Buying a gaming laptop help?

[squash1405]

The only "gaming" laptop I have bought was an MSI about 6 years ago. Good bang for the buck (relatively speaking)and their customer service was excellent. This extended to replacing the motherboard under warranty (1 month inside the 2 year warranty period), including courier both ways at their expense, after my son poured a glass of water into the keyboard. Many manufacturers would not cover that situation, but they were great about it.

I would definitely buy MSI again. I haven't looked at specific models for a while, but they have a range of good quality units that review well for a competitive price.

 

[Hiphophippo]

You still have a small monitor and 1 hour of battery life for 500+ dollars extra.

I had a gaming laptop for college once, back when I was young and stupid. Worst buy of my life.

Tons of people enjoy quality laptops.

I only have a 17.3inch monitor when I'm not at home (and frankly I don't mind the 17.3inch screen since I sit so close to it.) where I enjoy a 50inch display.

I don't game on it unplugged so battery life is a non issue. Like I've said, I travel frequently and can use my computer at work. It gets moved every day. Worth the extra cost. To me.

edit

I like how the OP asks for gaming laptop help and every chimes in that he/she should buy a desktop. If the OP wanted desktop help they would have asked for it. Mobility is a deciding factor for many people.

 

[Grubnar]

In my experience there is no such thing as a "gaming laptop".

In fact, I would say that the two words contradict one another.

Good luck.

P.S. I would do (and in fact have done) as MR.Jack suggjests.
Get a dirt cheep laptop and a proper desktop PC for gaming.

 

[Elvenwitch]

If $$ is no limit then http://www.falcon-nw.com/

 

[Hiphophippo]

In my experience there is no such thing as a "gaming laptop".

In fact, I would say that the two words contradict one another.

Good luck.

P.S. I would do (and in fact have done) as MR.Jack suggjests.
Get a dirt cheep laptop and a proper desktop PC for gaming.

If a laptop can run anything I care to throw at it on ultra settings then how is it -not- a gaming laptop? Would you prefer to call it a "laptop than runs games"?

 

[Grubnar]

If a laptop can run anything I care to throw at it on ultra settings then how is it -not- a gaming laptop? Would you prefer to call it a "laptop than runs games"?

I can not decide if you are joking, trolling, or are in fact being dead serious?

 

[Hiphophippo]

If a laptop can run anything I care to throw at it on ultra settings then how is it -not- a gaming laptop? Would you prefer to call it a "laptop than runs games"?

I can not decide if you are joking, trolling, or are in fact being dead serious?

A little of all three perhaps. But there's truth there. Just because something is portable doesn't mean it's incapable of playing games.

 

[Lord Doomhammer]

Leaving aside the pointless trolling above... >.<

SAGER is the company I went with. A variety of big powerful laptops of the 17-19 inch screen flavors. They basically use cheep cleavo cases and fill 'em with arguably some of the most top of the range hardware you can afford. Processors are standard fare (i7 M640 @ 2.88GHz and 3.4GHz turbo mode for mine ) and GPUs are the same (M425 for me w/ 1gb vram in mine) Although if you've got the cash you can get yourself some SLI in the big systems. Again, pretty much anything anyone else offers.

The warranty is pretty iron clad, I've burned up a motherboard (my own idiocy) and they replaced it (from Minnesota to California) in about a week for free.

This is a small company, and the cases are cheep looking with kinda crummy plastic. But compared to Ailenware Asus or even iBuyPower.com, SAGER is almost always the cheapest for the parts included.

I can't remember their international policy, but I'm fairly sure they service western countries only (maybe UK and Europe).


SAGER WEBSITE [http://www.sagernotebook.com/]

 

[Grubnar]

A little of all three perhaps. But there's truth there. Just because something is portable doesn't mean it's incapable of playing games.

That is true. However, I would think that experience (if not personal experience) indicates that ... the odds are low.

Of all my friends and famillymembers the only one I know that has had no (gaming related) trouble with their laptop is my youngest sister. But then again all she plays is Counter-strike (1.6 not source) plants vs zombies and Heroes of might and magic III (awesome game !!).

 

[loc978]

If it must be a laptop, and it must be pre-built... go with Asus, *looks up two posts* or SAGER, I guess. That looks like a good deal, though I can't speak for the quality of their cases or screens.

