Buying a gaming laptop.

[XxROGUExX]

I posted yesterday asking about a gaming laptop, but it seems the string I posted under has been deleted. Here I go again.

I am going to purchase a gaming laptop and am looking for some guidance from all you knowledgable posters. I understand many think there is no NEED for gaming laptops, but I do want one. I have a good desktop setup and would like to be able to continue my games during conferences, training, and vacations. I have looked online at many sites...there is no way I want to wait months for Alienware, spend and extra $1000 for VooDoo's pretty paint, or suffer Dell's mediocre customer service. I have looked at Hypersonic, Sager, WidowPC, M-Tech, KillerNotebooks, and Xotic, and am unsure who to go with.

I have looked at the 19", AMD Turion, 2x 7900 GTX NViDIA 512, 2GB RAM systems, but like the resolution possible on some of the 17" screens. I want to get the system soon, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated. I really don't want to go smaller than 17"

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice!

 

[Forkey]

Why bother replying if the threads are just going to get deleted?

 

[km]

Check out the threads about Killer Notebooks. I bought a gaming notebook from him and am very happy with it and with the great customer service he provides. Send me a PM and I will be happy to share more info.

 

[jimytheassassin]

Hey rogue, well here's a few ideas. If you're looking for a good seller you can start looking to reseller ratings and such on the web, and then move on to checking actual experiences and performance of specific models. Notebook Review for example has a pretty large forum divided into model make.. i.e. apple, asus, avertec,dell,sager etc. If you discover a specific model you want you can find opions, and get reviews by both users and major publications. I also like Anandtech, Hardocp, notebookforums.com, laptopvideo2go.com, so they could be worth a look too. Sager has a great reputation and several good options for gaming. There's a boatload of resellers that carry them so a quick google will find you many. The three best sellers by rating you listed are Killernotebooks, XoticPC and Powernotebooks. Powernotebooks has over 1000 more submissions than both of the other two combined. They have the Sager 5760 17" go7900gtx, and the Sager 5950 19" go7900gtx sli. My thoughts would be to start with them by shooting over an email with some questions and see if you like what they offer.

 

[Spikke]

I own a laptop from Hypersonic and it's great. They have great customer service and quality products. Personally, I would recommend them to anyone. I have a CX7 just fyi.

 

[XxROGUExX]

I would like to thank all of you who responded! I have sent off a few e-mails to see who can meet my gaming needs. It's nice to find a site where you can actually get some honest feedback rather than a FAQ section!

Thanks to each of you! I'll let you know what I end up with.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

There are three types of notebooks youmight consider for this niche in my experience:

1. Mass Market Stuff - Unsuitable for gaming generally bevcause although some of the specs they quote imply a decent gaming experience, there's at least one cost cutting measure where one (or more) components will bottleneck the system. USually it's a 5400 rpm hard drive or a "next to next to latest and greatest" vid card.

2. Specialty Gaming Notebooks - Mixed bag here. While Alienware has been shown to be a frightening experience ....

www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/alienware.html
www.alienwaresucks.com

....there are still other companies who will take a ton of your money and give you a decent or not so decent laptop. Dell's 3.32 resellerratings is one fot he few worse than Alienware's but if you want to risk hoping never having to deal with either company's customer service, the machines do post nice benchmarks.

VoodooPC (now in HP"s pocket) has a real nice Core Duo gaming notebook for around $4700 once you get done pimping it out and WidowPC has just about the same thing for the same price.

3. OEM Distributor Notebooks - At one time or another, Alienware, Voodoo Widow, Sager and others all got one or more of their lines from a US distributor of Clevo. Many still do. Clevo makes a notbook chasis w/ MoBo and screen (up to 19" and up to 1920 x 1200) and ships these to distributors in US and other locations where distributors add vid cards, hard drives, NIC's and whatever. Many of these distributors (i.e www.pro-star.com) sell direct to the public for about 70-75% of the price you pay for the same exact thing from category 2 above. After pricing a CAD oriented (CAD and gaming have similar hardwarwe requirements) on the aforementioned sites for $4,700, we checked out ProStar and got the exact same thing, literally (same appearance except for logo and exact components list) for $3400. Upon arrival here, benchmarking had it beating the Dell XPS top of the line by a few % points and after 4 months of use, no complaints.

 

[Coors916]

There are three types of notebooks youmight consider for this niche in my experience:

1. Mass Market Stuff - Unsuitable for gaming generally bevcause although some of the specs they quote imply a decent gaming experience, there's at least one cost cutting measure where one (or more) components will bottleneck the system. USually it's a 5400 rpm hard drive or a "next to next to latest and greatest" vid card.

2. Specialty Gaming Notebooks - Mixed bag here. While Alienware has been shown to be a frightening experience ....

www.consumeraffairs.com/computers/alienware.html
www.alienwaresucks.com

....there are still other companies who will take a ton of your money and give you a decent or not so decent laptop. Dell's 3.32 resellerratings is one fot he few worse than Alienware's but if you want to risk hoping never having to deal with either company's customer service, the machines do post nice benchmarks.

VoodooPC (now in HP"s pocket) has a real nice Core Duo gaming notebook for around $4700 once you get done pimping it out and WidowPC has just about the same thing for the same price.

3. OEM Distributor Notebooks - At one time or another, Alienware, Voodoo Widow, Sager and others all got one or more of their lines from a US distributor of Clevo. Many still do. Clevo makes a notbook chasis w/ MoBo and screen (up to 19" and up to 1920 x 1200) and ships these to distributors in US and other locations where distributors add vid cards, hard drives, NIC's and whatever. Many of these distributors (i.e www.pro-star.com) sell direct to the public for about 70-75% of the price you pay for the same exact thing from category 2 above. After pricing a CAD oriented (CAD and gaming have similar hardwarwe requirements) on the aforementioned sites for $4,700, we checked out ProStar and got the exact same thing, literally (same appearance except for logo and exact components list) for $3400. Upon arrival here, benchmarking had it beating the Dell XPS top of the line by a few % points and after 4 months of use, no complaints.

Wow, thanks for the info, I will definately not be buying an Alienware probably ever, especially after reading those customer experiences. They are some of the worst I have ever heard, regardless of company purchased from.

 

[markobela]

I would definitely go for the Dell Studio XPS 16.
First of all, you can't take an Alienware to a business meeting, because you won't make a good impression. Then, the XPS 16 is a gaming laptop by excellence, just look at the spec. You'll find a relatively thorough review at http/www.best-gaminglaptop.net.

Also, the XPS 16 costs a little less than other gaming laptops.