View Full Version : I'm getting a laptop, and I'm too stupid to tell if the one I like is any good
I will need a laptop when I go away to university next year, in order to do work, but I still want to be able to play most games whilst at university. Although this might sound like I'm trying to square a circle, I have recently come into some money which I want to use to purchase a gaming laptop. Now when I say "gaming laptop", I don't mean a mighty colossus of a desktop that has a touchpad, but weight isn't a huge problem for me. Likewise, looks are nearly irrelevant, and I'd probably prefer something that isn't really flashy.
After quite some time trawling around on the internet, I came across these
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/range/x70ca15.6.html
NOTE:These are both from the pro version
Processor
Description
Intel Core i7 Mobile 720 1.6Ghz
Architecture Features
Intel 64 Architecture
Cache
6Mb
Clockspeed
1.6GHz
Manufacturer
Intel
Supports Virtualisation
Yes
No. of Cores
4
Memory
Description
2 x 2Gb 240Pin DDR3 1066Mhz
Speed
1066Mhz
Harddrives
Description
500Gb 2.5" 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
Interface
SATA
Optical Drives
Description
Blu Ray Combo Drive
Formats
4.8x BD-R, 6x DVD-R, 6x DVD+R, 6x DVD-R DL, 6x DVD+R DL, 8x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+RW, 5x DVD-RAM
Interface
SATA
Graphics
Description
GTX 280 Graphics
Laptop Chassis
Dimensions
374(W) x 263.5(D) x 42(H) mm
E-SATA
1x eSATA port
Firewire
1x IEEE 1394a port
Memory Capacity
4GB
Memory Slots
Two 204 Pin SODIMM sockets
LAN
Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN
OS Compliance
Microsoft Windows 7 32Bit & 64Bit, Microsoft Windows Vista 32Bit & 64Bit
Sound
High Definition Audio
Speakers
Built-in 2 speakers
TV Out
1x DVI-I output port
1x HDMII output port
USB
4x USB 2.0 ports
Webcam
2.0 Mega Pixel
Weight
3.3kg with ODD and battery
Screen
15.6" FHD (1920x1080)
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/range/x80ca17.3.html
Processor
Description
Intel Core i7 Mobile 820 1.73Ghz
Architecture Features
Intel 64 Architecture
Cache
8Mb
Clockspeed
1.73Ghz
Manufacturer
Intel
Supports Virtualisation
Yes
No. of Cores
4
Memory
Description
2 x 2Gb 240Pin DDR3 1066Mhz
Speed
1066Mhz
Harddrives
Description
500Gb 2.5" 7200rpm SATA Hard Drive
Interface
SATA
Optical Drives
Description
Blu Ray Combo Drive
Formats
4.8x BD-R, 6x DVD-R, 6x DVD+R, 6x DVD-R DL, 6x DVD+R DL, 8x DVD-RW, 8x DVD+RW, 5x DVD-RAM
Interface
SATA
Graphics
Description
Nvidia GTX280 Graphics
Laptop Chassis
Audio In
1x microphone jack (external 5.1CH audio output supported)
Audio Out
1x headphone jack (external 5.1CH audio output supported
Dimensions
412(W) x 279(D) x 39~48(H)mm
Memory Capacity
Expandable memory up to 4GB, depends on 1GB/2GB SODIMM Module
Memory Slots
Two 204Pin SODIMM sockets, support for DDR3 1333MHz
LAN
Built-in Gigabit Ethernet LAN
OS Compliance
Microsoft Windows 7 32Bit & 64Bit, Microsoft Windows Vista 32Bit & 64Bit
PCMCIA / Cardbus
One ExpressCard /54(/34) slot
Two MiniCard slots (1st for WLAN module with PCIe interface , 2nd for TV Tuner with USB interface)
Sound
High Definition audio interface - 3D stereo enhanced sound system
Speakers
Built-in four speakers - Built-in Sub-woofer
TV Out
1x HDMI output port
1x DVI-I output jack
USB
4x USB 2.0 port
Webcam
2.0M pixels Video Camera with USB interface
Weight
4kg with ODD and battery
Screen
17.3" FHD (1920x1080)
I'm torn between the two, as they both have had good reviews by other sites. A requirement to play EB II comfortably is essential. As mentioned before, money is not a huge issue, but I'd still like to get good value for money. So what does the .Org think?
