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Console or Gaming laptop?
Solphrae
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Registered User regular
Hi im Solphrae, and ive been a nintendo fan for many years now, but im just sick of it all now, theres no good action games, and some of them they do have suck balls. i think i need to move on to something better, but i have a problem. ive always wanted a gaming laptop, for trips, airplane rides, and just being able to go into my room and just search the web, not to mention the cool mods and games on a pc, such as crysis, company of heroes, Dawn of war 2, free games, and a whole lot of other good stuff. but, it would probaly be cheaper to just get a console, but that removes portability, but controllers, exclusive games, not having to worry about viruses, no need to spend a bunch of money on some video cards and shit. but i dont no what i really want, i got some money and its enof to maybe buy the next generation console (8th) but a laptop has alot of programs, mods, (plus the before mentioned portability) so i want to know, what is your opinion on this. Should i save up money to get a gaming laptop (the one im looking at is 1200 dollars) or a console (which are usually 200$-600$).
"Were not retreating, were advancing, towards FUTURE victory"
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(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
As for consoles, it really depends on which exclusives you want. The 360 gets more action-oriented exclusives, and the PS3 seems to get, uh, different stuff. I personally have a 360, but I'm tempted to get a PS3 for Little Big Planet, MGS4, and Killzone 2.
Personally, were I in this situation, I'd grab a 360. It's cheaper, so you can get a few more games and set up a LIVE subscription. Plus all my friends have one so...
Or yeah, buy a DS :P
And a laptop!
There we go.
Gaming laptops aren't usually that great (or at least they weren't, I've been out of the loop for a couple of years). Aside from not being able to upgrade them, they're very expensive for the performance you get from them, and they usually have other problems like a relatively short battery life (which isn't too handy for gaming on the go if you haven't got a plugpoint nearby). Even if you love your strategy games like Dawn of War, I'd probably suggest getting a desktop before going for a gaming laptop.
Consoles have the benefits you described, but they aren't portable. If gaming on the go isn't as big a deal, you might be better off here. Whether you decide to go console or PC though largely depends on what games and genres you're into. No point in getting a PC if you're heavily into Halo. Likewise a console's pretty useless if you're an RTS fan. Good gaming level PC's (desktops, not laptops) are generally cheaper now than they have been in the past, but it's still going to be more of an investment than a console. Although if you don't already have a PC then it's not so much of an issue since you have to get one anyway. Likewise if you do have a PC at the moment and it's decent enough that you can spend a bit of cash and upgrade it.
Getting back to handhelds though:
The DS is good, plenty of platform and action games on there, but in general the titles are more and more "mainstream" oriented. Not that there aren't a lot of good titles for heavy gamers, but I think the emphasis of the platform has shifted a little. Not that it matters much because there's a huge back catalogue of really good titles to choose from.
Although from what you describe I honestly think a PSP would suit you. It's got some pretty good action games and RPG's on there, it's portable, and it also does well as a media player on the go, so that means movies, clips, music etc. The graphics are are pretty awesome for a handheld system. The main issues with the PSP are battery life and load times due to it having what's basically a mini CD drive on it. There's also a bit of a dearth of titles, but that's been really improving over the past year, and the coming year is looking even better for titles, so the PSP is seeming a much more viable platform than it has been in the past.
Well, it's possible that the next gen consoles will be hitting by 2011, but it's not really guaranteed. Right now nobody's even talking about next gen, and the current consoles have only just about hit their stride.
As for Sony, well the service is free but realistically it's not as all encompassing as XBL is. If you're worried about subscription costs then I guess it can't be helped. But while XBL is a paid service, for your money the service is pretty impressive.
With regards to any next generation Wii console, well if you're fed up with Nintendo's console this generation and where it's going, odds are that you'll probably feel the same with whatever comes next.
A lot of companies have a hard enough time developing for the current gen platforms - the expense is already prohibitive. No one's talking "next gen" right now, and I'll bet it's because they're afraid of the cost.
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No kidding. Development teams have already gotten as large as they feasibly can, and you can't simply extend the working week any further when people are burning out after a few years as it is. Increasing development times and budgets on games aren't really an option either.
I'm pretty certain that's at least part of the reason the DS has been such a huge hit, and that games makers are moving more onto handheld and mobile platforms. You're seeing more major franchises getting proper releases on the DS. The userbase is huge, the production costs are extremely low by comparison to the home console market, but the games still sell for roughly the same pricepoint as main console games. The games need smaller teams, have smaller production values, and don't need to sell as much to break even.
