Laptop

[Vampyr]

I just started my first Semester at the University of Kentucky, and I need a laptop. Badly. I havn't been able to log on the internet much at all lately (as you may have noticed), and it's a pain to try and walk to a library every time I need to do my homework.

So I've begun searching for a laptop, and it's a little annoying. Buying one at Best Buy, Circuit City, or CompUSA is pretty much out of the question. There just aren't enough options, and very few the laptops they offer have a graphics card on par with what I want.

I know there are some very computer savvy people here, and I wanted to ask for a bit of help.

I want a good gaming laptop, first of all. I'm not taking any consoles with me to school, and this will be my only platform for gaming.

I'd like it to roughly meet these specs:

Processor:
Intel Duo Processor (fast enough to game, whatever that would be)

Display:
15.4 inch Widescreen

Graphics Card:
This is the main problem I'm having. I -don't- want shared memory on the graphics card. I want dedicated. The best I can find is 128 MB dedicated memory, is that good enough?

RAM:
At least a gig.


That's pretty much what I need. I've never owned a laptop before, and I have no idea what brands are good. Would anyone recommend, Toshiba, Sony, HP, or Dell?

[Jonbo298]

Something like a GeForce 7 seriesGO graphics card would work fine. Not sure on what kind of lappy to get. Don't drop down 3k on a laptop just so it can game. Accept the fact it wont play games at the best settings and that it will do "decent".

[Happydude]

Something like a GeForce 7 seriesGO graphics card would work fine. Not sure on what kind of lappy to get. Don't drop down 3k on a laptop just so it can game. Accept the fact it wont play games at the best settings and that it will do "decent".
what he said.

on the other hand, if you do have the money: www.alienware.com

[KillerGremlin]

I hate dell but damn, my Inspiron has been doing me no bad.

Sager makes nice laptops. That would have been my ideal laptop. Also, the asus w3j is pretty bitchin.

if you have the money you can get a dell XPS....alienware is owned by dell so i recommend you just get the Dell XPS series or seek another company for a gaming laptop that is of higher quality. honestly, i've never been overly impressed by alienware.

[Happydude]

well...i think...alienware ownz YOU! :bonk:

[Neo]

Why hello there, I thought for sure you were bleeding in a gutter somewhere.

[TheSlyMoogle]

Hey Zach, Long time buddy.

I got my laptop from Dell and I love it.

I was able to get a ATI Radeon 256 MB Graphics card, and I can run any game I want.

You can customize the laptops online.

My Specs:

2.20 GHz processor

120 GB Hard-drive

256 MB ATI Radeon Mobile Card

2 GB of RAM

15.4 inch screen with some fancy coloring thing that was 100 dollars extra, but it's nice.

There was some other stuff.

It all came out at about 2500, but I got the best I could. I love it.

[Vampyr]

Why hello there, I thought for sure you were bleeding in a gutter somewhere.

Close.
I started college and havn't had a computer in forever.

Hey Zach, Long time buddy.

I got my laptop from Dell and I love it.

I was able to get a ATI Radeon 256 MB Graphics card, and I can run any game I want.

You can customize the laptops online.

My Specs:

2.20 GHz processor

120 GB Hard-drive

256 MB ATI Radeon Mobile Card

2 GB of RAM

15.4 inch screen with some fancy coloring thing that was 100 dollars extra, but it's nice.

There was some other stuff.

It all came out at about 2500, but I got the best I could. I love it.

heey! I thought -you- were dead in a gutter somewhere. :P Pretty sig.

I ended up getting a HP laptop, which I am playing with for the first time right now.

17inch Monitor
256 MB nVIDIA Graphics Card
2GB RAM
200 GB Hard drive
2.0 AMD Processor (x2)

I'm enjoying it very much.


Thanks for the advice, guys. I didn't drop 3k on it, just about 2k, and it's still pretty kick ass.

[Jonbo298]

How good is the battery life on something like that? Can't be all that swell

[Vampyr]

How good is the battery life on something like that? Can't be all that swell


Not that awesome, but the idea was go get a desktop replacement that isn't a big deal to take back and forth between college, and something I could tote down to the library for printing purposes. battery life was nothing I ever really needed.

[Spasmolytic]

Vampyr, you're not going to find a decent gaming laptop for a decent price at a retailer like Best Buy or Circuit City. I've looked and the best I could find cost $2k-$3 for a GeForce Go 7400.

The reason why the prices seem to be jacked up is hard drive size. Also, retailers must not see a high market in gaming, because even their best laptops have pretty mediocre graphics cards.

Just recently I bought a laptop (in fact, it's still being shipped) from ibuypower.com (http://ibuypower.com/mall/lobby.htm). It's cheaper than Alien Ware and has higher grade graphics cards than retailers.

The first laptop I picked up was a Compaq with specs that looked better than my PC. Alas, I found that it could not play any game above Diablo II... simply because it was using an ATI Radeon Xpress 200m. It's not a bad card, but it's definately not intended for gaming. Most laptops of a decent price at Best Buy will have the x200m or equivelant.

When buying through ibuypower (or alien ware with some extra cash) you can get a GeForce Go 7600 (256 dedicated) on a laptop for about 1.2K. Now, that includes a good processor a gig of ram, and a reasonable 80-100GB of HD.

For more information on specific GeForce Go cards, go here. (http://www.nvidia.com/page/mobile.html)
For More information on specific ATI Radeon Mobility cards, go here. (http://www.ati.com/products/mobile.html)

If you're willing to put down the $2k-$3k, I still wouldn't suggest going with the bigger hard drive or choosing Alien Ware (unless you trust the brand or would appreciate the status accompanying owning such products). Rather, I would suggest looking into the GeForce Go SLI Dual 7900 GTX shown here (http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_learn)
. This card boasts 1GB video ram! There's also a Quad card with 2GB of ram, but I think that may be PC exclusive... and if it was for the laptop, I'm sure it'd have a ridiculous pricetag (Strangler got a PC version for something like $4500, with PCs running cheaper than laptops).

Here's (http://www.ibuypower.com/ibp/store/configurator.aspx?mid=172) an example of a laptop with the Dual Geforce 7900.


Edit: ****, didn't see you already bought it. Oh well. Maybe I'll consider erasing this and saving you from knowing you could've saved $800 :p

[GameMaster]

THIS is a laptop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vjb_LqYOMw