Get the new macbook, put windows7 on, and it eats Crysis for breakfast
http://www.apple.com/macbook/specs.html
The graphics card is prolly going to be the deciding factor. According to this site, the GTX 280M (for mobile) is roughly equivalent to a desktop 8800 GTS, which should handle EB and RTW easily.
Nice thing about the two laptops you specced out is that they have 15" screens and good video cards. Most laptops that have high-end video cards sport 17" screens, which is a bit much for a mobile card. You should probably be able to play just about any AAA title for a while with that rig.
-edit-
By way of comparison, the current iteration of the Macbook Pro only sports a 9600M videocard, which is a steep step down. As nice as Apple laptops are, I wouldn't recommend it over the Novatch you linked.
Get the new macbook, put windows7 on, and it eats Crysis for breakfast
http://www.apple.com/macbook/
NEVER
The graphics card is prolly going to be the deciding factor. According to this site, the GTX 280M (for mobile) is roughly equivalent to a desktop 8800 GTS, which should handle EB and RTW easily.
.
Cool. Generally, I'm semi-knowledgeable about hardware; it's just graphics cards that let me down. And what about MTWII (Not that I'd play Vanilla, of course)?
Nice thing about the two laptops you specced out is that they have 15" screens and good video cards. Most laptops that have high-end video cards sport 17" screens, which is a bit much for a mobile card. You should probably be able to play just about any AAA title for a while with that rig.
Why's that?
By way of comparison, the current iteration of the Macbook Pro only sports a 9600M videocard, which is a steep step down. As nice as Apple laptops are, I wouldn't recommend it over the Novatch you linked.
Hehe, my prejudice is now justified.
If you were to pick one of the two, which would it be?
If you need it to be a working machine as well, well. Good laptop needs good battery as well I get almost 10 hours with light usage, so far it runs everything just fine and I'll take this 13 inch screen over any 19 any day it's fantastic. I am really pleased with the new macbook and it's priced pretty competively.
And what about MTWII (Not that I'd play Vanilla, of course)?
Any machine that can handle RTW should be able to handle MTW2 as well. Just don't ask me about the original MTW; apparently there are unsolved driver issues with modern video cards. Haven't tried it meself, but I hear it's quite the problem.
Why's that?
Bigger screen = more pixels to push around. The more pixels, the more work for the graphics card. Big screens plus mobile graphics cards usually equals teh suck.
As for which machine I'd recommend, obviously I'd go with the fifteen inch version (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/range/x70ca15.6.html), with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit preinstalled. Shame you can't opt out of the Blu-ray drive, but then you can't have everything.
pevergreen
01-19-2010, 00:31
As for which machine I'd recommend, obviously I'd go with the fifteen inch version (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/laptop/range/x70ca15.6.html), with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit preinstalled. Shame you can't opt out of the Blu-ray drive, but then you can't have everything.
This.
If you were to pick one of the two, which would it be?
Just to clarify, I'd pick the 15" model with the 280M graphics card, this one (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/modifier.html?t=nb&c=all&r=X7C&s=NNB-819&v=1), were I buying for myself.
Well, to be honest, if I were buying for myself I'd wait and see what the Jan 27th refresh of the Macbook Pro line brought, then I'd take the plunge. Apple makes a nice, nice laptop, and the ability to boot seamlessly into OS X and Windows would be very nice. Plus, Apple and Intel have some sort of mutual beard-soaping thing where Apple gets the newest mobile chips first, so some sort of really hot-to-trot i5 mobile is prolly going to show up real soon.
pevergreen
01-19-2010, 06:14
Just to clarify, I'd pick the 15" model with the 280M graphics card, this one (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/modifier.html?t=nb&c=all&r=X7C&s=NNB-819&v=1), were I buying for myself.
Well, to be honest, if I were buying for myself I'd wait and see what the Jan 27th refresh of the Macbook Pro line brought, then I'd take the plunge. Apple makes a nice, nice laptop, and the ability to boot seamlessly into OS X and Windows would be very nice. Plus, Apple and Intel have some sort of mutual beard-soaping thing where Apple gets the newest mobile chips first, so some sort of really hot-to-trot i5 mobile is prolly going to show up real soon.
