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Interesting Article about gaming laptops

I think there's too much of a focus on what makes a laptop lesser than a desktop, which should be a given anyway, and basically ignores what is nice about mobile gaming capability. The super-high-end $4000 SLI laptop systems, I'll agree are not a wise purchase, however, a pretty-damned-capable E1705 with a 7900 can be found for the price of a pair of 8800GTX's & a physics card or whatever other miscellaneous upgrade is needed for the yearly update.

Plus, the laptop holds its value better, so one could just sell it off when it's time to bump up to DX10 gaming rather than DX9.

I actually went the other way in October. I'd bought an E1705 in the fall to use as a TV and do some gaming in other people's dorms, or for my friends to use when they came to mine. I would be gaming on my dual Opteron 254 tower (2x 254, 4gb RAM, 1.5 TB hdd space, 7800GTX, X-Fi Fatal1ty). But, in the end, the E1705 scored within 10% of benchmarks (FPS in games), used less power, made no noise, and didn't heat my room up. I sold the tower, and bought a 37" LCD and a bunch of other stuff.

As it is, I just sold my E1705 because I'm -not- gaming the way I should be, which is to say, I've not gamed at all thanks to the campus' craptacular network. I have my own apartment now, but am waiting on TF2, Portal, Quakewars, etc. to get back into the swing of things. It's more than capable of playing whatever I want, at a quality I can enjoy. And, I can just take it, my G5, headphones, and AC Adapter and be done with it all. A G15 may be nice for some games, but I never used the macro keys, so it was just a keyboard w/ an LCD for me. (Loved it, but oh well).
 
That article seemed less about gaming laptops and more about figuring out what you want.

He didnt really make any points that take away from what a gaming NOTEBOOK is suppose to do and is expected to do. I can appreciate his dislike for companies like dell and alienware jacking up the price and charing nine times the value but I still think the devices, not so much the prices, have a place.

I just skimmed the article cause I became annoyed at the author pretty damn fast. Most of the knocks on notebook VS desktop gaming parts are questionable at best. As a former hardcore PC gamer(still a gamer but no where near what I was) I can tell you that the REAL WORLD performance differences on things like memory bus speeds, hard drive RPM, and a few other things he hits on that differ from lan party to gaming notebook are questionable at best....at best. Everything will play a part in benchmarks but in the actual games themselves I doubt you will see huge gains and dips cause of 800mhz VS 1066mhz and 7200RPM sata VS 10k rpm raptors.

yes these types of systems have limitations but it is far from as bleak a picture as that author paints. I want something small and easily transported, powerful enough to at least hang with some higher end desktops or be as close as possible. I get that the battery will be purely for decoration and I am fine with that. The point is portable gaming and these do that, they just arent the best for gaming DURING the transport and while the specs dont always add up or the benchmarks the real world performance is about as close as can and is expected. Personally I am looking at a clevo D900C cause I like the idea of being able to double up on the best card I can get my hands on once they stop making cards to fit the MXM standard used in it which may or may not have already happened LOL. I get that its UBER heavy and has like 3 minutes of battery life but that doesnt really conflict with the intended use I have in mind.


Although I did take away one thing from the article. I never really thought much about the panel response time in notebook chasis BUT I have to assume they are comparable to similary sized and marketed LCD stand alone monitors, but thats just an assumption. Personally I got a dell 2405 despite the hardcore gamers cries of response times and mouse lag and I have NEVER had an issue. Keep in mind I use native res and rarely if ever try to scale much but still....the fanboy's cried and the next day, the sun came out!


Then again I play real games and use real programs rather then sit around comparing my 3dmark06 results so my opinions could be skewed :(
 
WOW!!!
First I must this was written by theinquirer.
First my rant, his points are not just by any means. He states it is 2-14 on good/bad. His positive points are accurate, but:
4) Slow CPUs
5) Slow buses
6) Slow memory
7) Slow HDs

You can get the exact same CPUs, HDs, etc. now in a laptop that you can get in a desktop (bring in the intel line). The GPU point is some what true, currently the best is a 7950GTX GO version, and while it is not equal to the desktop it still pushes almost as hard. Weight, of course they are going to be heavier...sorry but if I put in two 8800GTX, plus 2 HD, plus good cooling, and everything else it is going to weight more than a mid range 8600, 1 HD, standard cooling machine. WOW! :eek:

I never understood why battery life is such a negative? If you are buying a "gaming" laptop you are not taking this to your classroom (I would think) or to Starbucks just to browse the internet. These are designed for portable gaming rigs that instead of taking a monitor, case, cables, accessories, you just have a laptop, mouse, and power cord.