Just one thing for certain, though: do not buy Alienware. You'll be paying double for a plastic beautification mod and an aggressive marketing campaign... and the cases they use are made of comparatively thin, frail plastic and usually have shitty screen hinges (in my experience... and I've worked on quite a few).

 

[Hiphophippo]

A little of all three perhaps. But there's truth there. Just because something is portable doesn't mean it's incapable of playing games.

That is true. However, I would think that experience (if not personal experience) indicates that ... the odds are low.

Of all my friends and famillymembers the only one I know that has had no (gaming related) trouble with their laptop is my youngest sister. But then again all she plays is Counter-strike (1.6 not source) plants vs zombies and Heroes of might and magic III (awesome game !!).

It's a fallacy to think that the same hardware in a different case would not play demanding games however. I'm currently playing Witcher 2 on ultra with mine. It makes me quite happy

 

[Treblaine]

Alternatively, you can also opt for mATX cases, if you're willing to go that route. One that immediately comes to mind is something a friend of mine had a few years ago; we called it his EZ-Bake PC (it was about the exact size of the EZ-Bake Oven toy). It decreases the flexibility you'd get from a desktop, due to some size constraints (particularly with your GPU), but does make toting it around quite a bit less of a hassle.

Nice, I haven't actually ever seen an EZ-Bake Oven (I live in the UK), but google says they're about 7.88 X 15.88 X 8.56 (I presume inches) I hope it didn't heat up like an oven! Something around that size wouldn't be bad.

But any idea how much you EZ-PC weighed?
Something like that would mainly be competing with something like an Xbox 360 that is about 4.5kg (32lbs) with the power brick.

 

[Maxtro]

I'm in a similar boat as the OP.

Except that I'm planning on getting a free 360 with a computer purchase.

I need to spend at least $700 to get the deal. It doesn't make since to spend $700 for a desktop and I could use a new laptop.

I just need to find one that would be powerful enough to game on. I want to be able to run Skyrim with a decent amount of detail with a playable frame-rate.

 

[ScumbagEddie]

I own an Alienware M15X. Got it new for about $1500. It's fully upgradeable from what I've found so far. The casing around the bottom of the machine is cast aluminum, which is super simple to cool down. Couple it with one of the bazillion cooling pads that are out there and you'll have no problem gaming of 20 hours straight, which I have. Battery life sucks - an hour to an hour and a half in a 6 cell - but that's pretty standard. Despite the fact that Dell bought them out a while back, they are still wicked good machines and still run all Intel parts. I just looked on Amazon, and you can still get one for about 1500 - 1600. The M11Xs are anywhere from 700 - 1000.

 

[Necronomicomp]

I have had excellent luck with Toshiba. They are long-lasting machines with quality components and power to boot. I got the Toshiba Qosmio x505 over a year ago and I couldn't be more pleased. It handles high-performance games along side several of the processor-killing adobe programs. Plus, it looks BA.

Absolutely not, no, do NOT buy Toshiba. I've had the worst experience with their customer service. No matter how good a deal it seems, don't buy Toshiba.

Alienware is decent and reliable, but you do pay an extra couple hundred bucks for the name and the style. The only Alienware really worth getting is the m11x if you need the smallest possible laptop that still has decent power.

Asus laptops are generally good computers, but sadly I've been seeing their prices go up recently, and, yeah, their quality has been coming down a bit. They're simply not a good deal anymore. The G73s are mostly last-gen hardware, and a decently kitted out G73 is going to cost you well over $3k, about as much as an equivalent Alienware.

Right now, I've been looking around for a good medium-sized gaming laptop as well, and the best bang for the buck I've been able to find are Sagers from www.xoticpc.com. Lots of power for the price, and they're extremely customizable, even more so than the Alienwares.

 

[AnAngryMoose]

I currently have a Dell XPS M1730. It's a decent laptop and I got it for a grand. It'll run most things on medium-high, but it's getting a bit outdated. Personally, the Asus Republic of Gamers line looks pretty damn good and is much better value than any Alienware you can get. To get an Alienware to the same specs as my current laptop I would have to pay an extra 200, so I'd avoid them. Two good ones I've seen are the aforementioned Asus Republic of Gamers and the Toshiba Qosmio X505. They cost about ?1,200, which I think is about $1,500 dollars (not arsed to use an online currency converter at the moment, assuming you live in the US). Ignore the naysayers, gaming laptops are good if mobility and comfort is what you want. Personally, I don't find a chair at a desk as comfortable as my couch.