See, you say all this nice stuff, then you go ruin it by suggesting Mac.
Why can't you be consistant! :cry:
Just to clarify, I'd pick the 15" model with the 280M graphics card, this one (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/modifier.html?t=nb&c=all&r=X7C&s=NNB-819&v=1), were I buying for myself.
Cool:yes:
Well, to be honest, if I were buying for myself I'd wait and see what the Jan 27th refresh of the Macbook Pro line brought, then I'd take the plunge. Apple makes a nice, nice laptop, and the ability to boot seamlessly into OS X and Windows would be very nice. Plus, Apple and Intel have some sort of mutual beard-soaping thing where Apple gets the newest mobile chips first, so some sort of really hot-to-trot i5 mobile is prolly going to show up real soon.
I could never bring myself to be a Mac user, so that's out of the question.
I could never bring myself to be a Mac user, so that's out of the question.
Why is that, it runs windows much better and you have a much better looking/feeling (yes feeling I love that keyboard and touchpad) machine to run it on. The latest line are also equipped with a solid graphical card have yet to see a hick-up. Awesome gaming machine means poor working machine, if you also want to use it for university I would get a good desktop and get a cheap wordpad for your notes.
You need faster processor speeds. I believe Sims 3 for example needed 2.4 Dual Core as minimum, for example. The speeds in the laptops listed look quite far below that.
Why is that, it runs windows much better and you have a much better looking/feeling (yes feeling I love that keyboard and touchpad) machine to run it on. The latest line are also equipped with a solid graphical card have yet to see a hick-up. Awesome gaming machine means poor working machine, if you also want to use it for university I would get a good desktop and get a cheap wordpad for your notes.
But then, he needs to pay far more money in excess just for a machine branded "Mac".
pevergreen
01-19-2010, 10:26
You need faster processor speeds. I believe Sims 3 for example needed 2.4 Dual Core as minimum, for example. The speeds in the laptops listed look quite far below that.
Hmmm Dual vs Quad
:idea2:
Apple is a truly annoying company with all that guru-bull and their adds make me want to kill something, but imho they are worth their price as it are just excellent laptops. You pay a little bit more but when you translate that into the time you save using it it's a perfectly fine choice.
Why is that, it runs windows much better and you have a much better looking/feeling (yes feeling I love that keyboard and touchpad) machine to run it on. The latest line are also equipped with a solid graphical card have yet to see a hick-up. Awesome gaming machine means poor working machine, if you also want to use it for university I would get a good desktop and get a cheap wordpad for your notes.
Because:
But then, he needs to pay far more money in excess just for a machine branded "Mac".
And also, I don't play the latest, graphically intense games., so It'll probably do fine.
You need faster processor speeds. I believe Sims 3 for example needed 2.4 Dual Core as minimum, for example. The speeds in the laptops listed look quite far below that.
And I would be playing Sims 3...why?
Apple is a truly annoying company with all that guru-bull and their adds make me want to kill something, but imho they are worth their price as it are just excellent laptops. You pay a little bit more but when you translate that into the time you save using it it's a perfectly fine choice.
Maybe, but I just don't like them. I have an iPod to be fair, as they are the best MP3 players on the market, but the actual Macs? No way.
And I would be playing Sims 3...why?
That wasn't the point... it was an example I remembered from the top of my head, due to my friend having the game and owning a laptop and said about the trouble he had. :inquisitive:
Replace "Sims 3" with "Generic New Game".
Like I said, I don't really play brand spanking new games, so it wouldn't be that much of a problem.
Furunculus
01-19-2010, 11:36
this is what you want:
Have a look at the 15" Acer in this link:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21878
New CPU
Decent GPU
Pretty cheap
What good is it if it has only 4 hours of battery, two colleges and it's empty. They are poor gaming machines anyway, gaming wears your keyboard down, sweaty palms button mashing, but on a laptop the keyboard isn't as easily replaced. Get a fat custom desktop if you want to game, gaming-laptop is a little bit of everything but in the end nothing at all, not that powerful for games, and not of that much use for work.
this is what you want:
Have a look at the 15" Acer in this link:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=21878
New CPU
Decent GPU
Pretty cheap
Looks interesting. What does everyone else think?
