OA's possible new notebook+gadgets: Have your say..

**Oleander Ardens** · 09-27-2007, 21:49

I'm on the verge of buying a new notebook, trying to get a good compromise between portability, battery life and performance in a good quality package.

Here is my first choice:

Acer Aspire 5920G-302G16MN, GeForce 8600M 512MB (LX.AKS0X.013)

Core 2 Duo T7300 2x 2.00GHz • 2048MB (2x 1024MB) • 160GB • DVD+/-RW DL • NVidia GeForce 8600M GT 512MB max.768MB shared memory • USB 2.0/FireWire/Modem/GB LAN/WLAN 802.11abgn • HDMI • 5in1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS Pro/xD) • Web-/Videokamera (1.3 Megapixel) • 15.4" WXGA TFT (1280x800), 3,00 kg

Price: 1170€

Seems to be a far more solid and sturdy built than usual with a interesting (or terrible) design. A bit heavy it offers (depending on the review) poor to good battery life for a 15,4" "gamer" notebook. It's gaming performance is good, but suffers according slightly from the GDDR2 chip. The 200GB SATA is a slow 4200, I have yet to find out the specs of the 160GB one. Good/Very good but not excellent display. Intels Turbo Memory won't be included as it's benefits are doubtful and it's cost elevated.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/0,...90611-1,00.htm

PS: I'm going to buy also a Sennheiser PC166 headset with USB and portable soundcard for 125€, or the standard 161 one for 80€. The 166 seems to be matchless when it comes to sound, comfort and quality, with the 161 being very close. Very important for VoIP, music and gaming.

PSS: I'm will also use Ubuntu on this Notebook, right now I'm checking if everything should work fine.

So what to do you guys think? What is important for you in such a notebook?

**Ramses II CP** · 09-28-2007, 02:38

I have a gaming laptop and the best advice I can give you is to buy a second battery, preferrably a 12 cell (Even if they only come with the 'lump' for your model). I see mentioned prominently in reviews of your machine that battery life is 'so-so' (PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...s/article.html) or 'short' which means gaming on 8 cell battery power is probably going to run you around 90 minutes at the most.

Also get an upgrade to that drive. 4200 rpm is simply not acceptable.

And don't talk to me about heavy. I have the notorious (...ly unreliable and overweight) Alienware 7700 from 2+ years ago. A good gaming laptop is gonna be fairly heavy, just remember it's lighter than carrying your desktop rig. If possible I'd strongly recommend getting an up close and personal look at the display. What one person rates as acceptable for a gaming display another may find annoying to the point of unuseability. My AW 17" is, IMHO, dark and ugly with poor options, but acceptable on performance grounds.

As a further FYI, I recommend against Alienware (Now owned by Dell). There's a class action lawsuit in progress over the machine I have now, and over a hundred complaints with the BBB.

GL, other than the battery and the HD it looks like a sweet ride.

**Oleander Ardens** · 09-28-2007, 07:49

I have a gaming laptop and the best advice I can give you is to buy a second battery, preferrably a 12 cell (Even if they only come with the 'lump' for your model). I see mentioned prominently in reviews of your machine that battery life is 'so-so' (PC World: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...s/article.html) or 'short' which means gaming on 8 cell battery power is probably going to run you around 90 minutes at the most.

Thanks for that advice. I was thinking about a second battery, but an 8 cell one.

Also get an upgrade to that drive. 4200 rpm is simply not acceptable.

Is it hard to upgrade the drive? I confess that my knowledge of modding a notebook is limited. Does it conflict with the warranty?

And don't talk to me about heavy. I have the notorious (...ly unreliable and overweight) Alienware 7700 from 2+ years ago. A good gaming laptop is gonna be fairly heavy, just remember it's lighter than carrying your desktop rig.

I marched over a fair share of 4000+ m passes in the Himalaya with a 15-20kg ruck so I should be able to bring it to the Uni. But yes 3,00 is not much heavier that the lightest 14" ones (2,2 kg IIRC)

If possible I'd strongly recommend getting an up close and personal look at the display. What one person rates as acceptable for a gaming display another may find annoying to the point of unuseability. My AW 17" is, IMHO
, dark and ugly with poor options, but acceptable on performance grounds.

I will also buy a new 19" or 22" LCD screen for homegaming and surfing. Therefor it will have to take a closer look at the connections and capability of the GPU

UPDATE: The Toshiba 160GB runs at 5400rpm, unlike the 200GB one. Strange that they use the better T7500 Core 2 Duo with such a slow 2,5 hdd. Guess that most people just look at the space...