Keyboard and mouse? Well of course you are not going to use the standard touch pad, I have tried it and the only game I was able to play was WC3 and I was still slow at it. The keyboards on a gaming laptop vary depending on the company, I have used some where they are impossible to do anything & others were I actually want to take the keyboard out and use as a full desktop keyboard.

Coolness factor...showing up to a lan with three items and able to walk in and be setup in under 10 seconds is nice. Instead of taking multiple trips to your car or having a dolly to bring it all in is very nice. Plus if you have a properly equipped gaming laptop you are probably in the upper mid range (or top end depending on when you buy) of performance.

Cracked screen? Who the heck buys only a 6 month warranty with a laptop? What laptop company covers only 6 months for that matter? Every laptop I have looked at comes with a standard full 1 year warranty, plus a extended warranty for an extra price. I have never worried about a cracked screen so he just lost more money because he apparently had to BUY a new LCD, while the laptop gets a new one under warranty.

The MXM or Axiom is just getting rolled out into laptops. You are just now seeing 7950 GPUs with MXM, and what are you going to upgrade to? An 8600 mobile, you would be dead crazy to do that...8800 series card has not even made it to a mobile version yet so how can he compare if there are upgrades for a GPU?

CPU upgrades are a bit limited usually, but not completely. My laptop was limited to only single core, but the next revision came out and supported single/dual core technology on the board so you got the choice & if you bought a to low end CPU you could send it back and get a faster one. The only limitations is that a mobile CPU might cost more to upgrade, which is a solid negative.

Heat on gaming laptops is a good concern, but are you going to be really using this on your lap? Only place I see gaming laptops are on a desk usually lifted slight or with cooling under them.

Comparing a small form factor to a gaming laptop?? :confused:
This rant of an article was pathetic at best and leaves me wanting to find this guy and punch him in the face. I currently own a 15.4" laptop (spec for a bit of gaming), but I have been looking into gaming laptops for some time, and guess what? For portability to take to a friends house/apt. they are invaluable, and for the price you pay a premium is not that high. Unless you go with a boutique builder of adds certain extras then they can become a bit pricey. Horrible article, written for a horrible website.

Sorry for the long post, but this article was horribly researched and written.
Also, if there are any spelling or grammatical errors, sorry I have not really proof read this.
 
I think the article misunderstands the reason why the majority of us want a gaming laptop.. to play games. I don't care if my desktop is superior to my laptop and I'm not taking my laptop to lan parties. I simply want to be able to play a game of WOW while I'm away from my desktop. Maybe I'm a college student and I need a notebook for college but also want to play games. Maybe I'm away alot on business and simply want to be able to play a quick game while I'm waiting for whatever. The point is that a gaming laptop allows us to use our notebook to be mobile and at the same time use it for entertainment. I have yet to hear of anyone that purchased a new gaming notebook and could not play their favorite game at an enjoyable speed and resolution. The avearage gaming notebooks do what they are meant to do... play today's games without a noticable slowdown.
 
The Register is usually gratuitously caustic. This part was funny though "It begs the question, if all of your friends said enemas were cool, would you get one?"

Lol - after getting my first laptop this week I have been wondering why people would use these things if they didn't have too. Laptop screens just suck so much. Tip them a bit and pics look like x-rays. I'll never take the term "desktop replacement" seriously again
 
that's more of an immature and unobjective rant than an actual "article"
 
abcdelight said:
The Register is usually gratuitously caustic. This part was funny though "It begs the question, if all of your friends said enemas were cool, would you get one?"

Lol - after getting my first laptop this week I have been wondering why people would use these things if they didn't have too. Laptop screens just suck so much. Tip them a bit and pics look like x-rays. I'll never take the term "desktop replacement" seriously again
Click to expand...

The question here is, what type of screen did your laptop come with? Mine has a very solid viewing radius left to right, and middle to upper end for tile forward to back.

If you got a lower end quality laptop screen then yes sitting at the wrong angle will ruin any chance of seeing things properly.
 
Stellar said:
that's more of an immature and unobjective rant than an actual "article"
Click to expand...
QFT

I saw the title of this thread and remembered seeing an article on theinq, thinking the OP must have linked to an "interesting" article somewhere else because theinq article wasn't interesting. I was wrong. :p

Charlie completely misses the point. You can buy 3 classes of laptops for gaming: 1) Ones that play games slowly, if at all. 2) consumer grade (mobile CPUs, mid- to higher-end GPUs) laptops that play games from fairly to well and also make up the bulk of "gaming laptops". 3) "Mobile" gaming laptops that weigh over 10 pounds, have very poor battery life, may not even use mobile CPUs and/or mobile GPUs, and are basically a niche within a niche of the market.