What good is it if it has only 4 hours of battery, two colleges and it's empty. They are poor gaming machines anyway, gaming wears your keyboard down, sweaty palms button mashing, but on a laptop the keyboard isn't as easily replaced. Get a fat custom desktop if you want to game, gaming-laptop is a little bit of everything but in the end nothing at all, not that powerful for games, and not of that much use for work.
Hence my "trying to square a circle" comment. I'm going to university, so I'll need a laptop anyway, and I'd like one that could play EB II/Paradox Games/TF2. Getting a desktop isn't an option.
Furunculus
01-19-2010, 13:59
What good is it if it has only 4 hours of battery, two colleges and it's empty. They are poor gaming machines anyway, gaming wears your keyboard down, sweaty palms button mashing, but on a laptop the keyboard isn't as easily replaced. Get a fat custom desktop if you want to game, gaming-laptop is a little bit of everything but in the end nothing at all, not that powerful for games, and not of that much use for work.
i agree, but if you must have one machine, and it must be portable then this acer is a pretty good compromise at a very cheap price.
Either buy the one Lemur chose, or the one Furunculus suggested.
A Macbook doesn't eat Crysis for breakfast at all, there are few if any desktops capable of that.
Of course Fragony's definition of "eats for breakfast" might be "runs fine on low/medium". ~;)
The Acer looks nice as well, and I've had slightly better experiences with ATI graphics cards than Nvidia, but your mileage may vary. Certainly the 5650 mobile is probably going to have a little more oomph than the 280M, but I couldn't say how noticeable the difference may be.*
For a laptop, I would also prefer the i5 to the i7 for reasons of heat, battery life, longevity, etc., so yeah, the Acer looks a bit better.
As for Mac, I don't really understand the love or the hate. Ignore their marketing. Ignore whatever "status" they attempt to attach to their products. Just look at the machines and the OS on their own merits, and go from there.
My thinking is simple to the point of stupidity: They make a very nice laptop, and a fully supported, easy-to-use variant of BSD Unix is nothing to sneeze at. Being able to put my computer-idiot aunt on a laptop that is relatively secure out of the box is a good thing. And as a my database geek buddy said, "You have no idea what it's like to get a Unix laptop that just works."
As for the Mac price premium, (a) it isn't so terrible, depending on how smart you are about model, make, etc., and (b) commercial OS development has to get subsidized somehow. Microsoft has the Office line which subsidizes their OS, and Apple has the hardware. Somebody pays somewhere at some point to subsidize several thousand code monkeys maintaining and updating the OS. That's just how the world works right now, unless you're ready to commit to Linux.
-edit-
*I was as wrong as a wrong person could be, mixing up my model numbers. The 5650 is slower than the 280M, by a very measurable margin. Chart here (http://www.dvhardware.net/article39903.html). I was thinking of the Radeon 5850 mobile, which should be on the market shortly.
Furunculus
01-19-2010, 18:07
ati are being cheeky.
what is a 58xx on desktop is a 1600 shader part (2.10B transistors)
what is a 58xx on mobile is a 800 shader part (1.07B transistors)
what is a 57/6xx on desktop is a 800 shader part (1.07B transistors)
what is a 57/6xx on mobile is a 400 shader part (0.67B transistors)
what is a 54/5xx on desktop is a 400 shader part (0.67B transistors)
what is a 54/5xx on mobile is a 80 shader part (0.24B transistors)
still a £500 laptop with a 400 shader GPU with a 128bit DDR5 bus is good value.
The Acer looks nice as well, and I've had slightly better experiences with ATI graphics cards than Nvidia, but your mileage may vary. Certainly the 5650 mobile is probably going to have a little more oomph than the 280M, but I couldn't say how noticeable the difference may be.*
For a laptop, I would also prefer the i5 to the i7 for reasons of heat, battery life, longevity, etc., so yeah, the Acer looks a bit better
Battery wouldn't be a huge problem, as it's mostly going to be a replacement desktop, than can move from Point A (My house) to Point B (Oxford).
Besides, according to this ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=382561 ), it has a silent mode, which extends battery life to about three hours, which is fine for me.