The Wii has this as well, except that there the devs are usually competing with Nintendo, and it doesn't work out as well for them.
The online infrastructure is already really well-established and the hardware is not the best but it's good enough that there's no real need to upgrade, so the only next-gen kinda console I can see happening is a HD wii.
MOAR POLY GONES!
Although I think that Nintendo could do with spending some serious time on their online architecture.
Get a DS. $100, or a little less if you find a used one.
Then take the money that you saved, go to outlet.dell.com, and buy a certified refurbished laptop. I bought an Inspiron 1420 with an Nvidia chipset for $500 this way. It's not going to play any newer top-end games, but it will play some older games (HL2, Civ4, WoW, etc.) and it's sure as hell a lot better than an EeePC. (I'm of the strong opinion that EeePCs suck and refurb laptops from Dell or Lenovo are the way to go.)
Or, if you don't need the portability from the laptop, build (or get somebody to build for you) a solid gaming PC. $900 will get you a decent low/mid-end build, a good monitor, and enough money left over to kick back the guy who builds it for you a pretty nice tip.
With the money left over, either go hogwild on games, or buy a console. You'll be swimming in so much gaming goodness you won't know what to do with yourself.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
If you are buying desktop parts from newegg you can just get the OEM versions of Windows for significantly less. 130 for XP Pro and 90 for XP Home.
Actually Nintendo has the least reason to update. They are making really stupid amounts of money now. I mean like analysts expect them to make as much this year as Sony made in their game division from the launch of the PS1 to the launch of the PS3 kind of money.
Also why would you need 200fps unless you are playing on a PC and would like the game to keep up with your leet turning skills. On a console 60 fps should be more than enough to keep up with dual analog controls. And why kind of TV do you have anyway?
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
This is a kind of sore subject for this forum. There are a lot of people who have been burned by bad gaming laptops in the past, and don't understand there are good ones now. There might even be people who think because they can't afford something nobody should ever buy it. There are also tons more good opinions and reasoned, helpful posters -- but they can be hard to hear over the threadspam sometimes.
First keep in mind to use any gaming platform you'll need another few hundred dollars for games.
I suppose the best advice depends on you. If you're a college student who only has $50 to spare every month, get a DS. That won't meet your needs from the original post though.
For a bit more money, you could get a DS and a netbook. You'd be limited to games that can run on the DS -- fun but not really what you asked for in the OP -- and then the netbook is good for surfing the web and whatnot.
There are no small gaming laptops, that I've seen. Expect any gaming laptop you buy to be large and heavy, and to need you to provide room for cooling air-flow with a cooling rack or pad, or even a couple of books under the laptop positioned so you don't block the air vents. Not that bad once you get used to it. Just don't expect a netbook-sized gaming machine.
I'll assume the OP asked about a gaming laptop because you can afford a gaming laptop. ("Should I save up" doesn't necessarily mean that saving would take three years at $50 a month -- we don't know the OP's situation.) If you really do have a significant number of hours per week you can game but can't use a TV and gaming console, and if you really do think you'd enjoy full-budget $40-per-title PC gaming a lot more than DS gaming, then the gaming laptop is absolutely worth it. If you're considering buying this just to show off occasionally or only for use in airports or on airplanes, that's more difficult to endorse.
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But there's a catch, gaming laptops are goddamn expensive and you get least power for your buck.
My recommendation:
1) get a DS
2) get a desktop PC for the rest. It will play all the multiplatform console/ PC titles way, way better than on consoles
-- OR --
3) get 360 AND a PS3 for the rest. You'll have all the multiplatform console/ PC titles + console exclusives!
Eitherway it's still a win-win scenario (DS + desktop or DS + 360 + PS3).
Then, with the money you saved, get an NDS and/or PSP, and a bunch of games.
You can get a netbook or decent laptop that's reasonably portable for less than $800 or whatever, but if you get a gaming laptop you either have to spend substantially more, or sacrifice portability.
I say get a laptop (for anywhere between $500-$800), and an NDS or PSP. Or get a netbook ($300-$500) and an NDS or PSP.
