only way you can even use a computer is to have the monitor in your lap, a desktop really doesn't take up that much space. If you have a desk, the desktop really isn't going to extend it that much.
First off, why are you writing papers on your laptop when you have a powerful desktop, unless you absolutely have to do it all at the library or out of the room? Secondly, I've been using my Eee so far this year for all note taking and using it for taking notes in performances, and used it for everything involved when I went to NYC and had a reading for my show.
I haven't had any problems. I have giant sausage fingers. Unless you take really shitty notes and just dictate everything the professor says, the keyboard's not going to be a problem. As for the display... it's text. How much resolution do you need for text? I would rather have a smaller field of vision on notes I'm taking than carry around a 10 pound computer so I can take 30 minutes worth of notes.
My freshman year I got a gaming notebook to go to college with. My sophomore year it had turned into a shitty desktop that I didn't take with me anywhere. My junior year I decided to try taking it to classes again, because I would basically just go in and stay in all day, but then I had to bring the power cable with me, which added to the weight and lack of portability.
Now I have an Eee and a desktop I built myself. Much better
Why would you write a paper on the Eee when you have better screen real estate with the PC? I second Kate's suggestion - trying to combine functions will saddle you with a hot and heavy notebook that will be a pain in the butt to cart around, especially if you have to carry books at the same time. Better to get a cheap and light laptop. Given rates of laptop thefts in public spaces, this also minimizes your financial exposure. You'll get a much better gaming PC, too - if you're concerned about portability, you can always get a midsized ATX case or get one of the shuttle XPC barebones systems (being mindful about heat).
I'll second the "build your own and buy a netbook" option. Anyhow, you don't have to get an Eee. There are 10" Netbooks with larger keyboards, plenty big enough for note-taking, and that would leave you more than enough cash left over for a solid gaming rig.
Yeah, it's definitely 1440x900. I guess some of the very early models came with a 1920x1200 screen even though the box says 1440x900, but those are pretty much all gone now.
Regardless, I'm not about to throw another 50% of the laptop's cost at a comparable model just to get a higher res screen when I'm extremely unlikely to ever notice the difference. Hell, I could get a 23" 1080p monitor for the difference in price. It's just so damn cheap!.
I'm also unaware of how much traveling I may be doing when in college (I'm thinking of a semester overseas) so that is a definite plus to laptops I think.
That being said, thank you all for the speedy feedback. I will look into Gateways laptop line as well as Sager, though the misplaced control key would probably annoy me, but thats just me picking nits. Does anyone else have other laptops worthy of mention, or criticisms of HP Pavilions?
Or, you know, a 6 pound computer, that lets him take 3-4 hours of notes.
Also, if it's just text, which of these would you rather have?
This? or this?
Cygnus said he wants a laptop. He said he doesn't want to build a desktop. He reiterated that. A suggestion that he go buy a really, really shitty laptop that doesn't do what he wants, and then spend the rest of his budget on a gaming desktop isn't what he's looking for.
This isn't 2001 anymore; you can get a laptop that's a competent gaming system that isn't a giant, noisy brick with no battery life. Sure, they still make those, but there's no need to buy them.
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If you say you're unlikely to notice it, especially at the distance you sit from a laptop, you're kidding yourself. And portability is an issue. No doubt, it's a better gaming system than the one I suggested. But it's also 17" and 9 pounds. That's huge. A year from now, when some new game comes out, and the Gateway's 9800M GT amounts to a whopping extra 2 FPS compared to the 9600M GT, are you still going to want to lug that monster around to serve the non-gaming purposes it's not as good for?
Maybe even just spring for a damn MacBook, you know? There's a thriving indie gaming scene on the Mac.
But really, OP... just keep in mind that even if you only have $600 to spend on a secondary gaming PC, it would probably be faster, more upgradable, and more pleasant to game on than a gaming laptop. If you're dead set, though, I'd suggest looking for a laptop where the gaming least intrudes on regular productivity. You'll thank me a year from now when you wouldn't be playing the newest games on that hardware anyway.
He reiterated it after my post. What are you going for knee-jerk douchebag of the year here?