Thanks for your kind advice.

**Ramses II CP** · 09-28-2007, 15:56

My pleasure. :-)

On 90% of laptops changing the hard drive is quite simple (On my box I take out 8 tiny screws and just gently pull the HD cables free). I couldn't find any information on it for your specific model, however, so I can't guarantee anything there. I can't imagine that it would violate your warranty, but there's no way to be sure without asking the issuer of the warranty. I did find a good user review:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3897

It's very true that most people, especially non-gamers, ignore the HD speed, but it can impact performance and it's such a cheap component to upgrade that there's no reason to risk a performance bottleneck there. If the 5400rpm 160gig drive is your fastest option it will have to do, it's certainly a step up from the 4200.

Your GPU should comfortably drive a 22" at max resolution.

Enjoy it!

**Oleander Ardens** · 09-28-2007, 21:46

I hope I will

**DukeofSerbia** · 09-30-2007, 07:53

Oleander Ardens
First of all, forget what is written in CNET reviews. They are poor (do not ask why, but for notebooks they are poor).

This Acer Aspire 5920G-302G16MN is not bad at all. I read good review (in one Serbian forum http://www.benchmark.co.yu/forum/sho...d.php?t=136794 – you can see at least real life pictures + various screenshots from test programs).

Just stick with faster 5400rpm 160GB and later buy extended warranty as I think it comes with just 1 year.

The good (from review):
- screen, performances, solid battery’s life
The bad:
- touchpad, design is average (like usb port close to dvd tray wich blocks usage of dvd if you use that usb port)

And this Acer (as many) has problem with heat in left side (buying cooler pad is must).

P.S.
I prefer Toshiba.

**Bootsiuv** · 09-30-2007, 08:33

As do I....I bought a budget notebook since I do most of my gaming on my desktop.

That being said....the Toshiba Satellite plays nearly all of my games, albeit some are nigh unplayable due to lack of ram. It has an Intel(R) Celeron(R) M CPU 520 @1.6 GHZ with 512 MB and a 128MB Radeon XPRESS 200 M. It was a bargain at $500 american. Once I upgrade my ram, I think it will be able to handle most games I currently own. One of my favorite things about it is the display....it's big and luscious and bright and HD and sexy....one of the nicest laptop displays I've come across.

**KukriKhan** · 10-02-2007, 18:54

Originally Posted by Ramses II CP

As a further FYI, I recommend against Alienware (Now owned by Dell). There's a class action lawsuit in progress over the machine I have now, and over a hundred complaints with the BBB.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to jump on Ramses' bandwagon and trash Alienware. I bought their 7700 laptop for my son, and it's been shipped back to AW for maintenance 8 (EIGHT!) times in 25 months (4 vid cards, 2 motherboards, 2HHD's). By my math, they've spent over $2,000 on shipping and parts replacement for that $3,000 machine. So, not only a poor design, but a dumb business practice, too. There's 19 months remaining on the extended warranty I bought, and I expect to be shipping it another 3 times - if it doesn't blow up first. The Miami BBB has stopped taking complaints about Alienware, due to the volume.

Don't buy AW. Really. They were good 5 years ago, but suck now.

/rant

**Ramses II CP** · 10-03-2007, 02:00

Kukri, regarding the 7700:

I had the base (1 year) warranty due to a combination of over confidence in their brand and in my own technical skill. I had trouble with it through the year, including it arriving in a non-working state and requiring some work right off the bat. Shortly after my warranty expired, so did my motherboard. I could've replaced the video card, but no one sells the motherboard, and I almost certainly couldn't have replaced it at home anyway. $500 bucks to fix it.

Now the interesting part, Alienware replaced the graphics card (Which was working fine, as verified by me and a CompUSA tech) with a newer and significantly better model. When I contacted them, their only explanation was that the older card wasn't being made anymore (A flat lie). A little digging on my part revealed that they did this with a lot of other people too, and the general opinion was that they'd discovered that their case design was simply unable to handle the heat load from the older card. I also got some invaluable advice:

1. Run the fans at 100% all the time (Undocumented command: function-F2), and use Speed Fan to monitor internal temps. (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php)

2. Clean the fans regularly with compressed air, especially the one under the GPU. Check and replace the thermal grease under the GPU if cleaning the fans doesn't bring temperatures as reported by Speed Fan back to a normal range for your system.