As for Mac, I don't really understand the love or the hate. Ignore their marketing. Ignore whatever "status" they attempt to attach to their products. Just look at the machines and the OS on their own merits, and go from there.
Personally, I think they're overrated for the kind of stuff I'd do on it (Word processing/Internet/Gamez). But that's just my opinion. I won't be doing anything like graphic design or composition on it, so all the neat features it has aren't that relevant.
ati are being cheeky.
what is a 58xx on desktop is a 1600 shader part (2.10B transistors)
what is a 58xx on mobile is a 800 shader part (1.07B transistors)
what is a 57/6xx on desktop is a 800 shader part (1.07B transistors)
what is a 57/6xx on mobile is a 400 shader part (0.67B transistors)
what is a 54/5xx on desktop is a 400 shader part (0.67B transistors)
what is a 54/5xx on mobile is a 80 shader part (0.24B transistors)
Huh? I don't understand :shame:
still a £500 laptop with a 400 shader GPU with a 128bit DDR5 bus is good value.
I agree, but as I said at the start, money isn't a problem (Compensation for a car accident that happened when I was 10, but I don't get access to it until I'm 18 ). I should probably be responsible, but I need a new gaming computer anyway, and I deserve a treat after my A Levels :yes:
Furunculus
01-19-2010, 18:35
Huh? I don't understand :shame:
I agree, but as I said at the start, money isn't a problem (Compensation for a car accident that happened when I was 10, but I don't get access to it until I'm 18 ). I should probably be responsible, but I need a new gaming computer anyway, and I deserve a treat after my A Levels :yes:
basically you would presume that the codename, i.e. 58xx or 57xx would refer to the GPU, and you know the desktop 58xx comes with 1600 shaders which is rockin, so you assume that the mobile 58xx would also come with 1600 shaders.
but it doesn't, the mobile 58xx is the same GPU as the desktop 57xx, and thus only has 800 shaders, not the 1600 you assume given the model name.
that said, the new ATI mobile 58xx card (with 800 shaders & DDR5) is in my opinion the best mobile GPU you can get, and if money is not an object i would find a laptop that has one of them inside (probably a 17" chassis).
basically you would presume that the codename, i.e. 58xx or 57xx would refer to the GPU, and you know the desktop 58xx comes with 1600 shaders which is rockin, so you assume that the mobile 58xx would also come with 1600 shaders.
but it doesn't, the mobile 58xx is the same GPU as the desktop 57xx, and thus only has 800 shaders, not the 1600 you assume given the model name
Ah! Sneaky!
that said, the new ATI mobile 58xx card (with 800 shaders & DDR5) is in my opinion the best mobile GPU you can get, and if money is not an object i would find a laptop that has one of them inside (probably a 17" chassis).
Any suggestions?
Tellos Athenaios
01-19-2010, 20:26
Note. Lemur's assessment of screen size is not correct. It is not physical size but resolution that matters as far as FPS go; and it should be noted that the Novatech sports a 1080* resolution (1080p or 1080i) even though it has only a 15.6" screen. Furthermore its 17" alternative has the exact same resolution.
Why Lemur's rule of thumb works in practice is that bigger screens (usually) have larger resolutions to keep the pictures sharp and clear. But as mentioned the Novatech has a same high resolution as your average 22inch monitor so you should compare it to a typical 22inch monitor. The real issue with these monitors are: power draw (bigger monitors draw more power; and it is worsened by the fact that most power-saving strategies do not work as well with monitors), price (are they worth it to you?), and portability.
As for processor speeds the Corei have this ‘turbo boost’ feature which alters the clock speed on demand. This means you should get about 2.2-2.5Ghz when running only 2 cores, 1.9-2.2.Ghz when running 3, and 2.8Ghz when running 1. http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43122
Because the TW games are not heavily multi threaded you will likely not run all 4 or 3 cores when playing which means you should get performance similar to a 2.2-2.5Ghz dual core processor [but which dual core heavily depends on (relative) cache size]. In more day-to-day tasks (especially number crunching tasks) you may see some benefit from using a 64bit OS as well.