A lot of people say they want a gaming laptop. Most of the people here at some point in their life had a gaming laptop and thought they wanted one. I wanted one once. I would've said that I know nothing about hardware and couldn't build one of my own. I would've said that I was interested in portability and power. And I got a powerful "portable" laptop, and a year later on a tiny campus I was back to taking notes on paper or searching for an outlet in a room if I had two classes in a row with no time to charge the battery. Carying it around along with all my other stuff was a major pain. I had to be very careful in class about heat or else its fans would start making stupid amounts of noise.
Some people have very good reasons for buying into what should be a niche market of gaming laptops. For them it's a good idea. However, it's been my experience and the experience of everyone who I've known personally that gaming laptops start seeming like a mistake 6 months in, and the user wants to blow up their computer by the end of the year. I still am not sure I buy the size thing unless you're talking about more cramped then I ever want to think about. Even with my laptop I would normally put it on a desk when I was at home, and once the desk it already there a desktop can take up pretty minimal amounts of space. Moving around a lot... I've moved 3 times since this summer when I built my desktop, and it really hasn't been a huge hassle. And as for not knowing how to build... if you can read and instruction manual and plug things in you can build a computer. Check with someone on the parts to make sure they'll work together, but the actual building is pie.
I'm simply telling him that in my experience, a gaming laptop ends up being heavier and louder and having poorer battery life than you want, if you're just taking it to classes and doing some light work on it, and telling him that in my opinion a netbook/desktop split is preferable.
But go ahead and continue jumping on every post not made by you. It really does make you seem right.
For the record I'm packing a Samsung R560 15" which is a solid laptop. I never, ever use it for taking notes in a lecture (I got a pen & notepad for that) but if you're working on programming classes and using IDEs it can be a godsend when you don't have to shove files around and reset your environment configurations or whatever. Samsung have started shipping their laptops to the US (as their deal with Dell ended) so you might want to look at their product range, there's 2 configurations for the R560, the main differences being 1650x1050 + 9600MGT +320GB HDD and 1280x800 + 9600MGS + 250GB (which is what us poor UK people have to settle for, those Germans get the option of the nicer spec
Basically if you look past the shilling aspect of my post (not a Samsung employee, honest :P), the latest 15" laptops aren't really too bulky to carry around, and have fairly good battery life (4 hours on power saver). If you're attending lectures frequently then you're gonna be carrying it around 5-10 mins tops when you're moving from room to room. Hell, you could look at Dell's XPS line for the 13 incher (or any other 13 inch laptops), which a year ago was pretty decent laptop, even for gaming. Still, you will not get comparable gaming perfomance to a desktop for the same price, no questions asked. It's down to what you think you'll be using your devices for and you'll have to ask yourself if a laptop is sufficient for your needs.
I'm really not kidding myself. I set my two laptops side by side, ran the same level on Company of Heroes (that being the newest game the 6800 Ultra in my old laptop runs well) and couldn't tell the difference until I got unreasonably close (w.r.t. resolution, obviously effects and stuff were cranked way up on the new laptop). Screen resolution is way overblown as a selling point for laptops. Nor am I such a girlyman that three pounds is going to be a dealbreaker
However the biggest factor for me was price. The Gateway's bigger and less convenient, but it's also $600 cheaper than the Sager. I'll forgive a lot for $600. If I could get a higher rez screen with a comparable graphics card for a grand, I'd obviously jump on it.
And for what it's worth, the 9800M GTS in the Gateway is around 40% faster than the 9600M GT in the Sager, at least according to this. 'Course, it also runs hotter. If a small form factor and better screen is more important to you than pure performance and price then yeah, you could do a whole lot worse than that Sager.
According to that same site, it also consumes ~3 times as much power.
The Gateway is your traditional brick of a gaming laptop; big, heavy, bulky, low battery life, mediocre screen. The exception is that this particular Gateway is, remarkably, reasonably priced.
The Sager's smaller, lighter, with a better screen, better battery life, and still quite competent gaming.
We can go back and forth about this all day long, really. I think we've presented what Cygnus would need to know about them. Both laptops have a lot going for them. The question is cost vs. performance vs. longevity vs. portability.
Maybe.
I've never had it overheat or anything, and in normal use it runs rather cool, but when you've been gaming a while, this thing kicks off a lot of heat.
