Buying a gaming laptop help?

[LightningBanks]

My time to go to uni is creeping every so closer (almost only a year to go) and I wanted to get a laptop before then, rather than take my ginomerous pc with me. And, as you can tell from the title, I play games on pc, and want to get a gaming laptop.

I know building one is cheaper etc etc, and It may come down to this, but lets put this aside for this post, just focus on buying one.

I dont neccesarily have a budget, just the ,more expensive=the more work Ill have to do, but Im not particualry knowledgeable in the gaming laptop area.

So I ask the escapist, help me pick gaming laptops out?

Im looking for quite a good one, one that will last a few years without being unable to play new games (When I say this, I mean unplayable on the lowest settings, I understand that running games onultra high in a few years time with the same graphics card is almost impossible). It would be awesome to have one that could run modern games on medium-fairly high atm., Im not too fussed on Ram and hard drive (as long as theres enough RAM), just processor and graphics card.

Any help is brilliant, graphics card suggestions, both budget and expensive options, any contributions at all are exremely helpful. Im gonna have to do some serious saving to get this, and I dont wanna get screwed over

ADDED INFO: Ive been looking at alienwares recently, any thoughs on the m11x, m15x and m17x?

 

[Hiphophippo]

Trust me here. If you want a laptop for gaming buy an ASUS G73. They both cost less and are more powerful per dollar spent than Alienwares. In fact, with an Alienware what you're buying is the name.

Spoiler: Long ass link

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?_dyncharset=ISO-8859-1&_dynSessConf=4252907937509925708&id=pcat17071&type=page&st=asus+g73&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960

 

[Hiphophippo]

I dont wanna get screwed over

gaming laptop

worthless image[/quote]

I'm sorry. How is wanting a laptop for gaming funny? Mobility is important to some people. My laptop both runs everything I've ever thrown at it on ultra settings, never gets hot, and cost a hair over a thousand bucks. Sure, I paid a premium for that mobility but for me and the life I live it was worth every penny.

 

[nexekho]

I'm sorry. How is wanting a laptop for gaming funny?

It's outdated in next to no time, likely to be unreliable, with hardly anything user-replaceable, and likely has such a useless battery life that you might as well just use a desktop. There is no way to buy a powerful laptop and not get screwed over.

 

[Hiphophippo]

I'm sorry. How is wanting a laptop for gaming funny?

It's outdated in next to no time, likely to be unreliable, with hardly anything user-replaceable, and likely has such a useless battery life that you might as well just use a desktop.

Desktops are as outdated as laptops are in the same time frame.

It runs perfectly 100% of the time. Calling it unreliable is totally baseless on your part.

I can replace anything on it I want, if I want. Though I'm not opposed to buying a new one in a couple years.

Runs for about an hour on full settings playing a game. Not long. However, you may not know this, but I can take my powe cord with my laptop wherever I go. Crazy right?


Any more baseless claims? Like I said, I paid extra for this mobility, but it was worth it.

 

[nexekho]

Desktops are as outdated as laptops are in the same time frame.

It runs perfectly 100% of the time. Calling it unreliable is totally baseless on your part.

I can replace anything on it I want, if I want. Though I'm not opposed to buying a new one in a couple years.

Runs for about an hour on full settings playing a game. Not long. However, you may not know this, but I can take my powe cord with my laptop wherever I go. Crazy right?

Any more baseless claims? Like I said, I paid extra for this mobility, but it was worth it.

Mate, I used to own a moderately high end laptop, and buying it was a huge mistake. It was laugably underpowered within two years, and I couldn't just pop in a decent graphics card to correct this. And then said graphics card started to hit heat issues and self destructed days after the warranty ran out. If you have to plug it in, it's just as tied to a desk as your desktop is. You can't replace anything you want on it, when you want. The CPU and GPU are integral to the cooling system and are typically BGA'd straight onto the motherboard. You're talking out your arse.

 

[Hiphophippo]

You're talking out your arse.

I'm talking from personal experience. But that's fine, think what you like. My laptop is most certainly not as tied to my desk as a desktop just because I have a power cord. It takes me 5 seconds to pack up and move my entire system to work, a friend's house, or the local coffee shop. How long would you figure it would take to pack up a desktop and a monitor to do the same thing? I've ran ASUS laptops for years and never once had a problem. Just because -you- did doesn't mean gaming laptops are a farce. Technology has advanced and continues to advance pretty at an astounding rate. The only difference is the size and price.