Note. Lemur's assessment of screen size is not correct. It is not physical size but resolution that matters as far as FPS go; and it should be noted that the Novatech sports a 1080* resolution (1080p or 1080i) even though it has only a 15.6" screen. Furthermore its 17" alternative has the exact same resolution.
My bad, entirely my bad, I was assuming that the bigger screen meant a higher resolution. I will now flog myself in penance, and upload the results to geekspankings.com.
Note. Lemur's assessment of screen size is not correct. It is not physical size but resolution that matters as far as FPS go; and it should be noted that the Novatech sports a 1080* resolution (1080p or 1080i) even though it has only a 15.6" screen. Furthermore its 17" alternative has the exact same resolution.
Why Lemur's rule of thumb works in practice is that bigger screens (usually) have larger resolutions to keep the pictures sharp and clear. But as mentioned the Novatech has a same high resolution as your average 22inch monitor so you should compare it to a typical 22inch monitor. The real issue with these monitors are: power draw (bigger monitors draw more power; and it is worsened by the fact that most power-saving strategies do not work as well with monitors), price (are they worth it to you?), and portability.
Monitors are measured diagonally across the screen, correct? If so, what would the width of be? (Seeing as the deciding factor on size will be whether it fits into a specific bag I own)
[/QUOTE]
Because the TW games are not heavily multi threaded you will likely not run all 4 or 3 cores when playing which means you should get performance similar to a 2.2-2.5Ghz dual core processor [but which dual core heavily depends on (relative) cache size].In more day-to-day tasks (especially number crunching tasks) you may see some benefit from using a 64bit OS as well.
Sure, that looks sensible.
My bad, entirely my bad, I was assuming that the bigger screen meant a higher resolution. I will now flog myself in penance, and upload the results to geekspankings.com.
Uh, no, that's not really necessary.
Furunculus
01-19-2010, 23:01
Any suggestions?
there were a few announced at CES, but i cannot recall them right now, i did check before but without luck (i was supposed to be working). :p
but they'll turn up in the next month or two, and be easy to find.
p.s. i wouldn't get a gaming laptop with a 1080p screen unless the graphic card was a 800 shader AMD one or a 96 shader nVidia one (different ways of calculating shaders).
1600x900 is the biggest native res i would consider for a mid-range GPU like an AMD 320-400 shader GPU or a Nvidia 48-64 shader GPU.
i run 1920x1200 and have a nVidia 9800GX2 with 256 shaders, and even that struggles on some newer games.
Holy displayport, Subotan, your quoting in the above post is so messed up I can't tell who wrote what! You madman! You anarchist! Clean up your mess, young man, or you'll be banned from using BB codes for the next week!
there were a few announced at CES, but i cannot recall them right now, i did check before but without luck
I'm not 18 until July, and I won't need it until october, so they'll probably be out by then.
(i was supposed to be working). :p
.
You'd do that for a leftie like me? :smash:
(I'm meant to be working all the time when I'm actually arguing about the EU but shh)
p.s. i wouldn't get a gaming laptop with a 1080p screen unless the graphic card was a 800 shader AMD one or a 96 shader nVidia one (different ways of calculating shaders).
1600x900 is the biggest native res i would consider for a mid-range GPU like an AMD 320-400 shader GPU or a Nvidia 48-64 shader GPU.
i run 1920x1200 and have a nVidia 9800GX2 with 256 shaders, and even that struggles on some newer games.
I mostly play strategy games, and I'm used to terrible graphics (Paradox Interactive, RTW, a Wii and a crummy desktop have all taken their toll). Anything post-2007 looks amazing to me, so I'm not that concerned with all max settings.
Holy displayport, Subotan, your quoting in the above post is so messed up I can't tell who wrote what! You madman! You anarchist! Clean up your mess, young man, or you'll be banned from using BB codes for the next week!
Sorry :shame:
As for Mac, I don't really understand the love or the hate. Ignore their marketing. Ignore whatever "status" they attempt to attach to their products. Just look at the machines and the OS on their own merits, and go from there.
My thinking is simple to the point of stupidity: They make a very nice laptop
Amen to that. That whole metromen-purple pants-odd glasses marketing is so goddamn annoying and Apple lovers are annoying people and Apple is an annoying company runned by annoying people, and they annoy me. But they make a great laptop indeed.