A laptop has a feature that a desktop can't replace: easy portability, which category 2 above fulfills for mobile work on batteries and gaming on AC power. Since laptops need to run off batteries, they will have compromises vs full power desktops. It's not that hard to understand, Charlie. :rolleyes:
 
theDreamer said:
The question here is, what type of screen did your laptop come with? Mine has a very solid viewing radius left to right, and middle to upper end for tile forward to back.

If you got a lower end quality laptop screen then yes sitting at the wrong angle will ruin any chance of seeing things properly.
Click to expand...


I bought a HP dv6565us with a "15.4" WXGA High-Definition BrightView Widescreen Display". It doesn't seem any worse than the other lappies at that price. I'm just used to haveing nice S-IPS monitors. Lenovo makes a S-IPS lappy but its more laptop than I want at 2 grand and I can't buy Lenovo stuff anyway.
 
Does the truth hurt guys? Gaming laptops are either pretty useless or pretty expensive, rarely ever a good buy.

Stellar said:
that's more of an immature and unobjective rant than an actual "article"
Click to expand...

You don't say?

"Charlie's Rant A fool and his money" <----- just under the title of it
 
What reason do you think Met-AL that "gaming" laptops are useless?
Most of his points his article are complete bias to actual fact, though there some truths they are in the minority of faults.
 
theDreamer said:
What reason do you think Met-AL that "gaming" laptops are useless?
Most of his points his article are complete bias to actual fact, though there some truths they are in the minority of faults.
Click to expand...

I said they are either useless or pretty expensive.

Any "gaming" laptop that didn't cost top dollar is pretty useless as a gaming laptop. They have X1600 GPU or some other crap that can't run games well at all. You might as well have bought a laptop that was just that, a laptop.

But yeah, show up at a LAN with a $5k Alienware lappy and people will go "Oh Shinny", And when the guy next to you who's PC that cost him a grand can run games better, you can look at him and say, so what, I can carry this with me easier.
 
$5k is a complete waste I agree, though my friend has a 17" (1900x1200) 7950GTX , C2D, 2gigs, 120HD all for under $2800. Now you can still build this rig in a desktop for probably <1500 easily (monitor may raise price), but it will still be less portable and you only paid a bit more. So the expensive part is not that much more.
 
Well after lugging all my shit around at the last LAN party, I know for sure I will be building my next rig in a Shuttle SFF box.
 
Met-AL said:
Well after lugging all my shit around at the last LAN party, I know for sure I will be building my next rig in a Shuttle SFF box.
Click to expand...

Thinking about a new PC for myself or gaming laptop I am debating the two actually. They both having heating problems sometimes (since small airways) though a SFF is still slightly better (depending on size of case). Though you still have the case, LCD, and extras (cables, mouse, etc.) to move around. With the laptop you have the laptop, mouse, and power cord, so you still have many of the same amount, but your case is now lighter.

Though the upgrade-ability is one major drawback to the gaming laptops that is there, but if the new MXM GPU style takes off it might eliminate that, but then you still have the CPUs that can sorta be upgraded. Yet those are normally locked into place very tightly and can never be removed (or easily for that matter).
 
theDreamer said:
$5k is a complete waste I agree, though my friend has a 17" (1900x1200) 7950GTX , C2D, 2gigs, 120HD all for under $2800. Now you can still build this rig in a desktop for probably <1500 easily (monitor may raise price), but it will still be less portable and you only paid a bit more. So the expensive part is not that much more.
Click to expand...

Thats still overpaying. I picked up my E1705 for $1300. Pop in a $400 7950GTX and bam $1700 for the exact laptop you just described.
 
Ummm, you do realize that you can not just open up your laptop and throw in an upgraded GPU. Also, I do not think that a 7950 GTX can fit in the 1705.
 
Yes I do realize that. However starting with the 9300 and now moving on to the E1705 it is very easy.

http://www.notebookforums.com/thread151471.html

Keep in mind the 7900GTX and 7950GTX are interchangeable as far as dell is concerned.

All I'm saying is that I almost went the $2700 laptop route myself. Until I realized that I could just Mod a E1705 get 95% of the performnace for over $1000 less..
 
Yes you can, but does that void the warranty by doing this upgrade?
Also, the e1705 case is small than those that come stock with a 7950 so you have more heating issues if not careful.

Also, I am not a nor was a friend of Dell laptops or desktop for that matter. While they build cheap, they also use cheap parts.
 
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