As a man with a disposable income I don't mind paying a little extra for the luxury of taking my computer to work with me.

 

[Angerwing]

Desktops are as outdated as laptops are in the same time frame.

It runs perfectly 100% of the time. Calling it unreliable is totally baseless on your part.

I can replace anything on it I want, if I want. Though I'm not opposed to buying a new one in a couple years.

Runs for about an hour on full settings playing a game. Not long. However, you may not know this, but I can take my powe cord with my laptop wherever I go. Crazy right?

Any more baseless claims? Like I said, I paid extra for this mobility, but it was worth it.

Mate, I used to own a moderately high end laptop, and buying it was a huge mistake. It was laugably underpowered within two years, and I couldn't just pop in a decent graphics card to correct this. And then said graphics card started to hit heat issues and self destructed days after the warranty ran out. If you have to plug it in, it's just as tied to a desk as your desktop is. You can't replace anything you want on it, when you want. The CPU and GPU are integral to the cooling system and are typically BGA'd straight onto the motherboard. You're talking out your arse.

I can buy a Quad core AMD Phenom 2.2ghz processor HP with an ATI Radeon 6550 Graphics card, 8GB RAM, and 640GB HDD for just under $AUD700.

Sure, you can replace parts in a desktop. That's a major advantage. But you can't take a laptop to university, to work, to a friends place. If you want to have a LAN party at a mates, it's a hassle. I can do whatever I want on my computer, whether I'm in bed, or in the main room watching television with my roommate.

Yes, desktops are definitely better than laptops in terms of computing strength, but there are advantages to laptops, and gaming laptops aren't as useless as they used to be.

 

[Wilko316]

http://www.digitalstormonline.com/gaminglaptops.asp

These are only for quite a large budget but these are amazing laptops for all your gaming needs.

 

[nexekho]

and gaming laptops aren't as useless as they used to be.

Well, the only people I know in person who have bought gaming laptops found them to be noisy, roasting hot machines which have started to have intermittent failures in under six months. You can't pack power into a small form factor, it just doesn't work. And they were a LOT more than $AUD700, this is Britain, the equivalent costs roughly £700 if you're willing to put up with an Acer!

 

[LightningBanks]

I'm sorry. How is wanting a laptop for gaming funny?

It's outdated in next to no time, likely to be unreliable, with hardly anything user-replaceable, and likely has such a useless battery life that you might as well just use a desktop. There is no way to buy a powerful laptop and not get screwed over.

*conviently points to laptop he is currently using, A sony viao, now around 3-4 years old, costing £700 on purchase, ran games perfectly first few years, and has now been upgraded with a £100 graphics card and can now, once again, runs things perfectly*

I think if my brothers laptop can last this long, then thats actually overkill on how long I expect mine too last. And my friend has an alienware (curse him *shakes fist*) that hes had for a while now, at least 2 years id say, and it still runs things great.

Also, I need the mobility, if you would have read my post, you may have picked this up. Therefore your info is unhelpful

I think your opinion can be boiled down to 'I WAS SCREWED OVER, AND I AM BEST. THEREFORE, EVERYONE WILL GET SCREWED OVER, HERRR'

 

[nexekho]

Successful troll!
(although that doesn't change the fact I'm yet to see in person someone buy a gaming laptop and not have it meltdown, where exactly do you think all that heat is going hmm?)

 

[Fidelias]

Alright, so my experiance is, don't get an Alienware, and don't get SLI.

Alienware computers have a problem with they're bios or something, and they continually screw up. Trust me, I'm using one to type this right now. Plus, the tech support sucks. I had to call and harrass them for 3 MONTHS before they allowed me to send it in for repairs, and when I got it back there was a NEW problem.

Oh, and SLI sounds cool, but it causes a lot of problems in games, especially older ones.

But I don't really know about this sort of thing outside of personal experience.

 

[LightningBanks]

Successful troll!
(although that doesn't change the fact I'm yet to see in person someone buy a gaming laptop and not have it meltdown, where exactly do you think all that heat is going hmm?)

Im guessing the whole sony vaio paragraph didnt sink into your head?

 

[GrimHeaper]

You cannot buy a gaming computer or laptop.
You can only build one or buy a built one.