And Hussy, the latest line is much faster, ok eating for breakfast is a bit much bit it runs pretty damn good.
Crandaeolon
01-20-2010, 12:21
Maybe I didn't get something (just skimmed the discussion), but why do you need a laptop, exactly? If they have computer rooms for students at Oxford, you'll probably do most of your work in those with proper keyboards, screens and mice. You should check what computer facilities are available and, if possible, ask older students and/or staff if it's practical to use such facilities.
Really, the only reason to buy a laptop is portability. A desktop is obviously superior at everything else, and citing "replacement desktop" as a reason to buy one is not very convincing. This comes from the mouth (fingers?) of someone who made that mistake a few years ago - I bought a semi-powerful laptop just for those reasons, to replace my aged desktop and to write notes during lectures. It ended up a disaster; the laptop was too bulky to carry around all day, it didn't have the battery power to last a day's lectures, let alone a six-hour train ride across the country whenever I visited my parents. At home it barely matched the power of my old desktop, but with far inferior I/O devices.
After half a year I sold the piece of crap and upgraded my desktop. This computer (core2duo @ 3GHz, 4GB 1066 MHz RAM, NVidia 9600GT) is still powerful enough to run today's games at decent details. Getting the new parts cost me less than $500, which is less than what I got from the used laptop.
So, I guess the moral of the story is this: Think hard if you really need a portable computer. :smiley2:
Maybe I didn't get something (just skimmed the discussion), but why do you need a laptop, exactly? If they have computer rooms for students at Oxford, you'll probably do most of your work in those with proper keyboards, screens and mice. You should check what computer facilities are available and, if possible, ask older students and/or staff if it's practical to use such facilities.
I've been around my College a few times, and there doesn't seem to be many. Besides, I like to work alone, so I can play my music and type :yes:
Really, the only reason to buy a laptop is portability. A desktop is obviously superior at everything else, and citing "replacement desktop" as a reason to buy one is not very convincing. This comes from the mouth (fingers?) of someone who made that mistake a few years ago - I bought a semi-powerful laptop just for those reasons, to replace my aged desktop and to write notes during lectures. It ended up a disaster; the laptop was too bulky to carry around all day, it didn't have the battery power to last a day's lectures, let alone a six-hour train ride across the country whenever I visited my parents. At home it barely matched the power of my old desktop, but with far inferior I/O devices.
The laptop mentioned above has about 3 hour's worth, which seems to be enough, and I can always buy some spare batteries. Besides, I'll have it plugged in a lot of the time. And I'm a strong lad :yes:
So, I guess the moral of the story is this: Think hard if you really need a portable computer. :smiley2:
I may as well. I have to clear out my room ever term, so something portable is nessecary.
Furunculus
01-20-2010, 13:29
before you go all gung-ho for a laptop i'd encourage you to have a look at Small Form Factor systems.
I have been building them for years, and they really are pretty portable.
examples include:
Shuttle SFF PCs:
http://uk.shuttle.com/product_type.jsp?PCI=19
about the size of a shoe-box and available with a travel bag little bigger.
I bought a SN25P about five years ago, and its still playing L4D2 to this day.
Silverstone Sugo cases:
http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/enclosure.php?area=
about the size of two shoe-boxes and available with a travel bag little bigger.
I have both a Sugo SG01e and an Sugo 03, the latter of which has 9800GX2 graphics cards and quad-core CPU in it!
the point being; you can still achieve portable without a laptop, and you can do so whilst getting literally twice as much power for your money.
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2010, 00:35
Maybe I didn't get something (just skimmed the discussion), but why do you need a laptop, exactly? If they have computer rooms for students at Oxford, you'll probably do most of your work in those with proper keyboards, screens and mice. You should check what computer facilities are available and, if possible, ask older students and/or staff if it's practical to use such facilities.
Computer rooms for students are always singularly disappointing. Either hand-me-down desktops that do not agree with even Windows 2000; or some incomprehensible account system; or general lack tools/configuration suitable for heavy duty users plus a restrictive environment. Also there will always be too few computers and too many users. IOW: if you need to get real work done and it involves a computer, make sure you have a laptop set up to your liking and make sure you have something like a VPN client set up. Much faster, much less error prone, more storage, and much much more convenient (it also works during weekends for instance).