I picked up a lap desk for $15 from Barnes and Noble last night for that reason. I highly recommend one if you use the laptop at home at lot (mine is for playing games from my couch, for the most part).
http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/family/macbook?mco=MTE3MzM
I got the white 13 inch with the crappy graphics card (before they had the ones with the nvidia 9400 available). For a grand it's pretty decent. It'll run any current blizzard game with the supplied 1 gig of ram. You can get 4 gigs of ram from crucial for $40 and put it in yourself, this will help a lot. With more ram I'm pretty sure it will run stuff like left 4 dead and tf2, but since it shares the system ram its a no go off the bat. It depends on your definition of moderate gaming.
The Aluminum ones for $1300 are really nice, a friend of mine has one. If They had been available when I bought mine, I would have gone for one of them. Plus apple usually has educational discounts (around $100 off) and deals (their back to school one usually gets you a free ipod with any mac).
And if you dont like osx you can just allocate the majority of your hard drive to a windows partition.
For school though, I wouldnt buy anything else. 5-6 hours of battery life while using wi-fi, lightweight, very portable.
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs
It's 13", which is convenient, small, light enough to bring to class.
I got a 15", which is kind of big IMO.
The XPS is also powerful enough to play some decent games.
EDIT: MacBook, if you don't mind dual booting for gaming.
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http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/999668.html
There are major issues with the XPS1330 (and any other laptop that uses the same GPU, which includes the old white macbooks). I ran into these problems with my M1330 and had to go through a repair. Seems to have a very high incidence of occurance, so I wouldn't recommmend it.
Reading through that link, seems like a vocal minority had problems with it. Most of the posts are people saying they havent had any problems. Maybe they'll crop up soon, who knows.
My macbook with that gpu has been my primary computer since they came out (the week after they were released, early march 08). It downloads stuff/plays music all night, comes to work with me, runs my games and music when I come home (was doing lots of WoW alt-ing with it). Never had any problems with heat. Or really, any problems in general.
My old gateway laptop had a lot more power, but it was also 3 times the weight, had 2 hours of battery when it was new (lowered drastically after a few months) and had some hardware issues that luckily got fixed while under warranty.
I do like the idea of building a desktop for gaming and an Eee pc for taking to class, they are tiny but surprisingly usable. For a dorm with limited space I can see the appeal of one machine though.
That's basically when I'm going to upgrade.
I'm looking into this laptop. Not really a known brand (at least to me), but the reviews on newegg are solid.
This is the mid-model of a three model line. One model is $150 cheaper, but the processor isn't quite as well suited to the mobile environment. The other one is $150 more expensive, and is actually pretty impressive for the asking price. I may opt for that one when all is said and done.
Anyways, none of them are the greatest for taking notes for extended periods of time, but they do include a hardware switch that lets you choose power profiles on the fly (not amazingly impressive, but it saves you the few clicks it'd take you to do yourself).
That link was the easiest for me to find at the moment; there were many more that I found during my searching when it happened to me; the cases seemed to increase during the summer and hit a high point in August. An official Dell word on the issue.
(Edit: Non-official word)
Now, I don't know how far spread the problem is or if it'll hit everyone (probably not). My 360 still seems to be going strong, and we all know how the RRoD hits "every" console. Most of these computers may stay in good shape, and you can get a bios update that decreases the temperature tolerance of the computer (turning the fan on at lower temperatures to prevent the thermocycling that seems to cause the graphics issues) which will lower the chances of it occurring. I'm not trying to scare everyone away from these computers, I love the form factor and I like the graphics capabilities of it. However, I was looking for a work laptop for my masters thesis writing that would be reliable and be able to play WoW decently. When I purchased it in April there were no reliability issues reported online. In retrospect, I would have preferred to have something I wouldn't need to worry about and I even would give up the dedicated graphics chip for that purpose. But that's my usage requirements.
Just trying to provide extra information for anyone considering it.
And just to add a little bit of advice for the OP as well: make sure you get a decent mouse for your laptop for when you're at your desk.
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I want to bash it, because it's a Gateway, and therefore a piece of shit. Because it's a Gateway. And Gateways are shit.
Okay, it's fucking hideous, it's way too heavy, and I'd never want to carry that damned thing around.
But holy crap is that a good price for that hardware.
EDIT: I just specced out the Sager, too, and the prices have come way down. What I spent $1600 on in August is $1254 now.