 

[Treblaine]

My time to go to uni is creeping every so closer (almost only a year to go) and I wanted to get a laptop before then, rather than take my ginomerous pc with me. And, as you can tell from the title, I play games on pc, and want to get a gaming laptop.

I know building one is cheaper etc etc, and It may come down to this, but lets put this aside for this post, just focus on buying one.

I dont neccesarily have a budget, just the ,more expensive=the more work Ill have to do, but Im not particualry knowledgeable in the gaming laptop area.

So I ask the escapist, help me pick gaming laptops out?

Im looking for quite a good one, one that will last a few years without being unable to play new games (When I say this, I mean unplayable on the lowest settings, I understand that running games onultra high in a few years time with the same graphics card is almost impossible). It would be awesome to have one that could run modern games on medium-fairly high atm., Im not too fussed on Ram and hard drive (as long as theres enough RAM), just processor and graphics card.

Any help is brilliant, graphics card suggestions, both budget and expensive options, any contributions at all are exremely helpful. Im gonna have to do some serious saving to get this, and I dont wanna get screwed over

ADDED INFO: Ive been looking at alienwares recently, any thoughs on the m11x, m15x and m17x?

Alienware are actually quite good now for laptops. Desktops remain rip-off central, but the laptop market seems to be more competitive the prices are not so unreasonable.

The thing is have you done ANY gaming on a laptop before? Because there are a few considerations:

-Small screen
this will really piss you off if you are used to a big screen, and resolution too

-Keyboard
another anoying thing, even the best laptops compromise on keyboards my biggest problem is position relative to the screen.

Of course you can plug in external keyboard and Screen but then you may as well have a mini PC.

Graphics fidelity is not paramount to me, but an ergonomic experience is.

I want a BIG big screen with high resolution native gameplay at my ideal viewing distance and all the customisability of keyboard and mouse controls.


Alternative 1:

Consider the middle ground between a full Sized desktop and a laptop, how about a mini-dekstop PC, about the size/weight of an Xbox Original but with most of the flexibility of a proper desktop

You could fit it in an oversized laptop-bag/backpack to take home or on internship, then all you need is a HDTV to plug into for video, and mouse + keyboard of course. Trust me Laptops in lectures DOES NOT WORK. Everyone looks at you like a freak and most unis have fairly available computers in their library.

http://www.computerplanet.co.uk/specialist/custom_built_cube_pc.html

I built a pretty powerful compact PC for about £600 with Tax and delivery.

Just over twice volume of a Playstation 3, I think this may be more suited especially if it would only be transported infrequently.

A laptop is something that is moved every other day. Otherwise you are paying a premium for portability that you are squandering.



Alternative 2:

Games console + "Nettop" PC [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nettop]

One of those small dictionary-sized desktop PC with only HDMI out. That is good for word documents, music syncing, web browsing, plugged into a £100 HD monitor, you could then even plug an Xbox-360 or PS3 into the same monitor via another one of the ports. The PC will be good enough for Minecraft and Terraria and so on, while the console takes on most of the res of the games and to be honest I couldn't go 100% PC as 5% of me still wants console exclusives like Red Dead Redemption. And if you're on a budget you cannot be picky.

This can be the cheapest option at around $500 including decent monitor, but may end up costing you more in the long run with those expensive £30-40 console games.

 

[nexekho]

Im guessing the whole sony vaio paragraph didnt sink into your head?

Of course I read it, but I just have to take your word for it that a £700 laptop bought in 2006/7 1) has an upgradeable graphics card 2) still works perfectly 3) had said upgradable graphics card still available in 2010 4) that the laptop even exists.

 

[Hiphophippo]

Successful troll!
(although that doesn't change the fact I'm yet to see in person someone buy a gaming laptop and not have it meltdown, where exactly do you think all that heat is going hmm?)

While I can only speak for my ASUS G73, all my heat goes out the back of my laptop's dual exhaust.

 

[MolotoK]

I'd suggest a screen size in the 13"-15" range if you actually want a portable laptop u can have with you in lectures. Battery life is also far more important than you think. Anything below 5hours is a joke.

Don't buy anything too powerful. Good graphics really don't matter when gaming on a 15" screen.

 

[nexekho]

While I can only speak for my ASUS G73, all my heat goes out the back of my laptop's dual exhaust.

So, where does said air come in? If you're blowing out that much air that it needs two massive exhausts, dust will build, it's an inescapable problem.