Really, the only reason to buy a laptop is portability. A desktop is obviously superior at everything else, and citing "replacement desktop" as a reason to buy one is not very convincing. This comes from the mouth (fingers?) of someone who made that mistake a few years ago - I bought a semi-powerful laptop just for those reasons, to replace my aged desktop and to write notes during lectures. It ended up a disaster; the laptop was too bulky to carry around all day, it didn't have the battery power to last a day's lectures, let alone a six-hour train ride across the country whenever I visited my parents. At home it barely matched the power of my old desktop, but with far inferior I/O devices.
After half a year I sold the piece of crap and upgraded my desktop. This computer (core2duo @ 3GHz, 4GB 1066 MHz RAM, NVidia 9600GT) is still powerful enough to run today's games at decent details. Getting the new parts cost me less than $500, which is less than what I got from the used laptop.
So, I guess the moral of the story is this: Think hard if you really need a portable computer. :smiley2:
An interesting thing as far as spending $1500,- or so on laptops/desktops go would be to combine a $400,- or so low end notebook with a $99,- 40GB SSD and say <Linux flavour of the month>. Then get yourself a $1000,- machine for playing games, and main storage. That gives you a machine designed for battery life and productivity (office etc.) with decent performance (courtesy of SSD plus lighter environment) as well as a nice budget for a machine to play moderately hardware intensive games such as M2TW equivalents.
An interesting thing as far as spending $1500,- or so on laptops/desktops go would be to combine a $400,- or so low end notebook with a $99,- 40GB SSD and say <Linux flavour of the month>. Then get yourself a $1000,- machine for playing games, and main storage. That gives you a machine designed for battery life and productivity (office etc.) with decent performance (courtesy of SSD plus lighter environment) as well as a nice budget for a machine to play moderately hardware intensive games such as M2TW equivalents.
This is an outstanding idea. SFF computers are much better suited for gaming than laptops. And if you can't be bothered to build your own, there's always the delightful Fragbox (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2345368,00.asp).
Crandaeolon
01-21-2010, 08:56
Computer rooms for students are always singularly disappointing.
Good thing I live in Finland, then, and not in whatever barbarous country your ghetto Oxford universities reside. :laugh4: Here the machine base is relatively modern - currently Dell dualcores with Windows XP. Software base is okay - you get to choose between OpenOffice and M$ Office, GIMP or Photoshop and so forth. Basically all the same stuff I use at home for writing text, desktop publishing and editing pictures, sound or video. Computer science majors get even more tools.
There are around 450 workstations available during the day. Another 80 are available 24/7 with a passcard. I practically never had to wait to get to a computer, so it's not surprising I ditched the laptop.
An interesting thing as far as spending $1500,- or so on laptops/desktops go would be to combine a $400,- or so low end notebook with a $99,- 40GB SSD and say <Linux flavour of the month>. Then get yourself a $1000,- machine for playing games, and main storage.
That's a good idea and much more sensible than buying an expensive laptop alone. For last Christmas I actually did buy a Samsung N510 (http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/n-series/NP-N510-KA01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&returnurl=) to get a machine that could double up as a HTPC and a travel entertainment system with 6+ hours of battery life. Wouldn't necessarily have been my first choice, but I got it cheap. It works reasonably well with Windows 7 (had to upgrade to 2 GB of memory and purge most of the pre-installed crap and redundancy functions of the OS, though) and it can decode HD video, with a reasonably large 250 GB hard disk. No SSD though, so snooze and hibernate will probably see a lot of use.
Furunculus
01-22-2010, 12:12
An interesting thing as far as spending $1500,- or so on laptops/desktops go would be to combine a $400,- or so low end notebook with a $99,- 40GB SSD and say <Linux flavour of the month>. Then get yourself a $1000,- machine for playing games, and main storage. That gives you a machine designed for battery life and productivity (office etc.) with decent performance (courtesy of SSD plus lighter environment) as well as a nice budget for a machine to play moderately hardware intensive games such as M2TW equivalents.
good idea.
you can get a decent AMD 2nd Gen Ultrathin with a DX10 GPU and HD screen for £375, and still get a decent gaming PC for £825.
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