Gaming Laptops are a "bad deal" because you have to pay extreme expense for them, and their mobile videocards tend to not be that great, and you sacrifice portability of the laptop; and then just a few months later you realize that the price you paid for this system ($1200, $1400, $1600, whatever) can now be had for hundreds of dollars less. It just makes you feel remorseful. And especially so when you try to run Crysis or Bioshock or whatever and it just doesn't run as well as you'd expect given the specs of the laptop. Remorse big time.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Bought a high-end laptop, tried to get portability and power (for gaming).
Got a Core 2 Duo T7600 @ 2.33 ghz, 2 gigs of DDR2, and a "256 meg" Geforce videocard built in. Sounds great, right? Well, it runs most modern games "okay-ish" on Low to Normal settings at fairly low resolutions. Hardly ideal for PC gaming. I spent well over a thousand dollars on this sucker (2 years ago).
What should I have done? I should have bought a netbook ($300-$500) and then upgraded my home PC for $400. Then I would have had a very portable laptop for at most $500, and a computer that could run games vastly better than my current laptop for $400. I would have ended up saving myself hundreds of dollars in the process. Hundreds of dollars I could have, potentailly, bought an NDS or PSP with (luckily I already have both).
But the moral of the story is: trying to get a "portable" gaming laptop is expensive and you end up with not so great a system, when you could have saved yourself a lot of money by upgrading the desktop, getting a portable non-gaming laptop, and even after all this , you'd not only be able to run games better (on teh desktop) but you'd also have money to spare to buy an NDS and PSP and even a couple of games. And still come out having spent less than on a "gaming laptop."
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I would never consider taking it to school, on a backpack and lugging it around everywhere.
edit- $600 is recycling drives and input devices
It's compact, sturdy, not too heavy, and it has good if somewhat modest performance in recent games like L4D, DOW2, Fallout, etc. It's several hundred dollars more than an equivalent Asus or Acer notebook but you'll get decent resale because it's an Apple.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
but saying a gaming laptop is NEVER appropriate? What, are you saying people who want portable PC/console gaming need to buy a BenHek machine, or strap an LCD and a Shuttle case to their back?
THAT is the worst possible idea. First runner up is "you want to play PC games on the road? NO YOU DON'T. UNPOSSIBLE."
Edit: (also, I should point out, having a thread where the reply count is almost equal to the view count is NOT a recipe for high signal-to-noise ratio. Apparently only one person looked at this thread and decided not to post. Hopefully a lot of people will read this thread and say "my opinion is already well represented here. This is not a poll thread, so I'll pass.")
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It also allows me to do work on it. Its not a one trick pony like a console.
If you are a person who likes playing games and wants a laptop for mobile working time, get a gaming laptop. In addition there are a ton of older games for the PC that are absolute classics that you can get for cheap. Baldur's gate, etc. Not to mention freeware and mods for those older games.
In terms of hours per dollar of entertainment a computer is a much better investment than a console or a handheld.
If you are a hard core gamer (whatever that means) get a nice desktop that can crank out those graphics and sounds, etc.
If you want something just for gaming, a console may be cheaper and better depending on what your friends have.
If you want something you can use for work and for games, and don't want to spend alot of money on games, get a gaming laptop.
Edit: In addition I take my laptop with me everywhere. Its heavy, but I am big enough to lug it around. If you are conscious about weight, don't get it unless you are going to throw it in your backpack or something. In my laptop bag when I go to the airport it can hurt my shoulder a little, my girlfriend would die carrying it.
If someone really wants to take HD games on the go, just about the only answer is a gaming laptop. I ask: Is it worth it? Aren't there alternatives that could save you hundreds of dollars?
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
True, true.
Desktop PC parts are damn cheap these days and outside of Crysis @ 1600x1200 nothing taxes even 1 year old GFX cards.
I travel a lot though and use it for work.
Its true an older machine can play those older games, so getting one is a good deal if you don't feel the need for newer games.
The battery life can be an issue so I do need to find plugs when I am playing a game, but just using word/spreadsheet I can get about 2.5 hours out the battery before it dies.
And it weights a fucking ton, like half an elephant, believe me.
GREAT gaming laptop is just a snobish replacement for a GREAT gaming desktop. "Oh look, I can play Crysis on my 20-inch HP DRAGON laptop but it weights 20 kilos and I can't even lug it around so it sits on my desk, 99.9% of the time"
If you want a computer to play games, get a desktop. Laptops are meant for work purposes only.