3. Listen to the fans (It's hard not to, they're quite loud) and be aware of changes in their sound as running the fans that hard will cause them to wear out more quickly, but it's muuuuch cheaper to replace the fans than to replace your GPU or etc. They should last a long time, but there's no guarantee.

How do you know what temperatures are normal? There's no definitive guide because of the variations in hardware with the 7700, just do your normal activities for a few hours under good conditions and see where it rests.

Good luck Kukri. It always sooths my burn a little bit to hear people who were smart enough to buy the extended warranty and make Alienware eat their mistake.

**KukriKhan** · 10-03-2007, 13:52

Did I say 8? Make that Nine times - the vid module failed again yesterday, two weeks after the 7700's last trip to Memphis (AW's repair facility).

I agree, it's obviously the heat-dispersion plan (or lack of one) within the case itself. Jason, my son, cleans the fans daily before use (or so he says, anyway). I didn't know about the f2 100% fan speed trick - thanks for that tip, and the others.

Having gotten used to the customer service hoops that Alienware makes us jump through, my emails to them now always contain the 5-step trouble-shooting procedure that the cs rep reads from, trying to cut down on the time involved in getting the machine shipped back for repair.

I've suggested to them that they offer a discounted upgrade to a more manageable machine, but got no response. I wonder how much more $$$ they'll waste swapping out components every couple of months.

Their accounting department must hate that the sales department offered me that 3-year warranty (coincidentally right after the first failure - that's why I jumped on it. I could smell "Lemon" even then).

Oleander Ardens, I apologize for derailing your thread; as Ramses II CP says, it 'soothes the burn' a bit to commiserate with other screwed customers.

**Oleander Ardens** · 10-04-2007, 17:15

No problem KukriKahn, makes me think twice about buying a laptop from such a company without warranty. BTW I have still to decide if I should get the extended 3-years one, but I guess I will give it a go. As far as I know ACER gives two years in Germany but only one year in Austria

I have still to check the Italian warranty.

Talking about the heat issues of Laptops, especially the ones with high-end CPU and GPU is it sensible to buy a cooling pad?

PS: TurboMemory, ReadyDrive and all hyped features seem to be according to the c't just that - hype. Interesting technology but most likely ill implemented in Vista.

PPS: Seems that some ideas from the semi-rug. notebooks are making it into the mainstay products. For example to design the underside of the keyboard lile a shallow pool with an outflow.

Cheers
OA

**Ramses II CP** · 10-04-2007, 18:05

Regarding the warranty, I would definitely say it's worthwhile to buy an extended warranty. I think the general rule of thumb for maximum return is to expect to pay around 10-15% of the value of your laptop for the warranty.

On cooling pads, it really depends on if you can find one that you know will actually help and not hurt. I have tried out several, and only one of them did any good (A rubber-ish mat with deep channels in it lowered temperatures slightly). Two of the more popular ones (Lapcool models) with fans actually increased temps for my GPU by choking off airflow instead of aiding it.

I suspect the problem was that they created an air pocket of some kind that prevented the internal fan from drawing enough air; so the outside of the laptop's base probably was a lot cooler, but the inside was suffocating. Try them out with a good temp monitoring tool before you buy.

**KukriKhan** · 10-05-2007, 03:22

I use an ANTEC two fan "coolpad". I won't rave about it's performance, but I can say that it has provided more airflow, more quietly, than I got without it. What's important is examining the laptop to figure out what the airflow and heat-dispersion "plan" might be.

My laptop "inhales" through the back, and "exhales" through the bottom. The coolpad enhances the pull of air from the exhale-slots, blowing the hot air more forcefully out to the sides than the laptop's fans themselves. Also, I tilt the coolpad (with laptop atop it) about 5 degrees toward me, providing more room to disperse hot air.

My GPU and CPU are in the "top" (as you look at the screen) left and right corners, so I make sure that the fan are positioned nearby.

When I know I want to game for a few hours, I also remove the battery (a slide-out deal, on the lower-right of the lappie) to increase airflow - and if it's a Steam game (like Red orchestra) where I don't need a disc to play, I also remove the DVD player module for the same reason.

This plan works for me, because my laptop is a desktop replacement - it seldom moves from by bedside table. I once took it with me on a trip to New Mexico, figuring I could get a few turns of MTW in when it wasn't my turn to drive. The heat generated just about burnt my pants-covered legs! One hour was all I could stand. So, these hi-end GPU & CPU laptops, so-called 'desktop replacements', are "cool", but not cool. :)

Does anyone know if the dual-core CPU laptops are running any cooler?